Brown wedding

Evil Eagle · Oct 8, 2008

If you dont mind me asking, where did you learn to do all that with the lighting? I have one 580ex for my 20D and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it without it looking like I used a flash!

Nein-reis · Oct 8, 2008

Evil Eagle said:
If you dont mind me asking, where did you learn to do all that with the lighting? I have one 580ex for my 20D and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to use it without it looking like I used a flash!

College. I learned lighting in college.

But here are some important tips to help you start understanding flash:

Ambient light is controlled by shutter speed, and flash is controlled by aperture so set your shutter and ISO to get the ambient light to where you like it and then use flash to fill in the rest or to lift the shadows.

When inside use directional light to create soft light. I never use any modifiers or fong dongs on camera, I find they just suck power. I do use snoots/half snoots however. Good light is directional light, the flash straight on over camera will usually look like a flash photograph. Instead, look for areas to bounce. I bounce all the time and rarely off a ceiling. Walls and windows make great bounce surfaces, I also frequent bouncing over my shoulders for a mix of bounce off ceilings and walls.

To effectively use this technique you need to be shooting in manual. I shoot both camera and flash in manual, but you can use TTL I just find it to be inconsistent. You need to know how to adjust the power on your flash or E.V. If you bounce off of a wall it will need the power to be higher depending on the distance from your subject and or how much ambient you are letting in. This will take a lot of practice. I recommend shooting in RAW when bouncing off surfaces, the red curtains or yellow walls will change the color of the light. RAW will make the white balance easy to correct in post.

Remember when bouncing your flash the lash unit itself is no longer your light source, whatever you are bouncing off of is. So if bounce off of a big wall it is now my light, the larger the light source and farther it is from the subject the "softer" the light is. So that wall is acting like a big softbox and I can follow the inverse square law to get correct exposure.

This technique also allows for more creative light, if I have a big window to subject right and a big white wall to subject left I'm going to bounce off of the window at subject right. This way my flash is riding on top of the natural light photons and creating a more natural looking light. So practice practice practice.

For example, image #18 was taken ISO 50 f/4.5 at 1/60 with my flash at +2.0 E.V. bounced off of a window to the right of the subjects. I knew the image would have a natural looking light, and my flash would mimic the ambient light but amp it up and lift the shadow area.

When outside, I flash straight forward but only with a tad of flash just to lift the shadow area. Image #14 for example was taken ISO 100 f/3.2 at 1/200 with my flash at -3 E.V. The flash was just enough power to lift the shadows and add a bit of separation from the background. The background was metered 1 stop underexposed. If I need more flash or have the time I will always take the flash off of camera and bounce it through a softbox or shoot through umbrella or bounce it off a reflective umbrella.

This all takes a lot of practice and experience to effectively use. But I hope it helps a bit. You need to start thinking of flash creatively, visit www.strobist.com and read everything on that site. Also the DVD Zack Arias One Light is incredible. Check it out at http://www.onelightworkshop.com/

Most if not all of my photos have flash in them, and it really is the best tool I carry in my bag. :thumbup:

Evil Eagle · Oct 9, 2008

Hey man I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out for me! Im gonna check those sites out when I get the time!

iflynething · Oct 9, 2008

Those images make me speechless

~Michael~

iflynething · Oct 9, 2008

Nein-reis said:
www.strobist.com and read everything on that site

I have just started to do that. I just saw the blog when i first when. After actually staying on there for a while I saw the links on the right for all Lighting 101. I'm reading to learn new things about lighting. Because after all, it IS everything.

Thanks for the explination and the photos are incredible.

~Michael~

Nein-reis · Oct 9, 2008

Good luck in your lighting voyage! :thumbup:

iflynething · Oct 11, 2008

Thanks. There's alot of stuff on there. Learned a little bit with the Lighting 101, and about halfway through 102.

I stayed up until 4 last night just reading

~Michael~