Last Sunday afternoon a local photographer met me at the studio for a couple of hours 1:1 on off camera flash.
Following an exchange of messages via Facebook we had already established how best our time should be spent to address key areas and tailor exactly to what was needed.
Paul is a Canon user and is well equipped with gear for off camera flash work. He has chosen to go down the route of 3rd party speed lights with Yongnuo Canon equivalents, and also the Yongnuo speed light trigger system which provides radio wireless control of remote speedlights in both manual and full eTTL mode from his Canon 5D MKII. I have to say, as a Pocket Wizard user myself, the Yongnuo system worked flawlessly all afternoon without a misfire and eTTL was pretty much spot on for accuracy. On a side note these Yongnuo eTTL triggers and speedlights offer Canon users a great way into off camera flash and the best news is they don’t break the bank. The speedlight itself is in the region of £75 and the eTTL triggers can be picked up for around £30 each.
Paul already had a good grasp of off camera flash so we were able to go straight into various setups in our chosen location, which was a nearby old, disused warehouse site. We covered a range of areas of speedlights on location, from using it as subtle fill light, to using it as 100% main light by creating photos where it simply wouldn’t have been possible to do without flash. We also used multiple speedlight setups and in some instances using the natural light as the main light source and speedlights as a secondary light.
The afternoon belonged to Paul, and as he was a Canon user and I’m Nikon, we stuck with his Canon eTTL system for the afternoon. Subsequently I did’t set up any flash for myself and didn’t get any photos, but concentrated on what Paul was getting on his camera.
Thanks also to Amy for modelling for the afternoon and coming very well prepared.
If you would like to book a 1:1 speedlight session please get in touch. These are individually tailored to exactly meet your needs. Details can be found here.
