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Off-camera flash tutorial – Balancing flash with ambient light

April 26, 2018 Neil vN Leave a Comment

Off-camera flash tutorial - Balancing flash with ambient light

In the previous off-camera flash tutorial, we started at the elemental level where we did not have to consider ambient light. This helped us in understanding a few of the basics. Ultimately though, where off-camera flash will be used most, is on location where you have to consider the ambient light as well. With this tutorial video, we look at how we would go about balancing flash with ambient light. With this segment, we cover the essentials such as: ·  Using maximum flash sync speed. ·  Flash exposure  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash & projection effects

February 29, 2016 Neil vN 8 Comments

Off-camera flash & projection effects

The photo that I posted of my friend Christy, lit by the lights lights surrounding the mirrored dressing table, was a co-incidental part of the photo shoot in the studio. It was a spontaneous thing. But when we got together for this photo session, I had other ideas that I actually wanted to try - something more dramatic, and using a new image projection kit that uses a gobo and a fresnel lens to focus the effect. With a previous photo session with Jessica Joy, we had used the Light-Blaster to give an unexpected pattern to the background,  Read more inside...

Photographing in bright sunlight – find the shade!

April 11, 2012 Neil vN 23 Comments

Photographing in bright sunlight - find the shade!

Hard sunlight must be one of the most difficult lighting scenarios to work under. But with a bit of thought, we can work around it and still easily get photos that look great. It's a topic that we've touched on a number of times on the Tangents blog, (see related articles at the end here). Where I can though, the simplest approach for me though, is where I can, is to just not deal with the hard sunlight. I find shade. This maternity portrait session of Amy was taken on a bright day, and I wanted to avoid her squinting in  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash for dramatic back-lighting

July 30, 2011 Neil vN 26 Comments

Off-camera flash for dramatic back-lighting

During this engagement photo session with a couple, Ashley and Michael, we roamed around the campus grounds of the university where they had met. In the one part of the grounds, there was this clump of trees, planted in a small rectangle with two seats. Since it was so dark there under the trees, they wondered who'd ever go and sit there. It just didn't look appetizing. Then I though ... hmmm, with some off-camera flash from behind, we can really make this place look like something.  Read more inside...

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