Lessons
Day 1
1Introduction
11:19 2Two Exposures Explained: Ambient & Flash
18:24 3Flash! A Drama in 4 Parts
18:42 4The Triangle: Aperture, ISO, Shutter
18:08 5Overpowering the Ambient Light
37:36 6High Speed Sync
15:03 7High Speed Sync Q&A
25:15Shutter Priority Mode
23:12 9Manual Mode
50:21 10General Q&A
19:21 11Color It
15:53 12Diffuse It, Twist It, Pull It
17:29 13Click It, Zoom It, Remote Control It
24:13 14Shoot: Softbox and Umbrella
41:44 15Shoot: Three Light Setup
21:56 16Shoot: Freezing Motion
17:39Day 2
17Introduction
06:28 18Bouncing the Light
36:18 19Off-Camera Flash Options
29:03 20Light Modifiers
08:15 21Limitations of Your Flash
20:48 22Shoot: On the creativeLIVE Roof
27:55 23Flash Modes: TTL & Manual Mode
16:50 24Light Metering
13:48 25Light Metering Q&A
42:50 26Guide Numbers
18:52 27Built-in Meter
20:28 28General Flash Q&A
24:10Day 3
29Light Shaping
36:58 30Group Lighting
46:18 31Lighting Dark Environments
17:37 32Indoor Holiday Photos
23:10 33Outdoor Events at Night
13:46 34Lighting Dark Events Q&A
13:14 35Portrait Lighting
32:22 36Portrait Lighting Q&A
21:57 37Butterfly/Clamshell Lighting
16:06 38Q&A and Lighting for Men
24:12 39Final Q&A
06:15 40Ninjas!
27:02Lesson Info
Light Modifiers
Lite modifiers we have several so one of the things that is a cz key to light is the size of the light the size of the light matters a small light source creates very hard light you get shadows that just stop there's no uh no room for that shadow to sort of dissolve away right? And so what we want to do is we want to create a larger light source so sarah, can you pop out here just for a second? Um I don't recommend doing this with somebody you don't know, but so I'm sorry coming out I'm going to show you why this is the case to stand right there if I have a small light source like this very small light sources it's about the size of my finger not even as big as that, right? So if I'm pointing, this is sarah it's extremely directional the light can't get around anything, right? And so what it's going to dio is this going toe smack right on to her face and we're gonna get these hard shadows we aren't gonna have any light falling underneath her chin because it's so directional there's jus...
t like going right at her, right? If I were it to take that same light source and able to make it a larger light source like this so much larger that is what I'm now doing when it bounced the life is now like isn't coming straight in anymore now light is coming from a couple different directions and I'm able to get a little bit more light underneath her chin and that light is going to defuse that shadow to make it a little bit softer it's going kill that shadow if I then make that light a little bit larger like this l a cow large that is in comparison to this guy much, much, much larger and so now with the light is going to be doing is that light can come around sarah right? And so it can add light behind around and it's going if there are shadows back here is going to start dropping the shadows out so instead of just a hard light will be much softer light and that's also an umbrella also get that very much larger so thank you for that have you back so yeah light modifiers are really going to help you get that like to be soft now the other thing that is important to note with with light because the sun in the sky does that give us hard, lighter soft, light, hard really hard light how large is the sun and compared to the earth really big so why is it that this big source of light gives us such hard light because besides the size of it because it's way over there billions of miles so what happens is if you have a very large life force like this really close don't be freaked out and you keep moving that farther and farther and farther away then what happens is the effective size of this light becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and what happens is that soft light that we used to have right here becomes harder and harder and harder and harder and the farther away you get the heart of light it's just like the sun so we pulled the sun over and cooled it down and put it right here man, we'd have soft light and crispy josh crispy josh is great for breakfast you should try some delicious so yeah, the size of the light matters and the distance of the light from the subject matters so another thing that I have here is a quantum flash I talked about this a little bit yesterday. I think maybe last night talking about yesterday or last night yesterday. Okay, this flash is amazing and we're going to show you right after the break why it's so amazing it's a little bit different than our other speed lights one you can see that it's got a larger reflector the other thing that it has it does the twist and bouncing all that kind of stuff it also it's sort of beefy see that so the flash to is a little bit larger a lot larger it can have different modifiers that go on that so a reflector just like a studio's true, we've got a little soft box somewhere that pops right on there that you can have you can do a bare bulb, but the after you has little balance thing you can mount thes in the corners of difference buildings and stuff so a lot of wedding photographers when they're going from a brand specific speed light to not brand specific what they're doing is they're jumping tio quantum and we'll do some tests with this quantum to sort of show you this, but if you're a wedding photographer or an event photographer, I would strongly suggest that you check out the quantum flashes they're about triple the output of their competitors so much brighter it means you're going to have more success in bright sunlight would have more success it distances they're burdened photographers that used these wildlife photographers because you khun get reflectors assume the light there's all kinds of really nice things they're no built in batteries you have to have an external battery pack, which is why this is from dangling here you can get adaptors that go from the quantum to your camera and then the tl stuff works with this there's all kinds of really groovy things they're really expensive just so you know my so I think that one with the battery was about twelve hundred dollars something like that and you also have to get a flash bracket they won't amount to your camera and I forgot mine so lovely ok, so really it looks really cool it looks old school it looks old school and the thing about these and there's some new ones on I forgot what they're called to try accepting but they have radio triggers built in so not only are they all the benefits that I just told you but they also have radio triggers so you can get them off camera immediately and control them that way so there's a plethora of options for that we're going to take a break let's do one question before break they were going to go to breaking come back we're going to talk about something that is really fun. Okay one question let's make it a good one make it a good good one good one one that you're going to enjoy answering not a joy joyner trick question like last night okay let's see fashion tv always asking questions from singapore what's your views on parabolic umbrellas with regards to a bigger light source how would you place the speed light and sure there's no hot spot and light fall off would you introduce more speed lights so a parabolic umbrella are parabolic modifier of any type is different than a normal reflector, so a normal reflector has a shape that's sort of like this. This is a little parabolic actually, um and it's sort of semi circular parabolic is more of an egg shape, like an egg, and what it does is instead of just reflecting light, it takes light gathers and it reflects it at a very directional reflection, so it takes all that stuff, and it throws it out exactly straightforward, and you have to focus where the the source of the light is inside that umbrella to make sure that it works with any light source. We have some west cut parabolic umbrellas that we love their one hundred bucks there seven feet we didn't bring because we couldn't put it on the plane, but, um, when you take one of those umbrellas and you have it off axis, so most pretending this is one of those have it like this, and I move it like this, and I'm talking all of a sudden it sounds like I'm in, like have a microphone it's really crazy because it works with sound and light, so it takes that takes all that light and it just goes straight forward instead of just going all different directions, so with the speed light, you would have to get a bracket that allows you to to put that speed light in a very specific place inside that umbrella to make it work. And we haven't really tried that cause. The parabolic ce. We have seven feet, and our speed lights have enough. Light them up. So I'm not quite sure. I haven't seen a small enough parabolic umbrella that I think would work great with a speed light.
Ratings and Reviews
Gary Hook
Mark's wealth of knowledge combined with his engaging and 'fun', experimental approach to teaching is a winner. I learned a great deal but what truly reinforces the learning is that he actually shows what he is talking about. He gets a question and quickly sets up the practical demo for the answer. Brilliant. Given that this session took place some time ago ( but by no means diminishishes the tremendous learning value) the lessons and knowledge are based techniques that will stand the test of time; however, if I was advising Mark on his teaching techniques, the main are a of 'focus' would be to be more effective with his demonstrations. He holds the back of the camera up, makes his point quickly and then moves on, just as the video is locking on. Great idea to talk about what button you are pushing, but when your fingers are obscuring the 'learning point' it diminishes the effectiveness of the demo. Overall great course which I will watch parts again and highly recommend it. Thank you PS Give both Kelsey and John and huge hug as they are all-stars making things happen!
Alexander Svishchenkov
Great! I'm so thankful to you, CreativeLive, for providing this great opportunity to learn an important subject of photography - Speedlights - from the professional Mark Wallace. He is such a good teacher and explains everything in real-life situations and on slides. As he fires his flash, I instantly see the resulting photo on my screen, so this is theory combined with practice. I'm in fact watching you from Belarus, and it's midnight, so I'm fighting with sleep, but I can't get myself away from the screen. this is my 1st CL experience. I'm very grateful for running a rewatch of the previous Day the following morning, so I woke up and saw what I'd missed. And it's totally free! Thank you so much for a true first-class education!
Aussie David
Truly a fabulous class. Mark has such a gift for taking a complex subject and making it so understandable and fun at the same time. Mark is easily one of the best instructors out there. Highly highly highly recommend this class.
Student Work
Related Classes
Lighting