Flashgun help please

powell7

powell7

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Hi all

I'm new to using a flashgun on the body and I'm struggling with it.
Can anyone recommend a book/ website or video on how to use a flashgun for portraits- not studios set ups please ?
 
powell7 said:
Hi all

I'm new to using a flashgun on the body and I'm struggling with it.
Can anyone recommend a book/ website or video on how to use a flashgun for portraits- not studios set ups please ?
Click to expand...

Can you explain more of what you mean by portraits but not studio set ups? My guess is you want to keep the flashgun on the camera? But you're struggling to produce interesting light?

If you're planning on keeping your flash on camera, you can do some decent things but you're limited by the light position (there's only so much you can soften it straight on, then you're in to bouncing it off stuff).

To go further, you need to get it off camera and then start thinking about modifiers. The world's your oyster - but you need to balance your desires against your self imposed barriers.

The best book - is Syl Arena's Speedlighters Handbook, it's awesome, includes some Canon specific instructions for controls but would be useful to anyone. (I have older Canon flashes and all the flashgun specific stuff is irrelevant to me too).
 
Phil V said:
Can you explain more of what you mean by portraits but not studio set ups? My guess is you want to keep the flashgun on the camera? But you're struggling to produce interesting light?

If you're planning on keeping your flash on camera, you can do some decent things but you're limited by the light position (there's only so much you can soften it straight on, then you're in to bouncing it off stuff).

To go further, you need to get it off camera and then start thinking about modifiers. The world's your oyster - but you need to balance your desires against your self imposed barriers.

The best book - is Syl Arena's Speedlighters Handbook, it's awesome, includes some Canon specific instructions for controls but would be useful to anyone. (I have older Canon flashes and all the flashgun specific stuff is irrelevant to me too).
Click to expand...

Well my wife has asked me to help her with a wedding that's late in the day and into the evening.
She's showed me how she uses hers but I use Sony and her technic isn't working for me.

The flash will be on the body.

I really don't understand flash,I only use it for doing my water drop shots and use it in manual.

I don't understand what ttl is or what it's for.
When should I use the zoom?
What setting should I try for the disco?
Should I buy a diffuser if so which ones are good ?

Flash seems to be so complicated!
 
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Flash isn't complicated, marketing makes it seem so. In trying to automate things but still leave you in control the options just grow.

TTL is the most efficient way of using your flash in those kind of circumstances. It'll do all the heavy lifting whilst you concentrate on using it as lighting. You might need to tweak the FEC. I always shoot manual when the flash is the main source of light, to control the ambient.

Straight on flash is ugly, so it needs diffusing or bouncing or both. I don't use any diffusers on camera, as they do more to reduce power than diffuse. Once you angle the flash to bounce it, the camera can no longer guess an appropriate zoom so it defaults to 'wide enough'. That'll be fine for your purposes.

Maybe a 'better bounce card' I've heard good things about them.
 
Thanks for that phil. Ill have a play and ill look at some cards :-)
 
You can do a lot with flash on-camera. The important thing is to get the light off-camera, ie bounce it.

The technique that most diffuser accessories use, and it works very well, is for the main light to be bounced off the ceiling, with a smaller fill-in component coming direct from the camera to lighten shadows under eyes and chins - eg bounce card, Stofen diffuser cap, or my favourite the Lumiquest QuikBounce http://store.lumiquest.com/lumiquest-quik-bounce/

If you want to take things further, the key is understanding how flash light works. Speedliter's Handbook is excellent.

But for now, if there's normal height white ceiling, a simple bounce card is all you need - about the size of an index card or packet of cigarettes, attached to the flash with a rubber band, head pointing straight up. Try it on aperture-priority, flash on auto-TTL, and get the hang of adjusting shutter speed to balance with ambient light. If you're not confident at first, put the camera on P.
 
thatnikonguy on youtube has some good tutorial vids, once you get it worked out, its not so bad :-)
 
I too recommend 'thatnikonguy' - lots of tutorials and reviews on you tube, over 1000 videos I think. Nice laid back style and lets you see his mistakes as well - which really helps as a viewer.
 
I once see a wedding photographer using a bounce card in a village hall with a massive arched ceiling, he would of got a bit of light from the card but as for the rest of the flash I felt like it was going into thin air.
 
Which flashgun do you have?
If it's a Sony (or Minolta 3600 HSD or 5600 HSD) then you also have the option for taking the flash off-camera, using the built in optical wireless triggering - it uses the pop-up flash to control the remote flashgun, including TTL and automatically setting the flash zoom.

TTL = Through the Lens - the camera meters the scene, does a low power 'pre-flash' and meters, and uses the combination of these to calculate what power to tell the flash to use for the actual shot.

Flash Zoom - This is a control for how wide or concentrated the flash 'beam' is, the simple (and auto) approach is to match it to the focal length of the lens you are using (EG set to 50 for a 50mm lens),
 
Faldrax said:
Which flashgun do you have?
If it's a Sony (or Minolta 3600 HSD or 5600 HSD) then you also have the option for taking the flash off-camera, using the built in optical wireless triggering - it uses the pop-up flash to control the remote flashgun, including TTL and automatically setting the flash zoom.

TTL = Through the Lens - the camera meters the scene, does a low power 'pre-flash' and meters, and uses the combination of these to calculate what power to tell the flash to use for the actual shot.

Flash Zoom - This is a control for how wide or concentrated the flash 'beam' is, the simple (and auto) approach is to match it to the focal length of the lens you are using (EG set to 50 for a 50mm lens),
Click to expand...

I'm concerned that the camera would want to set the zoom remotely, what use is could it be?

It's useful for an on-camera flash, because the camera knows the flash to subject distance, so can set the zoom pattern to match, but once the flash is off camera, how does the camera know how far from the subject it is to give the same coverage?

I'll not even get in to whether you'd want an off camera flash to match the focal length in use, the zoom head at that point would best be adjusted to match the modifier:thinking:
 
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