All language subtitles for 8. Off-Camera Flash

Off-camera flash, of course, is becoming very,

very popular.

Not becoming, it already is very popular.

Everyone loves to do it.

When I started, there was no off-camera

flash.

You had to actually get a long sync

cord and hopefully frame your subjects in a

way where you wouldn't see the cord or

you'd have to retouch it, which of course

was almost impossible back when I started.

But off-camera flash now, with the triggers

that we have, with the lighting gear that

we have, you can basically have no line

of sight from your trigger to the flash

and fire the flash and you can overpower

the sun.

There are so many things that you can

do with off-camera flash.

You might ask me, Gerry, why would you

choose continuous light or your ice light, for

example, other than off-camera flash?

Why, when would you choose one or the

other?

I think the rule for me is I

simply use flash when I need more power.

I'm not going to overpower the sun with

a continuous light or an ice light or

anything like that.

When I need more power than a continuous

light that will give me, that's when I

use flash.

Now, it does give you a little bit

of a higher, I guess, challenge when you're

photographing with off-camera flash because you sort

of have to predict how it's going to

fall, where it's going to fall and all

those different things.

What I like to do, whether it's an

assistant, whether it's actually a light stand, the

way that I can get predictable lighting just

like continuous and know where the shadows will

fall is this.

So let's say, for example, so the wide

camera that's on me right now, so I'm

the subject right now and even though that

now I've got continuous lighting on me and

it's flooding me and all that kind of

stuff, I want to create, so this is

the wide shot that I'm doing of the

groom.

This is an environment, it could be like

a, you know, a cityscape or anything like

that.

But I want to create a shadow on

my face this way.

Now, you might just say to your assistant,

hey, stand on a 45-degree angle and

then just bomb the flash and let's hope

for the best.

Let's have a look at the back of

the camera and let's see what we do.

Well, you can do that or you can

make it a bit more predictably easier for

you.

So what I want you to do is

tell your assistant to draw an imaginary line

from their eyes to the flash to this

eye.

Why?

Well, let's think about it.

So let's say, so now, so if I

close my eye here, for example, right, I

can just see off this light stand that's

holding this light that's illuminating me right there.

So now I know that if I have

my assistant standing right there, now, if we

reverse the roles right now, so I'm the

assistant photographing Jerry this way, I had drawn

an imaginary line from my assistant's eye to

the flash to Jerry's eye, this eye.

Okay, so my right eye or camera left.

Then what's going to happen is if we

put the flash just here where I can

just see this eye socket, that's going to

naturally create a shadow on this side.

Therefore, I've got a beautiful direction of light.

I'm shooting on the shadow side and life

is good.

Well, what else do you have to remember?

Well, of course, you have to remember how

to expose for the ambience.

And we'll talk about that very shortly.

But let me show you a couple of

examples of off-camera flash.

This one was just using an ordinary speed

light.

And this was actually the location of the

ceremony of a recent wedding in Dallas.

And they had this beautiful little crystal sort

of shape and everything like that.

And of course, that is not the way

it looked like with my own two eyes.

It wasn't.

But I actually had Joe, my assistant, who's

actually filming this very production right now, on

a ladder.

He put the speed light right on the

top.

And then we bombed the flash over here.

So it's like a quick little burst of

water.

And if we liken our light to water,

we now have many analogies with the discussion

of lighting.

A quick little burst of water.

And of course, she has to bring her

chin up dramatically so we don't get the

shadow of her nose on the lip.

And of course, it's not meant to be

natural.

No girl just wears a dress like that

and stands underneath a chandelier and does that.

But we're glorifying the fantasy here with this

particular bride.

She holds the actual crystals there very carefully

and beautifully and elegantly.

Chin up.

And now we get that light back lighting

those crystals, which is going to make the

light look spectacular in that area.

So you just have to know what light

does.

So think of it like continuous light is

continuous water flooding your subject.

Now with flash, you're just putting on the

hose really quickly.

Like you're putting on the hose really quickly.

You're spreading the light around and it depends

on what you do.

Now, remember too that most speed lights will

have a function where you can zoom the

flash head.

So if this is the flash head, okay?

This is a normal flash speed light.

The flash head has a bulb inside it,

the flash bulb.

Now, please read the instructions if you haven't

already.

But you can zoom your flash head.

So you can withtract the actual flash inside

it.

So it gives you a narrower beam.

It's never going to be perfectly straight unless

you use a snoot, but it'll still go

out in a bit of a triangle, but

it will withtract and give you a narrower

beam.

Now, if you zoom the flash head a

bit forward and make it wider, you are

spraying the water out.

So it depends on what look and feel

that you want.

If you want a bit of a spot,

you're going to withtract the zoom.

Let's say at 200 mil, depending on what

system you're using.

If you want to go wider, you might

go to 24, for example, and it might

give you this beautiful wide angle of view.

Do you want a big spray?

Do you want a sort of a strong

hose-like effect?

Depends on what you want.

In this example, I knew straight away what

was going to happen because if I put

the flash on the ground, backlight this with

flash, this will look like incredible three-dimensional

lettering at the start of a movie scene

or some description.

And it works really, really well.

Now, typically, a lot of people like to

use off-camera flash on location, and that

is doing something like this.

So now, how did I get this effect?

Well, first of all, the natural environment was

a bit brighter than this, but I wanted

it darker.

So I got the exposure for the sky

first because I can't control that, right?

So I get the exposure.

The couple aren't even in the photograph at

all at this point.

I get the exposure.

This may have been 100 ISO, 250 speed

at f16, let's say.

Now, if I put them actually in the

shot, they're going to be pretty much pitch

black because they're in shadow, and then the

sky and everything else is in sun.

I find this technique works better when they're

either backlit or they're in shadow.

If they're already in the sun, and the

sun and the sky is the same exposure

than them, you don't really need the flash.

Why would you need it?

You wouldn't need it.

So what I do is put them in

shade.

I expose for the background.

And what did we say?

We said, get your assistant to pretend like

they've got an imaginary line from the assistant

to the speed light to the couple.

So I think Melissa was doing this one.

So Melissa was right over here.

And then she knew that where the direction

of the flash was, it would not actually,

it would create a shadow here.

If she was too far in front, that

light, that water would flood the couple.

But I want a bit of shadow depth

and dimension and form.

And we've said many times that we want

to turn the body away from the light

and the face back in, or in this

case, turn the light away from the body.

Because we pose her like that, but now

I need the light to come like this

to get this beautiful detail on her dress.

So that's what we do.

And that's the way that you'll get a

higher, I guess, retention value of quality images,

rather than just, I don't know, stand there

on an angle and shoot, shoot, shoot.

Well, wait a second.

Pose them first, then get the light, bang,

and then you go from here.

Now in our five-step process, let's actually,

let's talk about this for a second.

In our five-step process, we talk about

light number one, location number two, pose number

three, technique number four, and emotion number five.

If a location attracts me first, then really

number two is become the first thing that

I've done.

Just remember, if a location attracts you first,

you have to go back and find the

good light or create the good light.

And in this case, that's a perfect example

of what I just mentioned.

All right, let's show another example.

In this case, we have nothing but a

blank wall.

It was just nothing but a hallway, actually

between two buildings.

But I thought if we get it nice

and close with that parasol umbrella right next

to the wall, we're gonna create a beautiful

shadow on the back there.

So because I've done this before, I know

that that light from that flash needs to

be strong enough to create that dramatic shadow.

And there we have it.

But of course, I also wanted one of

the couple.

You'll notice that this time, do you see

how the shadow is more defined?

This was flash straight on Megan here.

This here, it's softer.

Now, how did I create that look and

effect?

It's because I got the flash, bounce it

off the wall this time and back on

them.

So in other words, I didn't just put

the shower head on them.

I ricocheted off the wall, so it softens

it as in less water goes on this

particular couple.

Then I go back to the groom because

I wanna sell a spread of the bride,

the groom and the couple.

And then again, I go full flash, bang

like that.

I love the fact that we see a

very clear outline and a defined shadow on

the side of him.

And it just works really well.

All right, what about in the open air

again?

Let's have some fun here.

So this is in the dry lake bed

in Las Vegas.

They're just walking along.

The light is sort of behind them.

I actually don't like that little tickle of

light on his nose.

I think that's actually quite distracting.

So I should have turned his face a

bit more to the left.

This is out of camera and unretouched, but

for me, that's a big mistake because I

catch those things all the time.

But I wanted to also show you that

I'm a human too and I might miss

some things in the head of the battle.

But the flash right behind skims him, goes

on her.

We said, turn the body away from the

light or the face back in or turn

the light away from the body.

So now we have that beautiful shadow in

the middle of the dress, shadow on the

cleavage, and it just skims the surface and

we expose for the sky first.

And then of course, we add the flash

in as well.

And depending on what camera system that you're

using, you can rely on TTL.

Some systems are really cool because you can

actually just expose for the ambience.

In other words, get the exposure that you

want for the background.

Then you add TTL flash through the lens.

The camera and the flash are talking together

and saying, I believe the flash should output

this much power based upon what you're showing

me here.

The camera will not always be right.

The flash won't always be right.

What you do know is what you basically

want.

This is the effect that I want.

So get your exposure right.

What I normally do is I use TTL

to start off with and have a look.

And some units are really cool because if

you like what TTL is giving you, just

switch a button to manual and all of

a sudden it'll retain that value throughout the

whole time.

No matter what you do, your camera angle,

whatever, it'll keep that flash power exactly the

same.

Now, if you're working a little bit more

quickly and working in a different environment, then

of course those values might change if you

keep it on TTL because your environment's changing.

Maybe your angle of view, your perspective, your

lens choice, all those things will come into

play and factor in when you're working with

exposure.

This particular one, similar environment.

I've got the flash right behind her.

I've lowered the flash power a little bit

there too.

So I get detail on the veil, a

little tickle of light in her face.

So I make sure her head and shoulders

are above the environment.

We've got that beautiful exposure there, which is

the exposure that I wanted.

And then I add the flash and then

we get the shot.

What I try to do mainly guys is

this.

I try to actually make the flash not

look like flash.

This was actually using a softbox and I'm

tilting the softbox up so it just skims

the light.

There's a little bit of a hint of

shadow there as well, but you can see

how the highlight on her and the shadow

on the ground are a lot softer than

they are here.

And well, here is a bit soft as

well than the other ones.

So generally speaking, I like to skim the

light off the ground, barely touch it, barely

tickle it.

So it actually feels a little bit more

natural.

But again, she's turning her body away from

the light and her face back in.

We expose for the sky and life is

good.

And of course, if you look at the

various case studies and the weddings that we've

included in this bundle, you'll see quite a

few examples of me doing this on location.

So quite simply with anything, guys, that we've

talked about, if you want to get better

at it, you have to practice.

I would suggest that you probably start with

existing light, continuous light, because you can see

what you're doing.

And then what happens is with continuous light,

you're standing in a situation, it's already existing,

it's already there.

You can just move the subject according to

the light and be done.

But after a while, when you get experienced

with continuous light, you say to yourself, if

only this light could be moved here or

there or up or be made bigger or

made smaller.

Well, that's where off-camera flash comes in,

where you can put it wherever you want.

You can actually have more power.

You can overpower the sun, overpower the window.

And that is a really important skill to

learn.

So remember, remember, I'm gonna say this over

and over again, repetition, experience and practice will

be your best teacher.

Our next segment, we're gonna look at on

-camera flash.

How do we make on-camera flash not

look like on-camera flash, where everyone looks

like a deer in the headlights and light

is flooding the person and looks flat and

two-dimensional and just unflattering.

How do we make on-camera flash look

beautiful?

We'll talk about that next.