Light Blaster Part 3 … Nina

The end of the year draws near and I have so much I want get finished (including 6 or 7 blog entries). Nina was in the studio a few weeks ago for a “Light Blaster” shoot as I had a few more ideas to test out.

For those that dont know the Light Blaster or haven’t seen my Part 1 and Part 2. Light Blaster turns your on-camera flashgun into a portable slide projector which allows you to project slide images on or behind your subject. All you need is the Light Blaster, a flashgun, a lens and a slide. By this you can put your subject into futuristic worlds, into other epochs or into numerous other surroundings. For this purpose you can use slides from the separately sold Creative Kits and from your own collection. Or you can buy slides on eBay. In consideration of the vast amount of existing slides, the potential of Light Blaster is infinite.

One of the first ideas I tested out was to try and use studio flashes (Bowens Gemini 400 and 200 ws) mono-blockes with the light-blaster. This idea wasn’t a success and I dont know why yet, I’ll keep working on it and blog more once i have it worked out. This way it was easy to focus the slides using the modelling lamp but even at low power levels i got some very strange light patterns in my projected images.

Don’t try this at home… Lightblaster taped to a 200ws Bowens flash and snoot

I had to revert back to battery powered Yongnuo flashes to test the set-up I wanted to shoot and we lost a bit of time. Over the last few weeks more and more people have messaged me on Face-book about using and setting up a light blaster. So here is the steeps I use setting up the light blaster:

Set up a light stand that has a ball head so you can position your in the exact spot you want it
Shine a torch through the light blaster to get your image in focus (its a lot faster and more accurate then constantly flashing and adjusting)
Attach a flash to the light blaster and test up the exposure you want to shoot at
Turn the the flash on your light blaster off and set up your other flashes
Test the other flashes at the same exposure as your light blaster set up, and check that no light is spilling onto the area that you want to light with the Light-Blaster
Turn on the flash attached to your Light-Blaster and test
Make any small adjustments in light set up and camera set up.

Setting up the back ground image and then Nina modelled in-front of the Light-Blaster and we lite from the side

Another way of getting different look it where and how you place your blasted image e.g using a zoom lens and not covering the whole background or blasting over the model as a key light.