Huge venues and bounce flash – how to double your flash power
Bounce flash and huge venues - how to double your flash power
A spontaneous moment with two of the lovely people at an event I photographed. Perhaps technically unremarkable until you consider the size of the venue, and that I used bounce flash. If you look at the photo below, you'll see that it was a huge indoor basketball / sport court. Now, if you're familiar with the tutorials on this site on bounce flash photography, you'll know that I try to avoid direct flash as much as possible. Even flash attachments that throw light forward -- I avoid using those. Instead, I much more Read more inside...Video tutorial: On-camera bounce flash photography
Video tutorial: On-camera bounce flash photography
I finally put together the really, REALLY big tutorial about on-camera bounce flash photography. It's an entire workshop. This is a long one. An hour's worth of material. It's going to require a bit of stamina. If you prefer Youtube : Bounce Flash - That one thing you need to know. Related to this video, is this video where we discuss how Bounce flash photography & The Inverse Square Law interrelate. There's something interesting and unexpected happening there. And if you are new to the "Black Foamie Read more inside...Wedding photography: Video light vs (gelled) flash
Wedding photography: Video light vs (gelled) flash
Over time, I've posted several articles explaining how I use gels to bring the color of my flash closer to that of the ambient light. In summary, we gel our flash, to improve the color balance in the photo, and avoid an overly saturated murky orange background, when our subject is lit by flash, and the background is lit by incandescent lighting or warm lighting of some kind. We can reduce this difference in color temperature / white balance, by adding a gel to our flash. The gel can be CTO or CTS. I prefer CTS, and usually as a 1/2 Read more inside...review: Profoto A10 flash
review: Profoto A10 flash
The Profoto A10 flash (Amazon / B&H)is an update on the already impressive Profoto A1 flash - it is powerful, and it recycles fast - just 1 second from a full power burst. The controls on the A1, and now the A10 are easy to use. The same for the menu system - everything is obvious. With this video review of the Profoto A10 flash, we are going to look at some of that features -- but also the way that you can now control the Profoto A10 via an app on your phone, using the bluetooth connection. Another improvement that the A10 has over Read more inside...Off-camera flash with the Profoto A1, A1x, A10 flashes
Off-camera flash with the Profoto A1, A1x, A10 flashes
Profoto has a huge array of light modifiers which use their proprietary speed-ring and collar. The Profoto collar is especially easy to use in how the light modifiers fasten to the Profoto flashes. All fine .. except that until now, there was a big gap preventing you from using the Profoto A series flashes with those light modifiers. Profoto took the obvious next big step by adding the Profoto OCF adapter (B&H / Amazon) into the mix. You can now use your Profoto A1 series flashes with any of those light Read more inside...Using Profoto gear on photo shoots and events
Using Profoto gear on photo shoots and events
When I first started moving beyond just using a speedlight, towards off-camera flash and studio level lighting gear, I had a few detours via other brands like Quantum flashes and Lumadyne, but decided at some point to buy into the renowned Profoto brand. My first serious flash unit was the Profoto AcuteB 600R which I eventually upgraded to the Profoto B1 when that was released. From there on I stayed with Profoto via the Profoto B10 and Profoto A1 flash. If I had to make the decision all over again, having the money to spend again, I Read more inside...Video tutorial – High Speed Flash Sync (HSS)
Video tutorial - High Speed Flash Sync (HSS)
High Speed Flash Sync is a topic we have covered several times over time here. With this tutorial though, I wanted to visually run through the settings and discuss the implications of the settings, and what we see on the back of our flash. There is a certain consistency here that will help us evade guesswork, and that will help bring a systematic approach to our flash photography. So here it is -- a video tutorial on High Speed Flash Sync. As always, I welcome questions and further discussion in the comments. Two of the previous Read more inside...Event photography in low light
Event photography in low light
Event photography where you are photographing speakers at the event, can be challenging in its own way. The problem with taking photos of presenters, especially if they are animated, is that you have to take a LOT of photos to get a few where they look good. You don't want to give your client any photos with awkward expressions. This means you have to take so many photos just to get a few keepers. But shooting a ton of photos with flash becomes intrusive after a very short while. I therefore prefer to do the majority of photos of speakers at events, Read more inside...Flash photography tip – Start with the ambient exposure
Flash photography tip - Start with the ambient exposure
Continuing on from the article - best camera settings for off-camera flash - I wanted to show an example of just one set of choices we had in how we balance flash with the ambient light. And again, to reiterate that there aren't necessarily wrong choices, but that we get to decide on the final look. In that linked article we worked through several algorithms to what would help guide our choice of camera and flash settings. In that article I accentuated the idea that our starting point is invariably with the ambient light. Read more inside...- 1
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