Outside Location Lighting

Using a flash outside and balancing with ambient light.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Flash
• Vivitar 285hv
• Photography
• tutorial
• lighting

[wondnaereh]

Thank you Mark, this was a very good tutorial. However, I do have a question. I have a Nikon SB 800 and I am curious as to whether there is a setting other than TTL that would allow me to easily underexpose the background as you did here. I am planning a photo shoot soon and would very much like to try out this technique. I have not used the Sb 800 much so I do not know how to use it well as of yet. I will be using it with a Nikon D80. Thanks again and I have rated your tutorial 5 stars.

Craig

[markhyo]

@wondnaereh I don't have much experience with the SB800 but I can tell you that though I have a few Canon flashes I use most of my flashes in manual mode to have 100% control over my flashes. You can do the same thing in TTL mode. I have done this with my Canon Camera set to Manual and the flash on eTTL. Meter and set the camera to underexpose by 1-2 stop. Then use flash exposure compensation to add more or less flash power as needed.

[sulci]

how did you pre focus? i've been trying to do some self portraits but am having problems getting perfect focus on me...

[markhyo]

See above on prefocus :-)

[maximumgravity]

Great job, this helps a lot.

So basically, we can assume that ambient light with flash set to that reading acts as a fill flash - or a reflector where no reflector would be possible. And shutter speed will control brightness of background ambient light on the print (up to shutter sync-speed) or strobe light fall off - whichever occurs first.

Depending on conditions, this could make for some very dramatic sun set portraits with flash acting as primary light source, and sun in the frame

[markhyo]

Max, You've pretty much got it but let me add this. Flash at the same f/stop and below acts as fill flash. So let say I set my flash to be f/4.0 but still took pic with the exposure of 1/60 @ f/5.6. The flash will act as fill and be less apparent. Once the flash is more than the ambient light then you're over power the ambient. The shutter will only control the ambient light and not the flash fall off. Flash basically acts as the shutter speed because of the shortness of the burst of light.

[markhyo]

You may often hear that shutter speed is irrelevant when it comes to flash... except when it comes to ambient light! Of course you must stay withing the acceptable flash sync range. Flash falloff is dependent on the power of the flash and how far it travel. When I shoot kids I like to shoot with the flash under the ambient to provide a bit of fill. It makes the kids look more natural.

[rafvaldemoro]

Hi Mark, thanks for your tutorials, I really like learning from you. Lighting is one of the most important bits in photography. Greetings from Spain.

[aquaphotoboy]

your videos are truly inspirational! Im so lazy to make tutorial videos because I dont have a model, I dont have someone to hold the camera, I dont have someone to hold reflectors and blah blah blah! while you dont use anyone other than yourself! pretty good man! thanks so much for sharing.

PS: you can actually use a higher shutter speed, as long as you leave enough space to crop the black lines in photoshop :-)

[lampiew]

Good video, Mark. Very good startpoint for newbies on flash photography. Thanks a a lot!

[martinSaC]

Love your tutorial :)

[bestmansix6]

Great Video Mark, keep up the great tutorials.. Love it :)

[morpheus1870]

You rule! LEGEND

[paulpker121]

Nice video!

[nuclearpsyche]

Hi Mark! Just wanted to say thanks for the tutorial.

You made it easy to understand the exposure calculator on the vivitar flash. Thank you!