[Music]
this is probably something you won't
hear from too many photographers but
when it comes to choosing your flash it
doesn't really matter which one you go
for because it's not the flash that
really matters they're all brilliant it
is the transmitter because this is the
bit you're actually going to touch
interact with you you'll barely touch
the flashes honestly you really will i
use the flashpoint range because i like
the big bright screen and i'm getting
old
hello i'm gavin hoey and you're watching
adoramatv brought to you by adorama the
camera store that's got everything for
us photographers and this video is all
about your first flash shoot and it
won't matter whether you're using a
small speed light something bigger or
something much bigger i could control
all of these with the one transmitter
and for that reason i'm gonna go for the
one in the middle let's go for the
flashpoint evolve 200
right you should be clicking on the
subscribe button and the bell icon so
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adoramatv okay let's get a light set
let's get a model in let's get shooting
so to help me out today i've got the
amazing sophie
sophie is going to be the model for this
shoot and i'm going to start by setting
up my camera for flash so that means
i'll work in manual mode to give me
control over all of the settings and the
first one is going to be the shutter
speed now i'm going to use 250th of a
second which is my flash sync speed for
this particular olympus camera
next it's going to be the iso i'm
actually going to use iso 200 which is
actually the native iso for olympus
cameras but it also has another benefit
it gives the flash a little bit more
leeway so it doesn't have to work so
hard
and then there is the aperture now i've
got an f 2.8 lens so obviously i want to
use f 2.8 but i'm going to show you why
that might not be such a good idea
because i'm about to take the most
important pictures of the entire shoot
okay here we go sophie are you ready
okay so here we go sophie i've dialed in
those settings and i get
this which is
well a really really underexposed
picture but remember this is a picture
without flash and actually what i want
is no picture at all i want to take full
control of the lights in this room and
at the moment i can still see some
uncontrolled room lights so what am i
going to do i could turn the room lights
off although it would be quite hard to
see the rest of the video or i can
change some of my settings i'm not going
to change my shutter speed i'm not going
to change my iso i'm only going to
change my aperture so let's try f8 let's
go with that
okay let's take the same shot again here
we go sophie
and this time i get no flash no picture
this is the blackest black you're going
to record this means that i've got none
of the rim lights interfering with the
picture and it means my flash is now the
only light my camera will see
so now i've put the transmitter on the
hot shoe of my camera but i'm not quite
ready i'm just going to check a couple
of things first of all check that the
flash is actually in its wireless mode
then make sure that the transmitter and
the flash are on the same channel and
that they're on the same group and
finally i'm going to press the test
button to make sure all of this works
but before i do
i'm going to warn sophie that this could
be a bit bright don't look at the flash
don't look at the flash sophie here we
go
and it works okay so everything is set
up i'm ready to take my first test shot
and i've dialed in 1 8 power because i'm
using manual flash now you might be
thinking hang on a minute doesn't this
flash do ttl flash it does but in a
setup like this where nothing is moving
i'm going to get more consistency if i
use manual flash and that's what i
prefer anyway okay sophie 1 8 power here
we go
1 8 power is a good place to start when
you're working with manual flash and you
don't know what power to dial in because
it's in the middle of the range and as
you can see it's a bit too bright
so we can guess how bright is that i
reckon it's maybe two stops so to reduce
the brightness by two stops i'm not
going to change my camera settings i'm
only going to change my flash power
so to reduce the flash by two stops i'm
going to change it from 1 8 power down
to 1 16 power that's one stop less 1 16
down to 1 32nd power that's two stops
less let's take a test shot okay sophie
here we go
and yeah that looks and feels about
right one thing i'd like to change about
the photo is the shadows at the moment
they're quite harsh very sudden changes
from highlight to shadow we call that
hard light so to make it a bit more
flattering i'm going to put a light
modifier in front of my flash and i'm
going to use an umbrella you could use
any modifier but these are nice and
straightforward and easy to get hold of
and this just inserts
underneath
like that
and now i have a bigger light source
here we go sophie exactly the same shot
but hang on a minute something isn't
quite right this is now darker than it
was before and that's because if you put
anything in front of your light it's
going to reduce the output of the light
and you need to adjust the power of the
flash accordingly
let's guess maybe one stop of light so
i'm at 130 second power one more stop of
light will be 1 16 power that looks and
feels like it is roughly the right
exposure
i've got the exposure correct but it's
not necessarily the look that i'm after
and i can change only the look and not
the exposure in a really simple way just
by moving the light but you have to be a
little bit careful so here's a little
trick sophie can you just reach out and
hold the center of the umbrella there
now as long as that distance from the
center of the umbrella and sophie stays
the same as i move this around i'm not
actually going to change the exposure
because the distance the light has to
travel is exactly the same but i am
going to change the look let's have a
look and see how this has changed things
okay sophie so if you can look towards
me first of all
so when i do that we have a very
dramatic light you can see it's coming
in from the side but sophie being an
experienced model knows full well that
if i move a light she needs to look
towards it so sophie if he can look
towards the light for me
and that gives us a fantastic look a
simple shift in the light position has a
dramatic result and we can take that
even further if i move it around even
more once again sophie if you'd like to
sort of reach out and hold that as long
as it stays the same distance away the
exposure on sophie is exactly the same
the only difference is the direction and
pattern of light
and now we have something that looks
really dramatic i like that
okay so we can use that principle to
take a few photos so sophie are you
ready okay let's take a few shots like
that
here we go
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so if you can reach around and see if
you can wrap up that great thank you
very much
[Music]
of course you can use your off-camera
flash for more than just head and
shoulder shots you can do full-length
pictures as well so i've got roughly the
same setup as we had before we've
changed the styling a little bit to make
it a bit more exciting and interesting
let's just take a test shot to see what
we get
okay sophie here we go
now that's great but obviously there's a
few things in the way like i don't know
the umbrella so you might be tempted
just to move the umbrella away it's a
perfectly good solution let's just put
it over here like that so now it's a bit
further away slightly out of shot but
there we are
i'm going to take the same picture at
the same settings and see what we get
okay sophie here we go
and the end result is
not the same because it's now
underexposed and that makes sense
because the light has further to travel
and the further it travels the less
bright it is so if you move the light
you have to re-meter your exposure
the only problem is as i move the light
further away it becomes smaller relative
to sophie and therefore the shadows a
little bit more defined so what i've
done is i've moved it right back where
we were before because there's another
solution to this problem and that's just
to turn my camera on the side and shoot
in vertical format
and that looks a lot better
now there's one more thing you might
think could affect exposure and that's
you and where you stand but actually
that makes no difference whatsoever
because if i come in close and take a
picture of sophie zoomed in like this
the exposure is exactly the same what
you had before is what you've got this
time it doesn't matter where you stand
if you don't change your camera settings
and the distance between your flash and
your subject doesn't change your
exposure's always going to be the same
so let's take a few shots like this
sophie are you ready okay here we go
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so
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like i said right at the start the
important part is to get control of the
room light so it didn't affect the
picture but after that the key to
mastering flash photography is
keep it really simple so i started with
just one flash one umbrella and it could
have been a soft box it didn't really
matter and i didn't change my camera
settings at all throughout the shoot
what i did change was the power of the
flash so by keeping it simple and only
having one variable flash power it's
much easier to understand what's
happening with your light
so if you've enjoyed this video or
you've got any questions leave me a
comment down below click on the bell
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here on adoramatv and of course remember
to click on that subscribe button i'm
gavin hoey thanks for watching