Tag Archives: off-camera flash

Adding one light for more drama

If you’ve gone to the trouble of getting a model, gathering props for a location shoot, you should always ask yourself what else you can try before you call it quits.

Most of the time, you’ll work till your light is gone especially if you’re having a great time.

But it’s a good habit to ask what else you can try to push the envelope.

Look at it this way, you already have the shot you want “in the can,” why not experiment?

 

One flash about 2 feet away–I photographed my student Dan Schaefer posing with classmate Ana Pinheiro’s guitar with my Canon Powershot G3, a rangefinder, exposure was f8 @ 1/1250 sec ISO 100. My point & shoot camera has a hot shoe and it can sync at any shutter speed because it is a rangefinder. I used my Canon 580EX Speedlite on 1/8th power connected to my Cybersync radio slave. The exposure for the flash was about f8.

What do you stand to lose? Some time?

It will only take a few more minutes. After all, you already have all the elements there.

The model, the light and the equipment are already in place. Don’t get lazy.

Though the lesson for my class was about shooting silhouettes, I thought it was important that my students to see what adding one small bare flash can do their earlier silhouettes.
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Lighting can set free your vision

Mary in flight–For the finale of my Small Flash Lighting workshop, Ed Lano had asked me about special effect flash photography, so why not attempt it instead of just talk about it. We didn’t have our tripods with us but we faked it okay.

Pictures may exist all around us, ready to be captured by our cameras or they could be a figment of our imagination.

As photographers we all start with that first kind–the ones we can see in the natural world.

Once we have mastery of our camera, it’s time to explore lighting.

When we use our own lighting, it’s not that we ever leave behind the world of available light photography.

We are just giving ourselves even more control and actually more options.

Besides, it’s not uncommon for photographers to be bored with what’s there in terms of lighting.

Knowing how to light allows photographers a way to bring out that image that is “dreamed up” in their heads.

At the end of my just concluded small flash lighting workshop I gave my students a taste of what this might feel like.
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Getting started with off-camera flash lighting

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Seasonal portrait–For this seasonal portrait of Courtney Michelle Pratt, I used one off-camera flash. I was lucky to have the assistance of her friend Heather who held my Canon 430 EX speedlite set on Slave mode, 1/16th power and the zoom setting at 85 mm. Canon 40D with 580EX on hot shoe as Master with 17-35 f2.8 zoom lens. Thanks to Greg Palmer, owner of the Pumpkin Patch, for the use of your location for this picture.

off_camera_flash2Even if you are a beginner, eventually you will want to explore off-camera flash.

Believe it or not, your external flash can actually live away from your camera’s hotshoe.

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