Youth Group from The Bridge Bible Fellowship August 13, 2008. 9 kids got dunked in the Pacific for Jesus.

I used the “strobe on a stick” technique, also known as “strobe on a rope.” I took a lightstand, stuck the strobe on the end of it, used a Nikon SC-29 iTTL cable tethered to my camera, and held the strobe out on the lightstand (legs folded) like a stick, pointing the light in the direction of the subject, or feathering the light by aiming it away somewhat so that it would brush across the subject. I estimate the strobe was about 4-6 feet away from the camera.

I underexposed the background for more color saturation – in some frames, as much as 3 stops under. I also used flash exposure compensation, between 1/3 to 1 stop under, so the light wasn’t too bright, and had a ¼ CTO (light orange) gel on the flash head. I even waded into the ocean with this setup towards the end of the shoot. I was shooting with a 12-24mm lens at f/4, ISO 400, Program mode on the camera, iTTL flash mode, and was continually adjusting the exposure and flash compensation to get the desired effect in the continually changing lighting conditions – obviously some are better than others.

This lens was perfect for the effect I was trying to get, because it has a huge angle of view, taking in a lot of that spectacular sunset.