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Off-Camera Flash Options

Lesson 11 from: FAST CLASS: Speedlights 101

Mark Wallace

Off-Camera Flash Options

Lesson 11 from: FAST CLASS: Speedlights 101

Mark Wallace

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Lesson Info

11. Off-Camera Flash Options

Next Lesson: Light Modifiers

Lesson Info

Off-Camera Flash Options

So what we're gonna do here is first talk about different flash, um, options for getting flashes off the camera, and so the probably the one the most popular ways to do this is to use what's called infrared or line of sight. And so there are a lot of cameras that have pop up flashes. This one doesn't have one, but there's a little pop up flash and those specifically on Nikon Canon cameras. Those flashes consent signals to remote flashes. And so there are a lot of newer canon flashes to do this as well. Our cameras. And so I I know the 70 and some other cameras have this built in where you can go into the menus and you can say turn on a commander and it can control flashes. So there are a few, uh, cameras that do that, not all of them. So what we're gonna talk about specifically is the stuff that we could do with all of our cameras. Okay, so if you own one of those cameras that has a remote controller on it, then that's awesome. You're sort of ahead of the game. So what we're gonna do i...

s we're gonna first start by talking about the Nikon options, okay? And their options. I know for Olympus and for Sony and Nikon and Canon, and there's so many different variations we just can't go through all of them. So we're gonna stick with two of the most common, so on a Nikon, what you can dio is there is a switch that says on remote and master. And so, if you want to control a remote, uh, flash, you can do it like this. You put one of your Nikon flashes on your camera and you said it to master. Okay. And on the back, you're gonna get these things. That's a M, ABC. And what is saying there is M stands for the Master flash This flash that's on the camera and it has a mode just like we're gonna find out the different mode so you can set your master flash to teach e l mode master mode and all the other months that we have and then also on a B and C. But that saying is on the remote flashes and this is true of Canon and Nikon. You can set the remote flash to a channel and a zone. Okay, let me talk about the two differences between channels and zones. Let's say that we're shooting an event. So Colby and I were shooting an event, and when I take my pictures, I want toe take pictures and use my remote flashes, and I want to control them. But I don't want Colby to control my flashes. But guess what? Kobe's gonna also be shooting the same event. He also has remote flashes, and he wants to be out of control, his flashes. So I would sit mine on Channel One. It put yours on channel two and now I can shoot with mine. You can shoot with yours. Were not interfering with each other. Everything's all good. Zones are different. So it zones do say I have this flash and I want it to be My key light came. We're gonna go through three lights set up when we get to Portrait's tomorrow. Let's say we wanted this to be the main light, and I want to control this independent of everything else. I might sit this one on Zone A. And so on my flash here, this thing that says a is allowing me to control this flash so I can change the flash exposure compensation for this flash. And I can change the mood for this flash. And if I have this guy, maybe as a kicker light, I could put that one on Zone B. So I'm controlling Zone A. It's controlling all the flashes that are set to zone A, but it's not controlling anything on Zone B, so I can control different flashes on my channel separate from each other. That makes sense. So let's give another example. Let's say we're shooting a wedding and I have and you can have three zones a B C. But let's say we're doing a wedding and there's the table at the front bride and groom. There's the bride's, the bride's friends and family, all that kind of stuff. The groom's friends and family, all that kind of stuff. And I have three different lighting setups. I have some lights amounted to fill the bride and groom. I've got some lights for this side of the table and lights for this side table. I don't want all of them to fire all the time. What I could do is set those two zones a B C on my channel. Maybe Kobe has some on a different channel, and I can say, OK, bride and groom are doing whatever, but those on A and I can turn off. All the other ones on C are being see Click, click, click. It's only those flashes firing. Maybe I tell these Teoh still fire at a lower level so you can see how these zones really help out. You could also do something. Maybe you have those lights set up for the table, but you also have light set up for the dance. And maybe this one is Channel One A, B and C, and the dance is Channel two, so you can start to see how if you're a millionaire and have a bunch of flashes. But now there are There are a lot of event wedding photographers that will have a big pack of speed lights. I'm sure you've seen blog's where it's like, OK, here's my 15 speed lights. It's not uncommon to do that. And so, um, you can see how you can start to control these flashes, get him all set up and do some things that air pretty spectacular. Okay, So, Master Flash Okay, the Master Flash. Here's something that's important. If this is the Master Flash, right, And I'm taking a picture and I'm taking a picture of something over here and I want to control how that light looks. And so I've taken my flashes off my camera so I can get all these things that we're about to talk about to be perfect. Do I want this to fire now? Probably not, because it sort of defeats the purpose. So what you can do with your master flashes you can tell it to be on So on the M on your Nikon people, you can go in here and you can hit select Selects that and again, this is different for every different Nikon flash there is. So you have to look at your specifically. But when you hit select, it will say, Is it TL? You can change the mode from TL toe off to manual two different things So you can tell this flash You know it active a za commander. But don't fire. Just tell other people what to do. Don't actually flash. And so that allows you to use this just to control other flashes but not interfere with the light. Okay, so, um, that's how you do a Nikon. You turn it on, master, And then you can go into those different zones and do anything with this Thea the remote. What you do is instead of putting that on mastering, put on remote very simple. And then what you do is then you can go in here and you can set You can select the group or the zone. So I guess Nikon calls them groups, not zones. You can select the group. You can say I want this to be on Group A or B or C so that say you tell the different flashes what they belong. Teoh, you can hit select again. You can tell it what channel you want it on. 123 or four. And then you can go down and you can set things like zoom in all those different kinds of things you might need to do. So that's how you do. You do that. So we have a different option. And these are the is called the Pocket Wizard Mini in flex. Um, these air radio triggers. Then there's a big big, big difference between a radio trigger and a line of sight trigger and I talked earlier. Cannon is coming out with a radio trigger for their new flashes that I think is going to be spectacular as well. The problems with line of Sight Please, If you haven't watched it, watch last night and you will see us frustrated with the line of sight remote controls. We rarely ever use them because of the complications we have shooting outside of having to make sure everything concede everything. And so what we normally do when we're shooting with speed lights off camera, we use pocket wizards because their radio triggers. A radio trigger means that you can. You can get your flash off your camera and you can put your flash just about anywhere you want at really, really crazy distances. And so that's what those do. The other thing. What these conduce you can remote control a camera as well, so it's not just for flashes, it's for cameras. But that's different class, right? So let me show you how to set these things up. We're not gonna go into great detail on this, because again these these would be a class all into itself. In fact, I've taught classes just on how to use these. That's you can see those for free. A pocket wizard dot com, by the way. So, anyway, what these do is, uh, these air specific to your cameras brand the's Air Nikon Many in flexes. We didn't bring any Canon Nikon, Canon mini and flexes with us, so we can only use the's on our night cons. And they're not interchangeable. So you can't put a cannon one on a Nikon or whatever, because the cannon system is different from the Nikon system. So what this does is you can take a transmitter, and there's two flavors of transmitters. There's a big one like this. It's a flex picks and send and receive what is really big. You probably don't want something that clunky on your camera, so they made the mini, which is a smaller version. It's only a transmitter, but you put this guy on your on your camera, and then what you do is you can take a speed light, and you put the speed light in just normal T TL mode. You don't do anything with it. You don't put it on, slave, A remote or anything. You just say you just turn it on and then it actually goes onto your flex. And as soon as you turn the flex on, what it does is it takes over the control of the flash. It totally takes over control. And it is. The camera actually thinks that the flash is still on the camera. And so all of the controls that you have not all of them, but 85% of all the controls that you have with your flash on your camera you still have. Except for now it's it's remote.

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