Okay groups and channels groups and channels allows multiple flashes to fire at the same time. What's great about that isthe one flash in order for this to be able to be separate entities but still fire um the manufacturers said they're going we're gonna have two things to them we're going to put channels don't chat channels and we're gonna put groups channels it's like it's like one person speaking english andi this person speaking chinese okay, so these two never understand each other if this is on channel one and this is one channel to these two are never going to communicate with each other it's one speaking chinese theo in speaking arabic or chinese or whatever. Okay, um if you want both of these to communicate with each other they both have to speak the same language. So consider channels as languages. Okay, so we're going to go to channel one china one is this one speaks english american and goto this one channel one bass one speaks english. If they're both in the same channel, ...

they both speak the same language right now because they both speak english. You can tell this one. Okay, I'm gonna call you a or I'm gonna call you be so if I scream a you lower your power b doesn't say wait me no, not you, okay oh, I'm sorry like that okay, so in order to avoid it it's like having two people with the same name it's gonna become you think like we have to amanda's here we have amanda we have amanda so if I get a face like a man to come here for a second they both come right? But if I call you rebecca and I call you amanda if I say we're making come here for a second you come and you stay right now so when people get confused about channels on groups very simple channels are like a language english english channel one channel one both channels are the same both speak english then you need to be able to tell this to give them a separate name I'm gonna call you a I'm gonna call you be then when I'm shooting I'm gonna scream a goal lower because you're too powerful on b you stay the same I didn't they adjust accordingly is that super clear? So in order for this demonstration toe happen um I'm gonna put this I'm gonna call this one a channel one english a I'm gonna call this one be so you have a little group button I'm gonna push it on oh my god she says b how difficult was that so a b if I tell through my camera b go higher what's goingto happen that's it invisible will stay stay super simple, right? Um I'm not sure why that's so difficult super simple a b okay, so here we go. Uh uh can you both come here for a second? Are you a tweet story? Can you stand right here for a second? I mean, can you stand right here? Okay, I need you. I need your faces, toby the side of your face to be aligned with this. Okay, good. Align yourself with that. We see many put this here. Is there a way we can use his race anymore? Okay. You're ten feet tall, right? What did you say? So you're trying roberta you're trying to get the same height as the space and the different heights. Therefore, how old are you? Five to just get a, uh, that's may I don't think so. All right. Starting to get heavy life uh, take a step this way. That's good that's good. Ok, just a quick demonstration. I'm gonna this is flush. This is flash b this is flash. Hey, if I want to take an exposure where I went to feature her, why would you do that? I don't know, but if you wanted to feature her, I'm going to tell this flash to fire brighter than that flash okay, so just know that real quick, okay? I'm going to go to manual flash if you're wondering wise because I want to have complete control of what flashes air doing so when I go to a group a and I'm going to say I want you on manual and I want you in let's say one, thirty seconds power okay? So it's kind of middle range okay for group b I'm going to say I want you on manual flash on I want you to have very little power I put it on one over one twenty eighth so as one twenty eighth power then I'm going to tell this flash the one that's going to tell this to to speak to each other I'm going to say you can speak to them but don't fire okay, so I'm going tio I'm going to turn this off as a speed light and I'm only going toe use the commander flash or the master flash I saw as a way of communicating between my two flashes so let's go ahead on dh try this and see how this goes I don't know how this is going to go this is not going well at all let me try this one more time good let me see something here okay good let me try I'm going to change my settings here, I'm going to make I'm going to make group a full power just for fun so that's a that's b that's going to go really hard that's going to go barely okay however the flashes are very close to them that's probably why so harsh and it's also a sidelight okay if you look at the picture obviously the flashes are bouncing but check out the picture you see how much light is on her he's receiving some of the light I mean we would have to separate them but she's getting full flash he's not that's why his jacket is still exposed on both sides of the shoulders the owners don't like his face is blown out is because the flasher full power hideous face that's it okay but you can you can tell by the jackets just forget their faces look at the jackets in fact let me do that again let me just to the jackets so let's see okay good check it out so his jacket it's still clean on the jet if you look at the picture on the side of his jacket that's bright it's only because they're spill from the other flash but the other flash that their right side of the photograph that's actually the power of the first speed lights okay um so that's really cool so that's very simple english is channels is the language on then abc groups a, b, c and d are just different names for people so you can say hey, can you go brighter you go darker you say the same you go manual you go t t l and so forth any questions on groups no yes one quick just quickly from j names if you're using the same power on both flashes can you set them both to the same group so both a what happens if you get a good question and yes if you want you can have three flashes all in group a and in the all fire at the same time in the same power why would you do that? Well let's say you go to high speed sync if you go to high speed think you lose a bunch of the power of the flash right? So what I do because I use high speed think pretty much eighty percent of my time shooting I actually use those little triple threats and I put three flashes on my group them together can I get my triple threat so you basically have three cold shoes I put all three together like this and then each flash fires giving me like the equal output of one flash not a high speed think okay, so this is the guy so I actually pretty much have this ready to go whenever I'm shooting I have one flash here one flash here one flash here this is in high speed thing high speed think high speed sync this one is about a quarter of its power this one is that a quarter of its power because it's a high speed sync and this is a quarter of its power when you when you put all three together it creates like full power that's why I do that okay I'm just one more thing quickly roberto so that's why you would use different groups what about why would you use multiple channels? Okay, so let's say um you know those venues where they do three weddings at the same time there are it's like they're trying to maximize revenue like through the end degree well if you have a little panel of grass here and that's waiting eh? I mean this is wedding being that's wedding see like you have different weddings going on the same time the photographer from the middle wedding could potentially be triggering your flashes off the first wedding actually it's happened to me a couple of times I've had to actually go from channel one all the way to channel three like channel one was occupied channel to us occupied I went to channel three and I've never had to do that until I went to like the ritz carlton where it's like fifty weddings at the same day so if you have other photographers that are not they're not part of your thing you may want to uh change the channel uh let's see what else if you are shooting a reception on I'm photographing in channel one and I pushed my fire. My picture and my flashes fire the reception, people dancing, or what have you that's? Fantastic, but your second shooter could be shooting and firing. You don't want your second shooter to kill the batteries of your flashes, so your second shooter isn't channel, too. I mean, when he fires mine docked, so that's it.

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10 Elements to Look For at a Location

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Roberto Valenzuela

Roberto Valenzuela is a photographer, author, and educator based in Beverly Hills, CA. As a member of the prestigious Canon Explorers of Light group, Roberto is considered to be one of the most influential photographers in the world.

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topics covered in this class

Lighting Portrait Photography

Ratings and Reviews

MizUniverse

Im sitting in my office listening to Roberto with my earplugs on and I know I have already left 2 reviews but he's so funny…. my family comes into the office asking me "whats so funny" Roberto makes me laugh out loud with his jokes but at the same time, he is SO great at teaching. Im watching for second time to make sure all his good info is ingrained. HIGHLY recommend you take his workshop on Picture Perfect Lighting if you truly want to take your photography to the next level! WOW thats 3 reviews now…can you tell I am impressed

Maureen T.

I'm taking a portrait photography course at NYIP online. one of the mentors there recommended the posing book by Roberto. I ended up ordering at the library the posing and the perfect practice book. I fell in love with both books...ended up buying them and signing up here for the year membership just so I can take all of his photos courses. I spent most of my weekend doing perfect lighting course here I am in love with the way that he teaches! He makes something so difficult and challenging for me make sense. I also like that he challenges us photographers to be true professionals. I am thrilled to have discovered Roberto and already noticed my photography is better in the short time that I've been studying him.

EDUARDO LLERANDI

I can say enough about this class, the best class ever I've seen about lighting. Roberto Valenzuela, as a professional photographer and artist is the best also as a teacher. If you are beginner, enthusiastic, o professional photographer and want to craft and master lighting for ever and ever, please buy this class. Thanks Creative Live for the opportunity of been part of this. Roberto you are the best. "Eres el Mejor Amigo, Gracias"

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Speedlites: Groups and Channels

Speedlites: Groups and Channels

Lesson Info

24. Speedlites: Groups and Channels

Lessons

Intro and Who This Class is For

3 Groups for All Lighting Scenarios

My Progress in Lighting

Analyzing Circumstantial Lighting

Circumstantial Lighting Q & A

Using a Reflector the Right Way

5 Behaviors of Light: Overview and Angle

5 Behaviors of Light: Inverse Square Law of Light

5 Behaviors of Light: Relative Size

5 Behaviors of Light: Relative Size Continued

5 Behaviors of Light: Color

5 Behaviors of Light: Reflective Surfaces

5 Behaviors of Light: Q & A

Location SWOT Analysis and 10 Things to Look For

Location SWOT Analysis: Examples and Exercises

Overview Q & A

Speedlites: The Basics and TTL

Speedlites: Manual Flash

Speedlites: Zoom Flash

Speedlites: Zoom and Rotating Flash Head and Reflectors

Speedlites: First Curtain vs. Second Curtain Sync

Speedlites: High Speed Sync

Speedlites: Optical vs. Radio Systems