Flash exposure is controlled by aperture – but only for manual flash
Flash exposure is controlled by aperture ... but only for manual flash
Quite often the short-hand descriptions of the fundamentals of flash photography become misleading 'facts'. I frequently see the following statements repeated on the various photography forums and in questions that are emailed to me: flash is controlled by aperture shutter speed controls ambient light. (This is sometimes twisted around to a completely misleading version: ambient light is only controlled by the shutter speed.) Even though these descriptions are half-right, they are also half-wrong Read more inside...review: RadioPoppers P1
[ click on the photo to see a larger image] Apathy Angel against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. The settings for the image above was 1/2000 @ f1.6 @ 100 ISO, and the reason for the wide aperture was that I wanted to have the skyline appear as that dreamlike haze in the background. The bright light though, forced a very fast shutter speed. In this case 1/2000th would let the background over-expose a little and blow out somewhat, but give me some detail. But to control the lighting on my model more specifically than just the available light, I used flash. For the lighting Read more inside...
from the hip …
Here is a simple technique which some of you might already know of - shooting from the hip without looking through the viewfinder. At weddings, when photographing the party and dancing during the reception with a wide-angle lens, I often don't hold the camera up to my eye. Instead I rely on the infra-red beam from the speedlight to show me what the camera is focusing on. Then, using the focus-lock-and-hold method, I keep focus and reframe the shot if needed. This way I can shoot from the hip without looking through the viewfinder, but still have images that are well composed. Here are Read more inside...
review: Nikon SB-900 speedlight
review: Nikon SB-900 speedlight
With the SB-900 Speedlight (B&H), Nikon's flagship flashgun, it is clear that they did their homework. The SB-800 was a great flashgun, but there were certain things about it that were very frustrating, but the Nikon SB-900 gets all of this right. A huge improvement is that the SB-900 rotates 180' to either side! Right there in this image is the main reason to get the SB-900 ... it now rotates 180' to the right, instead of stopping short at the 90' mark like the SB-800. This is a huge benefit in bouncing flash with specific effect Read more inside...modifying a modifier
This idea of how to modify that black foam half-snoot that I use to flag my speedlight with, was sent to me by Randall Todd. It allows the flag to be attached to the speedlight much easier than my less sophisticated method of using hair-bands. "I have made and used Peter Gregg's ABBC and found it to be very useful. Instead of using his big rubber bands I went with a Velcro design. The attached photos should show if fairly well. It's simply 10-1/4" of the fuzzy side of sticky hook & loop material on the outside and about 9" of "3M" rubbery shelf liner on the inside. I used a Read more inside...
bouncing flash inside large venues
bouncing flash inside large venues - adding TTL flash to ambient light
One of the ideas that has been mentioned here previously, is when using on-camera flash indoors, to approach it with a studio mind-set where possible. Instead of bouncing flash upwards towards the ceiling, or even simply behind you, the idea is to think "where would I have placed my softbox if this were a studio?" Then it is simply a matter of pointing the on-camera flash in that direction, and flagging any spill light from the flashgun. I most often use a piece of black foam to flag my on-camera speedlight. Read more inside...flash and tungsten lighting
flash and tungsten lighting - gelling your flash for incandescent lighting
Flash, for me, is an essential tool in sweetening the available light and improving the quality of the existing light. I often see comments on the photography forums to the effect that with cameras like the Nikon D3 or Canon 1D mk3, where you have exceptional high-iso noise performance, that you don't need flash. The crucial point that is missed though, is that flash is not merely there just to use when the light is so poor that you can't stop any motion blur from your subject, or stop camera shake Read more inside...wedding photography: working with higher ISO settings
This was a first for me - a couple who high-five each other after the first kiss! (This was from a wedding last year.) My settings : 1/100th @ f3.2 @ 32oo ISO. Yes ... 3200 ISO. I couldn't use flash and I needed a hand-holdable shutter speed with the 70-200mm zoom. Even though it is a stabilized lens, I do need a shutter speed that is fairly fast to stop any movement. (Or stops movement enough.) So why this photo? Read more inside...
