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Flash Techniques

This is not a flash course we can do another one of those later but I do want to discuss some quick basics off this guy I only want to go over that stuff that has helped me tremendously without complicating my life too much okay, I realized a lot of you guys watching online you have different levels of skill with flash some of us may be pretty familiar so if you're familiar with some of the terms I'm going to say uh just it will be a review on if you're not familiar with this terms then good for you you can learn this I'm going to concentrate on how you use the flash for my style or for photography okay we already went let's go through the basics of flash first first this this flash is a very smart computer it can do a lot for you or you can or you can be left alone and you can make all the decisions you can control everything about it now what can this thing do for you? It can shoot a beam off light that's what it does it coming out of a very small head so no matter what your photogra...

ph with this it's gonna have harsh shadows because we know the basics of light small light source harsh shadows okay um just like photography with the flash you can do anything you want as long as you can create a solution I have my diffuse from with me all the time and I will today with bethany's I will photograph for with this directly and they will photograph for with this with with defuse defuse defuse sure diffuser way the diffuser wow with the diffuser ok use my mother with t l on what that means most of you and the internet are very familiar with this technology to tl just means through the lens what happens is you take a picture of the flash and the pre flash hits you in the face then they're pre flash comes back hits the camera in the lands then the camera tells the flash to get a good exposure you need this much power on the flashes thank you very much for the information I want to now fire according to what you told me on any kyushu are good exposure with that being said this is where teal'c is very tricky and this is where things get different what happens if you point your camera to something bright the flash or nothing doesn't eat a lot off doesn't need anything okay this is why his greatest technology is it still you still have to be able to know what it's doing so you can override it okay second thing what happens if you point this flash I mean your point your camera and there's a meter in front of the camera it will be non existent you will have no flash okay, I have a nightmare story I would like to share with you all um I was asked to photograph the pope off a sec off another religion like it was the armenian pope or something and he came when the limos and the whole thing and I had to take his portrait I totally screwed that up I fixed it but I screwed it up because the pope didn't want to move because he's like the pope so he chooses where he wants to be photographed and I was just like dude, you need to move but I couldn't call him do it that would be really this respectable so I said I said is that what you want to sit? I mean shall we want to stand here? He just looked at me like when why why are we talking it's like hey was really harsh it was stuff says anyone stuff he was wearing the hole ensemble I was like man, you got it going on that's what he said you got going on dude, you got going on yeah, you got it going on? Yeah, yeah wow so he sat in front of a mirror I was nervous I saw the mirror I didn't register in my head so there I am looking super cool he to give me about five seconds to take his portrait so I sit there and I'm like with my camera there's no no time for fancy off camera flash so I said that I think my picture at a forty five degree angle to minimize that the flatness of the flash I pulled out the white card which is something I do a lot seventy eighty per cent of the light hits the roof but just a little bit hits you so that little white car advances a little bit of sparkle to give you that catch light in your eye on uh it was a dark room so that I was actually using the flash gave me the actual exposure toe actually light up the pope on the mirror was there I took my picture and there was no and I didn't see the back of the camera because I thought I knew what I was I know what I'm doing so I didn't have to worry about it so I never saw the back of the camera until the very last picture I didn't scrolled back quickly the pope is already getting up on all of them are pitch dark not a single detail comes out and I am not a heart attack you know is like oh my gosh my flash is not working I turn it off turn it on I turned it off turn it on I turned off my camera, nothing was working until I until I turned the camera away from the mirror and it took a perfect exposure I was like oh my god you're so then I had to turn around put the sucker on quickly on manual manual flash for you wouldn't it wouldn't meet her on I took the picture and I saved it okay I saved it which takes me to the next I think I want to talk to you about the flash when you go to manual choose one manual setting you're very familiar with let's say you're familiar with one fourth okay so if you go to manual you have one toe one which is full power you have one to two you have one to four you have went to eighty one to sixteen you have one thirty two once sixty four and I think one toe one twenty eight choose one power like one fourth and memorize it memorized that output for that distance so from photographing crystal I'm right here and I'm like okay I am about ten feet away from you what power do I need to photograph someone at this distance just have one anchor point because if you're in a situation where you know you're in a hurry and you have to switch it to manual you khun gauge whether this is a new in your subject and you have an anger point let's say I have to photograph crystal but I'm photographing crystal from here now once it was the upper gonna be twice as much right or more like four times as much because off the inverse square law tomorrow then stuff remember the inverse square law says that if you if you're standing one foot away you get the full glory of the light but if you stand two feet away you're now double in the distance so now you actually are getting hit by only one fourth of the light because it's an inverse is one over four on if you're standing three feet away from me now your nights three squares was one overnight so you're getting one ninth off the light okay so any question that's not complicated rain pretty easy okay so memorize how much of the flash what what power do you need for a normal distance okay and have that as an anchor point the next one is assuming the flash head why do you want assume the flash because you want to narrow the beam and therefore increase the power of the light you can increase the power by actually telling this thing to stay on longer right or you consume the head andi will actually give you a stronger beam of light okay um you guys do know I don't know tell me if you're not familiar with this maybe some people on the internet are not familiar with this but these flashes on ly have on or off for the light bulb the live off does not go harder or lighter does not go stronger or lighter when you put this on full power on the flash fires of full power, it is the same exact power as when you put this in the lowest setting. Did you know that? Okay, you thought that if you turned off the power down that the lie bob give you weaker light and if you turn the power in full blast the light ball give you more power, but it doesn't the life of those in change at all. The only thing that's changing is how long it stays on. We're talking about when we say full power half power, one eighth power, one quarter power, all of that stuff all that stuff, same exact power in the light bulb never never changed. You know, what's amazing to me is that I've taken quite a few workshops here. Incredible! I've yeah, I did not know. Come on, come on. A little out of it as power. Yeah, yeah, this is not even a flashlight. I'm just showing you how you flash more my own winnings this's not a flash course. Although I would love to do that I know of shooting with flash I'm a big flash guy just on a market myself that way is just a tool for me okay, uh, let me do it. Let me try this real quick for you guys. I'm totally gonna use this it's. Just not a good idea, but hello? And I'll just say that I've heard of the word duration many times, but it didn't sink in until you said it. Oh, really? Wow. Okay, let me just do this real quick. I want to spend too much time. Okay? But this is the way it goes when you put it. When you put when you put your flash of different powers, the flash actually shows that sixty thousandth of a second or something crazy like that. The shutter speed of your camera can only go up to eight thousand shutters b but a single burst of these flashes can go upto one hundred, one hundred, one hundred and ten thousand shutter speed like much, much faster than even the fastest shutter speed you can put in the camera. So if you put your camera at eight thousand shutter speed, the flash will actually beat up by a long shot. The flash will turn on and off way. Okay, the flash will turn on enough. Go home, take a shower, get dressed, take a nap, come back on the shutter still not closed yet that's the way the flash works the only thing that makes the flash more powerful or less powerful is by the duration ofthe the flash during the shutter being open so ok tell me this makes any sense you start the shutter here the shutter opens right you go the shutters opened opened open here the flash bursts when it's wide open then the shutter starts to close and then the closest that shutter right there you want more power the flash is going to burst it's going to go longer is going to stay on longer so now the flash start spoon and then you're gonna have this now you have two little bursts of light so now it's on for a longer time so the flash picture starts you go up and in the flesh fires fires and then this is turns off and then he starts toe in touch the shoulder closest because they stay open twice as long it's now twice as bright but the power that it went often on is exactly the same. Okay, when you want more power you you just keep adding little lines to this how much power is that? Quite a bit. So now the flash starts I mean the shutter starts then the shutters have way through on the flash goes phone boom boom, boom boom and then the flash turns off the job it's done, then the shutter closes so when you put that flash in one and one toe one or full blast all you're doing is adding little mike super super super fast bursts of the same exact power off light okay, so does that help? Okay there's actually a really important up implication application for this knowledge uh you know when you put something on high speed think assumed I should put that sucker on high speed sync the flash cannot possibly stay on for that long so the flashes you want me to give you flash even though you're at eight thousand shutter speed fine but I'm going to go lazio in you and I'm just going to give you a little bursts of light in other words as soon as you pushed that high speed sync button that flash is going to be half asleep so you can shoot your four thousand shutter speed on that little high speed thing is you're going to give you minimal, minimal light that's the only way the flash can keep up with something so fast okay, so what happens if you want illuminate someone really well with flash but you're on high speed sync and this is important if you're shooting couples and stuff if you're shooting with high speed think you need two or three flashes because when those two or three flashes come together eight equals like one flash when it's not in high speed sink okay, okay uh metering minute oh, yeah. Metering exposure distance this is important if you if you ever grab your flash and you bend this at a ninety degree angle like that u turn this sucker on as soon as you put your house show into the camera, that little line tells you that from four feet two, thirty feet this flash will expose properly your subject from four feet to seven tooth let's say from four feet to fifteen, feet so if you happen to stand further back, you are now going to be underexposed and if you get closer than that in the four feet you are not going to be over exposed. What does that mean? Amy said if you ever going twenty to bounce the flash off a wall, if the camera tells me from four to ten feet I can give you perfect exposure from me to use heroin right now. Okay, but then I go like this. Ah, now I bend the flashlight, you can hit the wall and hit you from that side. You have to multiply that this is between me and you times that this between you and the wall so you have ten feet twenty, thirty feet do you need three times more power to be able to light you up the same way or four times in course back to the inverse square law of light now you are not standing seven feet from a light now you're standing fifteen feet from that wall so now my flashes to go from here travel toe there hit that and now becomes the new light source and in that goes and bounces and hits you in the face so this kind of information helps you realize how quickly can you make changes that are accurate without having to take a picture and then be like this? You're like, this is what happens a lot. You take a picture. Oh, right, dial down, dial down, take a picture. Who? That was worse. Okay, hold on a second. Hold on a second, dude. Totally. I totally get it. You're hot and everything I know. I think I got you now. Oh, yeah? You take a picture? Yeah, I didn't get it, so you just keep it wrong. You look like you look like an idiot, you know? I mean, you just look like an idiot. So having a little basic knowledge of how your flashes in leaving a lot should take more educated cass is what you have to do so you can get the picture dead on right away, okay, okay, second carton sink um, this is a technique I use on receptions I'm not going to talk about how awesome second currents sink I'm going talk is gonna talk about how you second curtains saying kai receptions okay I don't really care for second curtain sink during wedding photos or bridal photos or groom's photos I only care about second currents sink when it's dark so what happens is this the shutter opens we go back to my thing here the shutter opens and then riding for the shutters about to close the fly stand fires okay, what does that mean? I already told you that the flash bursts at a very high speed right so fast that the flash itself can freeze the motion even the the shorter slow let me repeat that super important if your sugary slow let's say you have a thirty they say you have a half a second shutter because you want to get movement when that shutter opens that's charter is actually moving across this line very slowly right on dure basically blurring everything that's happening while that shutter is opened. But as soon as that shutters about to close that burst of light goes boom you're frozen whatever what's happened happened at the end froze so when you're getting photos of people dancing I can get a half second one second thirtieth of a second exposure like a slow shutter speed on you getting tyr ambience off the location but the people are perfectly exposed like they look beautiful, okay so let me show you an example yes you said your flash to flush on the second fourteen then yeah I mean that during the reception I do yeah so during reception to flashes second curtain sinking both during receptions I enjoy slow shutter speeds it's a preference because people my clients and a lot of people's clients I'm sure a lot of you watching online the client spent a lot of money on the lighting of that location right and if you don't photograph it properly you didn't give it justice you didn't do it justice the only way to photograph that properly is with a slow shutter so you can get the ambient light to come into your sensor I'd be able to record it but the only way to do it for us off people and still get the ambiance a second currents sink you have to wait till the shutters open you capture all that ambient light all that ambient light shudders about two closer is about to close the shutter finally is one hundreds of millions of a second before the closest and the flash fires phrases that motion on your shutters closed and now you can go ahead and capture the ambient light but keep the people dancing and having a great time totally in focus yes I's your better speed generally set out that's not a silly question so it depends how much risk I want to take usually I'm at about sixty years of a second if I want more, more people moving and more ambiance and stuff I put it onto one thirtieth of a second ana I don't have photos I wish I could have shown that my reception for us I feel looked really cool because no one's blurry except some there's some movement but there the ambience is what I'm going for the army's is what I'm going after, but I don't want to make it so that people are blurry. Okay? Okay. Let's see berle, can I interrupt and ask you a question, please? This is from alan birch from missouri. He'd like to know do bryde's ever inquire about whether you shoot natural light or artificial light? Have you ever had a bride do that or is that something they never concern themselves with? Yeah, not really. Okay, not really. What they do like they do ask is that they know what they like. Like when I show them the reception photos and they look full of excitement yet they're lit beautiful yet the whole ambiance shows true. They know they love that they're like I love the way that looks, you know, so you want a place to do some experiments with the flash? Hello, what's up nice okay, let's, do some let's do some quick experiments so let me go ahead and lift this opera quick I don't know julius here is joy well what the heck I'm juliette can you please help me with and I know remember this is not a flash course I just want to go over some basics so we can okay I want to make sure that we understand this is not a flash course by any means I'm just going through some flash basics for what I use on what I need. I think if you guys in the internet comfortable using some of these flash settings your benefit greatly without having toby an encyclopedia of knowledge or flash you can I need to just know some basics some basics there so I ask you a couple questions please okay uh let's see from l a ram if the flash is so fast then why is there a sink speed limitation of one two hundred or one two fiftieth of a second and most cameras because he would talk about the ring one to twenty years in yeah uh the flashes to recycle itself in order to produce enough light output toby able to expose for someone recently so in order to do that the shutter speed has to be slow enough to be able to capture that person if the shutter speed it's over two hundred to fifty the shorter piece has opens and closes so fast that the shutters and actually oh, man, long answer. I'll have to draw that out. But the way works is like this in a normal a normal flash photography the flash opens the shutter opens on whatever halfway through or something. The flash fires on the flash continues and closes, right. You know how, uh there's first curtain and second kernan, the shutter, the shutter o the first shutter. The first card opens when it's opened all the way the flash fires and in the second current comes and closes something sense time for another question. No, I gotta finish that one real quick. Okay. Oh, my gosh. You guys have a weird background when I photograph you. Okay. First curtain, second curtain in the shutter in the shutter. Okay, this first garden comes down, opens up the whole censor. It reveals the censor. And then when it's the centers all the way, exposed when the center six boat, when the centres exposed, fully exposed the flash fires and that's, what gives you the exposure on high speed sync by the time by the time drugs against you? Okay, take a look at this picture for a quick second. Okay. When the first curtain hope it starts to come down and and it finally reveals the sensor and in the flash fires that the whole the whole flash is going to hit the sensor or hit you and is going to be revealed in the sensor right? It fires right on in high speed sync because it's going so fast like let's say four thousands of a second as soon as the first skirt starts to come down as soon as the first current starts to make its way down the flash is well I better start shooting flashes now all the way through so the flash starts coming down it goes boom there's my first flash then the second the first guns keeps coming down and then the flash fires again then it comes down again and in the flash fires again then it comes down again on the flash fires again so it starts is firing like fifteen twenty whatever amount of times before that flash before the flesh is coming that is going to theta it's taking multiple multiple multiple multiple people for us off giving you bursts of light so you can keep up with two thousand charter speed and so forth whereas in normal things photography a weight so that first curtain opens up all the way when when the centres exposed it takes the full picture than the second curtain comes and closest okay let's try some exercises were quick that you can try okay bethany, how do you like your background is beautiful all right I'm gonna put my camera and I s so I'm gonna put my camera also two hundred I'm going to show you what happens when you put it on when you put your camera on a shutter speed that's faster than two hundred and you don't put it on high speed think okay he's going to give you that weird curtain going on so sorry I'm not gonna go for beauty right now I'm just teaching a concept okay with beautiful drawings in the background yes that is the first problem solution remove the landscape one hundred one solutions to come in for one hundred to remove the landscape okay I'm gonna put my camera at s o two hundred I'm gonna put a camera at when I go to high speed sync here I'm gonna go to high speed think this camera want actually let you sink over on that should push the high speed sync button so I'm gonna go to six thousand and I'm gonna have the camera take care of entire exposure okay? This is telling me that from one point seven feet two, seven feet I will I'm going to achieve a proper exposure so from one point seven feet two, seven feet so are my one point seven feet of seven feet here so you can easily point the camera take a picture on dh she's exposed perfectly even though I'm at six thousand shutter speed okay so if I was going to go to aperture f thirteen well sorry I'm going to go toe aperture f thirteen on at eight thousand shutter speed now when you put this torture now the flash says even if you tried I'm not gonna be able to expose there's a little line it's just telling you you're teacher you're over the limit ok, so I take a picture here and it's beautiful okay it's just totally black yeah, you are not you definitely eso they started just so you know, we have about ten minutes till our scheduled break. Ok, let us know what you want to d'oh okay, why don't I, um jumping to some important stuff with bethany just kind of doing some ratio stuff and then we can take the break as soon as possible. Sounds good. F y I we have a special shout out for the chat rooms from the show mr south and connor's watching, uh, housing caught on my man that's right? So long since we've seen so uh tender good people good that wants to know about dragging the shutter but we can talk about that later. Okay uh by the way, when people ask me and they did ask me what's first curtain sink first corn think is just regular the flash the flash fires of the beginning and in the shutter closes it's just the way regular flash photography works second currents sink is when the flash fires sorry the shutter opens on in the flash fires at the very end of the exposure so people think there's three normal first curtain and second curtain and there's not there's only first good there's only regular and second curtain that's it all right let's do this quickly. Um well this is put on backwards bam guys, can you see her face nice and clear yeah, you cannot change the angle on this. Okay. Okay, okay. How familiar are you guys with typical wireless flash settings? Not much. You know that there's channel one channel to channel three the owners and why those channels exist so you don't interfere with the signal from another source so you can choose if you're in radio transmissions, you control up to fifteen channels, but if you're in optical transmissions you can only choose like four in most flashes that's the case with this one are receptions. This is basically myself and is very quick and is very simple. I put both flashes on channel one. Okay, I also put both flashes. I put this one on group a and I pushed up with that one in group b okay, so I'm going to grab this flash on I'm goingto put ah radio transmission I'm gonna turn it into a slave by the way, for those of you who are not familiar with masters and slaves is not what you would think you know oh my god. Um master is the flash that sends the signal slaves are the ones that receive the single okay, so that's all it is so I'm gonna put this enslave a and I'm gonna be on china one group a so channel one group a beautiful on dh that's that this one is going to goto this one's gonna be okay ready transmission? I'm it's gonna be okay I'm gonna put us into a slave I'm gonna put this in group b okay, all I'm doing is this by having that being group am by having that group b I can actually change the power off each one and I can manipulate how the lights hit the reception okay, if you are super cool, you can grab three flashes on put on all here and put on all as groupie. If you're super awesome cool, you can put ten flashes here and make a small group a and they will all fire together so it doesn't matter. You know I mean there's a limit but it doesn't matter for my case I only need really one or two flashes of the reception room is really big. I might do a double flash shut up so I have a little have a little thing that you could put three flashes on top of it and you can flash all three at the same time but right now this is a this is b if um if I'm doing the first dance for us I assume the head off the flash manually if I'm doing dancing for us I assume the head out so if it's brandon groom dancing for the first time I assumed ahead so I'm going to take a picture here without him in the head let me see something right here I'm gonna put this right there when I put this right here so while I'm teaching here is simple flash set up for receptions okay and yes it issa wireless set up it's not that complicated you have both cameras are on channel one on this one both fleischer on channel one this is in group a this's in groupie now using my camera I don't know if actually that people online conceived us and they see this I don't know anybody so in my menu I goto my external speed like control so I can actually grabbed my company camera settings and change everything about that flash and everything about this flesh she was using my cameras or wants the the flight the flashes are set up I don't have to sit there and walk all the way over there and bring the bring the light down and change make the changes okay you can change everything yeah uh by the way for those of you wondering I'm used to the five day mark three and I'm using the six hundred e x artie flash artie means radio transmission flash okay so I'm gonna get a flash function setting someone click click on that and then I want to go to e t t l then I want to goto group external spilling control flash function settings hmm okay I'm gonna hit the group the group setting right there and then I'm going to go home I have a b, c d and e you see that someone I goto a and then you have choices you want eight to be manual or you want it to be tt l if you want it to be t t l it's gonna use the flash is going to use the flashes light meter to kind of give it the best shot you can or you can make this flash b manual I'm gonna leave it on tv are right now okay? So group a will be t t l you know for group b is going to be t t l but I'm going to increase the power of that one or make it flash longer so I'm gonna go to plus three so that's going to go crazy this one's gonna be normal? Okay pretty well I mean eight thousand shutter speed should really nothing that freak out take a look at the photo if you can see that on the internet you have perfect exposure on the left because he was a zero give me the right light meter but the photo number serious zero four five but what happened on the right side of her she's totally totally totally bright okay so it's pretty cool when people are dancing tohave that some people cannot brighter than others and then you can click it quickly change it on make these people brighter than those people that just switching the power of a and b a and b that's all you have to do is that complicated or is that somewhat reasonable that kind of thing it's a tell me a little bit complicated is it okay let me let me make this super simple ready so for simple because if you if this is what the case is happening here too on the internet or the internet is it it's happening on the internet does okay the flashes are both in channel one so they can both speak tow my camera I have choices in what groups I want them to be in I can put him in group a b, c, d or e or whatever I can choose this one to be a and I can choose that want to be a and then whatever changes and make they're both going to be the same that changes we'll apply to both equally if I put this one in group a and I put that one in group be then I can control this one separate from that one super simple yes, you have a really specific senate with mark three and these musics nerd watches weren't even do all of that with their camera sort of wei don't have one I think you have a release wasn't accepted with mark three and hood those new six hundred flashes where everything can be controlled from the back your camera I think maybe you could do that with a cannon transmitter I'm not sure, but I would argue I don't have that and I think I'm probably speaking for a lot of people in the studio on syria, on the internet as well where you have to go to the corner of the of the reception hall and adjust your flashes manually in that case, would you like our their settings that you would recommend that we put those flashes on where they'll be good to go for the whole ceremony for the whole reception? Sorry okay that's an excellent question and there's a solution a simple solution to that because you're inside a reception room if you don't have this this radio transmission stuff available to you you just have a regular flash a regular advance flash like this one like five eighty x two or the five baby not regular one it doesn't matter you can go you can go optical on the reception because when the flash fires in a dark room, the other flash should be ableto see the flash and then she'll be able to trigger it and you can control the flash if it is entity. If it is in optical optical transmission, you can lower the power you can use the cannon artie to a cannon yeah, you're right the cannon transmitter yeah some of us are using are not are using maybe chinese brands or I think the pocket wizard you can control it and I think my wife is chinese it's perfect? Yeah, they're wonderful! I don't any problem, nothing problems ok, there were radio except I can't control my flashes through the back of my camera so in that she's using radio transmission yes it is. Yeah if you're using radio transmission using pocket whizzer, you won't be able to control him off on the camera except now parker waiter came up with the new solution to try to compete with these flashes where you can actually control the settings and so they're trying to catch up with the technology. But right now, let me make it super simple there's two ways of firing the flash option one you can fire an off camera flash with optical transmission, which means that the little optical life comes out I mean the other flash says oh there's a light I see the light I should probably turn on by now another lycos ok, puma and in the flight goes okay, that means that they have to see each other. This light has to be seen by the other flash that's option one option two is radio transmission. It goes to radio waves so in other words, you can go through walls. You can go through buildings, you can go through whatever you wanted to go. The second one is the one that I'm using right now. Radio transmission if you do not have radio transmission you khun by radio poppers that can give your radio transmission you can buy ready papa especially given tl technology through optical optical tl technology too. You can buy radio poppers you can buy bucket wizards if you can afford a setup like this, I highly recommend the new kind of setup because it gives you all of the options and control everything on the camera. So that's quite nice I'm not going to turn off turn off this flash from firing and I'm only gonna have her lit by the two flashes here. This will not play a role anymore when you see the lights come out of this flash it's not going to affect the exposure is only going to tell them to fire, okay you're not laughing at me. All right, this photo here, seo zero for six plays, no role whatsoever on my on this place is not firing whatsoever. Okay, that's important. When you're shooting reception photos you want to use, just use this as a triggering device that when you get a cool direction, a light when you're when you're photographing, when somebody comes up to you and says, excuse me, could you please take a picture of me? You go. Oh, sure. And then you really have to, like, quickly switch your settings right with this. What flash? You could just turn off the wireless technology. That's it it's turned off, and I can say, sure, and I could come over here and take a quick picture for so sure I'll take a picture of you. Let me see speed like controlling me. Change this to faithful, and there you are. You have a perfectly exposed only this flashes firing there's, no problems with it.