Using Flash For Street Photography

Merlin5

Merlin5

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Hi guys. I do street photography, use aperture priority, pretty much always use 1/500 shutter speed and quite often shoot on dull or overcast days with ISO up to 3200. I've ordered a Lightpix Labs Flashq Q20 II wireless flash and it comes with a tiny cube shaped trigger that mounts to the hotshoe. I'm really excited about getting it and trying it out as I've never done flash before. But I know the kind of look I want. I particularly want to do daytime flash street photography. I'm going to use it with a Ricoh GR III which I should be buying tomorrow. I'll be using the flash off camera, held in my left hand.

How do I set my ISO? Do I need to disable auto ISO and set to base 100 because the flash will compensate, even if auto ISO might give me a much higher ISO without flash? Thanks.
 
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Just to be clear: are you going to walk up to people you don't know and fire a flash in their faces?
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Just to be clear: are you going to walk up to people you don't know and fire a flash in their faces?
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Oh no, definitely not like Bruce Gilden. I'm not brave enough to stick a flash in someone's face, plus that would be rude and probably get me into trouble if it's the wrong person being photographed, lol. I'll be doing more subtle shots, like crowd scenes. Or just normal street type shots but with flash.
 
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Normally for highly variable "run & gun" type photography I would set the camera exposure manually for the BG/ambient and let the flash compensate (fill) in TTL.

But it doesn't really matter how you go about getting the ambient exposure you want and that's a manual only flash ... i.e. you could use auto ISO with a -2 stop EC and the manual flash set to add ~ 2 stops at the anticipated distance.

That's also a fairly low power flash for use in daylight... you might need to use higher sync speed to drop the ambient along with a higher ISO to help the flash. Luckily the GR III has a leaf shutter and will sync at up to 1/4000 with a manual flash.
 
For me street is subtle, and flash isn’t.
 
sk66 said:
Normally for highly variable "run & gun" type photography I would set the camera exposure manually for the BG/ambient and let the flash compensate (fill) in TTL.

But it doesn't really matter how you go about getting the ambient exposure you want and that's a manual only flash ... i.e. you could use auto ISO with a -2 stop EC and the manual flash set to add ~ 2 stops at the anticipated distance.

That's also a fairly low power flash for use in daylight... you might need to use higher sync speed to drop the ambient along with a higher ISO to help the flash. Luckily the GR III has a leaf shutter and will sync at up to 1/4000 with a manual flash.
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Thanks Steven for that advice. Yes, my Sony camera will only sync with the Lightpix flash at 1/160th which is no good to me for freezing motion. I was considering the Sony RX100 vii which is a leaf shutter but has no hotshoe so I couldn't mount the trigger. The Ricoh, though it doesn't have an EVF which I would have liked but can live without, does as you correctly mentioned allow me to sync at 1/4000. When you say use a higher ISO with higher sync speed to help the flash, are we talking about manually fixing an ISO of say about 400, or even higher?
 
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DemiLion said:
Arguably the three greatest living street photographers are hardly what you would call subtle.

Those being

Martin Parr

Bruce Gilden

and

Dougie Wallace
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Correct. (y) Dougie Wallace is currently my biggest inspiration, his work and his use of flash is incredible. But he uses two of them, one on top of the camera and one underneath. He says if someone is wearing a brimmed hat for example, the bottom flash will fill in where the top flash doesn't quite illuminate under the hat. So he gets pretty uniform lighting.
 
Merlin5 said:
When you say use a higher ISO with higher sync speed to help the flash, are we talking about manually fixing an ISO of say about 400, or even higher?
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Doesn't really matter whether it's fixed or auto... say you want to drop the ambient by two stops but you also want to help the flash by two stops. You would use a shutter speed four stops faster and bump the ISO up two stops. That could be done with auto ISO and manual SS/Ap or TV mode and a -2EC, or it could be done with a fixed ISO... depending on the metering mode and ambient conditions it wouldn't make much difference.
As long as the SS is w/in x-sync it doesn't affect the flash exposure, but it does affect the ambient exposure; ISO affects both equally. Using auto ISO would be a stand-in for TTL flash... and with the same tradeoffs.
 
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DemiLion said:
Arguably the three greatest living street photographers are hardly what you would call subtle.

Those being

Martin Parr

Bruce Gilden

and

Dougie Wallace
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Indeed, but all photography is subjective and everyone has their views, and it’s not for me.
 
If you want a compact, with a leaf shutter, and EVF, you need a Fuji X100.

Although in your position I would experiment with your existing camera first, as when shooting with flash the shutter speed controls the ambient light, as it is the flash that freezes the motion on the subject. A high-speed flash sync really comes into play when you have bright ambient conditions.
 
Merlin5 said:
Correct. (y) Dougie Wallace is currently my biggest inspiration, his work and his use of flash is incredible. But he uses two of them, one on top of the camera and one underneath. He says if someone is wearing a brimmed hat for example, the bottom flash will fill in where the top flash doesn't quite illuminate under the hat. So he gets pretty uniform lighting.
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I just turn my camera upside down for wide brimmed hats, a tad akward and I look... errrr odd, but it works fine, do it all the time at wedding.
 
DemiLion said:
Arguably the three greatest living street photographers are hardly what you would call subtle.
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Was the title of " greatest living street photographers" awarded by a government body or by the Society for Annoying Other People? :naughty:
 
sk66 said:
Doesn't really matter whether it's fixed or auto... say you want to drop the ambient by 2 stops but you also want to help the flash by two stops. You would use a shutter speed four stops faster and bump the ISO up two stops. That could be done with auto ISO and manual SS/Ap or TV mode and a -2EC, or it could be done with a fixed ISO... depending on the metering mode and ambient conditions it wouldn't make much difference.
As long as the SS is w/in x-sync it doesn't affect the flash exposure, but it does affect the ambient exposure; ISO affects both equally. Using auto ISO would be a stand-in for TTL flash... and with the same tradeoffs.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much Steven. I sort of understand what you said and once I get the flash and start playing around with it, I think it'll all become clearer. (y)

d00d said:
Welcome to the club. I joined last week, with a GR3X. :cool:
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Nice one David. :) I had considered the GR3X but wasn't sure if 40mm equivalent might be a tad tight FOV for me. I quite like 35mm and I believe the GR3 has a crop mode for 35mm which I could try.

benc98 said:
Good luck, i'm looking forward to seeing/hearing how you get on with it
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Cheers Ben, will definitely let you know how I get on. Haven't had an email from the shop yet and am expecting one to say I can go collect it.

Craikeybaby said:
If you want a compact, with a leaf shutter, and EVF, you need a Fuji X100.

Although in your position I would experiment with your existing camera first, as when shooting with flash the shutter speed controls the ambient light, as it is the flash that freezes the motion on the subject. A high-speed flash sync really comes into play when you have bright ambient conditions.
Click to expand...

Thanks Lewis. Well I normally shoot at 1/500 shutter speed to freeze motion. With the flash unit I've ordered, my Sony camera will only sync at 1/160. Are you saying that the flash would still freeze motion well enough even if I'm shooting at 1/160?

swanseamale47 said:
I just turn my camera upside down for wide brimmed hats, a tad akward and I look... errrr odd, but it works fine, do it all the time at wedding.
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Hah, good idea. :D
 
It depends - the duration of your flash is way less than 1/500th of a second, so it freezes the motion, think of strobe lights. However, you also have the ambient exposure too, which can introduce some movement - hence the front/rear curtain sync option allowing you to choose if the flash fires at the start or end of the exposure. This article explains it, and the whole series is worth reading if you are starting out with flash: https://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing-flash-and.html

But the key is to experiment.
 
The Ricoh GR cameras will sync up to 1/4000th as well.

For manual flash I just work out what the correct flash setting will be for f/8, ISO400, subject distance 1m. I have that setting gaffer taped somewhere on the flash for future reference. I then adjust the flash power up or down depending on the scene. I adjust the shutter depending on how much ambient light I want to let in. You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly, best to practice on objects around the home and on friends before heading out to the streets.
 
Craikeybaby said:
It depends - the duration of your flash is way less than 1/500th of a second, so it freezes the motion, think of strobe lights.
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I would say "it depends on the power setting." Most speedlights have a t.1 of ~ 1/200 at full power, but it becomes exponentially faster at lower power settings; faster than 1/8000... but IDK exactly what the numbers might be for the Q20 II.

And this goes back to syncing at higher SS's to drop the ambient, combined with using higher ISO's to help the flash need less power.
 
Merlin5 said:
Thanks very much Steven. I sort of understand what you said and once I get the flash and start playing around with it, I think it'll all become clearer. (y)
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Just remember that if you want to only change the ambient exposure change only the shutter speed, if you want to change both exposures change ISO/Ap, and if you only want to change the flash exposure change the flash power/distance...
Flash photography is really a form of "double exposure," with the brighter exposure on top (more visible).
 
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Craikeybaby said:
It depends - the duration of your flash is way less than 1/500th of a second, so it freezes the motion, think of strobe lights. However, you also have the ambient exposure too, which can introduce some movement - hence the front/rear curtain sync option allowing you to choose if the flash fires at the start or end of the exposure. This article explains it, and the whole series is worth reading if you are starting out with flash: https://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101-balancing-flash-and.html

But the key is to experiment.
Click to expand...


FruitFlakes said:
The Ricoh GR cameras will sync up to 1/4000th as well.

For manual flash I just work out what the correct flash setting will be for f/8, ISO400, subject distance 1m. I have that setting gaffer taped somewhere on the flash for future reference. I then adjust the flash power up or down depending on the scene. I adjust the shutter depending on how much ambient light I want to let in. You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly, best to practice on objects around the home and on friends before heading out to the streets.
Click to expand...


sk66 said:
Just remember that if you want to only change the ambient exposure change only the shutter speed, if you want to change both exposures change ISO/Ap, and if you only want to change the flash exposure change the flash power/distance...
Flash photography is really a form of "double exposure," with the brighter exposure on top (more visible).
Click to expand...
Thanks very much Lewis, Lloyd and Steven! Can't wait to receive the flash unit now. I bought it from an online place called Photospecialist who are based somewhere in Europe. So it's going to be a few more days I think. But their price was much better than anywhere else. I bought the Ricoh GR 3 today from Park Cameras in London and it's pristine. It was £619 and I asked if they could round it down to £600. They let me have it for £599 which is exactly £300 less than a new one. But it's like new and I ran a jpg through camerashuttercount.com which came up with 312 shuttercount, so barely used. Got a bargain! :D
 
Merlin5 said:
I bought it from an online place called Photospecialist who are based somewhere in Europe.
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I've bought from them a couple of times and found them to be very good. :)
 
gramps said:
I've bought from them a couple of times and found them to be very good. :)
Click to expand...

Excellent. Good to know that. Thanks gramps. :)
 
Merlin5 said:
Hi guys. I do street photography, use aperture priority, pretty much always use 1/500 shutter speed and quite often shoot on dull or overcast days with ISO up to 3200. I've ordered a Lightpix Labs Flashq Q20 II wireless flash and it comes with a tiny cube shaped trigger that mounts to the hotshoe. I'm really excited about getting it and trying it out as I've never done flash before. But I know the kind of look I want. I particularly want to do daytime flash street photography. I'm going to use it with a Ricoh GR III which I should be buying tomorrow. I'll be using the flash off camera, held in my left hand.

How do I set my ISO? Do I need to disable auto ISO and set to base 100 because the flash will compensate, even if auto ISO might give me a much higher ISO without flash? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I've got that little Lightpix TTL flash for my Sony and love it. Why can't other manufacturers make more compact flash triggers (talking to you, Godox)? You probably know this but : Be aware, that flash is very low-power. Unless you are very close to your subject you will not be able to overpower sunlight or even overcast at 1/160 second. Maybe with a leaf shutter like the Sony RX, although I'm not sure that has the same TTL flash compatibility? Lightpix told me over a year ago that they were working on a higher-power version with the same detachable trigger, but sadly that seems not have happened.
 
Apologies if some of the replies have already addressed this, but there's a number of things confusing me..
Merlin5 said:
pretty much always use 1/500 shutter speed
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Why? 1/250 is fast enough to freeze someone walking at fairly close range.
Merlin5 said:
I'll be doing more subtle shots, like crowd scenes.
Click to expand...
In fact, for your 'wider & crowd' scenes you could probably go slower.
Merlin5 said:
I'll be using the flash off camera, held in my left hand.
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Why use it just a foot off camera if you're going to shoot wide scenes? You may as well leave it right on top.
And why do you want to use on-camera flash on wide street scenes anyway? It's hardly going to light the whole scene.

Merlin5 said:
Oh no, definitely not like Bruce Gilden.
Click to expand...
Merlin5 said:
Dougie Wallace is currently my biggest inspiration
Click to expand...
Dougie very definitely gets right in people's faces with flash, very much like Bruce Gilden.
Maybe you admire their work & that's why you want to use flash - but don't actually like the idea of getting right up close? I think you may be disappointed with your results if you don't.

Perhaps you could post an example of your own work & a link to something in a style you'd like to create? You might get more useful answers than the detail about ISO and camera types.
 
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