Lessons
Class Introduction
02:51 2Gear: Camera, Flash, and Triggers
27:05 3Gear: Modifiers
11:03 4Camera and Flash Settings
20:12 5Building Exposure For Outdoor Photography
22:12 6Shooting in Direct Sun
23:32 7Shooting on an Overcast Day
18:28 8On-Camera Flash
15:23Lesson Info
Class Introduction
So wonderful to be back here with CreativeLive. Today is all about outdoor flash photography and outdoor flash photography is somewhat complicated. Some of you have used flashes in the outdoors before and you come home with poor results. And so today my goal, my purpose today, is to help you understand what's going on with ambient light with flash. I want to simplify everything. I want to show you how to use one flash and use it really well. We've got some really great images that I'm gonna show that we did during a pre-shoot. We're also gonna shoot some pictures here today in the classroom. So who is this for? Who needs to use this outdoor flash photography? Well, do you shoot sports? Are your kids playing soccer or doing skateboarding? Are you a portrait artist, do you shoot portraits outside? Are you a wedding photographer? Do you do macro work? All of these things can benefit from a solid understanding of flash photography. Today's plan is all about kind of a tech approach, the tec...
hnique. I want to simplify it, I want to make it easy for you, I want to show you how to control the light. A lot of people tell me that they are an available light photographer and you know what that means? When you say you're an available light photographer what that means is, I'm not too comfortable with using my flash outside. So I want to make you an available light photographer and a flash guru. So that's the plan for the day. Let me show you what the schedule is for the day. You can see here we've got basically four segments. The first segment is all about the setup and the gear, so what camera settings do you need? What type of equipment do you need? We're gonna go through all of that. It's kind of the techy, gearhead segment of the day. Then we get to outdoor flash, we start talking about what does it look like to do on camera flash? What does it look like to do off camera flash? What does it mean to shoot on a sunny day versus a cloudy day? What are the approaches that you would take for each of those. Things like ISO's and and soft boxes, and do those change when the sun comes out versus when it's cloudy. The third segment of the day we talk about ND filters, that stands for neutral density filters. So, we talk about controlling the light through filtering. We also talk about high speed sync, so shooting with a really fast shutter speed. I'll show you how we do that. We do some sports and action photography as well. So we'll do a location portraiture, action photography, in the fourth segment, and then we wrap up the day talking about macro. So if you like doing macro bugs, and flowers, I'm gonna show you some really simple ways to use your flashes for those scenarios as well.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Brandon Couch
This is the second class I've taken with Mike and it was amazing! So easy to understand even when you get into the "tech" side of how flashes work but especially when using them outside and how easy it is. I would totally recommend this class to anyone wanting to take amazing images outside with one flash. He even makes bare bulb flash look awesome. Such a great course!
SunSoBright
Mike Hagen has become one of favorite instructors. His instruction and question answers are clear and concise and he has a real world approach. He has a friendly and approachable personality. Best of all during this course he works by himself which makes you feel you too can accomplish the shoot on your own. Mike demonstrates a practical approach with affordable equipment as he is aware many photographers starting off do not have a huge budget. In his other course on using your first flash he also had several gear set suggestions based on budget which was so thoughtful and helpful. I hope Mike does some more advanced courses as well and I will keep watch for his name on the course schedule. A definite thumbs up for photographers starting off using flash.
Laura K.
I have watched a couple of Mike Hagen's classes, and hope Creative Live will bring him back to teach more. He is a fantastic, thorough, easy-to-understand instructor. He doesn't assume viewers already know certain things. He is humble and diligent and truly wants students to understand and learn the things he is teaching. He breaks things down and explains things better than most, and he doesn't hold back on details. Mike also provides helpful handouts/written materials to supplement his videos. I really like his classes and teaching style, and hope to be seeing more from him in the future.
Student Work
Related Classes
Fundamentals