How To Take Great Photographic Portraits Using Flash
Lots of people get really worried if asked to do a Studio Portrait of someone.
They are really intimidated by all the flash equipment and what diffuser or light modifier to use.
WELL it can be as simple or as complicated as you wish, I knew of one very famous portrait photographer who used up to 10 lights when doing a portrait, that was a bit too much even for me.
So what do we need to do great photographic portraits using flash First off we really need to look at your camera.
If you have a compact camera with a pop up flash then it is almost impossible to do good studio portraits.
The problem is the inbuilt flash in the camera.
That would most likely be the only way of triggering the main studio lights, as they work by being fired either by an Infra red trigger or the light from your flash And your camera flash will most likely do a pre- flash to make sure the exposure will be correct, that will trigger off the main studio light and when you take the picture a few milli-seconds later it will not fire.
Also your camera will only take its reading from the inbuilt flash therefore any extra light from the studio flash will over-expose your image anyway.
Most Studio flash units incorporate a slave cell, which sees the light from another flash and fires the head instantaneously, so only one flash unit needs to be connected to the camera via a lead, but with some makes this is an optional extra.
The standard method is a synch lead.
One end plugs into the flash and the other end goes to the camera, usually into a PC socket.
Another method is to use some form of Infrared flash trigger which fits onto the hotshoe on top of the camera, this then picks up the signal from the camera and triggers the flash instantly via the Infrared receiver in the studio flash A normal hot-shoe mounted on-camera flash can be used in two ways, one is to cover the flash head with a deep red gel filter which will trigger the flash but will not affect the exposure of the the subject, or you could bounce the normal light from the flash onto the ceiling, that will trigger the studio flash.
My favoured method when using a shoe mounted flashgun is to turn the power of the flash way down, on my Nikon SB800 it goes down to 1/128 power.
Or again if your camera can do it, change the power of the internal flash as low as possible and that should also trigger the studio flash Again my camera will go down to 1/128 power.
There is another method using Radio triggers but that can get expensive although units can be bought for as little as £60.
This method is used mostly by professionals as it is generally very reliable.
Also if working at an outdoor shoot with Studio type flash ie, wedding,or groups etc.
then the flash from other peoples cameras will not trigger the lights.
And one other thing, you cannot use your camera on an automatic setting, it has to be set to manual.
So far I have only written about the problems that can arise with the the flash triggering.
In later articles I will write about exposure, placing of lights etc.
They are really intimidated by all the flash equipment and what diffuser or light modifier to use.
WELL it can be as simple or as complicated as you wish, I knew of one very famous portrait photographer who used up to 10 lights when doing a portrait, that was a bit too much even for me.
So what do we need to do great photographic portraits using flash First off we really need to look at your camera.
If you have a compact camera with a pop up flash then it is almost impossible to do good studio portraits.
The problem is the inbuilt flash in the camera.
That would most likely be the only way of triggering the main studio lights, as they work by being fired either by an Infra red trigger or the light from your flash And your camera flash will most likely do a pre- flash to make sure the exposure will be correct, that will trigger off the main studio light and when you take the picture a few milli-seconds later it will not fire.
Also your camera will only take its reading from the inbuilt flash therefore any extra light from the studio flash will over-expose your image anyway.
Most Studio flash units incorporate a slave cell, which sees the light from another flash and fires the head instantaneously, so only one flash unit needs to be connected to the camera via a lead, but with some makes this is an optional extra.
The standard method is a synch lead.
One end plugs into the flash and the other end goes to the camera, usually into a PC socket.
Another method is to use some form of Infrared flash trigger which fits onto the hotshoe on top of the camera, this then picks up the signal from the camera and triggers the flash instantly via the Infrared receiver in the studio flash A normal hot-shoe mounted on-camera flash can be used in two ways, one is to cover the flash head with a deep red gel filter which will trigger the flash but will not affect the exposure of the the subject, or you could bounce the normal light from the flash onto the ceiling, that will trigger the studio flash.
My favoured method when using a shoe mounted flashgun is to turn the power of the flash way down, on my Nikon SB800 it goes down to 1/128 power.
Or again if your camera can do it, change the power of the internal flash as low as possible and that should also trigger the studio flash Again my camera will go down to 1/128 power.
There is another method using Radio triggers but that can get expensive although units can be bought for as little as £60.
This method is used mostly by professionals as it is generally very reliable.
Also if working at an outdoor shoot with Studio type flash ie, wedding,or groups etc.
then the flash from other peoples cameras will not trigger the lights.
And one other thing, you cannot use your camera on an automatic setting, it has to be set to manual.
So far I have only written about the problems that can arise with the the flash triggering.
In later articles I will write about exposure, placing of lights etc.
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