Hey what's up everybody? Miguel Quiles
here and in this episode of The
Breakdown I'm going to walk you through
how I set up my Sony cameras to shoot
off camera flash.
Hey what's up everybody? Miguel Quiles
here. Welcome to The Breakdown.
One of the questions that I get most often,
whenever I'm teaching workshops, or I
read the YouTube comments that you guys
leave on my videos and one that keeps
popping up all the time is, "Miguel how do
you setup your Sony A7 cameras to shoot
off camera flash?"
So what I'm going
to do today is to walk you through every
single one of my settings to
make shooting with off camera flash very
very simple. So I'm going to be using my
Sony A7 RII and I'm actually using a
brand new lens from Sony, which is the
100mm 2.8 STF lens. I'm
going to do some demo
shots with you with that but we're
really going to be focusing primarily on
the settings. So we're going to go ahead
and I'm going to take you into the
camera menus and show you how I do that.
Alright, so let's go ahead and dig into
the menus here. So I'm actually going to
go ahead and start by hitting the
Function button on the back of the
camera and so when you hit the Function
button on the back of the Sony camera,
you have very fast access to a variety
of different settings. So the very
first thing that you want to do is go
over to your Flash Mode and the menu
there. You want to make sure that it's
set to WL or Wireless. Many times
whenever people try using off camera
flash for the first time and it doesn't
work, chances are they have it set to
either Fill Flash or they'll have it set
to one of the other flash options. So you
want to make sure that it's set to
Wireless. That's the first thing we'll
hit or the Function button one more
time, the next thing that I do is the
Focus Mode and this is another question
that I get quite often. As far as what
modes do I use for focusing what I'm
shooting portraits in the studio. So I
typically will use Single-shot Auto Focus
if I'm shooting a static subject.
From trying to focus on anything that is
fast-moving, I may actually change
it to Continuous Autofocus but typically,
99.9% of the time,
I'm in Single Shot Autofocus.
So we'll dial that in and then as far as
the focus area, this is what's very
important because you want to make sure
that when you're focusing on people, when
you're doing portrait,
you want to make sure that their eyes
are in focus. Far too often I see
portraits where people use the wrong
focusing mode or the wrong focusing area
on the Sony cameras and they'll get
portraits where the eyes are out of
focus and it's very off-putting for the
viewer. So getting the eyes in focus,
of course you have Eye autofocus, which I
talked about that in a prior video of The Breakdown
but let's just pretend
like you don't have Eye Autofocus or maybe
it's just not your thing. What I will end
up doing for focus area is one of three
things. So primarily I will either use
the Center focus area so if I'm focusing
at let's say f/8, f/9, f/11. Any of the higher
f-stops. What I'll do is, I'll actually
use the Center focus and I'll focus and
recompose. Which means and I'll actually
show it to you here in a few moments but
you take the Center focus dot, you place
it over the person's eye, you push the
shutter halfway down until you hear the
beep that it's confirmed, that's in focus.
Recompose your shot and then finish
pushing the shutter the rest of the way
down. So that's typically how you use
that but you have to use it at a high
enough f-stop because if you shoot it
wide open, let's say at a f/1.4, the focus
recompose method will end up giving you
portraits that are out of focus. We don't
want that. So Center focus if you are
doing any aperture, whether it's wide
open, or a higher f-stop. The one that I
really like to use is Flexible Spot and
you actually get three different flavors
of Flexible Spot. So you get kind of a
small, medium and a large setting. And the
nice thing about this is that, you can
move the box, the focus area, anywhere
around the screen. So one of the cool
advantages to shooting with Sony is that
you have, on say the a7R II, you have many
focus points, it basically covers almost
the entirety of the frame. As to where
with some other DSLRs, it's really kind
of centered around the center of the
screen. So here you could actually
move your focusing point anywhere within
the frame which is kind of nice. You
could change the size of it. So if you're
trying to focus on, let's say, a person's
eye, I might actually want to use focus
areas small and place that right over
the iris, push halfway down to get it in
focus, and then take the shot.
So you can choose
whatever size the situation
calls for, but the other one that you can
use it, for example, on the a7R II is
Expand Flexible Spot and this particular
option will basically work very much
like the Spot Focusing, but it also
sometimes will pick other areas that are
nearby. So this could be something that
could come in handy as well, but again,
same theory, you want to place this box
over the person's eye, so the biggest
difference between Flexible Spot and
Expand Flexible Spot and let's say
Center is that, with Center you have to
focus and recompose; With the Spot
Focusing features you actually will
compose your shot. You'll frame it the
way you want it and then you just move
the focusing dot over to the person's
eye and they get them in focus that way.
All right so we'll hit the Function
button one more time to go back into the
menu and the next thing is, if you're
shooting with off camera flash, one of
the big advantages is that you get to
shoot at a very low ISO. That gives you
the best quality images. So you want to
shoot at whatever the lowest ISO is
on your camera. Which on the a7R II
is going to be 100ISO and your
metering mode is not really going to
matter so we're not going to talk too
much about that. The other question that
comes all the time, I mean I get this
often, "Miguel what white balance are you
using for shooting your portraits
whenever you're using off camera flash?"
Really I only use one of two. I'll either
have it on Auto because, again, if you're
shooting raw you could actually change
your white balance in post. So even if
you shoot with Auto and let's say you
want it to be sunlight, or rather
daylight, or a shade, or tungsten, or
whatever, you could actually set that up
in post afterwards. So typically,
99% of the time, I'm
using Auto White Balance. There will be
some times when you shoot Auto White
Balance and the image comes out looking
kind of blue. So in those types of
scenarios, even though I can change it in
post, it makes it a little bit difficult
for me to show someone the back of my
screen because they don't get to see the
post result. They're looking at the back
of my camera, so any time it shows up
blue I will go to daylight and that's
really the only two that I will use.
If I'm using off camera flash is to either
set it up to daylight, or to
Auto White Balance, unless I'm trying
to go for some sort of artistic effect
which, again, I tend to do that in post.
But if you want to see it out of the
camera the way that you're hoping it's
going to look, you can choose one of
these other White Balance options but
for me Auto White Balance, that pretty
much gets the job done.
All right, so now
those are all the settings that I really
play around with, as far as the fast menu
options that you get by pushing the
Function button on the back of the
camera.
Now I'm actually going to go ahead and
press Menu to go into the cameras menu
and I'm going to show you guys how I set
it up from here. So in the very first
menu you have your Quality again. You
want to shoot these in raw, cause this
gives you the most flexibility to be
able to manipulate your images
in post. If for some reason, let's say, you
are shooting an event where somebody
says, "Hey I need these photos right away."
Then what I will often do is shoot raw
and JPEG so that way have the option
afterwards to post-process an image
further if I need to, but I'll still have
the JPEGs being saved on the card so
that I can deliver that to my client. But
most of the time it's going to be raw.
Your raw file type, it can be
uncompressed, it can be compressed, to be
honest, for off camera flash, for most
portrait work you're really not going to
see the difference. I've never been able
to see it but there are certain
scenarios where you may want to choose
one or the other. I will tell you that
the file size is much much bigger when
you're shooting uncompressed, it's almost
double the size so you're not really
seeing that big of a difference to
really warrant having double the hard
drive space being taken up. So oftentimes
I'll shoot compressed but I'll just
leave it for uncompressed for now and
from there everything is set up. My
camera is ready to go as far as for
shooting off camera flash so I'm going
to go ahead and actually demo this for
you. We've got a little studio light
setup here and I'll talk you through the
setup and show you the results using
these menu options.
OK so we set up everything in the
camera I've walked you
through all of the different settings
for being able to use your off-camera
flash and so I'm going to go ahead and
just demo this here for you.
I have my a7R II like I mentioned before,
got the newly announced 100mm
2.8 STF lens, I'm actually going to shoot
wide open for these shots so that you
guys can get an idea for what this lens
is capable of producing, one shot wide
open. For my off-camera flash lighting
I'm using a ProPhoto Air remote which
gives you high speed sync in TTL which
is really awesome and I'm really excited
I actually just upgraded my lights here
in the studio so I have a ProFoto D2.
One of the brand new 1000 watt strobes and
that also offers high speed sync in TTL.
So make sure that you check that out.
I've got it paired up with a 5ft
ProFoto octa which is one of my favorite
modifiers to use in the studio for my
backdrop. I have a really awesome
collapsible backdrop from Savage. It's
called the Lakeside Collapsible, so it's
double sided, one side is green, and one
side is kind of a beige color. Looks
really, really beautiful and if you're
seeing this on the screen so that's
really what I'm using for the shooting
part of it. What I wanted to do is I
wanted to actually show you what I see
through my electronic viewfinder as I'm
looking to take these photos. So I've
also connected this here within Atomos
Ninja Assassin and this is basically
just hooked up through HDMI to record
what I'm seeing through the
electronic viewfinder. So this isn't part
of the shoot, in so much as it is just
the record, and show you guys what I'm
actually seeing through the viewfinder.
Hopefully this gives you a little bit
of an almost like a POV perspective of
what I'm seeing when I have the camera
up to my face. So we have all of our
settings dialed in and I'm going to go
ahead and take a couple of shots and
show you guys how this looks.
I mentioned before that you have a
couple of different options when it
comes to using your focus areas and one
of the ones that I really like using is
the Flexible Spot. Where you actually
will frame yourself up, so Noel stand
very still right there. It's perfect. I
frame the shot up the way I want it, and
what I'll do is I use the joystick on
the back of the camera to move this over
her eye, I push down half way and we'll
do one more...
Perfect. So that's how I'll go ahead and
basically frame up all of my shots. Now
you guys are seeing it here through the
recorder, so it's a little bit slower but
we'll go ahead and do that one more.
Very nice, excellent stuff. Like that. So you'll
see that if I keep it around the area
where her eye is going to be, you really
don't have to do very much in terms of
framing it. I just follow her around and
the shots will come out really nice and
sharp and in focus. Now I mentioned
before using Expand Flexible Spot which
is another one and do the same thing.
You're going to notice that you're
going to get results that are very, very
similar using both options.
Very nice, excellent. One more. There we go.
Perfect,
Awesome! So very simple, very easy way.
You notice every single one of these shots.
All I'm doing is, I'll find her eye, frame
up the shot, and then take it. Or I could
leave it like this, move the box, and then
take the shot. So it just all depends, you
know. I'm shooting this at an aperture to
where I could, kind of, follow her around
and I'll be assured that I'll
get a shot nice and in focus. But really
the easiest way is just to compose a
shot in the camera, move the box over to
where you're trying to focus and then
take the shot. Very quick, very easy. We
have the Flash set up right now in
manual mode I have the Profoto D2 set
up to a power of 3.2 and
that's pretty much it. I've got the
lights feathered a little bit forward so
that, it's actually not pointing directly
at her, and that's what gives you this
really soft, beautiful quality of light.
There we go, I think we got some pretty
awesome shots.
Alright everybody, hopefully you found
that helpful. These settings are the ones
that I use all the time for shooting all
of my portraits. So anytime you see a
video, if you're wondering what White
Balance I'm using, or what Focusing Mode,
again, 99% of the time
it's going to be what I just showed you
in this video. So if you have any friends
that use Sony and they're struggling
with their portrait work, make sure that
you share this video with them. Also,
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Thank you guys so much for watching
The Breakdown.
If you guys enjoy the video
leave a comment in the comment section
below and again if you have any
questions, make sure you leave that in
the comments as well.
Thanks for watching The Breakdown
and before I go follow
Noel, make sure that you follow her
as well on Instagram.
What's your Instagram?
It's Noely1224
There you go.
Follow me on instagram as well
@miguelquilesjr
I knew you guys were
wondering am I going to forget about her.
No I'm not going to forget, not again!
It's not ever going to happen.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video
today. I will see you in the next episode
of The Breakdown. Bye everybody.
That's really awesome. Just like that, yes
perfect! Work it girl, amazing, oh my gosh!
That's what really goes on.