All language subtitles for 1. Aperture Setting w- Flash - Reflections Academy

Now that we have all basic settings of

our flash understood and covered, we are moving

on to our camera settings.

In these few lessons, I will cover how

aperture, shutter speed, ISO and choosing the right

lens will affect our results with flash.

And as with previous lessons, I will explain

everything in theory and also through examples to

make sure you really get it right.

But of course, if you have any questions

or if you feel unsecure about any part

of the course, please feel free to ask

in our community group and we will make

sure you go back on track as quick

as possible.

All right, let's begin with aperture.

The camera setting I usually begin with, regardless

of using the flash or not, is the

aperture.

If you're a professional photographer, you probably know

that aperture choice is one of the most

intentional things about photography.

Aperture gives us control over two things.

It gives us the control over the exposure

and of depth of field, or in other

words, how much background information we will see

in our photographs.

And this part is absolutely the same when

we're using the flash as well.

If the aperture is wide, we will get

a lighter shot and we will have a

good separation from our subject and the background.

And if the aperture is closed, we will

get a darker shot and a lot more

information from the background.

In other words, an open aperture can help

us hide a lot of information from the

background.

So if we're not fortunate enough to have

this incredible location to shoot at or this

high-budget wedding, we might hide what's back

there by opening the aperture, right?

Well, while Sharon and I transitioned from these,

let's say, lower budget weddings to high-end

weddings, we realized that a lot of high

-end wedding photographers used closed apertures in their

pictures.

And it's because they want to show as

much of the scene as possible.

I mean, there's no need to hide what's

beautiful or what people spent a lot of

money on.

But if we're usually working mostly with natural

light, we might get used to making the

separation of our subjects from the background by

using wider apertures like f2.8 or f1

.4. So how do we separate our subjects

from the background if we want to show

more in our picture without having a complete

chaos in our frame?

Well, here's the fun part.

When we light our subjects with flash, they

immediately stand out from the background, even with

closed aperture, as they become lighter than anything

else in the frame.

How much lighter they will be is something

that we can decide by choosing the right

flash output strength.

This was one of the paradigms I had

to change when I started using flash and

is the reason why I started looking at

the aperture a bit differently now.

Let me show you an example.

When using the flash, I don't try to

separate my subjects from the background with a

shallow depth of field.

Instead, if I want them to stand out,

I would underexpose the background by a bit

by closing the aperture and then I would

pop the flash at the right strength for

my subjects to be exposed correctly.

My subject will become the lightest part of

the frame as everything else is slightly underexposed

and they would immediately stand from the rest

of the picture.

But the background, because it's just slightly underexposed,

will be still very much visible.

And the more I close the aperture, the

less available light I will see in my

shot, but I will also need to add

more flash power in order to keep my

subjects exposed correctly.

This way, I will make my subjects stand

out even more and more and if I

keep closing the aperture and cranking up the

flash, my background will gradually disappear in darkness.

It's just the opposite to what I would

do with natural light, where I would open

the aperture and blur the background.

The idea I wanted to share with this

example is that when you use the flash,

even if you want to show less of

the background, you can still use closed apertures,

as flash will light only your subject and

the rest of the frame can become dark

and less visible.

On the other hand, of course, you can

use open apertures with flash too, but in

this example, I wanted to show how aperture

can be used counter-intuitively when we pair

the flash with our camera.

Also, I'm not really crazy about the look

of photographs with flash and open aperture.

This reminds me of those old-school 2010

photos that I just never liked.

But hey, that's just me and it doesn't

mean that you shouldn't try it and see

if that would be maybe your cup of

tea.

But to conclude, aperture will directly affect the

exposure of your photograph when you use the

flash, as it would without it.

Close it to lower the exposure or open

it to get the exposure higher.

Just remember to add more power to the

flash if you close the aperture, so that

your subject doesn't disappear in the darkness too.

But don't be afraid to close the aperture

when you use flash and you will see

how your subjects can stand out from the

background even at f16 when they're lit well

with the flash.

And that's about it for the aperture and

flash.

If these concepts confuse you at any point,

please don't worry.

As we go further with lessons and check

out more examples, it will get clearer and

clearer, I promise.

Now we're ready to go to our next

lesson about how shutter speed works with flash.

See you there.