Volleyball Strobe Assistance

Thanks Derek.

I'll eventually try to go to the volleyball court when it's empty, leave the lights off and take pictures of the ceiling and floor with a wide flood settings vs a zoomed spot setting.

I could envision where the 11" reflector would help bounce the light to the floor where you want it instead of spreading across the whole ceiling and then across the whole gym... stands and all.

clarence wrote in post #8728392
Thanks Derek.

I'll eventually try to go to the volleyball court when it's empty, leave the lights off and take pictures of the ceiling and floor with a wide flood settings vs a zoomed spot setting.

I could envision where the 11" reflector would help bounce the light to the floor where you want it instead of spreading across the whole ceiling and then across the whole gym... stands and all.

A common misconception of "bouncing" is that people think the light bounces like a ball would or a laser would when pointed at a mirror. What really happens is that you are turning a spot on the ceiling into a big "light-bulb". The light then scatters from that "light-bulb" just as if it were a great big light panel.

It really doesn't matter if you point it straight up or at a 45 degree angle, it only matters where the light hits the ceiling.

One effect of angling the strobe is that the more you angle it, the bigger your "light-bulb" will be.

Another effect you will get from using a steeper angle is that the light hitting the inside of the reflector may contribute to you exposure. This is called "leaking". When done correctly, it is nice in that it will act as a bounce card and give you some harsher light on your subject to give you a little more contrast.


Using the 11" reflectors make the "light-bulb" smaller and more intense. It puts more of the light in the spot you want it on the ceiling. The 7" reflector will make a larger but less intense "light-bulb".

DDCSD wrote in post #8729606
A common misconception of "bouncing" is that people think the light bounces like a ball would or a laser would when pointed at a mirror. What really happens is that you are turning a spot on the ceiling into a big "light-bulb". The light then scatters from that "light-bulb" just as if it were a great big light panel.

It really doesn't matter if you point it straight up or at a 45 degree angle, it only matters where the light hits the ceiling.

One effect of angling the strobe is that the more you angle it, the bigger your "light-bulb" will be.

Interesting.

I've never played with AlienBees (or any monolights/strobes) before, only Speedlights, which I bounce all the time.

At a reception, if I wanted to reach a subject across the dance floor, I'd pick a spot roughly halfway to the subject and bounce from there. I envisioned it like a flashlight hitting a mirror... the beam would reflect off of the ceiling.. bounce at an angle equal to the angle of incidence.

So like you said, I was thinking along the lines of a laser pointer bouncing off of a mirror.

But I see your point... on a larger scale, if I had a giant spot light in Texas and shined it on a huge wall in DC, I bet you'd be more likely to see the reflected light in California instead of it bouncing up to North Dakota.

In a reception hall, I don't think there's much difference in aiming at a spot on a 12' ceiling, 15' towards a subject that's 30' away, or aiming a little further to place the "spot of light" a little more directly above the subject. Especially when you can only angle a speedlight in 15-degree increments.

And maybe a gym ceiling is too high to make a significant difference on where you aim the strobe and what size reflector you use. But I'd love to see standardized shots on a dark gym floor... 11" reflector vs 7" reflector and aimed at center-ceiling vs aimed at half-angle to where you're targeting on the floor. I'd love to see the resulting hot spots on the floor.

I'll search around... surely there's a strobist geek out there that has done comparative testing on where to bounce off a gym ceiling and at what reflector size. If not, Alien Bees has a large white room about the size of a gym that they use for light output measurements. So maybe they'd be up for an experiment on their forum.

My 11" reflectors should arrive tomorrow. The leakage and wide swath
of lght on the ceiling was limiting the angles I could shoot on the court.
I'm hoping the 11"'s will help.

Dave

DDCSD wrote in post #8727559
I personally use the 11" reflectors when bouncing. It concentrates the light better on the ceiling, giving me more light on the floor. It especially helps when you have a high ceiling or can't get the lights up very high.

Exactly, the closer you can get the strobes to the ceiling or the more concentrated light you can get there will help your light level on the floor, I've never seen a gym cieling so low that spread was an issue by the time the light bounced back down to the floor.

Post #14: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=760051

Bogen is a distributor not a manufacture, they don't make anything.