Flash Photography Techniques Off-camera flash ~ Flash photography basics ~ Using video lights
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review: Fuji X100 camera – photo shoot with a model
review: Fuji X100 camera - photo shoot with a model
First of all, for those who haven't heard of the Fuji X100 (affiliate) yet, it is a beautiful retro-looking rangefinder-mimicking 12 megapixel digital point & shoot camera (with a fixed 35mm equivalent f2.0 lens), that gives remarkable image quality. That about sums it up. For all those reasons, quite a buzz developed around this camera. Quite unlike anything since ... oh, the Leica X1. Or the Olympus Pen EP-2. Or the Sony NEX-5. There was greater excitement building up around the Fuji X100 though than other cameras, Read more inside...using multiple speedlights with high-speed flash sync
using multiple speedlights with high-speed flash sync
This photo of Angelique, our model, was taken at 1/8000 @ f2 @ 100 ISO. Yes, an eight-thousand-th of a second. The accompanying wide aperture (with an ultra-wide angle lens), gives a unique look to the image. The shallow depth-of-field and high shutter speed are mutually dependent effects in shooting in bright light. Working with a fast shutter speed, brought us into high-speed flash sync (HSS) territory. Do keep in mind that this shoot was more of a technical exercise to work through the settings and see how the flash behaves Read more inside...tutorial: High-speed flash sync (HSS)
High-speed flash sync / auto FP .. vs .. normal flash
There have been a number of questions about high-speed flash sync (HSS), and how it affects the output from your flash. Also check this Video tutorial – High Speed Flash Sync (HSS). It covers the same material as this article, and will help explain why your camera and flash behaves the way it does when you change from normal flash sync to high-speed flash sync. I decided to do a series of comparison photos, so we can actually see what happens before, at and beyond maximum flash sync speed. And we can also see what happens with Read more inside...Off-camera flash photography
Flash Photography Techniques Flash brackets ~ Off-camera flash ~ Flash photography basics
Off-camera flash photography
The preceding pages mostly deal with how to use an on-camera speedlight to get 'prettier' light. And where we can, how to seamlessly blend our flash with our available light. However, where flash becomes a lot more controllable and perhaps more interesting, is when you move your flash off-camera. Off-camera flash is quite an extensive topic. Instead of trying to cover it all in just one article here, this page will serve as a jump-page to several of Read more inside...Flash photography: Overpowering the sun with flash
Flash photography: Overpowering the sun with flash
When we think about overpowering the sun with flash, we are most often really considering to match the sunlight with enough flash. We usually want to lift the shadow areas to the same level as the sunlit areas. There's a tiny bit of math involved here which makes the algorithm or thought-process predictable. Since the Sunny 16 rule has it that broad daylight is in the order of 1/200th or 1/250th @ f11 @ 100 ISO ... you'd either have to shoot with a bare speedlight, (which, as a small light source, will cause hard shadows) .. or use a Read more inside...Syncing at higher than max flash sync speed
Syncing at higher than max flash sync speed
The model, Aleona, was lit with an off-camera Q-flash T5D-R, using Quantum’s wireless system, and a 24×32 softbox, mounted on a lightstand. The settings were: 1/1000th @ f4 @ 200 ISO It is noteworthy that this was shot at 1/1000th of a second with a Q-flash .. and they don't support high-speed sync. I never paid much attention to the physics and shape of the pulse of flash, or how the pulse of light is shaped, but after reading up on how the new PocketWizards work, I was curious .. and played around with the Q-flash. And to my Read more inside...tutorial: Maximum flash sync speed
tutorial: Maximum flash sync speed
In previous postings I have mentioned that the specific settings for a photo aren't often of direct value to us in figuring out the method of exposure. But the one setting that is of huge importance when using flash, is your camera's maximum flash sync speed. When the ambient light levels are low, then your shutter speed can vary appropriately, depending on what you want to achieve. But once you work in bright conditions, or have your subject against a bright background, then most often it just makes the best sense to work at maximum flash sync 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...