Beginner My journey with speedlights - from zero to.... ?

Major

Major

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Tom
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Hi folks.

Since I am getting more and more into photography, I thought I'd start the thread with two purposes - documenting my progress and avoiding spamming forum with new thread every time I have a question ;).

So far I've achieved nothing - only got my first flash gun few days ago and used it once outdoor. I'll upload the photo that I saved from that session once again


1

DSC_1625
by Tom Major, on Flickr
​

I took flash off the camera and instantly felt limitations of my gear - lack of commander mode, lack of light stand, lack of remote trigger, lack of diffuser, think I could say I had nothing but spare batteries and good will ;).

Following Phil's advice, I bought Speedliter's Handbook - read few pages of it and I already know I will be going back to this book quite often. Even the most basic things are explained in depth, writing style is easy to follow and understand even for non-native English speaker. I also was given "The book of photography" - girlfriend saw it on the display in local shop and bought it for me. As basic as this book seems to be, I'm sure reading it won't do any harm and if I learn something, it's always a bonus ;).

I also had a casual ride to Chesterfield and acidentally popped into Dent's. Came out with few bits and bobs that will be useful in short future ;). Now my gear consists of:

2x D5100
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G
Nikon SB-700 with filters and dome difusser
Lastolite Sunlite/soft silver 50cm reflector
Manfrotto Nano Pole light stand + snap head
Metz diffuser umbrella
Lastolite hot shoe flash cable

Setting it all up was nice and easy, of course I had employed my daughter again to pose :). After first trials I can say I am very happy, fill flash looked quite good on the pics (even if I say so myself) - no hard shadows, no harsh light, no red eyes and nice detail - magic :D. Will post some pictures later on as my little one was not in state to be photographed ;). Also quickly felt limitation of hot shoe cable - as nice as it is, it's only one meter long, so can't really wander too far away. I thought I'd take it just for time being, till I have trigger - still need to do a bit of research on the subject though. I saw prices of YN around 60 quid for Tx and Rx and today I saw some Hahnel set for same money. Sadly it doesn't support TTL, only manual, so I missed it and most likely will end up with YN622N. The cable was also bought at 50% discount - I was offered it as "good customer" - little thing, but nice after all ;).

Think that's enough for a start ;). I will update thread as I progress/learn something new/take photo that I like/have some questions etc.

Cheers
Tom
 
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See this is why I like this forum so much, posts contain a lot of valuable info.

Must admit, you got me here Dave - in fact what I meant was not only lack of support for TTL, but also lack of ability to change settings on the Tx.
 
Tom, I have ordered the same book and am at a similar stage to you with regards to kit, and ambition to learn.
I will watch this thread and may ask questions along the way of how you are achieving results, but likewise if I have any successes or pick up any great tips, I'll make sure I share them here.
 
My quick Top Tips to OCF then :)

1 - study what it is BEFORE spending any money on kit, but by all means buy a simple OCF book and portrait one too (or several)

2 - buy manual flash and trigger £60-£70 is enough for both, but if you're sure you'll get really into it then a 'clever' trigger is useful where it can zoom the heads and adjust power remotely to multiple flashes - I have 3 flashes for OCF and a clever trigger, total cost under £200. A hotshoe flash cable is likely to be a waste of money

3 - brollies are cheap and generally rubbish, buy a softbox, but not a huge one, and make sure it has an internal baffle too; folding octagonal ones all the better as softboxes can be a bitch to erect/disassemble. Decent stand is a must and buy Bowens fit as accessories are generally cheaper and plentiful. A reflector is useful if you have a mate, otherwise hard to use well alone

4 - study more, as initial results are likely to be disappointing :D

5 - each time you have a go, take a wider 'setting' shot and make note of what you did on the day so you can see where you went wrong (after more study)

6 - study some more - learn about lighting patterns, but if in doubt, a good 'go-to' for most people will either be Butterfly or Short lighting

7 - jeez - this could be a LONG list :D so that'll do for starters lol

Oh and it takes a long time to get the hang of it and reliably make a good image, but may only take a few mins to get your head around the basic principles - it can and WILL be very frustrating at times, patience, practice and study is key

Its fun though :)

Dave
 
Snapper67 said:
5-10 clicks in post processing :-
Click to expand...

If you're trying to be helpful shouldn't you say what those 5-10 clicks were?

The lighting was wrong, it was underexposed wasn't it; the light is also in the wrong position generally and also for her face shape. There are two catchlights in her right (our left) eye, was that using your reflector? And is that why her cheek lower down is overexposed now?

Go back to the book you've got (I don't know it so hope it has lighting position basics in it too), position the light 'correctly' and for her face shape too and forget the reflector for now. The background would look more natural if you allowed it to be lit more, or even just let more ambient in too

Its a long journey bud - but those 5-10 clicks aren't where you need to be starting. PP shouldn't be the answer :)

Dave
 
DG Phototraining said:
If you're trying to be helpful shouldn't you say what those 5-10 clicks were?

The lighting was wrong, it was underexposed wasn't it; the light is also in the wrong position generally and also for her face shape. There are two catchlights in her right (our left) eye, was that using your reflector? And is that why her cheek lower down is overexposed now?

Go back to the book you've got (I don't know it so hope it has lighting position basics in it too), position the light 'correctly' and for her face shape too and forget the reflector for now. The background would look more natural if you allowed it to be lit more, or even just let more ambient in too

Its a long journey bud - but those 5-10 clicks aren't where you need to be starting. PP shouldn't be the answer :)

Dave
Click to expand...
All of the above.

Fortunately lighting is more 'technical' than artistic so it's easy to learn and to repeat successful setups, whilst learning what doesn't work, so you don't repeat mistakes.
 
@DG Phototraining, @Phil V
I can tell you both spent some time with eye in viewfinder ;).

Picture was underexposed indeed. Guess I focused so much on shadows and just seeing what the flash can do and thus forgot the basics.
Light was in wrong place, not only ambient light - flash as well. I didn't have the light stand, so used stand that was supplied with SB and placed flash on the ground, which I think can be clearly seen on the picture. I can also tell that my attempts to bounce it off the ceiling didn't quite work out. Reflector was not used at all, left it at home that day ;). Second catchlight is nothing else but my pop up flash - so far I couldn't come up with different method to fire OCF, that's why for time being I bought the hot shoe cord. Background looked interesting when it was lit much more, but then again I had strange things happen to subject's face. Will remember to save photos next time to see where I went wrong ;).

The book I've got doesn't specify lighting patterns, but contains plenty of info to get me going.

Thank you very much for input and advice ;).
 
Had a bit of research about light patterns and how to achieve them. Decided to go with the easiest ones for a start, so had a go at split and butterfly. Here are the effects and thoughts/questions ;)

Just please note, she agreed to be my subject as long as I didn't care about her looks. While I was able to mess around with light, my girlfriend is just raw and brutal in these photos... No make up, no hair, no bs ;)

Let's start with butterfly pattern.

2

butterfly
by Tom Major, on Flickr​

For this shot I set up lightstand with SB quite high, about 2m away from her face and shot at about same level. To fire up SB remotely I used pop up flash, but covered it so no light has hit the subject - or if it did, it wasn't much. Aim was to bounce pop up flash backwards to trigger SB. Does it even look like a butterfly pattern?

I noticed how cheeks and eyebrows are highlighted, but I think I also spotted some mistakes.
* Eyebrows look swollen to me. Does it mean light was too high?
* Why did I get some strange shadows on the nose?
* What happened on her left cheek?

Split lighting pattern


3

split
by Tom Major, on Flickr
​

Now I am not too sure about this one, according to what I've read, only the eye on the unlit side should catch the light. As you can see, left cheek is also highlighted, there is small shadow under her nose, which would look more like a loop pattern - am I right?

All in all, as it was said here - it does take a little to get head round it all, however looking at these two photos I know I want to learn more ;).
 
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DG Phototraining said:
If you're trying to be helpful shouldn't you say what those 5-10 clicks were?

The lighting was wrong, it was underexposed wasn't it; the light is also in the wrong position generally and also for her face shape. There are two catchlights in her right (our left) eye, was that using your reflector? And is that why her cheek lower down is overexposed now?

Go back to the book you've got (I don't know it so hope it has lighting position basics in it too), position the light 'correctly' and for her face shape too and forget the reflector for now. The background would look more natural if you allowed it to be lit more, or even just let more ambient in too

Its a long journey bud - but those 5-10 clicks aren't where you need to be starting. PP shouldn't be the answer :)

Dave
Click to expand...

Sorry mate, I'm a photography beginner as well, but an extremely competent IT professional (and bagpipe player).

I'm pretty sure my 5-10 clicks have been discussed to death in the forum regarding basic post processing, I've seen numerous threads regarding same most recently.

I was just trying to point out the obvious, sorry if this upset you.

Dougie.
 
Just as I was coming back from work, I saw courier leaving my house. Left me small package containing X1T + R :D.

Initial thoughts are very positive, work with it will be much easier than with flash cable, but I do have one question. Can I set it up for HSS while off camera? I does work on camera...

Loving the fact that now I just have to press one button and witchcraft happens ;).
 
Hi Tom
Received mine yesterday and it's working with HSS just fine off camera
HSS needs to be selected on the flash unit, I don't think you can set HSS on the trigger, but someone may correct me.
 
Thanks Paul.

I thought that HSS is to be switched on the camera as there is no way to set it up on the flashgun itself. It could be that my basic body won't support off-camera HSS, but when I paired SB with Tx, I could crank it up to 1/4000th in manual mode.
 
Tomasz - you are right - HSS (or "Auto FP High Speed Sync" in Nikon speak) is enabled on the camera, however the D5100 cannot do HSS. I was curious about your claim that it works on-camera, so I tried it out with a D5200 and an SB900. The shutter speed is locked at 1/200th as soon as the flash is turned on, in all flash and exposure modes. Can you confirm you can dial in shutter speeds of more than 1/200th with a flash attached to your D5100?

Your mileage will vary when using 3rd party triggers. I attached a Lencarta WaveSync trigger to my D5200 and it was happy to select any shutter speed. In this case it has no idea what's on the receiving end of that trigger, so I guess the Nikon software engineers thought "well, you're on your own here pal - it's your funeral, here's the 1/4000th of a second you wanted". The shots would not work though. Attaching a HSS compatible, YN622N-TX though, and you're locked in to x-sync speeds again (1/200th and below) - even if you set the flash group to tail sync (another way of trying to get light from a flash last for the entire shutter pass) which is interesting.

There is only one scenario where you need HSS (or tailsync etc): freezing action where there is significant ambient light in the scene, and yet you want to use flash as well. ie where you *need* a high shutter speed. All other use-cases which happen to cause a high shutter speed as a side effect, can be dealt with by other means. For example, if you don't care about the shutter speed but want a wide aperture, you just need to cut down the light entering the lens some other way. You can, of course use the shutter speed and HSS to achieve this, however, there are other solutions to this one and the most common way is to put a "Neutral Density" or ND filter over the lens. For example, if your exposure demands a shutter speed of say 1/1280 then attaching a 3 stop ND filter will knock out 3 stops of light (ie halve the light 3 times), which results in a shutter time that is doubled 3 times: 1/1280 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 1/1280 x 8 = 1/160. Below x-sync. So, unless you want to shoot dancers in flight outside with strong daylight - don't sweat it :) Mind you even then it really does need to be strong daylight: check out this shot from Joe McNally of Jen Concepcion leaping about somewhere on the Gulf Coast: Joe shot this at 1/125th at f/8 with a dumb ole Elinchrom Ranger in a big softbox. There is a little bit of blur from the sun light, but with the flash at the end of the exposure any blur trails the motion and it looks just fine.

BTW: My speedlight journey started with Joe McNally's book: The Hot Shoe Diaries
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hot-Shoe-Diaries-Creative-Applications/dp/0321580141

and I highly reccomend this to anyone looking for examples of what can be done with small flash. It's number 2 in a series of 3. The others are The Moment it Clicks, and Sketching Light.

Ballerina_Jen_Beach_2.jpg
 
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Thank you for your post Owen. Very valuable input.

I can confirm that flash indeed fired at 1/4000th, but now after some time with my gear I think it's just software glitch and no photos come out useful.

At first I was happy I was able to set it up, but I found out there is only one way to do it. Turn off the flash group on Tx, then crank up shutter speed, then get flash to manual - something along these lines. Setting is confirmed on the screen for one shot only, later it drops down to 1/200th. Resulting photo is completely blown out too. So despite shown shutter speed of 1/4000th, camera acts like at 1/200th if that makes sense?

The reason I want to try HSS is hidden in one of J. Lanier's videos - live wedding photoshoot at the seaside. Photos he took contained dramatic sky, frozen motion of waves crashing into the rocks on which he placed happy coupple. As irritating as he may seem to be, effect completely blew me away and I have tons of ideas for photos (just lack gear and pack of assistants to carry it :) ).

Thank you for pointer to Joe's books - I'll have a look at them.
 
Ive got All three mentioned McNally books and they are great.
For the Lanier seaside shot, Im not to keen on his postprocessing, you ill definititely want the ad600.
 
Major said:
At first I was happy I was able to set it up, but I found out there is only one way to do it. Turn off the flash group on Tx, then crank up shutter speed, then get flash to manual - something along these lines. Setting is confirmed on the screen for one shot only, later it drops down to 1/200th. Resulting photo is completely blown out too. So despite shown shutter speed of 1/4000th, camera acts like at 1/200th if that makes sense?
Click to expand...

Yup - the camera goes to sleep after a few seconds so when you turned the group back on, nothing changed on the camera. When you pressed the shutter button, it woke up, saw the flash and reset the shutter speed to 1/200th.

Major said:
The reason I want to try HSS is hidden in one of J. Lanier's videos - live wedding photoshoot at the seaside. Photos he took contained dramatic sky, frozen motion of waves crashing into the rocks on which he placed happy coupple. As irritating as he may seem to be, effect completely blew me away and I have tons of ideas for photos (just lack gear and pack of assistants to carry it :) ).
Click to expand...

I like Jason's work, and those shots wirth the waves breaking on the rocks is one of the things he does best. Yes - for that, you will need a reasonably high shutter speed to freeze the wave action in the background (this is not lit by flash), and the AD600 is the modern way to go about this. I should really get one tbh: I had cause to freeze some action at high shutter speed a couple months back and wheeled out my old-skool solution of a very slow studio head with a long-throw reflector on it, some tail-sync capable triggers (YN622-TX) and a big ole battery... You get a brief glimpse of my balding bonce right at the end of this slo-mo clip rom my assistant Joe: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Mk5NbzJMb3VTdUM0LTZhRDNEdW1KUHhncTNiUVln

and we got this...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/34479080726/in/dateposted/

It's a lot of junk to carry about though. I like the AD600's mono-block design.

soeren said:
Ive got All three mentioned McNally books and they are great.
For the Lanier seaside shot, Im not to keen on his postprocessing, you ill definititely want the ad600.
Click to expand...

Me too - I read them years ago (well the first two anyway) for the technical info, but now for the thought process - assessing the scene, and the back story etc. I had a brief chat with Joe at the NEC earlier in the year - he's a really nice guy. I know what you mean about Jason's processing - the shots do have a very flat look which is not to everyone's taste. I quite like it tbh. I like Jason's output, and his manner on set - he appears very relaxed :) Not sure I could do the one handed shooting mind, even with Sony's fancy shmancy eye detect AF :) It certainly works for him though.
 
Scooter said:
Yup - the camera goes to sleep after a few seconds so when you turned the group back on, nothing changed on the camera. When you pressed the shutter button, it woke up, saw the flash and reset the shutter speed to 1/200th.



I like Jason's work, and those shots wirth the waves breaking on the rocks is one of the things he does best. Yes - for that, you will need a reasonably high shutter speed to freeze the wave action in the background (this is not lit by flash), and the AD600 is the modern way to go about this. I should really get one tbh: I had cause to freeze some action at high shutter speed a couple months back and wheeled out my old-skool solution of a very slow studio head with a long-throw reflector on it, some tail-sync capable triggers (YN622-TX) and a big ole battery... You get a brief glimpse of my balding bonce right at the end of this slo-mo clip rom my assistant Joe: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=Mk5NbzJMb3VTdUM0LTZhRDNEdW1KUHhncTNiUVln

and we got this...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/34479080726/in/dateposted/

It's a lot of junk to carry about though. I like the AD600's mono-block design.



Me too - I read them years ago (well the first two anyway) for the technical info, but now for the thought process - assessing the scene, and the back story etc. I had a brief chat with Joe at the NEC earlier in the year - he's a really nice guy. I know what you mean about Jason's processing - the shots do have a very flat look which is not to everyone's taste. I quite like it tbh. I like Jason's output, and his manner on set - he appears very relaxed :) Not sure I could do the one handed shooting mind, even with Sony's fancy shmancy eye detect AF :) It certainly works for him though.
Click to expand...
A couple og years ago Jason made some videos in abandoned places. It was fun to see and he did good. I do like his shots to a degree, its just something with the finishing thats not quite my taste. I also saw a shootout he had with the angry one and that guys shots sucked. To freeze action with flash you need a short flash duration achieved with most by dialling it way down
 
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Had a browse through your photostream and I must admit I like your work Owen. Those shots of space shuttle are amazing!
 
soeren said:
A couple og years ago Jason made some videos in abandoned places. It was fun to see and he did good. I do like his shots to a degree, its just something with the finishing thats not quite my taste. I also saw a shootout he had with the angry one and that guys shots sucked.
Click to expand...

I did watch that. Not so much a shootout as a reconciliation tbh and I must admit it made a nice change to see those two kiss and make up. I didn't see a lot of art in Ken's images, but then I don't really know what he's about (the conversation he had with the police officers was truly bizarre though).

soeren said:
To freeze action with flash you need a short flash duration achieved with most by dialling it way down
Click to expand...

Yes if there's no significant ambient (continuous) light in the scene then you would use a short flash duration to freeze action, and you do indeed reduce the output of IGBT based flashes by shortening the duration. HSS, however is for outside where there is also lots of ambient light, which means you need a high shutter speed, and because of this high shutter speed, you need a slow flash duration. Slow enough in fact, to make it look like a continuous light to the camera: ie it lasts the entire shutter sweep over the sensor, which will take in the order of 1/200th of a second on most curtain based shutters. You can pulse it (high speed sync) or delay the shutter until the peak of the flash is gone, and use the tail-end of the light to light the shot (tail sync, or "hyper sync" (PocketWizard term)or "supersync" (Yongnuo term)). This is what's happening in my BMX shot - I'm using a really slow traditional voltage tiggered CoreFlash CF-D300 head on YN622 tail-sync capable triggers.
 
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Major said:
Had a browse through your photostream and I must admit I like your work Owen. Those shots of space shuttle are amazing!
Click to expand...
Thanks Tomasz - it was nice of NASA to light it so well :) Aircraft (and spacecraft) museums are great places to gather material for composites if you don't mind a bit of editing to remove mounts, blur props etc. Here's a couple more:-

X-Wing I found in Disneyland Paris many years ago.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/24030068546/in/dateposted/

Lightning
https://www.flickr.com/photos/owenlloyd/9355973552/in/dateposted/
 
Edit. Deleted Bableling
Edit edit. My powerhouse of a tt685 has a "guidenumber" of 2,2 — 2,5m in the 60cm octa @1/4000sec :)
Bare with zoom set @ 50mm its 5,6ish
Its fun using HSS to black out background and can be used closeup for overpowering the sun but for fullbody portraits its stretching things a lot
 
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