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Using Profoto gear on photo shoots and events

June 20, 2020 Neil vN 3 Comments

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)

January 13, 2020 Neil vN 17 Comments

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

September 20, 2019 Neil vN 6 Comments

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

April 1, 2019 Neil vN 1 Comment

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...

Best camera settings for off-camera flash

March 30, 2019 Neil vN 5 Comments

Best camera settings for off-camera flash

With many of the tutorial articles on this website that deal with off-camera flash photography, I have attempted to make the explanation not only as straight-forward as possible, but also repeatable. When it comes to camera and flash settings, there is often a specific science at work here - a specific method , which should deliver similar results time and again. The artistic side to photography is open to interpretation, and that is what makes photography continually fascinating - there are always further things to explore. However, when it  Read more inside...

Review: Canon Speedlite 470EX-AI flash

July 23, 2018 Neil vN 8 Comments

Review: Canon Speedlite 470EX-AI flash

Before we get into this review of the Canon 470EX-AI speedlite (B&H / Amazon), I need to mention that I wanted this review video to be more than just a listing of the features of this flash. We therefore also delve into bounce flash technique. So there is something here even for those photographers who don't shoot Canon, or have no real interest in getting this flash. So please do check the video out. I was really curious to get to play with the Canon 470EX-AI speedlite (B&H / Amazon) for a review,  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography and dark ceilings

May 21, 2018 Neil vN 32 Comments

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

April 28, 2018 Neil vN 3 Comments

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 out these  Read more inside...

Best fill-flash settings

April 5, 2018 Neil vN 18 Comments

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

March 8, 2018 Neil vN 21 Comments

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...

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