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Speedlights Part 1

Please help me. Welcome my bulletin to the state. Welcome back to create a blind, my friend. I love it here. I really do. I love seattle. I love creating live it's a challenge to teach here and I enjoy that. Well, we are happy to have you and I know you've got a lot to share speeds. Life is always a challenge for me for a lot of people out there. So let's do it. Thank you. Welcome guys again, my name's. Mike fulton, my wife and I run. Try coast photography. We're roughly find houston goes south and a little town called lake jackson, texas. We have a forty five hundred square foot studio on an acre half lot right across from the one main high school that we the big one that we actually service. But we do everything from what started off, like set is a crime scene investigator, and I started shooting weddings. Probably. I think my first was in nineteen ninety three, so I'm getting old. I used to not think I'm old. I'm kind of admitting that I'm getting old now and then we just rolled ove...

r. We got tired of traveling around the world we did weddings, literally almost every corner of the world. And as my daughter got older and I wanted to settle down, so we started opening up a studio, and we do hyeon seniors, which is my wife's mainly job, and then I do a lot of volume right now, we actually have about five hundred seniors coming to our studio starting today, so my wife is not going to be watching this. You'll be photographing seniors all the time, and just to kind of give you an example of what we do that's the same girl, that's the wide range of art that we produce in our studio. So one is orchestra foto at school, and the other one is an art project that we do with our high school seniors if they choose to with a little beacon come in, have a concept of an idea, and we actually have hair makeup, and we basically put that concept tio to photography on guy forgot to show you, but we have, ah, new free newsletter, so if you're interested, you can always send up for a newsletter, you could go to our website for that as well. Ok, so today we're gonna talk about off camera lighting, and I've done off camera lighting what started off as a crime scene investigators where I learned it. I really found that I could walk through the crime scene, put up flashes, walk out the same way contaminated probably the least possible and control that light from my master flash on my camera and to me that was invaluable. I had no clue I was going to be where I am today. Twenty years later, I just knew that I could adjust the light from the camera without having a walk back over to it. Now we're going to talk a little bit again, it's a master's class it's three hours and we're gonna be really intense, so we're going to talk a little bit about manual we're going to talk a lot about tl, the automatic aspects and how we actually use the automatic aspects to get us where we're going, but we're still adjusting everything manually. We're just using the computer in the camera, the flash to get you there a lot faster, and I think that's what a lot of people today simply don't get it, the uc tl it fails on them, they have some issues, we're going to talk a lot about the failures, why fails howto work around those failures? So when you're actually on a job in front of a client you can get through without looking like an idiot, so if one of these failures comes up, you know what's gonna happen so I live off camera line as you can see this is a wide range of photos it's just some some new and some older ones but for me it is just great to be able to go anywhere and everywhere to do it. We had a thought, I guess in april we actually thought I actually thought of today basic flash class here, creative live and this is one of the shots and if you see that creative live it if you haven't seen, I suggest getting it because it's going to be a kind of a beginning of what we're going to talk about today but this is actually on the roof here creative live in when we planned the event, I was like, yeah let's do a live shoot on the roof will be easy to seattle be cloudy will be no problem just like today there was some clouds off in the distance but it was as bright as you could possibly be upon that roof I could not see my viewfinder it was like shooting film, I was panicking front of one hundred thousand people in creative life was going I'm going to look like an idiot I didn't even know I got this shot until I got out of the session and downloaded the images that night because I could not see anything it was live feed but what I love about you about flash is I can go anywhere with it this is up on the roof one little flash in the midday sun and you were getting images and the key here is not to get an award winning mayor image that's just beautiful the key is to make your clients happy and get a solid paycheck and earn a living and to be a successful photographer because off camera lighting especially for weddings and high school seniors it could be at two o'clock in the afternoon and the worst lighting conditions there is and so we're going to talk about being able to get those images in that horrible lighting and be successful at it all right, so what is off camera flash? This is some basic stuff but it's basically a unit of flash it's not built into the camera and they are managed in two ways a lot of people this is called on camera flash they think that it's a flash actually the on ly on camera flashed and technical terms that I've always been taught is the one that pops up on your flash. So while this is an external flash on your camera still considered an off camera option which a lot of people don't realize and then obviously the one that most people knows you khun matter on the feet that comes with the camera a lot of people don't realize these little feet that's in the pocket of your little camera bag you get most people throw it away they never even use it that actually mounts on the camera for you khun actually mount it on a light stand like this and this is basically what I carry everywhere in the world when I travel I carry two flashes maybe three depending on what I want but that's that's all I carry and so all the images you'll see and what we're going to be showing is just captured with that foundation that basic foundation alternately how did they communicate? I'm a big guy and you got to kind of go back to where I'm from if you ever come down the lake jackson texas there's absolutely no reason to unless you work it out chemical company but it's a really I love the people there people are just the most amazing things in the world but the area itself is really pretty ugly I know it sounds bad to say but it's really ugly it's it's flat you get the runoff of the mississippi river because all the tides and the gulf of mexico go east to west and so all the mud from the mississippi comes on our beach and if you look at a map from the corner of mexico to the tip of florida were in the very back of the gulf so everything that falls off in the gulf of mexico comes right up on our beach and so when I was photographing these wedding so these engagement sessions on the beach I was like how can I get quality images on the speech where you don't see the brown water when you don't see the crap that's were floated up on the beach and so to me I couldn't use a reflector because the reflector on a good day it's twenty miles an hour wind on a beach and sow and I had to have someone else hold it and so now you're asking a parent who's paying you money to hold it didn't make sense I couldn't use just manual flash which we're going to get into because manual flash you can't use high speed sync and we're gonna describe what high speed sync is here in a minute so I had to learn tio I had to learn how a camera's flash canada cannon and nikon nikon they actually communicated and the problem was I had all these failures and I didn't know how failed why it failed and I was frustrated there was no there was no creative live back then where you have people like me talking about it it was little just trial and error so it took me years but I'm going to go over in three hours years tto learn these problems but the whole key was I had to learn how the science of these flashes worked and so for me the greatest way that communicate is when the light admits an infrared or actual all wavelengths of light and I put this little chart there just to show how the visible light that humans see it's such a small part of the band of light most people call when these flashes communicate back and forth. Most people call this the infrared or I our system, and the reality is it's more than I our system. If you use a wireless transmitter that's just on there like the s to the s u nine hundred for the two or three from cannon that is just an infrared system, but we also use these flashes on the camera, and this is the every wavelength of light and that's, one of the keys of why, when I use off camera lighting, I like to use this on camera external flash and use all the wavelength of light because you get better reception. If you're going to do wireless flash and we're getting weird, we'll talk more about it later. The second one is an offshoot can record if you do photography, you have all you want to off camera flash. I highly suggest purchasing one of these simple chords you can get him for fifteen dollars always to one hundred opinion which brand and if you're going to get the name brand or one from overseas and throw it in your bag is a backup I can't tell you how many times especially overseas my batter's have died get stuck and amazing how can just hold that flash right here off the camera and the quality of light is so much better so that's the second way and then finally the third way is radio trigger devices you have your radio poppers, you have your pocket wizards you have your off brands and there's so many out there I'm a big radio papa guy I found especially the ones purchase of the junior twos that just came out we're going to talk a little bit later I can control every light from that receiver including strobes and its stop accurate so I never have to go over to my lights anymore to adjust power and to me that's that's a huge huge huge bonus, so we'll talk a little bit about that or you have the new flashes like the cannon six hundred that actually has a low frequency radio waves built into it. So those of the three ways we're going to really concentrate because I think for me on the bare bones guy, I don't like to tell you that you have to go out by the latest and greatest I don't like to tell you you have to go out by radio transmission device because most of time what's in these flashes is already everything you need if you know how to use it if you don't know how to use this five hundred dollars flash why're you buying it go out by seventy dollars flash and save yourself a lot of money so we're really going to talk about what's in these flashes you can purchase and get the most money the most bang out of you're out of your book, okay? These air need these air manual on lee and manual the difference between manual tl is simple manual whatever power you said it to your going to get it every single time there's no thinking emmanuel, a lot of guys like manual geiser or self control freaks, we want to know everything that happens that ladies like wait a minute detail works yeah, let's do it, I'm happy and they're off running where guys like it's like a guy thing, I guess they don't feel like they're in control of their man if they can't control every little aspect of this this camera and so I found over teaching this class over twenty years is that when I have and we have a great mixture here, which doesn't always happen in creative life is the guys are usually the the geeks of control freaks and they have to know every little technical aspect and the women just want to know how it works and if it works they're happy now of course there's always exceptions but for manual these air actually knew little flash came out pure manual and you adjust by fractions which is another thing that a lot of people I know they're simple but a lot of people don't like fractions but one toe one is your fullest power strongest it goes all the way down to one one twenty eight what's neat about these little guys they actually have a little radio transmission device built in to all this is a brand new that released a couple months ago I guess and so that's great actually have another brand here another one that's very similar but this is the tt l version that actually works for cannon and nikon back and forth, which we'll get into a little bit later which is also nice but for manual and I use manual in fact set up we're going to show you today I'm actually going to use an off brand camera from china I'm going to use an icon and I'm gonna use a cannon and some were gonna be in detail and so we're gonna be in manual so I actually blend it all together because the meat light is light I don't care how you get to it and if that's all I have to make an image, I'm going to use that and so the more you learn your equipment, the better off you're going to be in situations like this secondly, we're gonna get in the t t l tl is to me probably the black magic of of wireless flash so many people say they know it, they don't really know what goes on behind the scenes. They could put a flash on the camera, put in tea and they get great image, but I don't understand how it meters white fails all that good stuff until we're going to really spend the rest of this first segment kind, explaining detail, showing you some problems that teo has and trying to explain how you can work around him. So again, the basic definition of tl is through the lens it's a photographic term describing a feature of cameras capable of measuring light level lt's in a scene through their lands. This information can then be used to select the proper exposure and or control the amount of light emitted by a flash connected to the camera. So let's, break that down a little bit. So if you're a natural light photographer, which a lot of people are naturally photographers and they say they're natural because they like natural light, they say the natural because they're scared the hell a flash. So either one of the other that first put the first part of the paragraph is natural light. When you push your shut or halfway down your release button halfway down you get your f stop and shutter speed on your camera that's reading the amount of ambient light through this lens and that's a former to form of tio if I put this flash on my camera now the camera goes wait a minute, I have a flash madeline, top of my camera so therefore this flashes in actual tl mode. So what's gonna happen this flash when I push the button and you remember this is the speed of light we're dealing with the human eye cannot pick up how fast this light is tow us. It looks like one big giant flash burst, but if you could fail this and slow it down, you would actually see multiple small flash burst coming out of this life. So it's going to put when you push the button to actual take the image before the actual explosion happens this camera's going to say what I mean? I got a flash on here it's in t t l mode it's not in master mode, which we'll get to in a minute, but it's just in ti tl mode so it's going to through the focusing point whatever you're focusing on in the camera, it's going to send out a pre flash of one thirty second power it's always one thirty second power we're going to get into that but it's going to send that out bounce off my subject come back through the lens the camera knows how much light is supposed to be there. It originated at one thirty second and it also knows which we'll get to a second what it thinks is proper exposure for t t l so if it comes back with very little like it's going to raise that amount of light in the final flash that's going to be the exposure flash or if it comes back a lot of light it's gonna lower it that's the foundation of how tt it works, it works off that pre flash now that is wonderful evil works great, but there's some major flaws to that and again we're going to get into that, but since today's class, this master class is talking about off camera tl or off camera lighting and we're talking about detail the second paragraph is mme or the actual what we want to talk about. So with that definition of mine above let's talk about tl flash meeting this is the process of calculating the correct amount of light coming from your flash using the through the lens meeting, but it takes in several conditions of the environment which the portrait's being taken this meter is significantly different than through the lynn non flash photography so now a t t l if I have this flash over here pointing towards my subject and I mean t t l mode and I push the button down now now the camera's going to go away to me that I have a flash on my camera but now this flashes in master mode and your candidate nikon flashes there's a master or or or commander mode and then there's a remote or slave mode the terminology per each each of brand it's going to say it now and master mode so therefore if you the user put this in master mother cameras gonna hopefully think you're smart enough to actually have a wireless remote flash out there somewhere as well. So instead of this sending out the pre flash it's going to send out a command through light patterns to the slave flash a remote flash for the slave flashed to send out the remote pre pre one thirty second pre flash. So now no matter where I am, wherever this flash is angled on the person it's going to bounce off, come back through the lens and then it's going to do its calculations, and then it's going to send out another command to this flash of how much power to fire and then it's going to actual tell it with the fire so all that happens when you push the button every single time with tio and so the problem is let's kind of go into the next lie but the problem with that is if you don't focus on our meter on the same subject so perfect example five meter on you you have a blue shirt and you have like collection skin your scan to your shirt completely changes the actual original tt l like if you were doing natural light on you made on your face meter on your shirt it's going to give me completely two different readings which is going to give me two different complete light outputs possible so it can really mess up on where you meet and when I say tt l this is kind of a backtrack just want explain we're technically talking about the third generation of tio technology I say tl but technically it's it's kanan it's e t t l if it's nikon it's tio if it's pin taxes ptl sony has it's own version it all originated years ago from minolta which nikon took from my notes a cannon stole from the economy just goes on and on on but it's the same system the same science no matter what brand you have so don't get hung up on brand don't get hung up on nikon cannon whatever it's all the same stuff so when I say tt l I'm just simplifying it instead of saying e tailer because it even gets more confusing because the second generation of teo for cannon was it which is the third generation an icon? See, I mean, you're getting all confused don't worry about the logistics, I just want to explain that real quick. All right, so what happens if I have one flash? But I have two flashes, three flashes, it doesn't matter how many slave flashes I have out there, it's all going to send off pre flash, hit my subject and come back through. So if I only have one flash here it's going to send out the pre flash of one thirty second, if I have two flashes, they're still going to send out the free flash of one thirty seconds, but that's going to be doubled up so it's going to be a lot more like that comes through for that equation, and so therefore, the final output of these lights won't be is this high to get the proper exposure? Does that make sense? They actually don't meet her anything through this, they only send out the pre flash in your wireless unit, and a lot of people get confused on that for that when I have actually let me get the cannon because it's easier to show, when I put this flash on and slave mode, you will see there's this little guy's blinking right here that absolutely has nothing to do with picking up the signal for wireless flash all that does is the exact same thing is the red light on the back of my flash? It tells you that if that's up in the corner somewhere that it's charged and ready to fire what picks up the signal is the little shiny black part that's above the red for nikon it's on the battery side, you can see that it's, that little hole indention right here on the battery side of the night. And so what I found when people hold up, especially nikon and classes and they're saying that it doesn't work, that the night of the system is horrible, what they're doing is there holding this up and they're putting their finger right over the hole and I'm going, man, this system is horrible. I don't understand why this works, I'm going back to manual is teal stuff is just stupid and so I found, and I think that's a general concept with most photographers we havea is they don't want to blame themselves, they want to blame the system, so I applaud you guys for showing up. We have ah perfect samples, we have a system in our studio called virtual backgrounds and it's been around since the late early seventies are late seventies it's a front projection system, you have to set everything up correctly, and if you don't, you have this horrible shadow it's not the system's fault it's the photographers fault but for years I didn't buy the system because I heard that it was a horrible system and now that I have it it's actually the best system in the world but it's the photographers fault and I kept blaming myself it took me a little while to get it set up but once it did it's also and that's the same concept as this is once you understand the foundation of these flashes you will be able to pick and choose exact when a problem happens you'll know exactly how it happened and you'll be able to work around it so don't blame yourself blame me blame yourself don't blame the system all right, so this is what picks up the signal and again this is what sends the signal none of this has anything to do with sending the signal when you're in master mode and a lot of people have that problem because what happens if you're outside in here? If I turn this on and I'll take a simple snapshot I want to put this part that receives a signal towards me turn this towards my subject but this in master mode and when I fire it's going to fire inside I have walls it's probably gonna fire now because it's bouncing off walls again the speed of light but I found so many photographers when we go outside and you're shooting, I'm a pro, I cannot put this last towards myself because that's just not professional. I'm gonna bounce it up here, and when I take the shot it's going fine here, but outside, you're communicating with a satellite up in space, and and this is never going to go off, and they go again. I can't get any range out of these outside this full sun can't get five feet. This is stupid, it has nothing to do with these flashes, so I found what we do is we turn this flash off toe on ly communicate with our wireless it's, not actually exposing in the images, and then I actually this is nice communication. This is screaming communication. This is that flash screaming at that wireless to fire, so when I'm out, I literally can get fifty feet of range just by angle in that flash, right towards that wireless unit with this way, it makes it very simple just don't do that. You're never going to get any, any firepower out of it. All right, so now we know how this communicates, how goes back and forth, how you want, angle this, and if you don't know how to turn off, your flash sword only communicates it's very difficult, but I'll actually, if you online, you can email me. I'll show you guys here in the break, I'll show you, but it's each flash has its own little way that you can literally turn this flash off while this flash is not exposing in the image at all. In fact, if you want to take that shot that's the on ly flash that expos on you and now I'm actually going to turn this flash where is actually also exposing? And so now you're going to get wood angled correctly. You're going to get mohr of a flat light with this guy, so now you don't have the actual so now it's more of a flat light, but I want you to notice you see the ratio of light you see how the one that's closer to us still brighter that's exactly how we do ratios I absolutely even though I have science agrees absolutely hate math, I can't stand math, and the last thing I want to do when I'm out on the scene is worried about is that one, two, three or is that three to one? What the heck is three to one and one? I don't care about any of that. What I found is my distance to subject is all I need, and so while these flashes are in the same group, same power but by me being farther away from you this light automatically becomes my feel like and by this light being closer to you it already dramatically because mikey or my main line and so I don't have to worry about all those ratio numbers also have to do is worry about that light is on it's in the same channel is this it's in the same group? Is this the communication it's firing? And then I can worry about the distance, so if that light is too strong, I simply would move it back if it's to not strong enough I can move forward or on your flash you can raise your power up or down if you're in t l three stops you go down the negative three you go up to plus three that was pretty much even so I moved it back, but now I'm going to take a shot I'm gonna blast you so it'll be plus three so it'll be a lot brighter and it's going to be way over exposed because what's happening is the camera goes, I push the button it sends out that pre flat on the command flash to the slave flash to fire it comes back with a proper mad exposure how much light comes through and it says, okay, this is what is correct, but you're the balls so now goes to the exposure flash compensation and whatever you've said it to it's going to raise or lower to that because you're still in control and so this was that plus three is you can tell it's way over exposed and that could lower it all the way down the negative three I'll put this on you but it's still gonna be really dark and so very simple that's how we just so if this flash is in close enough proximity closer distance to where I can raise or lower that six stops and get the proper mata light it's good like placement or distance placement does that make sense? Okay, so you understand a little bit how communicates how goes back and forth how it's not technically another triangle there's not really a triangle system, but it goes meters back and forth and it all based off a battery power. The ultimate goal of ti tl is to make the exposure whatever you're photographing a great card, eighteen percent gray it's technically a reflective amount since you reflective light, but the ultimate goal is to get eighteen percent great because if it doesn't know what I'm exposing, if I have something really white really dark, eighteen percent graze a pretty happy medium and so that's the ultimate goal of tio so when it's putting out this pretty flash and it's coming back through the lens to solve an equation, you need two of the three parts, so I know the original part was one thirty second power and I know the proper exposure is eighteen percent gray. So now the camera just needs to know how much like to put out to get that final equation and that's what it does every single time you push that button. So if it comes back on the dark end there's not enough light from that pre flash of one thirty seconds it's going to raise the power up on the final exposure flash it comes back on the wide and like your photograph in the back of a wedding gown it's gonna lower it technically that's great, but the problem is a photograph in a wedding gown. The last thing I want to do is make a white wedding gown look gray. So sometimes you have I've to overexpose if you're shooting something predominately white to take away that change that teo details working absolutely like it's supposed to, you just have to know how it works and adjust if I'm photographing something predominantly dark, maybe the tux, the boot near on the guy's tux and I'm just zooming in it's going to make that great tough I mean the black tux great because it's going to overexpose it so you have to under expos on something predominately black now, with the new cameras it's awesome, they like for cannon example, if you have the mark three the cannon fighting mark three or the new x the big boy kanan, they actually have a new processor just for teo and it pretty much takes away a lot of those problems and what's one camera comes out with it, you know, all the other ones are going to come out with it, so it is getting easier. But if you have the fighting mark, too, which is what I'm shooting with here today or in the other ones will actually come in problem with this problem every once in a while. So I just wanted to be aware of it. Okay, so you can understand the goal of tian how it works hot processes so we want to get into high speed sync. Does anyone know what high speed sync is? One person fine. High speed sync is to me, one of the most amazing things in flash photography. You're on ly going to get him in strobes. I mean, it speed like you're not going to get him in strobes. You have a mock high speed sinking strobes, but none of them do what high speed sincan doing the speed lights because they just love the capabilities and we're gonna talk about it for cannon on the back of your little flashes and this is an older flash when you see that lightning bolt in h that's the icon for high speed sync the six hundreds of the exact same icon it's on the menu system for nikon, which I think is better candidates approx of the flash itself for nikon it's a product actually built into the body of the camera so you actually go into the menu system of nikon you don't go in the back of the flash, so you go on the menu system. This is an old nikon flash, but you go into the pencil menu is I call it the little pencil icon and then you go into the flash settings and you go in a flash thinks and you'll see it actually says one two fifty f p a you to some the newer campus have one three twenty f p a you you said it and you can forget about you never have to worry about it again for not con users for kanan every single time you turn on your camera and you turn on your flash, you need to look at your flash to make sure that icon is turned on if it's not any time you change batteries it'll go away and so you'll be outside and you'll be thinking and explain this a little more in detail but what hi species does is it allows you to get above your flash sink speed so for most canon cameras like the five d siri's it's one two hundredth of a second most nikon it's one two fifty for a second so if you get above that which will show in a second you're going to get these black lines well what high speed thing does it allows you to get above it without any black lines in your image but there's problems there's a give and take with everything the problem with cannon if you don't set that high speed sync on you're going to think you're outside and you may be one on one five hundredth of a second one to thousands of a second all the way up to one eight thousands of a second but what happens you got to be down at one two eight one three two one for o for o to do that to get proper exposure if you don't have high speed sync on it's gonna automatically drop your shutter speed down to the flash think speed of one two hundredth of a second so instead of one two thousands of a second and a half two point you're going to be one two hundredth of a second two point eight and by the time you take three four shots and look at the bacterial city, everything is blown out. You've missed those shots. If it's a wedding or something, you can't get it back so it's a problem, so canny users you have to get used to checking that every single time you turn on your camera and your flash it's paying it still happens to me I'm a cannon guy I teach both we actually have night counting system in our business too, but mainly kanan guy and it happens to me every time go out to our beach because we shoot on the beach at least three times a week with our senior because I'm five minutes from our beach and I'll take three, four shots and I'll forget right off the bat, you know, maybe it's the monday session and I didn't shoot over the weekend or something, so you have to get used to it every time. I've never found a reason to not have high speed sync on there's probably a few, maybe some creative stuff, but overall you khun set high speed sync on and forget about it. You don't have toe ever worry about it again because what's gonna happen if you go below that high speed sync it's just gonna act normal and what high speed sync is and I kind of explain it it's, basically, you have your two cartons of your camera. You have your first carton and you're second doing the vanna white here. So the first curtain, when you shoot it opens up, takes the shot. Fire fire's a flash closes reset. So that's going to be basically natural, light or flash under your flashing speed when you get above your flashing speed, this one's gonna open this was going to start to close. And in the fight, the flash fires and that's where you get that black bart the bottom because his second curtain is already starting to close and the light is blocked from that curtain trying to close what high speed seat does. And again it's only in speed light instead of one giant big flash burst when it opens up and this one starts to close as soon as this one opens up, it actually has multiple flashes, so that flash will actually do a multiple small pulse of light it so fast to the human eye again, it looks like one big giant flash, but it's. So as it opens in, this one closes its fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire and then re since so it never takes one solid image with that second curtain already starting to close. So with this because it's impossible to actually open close at one thousand the second in a flash going off this is the way that engineers have designed it to overcome that limitation and so you'll get multiple flash burst but again said there's there's a big negative to it the higher your sink I mean your flash shutter speed goes up the smaller these curtains are in between each other so it it's this open it at your flashing speed it one, five hundred this is that one to thousands of a second. Is this at one eight thousand? Do you have about this big oven opening is it goes something so that light is trying to force a cz much is it can through that small little opening between the two curtains so I could have the flash this far away at one two hundredth of a second one, four hundred seconds maybe have to have it this much to get the exact amount of light oh my subject one two thousand tier and a one eight thousand keep you right here. Excuse me almost unusable so you have to have a fine balance, but what that allows you to do is when I'm adama ugly beach and I have all the stuff that's washed up on the beach and I have the beautiful chemical plant in the background and I'm trying to get a romantic shot. I now can actually not have a reflector. I can use a wireless flash and I can shoot at one to eight of a second. Or I can shoot at one one f one point to with the prime and I can blur out everything it's set for my client and still get light in their eyes and still under exposed the background to be able to see the beach or see what I want. Maybe the sand dune or a little bit of water. Because that's why they're there, they want to see the photograph on the beach. But it's your job to make it look pretty. Or if I'm in an alleyway in a city and there's, you know, someone using the restroom in the back back? You want to blurt out, you could blurt out, believe me, it's happened to me. We did it. We did online education thing. And they were filming this in downtown austin. We're like this is a great location. Okay, maybe not let's. Blurt out let's go. But it allows you that freedom and that's. What I love about high speed sync is without high speed sync I am stuck it one two hundredth of a second or one to fiftieth of a second. And on a bright day like today, even in seattle, I have to shoot it. F eleven have shooted f sixteen to even out that exposure. So everything is in focus and maybe that's what you want, but it sure is nice to have the complete aspect control of what that camera does. So if I want a blurry background, I can shoot it two point eight if I want not about blurry background, I can shoot it f eleven and I still get the exact amount of light all my subjects every single time. Does that make sense? All right, so with that said and a lot of people might not know, but I just kind of want to take a shot and I'm gonna shoot you guys, so I apologize, but I'm gonna take it all high speed sync. I'm actually gonna go above high speed sync, and I'm going to show what it would look like without high speed single actually let me brighten it up a little bit for pretending this is outside since we're inside, so that is basically what flash would look like normal flashing speed. I'm gonna raise myself a lot because I got to get some more light in here to raise it above. One two hundredth of a second if you notice without high speed sync my camera won't even allow me to go above that once I pushed that high speed sink in I could go all the way out so this is it one five hundredth of a second it looks great now as soon as I take off that flash it's not going to probably even let me like I said it's goingto automatically drop down to one two hundredth of a second and it's gonna be a little brighter because even if that one five hundredth of a second I need to put my cameron autofocus instead of manual so it wouldn't be blurry but even in that one two hundred second toe one five hundred of a second you saw that little bit of light change and it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse as I raise that shutter speed up because you're allowing the same amount of light but you're taking out ambient light but raising that shutter speed does that make sense so remember you have to have high speed sync on every time I tell people this in my classes they say they get it they understand it and then we go outside and they say their cameras broke because it's flashing at one two hundredth of a second or one to fifty of the second if your cannon it's one, two hundred second because what it's saying is saying hey, dummy this is not the correct exposure hey dummy, you've gotto fix something here that's what? That one, two hundred seconds flashing because they haven't turned on their high speed sync. So if your camera settings are flashing at you it's not the it's gonna blow up it's trying to tell you that you have a setting somewhere incorrectly and if it's at the one two hundredth of a second your shutter speed ninety nine point nine percent of the time it will be because you don't have your high speed sync on and you think you're shooting above that flashing speed, so remember, that is a great great tell tale sign. Okay, so next way have battery power. This is a huge issue for teo huge probably the biggest probably, I'd say seventy five to eighty percent of any issue that has to do with tt l with bad exposures, weird exposures over exposed is battery power. And so even if you buy apple on batteries or rechargeable and you get it right off the shelf will say alkaline and you put him in those things can sit there in a warehouse for two years on the shelf at the convenience store for two years and one of could be bad and you're going to put brandy batteries in and it's going to start having problems in the way that you can tell you're having problems with tio is you're going to start getting really overexposed images generally like really overexposed like completely blown out images and you'll hear the capacitors and this thing's just fire everything and then just like they're building it all up like itjust itjust because what happens is in when it's meat oring it's sitting here it's going to fire you say alright I'm ready I'll push the button it's just a a guy I got a wireless flash out here so it's going to send the signal it's going to bounce off going to sit out the one thirty second power and maybe it'll come back through the lens and the camera's gonna go I got this and it does the calculations and it's all happy and then it sends it out again and this flash knows that is supposed to receive a certain amount of information in it a small amount of time and it's listening and it's listening and it's listening but that flash just doesn't have enough power or this flash doesn't have enough power to receive it and pretty soon it's just going to say all mess screw it and just going to dump every bit of light it's god on your image and that's when you're gonna look look and it's going to be so overexposed because it's so muchmore than that one toe one power it's mauritz everything that this flash has in it so not only did you waste that image which you missed the next five to seven seconds is that flash recharges and so if you're looking at seventy eight seconds maybe it's the bride running out the church that's a pretty important seventy eight seconds and so one way to combat that is we always use this is on there we use these inexpensive battery packs always and what's nice about that's the cannon version there's a nikon version there's some off brand versions you get from like flash zebra and some other websites and it just holds eight double a batteries and what I like about these over other proprietary batteries packs is it is double and so I can travel anywhere I want to in the world I could get more batteries I don't have to bring my lithium is with me in fact a lot of planes don't let you bring lift him anymore because of the lithium can make bombs and a lot of overseas planes including some here now charged for carry on and they weigh your carry ons and so when I'm overseas I literally don't want to carry anything that's not needed so I won't carry my batteries and then I'll buy on when I'm overseas and these guys I think this is a can that's one hundred fifty dollars you can get him inexpensive seventies or even cheaper there I've had this for seven years and it works flawless it just plugged right into your flash and what's. Nice when you plug this in by default a cannon and icon the on ly thing that's running the lcd. I mean, the only thing that's running this before that air in here is the lcd panel. So all your battery juice is coming off of this guy, so when it dies and you unplug it, technically you have almost four fully charged ready to go batteries in here, too. Or you can buy an extra battery battery magazine and have a fully charged ready to go in your camera back and you could just slide it in. And so what I've done and when we do weddings is a shoot. Give me the wedding with one of these in between the wedding and reception I'll just pull this out and put a new one in and I'm good to go for the entire wedding. I don't have any battery issues I use rechargeable sze. I don't like cliff fumes at all here. It's not so hot where I live it's hot! It was a hundred agrees to your two out two days ago. Still so it's, extremely hot, very human. And so I found lithium get really, really hot anyway, when you use them and I've literally had some of my flashes melt on the inside from the lithium batteries so if I'm fired a bunch they've little getting so hot they've melted the battery pack on the and so are the battery holders on the inside and they've melted the outside of my my flash tubes here so I don't like you use lithium I have some of my camera bag maybe four eight is backup in case nothing everything else is dead, so I do carry some, but generally I use rechargeable and I found rechargeable czar probably your best bang for your buck the charger I used, which I think is the key. I have a thing here this charger is it's a mah hah brand mh it's been around for a long time I get mine from from juries and in nashville, which is just my camera store but what great about this charger and there's other ones out there that's what's great about this is you can charge each individual battery and so one bad sale for one battery goes, it'll tell you and you could just get rid of that one battery because if you put in for four batteries and you don't know if one's bad you're going to get within probably ten flashes you're gonna start having issues, you've gotta have all four chart and I found also what's the greatest thing about this it has a soft sail recharge and so once a year or maybe twice a year, my slow time june and july are slow times for us because it's so miserably hot in south texas, they we don't do any photography, and so I take all our rechargeable batteries and I do a soft sell recharge, and it takes about seventy two hours per for eight, and it literally slowly dissipates every bit of charge and then slowly build it back up, and it does it set all times, so it takes away any memory it takes away any problems with the batteries and I literally so far these matters I'm using right now about three years old, and they're still great and so a little bit of practice and the charger is the key, because if you have great batteries and horrible charges, you're not gonna get anything out of it. So I found this is this is a good, good one there's a lot of batteries out there, different people like different ones, I use a pure rechargeable one. I don't use a hybrid um these air just energies, which is also, and I used the power x they're pretty much almost all the same as long as you get in m a h rating of at least twenty, five hundred or higher is what I choose choose to go with, you can get some like said hybrids that have a little like alkaline and a little recharging it because the problem with these guys as soon as I pull him off that charger they're going to start losing power so if you have a full rechargeable battery like this don't think you can pull him off the charge of the night before and then take him to the to the job they're going to be fully charged up leave them on the charger until you don't need him again these chargers actually have a trickle sale a trickle charge so if it goes down a little bit it'll keep it charged it won't overcharge it and so what I've done is actually for these charges in our studio have enough batteries in all of them and then when I pull them out have enough to replace them so when I come in I can actually pull some often put him in and so people always ask me how many batteries do I need that's kind of a general answer whatever equipment you have so you'll always have a fresh charge batteries on any given time so this to me is the key for him for battery issues and teo the other big issue a t t l is and let me put this flashback it together the other big issue is when I shoot if I put a flash behind you and I want to have the flash come through the lens tohave like sun like a sun flair light flare of first dance of the wedding something that nature here's the problem dtl lots of times it's not gonna work when you do that and the reason why is if I put this light behind you? What happens when I take that photograph what's it what's the meter and system doing it's putting on you but that pre flashes supposed to bounce off you is actually coming directly through the lens so I'm getting the full one thirty second pre flash from that light behind me so it comes back through and just like on the chart I showed you it's way on the white side way overpowered light so it shuts that light down it goes holy mode this is way too much light and it shuts down that light where hardly even fires at all and if I have two or three flashes on the same channel the same group it's going to shut them all down every single lights going to be shut down so you're going I understand what's going on here fine, but I don't see anything it's barely getting any light and if that happens with t l whatever light is coming directly through the lens just move it off to the side just a little bit toe where maybe it's firing here and not directly into the lens and everything's gonna work fine I was teaching a class down in georgia years ago and we had old sixty six mustang they used this example of time and had a model on it and photographer was down photographing this exactly what was happening and I just grabbed her and pulled her up two inches and it worked fine because of what was happening was that flash the pre flash was not in the back but it was bouncing off the chrome of the bumper of the car and coming back through the just like a mirror and he was shutting every bit of light down so that's that's the other big those two are the big big issues of tio number one if you have any problems with your flash just replace the battery power without question before you freak out replace the battery power that's the easiest second is don't have any pre flash coming directly through the lens of your camera and you'll be a lot better shape does that make sense anybody have a question for going except because everybody's just staring at me all right I wanna make sure secondly thirdly when you do this and I won't explain the ratio is a little bit again so I have this one here and I have this one here I'm not going to fire promise you getting all the all the flash in your eyes if I was going to shoot this image this flash is off what kind of lighting pattern would I have here? A very flat one a very flat and very unflattering very, very ugly one and so this is actually not the flatness, but this is actually how I like to go in to every session I have two lights, maybe one here two here and so depending on where the sun's coming in and I can use that as my third light and then I can just grab this and pull it back and now I have a perfect light pattern. The only thing you have to worry about when you do this it'll fire because we're inside, but if I was outside, probably neither one of these lights would fire because I literally have to twist this around and this towards my client and then this around in this towards my client that's a pain but it's effective in years ago. But we don't test I've gotten up to about fifty to fifty five feet in full sun with this technique fifty feet that's a lot of it is it's more than you ever need for for the reality I mean, unless you're I know a lot of people like shooting with two hundred millimeter or something so you could be really far back but generally speaking that's more than you ever need and that's this is again, I probably would not be teaching this if I wasn't forced tto learn how the system works because of our ugly beach on our ugly community and half the people back home are gone. I'm going to kill me, but this guy's studio down by the time he gets home, but it just is and I think it's an artist, you have you work with what's given to you and I had to learn how to do this. Plus is a crime scene investigator I had to learn how to do this is we were talking about camera, I can't really just and this is film days. I couldn't just put the dead body back if I screwed up the images I know it's a kind of a job, but it's the truth. I mean, if I mess those images out because back in the old days we were so worried about my baby, the film didn't develop. Maybe I didn't mess up the exposure. We took polaroids because that was that was the only digital way. So I spent I shot one hundred polaroids on a crime scene before you know, and then you come back and you shoot him. I was developing hundreds and little one hundred roll of film every friday in the darkroom. It's a lot of the people that are younger photographers like, oh films, so retro, I can't wait to use them like how I ever want to see a roll of film again in my life, I don't want to smell any chemicals I still have hardly any taste since because I don't have any smell from those chemicals I'm trying not to cuss because it upsets me so bad, so to me this is a beautiful system once you learn it, but it is a higher learning curve than just manual, because manu was easy and it's effective and so there's really no reason the whole scale of things, maybe you don't want to go to teach yale and I get that, but once you learned the tl and learn the basics stuff and a lot of people don't like that, I don't use a light meter. I'm the board of directors there's only twelve of us in the world of the people, a fresh diaper association, believe me, they're probably on the other eleven probably cringing right now because I say that, but this is just what I learned and this is this is how I learned to do it, and I think it's a modern form of photography, this is definitely a digital technique, this technique is very difficult to push the limits and film because I use a chimp I use the back of the el cd if I really want to under expose a lot and we're going to get in that to the next section and then over exposing my flash really couldn't kind of get a glamour fashion look and film a would never do that because I was afraid that I wouldn't have the right balance what with digital is just one shot look oh and you adjust and you move on so this is a really modern digital form and I am one of the younger board of directors and I think that has something to do with the way that I shoot part of the other ones and plus I have zero formal education in photography it was literally all the on the job photographing dead people and to be rude or not but when a person passes on there's no blood flow and it's like photographing a mirror it's very reflective surface and so you had to learn to use angles of light properly to get the image correctly and so I didn't realize what I was learning there and it was such a small part of my job photography as a forensic scientist was going to literally lead me for the rest of my life as I did this but to me t ell off camera lighting is the most versatile the most powerful and the most portable form of lighting there is in photography because I literally can take these two lights and go anyone the world I don't even need the stand which I love these stands this is my old sam's got sand all on it from our beach but with these I just put you can put this anywhere and so it's very very simple to use but I little it can get a ratio of light anywhere and everywhere that I want with these two guys and it doesn't matter if the color of their skin and doesn't matter the color their outfit it doesn't matter anything it's going to balance things out the only problem you're gonna have is if I have a very which happens sometimes we have maybe a really red pill head skin person and maybe a really dark african american these guys are going to kind of freak out not know what to expose because the ratio so far off so when that happens I tried to expose for their face always for their face and let it balance out so when I'm in my camera and I'm using the the focusing points I'm going to put it in the center focusing point and I'm going to meet her literally use it just like a target and meter right on their nose and try to get what was proper on their nose because the reality is I could maybe lose the dress or maybe lose the talks but I need the her face because that's what that's what's going to be in the image like do you mind if I jump in with some questions fantastic so that might have been addressing caters question which was does the meeting mo mode whether it's matrix or spot affected tl that's a great question yes and no you can use whatever mita re mode you want as long as you understand how that metering mode works for example matrixes of additive major just nightgown and matt the value given cannon it takes in everything generally I don't use that because I'm old school and I learned on spot because in the old days cannon on ly the top of the line cameras had spot metering I mean had to spot me and that's what I use so I learned how spot and again I focus just on that one point for example there's a sun outside which usually there is but let's say it's in the image and so I'm meter on the person but that sun is actually in the scene itself with the matrix evaluative it's going to take in that bright sun as part of the equation of the proper exposure with a spot I could meet her just on the nose it'll never see that sun so one I might be ableto underexposed maybe just to stop to get my background where I want the other I could maybe underexposed three stops, but I'm still going to get the exact same background it just because the camera setting is going to be different depending on the meter mode you use so I find probably evaluative is easier unless you have the sun or something really brought a street light neon sign something that's really throwing off the exposure and then you go to spot. But now, with evaluative, I could just frame of the shot in camera how I want with the composition take shot with spot after meter on my person locked the exposure with candace a little ass trick in the back and then recompose to take the shot. So there's a little more work on how you do it, but it's a great question, but you can use any of what you want. But I said, just staying away from the half meter ring or middle meeting and just you to do all or just do the spot, all right, just to follow up on that? Because this is I mean that science it's meeting for a lot of people there had started to explode. So this one had a couple of vote from a s p okay, so hi, mike so the tt l just sets the intensity of the flash to get a proper exposure on the subject will I see any different question? Mark? Will I see any difference in my meter on the camera about aperture or shutter speed? If I meet her first without the flash on and then after the flash is on? Wow, really good question really like in death, I like that. Basically, when you're setting up a shot like this, what I try to do, especially when you're learning is turn the flash is off don't even worry about your flashes at this point, and I believe it or not, I like to shoot when I'm outside and bright sun, I like to shoot in a v mode or a mode after priority, and so it allows me to control my depth of field and again it goes back to my beach where it's ugly and I want to blur stuff out, and so I need to control my depth of field. So if I said in an area of the mod and let's say, I want f for oh and that's the depth of field oh one it's automatically going to set my shutter speed for me now a little meter in your camera is a light meter, and the middle is what it thinks it's proper exposure for f four point oh. So if I want that to be in the middle that's what natural light is that I want under expose to the canon? It'll be to the left the night kind of beats the right on the meter but I can under expose so much you underexposed overexposed to get the background that you want you're happy with you don't worry about your subject and then once you're stuffing is there then you turn on your flashes and you just adjust your flash compensation so all that question that he or she was answering his kind of answered with just that concept so don't that part is a great question, but I think they were taking too much in trying to understand too much and if you take a step back and you say step one, don't worry about flashes just worry about my exposure compensation, the background that too then you worry about your flash and we're going to kind of get into that in the next segment where I really can show you the bells and whistles he's got a question here and then we'll go back to you so my question is going on this is kind of thrown accessories on your flash itself have you have really experiment like throwing like soft boxes on these because these guys they throw a really harsh light and it's nice to get like a softer les have you found that detail it blocks tt l having you know that that soft box right in front of the great questions first thought yes it can block it because what picks up the signal and we noticed this one's broke this is a brand new flash and I got it in class the literally I pulled out a box and one of my students looked because that's so great and drops it so but this is what picked up the signal so as long as you put the soft box around here like some of the ones that we have and actually not to bring it up with workshop I did in april here there's a whole segment on soft boxes that I use for flashes you can use t all day long if you have a wireless transmitter device that allows teo like the radio popper px for the pocket pocket wizards the tt five you can enclose it at that point because it's not picking this up and it's going off the radio signal but for me I used I use them all the time. However, when I travel I don't bring any if I do I just bring maybe some really small ones that are easily collapsible and if this light is going to be on you instead of directly on you I'll put it here and feather light on a real big even in our studio we feather the light we used sweet light systems was just john soft boxes and little this soft box if I'm photographing you and it's on the side, it's pulled all the way forward and I'm feathering the light on you and I found the softer the light better from the feathering so I never put this directly at my subject. The problem is here you can get away with soft boxes meaning here in seattle generally because even on this clot sunny day you do have that west coast hayes in the sky, which is like a giant a fusion of above the closer you get to the equator, the more harsher the light is. And so by putting a diffuser on top of these, you're going to knock off a least a stop light and you're already dealing with a smaller light source and that it plus two now or you're going to get out of and maybe that's not enough light, so I found there's a happy balance sometimes I'd rather have harsh light and actually have enough light on my subject than having soft light and have a money face so again it's just a about what we're going to talk about the next second opinion, how much underexposed and there's a lot of things but in a short answer yes, I do use them but generally on lee local events if I travel it's some very small soft boxes I do like the magma's system that just came out recently and I found that those air nice its magnetic he hadn't seen it you go to the website but how those composition on color effect it's a limiting how this composition and what color, for instance like you if you have a very dark background or a very it's going yeah that's a great question um let's just work on the color aspect colors just like your share in the dark of the background is going to bounce off less like generally but now you have to also understand if it's a mirror so it's really reflecting or chrome it's gonna mess up t l completely because t t ells actually, as I said earlier is a reflective amount of light. The goal is eighteen percent grey but it's a reflective amount, so any time you have a reflective surface, it can really mess up because you're dealing with light beams and he could really mess up the whole skeleton. Teo doesn't matter what color it is, but the light of the color it will cause left like to go out the darker the color you know calls it too put out more light if it comes back properly without reflectiveness and the composition it really doesn't matter in the whole scale of things because it could be it depends if it's also what major or evaluative or spot meter and penalty because I could have weirdest composition but if I'm gonna meet her in the one spot down here that's all it's going to meet her but if I take it everything like you said with the sun raise it up to the sun the composition it'll totally mess up or change tl meeting that's why I like spot metering because I just meet her on their face every time that's if I'm doing portrait that's what's important that's what's paying my bills mom I want to see their baby smile so I want to make sure their faces properly exposed well that was the hard thing you laugh but when we first started doing seniors I love the sixteen thirty five linz I love those wide angles when I was a wedding hardcore wedding photographer you put a bride on the hill and you just do the beautiful shot with the sunset I mean it was money because she's part of them and she's not just the image you do that with seniors on our beach I'm like this is great they never bought it they never bought and it took me a while to realize mama didn't see her baby smile and so once we start zooming in and to me it was a born shot but the baby's baby smiling and they started buying and that's close your checks clear, and they're happy. I'm happy because I'm I'm in the business of photography, not the photography, business and there's a difference, and it took me a long time tto learn that difference because I won't have an artist. I love being an artist, but I don't like being a starving artist, and those are two different things, and you have to learn the business of photography unless you're unless you're going to start. And so that was one of one of the lessons I have learned. You have to really zoom in on their face to get nice photos. So with that said you had the one and you have the two, I want him again to reiterate there, both in the same channel. You have four channels in these guys, which I didn't go over, so have one, two, three foreign, this so your master has to be in one to one channel that's in channel one these have to be in channel one as well, if one's not, and so when you get out, I did it this morning in the hotel room. I came over here and I set everything up and I did it in lunch break before we went on air, I made sure that they're all properly, and it's just a repetition that I do no matter where I am, I make sure they're all on the same channel and they all fire, so make sure when you're doing this, you just set it all up and you shoot you take it for granted, it's going to come back and bite you in the backside, because then you're going to be in a stressful situation when the when the actual well time is happening, when you need to take photographs and one's not going to fire and you're gonna start freaking out wise on fire and you're gonna not think calmly about the simple aspect of how simple this system is if you don't set it up first, so always, always, always turnem on make sure they're in the same channel and the same group you can do ratios with cannon and icon the other ones you can do the ratio settings. Nikon is easier. The new six hundred cannon has gotten a lot easier than these old five, eighty five anyone's, so those are a little easier, but I still feel that it's better to leave everything in the same group, the same channel and then just that distance is subject without getting too technical that's the inverse square law god's gonna go, yeah, I know that girls are going to go, what the heck you talking about? And I'm trying to sex is just that's the science and when I talk science people start going to sleep they start rolling their eyes and they start thinking about the dog back home or whatever else they got they don't think photography but this is the inverse square law so just the distance to subject is how much light you're gonna want when you do this you have to lights or three lights you were about one light first much like I just said we're going to reiterate this in the next segment much like I said about the composition setting up you'll get the background first once I have the background then I'm going to introduce my one life get that light where I want it and then introduce the other life and just move it forward back to get the ratio alight on their face that I want or hair like or whatever else it is if there's a bright son that's my first life that I worry about don't worry about these so I meet her for the sun to fall on the back of the hair you have a dark haired subject you maybe have a little more like if you have a bald head or blond hair you're gonna have to under expose a little mohr so it won't be so bright you get that first and then you introduce these lines and it's it's really that simple I had a gun I tell the story every time I teach we had a guy when we taught years ago come fly all the way over from england force, which I thought was amazing you scared the hell out of me because I didn't know if I was that worth it, but he came over and we saw him at the airport afterwards and said, so how how you doing? Because I'm actually really upset I know what you're talking about because I've been doing this photography fifteen, twenty years and never thought about doing it this way because it's so simplistic because most the time with manual if you're taught manual that's the way your brain is frame that's the way it works if you teach t l this is the way works I'm still mainly adjusting every single thing I do. Like I said at the beginning class, I'm just using this technique to get me there a lot easier and a lot faster if I'm getting in the ballpark quicker and then I just from there so when I come up to a session I leave these lights off, I'll meet her in my camera and I under exposed from there for kanan it's very simple I mean a mod or a v mode at meter and once I activate my t t l mean I get my shutter speed um I have stopped and I can take this dial and I just turn it counterclockwise and that's going to under expose my exposure compensation natural light photographers is completely one eighty because you're literally over exposing maybe a stop half a stop quarter to stop to get enough light in their eyes the problem with that is you're blowing out the background of the process so I'm meeting under exposing toe whatever I like yeah, I'll say it again next segment I'll say it again probably forever but just like adding salt to your food you had salt to your taste you add flashed your taste is well so how much you under exposed for how much you overexpose is up to you but I'll underexposed from there I under exposed at least at least a third of stopped to have stop every single image I'm outside. I cannot remember if I'm using a flash the last time I actually exposed an image properly so I underexposed and then when I'm happy with my background then I'll turn my flash on my first one is the key light unless it's the sun and then I'll expose prop well for that and then I just from here and the reason why I like doing that is a navy mode I take the shot instead of me worrying about here I know it's kind of crazy but I mean if I dropped down to three point two and have high speed sync on which I need to do it's going to automatically adjust my shutter speed as I rotate it it's hard to see with less a two point eight it's five hundredth of a second and as I go adjust my shutter speed mean my f stop it goes from two point eight, two two point five o three to two hundred three five at one sixtieth it automatically just my shutters before me for the exact amount of light. So each one of those same amount of light which I enjoy so now, khun, just just from my depth of field, knowing that my show is gonna automatically adjust if I wanted under exposed, I don't care what my shutter speed says, I only care about how many stops of under exposed I am so again it takes away another big number in your head and you only care about one stop under two stops under or whatever else and the beauty of this is if I'm shooting outside where the light's changing all the time and I find that one stop or one of the third stop is perfect for underexposed what I want as I shoot here in the clouds, cover up the sun. It's going to automatically slow my shutter, speed down and give me still the exact amount of light on my subject where if I'm in manual, I'm having to constantly change these, and by that time my seven started going, I don't have to think about my camera setting so much air a v mode. I'm still manly, adjusting everything. I'm just using the a or a b mode to get me there a lot faster, and I think that's another hard thing for a lot of people have been in photography business for a while to do or to wrap their head around because they worked. Lily slammed in their head, they had to use manual to be a professional photographer, and I'm a strong believer as long as you do good quality work, your clients are paying you good money, and you're being ethical. You expecting another professional photographer? You're a professional photographer being in this part time or full time, your professional and so for me, learning used a v or a mode after party changed my whole life, because now with this and t t l, I can shoot it to eight and if I want to shoot and f eleven, so I have a very blurry background, and I'm not sure if that's what I want. All have to do is change my share f stop to f eleven one dial and take another shot so it's literally within about a second, I have two completely different images in the exact same location without having to move anything. And honestly, your clients probably won't even know they're in the same location because they're gonna look so much different. So different. I found that versatility there's nothing else in the in the and the entire bannister that can do this and teach yale and using air a v mode. That makes sense. Okay, good. Good question. Just get in some of these gear. What do you use questions out of the way that a lot of folks are asking? Can you tell us again about your light stands? Oh, that's kind of funny. Every time I teach, just forget we had one person in the chat room of one of our creative lives. It actually said it's, the easy light stand from danny's. That was their user name. Yeah, this is denny manufacturing there's. A couple of life sense out there that do this it's really nice raises up. It lowers down. You can slam it down to lower, but what I found is, I like putting on my foot. Toe lower because if you're in a church you don't want to slam it down the church but it's really good to get between the fuse of a church and then lower down if you're a solo shooter it's awesome because you don't have to worry about like this is not one of those I'd literally have to raise this raise the leg's up go to the next location it's super great but it's denise d and m y m f g dot com they have tons of props and tons of background we use just their backdrops in our studio I've used for years I bought my first diddy's backdrop my daughter's thirteen so twelve years ago and I've paid a fortune for it I thought was when unrolled it looked horrible because I was like I wasted my money and assumes that took a photo with that he just came to life it's they have these digital backdrops which is just amazing but these life stands originally the stand wass in the old days came out in the seventies and then they stopped production and then danny's picked it back up and so use them there I think they're about eighty dollars and that what I do like about this one is it's got the thicker legs and as you can see I got dirt and sand all over this because we use it all the time the beach but I can shove this down on uneven area a lot better than the other ones that have the thinner legs. And I just found that this one just works a little bit better. These this one it's not near smoothes the new ones because it's all beat up because I actually took it apart to bring here with me. But, yeah, it's a denny's light standing way have maybe ten of them in our business, and we use them for everything. They actually, this one goes up to eight feet tall, and then they have a twelve foot tall. So if I used my like alien bees which will get into the next segment we have, we put our strobes or heavier lights on the twelve foot, and we put our flashes on these guys. But you can actually take this apart if you want. And it'll fit the suitcase about this big. So I always carry two with me. When I when I go overseas and their aluminum, they're light, they're just effective. Fantastic. Thank you. So we have a lot of people asking here about what is the difference between speed bites and strobes. Hold that for the next segment. Okay, great, but quickly, but the big difference is strobes cannot do teo. Speed lights can you can get a mop tl with strobes meaning a higher flash things to be than one, two hundred of the second one to fifty but shrodes the flash they're not designed to do multiple pulse that pulsing system they don't do that so they simply cannot do high speed sync and therefore they can't do teo they don't do the pre flash and all the other stuff so that's that but with that said the vantage of strokes is there more powerful and so that's why I like to mix t ell in high speed sync with these guys may be the high speed sync with tio with these and then a a stroke over up front or maybe a stronger hair light to go back maybe the sun on a bright day so we balance it out and that's kind of what we're going to get into the next, which is cool because light is like his light you just have to know absolutely I bounce my way tweeted that ah ok, so a question is from baron r I showed a lot of children is there a way to avoid the half second lag in t t l it's too easy to miss the shot I've found somebody else had also asked about do make adjustments for moving subjects like children I do I'm a little confused on the half second leg so is there? No, I have not found any because it's the speed of light, so I mean the light comes from the sun if it comes from the sun is definitely in the last few seconds can go from here there without any problems pretty quickly, but I've never experience if you're getting a lag. It's usually and I've seen some is usually maybe a equipment malfunction battery issue, because it's going to happen because I know for can and especially I don't know if the person's candid enough on the back of this flash it's going to say e t t l and you're a top as this battery starts to die because you remember what I said, the tl is the third generation and this thing's hung up because it's a little thing is the third generation, as the batteries die on this, the e will go away, it will on ly se teoh, which is the first generation based. The difference from the first generation in the third generation is more mathematics. So it's saying to you, I can't do all this mathematics I'm dying here, I'm getting tired, I can on lee do the basics. And then if you don't change the batteries out it's going to go straight to manual it's on ly going to do in the film because it's saying I'm starving here guys, I'm exhausted I could just put a number up there and I'm gonna fire that's about all I can do and that's your warning sign and change the batteries theo in the night on flashes when I think it's people teo teo teo is nikon yeah and it's the exact same things it's a third generation of detail everything works too saying you're going to have it just a little bit of different bells and whistles but it's with the same flush so what's the difference no there's, no difference the only difference the reason why cannon and nikon can talk to each other is when it sends out that talking those pulse of lights it's basic like a morse code of light it's built it's a couple pops then it waits and a couple pops, then maybe one and stop this has its own pattern and this has its own pattern that's the only reason why they can't communicate it easily if they came out with the same communities like one speaking spanish and one speaking english, if they came out with bilingual, they could easily do it now this guy is a chinese version of a flash and it does tt ill, but it has a nikon setting and it has a canon city, so it's still, I can't use kanan and I kind together and teo, but if your shoot his partners and one has a cannon system and one has a nikon system, you could use this flash, the nikon people needs an off camera light, you can see that nikon setting or the cannon people use it, you can set the cannon setting and these air really inexpensive. They're like, I think, one hundred seventy dollars pair to your five hundred dollars of these guys. And so I have a bunch of these as my wireless units it's not a master it's only gonna be a wireless a slave, but it's affected but that's why they can't communicate it's the exact same technology, the exact same science, everything about it is the same. It just has a different pattern of life that communicates for the young knows they're, uh do you find you have a work around for batteries? Because I'm pretty sure that one it doesn't have that report, you're on top of it, that is also that is the other thing I don't like about bees is there's no battery plugin it's the same reason for the canada an icon I don't like the sb six hundreds and I don't like the four twenties before thirty, for the cannon system because they won their less powerful, and I'm already struggling with light outside and two they don't have the plugin, so yeah, that is it that's the downfall of this, but that I can get three for the price of one it's a nice trade off sometimes, yeah, you will start having issues with your your flashes and overexposure and misfires a lot with this. Um, my problem within icons is that they overheat very quickly, be nine hundred, yeah, the nine hundred first first version. Yes, they fixed it in the nineteen I understand, but I already spent, like, two thousand dollars on them. Yeah, and when I add a battery pack, it makes it even more so now I have these battery packs I can't use and you can use and the flash I have so many of them because I had to keep by just for backups, I when that flash came out, I was on the verge of switching over the nightgown. I mean, it was enough that I would have it tattooed on my body somewhere. I love that flash so much, and I'm glad I didn't, because then that achillesheel came out and the problem with that flashes and I'm sure you're aware when it overheats there's no warning and it just shuts down and has gone for twenty minutes and that's that's really is also no warning with the battery he just dies there's not much going don't use lithium is in it at all because that's going to make it worse and you're right the battery pack you khun turn off a little the little heat sensor in it, which is what I'd probably suggest doing in the situations where you know you're going to need that flash and it's going to be important what's that therefore is the safety features so you won't burn these guys up kanan has a custom function in their flash and it's custom function eight or six depending on what model you have because kanan version of of dealing with that is it won't recharge it only it only fires if it's fully recharged the capacitors and that way so if it gets hotter, it's going to take longer to recharge and that way it's trying to cool it down for cannon but there's a custom function in here that you can actually turn that off, and so whatever powers built up in this, it'll it'll discharge of his one third power discharge one third power, which could be perfect maybe okay toss to get that shot that you need, but if you continue to use it, it will melt these flash because I've done it time and time again especially the workshops when we have three four people using one wireless unit and they're firing like crazy and melted so it's a concept is good but yet it doesn't work the nineteen fixed it some it's still a problem that seven hundred it actually is a lot better but yeah your nine hundred there's nothing you know basically all the time I used a little strokes when you go to a v mode the you said your eyes so to auto or that's no no never said that's a great question and I I didn't I didn't address that so thank you for asking no I always use the lowest esso I can possibly get away with and that's so if it's one hundred two hundred outside I'm fine with maybe even four hundred cause today's cameras were so effective and hirai so but I don't like auto I don't like otto it all because I still want to be in control of that because even though I'm using a or a b mode which is technically auto and even though I'm using t t l which is the auto metering system I'm still manually just ing everything and so I still the guy I mean I still want to be control of everything so I outside I'll use the one hundred two hundred generally maybe four hundred inside I used the lowest isil could possibly get away with so that's we did a wedding in the houston planetarium before and so I literally had to use twenty thousand so because it was that was the lowest I could get away with because at least a grainy images that's clear that's not blurry is effective instead of a blurry image that has no grain and so I'd never use auto on ice um this is one from let's see from a how do you focus in low light situations to getyour flash output two things one it's a great question one these guys when this is in master mode or whatever this right here is actually you oughta focus assist tohave an especially infrared light you actually in low light have you done it you can see it actually red beams come out hit and it'll bounce back and tell how far away the subject is so that helps tremendously but sometimes it's still too dark for even that to happen and it also has a lot to do with your limbs your professional siri's lenses will actually focus a lot better in low light your primes generally will focus better but someone won't I know I'm a cannon gavin I know my eighty five prime is just absolutely horrible in low light but it's an old trick from the crime scene days because every time I photographed the dead body it was dark it seemed no one like to kill people during the sunlight and so I would carry a little flashlight around with me and you can actually focus with a flashlight. Turn the flashlight on, focus it and turn it off and shoot. I try not to do that very often. If there's time to playing like, maybe a a first dance and in that creative live I did a couple months ago, we actually ended the into that show on the first dance. But if it's really, really dark, I tell everybody to turn the lights down for I can create my own lights with ease off camera lights. I will literally figure out I will while the lights are on, I will focus on how far away it is and set up in f stop that I'll have maybe ten foot a focus point and just put it on manual focus at that point and that way I know if they stay in that killzone, so to say it's going to be focused. So those are three ways of combating how about jelling king ho too says, do you tell your wife I do dio the magma system? I use a lot. Luminal quest has some really nice little jail kids, which I have. I can pull him out the next time, if you want, if you jail, I did find that it's better to put you're flashing as a jail emmanuel and said teo, because sometimes a t t l want to put up too much light and you'll get if you have a red jail, you'll get pink instead of the deep red that you want, so I found when I do jail, I like to put it on manual so I can be a little more precise with that color because the last thing I want especially I'm doing multiple shots is I want someone to have a pink background, someone tohave, a dark red background, someone to have another shade of almost purple because the light is at is throwing out a bunch of different light you're so good with the questions, okay, it's from jomar on this as a boat as well. Do you use rear sink? And if so, how does that affect the way you said exposure? Rear shutter see does not work with off camera line and that's that's that's a great question they worked with on camera. This is mad like that rare saying lets people know that's great that should explain that. Basically, what you have is if my when the shutters open here to curtains and it starts to close, generally speaking, as that first one opens it's going to fire and then it closes rears when this for opens and it waits so if you had a long shutter, a dragon, the shutter where you have bullet motion it's going to be blurry and then it fires so the first one first shutter it fires right at first and then you're gonna have the blurriness afterwards, rear shutters, great for motion, like in the we went over this in the previous creative live if I have, like I had a wedding reception when they were had a like a fake casino where they were just having seen o knights and they were throwing dice first curtain when you throw the dice, it'll fire assumes they throw it, and then the trail will be in front of it, which really isn't what you want rear curtain, it'll throw the dice, it'll be blurry and then it'll freeze frame after, so it looks like it's moving forward, so any time you have motion that you want to show, I usually use rickard first dance, I use it a lot when they're actually spinning, and I want to actually show her dress spinning or show some action to reception shooting. I use rickard, however, most of time instead of rare curtain if I'm doing off camera that I just used dragging the shutter, which is slow in the shutter speed down about one twentieth of a second right all right, maybe we can get one more in and this is from diana cole photography this one has votes to first of all, she says, I'm freaking out about this class. I recently felt like a light bulb went off and I use some what I learned and what is being taught right now about my flash at my last wedding. So very cool up question is, when you have an off camera flash on dh, the flash is on the top of my camera and it's set teo radio set radio to it. How strong are the radios and the receivers? I found that the camera flash was inconsistently firing. Besides getting a radio, what can be done at a distance? It's with the new six hundreds candid six hundreds of the first flash that actually has a a radio frequency built into it can go back and forth. Now that these guys have come out with a new one, the cannon system is almost like a wife. I it's the same sum you guys were young. But some of the older gentlemen and ladies I'm talking to when wireless telephones first came out of your house and you would talk on it and you could pick up the phone, and sometimes you hear your neighbor and you go when they're going to say anything dirty, I gotta listen it's the same thing because it's a lower frequency it's considered a dirty frequency where there's a lot of noise on it and so sometimes we're getting to metal or thick brick or thick would those low frequencies are not going to be a very effective this is the same problem that was that pocket wizard has with their new system because the frequencies they have on his thirty years old and it was awesome back then but today anything is plugged in north america it's on the one twenty power system when you plug in and creative a frequency noise, frequency the best way I can explain it again to the older ladies and gentlemen, if you had an old tv that was only antenna and you turn on the hairdryer that tv would go crazy that's that noise frequency well that's the exact same frequency that pocket wizard's work off and so lots of times you'll be working fine and then you get into a system special like a reception when the kitchen starts cooking food and that frequency goes out like crazy and it kills it kills your range that's why I chose that was original watchos radio papa because I have a cleaner frequency so that could be a big problem that she has or it could be just could be batteries it could be a channel frequency that could be just noise on that certain channel today, the radio frequencies air so good there's enough product, they're really good. I don't know what she's using. I don't know if it was the cannon six hundred she was talking about which I've had problems with that, like the full board of a car, and I'm shooting through metal like I'm doing the kiss in the car. I want to put up a flash at the bottom of the floorboard and shooting up, and I'm going through the metal car, have problems with those firing through that, so it depends on what she's going through depends on what frequencies in the area. She's, under power lines and pins on what products there's a lot of issues. But I found overall that the radio proper system is the best for the frequency issue, which is why I went with him.