Lessons
Chapter 1 Introduction
01:26 2Why Just One On-Camera Flash
04:22 35 Reasons to Use Flash
10:37 4Common Flash Myths
06:51 5What Makes Flash Challenging?
04:56 6Chapter 2 Introduction
01:36 7Flash-Strobe vs. Ambient-Constant Light
08:19 8Flash vs. Ambient Light Exposure
03:07Flash vs. Ambient Demo
06:42 10Flash and Ambient Balancing for Natural Effect
07:11 11Flash and Ambient Balancing for Dramatic Effect
04:19 12Flash and Ambient Balancing for Creative Effect
07:10 13Understanding Flash Duration
08:37 14Chapter 3 Introduction
01:34 155 Common Key Light Patterns
08:38 165 Common Key Light Patterns w/ Diffusion & Fill
07:42 175 Common Secondary Light Patterns
08:28 183 Primary Subject Patterns
05:27 19Light Qualities
09:56 20The Inverse Square Law
07:50 21Inverse Square Law in Practice
08:21 22Corrective White Balance
10:02 23Creative White Balance
05:47 24Chapter 4 Introduction
01:58 25On Board vs. Hot Shoe Flash
05:57 26Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes
08:59 27TTL vs. Manual Control
08:12 28TTL vs. Manual Recycle Times
04:43 29Flash Power & Zoom
09:18 30HHS vs. ND Filters
12:29 31FCS vs. RCS
07:11 32Chapter 5 Introduction
01:38 334 Tips When You Must Use Direct Flash
06:00 34Bare Bulbing Done Right
11:42 35Grid Snoot + Direct Flash
06:43 36Mini Beauty + Direct Flash
06:08 37Ring + Direct Flash
07:52 38Understanding Modifiers
09:24 39Direct Flash + Shutter Flash
09:07 40Chapter 6 Introduction
01:55 41Ambient vs. Direct Flash vs. Bounce Flash
14:27 42Silver Bounce
14:27 43More Light Silver
11:02 44Soft White Bounce
15:41 45Overhead Bounce
11:39 46Overhead Bounce + Fill
09:42 47Event Bounce
12:42 48Chapter 7 Introduction
01:38 49Natural vs. Dramatic Light
17:43 50Filling and Refining Existing Light
08:44 51Coloring Light for Corrective Effect
13:33 52Coloring Light for Creative Effect
10:27 53Chapter 8 Introduction
00:43 54Case Study 1 - Dramatic Sunset
09:45 55Case Study 2 - Desert Sunset
10:04 56Case Study 3 - Sinister Headshot
09:40 57Case Study 4 - Family Portrait
08:21 58Case Study 5 - Athlete Portraits
11:19 59Case Study 6 - Working Angles
07:22 60Case Study 7 - Drag + Composite
08:09 61Case Study 8 - Less is More
07:16 62The Good Karma Jar
01:41 63Favorite Feature Flashes
05:52 64Favorite Manual Flashes
21:35 65Favorite On Camera Flash Modifiers
21:21Lesson Info
Understanding Modifiers
So we're going to take a moment. We'll do a little study break now normally, with a study break, you actually take a break this time. We're taking a break from going over images to study hence study break. I want to get some more of this understanding modifiers thing into your systems don't know what this feels like really nice actually kind of awesome. Ok, on my left hand or in my left hand, I have the this is the inter fit. Str one one zero strobe ese, twelve dollars little reflector thing, but it kind of looks like a bib, actually, like I'd put my head through this, and then my head's not big or small enough to go through there and then on the right side, I have the stopper flash disk. Now, both these, as you saw in my awesome intro, they fold up to be quite small, okay, so they both pulled out to be pretty small, and they both look like they're roughly do the same thing, so maybe I should have both of these? No, not really. You really don't need both of these. Now. What I want to d...
o is help you guys to analyze these two light modifiers kind of off the store shelf before we take them home before we use them. Let me show you how each one of them would be applied to the lens so let's go ahead and uh well let's let's put this guy on I was going to remove my hood so it's a little bit easier to get around this gigantic linz I have the eighty five on right now so I'm gonna do is put this right around that little linz and then if I want to I can put my head back on and this is it now this is how this guy works okay, so if I go ahead and just pop off a little shot right here take a look way power this up so that the flash duration is longer okay yes seeing that awesome now we're going to now is switch slip switch these two things out so let's go ahead and swap them. I wanted to say swap or switch and then I said sweep that's all right, I have all sorts of slips across the course this oh no well, I dropped it ok, I am back hello. Welcome back to pie time. Okay, we're gonna do is put the f supper flash disk on make sure it's not backwards to pull in a little tongue apply over the head and there we go. So with this guy applied now let's go ahead and take a look at what this guy does, okay cool. So just in looking at the way that these two different light modifiers are applied over the flash, we can get an idea of what they're going to do let's study it. First, we have that kind of very similar white diffusion fabric on both of these. Right? We have it on this. We have it on this. But here's one thing with this inter fit strobe ease whatever guy this goes directly over lens and in this covered the flash head. But did you notice how close it was the flash head that distance from the flash head means that really it's not gonna make the light source that much larger. It will provide a little bit of diffusion because it's now going through fabric, but it doesn't increase the size of the light source, which means that I would think before even using this when I got this, I thought, you know, because the way that his position in the flash head it's not really increasing the size of light source, that means that my flash is probably still going to be rather hard. The edge transition, the shadow from the transition from shadows toe highlights is still going to be hard, but it might have a little bit of diffusion, so might be a little bit less speculum. I'm not sure if I really like that. Then when I got this guy, I thought, okay, this is fantastic because now the light is bouncing up and around this silver all around these edges right here and then it's refracting off the center of this and then coming out of this large white modifying a cent. So the difference is, is that we've actually opened up the size of the light source quite a bit. So in studying that, I thought, okay, this will probably give me a much more diffused or soft light, then something like this guy would and when we put into practice that's exactly what we've got. Okay, so what we taking this break for? Because, again, I wantto hammer these points home that you guys can look at a modifier look at the color of it. Is that white? Is that matt? Is it silver? Is it reflective? Is it larger or is it going to enlarge the light source? Or is it placed too close to the flash where it really doesn't make the light source any bigger? And you can guess what it's going to do before you actually have to purchase it, so let's show you guys these two modifiers in practice and by the way, the strobe ease this little guy's, like twelve bucks. This guys fifty bucks. So obviously there's a big difference in price. But, you know, to be honest, I wouldn't really use this unless they were in a pinch or list. I need to bounce, to be honest, it's. Probably a better bounce than anything. We're gonna hold it through this little loop right here and bounced my flash off of it and get a really nice light. So for that, and be really nice. Okay, so let's now talk about the camera settings for this shot. Now, for both of these, what we want to do was basically take a shot with the flash power at full power. Okay, we want to retain all of our detail, the shot, which meant that we had to basically find camera settings and a flash setting that would give us all the detail. We're not going to blow out or clip anything. And that way in postproduction. What we could do is basically get the skin tones to the exact same exposure and see how much light loss there was between each of these modifiers. Now, once again, if we just think about this, this went directly over the flash, the flash is right in behind it. So when we fire it's, not really increasing the size of light that much, which means that this would probably have a little bit less light loss then this guy, because this guy opens up the flashing, it increases the light source, which means with a larger light source, we're losing a little bit of power and that's exactly what we got in the shot. So for both, these were firing at full power. The flash okay with both, and we also have the singer a five stop neutral density filter. Because again, we want to cut down the amount of light that's available so we can get our sink speed slow enough to be able to synchronize with the flashes without using high speeds. Think we're at an exposure level. Well, basically, we're not blowing anything out were not clipping any detail, and we fire the shot both with eighty five millimeter lens on both these, the finding mark three one one twenty fifth of a second at one point six and so two hundred. Now what was the result? When we got this in the post she was a little bit brighter in this bottom image then she wasn't the top image okay the top images featuring the f supper flash disk the bottom one is featuring this little inter fit stroh bees so when we even these two things out we can see that basically the strobes puts out enough power well they're dark in the background by a little bit how much exactly it was around one third to one half of a stop so we're losing about a third to a half a stop more light with the flash disk then with this little stroh bees but what about the light quality? Take a look at this you look at these two shoot shots and you're like those are pretty similar actually but they're actually really not when you look closely at the top shot at work shooting fairly close to our subject here this top image if you look right underneath the jaw line you could see the shadow from the f stop a flash disk is much less pronounced it's much softer the transition is much easier with his bottom shot look at how strong that shadow is on the bottom it's a much harder life because again we're not opening up the light we're not creating a bigger life source it's almost direct flash it just is a little bit less speculator than direct flash would be so we have more highlights here too, because this is a more speculator light than this would be because this is opening it up and it's firing through a large white as opposed to this which is keeping it small and just going through white. So here we have a softer light is more even all around. We have a beautiful light on the hair we have overall just a higher quality light with the f stopper flash disk. But we do have a little bit of life los we were able to tell all those things we were able to predict every one of those things before we even put these onto our flash. So again, the point is, look at these like modifiers and study them. The primary tips silver or reflective is going to mean a straw in a more speculum light white and matt is going to be basically, well, let's see, we have white matt is going to be more light as faras intensity of the light it's going more diffused. Larger light is going to mean a softer transition between shadow versus highlight and a smaller light is going to mean a harder transition between shadow on highlight between these four things and analyzing the way that it's set up against the flash. We can really guess what it's going to do before we even go out and buy anything in addition to trying to save you time and money from buying useless things were also trying to show you that when we get a lighting to one and lighting three oh, one thes principles of lighting and modification. They never change. It stays the same across the board. The modifiers might look different. The size of them might be different. But you could always guess what something's going to do. And you'll get to that point by the end of this workshop.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Sid
The best class for understanding light and lighting there is bar none. Pye is an excellent teacher and the quality of the material provides for a rich and very informative experience. Pye breaks down the fundamentals in easy to digest packets and then elaborates as needed. If there is one class that you watch this is it! Worth purchasing and saving for future use. I would also HIGHLY recommend downloading the saving the PDF of slides that accompany the videos. Again, and can't say it enough, this is THE BEST video to lighting on Creative Live. A must watch for the novice and the expert.
Petra
Great course, I highly recommend it if you want to become a more confident flash user. Pye is a wonderful instructor and just such a nice guy, it's a pleasure to listen to him
Simon Metselaar
This is the best thing that happened to me since I've been into photography. What a lifesaver. Unfortunately I already payed for some courses that are not Pye, but Pye just nails it. Amazing, and kind of a life hack. Thanks again :)