On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 12:53:24PM -0500, Walt wrote: > > When I got home, I spent the better part of the evening watching > tutorials on flash photography. The problem is, they all essentially > said, "This is where you can use flash to get this lighting effect." > There was no nitty-gritty technical detail to speak of -- as though > TTL were completely reliable, which I gather isn't really the case. > So, I was wondering where I might be able to learn more about > shooting manual flash in the event the TTL function fails me -- > something to give me an idea of when to adjust the flash output > power, at what distances, etc. I know nothing about guide numbers, > flash modes, or anything like that. > > Anybody got any suggestions to that end? Any guidance would be appreciated.
Light, Science and Magic. The difference between a flash and a hot light is how long that they are on for. The flash is a short, small, intense light source. You don't have a lot of control over duration (the lower the power the shorter the duration) but there are a lot of widgets to help you control where it goes, or make the source of light larger (diffusers). A few inexpensive investments you'll want to make. LinkDelight has a hot shoe extension cord for something like $10. That will reliably get the flash off your camera. You'll want to get some amber or cto gel, and maybe a holder so that if you are just using the flash for fill indoors, and still use a lot of tungsten light, you won't end up with blue subjects or straw colored backgrounds. You will also want to make some snoots and grids so that you can put a small tight spot of light exactly where you want it, and not illuminate the background. Make the inverse square law your friend. If you have the flash much closer to your subject than to the background, you can make an ugly background go away because it will be so many stops under exposed compared to your subject. -- Larry Colen [email protected] http://red4est.com/lrc -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
