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Flash photography tip – Start with the ambient exposure

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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...

How to set up wireless flash with the pop-up flash

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How to set up wireless flash with the pop-up flash

In starting to use off-camera flash, there are some minimum pieces of gear we need. Such as this gear list – starting out with off-camera flash. We don't necessarily need to buy radio triggers immediately. Many new cameras with a pop-up flash, has the ability to have the pop-up flash be a master to optically trigger a slave flash. This is especially helpful if you are on a budget. Later on, when the limitations of optical slaves start to hamper us, can we look at buying radio triggers. Radio controlled wireless triggering of a  Read more inside...

Video tutorial: Manual flash settings

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Video tutorial: Manual flash settings

One advantage that the larger speedlights have over the smaller speedlights - aside from more power - is that they show the distance the flash can reach for the specific settings. This video is a continuation of the off-camera flash tutorial series. What is described in this video is also written out in more detail in this article: Practical tutorial: Controls for manual flash exposure. If manual flash seems confusing, then I would recommend checking that article out as well, and then look at this video tutorial on manual flash settings again.  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash tutorial – Flash with no ambient light

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Off-camera flash tutorial - Flash with no ambient light

This tutorial about off-camera flash, is one of the segments in a series on how to use off-camera flash in a simple scenario - where there is no ambient light. This is a good introduction to the topic. In the next tutorial video, we will consider how we go about adding off-camera flash when we work with ambient light. With this introduction, we cover the essentials such as: ·  Basic gear you would need for off-camera flash. ·  How we decide on our settings - in this case, it is really easy. We decide what aperture and ISO  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash: Rim-lighting and using flare

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Off-camera flash: Rim-lighting and the intentional use of flare

For these promotional photos for aspiring model twins, Carina and Carolina, we went to a park. There are certain things I look for when working on an location, that I know will immediately give me a better chance at successful portraits.  My book, Lighting and Design for Portrait Photography, looks at exactly that thought-process throughout the 60 chapters in the book. The technique here should be quite obvious by now: A long lens (a 70-200 used closer to the longer end), compressing the perspective. Shooting  Read more inside...

Flash photography: applying the Sunny 16 Rule & Flash Guide Number

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Flash photography: applying the Sunny 16 Rule & Flash Guide Number

In essence, if you know the GN of your flash, then you could use (bare) off-camera flash to match the sunlight, without even metering! There is a super-useful shortcut built into those two simple values: Sunny 16, and the Guide Number. Now, I am pretty sure that when you hear mention of the Guide Number of a flash, you're most likely switching off already, thinking that it is just an arcane list of numbers - different apertures against different power settings. But hang in there - this is very useful stuff  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash – Two speedlight setup for back-lighting

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Off-camera flash - Two speedlight setup for back-lighting

Once you're comfortable using a single off-camera light-source, such as a softbox (or un-diffused flash), there's an easy next step to add a little bit of zing to the image. Rim-lighting! I most often work with just a single softbox when photographing portraits on location. Having the sun behind your subject, creates a natural rim-lighting. This helps separate your subject from the background. It's not just the shallow depth-of-field that helps create that near-3D effect where your subjects just pops out from the background  Read more inside...

Photo session: Urban ballerina – Viktoria

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Photo session: Urban ballerina - Viktoria

Late afternoon in New York, with the sun-light glinting off the glass buildings - dramatic light for a ballerina in an urban setting. However, the sunlight that was reflecting off the buildings wasn't consistent, and did not necessarily fall in a place where we could use it. So I created my own with an off-camera speedlight just out of the frame - but positioned so that it intentionally flared, and also gave beautiful rim-light on Viktoria. The pull-back shot shows how the speedlight was set up, and my own position, low down on the ground,  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash vs. available light

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Off-camera flash vs. available light

With this background, I liked the way the dots were repeated in Olena's dress in reverse - white dots on black, instead of black dots / holds on silver. I liked the repetition, and decided to work with the composition of this photograph a bit.  For the final sequence of images - of which the image at the top is one - I asked Olena to really exaggerate the curve of her body to create an S-shaped, which in turn contrasted boldly with the rigid pattern of the background. This article's original title was going to be:  Off-camera flash vs the  Read more inside...

Photography composition – Look at your background!

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Photography composition - Look at your background!

The impact in this photo of our model, Jessica, relies equally on her looks and pose, the lighting, and the background. The background was very specifically chosen by how *I* positioned myself in relation to my subject. The background was out of focus neon lights in Times Square. I composed the photo very tightly with a 70-200mm lens, set to 200mm. By compressing the perspective with that tight focal length, I can select exactly what I want to include in the image. And that's the key here to the composition - deciding what to  Read more inside...