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Flash Basics

So let's get into some basics. 1st 1 unit of light. Okay, Uh, and we talk about stops a lot in photography. And if we want to add a stop, it means doubling the light. That's all it is. Okay, so if we wanted to add one stop and that's one unit of light how many units of how many units of light would you see if we wanted to add one? Stop if there was one there. To your right. Right. That's one. Stop. Get it. You're doubling the light. Let's say I wanted to add another stop on top of that one. How many balls of light would you see at the bottom four? Man, you guys are geniuses, right? So what to stop? Difference is not twice the light. It's actually four times light. You get how that works, Okay. And so, uh, let's say this. Let's say this one unit of light is creating F four worth of light. What would to units of anybody know what two units of light would create? What f stop. That would be 56 man. Five Course. You guys Roberts, the naked guy right away. Right. Okay, now let's say we're go...

nna add another stop. What would the f stop me there? Anybody know? Eight? Yes, You are correct. And how this works. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but on your camera there's thes numbers. These numbers look familiar. There f stops in the old days, they used to have those numbers on the lenses because we used to have to manually adjust everything. So, like, if you actually if you look at a lot of the Nikon lessons, they still have that on anybody. Nikon users here, right? If you look at your lenses, they have that on there, and they have these different and these are the different stops. But you're going to know what Mathis is too complicated. How you remember 1.45 point. It looks like there's no rhyme or reason to this. How is why don't they just comfort to the metric system into B 712345 writes? Well, how does that work? Does anybody know how they arrived at these numbers? Well, it's a multiplier of 1.4. So if you want to get to the next stop, you multiply that by 1.4 and you get the next stop or you divide by it and you get the stuff below it now. Interesting. Lee. Enough. Does anybody know what 1.4 times one point forest for close to it? It's the square root of two, right was to 1.4 is the square root of two. And that's why we get our doubling. Understand how that works. So that's why they use 1.4. So a lot of light, a lot of computations is just basically the doubling of things. And that's when we're talking about stops. We should understand that, and everyone should know these numbers and have them memorized, like on the back of their hand. Okay, now I know that is, like might be something difficult for you to do. But let's face it, if you want to get to the next level with your photography, we're gonna have toe, learn some things and be forced to do things that are uncomfortable for us, right? And that means we might even have to get a little bit technical. I know we're trying to resist it, but if we want to understand light and be the master of creating our light. We need toe understand these things to move forward. It might not be easy, but we have to go through this process. Okay, so no, that Okay, then we talk about equivalent exposures. And what I mean by that is ah, there's like, the exposure triangle. And it's based on your exposure is based on three things, right? The I S o d f stop and the shutter speed. Now you can change each one of those that each of them play a dynamic. Right? But you can create equivalent exposures even though these numbers here change. Like for example, from this photo, these looks similar and exposures that not correct. But here I raised the I s. So I doubled the I s O increasing one more stop of life, right? So when I increased the I s so I'm making the iess, they sent the camera sense of sensor more sensitive delight. Is that not correct? And so therefore, I'm increasing one stop of light. But how did us so I'm right here. I increased the light. That means I have to bring it back down in some of the other settings. Is that not true if I wanted to look the same. So what I did was I kept the f stop the same will then to reduce the light. I what? Doubled my shutter speed. Okay, so that creates an equivalent exposure. And then on this case here, I kept the I s l the same and I raised my f stop making this 11 stop darker. But in order to bring up the exposure, I changed the shutter speed and I lowered that to bring it back down. Okay, you must learn how to rock arrived at equivalent exposures immediately in your head. Okay, It's a technical thing we must master because there's certain constraints with learning flash, especially in manual. There's certain shutter speeds that we have to stay under, um, in order for it to get to work. But we must find those equivalent exposures in other ways. And so that's why if you're not good at this, you can practice by just basically shooting in manual, um, a lot and and changing one thing and then trying to get that exact same exposure by changing the other elements. Ah, and practicing that way, this is the number one misunderstood concept about flash. OK, flash is not controlled by shutter speed. Can I have everybody repeat that? What control? Can you write that on the back of your hand in pen And remember that you cannot control flash by your shutter speed. And let me explain that a little bit. Um, I need a piece of paper or something. Um, let's Yeah, that'd be perfect. That would be perfect. Okay, let's pretend this is our camera sensor. Okay, So here's our camera sensor. What happens is is your shudder comes up and exposes your camera. Sensors that not correct. And once this shutter fully exposes the sensor, that's when your flash gun fire, right? What happens if the center comes up halfway and you fire flash? What do you get? A nice big shadow across there. Anybody done that before? Right. That means that your flash is not in sync with your camera. You ever heard of that time? So you have to be is a So the only time that you you can fire your flash is when your shutter fully exposes your sensor. Bam, You got Just get Can I control the light value with my shudder. You're either going to get fully exposed or you're going to get a shadow across the sensor. That's it. You're not controlling light at all with your shutters. Me. Does that make sense? So what is that? 186,000 miles per second? It's beautiful. That's a speed of light. That's why you can't you know your fastest shutter speed is like molasses compared to the speed of light, right? You're not in control. Light with shudder. It's instantaneous, right? The time. Let's say I'm fire. Ah, flash right and take a picture. Priscilla. It's going M six feet. They're six feet back. How long does that take light to go? 12 feet when it goes 186,000 miles per second, it's instantaneous. And so you can't control light with your shutter. You can with the F stop by making the whole smaller or larger. But you can't do with your shudder. And so we talked a little bit about flash X sink. So when you're shooting manual, I said, in order to expose that ah, sensor, your shutter has toe fully expose. Is that not correct? Well, certain cameras they have what they call extinct. Does anybody know what extinct is? All cameras talk about X sink. Ex sink is the fastest shutter speed allowed to shoot your camera in manual flash. And in general, what does anybody know that number? 2 50 for most cameras, Is that correct? And so when you're using flash ah, you can't go above 2/50 of a second or else it will not be in sync. And you'll when you fire flash, you're going to get that strip on the bottom. That shadow across your sensor that makes sense to you guys. Okay, um, your flash duration acts like a shutter speed in little light. I'll talk about a little bit about this later. If you look at this photo, right And look at look at my camera settings. I'm at 1/6 of a second FAA at I s 02 and I'm at 1/6 of a second. Yeah, Okay, First of all, I don't own a tripod, so everything that you see is handheld. Okay? And so Wait, this doesn't make sense. I'm at 1/6 of a second, and yet I was able to stop this bead of water in mid air. How is that possible? With flash, right? Flash enables you to do this so your actual ah, shutter speed in a low light situation actually acts like the duration of the flash. Right. So let me, exactly. I want you to look at the amount of time it takes for this bills this life to go often on. Right. Let me turn it down real low. That's real fast. Ate it. That's really your shutter speed when you're shooting in little light. Not the physical shutter speed of your camera. So I What I did was I did this diagram. Shutter controls the continuous like, or the ambient light. Okay, but it doesn't control the flash. Okay, So the reason why I had it at 1/6 of a second was because I wanted to capture these clouds up here that we're very, very dim. So I had to open my shutter upto 1/6 of a second to capture that. But let's let me show you a diagram to help explain this a little bit better. Let's say we're taking a picture, okay? And there some light coming in. But what we did was we created a light proof box. So there's no light entering this box, and we're gonna take a picture of this person, Okay? There's no light in there. Let's say we have our flash, okay? And we fire that flash and it on Lee. What illuminates that subject for what? A fraction of a second. That Not correct. So how long can I have that shutter open before that? Images over. Exposed. If there's no light coming into their right, I could I could literally I could set that shutter for three hours. I could open it up, right? I could come in at our number two, light up my subject, right? Bam. And then I could step out for a now or go to the bathroom or whatever, and then I could come back and close that shutter down, and that still would be perfectly exposed. Why? Because there's no more light coming in to my camera because it's dark. So let me show you a little bit about how this works. Okay? Oops, sorry. Trying to get the hang of this year. Okay, See that when the flash goes on, Let's say let's say, uh, we're lighting this subject. The flash goes off, it's a fraction of a second. Is that not correct? Just like that? The subject is he not still there? Right? But you can't see that subject because there's no life there that's subject of. Walk it over to the corner and relieve himself over there. Walk around, have a sandwich, do whatever and you can't see them. So what happens is is when that light hits that subject for a fraction of a second, it freezes that image on your sensor. That's how I was able to get that beat of water in there because there's no other light entering the camera sensor, so it's just freezing it for a fraction of a second. Confused makes sense. OK, so look at this picture again, since so what's happening is here is I'm firing the flash. It's very, very dark. It was like probably 8 30 at night, and the clouded area was actually brighter than where my subject waas, because the sun was barely hitting those clouds as the sun was going down and illuminating them. But where I was, it was completely dark. Okay, so bam fired the flash. Okay, You can't You can't see that person anymore. It froze that water right there. But I left my shutter open. So I what could expose the clouds? Now, isn't that exciting? Actually, when you think about it, because what's exciting is when you're using flash photography. It's like taking two exposures at the same time. That's why you can get this fantastic HDR images. Because basically, you're shooting two different exposures, one exposure for the sky or whatever and one exposure on the subject. And you're mashing them together all in one shot, and so that can expand your creativity. And let me show you some more examples of this. Okay, look at this. Okay. I took this photo at the same workshop in Hawaii, actually, and I placed the light behind them, and I look at my shutter speed. It's 1/60 of a second. Okay. The very next photo, I'm going to keep basically everything the same. And all I'm going to do is going to change my shutter speed. That's it. Okay. And so what I'm going to do, I'm going to put this shutter speed at 1.3 seconds. Okay. With same lighting. Okay, that's what you get, right. She's razor sharp Because where she was, it was dark. Okay, That flash went on for a fraction of a second and froze her in time. She could walk around, jump around or whatever. Cameras not really going to see her, because it's dark there. Okay, I'm opening it up because I want illuminate the background. Right? And you can tell I'm hand holding it at 1. seconds, because isn't that blurry back there? Right? Because there's some shake their as I'm holding it for 1.3 seconds, and that's why you get that blur there. But she's razor sharp, so I got to exposures and wants. So look at that. Changing your shutter. I get completely two different shots. What's your vision? Yeah. Is your vision something like this where you're creating a dramatic silhouette, or is your vision using something flash? More like kind of a fill open ambient light. Now, do you have the tools to understand how to create that vision? Right? Flash is very, very powerful. Just by changing your shutter speed, you can get two completely different looks. Just depends on you. You might instead of 1.3 seconds, you might want 1/2 a second? I don't know. It's whatever you choose it to be. But you should be in control. What? You want to achieve ends, But you have to understand, Flash. Okay, so in, uh, how to control your flash? Well, in a manual, we can control our flash in four different ways, But in t tl, we could control it in one way. Does anybody know that? Well, okay, let's say, ah, we're taking a photo here, okay? And I Let's say I'm using a t t l system. Okay, let's say I've got it. Let's say I have mounted it on my camera and I'm taking a picture and I'm in t tl fully automatic. Everything right? I take the picture goes Oh, yeah, looks a bit too bright. What are my options? How am I going to get that light less bright when I'm in t t l. What's your only recourse? You could expose for something that's break you could expose for something that's bright. What happens if you don't have anything right there? This person's wearing dark exposure, compensation, exposure, compensation, right, Evey compensation. That is my only recourse. I could goats and say, Hey, flash, go minus one Stop or minus 2/3 stops or minus one and 2/3 stops. Right? Does it Anybody know that sitting on their camera? And so that's how you can control your life. That's the only way. It's by relative, depending on what you're focusing in, what your camera is. Mita ring. Now, if your camera meter changes, then your life value is going to change, too, because it's relative right. It's just going to give you minus one stop below whatever it's metering. So that could change constantly on. And that's what happens in T T l. A lot of times you could take a photo, you could fire 10 shots and they could look slightly different. And you're not going to get that rock solid. Same exposure every single time, not less. You switch to manual. So because what happens is this OK, so you fire in t TL mode? Oh, it's to Price. And you try to be tricky. And you said Okay, well, shoot, I'm gonna lower. It's too bright. I'm gonna raise my f stop to allow less light in there. Do you think the camera doesn't know that you raise your f stop. It says, Oh, Scott raised his F stop from 562 f eight. I'm going to give him one more stop flight. You know, it's impossible to trick, right? Oh, I'm gonna change my I s l So I raised my okay. It's too bright. So I go from I s 0 200 and I lowered down to 100 right? Do you think the camera doesn't know? Of course it knows. Oh, Scott changed his eye. A soul from 200 down to 100. Therefore, I'm going to give him war light. Let's say you do it by distance and you fire. It's too bright and you move the flash back. Well, a lot of times. Ah, Cameras take a pre flash to get certain distances and readings in, and it knows the camera knows. Oh, Scott moved his flashback three feet. Give him more light. You are in full control of your camera. They have you. So the only way you could do it says you know what? Fire minus one TV. Meyer, uh, do it minus 2/3 ivy or increase the light so evey compensation is the on leeway to be able to control your light in t T l. And it's very inconsistent because it's a relative Mitarai. Okay, for example, let's say you're focusing. Well, I'm taking a picture of Deseret and one time I focus on her dark hair is going to meet her for that dark hair. And then a second time I focused and I meet her on her face, which is lighter. Then it's going to give me a different exposure, right? And so your flash power is gonna be inconsistent, right? Or depending on what's walking by or whatever that meet Oring could change. I don't know if that metering changes. Then your life will change too, and you can't get a consistent result off of it. Okay, But Emanuel, you can control it in four ways, and this is what we're going to talk about. One is flash output. So I could go to this flash and I've taken a picture of Neil okay, and I got it at eighth Power and I fire it and it's not bright enough. What could I do? Raise it to quarter power or raise it 1/2 pound? Raise it if I don't know whatever you want to do, right, I can simply raise it or lower it right here on my flash. And I have control over. Okay, That's one way. What's another way? Anybody else know another way? They're supportive for aperture. Okay, let's Well, let's go through this list thing. This is right. OK, the distance to the subject. Okay. Taking picture of Neil again. Okay. Let's say I fire it and it's not bright enough. I can move closer, right? I could have just till I could actually move two centimeters if I want. I am in full control. I can just find tune that light exactly the way I want to. Whatever my vision. Whatever my art calls for, I'm in control of it. Okay, here's another reason. I mean, here's another way aperture we talked about. So I take the side of Neil. Okay. I'm shooting at f four and it's too bright. What? Can I turn my aperture toe? Let less light in 56 or 45 Anything above four, I think. Control that light now. Your camera ISS set up in third stops. Is that not correct? So you can control your light by just changing the aperture. Now, that's cool, because let's say you're shooting a wedding. Okay, so you're here shooting the wedding and you have your assistant over here. Ah, holding the light for you like, ah, firing on the subject. Okay. And you look at it and let's say it's there's a lot of chaos going on and it's noisy and you're really far away. Let's say you're 20 feet away from your assistant, right? And it looks too bright, right? And it's impossible for you to yell. It just Is that a fair enough last out? You know, it's just impossible to, and anyway, your assistant is busy facebooking. So you you're not a lot for anyways, right? So what you can do is change your aperture and control that light without even talking at all to your assistant and your full control. Okay, the last way is I s O. Has anybody heard of the Stroh vis movement, right? It seems to be kind of fashionable to use small strokes, and the reason is is the ability to shoot at High iso's Okay, if I turn my camera, I s o up to 25, and I use this tiny little flash, I can light the entire city of San Francisco. Okay, that's so therefore, technology has allowed this to be a monster. It's so powerful now because we can make that sensor extremely sensitive to light. And this thing is like overkill When you put it on 25,000 I s o. And so as technology gets better, we can start to understand it and use that to our advantage and understand that we can get away with a lot less light if we turn our eyes so up. Okay, so those are the four way to control your flash. You should memorize those flash output distance aperture and I s O.