Hi All,I found working from Martin's guide the most successful. However, I am numerically challenged on the go and made this little calculator to help, I hope you all find it useful too!https://cleatsandcode.co.uk/preflash/
Hi Tony! I'm planning on doing a video around the subject soon as more people have been asking these questions. Keep an eye out for our Instagram page.
It boils down to this: I'm preflashing using the diffuser spot (on the Pinsta Pro) for about 10 seconds with a 1.000 lumen LED flashlight. If you don't have one (or own a Pinsta Go), alternatively you can download a picture of a pure white rectangle on your phone, put the brightness of your phone up to max, open the hole of you camera and place the screen of your phone against thr camera, in front of the hole, for about 10 seconds. Experiment with the times.
Preflashing will
A. Broaden the dynamic range of your paper, making Harman Direct Positive paper a bit less contrasty
B. Shorten the exposure time needed with about 30% (my experience)
It's all about experimenting until you find something you like.
Thanks a lot for sharing this info - great to hear a simple method to try out. I'd tried pre-flashing against a white object or the sky, but it wasn't great. And then I actually warmed to the contrastiness as just a feature of the medium, and decided just to try to work with it. I rather like it now. That's my philosophy at the moment, but it'll probably change!
Hi Susan, it's not necessary, it has everything to do with taste :D Harman Direct Positive paper is super contrasty by nature and preflashing gets some more tonal range in your shot. It can be useful in certain lighting conditions / certain high-contrast scenes + it will shorten your exposure times, which can be helpful sometimes. Hope that helped!
Hi All, I found working from Martin's guide the most successful. However, I am numerically challenged on the go and made this little calculator to help, I hope you all find it useful too! https://cleatsandcode.co.uk/preflash/
That's great, thanks for that 👍
Hi Tony! I'm planning on doing a video around the subject soon as more people have been asking these questions. Keep an eye out for our Instagram page.
It boils down to this: I'm preflashing using the diffuser spot (on the Pinsta Pro) for about 10 seconds with a 1.000 lumen LED flashlight. If you don't have one (or own a Pinsta Go), alternatively you can download a picture of a pure white rectangle on your phone, put the brightness of your phone up to max, open the hole of you camera and place the screen of your phone against thr camera, in front of the hole, for about 10 seconds. Experiment with the times.
Preflashing will
A. Broaden the dynamic range of your paper, making Harman Direct Positive paper a bit less contrasty
B. Shorten the exposure time needed with about 30% (my experience)
It's all about experimenting until you find something you like.
Hope that helps!
Martin