Moving The Light
In my view, a good portrait should express persona. I’ve come to accept that light and, as importantly, shadow are the keys to expressing persona. (OK…light, shadow, and the subtleties of expression and gesture. OK, well…light, shadow, subtleties of expression and gesture, and environment.) I did four shoots yesterday for the Speedliter’s Handbook. The shot above is my favorite of the day. It’s 100% Speedlite (actually two Speedlites and a bit of 1/2-cut CTO).
QQ&A #1
Welcome to Quick Questions & Answers #1
As I wrote recently (here), I’ve been buried for the past couple of months with my US seminar tour and the completion of the ‘Speedliter’s Handbook.’ Along the way, I’ve tried to answer the many questions that were emailed in directly. In an effort to share the knowlege, I’ve decided to start Quick Questions & Answers. These are not going to be well-polished thoughts or well-edited text. In fact, they will be more like stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
To submit your question, please email it (along with your name and city/country) to
I won’t be able to answer every question. I will try to answer the most interesting ones.
Radio Triggers and Manual Control
Just wondering: is there a particular combo of a radio trigger and a speedlite (off-brand, Canon, Nikon, whatever) that would allow me to set manual power levels from the camera (either using the trigger’s transmitter or through some other means). It’s a bit of a pain to hobble over to each speedlite to change power levels, especially when one of them is stuck in an Apollo softbox. I know you can probably do this with either the Radiopopper PZx or the PW ControlTL setups; any other options? I mean, what if you threw a studio strobe into the fray?
Thanks, Sohail – San Francsico
You have manual wireless control built into the Canon system. Switch the Master to Manual and the slaves will follow suit. This enables you to control each group A-B-C individually. It’s best to do this via the LCD on your camera. Read more
Catching Up
Thanks to all who have been in touch and inquired about where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing over the past two months.
In late April, I fell down Alice’s rabbit hole and grabbed onto a whirlwind. Here’s a quick summary of my journeys:
- April 26, San Jose — TWIP / Smugmug meet-up presentation
- May 1, San Francisco — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar
- May 2, Mountain View — Speedliting workshop at Google
- May 3, Petaluma — co-host TWIP with Frederic Van from TWIT cottage
- May 8-9, Bethesda — two Speedliter’s Intensive seminars
- May 15, Los Angeles — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar
- May 22-24, Atlanta — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar + workshop
- May 29, Paso Robles — photo walks for Festival of the Arts
- June 5, Houston — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar
- June 12, Chicago — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar
- June 14, New York — Speedliter’s Intensive seminar
- June 15, Lake Success — Speedliting research shoot at Canon USA
If you are counting, that’s four hops across and around the county. Yes, I now have gold status with US Airways’ frequent flier program.
Update: Speedliter’s Handbook
During my spring travels, I wrote the last 200+ pages for the Speedliter’s Handbook. Since returning home (for more than 5 days at a stretch), I’ve finished the preliminary layout of all 432 pages. Now, I just have to shoot several hundred pix for the book over the next four weeks (the book will have close to 1,000 pix and illustrations) and get them placed.
I’m now working 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, on wrapping the Handbook. It’s become my own personal Mt. Everest, except that I don’t have sherpas or bottled oxygen (really wish I had some extra oxygen). The Handbook contains far more information than I ever thought I had to share…which is why it will have taken nine solid months to produce. Anyway, I assure you, the wait will be worth it.
New Feature On Speedliting — QQ&A
A ton of people have been emailing questions about Speedliting. I’ve been doing my best to answer them as I can. I’ve decided to start posting questions and answers as a new series on Speedliting’s How-To. So, on Monday, you’ll see the debut of QQ&A — Quick Questions & Answers.
If you would like to submit a question about Speedliting, email it to QQA (at) Speedliting -dot- com. No promises on my end that I’ll be able to answer every one, but I will do my best to post the most interesting questions.
Fall Tour — UK, USA & maybe Denmark
I will unveil my fall tour dates soon. Canon UK is close to finalizing the details for eight Speedliting events during the first two weeks of September. A few Danish Canonistas are trying to organize a couple of workshops in Copenhagen for 17-19 September. My US tour will resume in October and run into early November. If you’d like to get announcements on any of these events, be sure you are on the Speedliting mailing list — subscribe here.
Here are two dates certain for the fall
- Speedliting 5-day workshop, Paso Robles, Oct. 11-15 (details here)
- Speedliter’s Intensive, NYC – Sunday, October 24
Likely cities for Speedliter’s Intensives this fall are: Austin, Boston, Orange County-CA, Philly, Portland-OR, and Seattle.
Consider ZOOM To Be A Speedlite Modifier
When in Auto mode, the ZOOM function on your Speedlite was intended to make flash photography simple for people who don’t know what they are doing. When paired with a compatible lens, your Speedlite will reposition the flashtube so that the its angle of coverage is matched to what the lens sees. The range, on a full-sensor camera is 24mm to 105mm. Then, if you pull out the flip-down Wide-Angle Diffusion Panel on a 580EX/EXII, the angle of coverage expands to 14mm (with a 3-stop loss of light, see the end for details).
The idea is that if you are shooting a 50mm lens, then there is no point in lighting the area covered by a 28mm lens. For on-the-fly photojournalism, Auto Zoom is a good feature—even if you know what you are doing. From my perspective as a creative Speedliter, the ZOOM button is a built-in modifier that I can use to change the look of the flash to fit to my vision.
Brightness Concentrates
The effect of the Speedlite zooming to a longer focal length, it is it concentrates the light. So, at the center of the frame, the Speedlite is brighter when zoomed to 105mm that it is when zoomed out to 24mm. You can see this effect in the frames below. They are all shot with the Speedlite’s power in Manual at 1/1.
As you can see, the is a distinct difference in the light on Tony’s face between the top frame (zoom = 24mm) and the last frame (zoom = 105mm). I think the first is slightly underexposed and the last is definitly overexposed. To my eye, the optimal exposure happened when the head was zoomed to 50mm. Again, for these demo pix, the only thing that is changing from frame to frame is the zoom setting. In a real shoot, I would have first found the vignette that I wanted and then dialed the power up or down. Read more
Dimming The Sun With High-Speed Sync: Part Two
When teaching new Speeliters how to dim the sun with High-Speed Sync (which I wrote about here in Part One), the question is often asked “why not just shoot at the normal sync speed with a really small aperture so that you can use regular flash?” My response is “you should go out and try.” [This article, by the way, also applies to all types of flash that won't work with your camera in High-Speed Sync: third-party speedlights, monolights and location/studio strobes.]
As a reminder, here’s the short version of sync speed: it is the fastest shutter speed at which you can nornally shoot flash. In a DSLR, the sync speed is limited to 1/200″ or so because the shutter is comprised of two curtains in front of the sensor—the first-curtain being fully closed and the second-curtain being fully open when the camera is ready to fire. In order for the flash to illuminate the entire sensor, it has to fire after the first-curtain has completely opened and before the second-curtain begins to close. That defines the sync speed. If you shoot faster than the sync speed, then the second-curtain will be covering some of the sensor and you’ll have a dark bar along one edge of the frame.
So, if you want to stay in normal flash mode, your shutter speed is limited to the sync speed. On my 5DM2, that’s 1/200″. Unless you are shooting a 1D-series camera, your sync speed is probably 1/200″ too.
If your shutter speed is capped by the sync speed, then you can only dim the ambient light via the aperture. O.K., so how dark will it be if I shoot at 1/200″ and f/22. Let’s head outside at high noon and see what it looks like. Read more
Dimming The Sun With High-Speed Sync: Part One
High-Speed Sync above / ambient sunlight light below.
High-speed Sync is, without a doubt, the feature that sets dedicated small flash apart from all other types of flash. By “dedicated small flash” I mean that if you are a Canonista, then you are shooting with Canon Speedlites, and if you are a Nikonian, then you are shooting with Nikon Speedlights. By “all other types of flash” I mean , 3rd-party speedlights (like Vivitar and Sunpak), monolights (like Alien Bees) and portable/studio strobes (like an Elincrhom Ranger RX or Profoto Pro-8). You have to have a dedicated Speedlite to shoot in High-Speed Sync.
If you’re not familiar with High-Speed Sync, the short version is that it is a special flash mode in which the Speedlite fires an ultra-fast series of flashes rather than one big pop. The pulse is so fast, topping 30,000 cycles per second, that it appears as a regular pop to us. What High-Speed Sync does is turn your Speedlite into a continuous light source so that you can shoot at virtually any shutter speed. When firing in normal mode, the maximum shutter speed on your camera for flash work is in the vicinity of 1/200″. [For more details on the basics of High-Speed Sync, read my article Simple Truths About High-Speed Sync over on PixSylated.] Thanks to High-Speed Sync, I can use super-fast shutter speeds to dim the ambient light (the sun) and selectively light my subject with a Speedlite. In short, High-Speed Sync gives me the ability to create images that I otherwise could not shoot.
So, here’s where I started: mid-afternoon sun coming straight at the camera. The first shot I always take is with my camera in Tv (shutter-priority automatic) at or close to the sync speed for my camera. I want to see how the camera sees the ambient light. There is no flash in the following shot.
Starting out: Shutter-priority automatic, 1/160", f/7.1, ambient only, no flash
Speedliting Interview on This Week in Photography
TWIP Podcast #131 – Photographing Olympians
INTERVIEW WITH SYL ARENA
This week, Fred interviews Syl Arena about the strobist movement, his new site devoted to Canon Speedlites, and his thoughts on working with off-camera flash. Syl also answers questions about small flash from TWiP listeners. You can learn more about Syl by visiting his website, following him on Twitter, and checking out his new site devoted to Canon Speedliting.
Deciding How To Start With Off-Camera Speedliting
A confusing point for many Speedliters is how to start with off-camera flash. Frequently, I am asked, “I have one 430EX. What’s the best way for me to get it off-camera?” The person asking thinks of this as a simple question. After running through several options, the complexity of the question becomes more apparent.
First considerations
Budget – There are $40 solutions and there are $400 solutions. Starting with the expensive solution because it gives you future options is not necessarily the best way to go. Often, a small investment in a basic solution is the best way to start learning off-camera flash. If you spend all your time reading an owner’s manual and debugging why your expensive solution is not working, then you are really not learning off-camera flash. I’m a big proponent of starting with the basics and then stepping forward. The alternative, blindly taking a big leap to start, often means that you miss the mark entirely.
Quantity of Speedlites – If you have one Speedlite and a low budget, then you have a different set of options from a shooter who already has three Speedlites.
Camera – If you have a 7D you have an option not provided with other camera models
Manual or E-TTL – If you are just starting with off-camera flash, I suggest that you work in Manual mode until you get the hang of it. (You can read more insights for novice Speedliters here.) Once you have the hang of Manual, then E-TTL can be a powerful tool. Jumping straight into E-TTL without an understanding of the mechanics of Manual flash can be frustrating because you do not get direct insight from E-TTL into why the camera decided to use a specific power level on the Speedlite. If you jump into E-TTL and into wireless at the same time, then your workflow can get very, very complicated. My suggestion: learn the basics of Manual flash, then jump into either E-TTL or wireless off-camera. Get the hang of that, then begin to work with the other. Wireless E-TTL is a powerful tool — once you’ve worked your way up to it.
Corded or Wireless – Cords are cheaper than wireless solutions. Don’t think that you need to spend hundreds of dollars to have off-camera, E-TTL. As described in this article, I’m a big fan of using an extra-long E-TTL cord. As a pro, I use a 24′ E-TTL cord all the time. I think this type of cord is a fine way for a novice to start. You can shoot your Speedlite in Manual mode through an E-TTL cord. The only time that wireless is essential is when I’m firing an off-camera Speedlite at an event where people are milling around (happy people with drinks in hand are not a good combination with a long off-camera cord).
Read more
15 Insights For A New Speedliter
There is a lot to learn about Speedliting. I’ve spent years honing my craft. Yet, I still learn new techniques and come upon new bits of inspiration all the time.
When you are starting out, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are 15 tips about Speedliting that you should know as you start learning to light with small flash. [Confession – you should know two things about me: I’m not known for being concise and I’m not known for thinking like a guy who writes user’s manuals for a living. That said, I promise that the following will help you turn a Speedlite into a tool of personal expression.]
1. Understand that the hotshoe is not the best place for your Speedlite.
I know. You paid good money for your camera and your Speedlite. It’s not that you didn’t get the deluxe hotshoe. You did. It’s just that shooting with a Speedlite in the hotshoe is similar to the lighting used to make driver’s license and passport photos. You cannot create interesting light when the main source of light is parked on top of your camera.
2. To create interesting light, you also need to create interesting shadows.
From your camera’s perspective, shadows that go straight back are invisible. That’s what happens when the Speedlite is in the hotshoe; the shadows go straight back. To make shadows that the camera can see means that they have to go across the photo. This means that your Speedlite needs to be somewhere to the side of your camera and not right on top.
BIG BTW: If you shoot Nikon, here’s your decoder ring for this article: Canon = Nikon, Speedlite = Speedlight, E-TTL = I-TTL. Everything else is exactly the same.
‘Strobism From A Speedlite Perspective’ on SportsShooter
If you did not catch the Speedliting conversation I had with Jack Howard last week on TechTock (listen to it here), you can read the highlights of the conversation here on SportsShooter.
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