How to Operate Your Flashgun

Flashguns typically have two main operating modes: Fully Manual and TTL (ETTL – Canon, iTTL – Nikon).

How to Use Your Flash in Manual Mode

Manual flash mode is useful when the distance between your subject and flashgun is fixed, or your subject travels through a pre-set position. It’s also a good setting to use to learn the basics about your flashgun. Light output is repeatable and is not influenced by the distribution of light in the camera frame.

The flashgun has a range of power settings from full power (1/1) to as little as (1/128) on the higher specification units. Power can usually be adjusted in 0.3 or 0.5 stop increments.

When using your flashgun in manual flash mode. YOU set the power level by hand. How do you decide what power level to set? You can do test shots, check your histogram, highlight alert warning or use a hand held flash meter. Too much light on your subject? Turn down the power. Not enough? Dial it up.

How to Use Your Flash in TTL Mode

ETTL is Canon ‘speak’ for ‘Evaluative Through the Lens’ flash mode; iTTL is Nikon ‘speak’ for ‘Intelligent Through the Lens’ flash mode. For simplicity, I’ll call this mode TTL (although, ETTL and iTTL are more advanced versions of bygone TTL technology).

TTL mode automates your flashgun. The FLASHGUN sets its own power level. Clever eh? It does this by firing a pre-flash, which is used to calculate the brightness of the subject. With compatible lenses, it also throws into the mix camera to subject distance information. Camera and flashgun ‘talk’ to each other, communicating these details. Based on this, your flashgun adjusts flash power automatically and immediately triggers the ‘main’ flash that is used to expose your subject.

TTL mode lets the camera and flashgun do the work. It’s ideal for situations where the distance between the subject and flashgun constantly changes.

Sounds great, but what’s the downside? Because flash power is set automatically, it’s not possible to know the power settings it chooses, or why, making repeatability and consistently lit photographs sometimes tricky.

Using Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC)

There are times when TTL mode gets it wrong, resulting in under or overexposed subjects. However, you do still have an opportunity to make adjustments to the flash power in TTL mode by using Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC). Usually within a range of-3 to +3stops, in 0.3 (or 0.5) stop increments.

To use FEC, take your shot in TTL mode and then review your image, histogram and highlight warning alert. Dial in more or less FEC as required and take your next shots. Continue to adjust as necessary.

Triggering your Flashgun OFF Camera

There are no difficulties triggering your flashgun when it’s mounted into your camera’s hotshoe. Press your camera’s shutter button and the flashgun is fired in the flash operating mode you’ve chosen (manual or TTL). It gets a bit more complicated when your flash isn’t mounted on your camera.

Different Flash Modes – Different Solutions

It’s important to point out that, when you take your flashgun off camera and want to use it in TTL mode, you need to use specific pieces of equipment that allow your camera and flashgun to communicate complex TTL information with each other. These devices tend to more expensive ‘solutions’ than those needed to trigger your flash in manual flash mode. A flashgun in manual mode simply needs to be told when to fire.

Triggering your Flashgun ‘Off Camera’ in Manual Mode

Methods of triggering your flash in manual mode don’t need to transmit TTL information; they just need to sayFIRE!

You can use any of the following to trigger your flashgun in manual mode: 

• Sync Cords
• Infrared Triggers
• Manual Radio Triggers
• Optical Slaves (these including the built in optical slaves in some Nikon Flash units)

Triggering your Flashgun ‘Off Camera’ in TTL Mode

Triggering your flashgun in TTL mode requires complex TTL information to be transmitted between flashgun and camera, which the flashgun then uses to calculate its power output. Because of this these devices tend to be more expensive, and include: 

• Built in wireless (Requires another compatible flashgun or ‘commander’ unit in your hotshoe mount)
• TTL Cord
• TTL Radio Triggers

Distance and Position Issues

When buying triggering devices, it’s important to consider the distance and position of your flashgun in relation to your camera. Triggering solutions, whether used for TTL or manual mode often operate within a limited range, and some devices must have line of sight between trigger and flash unit. To avoid disappointment, check these details before you buy the device.

I hope that you have found this introduction to flashguns helpful. I wish you well with your flash photography.

Author: Mark Elliott. Mark Elliott is a Cumbria based portrait and commercial photographer. He also runs Better Photos Photography Training. www.better-photos.co.uk

© Mark Elliott – http://www.better-photos.co.uk

Landscape Photography Tips

Here are ten tips to take better and sharper landscape photographs when using your digital SLR camera.

1) Use a tripod and make sure that it is stable. This prevents camera movement; essential when working at slow shutter speeds and low light levels.

2) Use a cable release or self-timer to prevent camera shake when you press the shutter. Cable releases enable you to respond quicker to changes in light than using your camera’s timer function.

3) Use your lowest ISO setting. The higher the ISO setting, the more digital graininess is present in the image. Setting the camera’s lowest ISO setting keeps graininess to a minimum and ensures that picture quality is at its best.

4) Set a small aperture (reasonably high F number – such as F16) and focus approximately one third into the scene. This helps you achieve a deep depth of field whilst maintaining image quality, thereby making the image look sharp from foreground to background.

5) Take your photographs early in the morning and at sunset. The time around dawn and dusk are known as the ‘golden hours’ as the light quality is often warmer and more interesting.

6) Set your white balance setting to ‘cloudy’. This will warm up the look of your photographs in a similar way to a ‘warm up’ filter.

7) Don’t rush to take photos. Take time to look around and think about your composition. Get into the ‘creative zone’. Observe how the scenery is being illuminated by the light.

Compose your photograph in a way that will take the viewer’s eyes on a visual journey through your photograph. Think: foreground, middle ground, background. Use lead in lines, such as walls, fences and footpaths to draw your viewer’s eyes into the scene.

9) Use your camera’s mirror lock up function. This locks up your camera’s internal mirror and prevents camera vibration when taking photos. It prevents camera shake, which can result from the movement of your camera’s mirror.

10) Invest in a selection of neutral density filters and a polarising filter. Neutral density filters prevent ‘blown out’ skies; polarising filters reduce glare on water, enrich colours and can make skies look more impressive. Buy the best quality filters that you can afford. Cheap filters reduce image quality.

Better Photos is based in the U.K. Lake District and offers a range of photography classes and DSLR camera courses. Visit: Better Photos Photography Classes and DSLR Camera Courses for more details.

Flashguns

This article is part of a series of three about flashguns. In part 1, we discussed hard and soft light and some of the problems we encounter when using direct, ‘on camera’ flash.

In this article, we discuss techniques for creating flattering portraits when using ‘on camera’ and ‘off camera’ flash. We’ll also talk about light modifiers, which you can use to further improve the quality of your light from your flashgun.

Problems and Solutions

In Part 1, we explained that correctly placed highlights and shadows and soft light help create flattering portraits. We also revealed that flashguns produce hard light, which when fired directly at your subject from your camera position is often the worst way to use your flash (unless to want to get revenge on your Mother-in-Law).

What techniques can we use to overcome these problems? We’ll discuss ‘on camera’ and ‘off camera’ solutions, below.

a) ON Camera Solution

You can avoid hard, direct flash light by bouncing light from your flashgun on a wall or other reflective surface. It works like this. When correctly positioned, light hits the wall, spreads and returns to illuminate your subject. You effectively make the wall into a new, much larger light source and convert a small light source, which emits hard light, into a much larger light source, which produces a much softer, more flattering light. Nice.

Bounce the light from a wall to one side of your subject for the best results. If you have a flashgun that is capable of rotating 180 degrees, you can often successfully bounce flash from walls behind you. You can bounce light from low ceilings but this often gives your subject dark eye sockets.

Thinking of bouncing your flash from that brightly coloured wall? Be aware that light picks up colour from these surfaces that will introduce a colour cast to your images. If you want to avoid your subject looking like a gremlin or a cherry tomato, use white or light grey walls to avoid this. If your images do pick up a colour cast you can try to fix this in camera by setting a custom white balance (if you have time during the photo shoot), or in Photoshop afterwards.

Buying the Right Flashgun

To use the ‘bounce technique’ effectively, you must be able to tilt and rotate your flashgun head. The greater the range of tilt and rotation of your flashgun head, the greater the flexibility this gives you when using this technique. Also, flashguns must be powerful enough to produce enough light to hit the reflective surface and be strong enough for the light to return to illuminate your subject. Powerful flashguns give you the freedom to use reflective surfaces at greater distance from you and your subject.

The best flashguns to use with this technique are, therefore, high powered with tilting and rotating heads.

Pro and Cons of the Bounce Technique

Pros: Speedy, no other equipment required, low cost option, light weight

Cons: Have to find reflective surface, limited lighting angles, colour cast problems

Reality Check

What if you have no choice but to use direct, ‘on camera’ flash? Are your photos always going to be a disaster?

There are occasions when you have to use your flashgun mounted on your camera, and you’ve no surface to bounce your light from. You’ve no choice but to aim your flash directly at your subject from the camera position. If done carefully, you can avoid problems when you are using a little fill flash on subjects who are already well lit by day light. Flash gently lifts the shadows and adds a little ‘zing’ to the photograph. It’s a more subtle use of flash than the ‘frying pan lighting’ discussed in Part 1.

A range of light modifiers can be attached to your flashgun whilst it is mounted on your camera. These are used to increase the apparent size of your flash and scatter the light, making it less hard than direct flash light.

b) OFF Camera Solution

Things get more interesting when you take your flashgun off your camera. You can do this by positioning your flashgun away from your camera by using clamps, a light stand, the flashgun’s base, flashgun brackets, bungee cord or by using an assistant. This gives you more flexibility to position your flashgun to illuminate your subject from different angles, enabling you to achieve a much greater range of lighting effects.

When your flashgun sits in your cameras hotshoe mount, the two pieces of equipment are able to ‘talk’ directly to each other. Flash is triggered the moment you press your camera’s shutter button. When your flashgun isn’t on your camera, you have to find other ways of triggering your flash.

Broadly, these are by using:

-        other flash units

-        cords

-        optical slaves

-        radio transmitters

-        infra red transmitters

I’ll explain more about these in Part 3.

Light Stands and Cold Shoe Mounts

A light stand is a simple, effective way to move your flashgun ‘off camera’. A cold shoe mount is required to fix your flash unit onto the light stand. Look for cold shoe mounts that tilt and rotate. These give you maximum flexibility to position your flashgun.

Another important factor is the ability to use the cold shoe mount with light modifiers. Can it be used with brollies and soft boxes? Some soft boxes, designed for use with flashguns, come with their own, special cold shoe units, which allow the flashgun to sit correctly inside the softbox.

Achieving Soft Light with OFF Camera Flash

Moving your flashgun ‘off camera’ lets you position your flashgun so that light falls on your subject from more interesting angles; it also prevents red eye problems. However, it doesn’t solve the hard light issue. The flashgun remains a small light source, emitting hard light. You have to find ways of softening the light and to do this you use light modifiers.

How do you soften the light? You make the relative size of the light source larger by using light modifiers, such as brollies, soft boxes, and screens. These diffuse and scatter the light, making the light fall on your subject from multiple angles creating softer, more flattering light.

Which Lighting Modifier?

The two most popular options to create soft light are brollies and softboxes. Each has its pros and cons.

Brollies

Pros: Inexpensive, easy to transport, quick to assemble, different fabric options, different sizes, light-weight, shoot through and reflective options.

Cons: Scatter light, less light control, sometimes flimsy,

Soft Boxes

Pros: Good light quality, tight light control, sturdy

Cons: can be tricky/slow to assemble, expensive, need special fittings to mount flash

Other options: Shoot-through panels, reflective panels, wall bounces (a stand gives you even more freedom to use this technique).

In Part 3, we’ll discuss using manual and TTL flash operating modes and look at ways to trigger your flashgun ‘off camera’.

Author: Mark Elliott. Mark Elliott is a Cumbria based portrait and commercial photographer. He also runs Better Photos Photography Training. www.better-photos.co.uk

© Mark Elliott

Using a Flashgun

Flashguns – A series of three articles on using Speedlites/Speedlights by Mark Elliott of Better Photos

Flashguns

At first, using a flashgun is a little intimidating. You’ve got to grips with your camera settings and then you buy a flashgun. Suddenly, you are faced with a whole new set of confusing terms and techniques. Gulp!

Where do you start and what should you look for when buying your first flashgun? What settings should you use and why, and how do you create beautifully lit portraits?

This article, which is the first of a series of three, is a gentle introduction into the world of flashguns. By that, I mean Canon ‘Speedlites’, Nikon ‘Speedlights’ and other non-proprietary units.

First Principles

First, we need to review some basic lighting principles, which will help us choose the right flashgun and get the best results when using it for portrait photography.

Portraits: Light and Shadow

Highlights and Shadows

Highlights and shadows reveal dimension. They sculpt the face and help make a two dimensional photograph look three dimensional. When properly positioned, highlights and shadows make portraits look more interesting and attractive.

Hard Light

Hard light makes deep, hard-edged shadows and bright highlights, which often makes portraits look unflattering. Hard light is created when the light source is small in relation to the subject. Why? Because hard light hits the subject from one angle, making deep, hard edged shadows and harsh highlights.

Soft Light

Soft light creates softer, more pleasing shadows and gentler highlights, ideal for portrait photography. Soft light is created when the light source is large in relation to the subject. Why? Because soft light hits the subject from multiple angles, which smoothes out the shadows and highlights.

So what’s this got to do with using flashguns? Well, it helps explain some of the problems we encounter when using flashguns and points the way to creating more flattering portraits.

Frying Pan Lighting

Mounting your flashgun on your camera’s hotshoe and firing direct flash at your subject is the photographic equivalent of cartoon Road Runner hitting Wile E. Coyote full in the face with a frying pan. It’s not pretty, and the photograph is likely to fail for several reasons.

In relation to your subject, your flashgun is a small light source and so the light it produces is hard. This hits your subject and most of the shadows, which would have given the photograph dimension, fall directly behind your subject. Any shadows that do fall on your subject’s face will be deep and hard and highlights are likely to be bright and unattractive.

Flash fired from a position on the same axis as your lens can also result in red eye, making your subject look demonic. Not good. Using your flashgun in this way often gives the worst results, except when you want to get revenge on your Mother-in-Law.

Solutions

Fortunately, there are ways to overcome these issues and create beautifully lit portraits using your flashgun. So what are they?

a)       Make the light from your flashgun hit your subject’s face at a more interesting angle; this will create more interesting shadows, sculpting the face.

b)      Soften the light to make a more flattering portrait.

You can achieve these when using your flashgun mounted on your camera by changing your technique. You’ll get even better results by taking your flashgun out of your camera’s hotshoe mount and positioning it elsewhere.

In Part 2, we discuss techniques for creating flattering portraits when using your flashgun both ‘on camera’ and ‘off camera’. We’ll also talk about light modifiers, which you can use to further improve the quality of your light. There are no more excuses for ‘frying pan lighting’.

Author: Mark Elliott. Mark Elliott is a Cumbria based portrait and commercial photographer. He also runs Better Photos Photography Training. www.better-photos.co.uk

© Mark Elliott

The beautiful colours of autumn create stunning photographs.

You don’t need a fancy digital SLR to capture wonderful images. Here are ten tips to help you take better autumn photos using your digital compact camera.

Tips

1)    Take photos during the ‘Golden Hours’ of sunrise and sunset, when the light has a golden colour cast.

2)    Change your camera’s white balance (WB) setting to ‘Cloudy’ or ‘Shade’. These settings make your images look warmer.

3)    If you are able, change your Jpeg settings to ‘Landscape’ or ‘Vivid’ for more vibrant colours. (Using ‘Vivid’ Jpeg setting together with ‘Cloudy’/’Shade’ white balance might create oversaturated colours, if so, use one or the other).

4)    Photograph scenes and subjects, which are bathed in attractive light.

5)    Photograph contrasting colours, such as yellow leaves against a blue sky, red leaves against a mossy, green background.

6)    Compose landscape photos to create a ‘visual journey’ for the viewer. Include an interesting foreground, middleground and background.

7)    Get down low. Try shooting from a ‘worm’s eye view’ for more compelling photos. Close-up shots of mushrooms are always a winner.

8)    Look for intriguing textures, such as bark, thorns and fruit.

9)    Photograph reflections. The surface of lakes and ponds are at their most calm early in the morning. Use their mirror-like surfaces to create stunning autumn images.

10) For close-ups of leaves – take home dried leaves and using their stalks and adhesive tape, stick them flat against a window. Photograph these to create beautiful, backlit images, without worrying about them being blown by the wind.

Better Photos runs group courses and provides personal tuition in digital photography in the Lake District.

Website: www.better-photos.co.uk

Here is an interesting video about U.K. photographers’ rights.

APO

An Apochromat lens, which keeps colour aberration to a minimum, using Special Low Dispersion glass, is called an APO series lens at Sigma. As the refractive index of glass depends on the wavelength of the light, colour aberration occurs when different colours form images at different points. This problem often occurs with telephoto lenses.

In the case of normal optical glass it can only be corrected for two primary spectral colours by combination of low dispersion convex and high dispersion concave lenses. Sigma APO lenses use SLD (Special Low Dispersion) or new ELD (Extraordinary Low Dispersion) glass to offer superior sharpness, high contrast and colour correction by minimizing the chromatic aberration.

EX

The features of these Sigma lenses such as new optical and mechanical design concept, superior performance, perfect handling, ultra compact design, durability etc., are symbolized by the EX mark. These professional type lenses are distinguished by their the distinctive EX finish and EX logo on the lens barrel.

DG

These are large-aperture lenses with wide angles and short minimum focusing distances. With an abundance of peripheral illumination, they are ideal lenses for Digital SLR cameras.

DC

These are special lenses designed so that the image circle matches the smaller size of the image sensor of many digital SLR cameras. Their specialized design gives these lenses the ideal properties for digital cameras, including compact and lightweight construction.

Sigma’s DC lenses are designed to work on digital SLR cameras with an image sensor which is smaller than 35mm film (known as APS-C size). If you use one of these lenses on a film or full frame digital SLR, you will get a line (called vignetting) around the edge of the picture. Use a lens from the DG range as these will be suitable.

HSM

HSM stands for “Hyper Sonic Motor”. The HSM motor is driven by ultrasonic waves and it makes auto focusing, precise, silent and high-speed. Sigma’s HSM version lenses are available only for AF Sigma, Canon and Nikon AF cameras.

RF

(Rear Focus) This lens is equipped with a system that moves the rear lens group for highspeed, silent focusing.

IF

(Inner Focus) To ensure stability in focusing, this lens moves the inner lens group or groups without changing the lens’ physical length.

OS

OS (Optical Stabilizer) This function utilizes a built-in mechanism that compensates for camera shake. It expands photographic possibilities by alleviating camera movement when shooting by hand held camera.

OS lenses do make a soft noise upon start up. This noise emits whilst the OS system is setting into position. Once the OS is set, generally after one or two seconds, the noise will stop. This is completely normal for OS lenses.

The vibration caused by the firing of the shutter and the movement of the mirror is transferred to the tripod. The characteristics of these movements are different to those experienced during hand held photography and the OS system cannot compensate for them. If you wish to use a tripod, please switch off the OS function.

Courtesy of Sigma Imaging (UK) website.

Lanthwaite Woods by Mark Elliott Photography

Lanthwaite Woods, near Crummock Water in the Lake District is an interesting place to photograph at any time of the year.

The River Cocker, which flows out of Crummock Water courses through the woodland before winding its way down Lorton Vale towards the town of Cockermouth, where it joins the River Derwent. Cockermouth is named after the meeting of these two rivers.

The woods are a haven for wildlife, including roe deer, red squirrels and a wide variety of birds. Colourful mushrooms are abundant in late summer/autumn.

Location Info:

Lanthwaite Woods are located approximately 6.5 miles/10.4 kilometers south of Cockermouth, just off the B5289. A pay and display car park is located next to Scalehill Bridge. Grid Ref: NY 149 215.

When taking photographs, it’s always a good idea to look for a unique point of view.

I woke up last night with an idea to put my camera inside my fridge and take a photograph of me peering inside. It seemed like a fun thing to try, a bit of creativity.

I spent five minutes getting this shot, using a 24mm lens on my full frame camera. A wider lens would have probably been even more effective, but that’s the widest lens I have. Due to the low light levels, even at my widest aperture, the required shutter speed was very slow at low ISOs and so to avoid subject movement, I used an ISO of 2500. This got me 1/13 second shutter speed, just enough to make sure that I stayed sharp. I reached into the fridge, focused the shot and set the camera’s self-timer to ten seconds. I took three or four shots and this was the most effective.

I didn’t like the thought of keeping my camera in my fridge for any longer and so gave up my little creative experiment.

I wonder what I’ll wake up thinking about tonight?