![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/workshop\/PortOrchard-2395.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What are your settings?<\/em> –\u00a0 a question that I am often asked about various images. This is the photographic equivalent of teaching someone to fish, versus just slapping a fish down on a dinner plate.\u00a0 Just telling my settings will reveal very little about the how<\/strong>.\u00a0 And\u00a0yet, the how<\/strong> is far more important than just a listing of seemingly random figures.<\/p>\n Let’s look at this recent image from one of my\u00a0workshops on flash photography<\/a> – especially\u00a0since it is exactly the\u00a0kind of thing which I teach during the course of the day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this instance, I\u00a0used manual flash – a speedlight in a softbox. Since the flash was manual flash,\u00a0there were then 4 factors controlling the flash exposure.\u00a0 This topic was\u00a0covered\u00a0in this recent post: manual flash vs TTL flash<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, those\u00a04 factors <\/strong>that\u00a0control\u00a0 our manual flash exposure are:<\/p>\n The sky was still fairly bright, therefore 100 ISO made most sense.<\/strong> Whenever we shoot a subject in shade against a bright background, we get most efficiency from our flash at max sync speed<\/strong>.\u00a0 For many cameras this is\u00a01\/250th.\u00a0 Check for your specific camera.<\/p>\n Now an appropriate aperture<\/strong> was chosen to expose correctly for the sky.\u00a0 Or we could, as in this case, create a dramatic sky by underexposing slightly.\u00a0 We’ve now established correct ambient exposure.<\/p>\n And then the softbox was held close enough – or far enough – for proper flash exposure. (ie, we controlled the distance between flash and subject.)<\/p>\n For that image, there were two speedlights, each with a softbox, that were\u00a0triggered simultaneously – and pointing at each model.\u00a0 But the same thought process holds as in the explanation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As mentioned in the tutorial on maximum flash sync speed<\/a>,\u00a0shutter speed is the independent<\/em> control for the ambient light exposuret, and has no effect (directly) on flash exposure. (This is true while we don’t go into high-speed flash sync<\/a>.)<\/p>\n When you work in bright conditions, the maximum flash sync speed is hugely important.<\/p>\n Think about it this way: So you need more distance \/ range on your flash.\u00a0 This implies that you need a wider aperture.<\/p>\n Since your ambient light is constant, you have a whole range of shutter speed \/ aperture combination’s to work at.<\/p>\n Let’s look at an example of bright sunlight outside.\u00a0The\u00a0Sunny 16 rule implies that in bright sunlight, our exposure for the ambient light is around: \u00a01\/100 @ f\/16 @ 100 ISO.<\/p>\n This can be translated to\u00a0the same ambient exposure:<\/p>\n 1\/50 @ f22 Your flash is going to have a hard time at f22 to dump enough light to match the sun. But then you hit the ceiling at max sync speed … over that, you go into high-speed sync mode, and your flash’s output drops considerably.<\/p>\n So you have a sweet spot at max sync speed.<\/p>\n Therefore, when you work in bright conditions, This is crucial in understanding how to balance flash with daylight.<\/p>\n It becomes an easy shortcut then:<\/p>\n Bright conditions? yup .. immediately go to max sync speed. You’re done.\u00a0 And it was easy because you immediately went to max flash sync speed.\u00a0Simple.\u00a0These are fundamentals of lighting techniques. You can’t escape them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We start with the ambient exposure. It makes most sense here to expose for the sky. Holding the camera up, you can take a meter reading and a test shot to get to the best exposure. As explained, it makes most sense to stay at maximum flash sync speed for starters, when we use flash with bright light.<\/p>\n In this case, I used the Canon 1D mk III, which has a max flash sync speed of 1\/300 … you will have to know your own camera’s max flash sync speed. But the thought-process remains exactly the same.<\/p>\n Now, at max flash sync speed, we find our other two settings – aperture & ISO. If we couldn’t get to values for aperture and ISO that made sense for us, we could always change the shutter speed. But max sync speed would be a solid starting point here.<\/p>\n With that, we now have three settings – shutter speed, aperture & ISO.<\/p>\n Since we are using manual flash, we still need to find two other settings: \u00a0distance & power.<\/p>\n The distance<\/strong> is whatever is the closest we can have the light sources \/ softboxes, without interfering with our composition. All that is left then to figure out is the power<\/strong> of the flash.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this way, most often when we work on location with off-camera flash, our settings fall into place one after the other. Instead of feeling overwhelmed with “where do I even start!?”, you can systematically work this out so that every camera setting is a good choice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n off-camera\u00a0flash photography: what are your camera settings? What are your settings? –\u00a0 a question that I am often asked about various images. Sometimes,\u00a0the answer is surprising\u00a0 – \u00a0it doesn’t really matter. Sometimes the specific settings are of importance, but usually much less so than the method of getting to correct exposure of the ambient light Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,22,42,1],"tags":[49,871,54,504,875],"yst_prominent_words":[5375,1265,7137,1337,1416,1857,1855,9072,1417,9069,6995,6994,9070,6996,2942,2937,1198,9071,3817,9073],"class_list":{"0":"post-119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-exposure-metering","8":"category-flash-photography","9":"category-lighting","10":"category-technique","11":"category-uncategorized","12":"tag-camera-settings","13":"tag-flash-photography","14":"tag-flash-photography-technique","15":"tag-off-camera-flash-photography-tutorial","16":"tag-technique","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43713,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/43713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSometimes,\u00a0the answer is surprising\u00a0 – \u00a0it doesn’t really matter.
\nSometimes the specific settings are<\/strong> of importance, but usually much less so than the method<\/strong> of getting to correct exposure of the ambient light and the flash.<\/p>\nsettings for manual flash exposure<\/h2>\n
\n
\n(I kept this to 1\/2 of full power, so the recycling would be fast enough for everyone at the workshop, even though each Speedlite was powered by a battery pack<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n(Since the flash was in a softbox held aloft on a monopod by my\u00a0assistant, the flash\u00a0exposure could also be controlled by the assistant bringing the softbox closer or further away on instruction of the photographer. This is our one variable at this point with which we can control flash exposure independently from ambient light.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
.<\/span>
\n<\/strong>invariably we start with the ambient\u00a0exposure first<\/h2>\n
\nThe actual ISO could’ve been higher, if I needed more depth of field.
\nSince ISO affects both ambient and flash exposure, any ISO would’ve been okay as long as we didn’t run out of apertures.<\/p>\nabout the decision to go to maximum sync speed<\/h2>\n
\nYou want more range on your flashgun, since you rarely want to work riiiight up close to your subject. Or at least, not be forced to work right up close.<\/p>\n
\n1\/100 @ f16
\n1\/200 @ f11
\n1\/400 @ f8
\n1\/800 @ f5.6
\netc.<\/p>\n
\nIt is going to have an easier time at f16 .. but even better at f11.<\/p>\n
\nyou might as well just go to max sync speed immediately, since this is where you will have
\n– your widest aperture (and hence the most range \/ distance from your flashgun),
\n– for the most juice from your flashgun.<\/p>\n
\nYou might as well then go to 100 ISO. \u00a0(Or 200 ISO on some Nikon D-SLRs.)
\nFind your aperture for correct ambient exposure for these other two settings.
\nNow find your correct (manual) flash exposure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\ngetting to the specific\u00a0camera settings used here<\/h2>\n
\nBroadly speaking, we have three areas here of similar brightness:
\n– the sky
\n– the reflection of the sky
\n– the jetty (which is much darker)<\/p>\nsummary<\/h2>\n
related articles<\/h2>\n
\n