Mastering Flash Photography

Lesson 1: Page 14

Bottom line is that you want to choose an f-stop that meets the needs of your subject and no more. Does everything need to be shot at f/16 for depth…

Lesson 1: Page 13

Many flashes come with wide-angle panels, which allow the flash to cover even wider-angle areas such as 14mm. Many call these diffusers but they are not diffusers, those soften light…

Lesson 1: Page 12

Flash is very valuable when shooting all sorts of outdoor action and adventures. For rafting, I like to use a slow shutter speed and full flash to freeze the subject…

Lesson 1: Page 11

So how does it all work?

Lesson 1: Page 10

Important Update Times are changing faster than I can update this course (or it just feels like it) and here are a few new things to consider. I stated that…

Lesson 1: Page 09

To override this, you need to select the SLOW SYNC MODE, and then the camera will select a shutter speed for a properly exposed background. To set the Nikon to…

Lesson 1: Page 08

Shooting modes Cameras meter flash and ambient light independently of each other. Your camera probably comes with several different shooting modes. On Canons: P for Program, Av for Aperture Priority,…

Lesson 1: Page 07

This is what the wrong sync speed can look like. The flash fired when the shutter was not completely open. The flash output builds, fires, and falls off quickly. If…

Lesson 1: Page 06

Here is an exercise for you to try: Go outside after the sun has set and with your flash on camera, set the camera to Manual shooting mode and set…

Lesson 1: Page 05

Shutter speed only controls ambient exposure!

Lesson 1: Page 04

Lesson 1: Page 03

This photo of my son was taken in a local cornfield. I purposely dressed him to look like a kid who lives on a farm. I also used flash with…

Lesson 1: Page 02

Today’s flash units use E-TTL, which stands for ‘Evaluative through the lens’. Canon refers to it as ETTL, while Nikon uses iTTL (intelligent TTL) or to simplify: just TTL. The…

Lesson 1: Page 01

In a perfect world for photography, every photograph we take would have perfect light, the perfect subject, perfect exposure, resulting in the perfect photograph. However, as you know there is…