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11:00 am - Shoot: Indoor with Two Dancers

Lesson 11 from: Mastering TTL Flash

Mike Fulton and Cody Clinton

11:00 am - Shoot: Indoor with Two Dancers

Lesson 11 from: Mastering TTL Flash

Mike Fulton and Cody Clinton

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Lesson Info

11. 11:00 am - Shoot: Indoor with Two Dancers

Lesson Info

11:00 am - Shoot: Indoor with Two Dancers

There seems to be a lot of questions on the stand it za denny manufacturing easy to stand that we use so just to let you know, but also I was just kind of checking in the chat room stuff, trying to answer all the questions that I possibly could. Um, the big question is why tcl over manual and that's going to continue to be the debate no matter what again it's like the chevy four vehicles for people that are in america, you're always gonna have people argue over any time there's a product or a style you're always going people argue over for us detail we used to tell ninety five percent of time that's cody not because we love it it's live it's portable, easy inside here, which is where we are absolutely I can definitely see sometimes you want to use manu because you're in a controlled environment. If we had more clouds outside where the light is changing, mohr details even going to come a bigger part of it would be more positive to use over manual when we go outside this afternoon, tea l...

t's a lot more easy to use and we're going a lot slower today and again, I want to reiterate that we're going slow the amount of time it takes us to get these images is probably tenfold what it really wouldn't realize but if we got up here and just started shooting away, you really don't learn anything in my whole goal is to share exactly every step of what we do that's why I'm trying to stay away this one only cody has the camera and I'm trying to explain what's going on and when he's talking, I'm trying to shut up, which is really difficult for me because that's not my normal, but my point is we're trying to explain each step of the way so the different swing tl manual again t tail does all the thinking for you normal, we're taking multiple shots here we never really do that in real life what we're trying to show you since we have the feedback each step, our visual thought each step along the way where when real life would literally take one shot, we would've just take the next and we move on it's that fast we don't use in the light meter's we don't anything to soar tio is our light meter for a t t l meeting system in our eyeballs on the back of a real city is our light meter that's the big difference? It does all the thinking for you and then the big one is also you have two things when you shoot partnerships like you guys are, we have several people in the classroom, we shoot partnerships it does all the thinking for you so you could really change where manual it's just not gonna happen you're not gonna be able to do that with emmanuel you can but you're going to have to just anything or you're gonna have to set that wild flash up in a certain power and it's just going to meet her for you or you're gonna have to keep constant changing where we're tl if you're two stops under both but one has a sixteen thirty five one it's going to meet her everything for you it is all the thinking so what? We haven't really shown a lot of those things that's really why we choose tl because again we were partnership and it kind of helps us out the biggest advantage for me and t t l say we got a first dance scenario if you're in manual you got it set for one of your power is into this flash need to be at a certain distance for yourself so I know it's going to be up eleven here every nine here at five point six year I know that and I have to kind of change that on my camera we're in tl is you're saying you don't have to sorry I messed with anyway so yeah so like saying that the distance so but if it's a first dance situation and they're dancing very dynamically I may not have enough flash I may have in a flash I may have too much flash if your manual it's constantly were being that close to you but if it's to feel it's going constantly stopped that place down proper exposure, proper exposure, proper exposure proper both but if this were manual you they have to have an assistant moving in around or you're constantly adjusting another camera so that to me is the biggest advantage of detail it gets me the ball park faster it may not be right but I need to be but I can quickly just my flash compensation to get me in the ballpark and the other advantage of using this wireless system this so called infrared and and I really hit on a little bit let's get the old style is called infrared bingley because the wireless transmitters does the on ly communicated in infrared light beam which the human eye can't pick up well this is a master flash it has all wavelengths of light including the infrared which is why we see it. So while it's still considered infrared technique it's really not inferential using mohr but you could still use manual with this you can't get the high speed sync generally out of it, but let's say you're in a situation we only high speed sync and your brain just cannot function from the negative three plus three flash compensation if you pop your master flashover emmanuel mode as soon as you click the button, all your slave flashes popping in manual mode as well. So if you're in a situation to where maybe that pre flash that we talked about yesterday is being tricked there's a mirror there's a window there's a bright chrome or something that's that's causing it to mess up and you just can't get it. You got to go fast, pop your master flashing emmanuel, adjust the power instead of now negative three two plus three now you're back to manual the ratio in the fractions from negative one one twenty eight to one to one just the power on your match flash! It'll send out all the power to enslave you can get that shot because now it's just fire fire, fire it's not doing any of that, that wouldn't say triangulation, but it's not doing me that coded light, signaling that we talked about communications with t t l and then you can hit your master flashback to tl and move on. So that's another big advantage that we literally have both right there in our fingertips. That makes sense, right? So what we're going to kind of do now what we kind of bless you what we kind of ended on our last is kind of the first dance, how would we do a first dance? The way coding I shoot generally at a wedding, and I'm kind of lay that out since this is a wedding scenario and that we don't have a first dance dancers, and we'll do other stuff, but I want to kind of explain how we do our first dance or weddings. Cody usually generally shoots the women he stays with the ladies and so he's at the bride's back and call from dependent on our package, but literally can be from the time he started their hair makeup done all with her, I've never even see cody until the wedding itself. I'm with the guys I photographed, the guys, I'm a retired crime scene investigator, I you know, it wasn't, you know, swat all the egotistical attitudes of cops and stuff, it just seemed really natural. Back in the day when we were playing, being wedding photographers, we really didn't even think of a business plan, it just seemed natural that want you the guys, because that's, where my foundation came from, well, cody was single the time, and it just seemed natural that he would shoot the girls and so and he's the pretty boy. So I mean just seem natural, and so that was our business plan, our whole plan was just to have fun on saturday night, we didn't we didn't even know what a business plan wass way didn't think that we would travel the world. We didn't think it was impossible. We didn't think it was part we didn't even know, and so as we started traveling, our first destination wedding outside the houston, texas area was in london, and we didn't even have a contract with clients. We were so stupid, we literally just flew over there, we got on the train and we're getting off off the subway in the area. We kind of looked each other says I wanted to actually gonna be here to pick us up. I mean, that's when it really hit us, that we might have really messed up here, like I will have two weeks to have fun in europe, and they showed up and we had a great time, but all this technique, this is basically all we would carry in a wedding. We carry two flashes each a master in one slave, so we have four total, two in each of our camera bags, and at the wedding cody would be with the bride. I would be with the groom. I would actually break away little early twenty minutes for the weather, so when they're starting to walk down the family, so I'm the one in the islets photographing the families that they're being escorted into sit down and then the bride the doors open in the bride comes down I use a few flash shots usually flash on camera not using off camera this time but somewhat churches I do use off camera and then once I get a few shots of her and her father who's ever ask you one or I'll break away or even I'll stand as a crowd member in the crowd because everybody standing because codis right behind her photograph in her as she walks past me if I can't get out of there out of the pew and so once that happens and I get out of there and that's when we first see each other from the day when I dropped him off or whatever and then we shoot the wedding together and then to reception we stay together the whole time and we shoot the reception two different ways to give our clients to different looks cody usually offshoot tl but on camera flash flash just on top of the camera t tl and he'll shoot you use a lot of dragging the shed our uses sixteen thirty five is his foundation lin's I'm going to a lot of off camera lighting at the reception I'll put which I'll show you just a second where this whole conversation's going I'm going put two lights on each corner and maybe just one but I put him up and I'm using off camera lighting for the wedding and so we're giving our clients completely two different looks code is going to get that direct flash that that dragging the shed or blurring into the flash frozen and I'm gonna give really harsh side lighting really dramatic lighting and then we'll pick and choose you know fifty or seventy five images and we'll make a nice hundred fifty image a collection of the reception from our two different styles and again as partnerships it really helps doing that but even his solo shooter we're going to show you with these lights stands you could set him up and you can shoot off camera lighting by just turning your master flash on into master mode and then when you don't want to use that you would just turn it off and just have a t t l flash on your camera and do some dragon chef so you can still do this very easy you don't have to worry about meter anything and meters everything for you you have to worry about catching the live action so teach you really comes in a lot more advantage when you have that action that's really happening fast and it can keep up with you it does the mathematics for you so we're going to kind of show how we would do the first dance how we would do a dance scene because these guys aren't necessarily first dancers are actually a lot more talent of that and so we're going to kind of play with that we'll take challenges again from online if you have any online sent in to us we'll get some other people of your shooting but that's that's kind of what we want to do since we have a lot of questions about that we want to explain how that works and we'll go from there all right? All right, come on up one and I'm sorry I don't remember your name jena one engine perfect one has a shared so depending on the venue we talked a little bit about it yesterday you've noticed that we really take out a lot of the ambient light lots of times to really you could make a natural light you could make it dark even commercial shooters uses a lot it kind of reminds me when I was talking to heidi a lot of people that go into people's homes and doo wop doo commercial shots real estate that kind of stuff these techniques all work the same if you understand the concept of how you use these flashes you can use them anywhere because the vantage of these tiny flashes is just that their tiny you can put him around corners you could put him or if you have radio transmitters but you can hide behind couches you can put up anywhere you need a light and you just simply can't do that with big strokes lots of times and so they it's really really advantage best with radio transmitting devices if you have to put him in floorboards a car you can control the power you don't have to set it on a certain power there's a lot of things you can do so as you learn this technique and you guys sitting here in the audience and even online and you learn these techniques to get more control and mohr used to all the scenarios that you can do with the functionality of the actual science of using these lights let your mind run wild don't ever limit yourself thinking this is on ly good for weddings this is on ly good for outdoor this is on ly it is good for everything because cody and I shoot everything in our business given we started off at weddings now we do a whole heck of a lot of high school seniors but we do commercial we do put baby portrait's we do everything and we use tl in almost every aspect of our business so it's a very, very effective tool once you understand it so that's what we want to kind of do we want you to expand your mind realize that it's not just what we're showing you today that our system that we shoot is much much faster than what we're showing you because we're trying to break it down and explain exactly how we do each death so just be aware that so what I would normally do before reception get started, I would try to find a place that's really? Not this around the dance floor that's not really. You gonna be in people's way and every location is different. Maybe I could only put up one life maybe I can put up to I love to be able to put two, but you've got to remember if this likes here and someone trips and falls over guess who's going to get sued. So you've got to make sure your professional all the time and you watch where you put all your gear because unfortunate that's part of business, so I would try to put it off to the side and opinion on the venue independent on the ceiling or anything, I could bounce it up off the ceiling, which will try this one home, make sure turn it on, put up like this and you could put another one over there, and the way that I normally shoot with my camera on off camera lighting is I would have this on channel one this on channel two when I put that one over there, can you guys come out right here and just kind of do like like, you don't know what you're talking about dancing like a box dance that like ninety nine percent of all wedding people start off, yeah, just kind of start spinning and and I don't take shots, but what I want to do is when they're in this, when they stop right there, so when they're in this light and I know it's channel one, I would shoot, shoot, shoot and as they keep turning and there in the dead man's omar can't do anything, I simply hit my zoom button or change the channel on your flash. However you want to do it, and I changed it to channel two and then as they get in that so called kill zone for this light, I can shoot, shoot, shoot! And now I have light coming from this side, and I'll just keep doing that the entire first dance if I'm a solo shooter, so I'm getting like from both left and right side, so complete looks like two different photographers were taking the images, and then cody will have his flash on camera, and he can actually take photographs with flash on camera, but wanted to demonstrate that. So when you all dance, I want you to do a little wall see thing of whatever, but just going to come get close to this one. And then do one where you come and get over here to show how if it's not watch the court what does he need to back this way buddy but if you shot back this way we'll be better shot back this way okay hello sorry lot tv I'm not used to it you'll get me in your space so I have light coming from over here since on two I'm gonna make that more directional for you for the better state you need to stay kind of state just pretend this is the dance floor of the center for these things being so I have one and I'm just shooting one is there that kills on I could just keep shooting one and as they turn I literally just switch my zoom button looks and I went to many time because I'm sitting talking to two and now just now I'm getting flat from over here and I know I'm shooting too fast for the flash and then as they roll over I would just hit the zoom button again and go toe one and I'm getting light from over here and I literally would just do that the entire first dance control in miami and life the way I want basically making the look anything like I want you don't have to get it every cycle if you take a shot you're looking again this is almost natural life I wanted to see but I could under expose more taking out that ambient light you'll get like from both sides in one location hugely helps control your life and usually helps you make you look like more than one photographer the location and then if you have it like set of second photographer they can actually to shoot camera a flash on camera or you can do what cody and I do sometimes like looks like our style just will be channel one if we just there's no room to put up a light stand I mean we're talking just a tiny little space you don't put a life stand down because it's going to probably hurt someone or someone there's just no room so if that's the case cody will actually sit down on the ground in one position he saves it and I'll kind of get a forty five degree angle from cody from the dance floor if he can move when he moves I'm gonna keep this same angle and I'm just going toe turned the flash towards him part that receives the flash it towards our subjects and as he shoots okay I'm delighted for and just clarify I am going to un exposing my cameras you can see the flashlight so we're not getting any um envy alive that's going to confuse yourself under exposed by full three stops so we could see exactly what the flashes doing come down on them a little more like that in fact told you hit and I wanted coming yes good and so basically as they were dance around just do a little something something don't even look at the camera just like you have a radio like perfect that's the law that's the look of a real living dead zombies coming around this way michael and see how he's instructed me to walk around a little bit man now he's like controlling her grabbed her neck and so if cody was moving I would actually he likes this distance from what he's getting I would keep this distance if he moves to the left I'm going to move the left I think he removed the right I'm gonna move to the right with him keeping the same distance and you can control the light however you want and no matter what camera settings you change to this is a big advantage over teeth plover manual whatever under expose you go with your only changing one item that too details still gonna meet affording keep up with the range where if you're manually change one thing it changes the light as well so then you'd have to either go over to your life in just the power detail you don't have to and that's really going to be a lot clear this afternoon when we go outside so hopefully you are seeing these images pop up as kind of as I'm taking home the hardest part of this is just getting both their faces lit and it's it's just kind of a timing issue you're gonna be aware of where your external flashes in relation to them dancing and you just buy it with your guys and so typically, I mean, typically this is the first answer me, I'll sit, I'll take a bunch of these and I'll usually take more than I need because because of the fact that they are spinning and turning and you want to make sure you get a couple of good shots were both of their faces are lipped, which we had first dance people who does like it most in times like this, it was like the minions, yeah, then they kicks into another song, right? Exactly. They gotta act like they know what they're dancing. All right, so yeah, I mean, I take a ton of those and I'm sure they should be coming up on the screen. It's so I mean by c that's all there is to it. It's, I decide how much ambulance one let in for this, mainly for demonstration purposes. I cut a bunch of it out. But if it's ah, beautiful venue I may not want to under exposed much, maybe only under exposed by a third of a stop maybe one stop, maybe don't expose it all may be leaving zero conversation and just add a little bit of flash tio just tow kind of light their faces a bit so they don't look so muddled or somebody and you can also do the technique. If you're solo shooter, you could do the technique that I was doing channel one channel to channel to channel one, go back and forth, get that for half the dance and then just worry about the one life, and then you can actually move around in different angles and use that one light to your vantage as well. So again, you get multiple looks if you have those two extra flashes, there's, just multiple things you can do, and we try to, for the most part well under expose, very similar what these shots are. We're really the spotlight is on the client it's, not on the venue. First dance is supposed to be the real romantic, you know, their first dance, and so we really want to knock out all the extra stuff that's in the ambient world, out of the viewer's eyes when they're looking to those images, we just want the viewer when they look at that image, to just see the bridegroom it's just about them, that that's one of the strong points of this technique, is it puts all of the interest on your subject, which is what you're putting a flash on. So, like you said it, it darkens out all the background and darkens out things that aren't as important to the image. But what is important is your subject and that's what you just in the flashlight up? So this technique really forces you to accentuate you're subject to assess far as focusing, or do you let cam would do the work as far as the auto focus is concerned? It's a great question we try to go auto focus as much as possible. Obviously, sometimes you can't do out of focus because it's too dark as I get older autofocus, that's more my friend there's, no question, um, but you can also generally there's enough light for auto focus with the modern cameras sometimes there's not so you just have to kind of figure it out now with if you go manual focus, you need to be aware this is one thing that high speed scene can hurt you on, because in high speed scene as you start using it, mohr and you start realize you can get those shallow depth of field with flash, which is new, because in manual mode, you can't get that high speed sync. You can't you can't get that shallow depth of field unless you use, like neutral density filters or more stuff, which I don't like. I don't like filters on the into my lands at all. We don't use any filters at all. That's a hold on the story. So what, you're shooting at two, eight, three, two lots of times and so that's a showered at the field. So with manual focus, when you have someone moving around like this, they'll be in focus will be out of focus will be in focus to be out of focus. So it's really a lot of issues there, where if you're shooting death eleven or something, you have a bigger depth of field and so nice you have a bigger depth of field, and so you were able to manual focus is easier, kes is therefore they have a bigger range that they can move in and they're still going to be focused. So you have to be aware that so we try to auto focus all the time because we are shooting at two, eight, three, two, maybe four, five like center yesterday, I can't remember the last time we went above five, six on just about anything, maybe some shots outside, like I did shoot wide open and then she like an f sixteen or something just because I'm not sure which I want to give him, but generally we're five six or or or faster the lower number so we try to auto focus it if there's a point where you can auto focus because it's too dark you can do what I used to do in my crime scene days I always care like a little bitty tiny flashlight with me as well, and you can always focus in on it with that flashlight focus and turn a flashlight often it works sometimes it difficult on this carpet dance but usually there's some kind of light that works well and another thing about this it's not this dark in this room so there's plenty of lighting here auto focus but yet we're taking that light out so your camera has plenty of light autofocus and we're just removing it by dropping our exposure compensation down and we're fine, so even if they turn on some lights in the venue, you can still knock it out, which is what we try to do all the time. So if the venues really, really ugly just turn alexa just turn off all the lights and make your own lights your final product will be much stronger if they if they turn on the lights go for some reason in these ugly venues especially, they always seem to want to turn on all the lights for the first dance for everybody concedes then just remove it with your with your exposure conversational movie ambien and it makes the image is pretty quick question I'm still trying to figure out why you put him on two channels the main reason is I can get light from two different sides I could stay in one spot and it the happy if the lights over here they're dancing this is my happy spot for this decide and I didn't have another light I have to wait till he turned all the way around to get that happy spot again to get more photos if I'm stuck in one location so basically this image here is a one light system one light so it's very dramatic you can really see with student if you left both lease on the same channel they're both gunfire every time and it's going to give you that sandwich effect and it could make your life very flat because it's going to kill those shadows on the backside so both amman they're just going to give you a flat light except when it gets really closest on this will be strong and give you a ratio but it's it's a lot of lights so this is a one light system but he's just switching turned on on lee this life here you know the dance over here. You can only turn this light over here, so I'm using one just like this, but it gives me shots over here. And then as they turn, I could get the same look of the shots over here so I can get mohr more shots in that first dance time period with just two to four minutes. You know how long the song is hard? Is it to switch from one channel to the other? Can and it's actually really easy. Just switched. Yeah. One thing I like about bannon on the five cities and other one. And even on the six hundred, because the menu system, the lab using the five, eighty one or two zoom feature when you hit it and release controls four things. The first thing when you hit it releases actually zoom feature, which we talked about, where you can go from twenty four to one o five. The next one is your ratio settings, which we leave off. The third one is your channels. The fourth one is, how do you turn that flash to wireless transmitter? But let's say we go to the third one in my channel and I can't get from one to two and you hit set will set about the center your dial. The neat thing about cannon the last thing you change of those fourth items is the first thing that pops up when you hit zooming in his long is the power had powered down so once I changed it to channel one it's little the fastest getting using button turning the doubt it's set and I'm going hit nothing but turn the dial gets it I'm good with that and so as they come so in that dead time whether here you have a perfect shot perfect shot purpose shot okay both their heads are blocking a lot and they're not the right shot that's when I would change the channel two and then a shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot that I change the channel one and then shoot shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot that's based on what I do, it opens up me form or images at different angles with the same look but just different angles in that short period of time and I don't want to turn around look at the screen that's the going was going no you miss it no no that's really that bird? Yeah ok the next photo challenge from the chat rooms is from tatyana can you the show an example of dragging the shutter with flash and dancing absolutely dragged the shutter works better you can use cto but we're really not going to use off camera lighting it works better if you use the flash on your camera. I think it works better if you have a water angle in again, you're dragging the shutters basically when you're below member when I said yesterday, your general of thumb is whatever millimeter you're shooting, that is the slowest shutter speed you want before you get hand motion, so if you're shooting a one hundred millimeter lens, you don't want to go below one one hundredth of a second or you'll start getting handshake that's what so many young photographer when you start out there, they buy that I think we've all probably had it. That's seventy two, three hundred lands that's four, five, two, five six because it's cheap, but I can get really far out there and using two, three hundred and you're in a dark room, your shutter speed one twentieth of a second and you're like, why are my images all blurry? That's? Why? And so the way we come back dragging the shutter is you actually want to do that? You want to get it so slow your shutter speed, the will get hand motion, but the flash and top your camera will freeze the action and then everything where the flash doesn't touch, doesn't freak out too will be blurry, so when they're dancing, we do this a lot when you first start off, you're going to get a lot of mess ups, a lot of mess ups, you get one or two great ones and probably ten to twenty bad ones, but as you continue to do this technique, it really, really adds a neat feature, and then you can also zoom the lens and you can tilt the camera a little bit and we're talking just a little bit, cody, I'll show you in just a second, it's just a little bit. So now you have where the flash doesn't touch all the light specially have been like christmas lights or something like that on their on your first dance area, all that will be blurry, and then you can freeze the action with flash, so we'll show you. But again, this is not an off camera light situation. You can do it with all camera lining. I find it's easier for the flash on top of the camera, and you want to focus or composed the clients in the center of the image. Not like most photographers. When you start learning you want to put their heads three quarters to the top, you actually want to put him in the center, especially twist your camera anything, because that center is going to stay and focus, but we need pull and twist. Everything around is going to twist around that center focusing points with their heads up here and you twist it's goingto blur their head even so, you went up in the center you can always do on artistic crop in post if you want make him three quarters or in the rule of thirds and all that stuff but when you're doing this usually helps to have in the dead center you know just kind of put you on the show just don't you turn this way and both your look towards me look this way I'm trying to get these lights in the background so stiff this way step this way step this way step this way right there good okay, so we're doing a drag in the shutter so typically I dragged the shutter a lot in a reception type situation was a vineyard use of theirs lights, little colored lights, christmas lights, type things hanging around or whatever it may be it's it's using is pretty dark and so dragon turner just means having basically a longer exposure. I like I use the sixteen thirty five wins typically when I dragged the shutter I use a shutter speed of around one twentieth of a set of a second are one twenty fifth of a second that to me if I go any slower than that sometimes depending on how much ambient light is you can get too much motion blur that for the amount of movement that I do usually worked pretty decent and let me take a quick shot see if I make it too much spill from and used with the darker than a little better this technique was I want get these lights because you're only gonna have the ambient light if you're outside walking and doing a session outdoors and you have like neon signs from bars or or whatever else on the streets or street lights it works really really well in that case because you're going to blur out all that bright light in the background and your flash will focus in on your client so this is typically meet dragging the shutter I've got one twenty fifth of a second and that was fast enough with it with my eye so in my f stop that I was able to stop out most of light on the let me show you what it looked like with no flash you know flash they would be dark but you would still see the lights behind them and it's important when you drag a shutter you you cannot have any light contamination on your subject if I had too much light on them then when I did that hand motion are the zoom with my lens then they would appear blurry but since they're dark enough that when I do flash may see the flash freezes them and then my hand motion by twisting the camera gives that nice twist, the effect on the lights behind them and like, so if this was like a dance floor, there'll be some d j light's and probably a little more inserting behind some more more light bulbs and colored lights, and it would look and like he said, he brought up a very valid point that I want to reiterate because you might not have got it to see how this image the part that he likely saw he knew were going to blur. We're not across their face when he twisted it. If they're right beside their head and you twist that yellow line, that blue line is going to go right across their face. Well, they're going to be focused it's still going to blur that across the line? So when you do this drag to shatter technique, you want to think about that and try to line them up, posed them, or when they're dancing, you set up when they come into the right area, that the lights will be around them, not on them when you drag it. That makes sense, because you can also do the zoom feature like sixteen thirty five and just go from sixteen to thirty five and take when you do that, you little zuma's, you're pushing the button. So it's a it's a simultaneous motion and what he's doing is twisting so he's simultaneously just barely twisting the camera about this much when he's taking the photo not a bunch, we take it a bunch, they're gonna end up blurry as well. And like I said about the one twenty for this week in france, in your style. So if I get really aggressive with it and a lot of a zoom, you could see it. This was this was used the zoom instead of twisting, it gives a little different effect the there it is see, the zooming gives you more very don't know streaming effect from the center as it zooms out. But let me just show you if I get a little too slow on my shutter speed, this was one twenty fifth I'm gonna go one twentieth, which that same image may be a little blurry on them and it's like it's something you just have to find tune. Actually, that went bad and they didn't give me very good. We'll do a little slower everyone fifteenth, one more and it's a timing issue if you don't zoom or you don't twist at the same time that the shutter don't matter what your shutter speed is just like that image is not gonna happen. And that's why? I said you could have a lot of mess up when you first start doing this technique, but we always do so dragging a shudder in our receptions always, but you can t do anything else, and you can see with this I'm getting some artifacts kind of in his head. His head was kind of it's kind of a weird effect to it. How it kind of split because of the slower shutter. This is a little bit too slow of a shelter for dragging, in my opinion, that's what I like to keep it right around one twenty fifth for the amount of movement that I do, but it depends on how aggressive you are and twisting resuming, and you'll just have to figure that out with your trial in there. Just remember it's, you could do it off camera, but it's harder because you really that flash directly in the face he's been getting a lot to really just kind of show you the fact that there's not a lot to drag the shelter right now, this venue, but I like water angle shots, maybe three quarters where they're dancing and you really get some motion, and so even when you get what angered items that are farther out, that move faster we'll have blur too, so it actually gives a like that they're dancing, it gives it almost a life in itself said it is freezing the action a look you can, you can visual lot, they're actually moving in the image. And so that's, really, how in real life we actually do the dragon shutter, same technique that he showed you, but we'll pull it away a little bit, get the three quarters when they're actually dancing and showing some of that motion. Um, let's dio way question from the internet on this topic corey on c photo asked to drag that image doesn't matter what kurt, you have the flash sink to first or second it's a great question since you're using the camera on the flats on the camera you can use first or second, and yet it's definitely gonna matter, especially if there's something I remember it was a great shot. I used the wrong card like it was the reception overseas, and they had, like a huge venue there rented they had like poker tables in everything else, and they were playing throw the dice and he's first curtain, and the shadow is the blur's on the wrong side of the dice, so it almost looks like they're it's coming back to her instead of being thrown so you would use definitely the blur will definitely matter opinion on which curtain you have just to clarify that so the first car it means that as the first couple was it flashes and then it's a zoo flash fades away, the motion there stays open so then you get that trail of a little bit of light as that object moves and then the second current closes, whereas if it was the second curtain he would throw it the first cover open you get a trail and then the flash would fire freezing the dice or whatever at the back end of the trail instead of making it look like a meteorite make it a little more realistic that you would see like it's moving so fast, so depending on what you're photographing, what kind of motion it is then you know it does it does matter first or second curtain, but when you're taking shots like he just showed you, it really doesn't matter because that motion is it really associated with a direction is just there to add to the ambiance of the image, but if you have a direction of motion where something you have definitely you probably want to use the second curtain for again so it looks natural so the blur will be behind the item and not in front of the island if that makes sense one more question before going on to the next it's a challenge okay cola from a darla's sharp studios when dragging the shudder and you are selecting the shutter speed cody are you on manual? I did switch to manual there because I had to teo teo on a flash manual on our camp I had two underexposed enough because it's so bright here if I were in in there there's darker I would not have had to go to manual but I would have went to manual to make sure that my, um shutter speed stays at that twenty fifth of a second and also have that shallow depth of field which is that two point eight which I know what you did but if because if you're shooting a navy mode and you don't switch to manual or at least a tv mode then as you turn to different areas your shutter speeds going to go up and down and you could go a lot higher than that twenty fifth of a second are a lot lower and that's going to affect your light trails and it's gonna affect your but again they go that goes exactly back to what we said yes tl is another tool it's a very powerful tool once you understand it but it's not the right tool in every situation but it is the right tool in a lot of situations so the more you know again the more tools you know the better portrait you're going to create and so in this case detail, I mean, I'm a v mode the way we use it, it was not the right choice, we want that exact shutter speed all the time, so we can control that light. Now we're going to still use tt eleanor flash, we're still going control the power from our flash compensation on the back of our master flash, just like we would doing outside with the off camera lighting inside like we've been doing, but we're going to go manual on our camera cause we want that exact same shutter speed and I shutter speeds going change, depending on the winds that you have again, we like using the water lenses because we can get that slower shutter speed with those water lenses when we do this technique awesome! We had a great question from digital echo. How do you get correct exposure? We're outside chandelier, lightbulbs, room and subject are all properly exposed, in other words, for architectural photography, but with our models included, how do you get bearable blight pictures, not overexposed and get the rest of the image properly exposed without compositing layers and photoshopped itt's that's a tough scenario? Absolutely it's one of the worst, and it really depends on how much ambient light is coming in there, because the brighter it is it's going to be hard I'd say that most time, it is probably the best to do multiple exposures. I mean, the best commercial shooters are going to do multiple exposures and overlay stuff because it will allow you to the greatest commercial photography don't look at one venue and look, it is one image they look, it is probably four, five, six, even one hundred images, and they look at each individual item and they'll take an image will set up a tripod, and they'll shoot each individual item exposed for that, and they put them all together, extreme hdr that is the best way. Unfortunately, now if you don't have that capability, you don't know how to do that you can still under exposed, but the problem is, when you under exposed to expose with chandelier your darkening of everything, and that doesn't work so well. So sometimes this technique for that would probably not be the best way to just be flat out honest. The multiple exposures and overlaying them together is the best way, but what you could also do is light up everything except for the chandelier, because the chandelier is going to be like trump it's going to be the brightest thing in the image so you could expose for everything but that chandelier and get everything correct where you want and then just take that one chandelier shot and dropping that's probably what I would do to be the easiest you know you really get the entire room, but you will be able to unexposed for the chandelier and then you can use the flash to bring your subject up to the brightness of the chandeliers or multiple flashes if I had to let's see one more well finishes up if you're in the thing you have a couple, I want to kind of show you some challenges that you can use and some advantages of high speed sync and t t l will do that you can't do in manual mode when you have couples kind of very similar to what we did with our wedding client that one image where the bride was focused on the in the room is a little soft. We do this a lot almost every single time we shoot, we'll have a depth of field type of shot, our groom shots do that a bride shots, but even with couples we'll do that as a general rule, the women are in charge. You want to make sure that the woman's day because generally the guy just wants to be there and wants to get it over with he's tired and so what we like to do off lots of times we'll put her here and we're just gonna pretend not so much dancing just the pope here and we'll have, you know in a guy warning you just come back to the way I tell people like it he's going to be on the wall I say I want you to lean on the water, what you get so you can kind of pose them show them in a guinness in opposing class this is what we do however they want to do it if he's comfortable this way he's comfortable however you want to do it because if you start really fine tuning especially a woman to a man or a man to a woman women have a tendency to make men look feminine vice versa. And so I like to allow the man or the woman that kind of jenna lee posed themselves and then we'll find tune it so you still see some of the person out, so if he sends up like this that's fine, I'm happy with that I'm just going to pull him over a little bit this way and then we're gonna light on both up came and so we'll use two flashes one both in tl one will be on her which would be the main and one will be back here oh more waken control the ratio by the distance the cervix that's four foot so if I put this four foot for more that's going to be about the same light on both because they're both output the same power about moving this one back. Gonna be softer a lot so that's so the viewer will see her first and then fall off to him. So then you get the light where you want it, you got that? So now you have to think, ok, now I have this but in my mind how focused you want hard focus, but how much focus don't want him do I want him shark don't want him soft if I wanted to saw how soft, but then it goes into the limbs, you have a sixteen, thirty five wins, even to eight it's going to be pretty focused because you don't have that sheldon field with water lands, but if I had a seventy, two hundred twenty four to seventy, if you zoomed in mme or he's going to be more blurred out some all this control you have now, and so as you're setting this up, these are the things that are mine, that we're thinking about course, it happens fast, but we're thinking about all this, so what I try to do first is opposing generally wear one I don't have to necessarily find tune it kind of like the groom shot yesterday in the soybean field, I oppose him generally how I wanted it, I got my lights, I'll take my test shot I just my life maybe just my have stopped for the shallow depth of field that I want on that do all that then I find tune them once I have my lights in my exposure of the way I want it and then then it's the shot and we move to the next location so that's kind of what I want you to start thinking about when we do this and you like stick boy in this case so you want this depth field this is something the high street sink has a huge advantage and it gives you this depth of field people aren't used to seeing that in photographs but reality is that's the way a lot of the human eye looks if we really focus on her he's going to be solved so it's a very, very normal way of seeing images because that's what we see it in real life and it's also brings attention to certain viewers you're guiding the view of this image to see what you is the artist want them to see with your depth of field and said everything being focus and if you want a lot he went a little it's completely up to you ok now I know this is cody's camera so is it set not on spot what we're going to we're going take we could take multiple shots but we're going to totally different exposures the first one I want to do his memory is once you take big steps so we're under exposed quite a bit that's going dark anything else you're really going to see where these flashes are hitting and then your final shot we're going to something that's not under exposed as much to be closer to natural light shot which is probably what you would submit to your clients they don't always want something really dark they want to see this they don't want to like it's nighttime in this warehouse or wherever this is so but again for demonstration purposes the first one we're going take it's going be very dark very moody very flashy and then you could do the same shot we're not going to expose as much just had a little bit of flak ask them to light them up and that would be something closer to what you would probably submit to your friends okay so for shot is going just take one just for fun or whatever you want to call it whatever you want to call this ain't fun so you want me to under expose this one sure your first one started when you flash it so yeah now it's just turned off just everybody take a quick shot here this is how dark it's going to be nice and dark you can't see yourself makes it all so that was actually it's your final product you started with your final product you're so good you're good ok ok so this is your mama there's the first one under exposed again because we want to show what these plaster coming from so turn your flash on and I think you're still zero conversation yeah flash zero conversation let's see what that image looks like I mean that's that's actually great the school it's nice and nice a dramatic but it is kind of flashy it is kind of bright so we want to bring it down but you can see where your flatware your lights coming from if you see on the news you see the light definitely hitting her from left to right you get your second what he learned that second life just about the same distance pretty close it's bouncing off that wall yeah so if if you if you wanted your groom to be les I would if you don't want him to be as maine and the subject you can pull this light back some so that's going to two things that will be less light on him but it's also going to be more spread out because it's father it's going to be between the walls can be a lot brighter but it'll be less there's to be less light on on a subject we see quite a bit dimmer well and I also took it down on the flash tok so when you do this absolute a lot less like when you do this you did two things technically because you lowered that and you move that back to kill over it. So you lower. So when you do this, I suggest one thing at a time, and since this is your main subject of this image, this is a lot of concentrated on even both of those lights are going off. I'm really at this point are paying attention, warren, I don't really care about at this point when I'm building this image and you're slowly going through it, I only care about her. I want make sure this life falls on her face the way I wanted to angle the power, everything. Once I get that, then I can come to trade on this life because I'm not touching my flash compensation anymore. Once I get this, then I can just move that like florida backwards to get the like the look that I want and you put the fuses on. If you want to lower it, you can go to manual like we talked about yesterday. If you want to physically manually look up and down it, we should try to stay away from if we have a room to move back, we only do that like yesterday, and the mikes like light lamp example is because I had to have that light right there there's no way I could move it so therefore I'm gonna go to manual and really controlling at that point we want to really overpower that life and not the other one so that in that case if we have a distance we try to just move it back because it's so much easier just to walk over there and pull back and be done and they're still in detail everything still works fine but does that make sense? Are you happy with your subject in that one do you think it's you think so because I am okay okay with him not so much okay well let's give him more like let's move back to roughly the same distance now let's try it again this one he should be bleidt as well as she's lit degree I like that better ok but again this is this is completely your style what you want and you khun snooty you I mean there's so many other things you can do at this point with what we're trying to show is you're just controlling the power you did nothing more than just slide that forward so you're doing that emanuel ratio that we talked about yesterday just moving this stuff backwards and forwards so you got the main source the main life taking care of you go to the secondary sources secondary light you take care of that next fair to do anything if I were to move it I wouldn't move it as far maybe half you know half and then it would be happened right yeah you get the point and then it's just a matter again this is not opposing class this is not all that stuff this is a light in class for us understand life right now again we talked for five day class this is exactly how we teach it in real life we want you to understand the technique because you can do posting lighting later once these squirrels in your brain starts slowing down running once you understand how this happens then you can move on to the next step but at this point I'm not real worried about deposing I'm just worried about how to control the light on their face and that's exactly what you're doing ok ok so let now let's do a shot that's closer to what you're going to give your client because you don't want it to office and you realize that everything I've been shooting his super dark and dramatic I want something that's a little lighter little happier so don't expose as much I don't in the camera so right camera compensation and move it to let's go just minus one start you start your meeting and it turned out that's not the way that the way other way other does good minus one yeah ok so let's let's just show everybody have what minus one looks like this is no flash but this should be almost almost proper exposure yes see that's cz not his dark let's go unexposed lesson that even this let's make it go just minus two thirds there's just one more okay let me just a little bit different in that it's almost proper exposure so ok now we're gonna add just a little bit of light so turn your flashers on same thing he feels should get a zero you leave it in my ass want because they will cut last with you okay trump's so now here we are you just add a little bit of a little bit of flash of them but still your surroundings on his dark as they were before right it's not as moody it's not as but take that live shot with light rain without the second think that is actually shot you have little war and you notice that he's just not even it's nice because when you do this to spotlights you're still bringing in both people in the image and when you have that money was he really just kind of falls off like that face up it just doesn't look it's powerful when you don't have a lot of the face they just kind of fall off in the no man's land and so that second life really adds a lot to it and also sells experience because if you just continue to do this she can love you he's going to like that it was worth talks tonight. Show me anything and so it really helps sell the experience also, when you concentrate on both several and you and you can reverse this to do the same, shot opposite and looks really good in a wedding album as well. So they're both there, but then they both have their own paid their own important. So you really and once you have to set up, you don't touch anything, you just reverse them and shoot it again and then go the next location remember, your nikon thing works the exact same way with not conduit to the exact same way with sony works the exact same way with pentax works he's actually one with any camera system that has a t t l system, you don't have to use tt the same cameras, same brand back and forth because they're communicating, but they worked the same, so don't get coming up people out there watching don't get hung up that were cannon people, so we're using candidate she's having to use can cause we're tether because we want you to see the images, but it works the exact same way. Any camera system you just have to learn your buttons on your camera, so when you're changing the exposure conversation on the back, you would just hit for nikon a little plus months minus pleasant right there on top behind your trigger. And in just the doctor the dolly track their toe under exposer overexpose your flash conversations right there in your in your flash it'll say group you have everything in group a any years literally hit the butt up and down to raise the power up and down so it works the exact same way so basically between those two shots your first shot was very dark lots of shadows flash really look very flashy right second shot was less than three seconds all you do is hit your explosion conversation dalit upto almost even exposure take the same shot your flashes give you the same reason they give you what they think is proper exposure so it's literally three seconds difference between those two shots one is very dramatic and another one that's very and you want to change any power anything that's the media you little just to change how many stops on exposure once you get upset and that's a huge again another advantage of the tio but really changes and then again I keep bringing it up but I just want to reiterate case someone just started turning tune in to watch use their business partner you could be riding here too with seven, two hundred and behind her she over his shoulder just getting her face perfectly focused and then he'll lit but really, really soft focus using the same two flashes and have a completely different look so I mean it's a huge huge advantage when you have this because again, when you when you push the trigger it's gonna meet her exactly for what you need as well and with fifty feet line of sight this set up you could easily be back here in this corner and it's going to fire every time forty as well. That makes sense to kind of give you guys the new ideas hopefully will definitely go back cool. All right, yeah, I want to redo that wedding in a few weeks ago. What? What? Why don't you set up a shot in the streets to two shots? Same thing I want one it's very dark and dramatic, so underexposed ok and then take the exact same shot closer to an even exposure. So decide what? Not the same thing telling to instruct them to do something intimately want tio you can do whatever you want you have him hold her up. I mean, oh, yeah let's do that. That would be fun e I want her I want to see her face she's got beautiful eyes you have, you know, kind of like that you need to show him off creepy when I said that I do want to tell me what you're going to do first classic, classic do a dance move can you do a dance but I know you're not dressed for dance what can you do something that's a little more you need nice it was a flash on fashion did it again start off in the final problem but it's not easy but what we're really trying to slow down for everybody online and you can see there are students here to show how simple this is but we're kind of over seven finding because like you said, your first shot is exactly what you wanted and how it takes when all we're doing is they see light placement so here's her first shot again with no flash under exposed it to show how dark the room is going to be feel him throw flash in here that did not turn you flash on that's crazy cool get it already, huh? Now if you got that one now now she won it's almost natural light something that's not so dramatic you go and leave this on this time okay? And just just adjust your camera compensation so maybe I'll just take your knife kind would even be fast because you know your butt right? I'm still started doing off you're doing also so then we go from something very dramatic love the shadow too with a very dark shadow in the background too another one that doesn't have much of a shadow maybe and the next, once there goes boom and you can't even go over exposing them or if you want, that doesn't look good looking wash out the entire backer that don't look flash it all to me, but if you really study, when you look at it, you can see the flash is coming in and I do see the light on the face. But it's, it doesn't look flashy don't like artificial now it doesn't and that's the whole point again, we're not trying to right now create award winning images. I know so many people out there just want to see a straight world. We're not a good talker lets you create those images. We're trying to teach you the control aspects and teach people that are watching control expects on how you can create these images for yourself because we can make or when images go on, but I just feel more comfortable you giving you the tools to make the war win images that's where our passion is so if you understand this and you get in the situation exactly the same way that you just thought, process that out, the more you do it in a little become that fast, but that's exactly what we do, we have multiple light. You figure out what your main sources you're going to like that main source you're going to control everything and be in life the whole bit for your main light main person you get it and then once you have that you can stick the next light in there it's all the same group going to be the same power distance the subject get it a lot right on that person and you're good to go and it didn't have to be a person it could be if commercial could be a couch it could be you know anything in the background that didn't have it could be their cake their wedding cake it's a wedding it could be a senior if it's sports remember being there in the track or whatever it could be their uniforms trophies it could be anything with the same technique there is one more suggestion slash challenge from the chat room that would actually answer a lot of questions out there and it was from jim in virginia can you spot light the groom looking at the bride with no change in the bride and that would kind of like be the last question that we would have so basically this in there that we had a while ago and just spot like the groom absolutely basically kind of what we did it would be almost like the zoom examples we had yesterday and our power point we would absolutely go and get back in the position where you guys work and the big differences on this life the secondary like what we did we move closer it'll be in the field of you so we can move it closer. So where it's not in her field of you and I would suggest doing that so you'd move it in she's framing up special with a partnership you can talk to each other and she frames it up yes, yes, closer, closer, closer closer I see it and then you move it right out of field of you so I would do that. But beyond that what way I would bring the at the second light all had it pointed at him at one twentieth this force this illness conservatism one o five one five is what you get absolute that that's what we would do zoom if you have a snoot if you have that paper that we talked about, you have the the beer cuzzi if you're an alcoholic like us all that stuff and then you can to tighten up that band alive do that spotlight very similar what we did yesterday, no problem when we had the groom stand at the window and the bride on her bed and we tied it down absolutely do so I'm going to change almost nothing I mean we were in that same situation where she took those two shots she got one it's underexposed one that's moody one it's natural light and then if you wanted to do this I would come right over here not change anything and literally just changed my zoom on this one flash on the groom toe one o five which is the most I can do here I need the paper I could just tighten it up however you want and then angling towards just going to hit him I'm back just a little bit like now I'm having I'm instructed mike to pull them back to a little bit because remember when you just like the old mag lites that you but you focus when it's on its widest setting it lights up the entire room but everything's dim and as you focus it as you twist that muslim focus it down you get a spotlight on that spot is extremely bright so both these lives being on the same channel they're both giving out the same amount of power. So if this one's giving out a quarter power but it's going on everywhere and this album was given a quarter power but it's focusing it this was going appear brighter so I'm starting off with this one a little bit closer and this one is a little bit farther away so it should even out those lights and still give a spotlight effect because it's focusing but it's not going to be as harsh on him. So let's, just take a shot flash on. I have the exposure. Compensation down three in the flesh. Yeah, let's, start off with your final product. My final product. Ok, see how much brighter he issued that that's politifact let's see, it's definitely focused in on him. And now that the next step would be if you didn't like that would be to fine tune. Adjust that light so you can either tied it down. You could put something on it it's too bright even you can lower to manual everyone. You could put a diffuser panel on it if you wanted to piece of plastic a piece of paper kleenex works really well. Paper towels were really well stuff it's in every church bathroom, any of that stuff will all be diffusers. You can put in front of it all that works really, really well that kid that they gave away for looming quest, which is what we've because it has defusing properties in it or you can literally this is why prefers up in dark. You literally could just wrap this around and make a really tight snooty as well. So you can try this even with the snow and see if it makes a diff chris white so I don't know if it will well definitely changed it a minor angled. Yeah, well, he's got kind of a little slid on, and you can see what what his snoot did to this final image. It's kind of horizontal rapid data making things are, but but you could say, you definitely see with that simple piece of paper it in how much change? I mean, just about any place you go is gonna have this. And so if you wanted to really fine tune and I mean, just put around trying to make it round, the challenge is to make it one of I don't know. I don't mind the long the long did it. So let's let's try that like that. Yeah, got that made a big difference because I go this way along him that time can look circling and again. That's where way mentioned yesterday. I'll mention it again. A simple laser pan really helps when you start to zoom because not only like cody was looking down that tryingto anguish. You have a laser pin right here, and it points right to him exactly where you're gonna angle that use to pay for exactly that. Lights going to come out let's. See how much of a spotlight that is it's a little high, I would lower a little bit. So, with that top part of the light is at the top of his head and goes to his chest. But that, to me, is simple, simple, simple, cheap, cheap, cheap. Which, to me, an effective, effective, so to me, that's the wind across the board.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Light Patterns.pdf
Lighting Diagrams.pdf
Off Camera Flash_ TTL Metering.pdf
The Basics - Why the TriCoast Method.pdf
Understanding High Speed Sync.pdf
Wireless Shooting.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

TriCoast Resource Guide.pdf
What is TTL.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

On the Mark Photography
 

[From intermediate hobbiest with moderate number of paid shoots]. I took the class because I knew nothing more about flash photography than slapping the flash on top of the camera, turning it on, and taking my chances. I could not have purchased a better class. Mike and Cody covered so much in such a clear way and with such great examples. Especially helpful are the shooting sessions where they work through the lighting situations, incorporating what is possible to do and what the client might want. I so appreciate their willingness to share what they do and how they do it. I now know some direction to take and what I need to acquire minimally to apply this to my work. Thank you!

cmc
 

Great experience and partially because of toned down Mike. I heard very few utterance of the word “idiot”. It is apparent that Mike loves to talk and is in a habit of repeating same thing again and again but I did see a better Mike and much useful content, all credit goes to you sir. Finally, a suggestion let Code talk when he holds the fort. He being behind the camera should get a chance to describe his vision. All in all very useful course and well executed. Thanks Mike & Code.

Rebecca Chapman
 

What a phenomenal class. I have learned so much. Not only did I learn how to master TTL but I feel confident in the science behind it. This allows for great on-the-spot problem solving. Great job, guys! Thanks for a great - and fun - class.

Student Work

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