On and Off camera flash basics Part 5

April 26, 2012 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Using flash effectively and learning about lighting is often the “final frontier” in a photographer’s journey to mastering photography.

 

This is the last in a five part series on using your detachable SLR flash creatively. Part one covered flash to ambient ratios. Part two covered “shutter drag”. Part three covered bounce flash. Part four covered off-camera flash. You can read them HERE.

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This instalment covers advanced off-camera techniques and modifiers. You should have a good understanding of how your flash affects your exposure, how to balance it with the ambient light, how to bounce if off nearby walls or ceilings to make it look like a much larger light source and how to get your flash off camera. All of this becomes easy when you practise, even though at first glance it might look like a lot to learn.

 

It’s worth beginning with some reasons you’d want to use a flash modifier. Why you want to change the size or the shape of your light.

 

It’s all about the size of your light source. More accurately, the relative size. The sun is a massive light source, but it’s Read more

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Flash Basics Lighting Tutorials

April 25, 2012 by admin · 1 Comment 

Learn how to light with pro photographer and orbis® inventor James Madelin. The 5 part tutorial series will teach you how to use your SLR flash more creatively so you can make the most of your gear! Click on the links below to get the latest lighting tips.

Part 1: Flash to ambient ratios

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Part 2: Shutter Drag

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Filed under orbis® general news, orbis® technique, orbis® tutorials

On and Off camera flash basics Part 4

April 20, 2012 by admin · 1 Comment 

Getting your flash Off Camera !

Using flash effectively and learning about lighting is often the “final frontier” in a photographer’s journey to mastering photography.

This is part four in a five part series on using your detachable SLR flash creatively. Part one covered flash to ambient ratios. Part two covered “shutter drag”. Part three covered bounce flash.

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This installment is going to cover off-camera flash. By now you should have a good understanding of how your flash affects your exposure, how to balance it with the ambient light and how to bounce if off nearby walls or ceilings to make it look like a much larger light source. All of this stuff becomes easy when you practise.

 

It’s worth taking a little step to the side here for a moment. I often hear people say… Read more

Filed under orbis® general news, orbis® technique, orbis® tutorials

On and Off camera flash basics Part 3

March 27, 2012 by admin · 1 Comment 

Using flash effectively and learning about lighting is often the “final frontier” in a photographer’s journey to mastering photography. This is part three in a four part series on using your detachable SLR flash creatively. Part one covered flash to ambient ratios. Part two covered “shutter drag”. You can read them here Part 1 and Part 2.

You should now be having a lot more fun with your flash. You’ll have quite a few disasters, but if you’ve stuck at it, you should also have had some great “Ah HA!” moments. If you use your camera and flash to make money, you should be much more confident about your ability to get a broader range of photos in any situation.

 

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This article introduces bounce flash, which is a technique to turn your tiny flash into a huge, soft, gorgeous light source. Without having to spend time and money on a huge, soft gorgeous light source. Because your flash gun is such a small yet powerful light, you’ve probably noticed those horrible, hard edged shadows you always get in your photos. They’re distracting at the best of times, and can only work if… Read more

Filed under orbis® general news, orbis® technique, orbis® tutorials

On and Off camera flash basics Part 2

March 20, 2012 by admin · 3 Comments 

Using flash effectively and learning about lighting is often the “final frontier” in a photographer’s journey to mastering photography. This is part two in a four part series on using your detachable SLR flash creatively. Part one covered flash to ambient ratios. You can read Part 1 HERE.

 

Now you should have a better idea how any photo taken with your flash is a combination of the exposure from the flash’s burst of light and the ambient constant light. This article introduces flash blur or “shutter drag” which is a technique to make on-camera flash photos interesting. An added advantage is that it cleans up what may at first appear to be a cluttered environment.

 

Because the flash attached to your hotshoe is fixed in the same axis relative to your lens however you hold your camera, it’s a challenge to take photos with your flash in the hotshoe that look any different from those you might take with a compact camera. That’s probably one of the reasons you don’t use your flash much. The shutter drag technique uses the ambient light to our advantage. This doesn’t work if you’re outdoors on a bright day; you need to be shooting somewhere, or at a time, when you’d be thinking it was about time to get your flash out.

 

It’s easiest to set your camera on the M mode, otherwise it will probably set your shutterspeed too slow, if it’s dark, or too fast if it thinks it should be at the maximum synch speed. It depends from camera to camera and mode to mode, but we want to be in control.

We’ll start at ISO400 and f5.6 or f.8 as they’re both good middle ground apertures; not so wide open (eg. f2.8) that your focus might not be accurate due to shallow depth of field, nor so stopped down (eg. F16) where your flash will have to be at, or near, full power.

 spacer   Settings of 1/20th at f5.6 IS400 produced this appealing movement blur as a basis for our exposure.

With your flash off, set your shutter speed around 1/20 of a second and, as you pan your camera from left to right, press the shutter mid-swing. Your results should be slightly underexposed and blurred. Too dark ? Drop your shutter speed and try again. Too bright ? Raise your shutter speed. Your settings will depend on where you are. My first example photo is at 1/20 of a second in a tradeshow hall at New York’s Photoplus Expo 2010. Remember, this exposure should be on the underexposed side; a little dark.

 

Now turn your flash on and set it to TTL (or E-TTL or whatever your system calls it) and, with your camera settings unchanged, have a friend walk past you as you shoot them.

 

You should get something like this second example..

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