Skip to main content

Off Camera Flash

Lesson 5 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

Off Camera Flash

Lesson 5 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

5. Off Camera Flash

Lesson Info

Off Camera Flash

Already review time the first segment we went over what light iss we went over the importance of why we need to know that the reason is because we need to be able to communicate in terms of light on that light requires its own language on if you don't go over that language you will forever be lost so we went over the reasons why you need to know about brightness color and contrast of light how you can create each and why it happens why do you have a high high contra situation versus a local interest situation why do you have different color shifts in the light how can you counterbalance those scholarships using your cameras cabin temperature white man's meter uh we discussed on the second segment the importance of understanding the science and the mathematics of light because then you can do what we did today we can just put alana wherever we want and know exactly what's going to come out of that soft box instead off the usual taken one hundred fifty photos and hoping that one of them ...

works out and then you say that you totally meant to do that like two totally meant to do that that is exactly what I had in mind but you're sweating bullets you know next you're sweating bullets I encourage you tio not turn your back against a little bit of knowledge even though they may be a little difficult sometimes he's actually not that hard you know life is pretty easy shoots in a straight line it creates shadows understand those two things it comes with color understand those three things and your way on your way to understanding how to do everything the beauty about this knowledge is that not only can you use this for your speed likes you can also use this for natural light and you can use it to combine natural light and speed lights together which seems to be a big issue for a lot of people the third segment we're going to finish off understanding that intricacies of flash what st year what does that mean to you to use many or flash can you influence manual flash um we're gonna talk about high speed think on how you can best use that to the maximum potential if you turn on that high speed sync bun a lot of things happening that flash a lot of things change you being equipped with this knowledge will get you prepared to be able to compensate for what happens with the flash when you go to high speed think when you put that flash on second curtain sink loss happens again you need to know what's going on when you're faced with a situation you will know what's the best option for that particular situation you guys will start being challenged now I know I know I have a kind of camera with a six hundred speed light it doesn't matter for you on the internet it doesn't matter what camera settings you have what camera you have so many of you have cannon we're not talking about brands were talking about lighting so it doesn't it's useless for you to turn it off because you don't use kanan it's it's not at all what we're doing here we're talking about lighting and understanding what that what that's like and how to control it so don't worry about what brand you have okay okay can you come here for a second please continuing on with money or flash on how it differs from a t t l very quickly in e t t l the flash is always going to give you a proper exposure no matter what your I s always no matter what your appa tress no matter what your shutter speed iss I no matter what the distance between the light in your subject this it will calculate all of that for you and it will give you the proper exposure if you are looking for a quick a quick fix that quick life that's going toe properly be exposed tl is the tool for you if you want to make the light source bigger entity yale to give him more volume and you don't have a softball through the flash inside you can look around your room and you can use the walls are soft boxes so if you want to give t elmore manual flash then you gotta turn that flash head around tow left right on to number two you should also issues that zoom on the flash resume the flash head when the flash head is zoomed in it doesn't change the intensity at all what it does is that it concentrates that beam of light and it appears to be brighter it's like a magnifying glass on the lights that's why you can kill ants when you were kids when we were kids right so let's take this to the test so we have a lana elena let's see can you can you sit on this beautiful couch so remember guys you went we went quick tl we have seconds but you went a little more volume don't photograph with a head pointing at her you went toes race toby bounced off some other area hit absorb some trans whatever it is you do come back around and hit her in one side of her face because you said girl you probably don't want to side hit or too much you don't wantto split light her too much so if you do bounce that light to the left like I'm going to right now and the light comes back and he hit her in the face is going to give her split look it's a very manly look not exactly great for beautiful women like elena however you can also use the soft books as a fill light just because he's white doesn't even have to be on right so there's there feel like if you don't have something like this you can go ahead and use your reflector and put it there and you can give her feel like have someone hold this but since we have that this is use it okay let's go ahead and start with shooting a lot of the wrong way shooting with flat flight I'm going to put my flash back on t ell real quick this is katie everybody she's awesome she's an capital ankara metabolic epitome epidemiologist handsome looks awesome you haven't told me what you do on atlantis was a veterinarian so it's pretty cool so we have a power out him here all right guys thank you um you know what? Let me get you up let me put katie put you there because we're going to do katie first we're going to make her give her that manly look they're gonna put hands in the same position given the manly look it's gonna be awesome okay, so we have katie here tl flash yes detail flash on we are going shouldn't get in your face have your face face me okay? Just praising yeah, there you go right there. Just take a look at the camera and the worries about anything on dh cee lo blah blah no worries are not worried about settings because it's todo okay, so we have if you guys can display that image real quick. Okay, how does that look? Nice and flat what's a good use for nice and flat light people that are older, you can fill up the cracks in their skin and you make them look younger. If you have a person who has a round face flat light's going to make it rounder, you want to put some shade on part of the face and make it look more like a banana or not bananas too much more like a like a pineapple. See what I'm saying. You don't want no watermelon you want like a pineapple and if you go bananas too too much okay, now we're gonna put the light towards who were going to put the light towards this ultra reflective board, which is what you would call not the best idea in the world because of the type of surface we're dealing with actually it's not going to affect her too much because the angle's not quite right, but I will give it a shot. Could you grab that box and turn it? Because that sort of black faces katie just keep turning it keep going t theo flash okay, one, two, three and I think I look at the beautiful split light it's not to split because of that because of how far she is look at that can we compare the two please you see how that totally changed look at that completely changed now let's give this put hands in her place and let's make that sexy lighting but on a guy and you'll see how great is that now we're still discussing just tl flashier we'll discuss manually is when things get really fun okay so has is a handsome man hands handsome oh my gosh now if you look like a total badass um yep chin up a bit that's here right there let's do off nice light on him like this look of freaking awesome but you know what let's make it even more awesome let me turn this this way take a look at that light on him tell me that's not awesome right off course never mind the apples in the background let's take a look at this ok hands you have this is a cool picture specials my wife's in the background so let's put that in there please guess what happened guys can we compare those two last photos? This is important you know there's no is what I deal with my flash head correct I've seen this happen a lot of times in my workshop so people are doing the flashing their holding like this they turn it on they forget to turn the flash to compensate okay your flash it has to compensate so these two have the same exact lighting because I turned the flash air to compensate now watch this guys I'm going to push the zoom button on my flash we're goingto narrow the beam so is gonna hit that wall are higher intensity intensity are brighton and see this is the back to the two it will be at a higher intensity okay we're going to switch that to zoom we're goingto go all the way to two hundred millimeters which the six hundred can do if you have a five hundred x five eighty x to you can only go to one hundred and five millimeters I believe if you have two new six hundred you could go away with two hundred millimeters so this is now zoom in on is going to give him even a more dramatic look okay, take a look at that something that can we compare the last two please okay no, um let me show you guys something real quick let me move this you see how it's brighter on the right picture you see has more look at his cheek on the left to the competitively cheek on the left on this one just a little volume very important because if you're shooting and you want you want to get like this looks pretty good but you want just a little more but but you don't want to change your settings zoom the flash head it's going because you know the science behind it because we did section one off this course you should be able to know that the intense heat is gonna come back stronger you don't have to change anything. The intensity will come back stronger. Uh do we have wei have like see bobby, can we get that black thing going on that black thing let's bring it put it right next to you and we're going to suck the light out of it. Okay? They're black fly the collaborator we're just gonna cut it to me give it that volume. This is all too tl strategies all teo, we'll get into manual very quickly here. Okay, let's put it on his on his left side. Well, you know what? Hands? I don't know if you can comfortably sit back and look like a total like just james bond it just totally just owning yeah, exactly. Just owned that now let's put them vertically so we can really cut the light out of it. Now guys, remember what I said about flat about light and the science of light the object you're hitting your light with keeps you three options it khun b go ahead they can be they can be you can be transmitted which means that I will go through it it can be absorbed which means he will just absorb it. And now it's invisible on the third one reflected it can be reflected. Sometimes a combination of those things happen. Take a look at the material off these v flap. This is not a velvet it's still black. Black is going to suck all that electromagnetic radiation out. It will still rebound. You're still bounce back and hit him a little bit. But if he was velvet, that electromagnetic radiation is gonna get sucked in to never be seen again. Sure. Because of the inverse square law, everything has like scientific explanation. See if that war, the lights being hit on this direction. But when the light hits back that black war, that black, what becomes the source of light. So the inverse square law works exactly the same. Except this happens to be a terrible source of light because this is actually the opposite is a vacuum. It's vacuums it out. Let's, take a picture of him. Very good question. If you're bouncing the light, each thing you're bouncing, the life ofthe becomes the source of light. Pretty much because it's reflecting so becomes a source. Is that the main source? No, but it's a source okay, all right, let's, go ahead and put that next to him right there. You know I'm kind of o c d about stuff like apples in the background so I'm going to move that stuff I just can't handle it I'll leave my wife there closer to him than it is right there yeah closer as close as you get there you go yeah that's good okay because of this is going to absorb a lot of the light because it's black and black absorbs electromagnetic radiation you know what this is gonna look like before I even think the picture I hope you do anyway I'm also going to bring the zoom down to out off so we can see it compare apples to apples okay so I'm going to go toe soon how do you work this thing again I'm totally getting everybody do you how do you work that have you know I just don't know I don't know okay ready take a picture off hands looking off move your hand a little bit towards your left knee your left hand there you go that's it that's my own penis coming okay okay take a look at this photo let's compare the last two pictures I took please then you wonder why science is not important let's take a look at the last to look at that tell me that's not super sexy you see that you're shaping the light you have this you have the flash all into tl you're totally changing it up on lee using ptl wait this is actually pretty cool because when people think with it hear you think you have no control would you actually have a ton of control but you need to know how to achieve it on the only way to know howto achieve it is than our light behaves you see what I mean so let's remove that now less now put a highly reflective material so katie and I lana can you guys come over here please can you go behind him kind of like like you're his bodyguards or something I just kind of sit on that thing on the autumn ending the background sorry that table whatever that's cool you like that don't you yeah yeah could you could you could you know cover my wife's face can you definitely move mark any more to the edge to the edge okay okay that's good guys I'm gonna be I'm gonna get kiki again because it's important how far is hands is his head from katie in atlanta okay what does that mean to you know same tl strategies but the distance matters why because we're going to use the inverse square law to protect the photo that's going to come out of this so go ahead there so hiss he's gonna have ah fall off pretty much if you're close to him and then they're going to be their faces they're going to be more flatly lit okay they're gonna be up with me, doc. Not flatly okay oh just right yep you because you were chilling in the tpl world okay we're going to use this thing to light him up right now look how close I'm going to put me here I'm having a party here all by myself oh man this is weird I'm sure strange very strange stuff going on right now wei are on master we're on slave so we're gonna bring it back okay I'm gonna put it yeah okay beautiful as a slave no just a tio tio I mean yes okay because it's going to be oh that's going to be but I'm gonna change through ratios ratios okay let's see here roberto what did you mean by ratios changing ratio is in this case it doesn't really play that much of a role because I only have one flash but if you have flash pay and flash b flash a becomes its own entity flash b becomes its own entity and then you can tell the master flash I want you to make a brighter than b b brighter than anything like that. Okay bobby, can you help me? I mean let's just put this further this way and discuss is you can tell him actually yeah right there yeah and then this turned this around saw doesn't hit actually is back up just a foot this way this way actually that way right there then bring this this way and then bring it closer to this direction. What's gonna happen here? What's gonna happen here? He's gonna have kind of ah, hatchet lighting our side lighting to him. But it was all right, but it's soft because of the diffusion, but yeah, it is a serious one and the two girls in the back because they're further distance from the light, they're going to be darker, beautiful. Amen scorches you see that? He said a few things that are very important he noticed the sizes are relative, the relative light source he didn't we're not talking about the size ofthe the light off the lights we're talking about the relative size off. The light means that that soft box is bigger than his head, which means he's going to give you soft shadows but because of the position ofthe where the flash is still going to give you split light but it won't be so harsh like black and white, they will still be split. Okay, so they can experiment. Test here on dh let's. Go ahead and showcase that picture, please. One picture right? Just one on you're going to see great was one hundred percent accurate. You see that one hundred percent accurate they are dark, he looked like a total badass. The girls are cool there's three girls there it's good man, you're good you're totally rocking me with now you wantto you want to feature the girls now you are in teaching you actually forget it you wantto feature the girls now what are your options to make those girls big get brighter? Katie and al I need to be a little bit more featured. What do you do? Um, one is would be too well existing lining or different now but if you balance it whatever you want, if you bounce it the light's gonna come from a different direction so it's going to be more equal? So create another light sources. What else can you do? Option one dog said if you want to feature katie and alana more you can make that light source be from purely this toe making it into with a wall or something so you could raise that light so it's over them points at that wall. Then that wall becomes a light source. That light source is further away than that soft box to him so they will both be bright. Okay, what else can you do? You could reposition the south box so that it angles more directly towards them. Remember the inverse square law of light which will still fall off and bring a reflector if you want to make the lime or even not so you don't want that you're a school so much you want to eat the lime or even all you have to do is make that light source farther away from your subjects right so let's do that while we can you grab this light please for me on moving about ten feet back so roberto this when I was talking about bouncing that's basically doing the same thing same thing in a different way of doing it this way you keep the white balance more intact whereas if you do it the other way you're gonna pick up that gray and it's gonna come back and hit him so it's okay but all right wei have katie and alana didn't change them at all we only changed the position of the light it's farther away from them no it is the position of my camera is the same so it doesn't matter where your camera is summers were your light iss to your subjects but and as long as you're in t t l then it doesn't matter what your settings are because the flash is going to compensate for that right now I'm working on off camera flash so right now I have I have this one teo but having sort of ray's showed yes practically in the next one I can turn everything manual and then we can really get and dig deeper but we're not there yet but let's try this again yeah one picture. Take a look at that. This compares the two police pretty crazy, right? This is really this is really the definition of you controlling your photography instead of letting the computers inside control you okay? If now you're in total control. Boom. You went to katie and alan a darker bring the lighting closer you want, you send it funny how the distance of the lights and just everything you know, I didn't change my settings. I just changed the position of the light. It's an incredible thing. How science gives you all the answers just gives it to you right there. What's. Going through your mind, roberto? A lot. A lot. I want teo create a radical portrait of hands. We're just going to rock him right now. Okay. S o ladies, take a seat, please. Let's, do something really cool. Can you take the portrait? Don't worry about it, there's. People watching online really thinking. Oh, my god. Just don't worry about it coming up. Um, you saw the result of this less put him on the war on. I want you to let's put him on the wall, and then I'm gonna have you take over after that when you take over, I want you to kind of walk through the process. You need the microphone. I need you to walk through the scientific process of why you're why that picture is going to come out the way this don't worry about mistakes or issues people from the mistakes people can help us, okay? Because we can go through it. Let's start so let's. See, can you move to this wall? Over here? Hands, please. Is that too difficult for the video camera? Let's, do it over here. Ok. Um you can have him separated from the world. You can have him on the wall. You could start creating whatever you want. Okay, I'd like you to step forward. Can I get my seventy two hundred? Please? Is my seventy two hundred millimeter lens, by the way, for you watching the reason why I asked for my seventy two hundred millimeter lens photographing hence on dh he looks good and I want a contract him a little bit more would make him even more mysterious. More country contracted. I don't want to have any kind of distortion even though at seventy millimeters you won't get much it's still below one hundred and you'll get some distortion. Someone actually go far away. We're going to zoom in on him at two hundred million meters we're going to bring the light real close. We're going to create a portrait, okay, okay thank you actually just put that on your future okay, ready? So what you want to do with him and when where do you want the light? Um I want the light right about where you are and a little bit high up so the background is going to be dark if you don't do it let's do that total damage control here you want the light here yes, but higher up higher up or aimed slightly slightly down there's fall off from mid torso bobby how do you raise these thing? I have no idea. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, but is it on a farm where it can tip you will take these down right here we can keep these down. I don't know how to do it till date then a little bit lighting a shark just going that well pretty sharp. Yeah. It's hard, huh? Lee? You're making them work really alright everybody's way everything a picture of you in life. What is it that you're trying teo that you're trying to achieve lier or what were you going up going up light going down just a little bit so that there's a little bit little bit the soft box itself or the flash the softball field did sound box yeah, so that the light will fall off and I have no idea what I'm doing well, so I'm guessing australia in the lounge says he's excited to see the students in wall involved thank god thank god I've got you get there enjoying the panic are they here let's talk about this there's people watching and they're probably wondering what is your what is your supper us is the reason why we need to have a sapporo because we don't want to guess on hope guess and hope we want to have a plan okay you have a good looking guy here you have a great wall think of james bond or something think what kind of lighting would compliment him well what I'm what I'm hoping for is a darker background with the light coming on him sort of sort of rembrandt lighting and falling off about mid torso yes but I want you to look at the grey that's behind him because that in my opinion this is just my opinion my opinion greg goes with his shirt right I would not make that gray disappear when he could be working for you if he was like a pink or red you might wanna start it but because it's a great kind of goes with the shirt you don't want to make it too dark you want to still keep that gray there okay? But I'm thinking that the distance he's that it'll just be darker than insured I don't think it'll go black that's that's fine as long as I think it'll be you can do whatever you want but I think it be cool to see some of that gray in the background yes what I mean okay you want to just tell them like this asshole like that that's good man let's forget it for speed let's just leave it that's good otherwise there's the camera let's go ahead and try it is that a good position for you right there there you go. Go ahead and grab the camera is it in focus it's shutter focus shutter halfway so mean all the way to two hundred millimeters your flash that's on your camera it's only it's only a transmitter it's not actually shooting any lights take maybe think of vertical because it looks more cool like that put your hands your buckets hints shift your body weight a little bit just there you go that's it that's what? That looks like pretty freaking cool, right? Let's make it more mysterious that's when that shows up and see okay, there it is, guys way! Move this or can you get pretty cool? Right let's make it more mysterious. Let me borrow that real quick let's go out and bring it back closer again you see how soft the light is on his face it's really close to his face is what makes it softer let's go real close man let's go like inches from his face right there right there I have to sneak in there like that let's go higher and I'm going to borrow apple box which is right there we borrowed it for a second somebody else was gonna grab that box you're the talent roberto I'm just used to doing things myself you know way notice from the the studio light is giving a nice hair light on it it's definitely doing wth the hair light and that maybe we can if that let's not turn it off because it's just more time but if that was turned off you will be even more dramatic ok now I'm standing up so basically the angle of the angle of you is going to make his face more apparent cause I'm closer to the camera to his face on because now his body's farther away from me it's going to look more on his face that the emphasis will be more in him okay so take a look at this I'm not even going to tip it does here and trying to get even more lean towards me like two inches right there just a time or one more inch on dh that's pretty cool let's take a look at that real quick very nice right it's very nice now let's do some cool stuff let's get katie over here carrie can you come up let's replace let's put katie where the light's going to be so let's put the lights back no sorry stand right there hands we're going to start becoming lights abby if the lightest from here it doesn't change like the sun doesn't change so if you have the light here you have him you have his anything's buckets and he looks cool let's up katie can you wrap your hands around his waist or around one arm but stay in this direction so you can still face the light that way that's gonna hit her as well if we have her this way she'll be too dark and you won't be able to see that you have to think about these things so go ahead and get like this and kind of go like this look at you you do your thing is mr what is it take a look at julius who looks more like james bond e c k if we like him this way he's goingto be broadly in his face which means that wide part of his face is what's gonna be lit if we remove that light then we switch it to the other side he will be shortly or we could just move his face closer to the light this is what you go through the in your head let's brought light him first can you look at the camera drop that shoulder on your right drop your way strain your spinal cord good let's try this get real close to her headways closer to home right there now you don't have to be too literal when you take a picture you can do something creative bring your chain then again hands kenny you're perfect get a little closer to her face so I'm going to feature her I'm going to make him pretty mysterious take a look at that go out and we can move that soft box now see you see what happened here so we're starting toe do lighting composition right so is starting to look pretty meet one thing that would be cool would be because of his position you might want to add a reflector on his left side of his face so now can you hold this right here, bro the other way there reflective there you go. So you put it right there. Okay? Bree by competent now I'm going to focus on him instead of focusing on her when I drop my apertures of two point eight let me try that one more time. Okay? One two here you go. Okay, go ahead and remove that you look at that last picture we took it is now this still just a one light setup, okay, lester to add there is like, a much brighter when we compare the two photos please looking much brighter you can see kite slicing his eye better you can see it's a little bit brighter on this side. This is using one, lights set up. The reflector is working as a bit of a film. I have him basically split lit, but I have her broadly. I have her let perfectly not perfectly normal you see what I mean? So you have all these combinations just based on the position that you put your your client in. Um let's make it more dramatic. Let's start to add a flash to the background and start to change that gray toe a wider grayish tone. So is there. Is there a trigger on the flash in the south box? It's it's building. Okay, so I'm gonna put this in manual I'm gonna put this on slave I'm gonna put some slave group b so if you are watching this guy's gonna be on b that guy's on a now I can start teo mean, yeah, now I can start to change things this guy's a master it's not emitting any light, it does not play a role in my exposure. Okay? The only reason I'm putting a second light is to add volume to this photograph. Most photographers out there watching only owned two speed lights. I would say probably right or one or one look how much we did with just the one now of course I have a transmitter that's the flash but you can just buy the transmitter okay I'm gonna put this flash and I want to put it and want to play it on an angle I'm gonna play like an angle to do that because of the physics we talked about on the first segment I know that if I put the flash right here on I hit the wall is going to make it all white we don't want that where we are supposed to understand light now so you need to narrow the way the photons are going to travel through the air we do not want to let them do whatever they're not gonna have a party and let them just go and throw up all over the wall no we're not this is why we need to just understand how light works we're going to put on whatever that what is that the stuff I ordered for that the hunt the honeycomb think oh you know what I think I have one in my bag in the black bank it's one right there the party just you know we don't have a party I'm saying I mean nothing wrong with party not together when it's inside that there's a pouch it's like a big power says yeah let's just bring the bag over guys this's why it's pretty cool to know what's going to happen before you take the picture you know I mean it's like it's right here see this one rogue okay, here we are guys who are putting out the rogue motive fired I'm gonna put this modifier right when I put the mortar fire right there we're going wait that sucker like this pull out this guy I want to take out one of the greats there's two of them two will give you too much of a direction we went a little bit of a spread one this won't give you more directional like this will give you a little more spread good and good enough let's just do it this way okay? Sarah and julie my friend brett and dog what's gonna happen on the photons now photons don't party they were told where to go and they stay direct if you think this out they're just going to spread from the flash they're going to go like this with this for being told you're going straight to the vacuum remember fortunes travelling back in so they're gonna go straight on very little spread once vote on starting one direction they never ever ever sway from that direction which is why this asshole handy so we need another person. Can you hold this right here, man closer to the wall? Probably okay, so we wantto have this light kind of coming from as high as you can like right there and then back up a little now in theory would have those studio lights off which is giving you a very beautiful here like if you do not have on expensive setup like this everywhere you go can you believe it? You can use another of those things and put put it right on his hair another of those rogue modifiers take a look at that picture on we have a little spill how cool that looks like that yeah, we're starting to get places right? We're starting to really get places right? Very james bond of you roberto you know you mean me or my photo is this one now everyone I talked about all those electromagnetic radiation how has he carries three different carries? Different frequencies red, green and blue and the percentage of those frequencies depends on what color you put your brain perceives wow that's a lot of junk, but he works let's put a filter on it and now the filter is going to get hit by the photons carry radiation in it let's make it what color you want like a red right? Or like a cool brown or something scene this is like a salmon colored one salmon salmon kind of works right? You have some money ice man kind of thing, okay, yeah, this guy look at this guy's take this out, pull this out but this right there brother, we're having so many questions about the grids can you just talk a little bit more about what that isthe what the brand is of the name this is a rogue this is a rogue basically like a snoot um it has some honey honey, honey great sea has some grits honeycomb content congress has got some great. This is the sixteen millimeter great and also comes with this one on this when you put these two together you create a very narrow beam of light. If you take this apart, you get a little bit wider spread when you put the jail and you put the jail on this sucker because light absorbs the color that it hits is going to then reflected back on the wall we're gonna put this in here and wake up. This is the same thing this put it right back in the same position. This is a two lights set up two flashes one with a big light source one with the small lights or almost too small like a little snoot just little little touch of light to the background. We know that light won't spill to the rest because we note photos don't deviate from their path so let's go ahead and put this note back up less keep the reflector pointed right on his face right there you don't have to worry about hero on dh put it hard on angle more there you go right there. One, two, three pam okay let's remove this and see what we have how does that look? Starts to look pretty pretty crazy, right? Um okay let's see let's move to the other room if I may right you may everybody else is going to move while we ask you some questions, okay? And then they let you move over there once everybody's ready? Okay, so let's see? And if you guys can move over that way so that this camera can turn on, that would be fabulous. All right, susan, where we got all right, roberto, I'm going back tio when the two ladies were over here with hans this is steve's from switzerland and there has been a lot of questions around this, so I just want to get this squared away squared away so steve's from switzerland said the girls were illuminated mohr because the tt l compensated for the additional distance but spread more because of the distance is this the correct explanation? Well, there's multiple explanations and that is one of them. Okay, if a lot of questions about the distance yeah. Um let's consider manual flash where the light stays constant okay? If your light stays constant and you put it away further away is going to give you more even spread on the light if the light's very close actually, even if you're into yale doesn't matter really, if you're very close to your subject is going to give you a better a faster fall off because in the square law and the girls will become a lot darker it's great for a mysterious look, okay, so, so great for storytelling I usually have you can have the groom cannot doing something kind of special on the girl's kind of doing their own thing and the grocery kind of dark and the photo has, like multiple stories because you are creating the story just appear lighting, right? So it's pretty cool even if you're outdoors, even if you're outdoors, you can go in some sort of open shade or whatever and you can grab your flash and point the flash close to them. If you have a look at the future, we can make the light source bigger and you can still make him have light fall off quicker. You can still do the same thing you're doing here. So you okay? Yeah, all right, another question we're good to go. Okay, well, let me ask one more question before we move over there and that's from gen ninety four hundred who says I'm hung up on the concept of the settings on the camera do not matter if you're in t l shouldn't there at least be a basic setting? If not, does that mean that the flash is in complete troll or the control of the exposure? That is a good question on remember tt elsa computer that's always going to try to get eighty percent grade so who was asking this question? Jen ninety four hundred the flash is always going to try to compensate for whatever the iso aperture shutter speed or distance from light of subject is so no it doesn't matter if you're s o eight hundred or ice or one hundred if you are right, I use a one hundred your flashes going out put more power is going to stay on longer if you're so eight hundred, your flesh will automatically compensate for that is in the less power to compensate for the higher since the sensitivity of your sensor if you're an average of twenty your camera's gonna tell the flash to go crazy in the power of the flash to compensate for such a small aperture? Either way, what everything you d'oh you're always going end up with a good exposure on your subjects that way you start to control what the light does is by no letting the light do anything if you control everything about it, we're going to get into a little bit more manual flashed off now if you want to point the camera here at the camera in this camera you can circle pictures that's a cool picture that's rico I'm gonna goto menu I'm going to go to my settings here and I'm going to go toe external speed like control I have a channel one group a it's a lot of people on that and have channel one group b on the other flash that has a little honeycomb okay so channel channel one group a channel one group b on the other one where's my other flesh kind of more of that okay everybody that soft books has channel one grouping this guy's channel one group b I'm gonna go to my external speed like control and I'm gonna go flash function settings okay when you see this e t t l option you can click on it and you can switch it to group because now I have multiple groups have group a and group b okay now the camera's telling me I have options a b c d e n e I have five groups that can choose from I don't need five I only need a and b so when I go to my groups I'm gonna click on the groups and when I go group a wasn't e t t l I'm going to click on it and I'm gonna make that flash mode into manual flash so group a will be manual flash the flash output is going to give me I'm going to bring it down two one sixteenth power that's where in this room white walls everywhere one toe one is going to give you was going out power the rooms and with too much light okay, one sixteen now I'm gonna push menu I'm gonna go to group b which is my second flash which is right here when I click on that and I'm going to go toe flash mode I went there flash on manual as well click man you then I'm gonna click flash output and I'm going to make it what was the other one one sixteen someone I go to one fourth there is why I did that because you want you're creating a ratio when will be brighter than the other ok both flashes are now in manual flash and you can see by my screen here I don't know if the camera can zoom in and see that but you can see a one man u b is on manual is one one sixteen b isn't one fourth you just kind of see what that's going to do okay let's move over it's my tether cable gonna be okay just put it in between them can we get the soft box over here to please? This is a lovely set going on over here I like it it's beautiful the work of many people I think aaron had a lot to do with it on his birthday all right ladies could you guys come over here please? We're gonna put it way here for now okay um katie can you just sit right there please atlanta can you just give me a second remember I said that the smaller the light source the smaller the relative light source the harsh the shadows will be what you think will happen if I take a picture of her with this light source eyes next to her face it's gonna look quite ugly let's totally try it teo carries like what um where's bobby bobby can you call this flash record people it's intense right here right there that shadowing her nose is going to be all over it's going to have its own zip code when you put that when you're done with that ok yeah you do not if you let her up the wrong way you're going to cause a very long shadow okay it's not gonna be good for anybody but it's good to see why it's good to see that the relative size thing really works very mme porton so let's go to I'm gonna go ahead and turn off that soft box which is a right I'm gonna go to group a and I'm gonna just turn it off real quick okay and I go to group b and he's gonna fire well there's still the flash is still there let's not read things so let me fix that give me a quick sec e extreme weather control flash function settings and when I go to my group and I'm gonna make my group b I have a lot less power okay guys let's take a picture of this now let's see one twenty five aperture two point eight three twenty you can see how that did not pan out the lighting is harsh and is too bright it just looks straight out awful is that the picture? There it is how does that look? Guys greater what remain what I said about manual flash when you're emmanuelle flash mode you need to consider four things flash to subject distance you're s o your aperture on your flash output remember those four things and you khun convert this into a very successful picture very quickly so in manual flash the flash doesn't know what you're photographing it doesn't know the distance doesn't know anything it's just giving you the output that you want obviously thiss whole photo was a mistake the light source is too small so first we have to fix that second the the lightest toe too strong it's blowing out her face and it's totally on only on her face look at the fall ofthe look how bodies totally dark not working in many levels after this class you should know how you can increase the fall off you can turn that light on pretty farther away or you should also know meant many multiple ways to make the abbot of the light proper don't make it proper exposed what are some ways you can change the exposure of the flash turn it down, okay, a option? A you can turn down the output of the flash brit what's another option you can do in manual flash you could move the flash further away from the subject. If you do that, you're creating a smaller relative light source does creating harsher shadow saddle jobs but that's still what else can you do? Tiny aperture you, khun tighten the aperture very nice all these ideas have consequences. Great idea was gonna introduce harder shadows so let's, just start by making the light source bigger. So let's take out that grid. Yeah, let's put that green in this umbrella over here, please. Yeah, no, I just opened. All right, guys, if you're gonna point that that light towards the umbrella so I'm actually causing I'm activating those four things that can happen when when something gets hit by light remember those four train it can be transmitted, it can be absorbed oregon city history or it could be reflected in this situation. I'm basically losing a lot of the light that translucent material allows the light to escape from the other side in millions and millions of rays of light so that's what that wall is gonna have the most beautiful light okay she's also going to get beautiful light because some of those race are goingto kitty umbrella we're gonna lose a lot of it but those razor can also come back and they're going to hit her there just gonna be in a little bit more direction because your brother still spreads them but it's just gonna be a little bit more softer okay go ahead the light that's going to go through the umbrella and bounce off the wall won't that auction won't there be a shadow created by the umbrella itself though also on her a shadow created by them but yes oh you're shooting through it no, I'm going to shoot it I'm gonna bounce off of it so like this now when I put alana on when I put my hands in this photo, we're going to go back to a more square because if we put a lot of the light source is here and we put alana there and hands their hands is going to be dark makes sense it just won't work all right let's start just with one so I see here I choose should I change the output of the flash or should I change the aperture? I'm a two point eight you want to change the aperture you won the background more in focus what you want but what know what you want way have options here I want people in the audience watching this home to realize that there's options for making this explosion because we're working on manual flash I don't mind your flash you control everything you can change the output off the flash via the aperture via the shutters so sorry we're the aperture via the esso via the subject to light distance or were the output off the flash their four options well, with with the flash being you know the stuff behind a few feet away anyway isn't it going to be dark already? So what do you prefer? Well she's pretty she's right? It is like I know it I'm gonna go ahead and lower the power of the flesh right now I'm one sixteenth okay, I'm gonna lower the power off a flash flash function settings it doesn't matter how far the umbrella is from the flash does that make a difference? Because that's where the that's the that's the that's the weather like this yeah, it does. Okay, I'm what sixteen I'm gonna go to one sixty four. Okay, so make it yeah, I'm gonna make it much lower to stops running so point shoot on dh look at the result from one to the other look at the difference when we compare the two police okay, so you see well, that was too far but you see how much control we had we can choose what we want, right? Let's let's add a separation light. Okay, so where's the other flash wey also lost some light through absorption, right and reflection and trance transmission we lost light through transmission yeah, this didn't absorb much the material doesn't get enough sorbet much. This material has more off transmission quality to it it's going to go through there through the material, right? We're exactly, but we're mostly getting what's reflected. So in the end a small percentage so that's probably why it's a little darker, right? So with what you said, dog, if we turn this around and we face it towards her, you point this at her now we're going from losing light via transmission toe toe well, transmission but now the transmission is going to hit her face. It won't hit the wall. Okay, if you went to have the umbrella pointed the other way, you probably want to go with our reflective surface. You wanted to be reflected, not transfer trans translucent. Okay, so, let's, try this again again? We're gonna go. We're gonna hit this material via transmission she's being exposed through transmission, okay, that's fine it's quite a bit nicer still dark we still lost a lot of power there it is but better you see the difference let's get to the last to look at it we can one on the other looking which look at the difference you made you see the one on the right that was brighter on the face can you tell me why because we weren't losing so much light we were transmitting through the umbrella and had more light it was more because of the inverse square law see when I put the flash closer to her face oh remember the fall off is more dramatic look at her face how he goes into darkness faster on the right but the left her left side is brighter look at the picture on the left of both sides are more late that's because when I did this this is why the sciences but but when I did this we actually just made the light source farther away from some sense if we do this we are bringing in the light source closer to her face it's all good okay, yeah I got it this whole concept off the inverse square law but simply by swiveling the location of the light it's a huge importance to people working on location because of the walls around them and so forth see if you don't know this and if you don't experiment in this ways you're going to be shooting it just whatever happens happens but remember that light is logical if you bring the light source farther away from her if I grabbed this light and I put it right here she's gonna be let mohr equally she's also going to be dark enough because I'm on manual flash upward didn't change so now I have to sit there with my settings and I have to compensate for it so I'm going to bring my eyes saw from three, twenty two, five hundred to compensate for that extra distance I'll take another picture and because of that distance she's now going to be late maury equally across both sides of her face okay so let's see both sides of her face and maureen are more like I'm going to go ahead and to hire I s so I'm going to go toe I saw twelve fifty and I were gonna I'm gonna blow her out it's just gonna be too much so now t tl is not going to help me it's a little too much you can really see how the light hits both oversize of her face perfectly equal because of the lighting racial pretty cool right now let's keep this power here let's keep the powerlessness which the power of the so on little switch the power off the flash let's now control the light by my aperture let's switch the aperture and just control it that way so I'm a two point eight I'm going to go to four point five and take a picture now, look in seconds. I was able to go from that to this one by just making the aperture smaller.

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I liked this course. Except I think on segment 3 of the lighting, as stated by one of the studio audience he got the color balance of warm wrong and blue when he was talking about balancing the light (at 30 minutes in). Having said this I got the theory of balancing, and the rest of the video was excellent. It really does help to see flash as photons and understand what science behind it, to understand how light works and how to use it to your advantage. This a a great course in order to revisit now and again in order to become competent on lighting when put on the spot of having a difficult situation.

user a391f8
 

This class is like shopping at Marshalls: there are some valuable things to buy but you have to go through a lot of crap to get to them. The production value of this class is awful. The folks at Creative Live must not have a class on video editing to follow because not enough material was left on the editing room floor.. Roberto is fabulous but it must have been one of his earlier forays into teaching because he was scatological in many areas. Creative Live could have minimized this by doing some editing. He's a fabulous photographer and an even better teacher and this class would be much better if it followed the format of his 3 books: orderly and succinct. Learned a lot from this class. I just wish I didn't have to work so hard for it.

CJ McBrown
 

I have to say upfront that I have not purchased this course but the brief information he gave is spot on! I'm a sr. photographer for a large beauty company and I have to give him kudos for how detailed and accurate his explanations are. If the entire video is anything like the preview I highly recommend it.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES