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Shoot: First Dance 2 Flashs Continued

Lesson 21 from: Speedlight Photography Basics

Mike Fulton

Shoot: First Dance 2 Flashs Continued

Lesson 21 from: Speedlight Photography Basics

Mike Fulton

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Lesson Info

21. Shoot: First Dance 2 Flashs Continued

Lesson Info

Shoot: First Dance 2 Flashs Continued

So when this happens, I will also and I don't have my seven, two hundred, but I'll switch to my seventy two hundred, so I'm going to kind of emulate that by just zooming in don't pay attention to me just keep dancing but what happens when you get closer and tt l sometimes because there's not enough for it to meet her on it can affect some of your life and you're gonna get that that's not great light on her face so this is what I want to show but come to the same post if I zoomed out that same bad like I caught that light sorry that's a perfect example t t l keep going the same light by me zooming out it's changing my t t l meeting and this is what I want to show him trick in t l it's changing my meeting by zooming out because I'm not meeting on the same thing, so one time I'll meet her on his black tux and the next summer meter on her white dress completely changes my meeting and that's what you have to be aware of when you're photographing teo now we could easily go into manual and th...

at's where we're going next because that's where I wanted to show this using spot metering to absolute that this right here what everybody drives about tl is not teals fault this is my fault this's a human air fault but photographers hate to admit that they're wrong it's a t t l fold and I understand their point of view it's frustrating it is frustrating but if you understand how tt l works you can work around it but that's the whole point so this is why I say yes to theo works we shall work I've been using it but this is why I say in this situation when a little about kanan I just pop this over emmanuel and the next shot I take everything is manual and that it's gonna be full blast so that's gonna be a lot of light but that's pure manual now so now instead of dialing negative three two plus three now I'm in the one two one two one one twenty eighth fractions all my camera all my flashes air emmanuel and so now you can actually cause the light's not going to change so once I get the light that I like let's say I like that I'll take that shot now madam adjust and turn on my flash and I'm gonna get nowthe light number one and some feel flash coming in little bit not much congested up a little bit and then is they keep turning I'll pop it over to channel two and now I'm getting light from this one but now I'm in manual mode which I do suggest most likely, dude, you're so seattle, I love yu um maybe your denver one of the other, but either way, I suggest, probably especially since you're in a wedding, you're gonna have a long time, probably using manual in this situation for two reasons. One once you dial in it's not going to change the lightest solid it's steady, nothing here is going to change now for some reason it they got disco lights going on there, maybe get real bride a real oh maybe go t t l then, but other than that, I can't think of why I would choose to use detail in this situation now want to show that it worked because you can use it and there sometimes, and I forget because I'll shoot teo outside and come in, and I forget to switch over to manual, but I also want to show that the beauty of this system and the same thing with nikon cannon is I can literally switch back and forth from tt l to manual just by pushing my mode, but no my flash and that's something that when you have a radio transmission device or something it's very difficult, if not possible, impossible to do so that's why I like having this flash on top of the camera with the radio poppers instead of just the manual like the nano's or the juniors? Because I still like having this flash, just like you were saying. I want this flash here. So in case I want to even out that ratio in case I want to have more flat line in case I need to get just a straight on flash shot or have, like the lumen pick lim quest bounce, whatever. I can still do all that with this flash and the radio popper set up instead of taking it off and just having a little transmitter on here with that setup works in teeth. Yale works t teo manual this is the p x system and there's px is on well on this one, this is line of sight, but with the p x one hundred percent of the functionality of your flash, anything that it can do, it will transfer over to this leg so it can this late cannot do it without a radio. Papa, you can't cannot do it with the radio popper it's not adding any functions but it's not removing any functions. And that's. Why I like this system the best for me because exactly what I'm doing, I'm using one with the trigger that's wireless this one is line of sight so I can build I don't have to buy one transmitter and two receivers I can buy one kid, one set transmitter receiver build it and then use one line of sight until I get enough money to get another one where the other ones it's like all of nothing because it completely changes your entire so if I have multiple threat flashes, I gotta have a receiver on each one I gotta have a transmitter over here and to me that just didn't seem logical plus the other systems change everything it's a whole nother system it doesn't doesn't use with this is like me I have ratios I can control group a b and c right now with this flash, but if I put on a pocket wizard, it won't allow me and let's hide behind their group that allows me to cruise control group a, b and c again so it removes some of the technology and then you buy a little module from them to add that technology back and I think it's, beautiful marketing and it's a great product tomorrow I think it's a great product but for me and my business rated popper is a much better product because it's more versatile because I couldn't do more things and it worked within the cannon or nikon speed light system and to me that's the greatest advantage and if you notice I can actually have a six hundred and five, eighty one and five, eighty two all playing together with this technology to so if you have not moved up into the six hundred yet, you can still do it. If you've not moved up to the nine hundreds of the nineteen nineteen siri's and you've got six hundred, seven hundred or eight hundred, you can still do it for the night. So it's hard it's hard to mix the six hundreds in the you know, for thirty twos in the fivethirtyeight optically you, khun do it, which is what we're doing, but the six hundreds have a radio transmission device right into him. You could on lee do that with the six hundreds or the s t three, the new wireless transmitter, so you have to buy into that system completely so we were going to do that with the new system. With this flash on here, I would need three, six hundred here, here and here, and I couldn't make some match and that's great if you have the money, but I don't have fifteen hundred dollars in joplin flashes when I already have these flashes that do what that's going to do? That goes back to what I was saying if I was a young man when I was a young man and I was part time and I had a job that paid my bills and there's, nothing wrong with that, I was part time for years, I ast long as you respect professional photography, you're a professional photographer. To me, it doesn't matter if you're if you have a regular part time job or whatever else that that's never gotten, too, because I think we all start somewhere very few people today, I have always been professional photographers, but what gets me is that they don't treat a professional, so if I had the money, another job, pay my bills and I went out and bought three flashes, fifteen, six hundred dollars more power to you, but I know the mast majority of people out, probably you and the ones listening and watching you can't do that. And so, for me, this is a better system, that's, why haven't moved up to the six hundred yet? Because I'm not gaining anything. I like my radio poppers because it allows more versatility, not only that I can't with the six hundred, I can't do what we were doing up top with the junior, where I can control the power also where the other transmitters khun trigger everything so with this I have complete control everything alien bees like we showed you yesterday manual teo it doesn't matter I can do it and to me when I had that versatility stuff like this this is this is easy stuff. This is a walk in the park that makes sense so I suggest in this situation just use the manual because the lights not changing this is emmanuel world this is what manuals great at I know people watching away I mean, he only uses tl. You're right, I probably shoot this a lot in teo but I get it, I understand t deal just like I'm tricking t yelled tto mess up to show you guys right now I didn't trick it up on the roof. I was blown away that I didn't get tricked on the roof, but it's very, very in fact let's see if I can actually that's what it was doing I'm gonna see if I can actually trick it right now just kind of dance trying to knock the cameraman out of the way so I was like that work wait a minute, we're headed in the wrong flat no, go ahead, keep dancing sorry had it on channel two instead of channel one no still working, yeah, so let me move that right behind you reflections of photo wants to know how do you keep guests from tripping or tripping on or knocking the lights on the dance floor? The the strobes so I repeat my question yes, please reflections photo would like to know how do you keep guests from tripping on or knocking over the light stands on the dance floor? That's a great question and it's very difficult to do, but I do carry sandbags, and I think little sandbags are very, very important. It's it's a ten dollar bag that's going to save you a life insurance policy or we're going to save you get sued for someone trip because the reality, especially in america, I mean, I love america, especially were a country that files purpose lawsuits all the time. If you're in business, you're going to get sued sooner or later, it's just it's the nature of the business, you're going to get it, and if you're in the wedding business, the odds of you getting sued goes up and to me, I have a sandbag if I can show that I'm trying to not calls damage, not calls injury, when you do get suited helps, but to put him in places that are strategically where they're not going to be a crazy crowd. I'm not gonna put it in the middle of a crowd I'm in the middle of a walkway I'm gonna put it in the corners of the dance floor maybe one by the deejay is using the deejay he's like you guys were in the middle the floor but can off the side you know and so I can put one over by their not only that health but it also protected he can watch my gear that kind of thing so it so it all helps great thank you that is good okay so move over this way I want you right there perfect dance you're doing great baby still working look at that detail and that's a great shot very simple there's not much difference there and that's all t t l normally what's going to happen and I can't get it to happen so I can't say normal anymore but what's gonna happen when tt l like I talked about on the roof is when that pre flash comes directly through the lens it's going to shut everything down so even it plus three or negative three you're not gonna have any light and so it's going to just be completely dead in fact tried again I'm gonna actually get the flash in the no still worked so I can't even get it to work to show you how good t tl works but occasionally what's gonna happen that light will shut down and you won't get any light out of it and you're gonna be really frustrated and so when that happens just pop your flash over to manual and then continue because now you're taking out or do what I did earlier you can go over to that flash on lee hold down the mode button popped that flash only in the manual mode and you'll take it away for me partially because the light's not changing I would just keep it in teo I mean keep everything in manual just pop it over to manual here and mowed that way my master goes over to slay it a soon as soon as I pop this in the master and I hit the button everything goes into manual popping back to the c t l and I clicked take photo everything goes back into teo and you can actually watch the back of the flash switch and that's the other thing bringing that up this is always a question and I'm not covered it and apologize and just hit me when these flashes or enslave mode it does not matter what it says on the back of that lcd doesn't matter because when this flash goes off it changes that every single time so we could say negative two on the back of the flash if you put plus one it's going to come out plus one and it could go right back to negative too that viewfinder on those wireless slave flashes doesn't matter, so don't freak out to you flipping back and forth this creative live lower I can see him so which one is it is? Do you want to change it to the mod? The mod's if you're doing the one to hold it down oh, no. Told ya it is assume I'm sorry. Can you wait? You're going to click this? Yeah, you're gonna get to channel and you're gonna change it back. And now the neat thing is the last thing I change will be the first thing that pops up. Ok, so you can just go back to two that's all you have to do. Okay, you can do that. I get that you're gonna email me photos? Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can. All right, because I have you. I have your digits now being a guest here, I want to stop you. Okay? I can do that like this. It's. Funny. I just need to see that really was a one button switch. It's really? Just don't let me get it. It's really? A lot. Yeah. It's that easy. And people just don't get how easy this is. Let me put the flashback I know this is something I want to do a few other things you ever thought about doing this well I do it every step every reception like well, most people do one light or they'll do two lights but they're all on the same channel so they're all going off together and I don't really like that I like if you're going to do this I like the dramatic miss I mean this is so easy I mean it's so simple I'm not anybody out here after watching too and buy this class khun do this this is not a difficult thing to do if you think about the steps that we've been talking about every outside and inside the steps for the exact same figure out what you want to shoot him walking up to the dance floor what I want to shoot where's my shot where they going to be first it's kind of like the son I gotta figure out where they're going to be first figure out where they're gonna be figure out my plan my background from there I usually like putting my lights on and off angle if I'm right here I want my light two different corner from me then is that question just came in you've got to figure out where the traffic's gonna be make sure someone didn't fall over the great thing about these little flashes that they do fall over they're not going to hurt too many people because they're pretty liked put a sandbag down on it test the shot, make sure you get him all plugged dan test test fire, then turn off your flash because you know they're working. Then come over here, put your camera in manual mode and just photographed the background get the lights where you want because I fight by zoom out. I mean, this is a journal flash out. This is a lot of light in here, and I've literally knocked it almost all the way down. Yeah, look how dark it's got a camera guy likes because he'll see but proper exposure for this proper exposure that's, proper exposure, that's what the camera thinks is proper exposure and I'm not trying to say that creative lives ugly because it's not, but that's messy and that's what you don't want in the first dance, the mess so even is pretty you want to take away all that mess? And so here in my problem, you've got the great lights up there, so I'm gonna take those lights away so even zooming in, taking the lights out, it's still not a nice shot, very flat, very you're not seeing a lot, so I would just keep raising up. I'll tell you what that was, this is one stop paired with one sixteenth of a second, this is one stop down and that's not bad but I like course you're not gonna have the light on there you already have a hair light from from the lights in the in the room so given that but then I'm gonna go to stops down and I like that I'm starting like that the glow in the back it's dark it kind of gives a little moodiness and then you just turn on the flash and you would just simply adjust what you want it's very simple done deal it's that simple and if I want and like he said a while ago a kind of this is the only problem is you want to put your field flash on that will be another it's the same button so it's not going to go back and forth between the channels anymore you're gonna have to go through that but taking that same shot with the field flash now that shows you that how much this light actually controls what little control backto wet turn this one on to transmit which is what when you hit the zoom and you hit the channel the channels of third once again you hit the zoom button once since zoom zoom button again it's ratios zoom but the third time it's channels in the fourth time is how you could turn this on and off and that's in that little sheet that you made up right this product it's got three little lights and you could just hit it and you see on and off and turn it off um on the six hundredth it's even easier so six hundreds it's just one of them they have a menu button you go menu one two and three if you don't see don't mean you want hit the menu again you don't say it I mean you two hit it again you'll see the menu three it's going to be there you missed it keep going start over if your own nikon the manual when you give it a while us the film for master yu kick over to where it says dash dash dash we showed a slide of yesterday and you kids get over and it's just a push the button and you get there where it says dash dash dash so that's that's gonna be where it's so for me I'll do a few of these I'll do a few mohr of this yacht I'm gonna actually come overto channel to now so this light will be popping off and I don't I think I can you turn that towards them I moved it when I dropped it down to show you perfect so now I'm gonna do to channel two but it's too right it's got too much of an angle the room works better with this one because it's not shooting against the wall so really because it needs to be out here but then we'd have the shadows back there yeah, and that totally messed up and that's manual, so I don't know what's going on maybe my batteries by this time we're getting low that's still messing up so it's probably just my batter's final now, so no big deal, but just to show you that's what's gonna happen when your batteries because we've been using it all day when your batteries die, you're going to get really bad exposures, switch the batter's out your fine generally if and but that happens if that happens in real world. So let's, just say that happened, so now I'm down to one flash and I'll just use that flash from now on, so that flashes is rolling great, and so I don't worry about it, which is another reason why I like having multiple flashes at a wedding, so I'm backto this you can say, stop, change your batteries, all right, exactly, exactly know well, but that's also, if you let me get that light is that talked about it. But just to show you one reason why this flash is working better because I had that battery pack on, if I had this battery pack on the other flash, I literally could just plugged that we'll see if this works I can't even put the plug in anymore way it could be my flash too so who knows this is an old flash that's what's gonna happen when you when your flashes start going out lots of times you'll get erratic results with him that's why I said my name is not mentioned once a year just for to know all right so that's channel two you're doing good dancing now what better exposure it's a little dark but the other was too bright so I didn't have enough battery juice so now by plugging that in it takes the battery's the only thing that that flashes of the old four batters are running is the lcd so now this battery pack is juicing that flash and now I'm getting proper exposure and that's even in manual not in t t l that wasn t t l would be a lot worse so again any time you see over exposure any time change your batteries out if it continued happens like that change the batteries out right away without a doubt what I like about these again and I mentioned it but I'll mention it again since we're talking about it is you literally could just come over here pop this tray out have another train your camera bag and this fast I've changed my battery's out and I'm good go for the rest of the wedding I never touched thes these in here so sue me that's worth one hundred fifty dollars? Um, flash zebra dot com has some ofthe brands that are inexpensive as well and there's some other sites out there. But that's, just one side that I've used before. Okay, yeah. You ready for some some questions we have and that was good. I like how you did that. Hey, so, um m kimmel says if I'm in a wedding with the line of sight flash will everybody will I sit off everybody's camera flash? We're doing line of sight never will and vice versa. That's a great question. How does that work on ly? If they have their master or in that case there slave flashes on this is not an optical slave it's an optical insensitive working off the pattern of light. So this is remember when we talked about on day one how tt l works and how it communicates and how it sends out a pre flash and comes back well, this is still got to do that to set that off. Now the old days and the nikon flashes have what's called in the old days. We called it peanut slaves. They have optical slave and it's. What that alien be we had on is an optical slave, so any flash will trigger it. That's not this it has to have that certain pattern of light that communication to go back and forth to set it off. So the only time you would set another flash off or they're setting years off if they were in master mode and on the same one of the four channels. And if that happens, you would flip your channel to maybe channel two and then if they continue, do it, it goes off and you flip it to channel three continue I'm going to find out who it is and say stop but that's that's never happened to me. It's never it's honestly never happened. I've had some people accidentally set it off and by the way, the terminology is horrible. So I always try to use wireless when I'm out in public because here in america, it's just it's just a horrible, horrible term. So you need to be careful that I know that's kind of an off topic, but since we're talking about it but it's an educational sense, it is considered master slave, and so I use that terminology, but we try to say, master wireless, okay, when I'm out because the last thing I want to do and I'm not trying to rude or anything, but I would say, hey, I need some slave over here or, hey, you give me some slave over here and it just doesn't sound real politically correct. Yeah, for sure. And so we say, hey, I need some mat wireless over here or something of that nature. Great, cool, and this is an older image, and I use it a lot it's in our tl god, I've used it on a lot of educational, vince, but this is exactly what we're doing, and it kind of drives at home, and I just want to show people and no offense, but this is a classic where I'm from him in the bible belt at the end of the bible belt, it's, all southern baptist, and this church was built across the whole country, and that in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, they were put up fast, there's, very small windows in here right here, very tiny, and they go all the way down there, just the classic home windows you can raise up and down, and it kind of looks like it kind of looks like someone played a practical joke on the baddest and was really drunk when they made the stained glass, because it's really not pretty stained glass. And so we get here in this little church and it's, the middle of nowhere and it's right across the street from a chemical plant and there's, nothing but chemical plant and dirt road on the outside of this church, and our client is the most beautiful, tiny little bride I've ever seen in my life, and they're obviously her parents of the creatures this church is where she grew up. This is her whole life. This is what is important to her so much that she was telling me stories that there's air vents in between the pews, where she used to climbing them and come out the other side. She I mean, literally she has been in this church her whole life. So we get here and were like, wow, how we're going to make the bridal session look good in this church? This is really, really ugly, and it was important to her. She had her faith was extremely important. She has certain bible versus you want to read during her her session, ones that were important to her family heard she was the first one in three generations to have a new wedding gown, and we took photos with the guy went one wedding gown that was just falling apart with her to pass on, so her great grand mother and grandmother mother that we're alive we're there and the dress was that I mean it was a huge huge huge task and I was excited to do it and then we get there we see this church and I didn't know what to do and so what we did is exactly what I did is what I said to me this is the ugly casey hall that was built in the forties we turned off all the lights except for one and that was the baptism where that has the cross which was our faith which was important to hearts on it it's not what is the matter to me it's not what's important to me too what's important to my client and that was the whole point so I turned off all the lights let the bastard tis light on now this when everything is turned off now this becomes my background this right here was this in the session that we just did so I basically metered for that cross meter for that light and then lit her up with my artificial light and then this is what you get in the exact same church this is the power of wireless flash and on flash and just flash photography it's so simple we put a little denny easy stand right between the pew raise it up way between the pew laid it down didn't damage anything we stood her there and the beauty of this wass when I turned the lights off these ugly I got drunk stained glass windows put this beautiful yellow glow on her that I never would have seen if we would've kept the lights on and so to me this is also one of the one out what I want to get across you is you don't know what you're going to see until you turn off the lights because some things don't show up until it's dark and this was just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful example of how we can do that so literally it's both of those we went from that to that on your flash their mama bear ball just like we just did right here literally exactly what we just showed you and it's that easy right off the bat I got what I needed to get for the most part and I did it in t t l then I started showing you how fails and howto work around it how manual really is the best way this was t t l I'm gonna be honest I used t elmore than I probably should but I understand it's just it's it's my will be it's comforting to me so but if I do have problems I go back to manual I know it sounds stupid but I go back to manual so this was tt l so here I'm metered it's actually a little hot and I have some other ones well it's I'm not going to show him that's not the point of this I have some other ones but this is what I really want to drive the entire workshop on is that you can do that from that to that with one light with some vision and one light and understanding exactly what we've done these last two days how to control all this there's no different when we get outside it said that I could see now there's not even that we did in here the technique is the same five what's important to my clients by my pre consultation and understanding them find the location what's going to be my background exposed for my background flash compensation to expose for my foreground done repeat the process in this case I had a lot of flash so a lot of salt to my food underexposed and took it out with that said and in the fair defense the only photo shop and it was that took this window out because there was a light there was a little bright spot over here where the window was and I just photoshopped that out other than that and there's a little glow that's one of our actions rather than that that's straight out of camp because what you're gonna find when you shoot just like that shot I showed you with the girl with the long bow when you under expos all those colors just come vibrant and pop off the camera they just pop out of the camera when you take him because you're under exposing you're so used to seeing natural light and everything's kind of faded and everything's kind of washed that when you under expose, those greens become deep green and the more you underexposed, they're gonna become even deeper, deeper green because that's what you're doing, you're removing the light that's guy's going to get from light blue to dark blue to black and you're going to remove all that light and that's exactly what we did here it's no different itjust the numbers aren't his extreme, so when we're inside my under exposure potion conversation in a flash compensation be a lot closer with him outside exposure compensation to be way under my flash conversation to be way up but the concept doesn't change and that's what I love about this technique is that I am complete control and I know I said it yesterday, but I'm gonna end on it. I'm in complete control of everything we do when he used this technique from depth of field to shutter speed to come out of light, I want to everything and I could easily have made a shot look like this and I easily made a shot look like this just by changing a few things I could easily blurred out across which I wouldn't want to but I could easily done it. Two point eight I could easily done twenty two same location and I always say, if you don't know, get both fine which one you like and post and then just give her that one image do not give her both, because right now this is a powerful image and then you give her another one looks just like it. They're like, I don't know. So I want to leave on one last thing is exactly that less is more less is more if you if you go to a ice cream shop and there's three flavors vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, you're gonna pick your favorite and you're gonna be happy as a little kid. You go in an ice cream shop and there's gonna be thirty five flavors and you're going to start questioning four five flavors that you want and you're going to grab one. But you're gonna go. But you know what? I really wish I had bubble gum. It opened yourself up to doubt. So when you take these images, give one and on lee one and show him and that's the image that you show and that's the image that you sell.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

TriCoasts Wireless Flash Challenges
Speedlight Basics 1
Speedlight Basics 2
Fill-in Canon Speedlight Diagram
Fill-In Nikon Speedlight Diagram
Syllabus and Resources

Ratings and Reviews

cmc
 

Someone should tell this nice guy, Mike that he should restrain his comments and do his homework and structure the course and sticks to it. Of 100s of pictures he took not even one was inspiring or great shot. Yes, he did say that "I am not going to make good image", why not I ask? I do believe he is not only a nice individual but knows the tech side, not sure if he can make artistic images.

Barbara 756d43
 

I am in the midst of watching this class through the videos I purchased and am very impressed by how in depth the information is. VERY happy with this purchase. I like Mike’s ability to make concepts easy to understand and also that he shows you by example what he means. As a direct result of watching this class, while visiting family yesterday I found myself looking at my grandson’s face as light was shining on him through a window and thinking to myself, “Oh, that is short lighting and when he turns his face it becomes broad lighting.” Thanks, Mike. Can’t wait to see what other gems of understanding I have in store for me in the rest of the class videos.

user-457531
 

Excellent course, especially when I learnt something within the first 5 mins of watching it. I have found Creative Live courses to be very thorough in detail and equally practical in application. 10 out of 10 Creative Live support has also been 💯 % helpful Thanks guys..

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