Technically speaking, you can purchase a flash, mount it to the top of your camera or on the included cold-shoe , and be done. But I advise against this, because all of the cool stuff you can do with flash involves using the flash in various positions, not by mounting it onto the camera or on a tabletop cold-shoe. In fact, for the same reason that I recommend you never use a pop-up flash, I suggest you never mount your external flash to your camera hot shoe.
A lighting stand is like a tripod for a flash. A flash mount attaches to a lighting stand, and it includes the mount you use to attach your flash. It also may give you additional tools, such as an umbrella holder which is useful for attaching an umbrella to your flash, as I discuss below.
Fortunately, lighting stands and flash mounts start pretty inexpensive. A flash remote allows you to trigger your flash from your camera—when the flash is off sitting on a light stand somewhere. Does your camera wirelessly allow you to trigger your flash? This generally mounts to the hotshoe of your camera and triggers as soon as you hit the shutter button.
Note that you may also need a second piece of equipment, which attaches to the flash itself and responds to the remote, depending on the compatibility between your remote and flash. You can pick up a nice 5-in-1 option from Neewer, which will give you a lot of flexibility:. Reflectors are great for bouncing light back onto your subject, plus the 5-in-1 reflectors include other cool features, such as a diffuser that you can hold in front of your flash for softer light.
Note that you can create DIY reflectors pretty easily. All you need is a bit of white cardboard and something to hold it up with. A book, brick, or other heavy object works in small-scale studio setups—when photographing products or still lifes, for example. Modifiers are a key topic in off-camera flash photography, so I devote an entire section below to the ins and outs of flash modifiers. But for now, just realize that flash looks bad without something placed between it and your subject.
For beginners, I recommend a white umbrella. This section is all about getting your flash up and running so that you can start taking stunning shots. You can dial in the flash power on the back of your flash, or potentially via your flash remote. I recommend you select your camera settings using Manual mode in advance, and then leave these settings as they are. You should adjust the exposure of your shot only using flash power. Shutter speed is an almost irrelevant variable when using flash, because the only light that matters is the light from the flash.
When using flash, you should have plenty of light. Flash provides lots of light. So choose the aperture based on the needs of your particular image. See how it looks. Keep experimenting until you get the precise look you want and you can use smaller increments on your flash to fine-tune the power setting.
Specifically, flash photographers distinguish between hard light and soft light. Hard light looks contrast-heavy. It creates sharp transitions between areas that are well-lit and areas that are shrouded in shadow. Soft light looks much more subtle. It creates soft transitions, and shadows tend not to be as harsh. First, flash umbrellas mount in front of your flash, and can either modify light that goes through the umbrella fabric, or modify the light by reflecting it off the umbrella fabric.
Translucent umbrellas are probably the most basic flash modifier out there, and are great for beginners. Silver umbrellas are more punchy and create harder light, so I suggest you avoid these as a beginner. Second, softboxes are another basic flash modifier. They go over the flash and put some nice white diffusing material in front of the light.
They sometimes come in the form of stripboxes which are tall and very rectangular , or in an octagonal shape, like this:. For a beginner, an umbrella is a great starting point. The most basic type of flash lighting is direct frontlight. The lack of shadows causes the shot to lose all depth. You create degree lighting by putting your flash off-camera, about 45 degrees to your right or left. Sidelight comes from the side of your subject and tends to create a very dramatic look, like this:.
This is because it casts heavy shadows on one side of the subject, while nicely illuminating the other.
There are various degrees of sidelighting, too—for instance, you can sidelight a subject completely called split lighting , as used in the photo above. In fact, sidelight is very common in cinema for this very reason! Backlight is the most interesting type of direcitonal light, because it has so many different purposes. For instance, you can position the light behind your subject or slightly behind and off to the side for a rim lighting effect , like this:.
Rim light is very dramatic and can work well as a standalone effect, or to add more depth to the scene by making your subject pop off a dark background. You can also put a large sheet of white paper behind your subject and point your flash toward it, in order to create a bright, high-key effect. Finally, you can put a flash behind a transparent subject to give a cool outlined effect while avoiding reflections.
You might combine degree lighting with sidelight, or backlight with degree lighting, or something else entirely. Because you can create lots of amazing photos. I mentioned this type of setup above, but it bears repeating. And then you can fine-tune the flash from there. It includes nice shadows, but nothing too heavy or too dramatic. And nothing too wild or out there. But you can rectify this with some cardboard that blocks the light behind your subject, or by moving your subject away from the background.
Split lighting involves putting your single flash on the same axis as your subject, off to the right of you, the photographer. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article parts. Related Articles.
Part 1. Use the flash when your setting is dark. This applies to both indoor and outdoor photographs. Use the flash to illuminate subjects against bright surroundings. You should use your flash when you are taking photos in a bright location, both indoors and outdoors, though that may seem counter-intuitive. Using the flash helps illuminate the subject, who can otherwise appear darker than the brighter surroundings or in shadow.
Use the flash to create shadows and highlights. You can play around with the flash to create cool effects in your photos. Try moving the flash so it's off-center from your subject.
For instance, if you're photographing a person, you might move the flash a full arm's length away from the camera, and elevate it so the flash is slightly higher than the person's eyeline.
That will create more flattering shadows than if you have the flash aimed at the center of the shot. The flash can even be reflected off of other surfaces and create undesirable effects in your photo. A pale or washed-out subject is an indication that the light is too strong or too harsh for your setting. Sometimes, taking a photo without the flash is the wiser choice. Try taking a few photos with the flash and a few without to see which come out better. Part 2. Select a flash mode.
You will then need to adjust the ISO , aperture , and shutter speed. Set the flash power. Change the power of your flash depending on the ambient light and the subject you are shooting. If you take a photo and the subject looks harshly lit, try turning down the power and taking another shot.
Or, if your subject is too dim or shadowy, turn the flash up to get a brighter shot. Use night mode. Setting your camera to night mode lets it know that there is minimal ambient light in your setting. The camera will then use a slow sync flash. This will slow down the shutter speed while still shooting the flash. This setting is great when for adding a little more ambient light into your photograph while still freezing the action with the flash. Part 3. Reflect your flash off an umbrella.
Position the umbrella to face away from your subject. The following will assume that you are using the center focus point on your camera. Set yours to use only the center focus point for now. Remember above how the flash sends out a pre-flash? Remember the bold writing five paragraphs above.
You will get a great photo of the bride and groom but the background will be dark. Not that this is bad understand but what if you really wanted to light the background as well because about ten feet in back the bride and groom is the brides Mom and Dad? They will not be seen. One is to go back to the icons mentioned above. Take the photo again and suddenly the background is exposed. But there is a price to pay for that. The shutter speed is drastically reduced by the camera in that position.
In fact, it may be so slow that the subjects will be blurred if they move. But you will light the background! There is a better way.
Every pro knows this. I want you to learn this. I use that one. Suddenly, a whole new world of flash photography opens up to you. First, you will not be concerned if someone moves and secondly you will light the background. This is because in any programmed mode such as TV, AV or M, the camera takes good direction from you and assumes you want the background lighted as well.
This is built in by the bright engineers at the factory we talked about. But please do only try this in the manual mode. Nothing else needs to be adjusted. Read the 2nd part of this series.
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