There is a lot of power you can master once you go from available light to even using one strobe. Photographer Manuel Ortiz demonstrates it in this short video where he compares two shots right out of camera (of course the photos can be later enhanced, but for the sake of this experiment, it is better to show them SOOC) All photos are taken with the Sony A7RII and a Sony G master 85mm 1.4 lens which really gives great color and a wonderful bokeh, so the starting point is very similar. The first shoo in all the demos below is set to available light. Note how Diana (the model) is correctly exposed in all of those, but the background is very distracting and it really takes away from the photo.
Then Manuel add a strobe in: Flashpoint Xplor 600 TTL strobe, connected to a Godox X1T trigger which supports sync up to 1/8000 in aPaul C buff 47inch Octabox. The high speed allows cutting the ambient exposure by two stops and the flash still makes sure that the model is correctly exposed. And this is all happening at F1.4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArYTUsW1U-E Here is one example with one shot using available light (ISO 400, F1.4, 1/250) and the other one using a strobe and closing down 2.3 stops and using a TTLed strobe (ISO 400, F1.4, 1/1250 + ) Here is another example, going from available light (ISO 100, F1.4 @1/320) 2.6 stops down with a TTLed strobe (1/2000) Lastly, here is how powerful this is when shooting against dusk skies (ISO 100, F1.4, 1/80 vs ISO 100, F1.4, 1/1250 + TTLed strobe) Manuel Ortiz has a great youtube channel so check it out for more tutorials. You can also catch Manuel on his site, Instagram and Facebook page.
