{"id":10177,"date":"2012-03-04T23:42:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T03:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=10177"},"modified":"2020-06-13T19:19:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T23:19:42","slug":"getting-the-most-power-from-flash-speedlite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/getting-the-most-power-from-flash-speedlite\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the most power from your flash \/ speedlite \/ speedlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Getting the most power from your flash \/ speedlite \/ speedlight<\/h1>\n

This might be obvious, but the most power (or light) that you’re going to get from your flash, is at full output in manual. Then the flash dumps everything it has. Full power. You could of course zoom your flash-head a little tighter and get more power \/ range, but essentially, you’re at the limit.<\/p>\n

This is useful to know when you’re balancing flash with bright sunlight. With this portrait of Shawna, out on the Las Vegas strip, I wanted that sun-flare look … but I also wanted to balance the super-bright background with flash.<\/p>\n

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Direction & Quality of Light<\/h2>\n

I wanted to distill the essence of what we, as photographers, work with – light! Before we can truly grasp on-camera flash and off-camera flash, and really, any kind of photography, we have to be aware of the direction and quality of light. We need to observe the light that we have, and then decide how best to use it, or enhance it.<\/p>\n

With this book, I try my best to share those \u201caha!\u201d moments with you, and I do believe this book can make a difference to your photography.<\/p>\n

The book is available on\u00a0Amazon USA<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amazon UK<\/a><\/strong>, or can be ordered through Barnes & Nobles and other bookstores. The book\u00a0is also available on the Apple iBook Store, as well as Amazon Kindle.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>

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Working with direct off-camera speedlight<\/h2>\n

Since we were using only a single speedlight, a softbox wouldn’t have worked. The softbox cuts down too much of the flash’s output. \u00a0So we used direct, unmodified flash. But we used it off-camera, instead of on-camera, so we could get more interesting light than direct on-camera flash would’ve allowed.<\/p>\n

The technique here is essentially the same as when we photographed Shawna earlier on, inside the hotel room, using on-camera bounce flash. (See: bounce flash portrait \u2013 a consistent technique<\/a> )<\/p>\n