I had an opportunity this past weekend to photography my friend (let's call him Clay). Clay works for the sheriff's department...

Anyway, took Clay out to the field behind my home to photography him about 20 minutes before sundown. The set-up I used for the following photos was a small Octa-box from Amvona, these are inexpensive boxes that happen to work well. To the outside of the box I mounted 3 SB-800's using 3 Justin Clamps. Here is a photo of the set up. All but the last photo shown used high speed sync, Nikon's CLS (Creative Lighting System).

My son Chris and his friend (let's call him Billy) held a 42" Flexfill to shade Clay from direct sunlight. The EXIF data on the photo below tell me I shot this photo at 1/3200 @ f4.0 the focal length of the lens was 12mm.

I took several shots from various positions, here I placed Clay with his back to the sun and me shooting straight into it. I was using my 85mm f1.4 lens, shot at 1/6400 @f2.5.

When the sun did set, we turned back facing east where the only clouds in the sky were to be found. We even had the moon in the sky that night, shot with the 12mm-24mm lens at 12mm. The shutter speed was 1/250 @ f 4.0.

Lighting like this is fun-fast-easy. If you would like to learn more about lighting with small strobes, visit my workshop website "Small Strobes, Big Results". I have two workshops in Denver this August 2008. The August 2nd workshop has 4 spots available and the August 23 rd has 5 openings.

I want to thank many of my readers who have offered to sponsor a workshop in their hometowns. As soon as I have the time available, I'll be contacting each of you who have offered to sponsor a workshop with more details.