Bounce flash photography and dark ceilings
Bounce flash photography and dark ceilings
With the tutorials here on how to bounce flash, the questions inevitably come up - what if there is nothing to bounce your flash off? What if there are dark ceilings? Well, these limitations do affect how I use flash at events - but I still work according to a few set guidelines that give me the best results with bounce flash. I bounce my flash into the direction that I want to come from, regardless of whether there is a white wall or ceiling. It really is all about the Direction of Light. I also shy away from using any of the Read more inside...Video tutorial: TTL fill-flash
Video tutorial: TTL fill-flash
This video tutorial on TTL fill-flash settings, is the visual counterpart to this article - Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC). Whether you use on-camera bounce flash, or off-camera TTL flash as in this off-camera flash tutorial, you will need to adjust your FEC to control the amount of TTL flash you get. Adjusting the FEC allows you varying degrees of fill-flash. This video and the article on flash exposure compensation explains a sequence where you get to compare how different levels of fill-flash affect your final photograph. Also check Read more inside...Best fill-flash settings
Best fill-flash settings
The best fill-flash settings can be summarized with this one idea - we want to better expose our shadow areas. While this will depend on the situation and also personal taste, we are going to walk through some scenarios and get to a wider understanding hopefully of what we want to achieve with our fill-flash. But essentially, that is it - we want to lift our shadow areas to approximately the rest of our subject ... or scene. There is some wriggle room in interpreting that idea of 'correct exposure', but in this article we will get to a better of understanding Read more inside...How to bounce flash
How to bounce flash
An elegant portrait of a delightful young woman, Supriya, taken at her Sweet 16 party. With events there isn't always the opportunity to use involved lighting setups, and to keep the interest of your subject, you need to shoot fast. Yet the results need to look top-class. For this I most often revert to on-camera bounce flash. How to bounce flash - this is a topic we have covered thoroughly here with previous articles. This time I want to I want to highlight an aspect of that - the direction of bounce flash - and this is best served by showing correct and Read more inside...Flash with small softbox, vs. Video light
Flash with small softbox - vs - Video light
There are advantages to using a video light for photography, compared to using flash with a softbox or umbrella. The spread of light with a video light tend to be more contained, and hence more dramatic. However, if you use a small softbox with a speedlight, especially if it has a grid, you can get a similar tight spread of light. With this session we had our model, Madison, laying down on this glass floor of the old Union Station. It is lit from underneath, creating these repetitive pools of light. Just beautiful. Read more inside...review: Profoto A1 flash
review: Profoto A1 flash
Profoto has a very strong reputation in the industry for making gear that are reliable, easy to use, powerful, and, well ... looks really good. When Profoto entered the market a few years ago with the portable Profoto B1 flash (affiliate), and then the Profoto B2 flash (affiliate), it was inevitable then that at some point they would make a grand entrance with a speedlight style flash. With this review of the Profoto A1 flash (affiliate), I wanted to show more how I would use it, than just cover the specs of the flash. I met up with Read more inside...Lighting styles in wedding photography
Lighting styles in wedding photography
Two interesting questions came up in the Tangents FB group - both posted by Matthew Ciscart, one of the regulars: The first question was whether a client had ever asked for a specific lighting? Such, hard light, soft light, natural, or ocf? The other question was whether any of the photographers had a specific go-to style of using lighting. That one thing they do. My reply to this, relating it to lighting styles in wedding photography, was I haven't had a client ask for any specific lighting. However, I do believe my website shows a Read more inside...Flash brackets vs Bounce Flash
Flash brackets vs Bounce Flash
A flash bracket, such as the the Custom Brackets Pro-M rotating flash bracket (affiliate), is useful in keeping the flash's orientation above the camera & lens axis, regardless of how the camera is rotated. You can see in the photo that the camera, whether horizontal or vertical, has the flash above the camera. The two photos below show the difference in results. On the left - if you just hold the camera vertically, with the flash in the hot-shoe, you get that sideways shadow. It is distracting. With a flash bracket, the flash shadow Read more inside...A home-studio setup with speedlites
A home-studio setup with speedlites
With the article on lighting a white seamless studio backdrop in the studio, the question came up how you would do that in a home-based studio where there is less space. The answer? In pretty much the same way. This tutorial video on how to set up a small home studio using speedlites, will show you that the techniques remain the same, whether it is a speedlite, or a powerful studio light. A few notes about this video: For this video, I ended up going with B&W images only of our subject, Matt. I liked the result. It worked very well with Read more inside...- 1
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