Key vs. Fill Lighting

shot at 44mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/125th of a sec, bare strobe left 3 ft away, 1/32 pwr

Summarizing today's post: Off-camera lighting in photography, adding fill light to your key light, & shooting in manual mode.

Now that we've looked at some of the benefits of off-camera lighting, lets go a little further. I want to introduce the idea of using multiple strobes. This is a very interesting way to shoot...one of my favorites. We'll start simple, then expound a bit in later posts. 

So when is it a good idea to introduce another strobe into your setup?

It's a good idea to add a second strobe when you want little patches of controlled light in your frame. It allows you to light multiple sides of your subject without "blowing out" one side to light the other. It also allows you light on multiple planes, such as highlighting something in the background that you want to add emphasis to. But the most simple reason to add another light source is to lighten the shadows a bit on your subject. This is called "fill lighting".

~~~~~~sidenote~~~~~~

I know what you are thinking. Geez...I've got to buy another flash now? Crap. But don't stress out, you can wait a while. Ask Santa for it. In the meanwhile, you can keep yourself busy (for a lifetime really) with that one strobe of yours, I promise. You can always use another light source as your second strobe until you get one. How? Use your imagination! Need some help? Stay tuned for my next post to give you one idea. 

~~~~~~sidenote~~~~~~

So, in my setup today we have 2 light sources. The main one will be called the "key light", which is my main light...the source throwing the most light onto the scene. And for that, I am using my trusty SB-800 Nikon off-camera strobe. The other light source, the "fill light", will simply be my on-camera flash.

Look at the photograph above. This is a picture of a precious little house plant my mom gave us a couple of years ago that we have tried hard to nurture. (Hard to imagine I would call home from work and ask my wife... "have you watered the plant lately?"...but it happens.) Anyway, back on track. 

This photo was taken with only one light source first to prove a point. After setting the shutter speed fast enough to cut out any ambient light (at 1/125th of a second), I took the shot with my strobe to camera left, positioned about 3 feet away. This was a bare flash set at 1/32 power and nothing used to soften it (like an umbrella for example). So what you see is a hard light with hard shadow lines. Kind of nice and moody actually, but not what I'm after here. I want to bring out the leaves in the background a bit. 

shot at 44mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/125th of a sec, adding on-camera fill, 1/32 pwr

Here is the second photograph using my on-camera flash as fill. It is set at manual 1/32 power as well. With every thing else exactly the same, you can now see the detail in the leaves much better. Nice.

Always remember that the way to a quality photo is to position your main light source (the key light) so it illuminates off-axis in relation to the camera, as we have discussed in previous posts. In other other words, don't ever make your on-camera flash your key light. You can use it as a fill light if necessary, but that's it. What's the result if you do use it as your key light? S-N-A-P-S-H-O-T. Snapshots have their place (as I have stated before), but I want you to avoid taking them when ever possible, and time allows. 

By definition, your fill light will be less powerful than your key light. What you are after is for the fill light to soften the shadows a bit, not blow-out and overexpose the areas that the key light is already illuminating. If you are paying attention, you will notice that both my key and fill lights were set at the same power (1/32), so what's up with that? Simple explanation. My fill light is on-camera, and my camera was set back further (approx 5 feet away) than my key light. Remember, your light source increases with intensity exponentially as you place it closer to your subject.

Hope all this makes sense. Play a little. I will submit another example using on-camera fill in my next post to help.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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Morning Sky

shot at 65mm, ISO 400, 1/160th of a sec, f/5

Summarizing today's post: Sunrise photography, adjusting your camera settings manually, & appreciating the small things.

Before introducing the next topic of discussion I must pause for another moment to show you this photograph.

(You will find me doing this all the time because things simply catch my attention and get me off track...and I must share.)

One morning a couple of weeks ago I had gotten up from a good night's sleep and was fixing a pot of coffee (an absolute necessity for me) when something caught my eye out the patio window. I usually get up well before sunrise, but that morning I slept in because the workweek had taken its toll on me. 

What caught my attention, even before a drop of caffeine entered my body, was the sunrise over the trees. More specifically, it was the sun bouncing off of the clouds before it actually had shown itself. And I swear the clouds were pink. It was such a pretty sight I just had to grab my camera (of course) and start shooting.

I wanted to see if I could capture all that beauty before the color bouncing off the clouds had dissipated. Whenever you see a sight like this--and you DO notice things like this, right?--you have to take it in right that moment because it doesn't last long. The rich pink color had already started to fade during the length of time it took me to walk to the bedroom and pull my camera out of it's bag. I had to act quick. 

Using only available light here. I adjusted my camera to a sensitivity of ISO 400. Aperture wide open (as far as my lens would allow) at f/5. Then all I had left was shutter speed. I chose to underexpose by just a little at 1/160th of a second (see how dark the treetops are?) to show a richer color in the clouds. A properly exposed image would have washed out the deep pink and purple colors I was trying to show.

Beautiful.

Take a look at your surroundings today and when you find something of beauty (and there are things all around you)...pause oh-so-briefly and take it in. Life and all its clutter and hustle will be right there 10 seconds later.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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My Lovely Wife

Summarizing today's post: Hard vs. soft light in photography, size of your light source, altering your flash/strobe to achieve dramatic results, off-camera lighting, portraits.

I love the snow, hence the reason for my last post. Just had to take a break and insert a couple photos (I have many more, but I will spare you). Let's continue with our off-camera topic now...

shot at 90mm, ISO 200, 1/250th sec, f/5.3, single strobe 1/32 pwr

After several posts of our son Gavin, and of our pussy cats, I am now going to introduce my wife, Pinky, into this section. I am picking up on a vibe here... "Why haven't you included me in your blog?", she is thinking. No...I am kidding. She is very good-natured and supportive, I just like to mess with her. We have to have fun and laugh, right?

After diving into the world of off-camera lighting, we have looked at the first two areas of interest: Position/Angle of your light source, and Distance of your light source. And what fun we have had. I could do example after example of these two characteristics of lighting alone and keep my blog flowing for a year and never run out of material. But alas, we have to move on so I can cover other things. But don't think you've seen the last of position and distance, I will refer to them all the time!

The third area of interest--when it comes to off-camera lighting--is Size of your light source. And more specifically, how the object or person in the photo perceives the size of that light source. What we are really talking about here is the harshness or softness of light. Generally speaking, the smaller the light source the more harsh (or hard) it is. The larger it is, the softer the light becomes. One is not better than the other, but they have their places.

There are many ways to alter your little off-camera flash to make it appear larger to your subject, and this is an area I love to play with a bit. Let's talk about that a minute...

Hmmm...inexpensive ways to make your little flash (strobe) appear larger:

• Bouncing the light off of a nearby wall or ceiling. This can take your little 1" by 2" flash head and turn it into a HUGE light source. (I did just this in my last photograph shown here.)
• Shoot your strobe thru a piece 8 1/2" x 11" white paper. Want larger? Tape 4 pieces together. 
• Shoot thru a shower curtain, bed sheet, white trash bag...you name it. You are limited only by your imagination.

Have a little more cash?

• Get a softbox to hook to the end of your strobe. You will get a very nice look with controlled results. You can buy softboxes in compact 15" x 15" sizes, right on up to 60" x 60" and even larger. They can be a little pricey however.
• Use umbrellas. These are the best option for the amateur (in my opinion) who wants to spend a few dollars on professional equipment without breaking the bank. You can shoot thru them (best) or bounce light off of them when flipped around. A nice white umbrella can be purchased for about $20 and will do whatever you need it to.

That's a few equipment basics for you. I will touch more on how you can modify your little off-camera flash in later posts that will blow your mind!

Okay, let's move on...


When an object (let's say an apple) is in the presence of a light source (let's say the morning sun shining thru the kitchen window) there are places on the surface that "see" the light, and places that don't. In our example, the front side of the apple (facing the window) receives all the light, head-on. The back side of apple doesn't "see" the sun. This is the shadow side of course. But what about the sides of the apple? Ah, this is what I'm talking about. There is fancy term for this area, but I won't bore you with that. It's basically the area that fades from light to dark. I refer to it as the light-to-shadow-transfer-area. And by looking at this part of the object, you can determine what size the light source is.

Can you look at a photograph and determine the size of the light source used? Sure you can. Look at the first photo of Pinky the top of this post. In this first shot I have the strobe off to camera left 6 feet away, just about at 90 degrees, and placed it a little ways up (maybe 15 deg) so the light is coming down on her. I have done this deliberately so you can see the the "fall-off" area of the light better. [In a "normal" portrait the strobe is placed about at about 45 degrees over and situated up another 45 degrees or so. Define normal...hmmm. Another topic.]

Notice the obvious lit parts of her face. Now look at the shadow area on the left side of her head not being hit by the light at all. Pretty drastic right? You can see defined shadow lines. That's its because this is hard light coming from a small light source. I deliberately did not allow any other light in the picture to come into play here so that you could see what one single (small) light source would do. I like using hard light a lot of the time and in this photograph it highlights my wife's beautiful facial features in a dramatic way. Introducing drama in photography is so fun. It really sets your images apart.

shot at 75mm, ISO 200, 1/250th sec, f/5, strobe facing wall, 1/4 pwr

Now look at the second photo of Pinky. I have totally changed the look and feel of the frame by doing one simple thing. I have taken the very same strobe (an SB-800) and turned it completely around 180 degrees so that it is facing the wall, turning a small light source into a huge light source. Now we have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other and created a very soft light. 

Notice the the left side of her face? Hardly any shadows at all. They're still there, but very subtle. And there is a very broad light-to-shadow-transfer-area between the lit area and the shadow areas. (Take note that the two areas will always be there in some form or fashion.) This is the very definition of soft light in my book.

What I want to emphasize to you is this: To really control your light-to-shadow-transfer-area, it's not about the actual size of the light source in inches (or whatever units of measurement). It's about how close you place that light source to your subject. You can have a huge light source, but if it's placed far away, it will still appear harsh. If light softness is desired (and I define softness as having a broad light-to-shadow-transfer-area), then your light needs to be placed really close up to the subject/object. But...it doesn't have to be close (like in the second photograph of Pinky above) if the light source is so big. It is all relational. If softness is desired and a relatively small light source is used (like shooting thru a piece of copy paper), then yes...you will have to be pretty close to your subject. If your light source is huge (such in my example), you can have it much farther away and still achieve softness.

Pretty neat, right?

I could go on and on...but I will quit for today. Which photograph of Pinky do you like better? (Hint...there's no right answer.)

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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Snow At Night

I want to pause a bit here and post a couple photos of the snow we just had here in North Carolina a few weeks ago. I will show you how I took them using only the manual controls on my camera as well.

I love the snow, I feel like a kid again when I see it start to fall, don't you? That first couple of hours of a nice little snowstorm makes you feel all warm inside (provided that you are actually inside). Now...I know all the trouble that comes with snow--traffic accidents, power outages, kids are out of school, work is uncertain, etc. But all that stuff aside, for those brief moments in the beginning, I just feel wonderful. Can't describe it. 

Whenever I think of that good feeling, I revert back to one of my favorite childhood movies "A Christmas Story". I think of that part at the end of the movie when Ralphie's mom and dad are sipping on a glass of wine late at night with only the lights of the Christmas tree dimly lighting the room...then it starts to snow outside. It seems to take their breath away. All is right with the world at that moment in time. 

shot at 170mm, ISO 1600, 1/30 sec, f/5.6

Okay, lets get down to some photos here. It was about 7pm at night and it started...

After the first couple of minutes of snow had to grab my camera, of course! Click...first couple of shots--too dark, couldn't see anything but a little glow of the parking lot light. 

Next, I paid a little attention to my settings. I was so quick to get a photo I didn't bother to even look at my ISO, aperture, shutter, and so on. I had my ISO way too low and my shutter way to fast. I had cut out all the light. So, I adjusted the ISO sensitivity all the way up to 1600. Normally I do not like to shoot above 800 because of how "grainy" the picture looks (when you blow it up), but sometimes you don't have a choice if you want to capture the image. I set my aperture almost as wide as I could (f/5.6 at that zoomed-in position) to let in as much light as possible. Then I set my shutter at a 30th of a second. Click...a little better. See above.

But how could I make this image better? I mean, it's OKAY. The snow is highlighted by the  parking lot lamp (which IS neat) and I almost managed to 'stop' the snow with my relatively high shutter speed...but blah, I'm not satisfied. Something's not right.

I wanted a little more dramatic effect. So here's what I did... [And remember what I have said about trial and error in the past? That is the way to get to your final image. Ole T&E is your best friend...and I relied on him that night as well.]

shot at 170mm, ISO 800, 1/3 sec, f/5

First things first...I had an idea of what I wanted this image to look like stuck in my head. Now I just had to make it happen. (Try if you can to start with an idea, then work to achieve it.) 

I wanted a good quality picture, so I set my ISO back to 'my limit' of 800 to see just how good I could do at that level. So that's where I started...if I had to change it back to 1600, no big thing. 

Next, I knew that "stopping the snow" is not what I wanted. I wanted to blur the snow, making each wind-driven snowflake draw out in my photo. So, I knew a slow shutter speed was the key to all this. This would work in my favor, because I was working with extremely low light anyway. So after a few shots--each one coming down on my shutter speed a little more and a little more--a was satisfied with a 3rd of a second. That's about as slow as I can hand-hold my camera without bracing it in some way and still keep everything in focus. After opening up my lens all the way to f/5 to let in just a little more ambient, I was satisfied. The parking lot light is overexposed, but I like it. See above. Now compare the two images...they are like night and day.

Now what do you feel when you look at that last photo? I feel cold! When I look at the snow being driven almost sideways behind the barren branches of that tree, all I want to do is wrap up with the wife and and get a big ole cup of hot chocolate.

I love the snow, especially when I'm all warm inside my home, peering out the window at its beauty.

There is still a little winter left this year, so be ready to grab that camera of yours and have a little fun the next time a few flakes fall.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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Attention To Detail

Now it's time to play with our newly discovered knowledge of moving the flash off the top of our cameras. There is a lot to learn about the ways light can affect the person or object in your image. 

shot at 27mm, ISO 200, 1/250sec, f/16, flash 1 foot @ 1/32 power zoomed out to 17mm, held by hand to camera left. Added very low power fill from on camera flash @ ~1/128 power

We have already covered the first aspect of off-camera lighting in our last post, which is the position of your strobe (remember...when off the camera, I refer to the flash as a strobe). The whole idea is to get your main lighting source off-axis from the camera's viewpoint. This kills the whole "snapshot" perception.

Notice I said main lighting source. More on that in a later post.

~~~~~~sidenote~~~~~~

I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge one of my main resources that I refer to often when I want to learn more about lighting with strobes. The off-camera lighting guru of modern-day photography is David Hobby...and he has unselfishly made all kinds of knowledge available (at no charge) to anyone wanting to learn about this topic thru his blog. You can find it at Strobist.com. In fact, over the next few posts, I will be relying on his assignments in what he calls "Lighting 102" as a foundation for my illustrations. 

Going thru "assignments" (why does that scare some folks into thinking they're in school again?) helps me to grow my knowledge base. That is why I like to give you examples of my work in each of my blog posts, tell you how I did it, and encourage you to try them in your own way. That's basically an assignment. There are many ways to learn, but I feel the best way is to actually get out there and start doing it. Trial and error...shoot, adjust, shoot again. 

~~~~~~sidenote~~~~~~

Yes...angle or position of your strobe--in relation to your lens--is the first thing you will spend hours (or days) on when you discover the awesome world of off-camera lighting. Think of all the ways you can move your strobe around your subject...it's infinite really. Not only can you move it to the right and left, but it can be positioned over or even under the object. Or a combination of the two. One of my favorite positions of a single strobe is to camera left (at approx 45 degree angle) and hovering above my subject a bit. But I am also discovering that I like other lighting angles as well because of the drama it can portray in the image. And there is no right or wrong here...that's what makes this so neat. No one can say..."Hey bud, you're doing that all wrong!". If it looks good to you, then that's all that matters.


The second aspect of off-camera lighting: Distance. Meaning, distance from your lighting source (your flash/strobe) to your subject. The distance from your lighting source to the background comes into play as well. Want to "kill" the background in a picture? This is neat stuff.


Look at the photograph of our Gavin, above. He is concentrating heavily on putting together a 3D globe puzzle (very neat gift idea, by the way, if any of you are planning ahead for birthdays and such!). I just had to grab my camera when I saw how hard he was working at it...he was precious. 

What do you notice about the picture immediately? I see two things. First are his hands and face...they just jump out at you. The attention he is pouring into that puzzle is remarkable, and it shows. Now, what don't you see? The background. I took it away. Why did I do this? My reasons were two-fold. Primarily, I wanted Gavin--only--to command your attention. I wanted to "bring him out" of his environment. When I shot this picture I was sitting at our kitchen table. I noticed a lot of clutter behind him (my doing I'm sure...can't blame anyone else) that I didn't want in the frame. So then, the second reason I killed the background is so you wouldn't see my clutter directly behind him.

Now that you know why I did this, the question now is how did I accomplish it?

Very simple. I set my shutter speed at 1/250th of a second, which took away all the ambient light in the room. There was plenty of natural light coming in thru the window about 10 feet away, as it was the middle of the afternoon when I shot this. The next--and most important thing--is this. I held my strobe only about 1 foot away from Gavin's face. It is just outside the left side of the image (I'm surprised that the head of the strobe didn't get caught in the frame actually). With the light right up on him like that I had to crank my aperture down to f/16 to get the proper exposure. Bingo, a nice looking photo. 

A couple of things to learn here. 

• Light is very powerful up close. And tight. Move it in tight on your subject to eliminate the background. Use it like I did to here to draw the viewer's eyes to the most important part of the photograph. 
• Light gets weaker--a lot weaker--as the distance increases from your light source to your subject. Also you loose the "tightness". Not necessarily a bad thing if that's what you want. If I'd moved the same strobe back another 6 feet or so, I would have had to open up my aperture considerably (or increase the strobe's power). Now my background would have shown up.

So cool...this is what you call lighting control. Go play.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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A Brand New Perspective, Part II

shot at 44mm, ISO 200, 1/100 sec, f/5, strobe to camera left

Want to add some dimension to your photos? Want to turn your "snapshot" into a photograph? There is an easy way to do this, and it's called off-camera lighting.

If I had to narrow down all the aspects I like most about this awesome hobby of mine, I would say the thing that I am most passionate about is off-camera lighting. It opens up so many possibilities that I cannot even begin to list them all. 

What is off-camera lighting? Well, it's just what it sounds like. You are quite literally lighting your subject (a person, pet, a piece of fruit, etc) with a light source other than the flash that is attached to your camera. 

Let's talk "gear" for a moment, in general terms. 

If you have a semi-professional camera already, you are all set. If not, don't freak out. This scares a lot of folks in terms of what it will cost them to acquire the equipment necessary to allow off-camera lighting . But really, you can search eBay and buy yourself a nice used camera for a $100--$200 that will blow your mind in terms of what you can do with it. It doesn't need to be super fancy. What you will need is a camera with a "hot-shoe" on the top of it, whereby you can add the flash of your choice. Then, of course, you will need to purchase a flash (a used one also found very inexpensively on eBay or elsewhere). Once you are professional, you can ask Santa for the expensive stuff (and yes...the sky is the limit in terms of what you can spend on camera gear). Let's stay basic right now though. Just so you know my taste... I like to use Nikon cameras and flashes, but there are also plenty of other good choices out there.

SC-28 off-camera flash cord (image from Amazon.com)

The key to the whole setup is how to fire your strobe remotely (I call it a strobe when the flash is now off the camera). Easiest way? Go to Amazon.com and order an off-camera hot shoe cord...$30 bucks, max. Here is an example, shown at the right (this is not my image, can't take credit for this one). Simply attach one end to your camera's "hot shoe" and the other end to the base of your flash. Presto! Off-camera lighting accomplished. You can then mount the flash to a lightstand or hand-hold it, which I do frequently.

There are other--more complex--ways to do off-camera lighting, and I will explain my favorite ways at a later time. But for now, let's move on. I want you to get the basics down so you can start playing with your new found knowledge.

Having this extra gear will allow your creativity to explode. You will spend days just fooling around with this one idea of moving your flash off of your camera, so go nuts...it's okay.

I love using strobes (a single flash...or more for added effect) to light my subject when the ambient light is just not enough. Off-camera lighting is a much more elegant way of illumination and it is simply more professional. It is much more realistic as well, and here's why: When we view an object with our eye, 99.9% of the time the light that is lighting that object is coming from an angle other than directly behind us. (In other words, we are not lighting that object with a miner's light on top of our head.) No, in reality, we see shadows when we observe an object or a person. 


Stop for a minute and look at your coffee cup as you are reading this. Look at the base of the cup. See a shadow? Now look at where the light is coming from. This is reality...this is what we see most often in real life. "Off-axis" lighting (lighting coming from a different angle than from your eye, or the camera's lens) is what we encounter all the time. When a flash is popped from a camera's built in flash, all shadows are eliminated from our perspective (like if we had the miner's light on our head). This is called "on-axis" lighting when the flash is aligned with the camera's lens. This is unnatural and it is why I never use it unless their is no other way to capture the image. It cries "snapshot". I don't dislike snapshots, but they have their place...like at birthday parties and such. Sometimes there is not enough time to set up the lighting like you want, I get that.

Now, back to Penelope. Look at the picture at the top off the page for a moment. Remember the last post where I took a picture of her with the flash on my camera? Now she looks totally different. And while there are some minor differences in my shutter speed, ISO, and where she is actually sitting (as compared to the last post) that is not what makes this photograph appear different. This time I took my detachable flash off the top of my camera and moved it over to the side a bit (to approx a 45 degree angle as compared to my camera's viewpoint). She is looking right into the strobe as it fires. See the shadows on the right side of the frame? This gives her 3D dimension that our eye naturally sees if you where there in person.

Waal-la, a real life image. What a pretty kitty cat, right?

Now go have some fun.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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A Brand New Perspective

Up to now we have used only ambient (or available) light when shooting in manual mode with your camera, but now we're going to look at adding some light with our flash...while still shooting in manual. This is not a green light to switch to Auto on your camera (did you think you didn't have to think anymore?). No, I am going to encourage you to keep the ball rolling--stay creative and learn what does what with those camera settings.

shot @ 55mm, ISO 800, 1/250 sec, f/4.8, on camera flash 1/32 pwr

First, here is a shot of Penelope (another one of our beloved pussy cats) using a standard on-camera flash. I had to use flash because the lighting inside the room was just too dark at the time (quite literally, no lights were on and it was night time).

I always keep my camera set at a high "Sync speed" which allows me to adjust my shutter speed anywhere I want up to that speed--in this case 1/250th of a second--while using flash. You really don't have to worry about what this means right now. Just know while shooting in manual, you cannot have your shutter speed above your camera's top sync speed, that's it. If you do, weird things will happen to your image. Find out what you can set yours at (by looking in your camera's owner's manual) and set it at the highest setting and forget it.

Now, I agree that when just getting started with shooting in manual mode, things can seem complicated enough without adding anther variable in the mix (in this case, lighting). But I encourage you not to get bogged down with this stuff. Most of it is trial and error. With digital photography nowadays, it doesn't cost you a penny to take as many pictures as you want, view them on your playback screen, then adjust your settings as necessary. Having said that, here's what I did to take the above picture of Penelope. 

Before waking the poor pussy cat from her slumber, I took a picture of the pillow next to her to kind of ballpark my settings. In this case (in almost total darkness) I pretty much knew already what I wanted my ISO, shutter speed, and aperture to be at. ISO sensitivity high (at 800) because I wanted to take some burden off of my flash. Same thing with my f-stop. I chose f/4.8, which allowed a lot of the flash's light to enter the lens when it fired. Then I wanted a fast shutter speed. Why? Because I was going to be waking Penelope up. As soon as I pulled her nice warm pillows back she might be a little upset and bolt (especially when I put a flash in her eyes), so I may have only one chance to get the shot I want. So I had to be prepared to "stop" a very fast moving cat in my photograph. I set my shutter to 1/250th of a second, which is plenty fast.

So now for the flash. More than likely your camera's flash is set at "TTL" by default, which means "Thru The Lens" (in other words, automatic). What this means is that while your flash is in this mode your camera will automatically sense how much light to "make it" produce. How? By sending lightening-fast little pulses of light out and reading them just before you click the shutter button all the way down. Pretty neat, I must admit. But we will be turning this feature off because I want you to learn how to use your brain to process this stuff. Shucks! But this is how you will eventually go from a person who just takes snapshots to an actual photographer. 

Go into your camera's flash menu and set your flash to Manual. Now you can set the flash's power setting to anything you want. What you will find is that it can be set to fire at full power (1/1), half power (1/2), one-quarter power (1/4), and so on all the way down to 1/128th power (depending on the camera). That's a lot of control. Once you figure out how to set it, just play with it for a bit. Pop a few shots of a piece of fruit on you kitchen counter and see how your images turn out, adjust as necessary til you get the correct exposure. 

For my picture above, I chose a modest 1/32 power setting for my flash. That means my on-camera flash is producing just over 3% of it's full potential. How can such a low flash setting get results like this? Because of 2 things. One, it didn't take much to light the scene with the high ISO and large aperture I was working with. And two, I was only 2 and a half feet away from Penelope. Distance from your subject is critical to how you set the power of your flash. 

The photo above turned out rather well I thought...all done with manual controls and manual lighting. Try this yourself. Start simple, like with the piece of fruit mentioned earlier (produce can't run away from you!). Just have fun and don't judge yourself too harshly.

I am going to let this sink in a bit before going into something I love to do with light photograhy...the fun is about to begin, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Brant

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