Comments on: Adventure of a Flash Noob: The Beginning http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/ Wed, 19 Jan 2011 05:21:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Josh Mullenite http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-206 Josh Mullenite Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:50:59 +0000 http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/#comment-206 I'm not sure if you saw this on my site when you were looking around but it may be an interesting read for you. http://joshmullenite.com/?p=29 Also, if you want to try off-camera stuff I have everything you would need to get your current setup off if you'd like to use it some time to practice. I’m not sure if you saw this on my site when you were looking around but it may be an interesting read for you.

http://joshmullenite.com/?p=29

Also, if you want to try off-camera stuff I have everything you would need to get your current setup off if you’d like to use it some time to practice.

]]> By: David Jez http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-204 David Jez Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:15:34 +0000 http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/#comment-204 Nice image! It's certainly a challenge to achieve great results with a shoe-mount flash, but certainly possible as you've demonstrated. I always shoot in manual mode. The shutter speed will have very little effect on the image exposure if the flash is the dominant light source; The aperture essentially defines your exposure and you can adjust this to your liking. If the flash is too low in power or the ambient light is strong enough, then ambient light plays a role. The flash will capture the image (at 1/1000th (approx.) of a second when the shutter opens), but the ambient light will add motion blur whose amount depends on the shutter speed. This blur will be opposite to natural expectations. In other words, if you're walking laterally and the flash fires, the blur will occur after the flash fires and appear in front of the motion. You can change the way the flash fires so that it happens when the shutter is closing and the motion blur appears behind the motion, which is more pleasing to the eye. Another trick is to try key-shifting. This is where you isolate the exposure of the subject with that of the background. Set your shutter speed to say 1/60th of a second. Then meter the background and adjust the aperture accordingly for good exposure. Adjust your flash power on the subject so that it meters at the same settings as the background. At this point you should have a nice balance in exposure between subject and background. Now start to increase the shutter speed. Your subject exposure will remain the same because it's dictated by aperture, but the background will become darker. You can continue to increase the shutter speed up to your sync speed, which is typically 1/125 or 1/250th. This can create some nice and often moody effects. Annie Liebowitz uses this technique quite a bit. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing your future flash incarnations. Dave Nice image! It’s certainly a challenge to achieve great results with a shoe-mount flash, but certainly possible as you’ve demonstrated. I always shoot in manual mode. The shutter speed will have very little effect on the image exposure if the flash is the dominant light source; The aperture essentially defines your exposure and you can adjust this to your liking.

If the flash is too low in power or the ambient light is strong enough, then ambient light plays a role. The flash will capture the image (at 1/1000th (approx.) of a second when the shutter opens), but the ambient light will add motion blur whose amount depends on the shutter speed. This blur will be opposite to natural expectations. In other words, if you’re walking laterally and the flash fires, the blur will occur after the flash fires and appear in front of the motion. You can change the way the flash fires so that it happens when the shutter is closing and the motion blur appears behind the motion, which is more pleasing to the eye.

Another trick is to try key-shifting. This is where you isolate the exposure of the subject with that of the background. Set your shutter speed to say 1/60th of a second. Then meter the background and adjust the aperture accordingly for good exposure. Adjust your flash power on the subject so that it meters at the same settings as the background. At this point you should have a nice balance in exposure between subject and background. Now start to increase the shutter speed. Your subject exposure will remain the same because it’s dictated by aperture, but the background will become darker. You can continue to increase the shutter speed up to your sync speed, which is typically 1/125 or 1/250th. This can create some nice and often moody effects. Annie Liebowitz uses this technique quite a bit.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing your future flash incarnations.

Dave

]]> By: Steve http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-203 Steve Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:12:53 +0000 http://www.ascenicworld.com/2008/06/03/adventure-of-a-flash-noob-the-beginning/#comment-203 The trick to freezing motion with a flash is to remember that the actual pulse of light coming out of a hotshoe flash is only around 1/10,000 of a second long. That's fast enough to freeze almost anything. If the flash is the only thing lighting up the scene (if you're in a dark room, or it's night time with no moon) then it doesn't matter if the shutter speed is 1/100 of a second or 10 minutes; the pulse of light still takes the same amount of time to discharge. You can get blur with flash when you mix ambient, natural light with the flash. In that case the image will come partly from the flash's light and partly from the natural light. The flash part will still be crisp and frozen but the ambient part will be blurred like normal. When you mix them together you can get different effects depending on the mixture. I used the second method for some of the photos I took at Girl Jam last month and wrote up a blog post about it at http://www.stevelosh.com/blog/2008/4/29/shooting-girl-jam.html if you're curious. The trick to freezing motion with a flash is to remember that the actual pulse of light coming out of a hotshoe flash is only around 1/10,000 of a second long. That’s fast enough to freeze almost anything. If the flash is the only thing lighting up the scene (if you’re in a dark room, or it’s night time with no moon) then it doesn’t matter if the shutter speed is 1/100 of a second or 10 minutes; the pulse of light still takes the same amount of time to discharge.

You can get blur with flash when you mix ambient, natural light with the flash. In that case the image will come partly from the flash’s light and partly from the natural light. The flash part will still be crisp and frozen but the ambient part will be blurred like normal. When you mix them together you can get different effects depending on the mixture.

I used the second method for some of the photos I took at Girl Jam last month and wrote up a blog post about it at http://www.stevelosh.com/blog/2008/4/29/shooting-girl-jam.html if you’re curious.

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