Lessons

Lesson Info

Speedlights

we're going to talk about now is pimping your speed light and that means really taking these speed lights which you probably already have or you should have if you don't think one of the cool things about speed light lighting is that every photographer probably already has speed lights or they should have you know if you don't have one that's kind of the first things that recommend is get some speed lights because whether you're just shooting events and just needed putting to camera and quickly capture stuff or if you're going to be doing what we're doing and take him off camera speed lights are useful and they're very powerful comparable to studio lights so one of the first accessories you're gonna have to have is some way to trigger them when they're off the camera and my absolute favorite system is the pocket wizard system on a lot of you guys use pocket was familiar with the name I'm sure and they have two different basic systems there's the ones they control the teach yell and all...

ow you to control the power of your flash from camera position we'll play with that as well so from the camera I could do a test shot cia need about another stop just die a little dial here and my remote flash goes up or down so that's there flex system and I believe we actually have giveaways for those coming up like complete flex systems of their pocket wizards which is a really great prize and then they have their basic like the plus which is their latest one the plus three which is essentially just your hard core straightaway signal trigger and that one is awesome because it's just super solid if you don't need the tt l the remote control of the power and you have a way to just go and change the power yourself then that's awesome because it's affordable it's very very solid I have not had a single misfire with mine yet so they're awesome perfect so that's one of the way one of the things you need is a trigger you can get some of the generic brands of triggers and let him say the question well I saw so and so has this or I've seen these online they're remote trigger and they seem to do the same thing and that's fine you can try them but what I found and I probably got four or five different brands of generic triggers sitting in a box in my closet because they don't always work that's kind of the point of all this is that your stuff works right and one of things that will not work sometimes on these off brand triggers is the sink speed uh is not gonna match your camera sing for example have something's supposed to sink it to fiftieth but I can't use to fifty if I have to use two hundred otherwise get a black frame or dark lining the bottom so that's what you pay a little bit more for to get a solid name brand trigger so you can try the cheap ones and if you get one that works let me know about it because I haven't found one that's reliable enough yet sticky filters another one my favorite thing this is like post it notes for your flash and were invented this I'm like mad because I wanted to invent it velcro I invented velcro in fact but they had it already so sticky filters basically it's a filter gel kit thank you there we have some of these I think to give away two and you can get these from us if you want but sticky filters became my new best friend when I started speed lighting you have a little package that's got two of each color your tungsten matches your warm lights your candlelight light tungsten you've also got fluorescent and all you do is peel it off slap it on the front of any flash boom it sticks like a post it note when you're done you peel it off put it back on here and reuse it you save it for the next time so it's the fastest way to color jill your flash and it's really simple so we'll be using these throughout the week as well one of my other favorite accessories is a little gorilla pod and if you guys you guys have seen these old girl pods right and the nice thing about is they're designed for the whole little cameras and such but I find their great flash speed light holders because I could not take a grill a pod wrap it around a little pipe hanging from the ceiling or put it on the top of a door over the door jamb put a little ball head on it and I have a flash and angle that where I want so now your flash again doesn't have to be in a light stand it could be clamped to just about anything so these air great I've got a couple of these my bag with the little bald heads on him pulling out whenever I need to put a flashing an odd place or even on the ground behind somebody feared a wedding one my favorite ways to light the first dance you know we have a couple of dancing and it's a nice romantic room is get a little flash on a gorilla pot and just stick it on the ground behind them to rim light for a little glowy edge around them maybe put a blue gel on it so it has like a evening light kind of feel and as they're dancing they're just silhouetted with this little glowing light from the light on the girl upon the ground and you can easily grab it move it somewhere else or strap it over the top of your head oh my god I just thought of that how fun would that be there you go helmet light crispy light on top of their stuff I come up with some times you know light on your head you're like light over there yeah you need to strap in case I'm going upside down or something like that how do you get more for your speed light for using speed light sometimes you need a little more oomph maybe you want to juice it up with an extra battery pack one of the tricks that have also just uh figured out is that if you zoom the head you know the flash has a zoom for the head you can gain from the whole stop stop and a half mohr output by zooming it to telephoto instead of the white angle setting and some of the flash is actually have like the newest nikon has little button that changes the position you see there's an icon with a wide and a pointy little icon like this if you put on the pointy thing it gives you another boom a little more so you can actually from the standard setting by just zooming in and changing a little setting get about stop and a half mohr output from your speed like that's a lot we talked about how light multiplies to get a full stop maurizio doubling your output of your speed light by zooming the head that's like adding another speed light right so keep that in mind as you're using your speed lights you need a lot more power check the zoom is it zoomed all the way if not doumit especially when it's in a box or some water fire like a grid you don't need it wide you just need this much of the light that's one of the simplest and smartest ways to use speed light it's at least double it and the reason you want to double it of course one more stop double the power but you've also got half the recycled time because if you needed full power on one you'll need half power with two right because each one's giving you half power makes full power so now you're a cycle time doubles cuts in half and also you've got a little safety nets of one flash didn't go off the batteries died on one and you didn't know it it's still have half of an exposure from the other flash rather than nothing if you had only one so it's a really good idea when you can but to speed lights in something like a modifier or behind a scream what we're going to use later okay all right questions on those little gadgets right there quick ok any questions from the audience uh outside in the big world that before I move on to be a good time tio catching the one question that won't go away so let's let's get another way what is the model number of your flashlight can we want us that can we get that or we'll get it later yes that's on the lunch break I will look it up on my computer and we'll put the model of that people are a fan of that flashlight yeah it's great for twelve thirty nine I'm like I'm gonna go buy some more for the sellout a perfect head have just been just one trigger yeah good question gorka triple can you trigger three speed lights with one trigger with kevin cambodia secret top secret sinking wire headphone trick yes um what I use is a headphone splitter you know you buy for your ipod to share your music with somebody else get a headphone splitter and you can split your signal from the pocket wizard two ways three ways four ways triggers many flashes you want yeah I can't I won't say is many clement tested it with as many but at least four see knights from one receiver by just plugging the wires into a headphone splitter and splitting it up and put another splitter and split it up again and put another splitter and split it again you know when you split this signal yes bythe hands heads phone speeder yes this signal it doesn't you know diminish yeah oh yeah yeah no no problem works fine I'm using with up to four speed lights with no problem again I don't know if it'll work with ten twelve speed lights if you keep splitting it you might get some signal loss but with within practical limits up to four three speed lights which most people will probably use no more than three and one looks great um and I have that set up which we will play with later this is my bag of flash wires and stuff here we go wires here's the splitter okay so this goes into your pocket wizard receiver that and then these go into the flash so you get one flash to flash three flash for flash each flash has its own wire right so here's one just like that so that's how you can trigger multiple with one one receiver and we'll be using it later on okay good marion from bucharest in romania is wondering what you think about non brand speed lights non brand speed lights actually think they have a very good use and once you have your main speed light I personally would buy the matching speed light for my camera brand as my main light first so if you were nikon s p nine ten is awesome and then if you need to get extra speed lights you want backups or you want lights to use for other places in the room the off brands could be really affordable options I actually have one from scott robert makes the speed lights that are solid their basic gotta show be one thirty um doesn't have tl doesn't have of anything other than just manual control that's all you need when you really are using it for a background or even for a main light if that's all you got if you're just gonna trigger manually so um I don't know about all off brands if there are created equally I know this one's pretty solid I have no problems with it and I have a couple of these sexy three of these that I have when I need to put a lot of lights I just add these to my collection and they're they're considerably cheaper half of the name brand but considerably simpler but that's all you need sometimes it's great yeah