All language subtitles for 1. My Gear Bag - Reflections Academy

To be able to practice the techniques I'm

going to share in this masterclass, you will

need a camera and a flash.

Ideally, you should also have a flash trigger,

so that you can take the flash off

the camera and achieve the exact look we

are going to talk about.

But let's take a step back and firstly

get familiar with the most common types of

flashes and maybe help you decide on which

one to get for your style of photography.

First and foremost, there are two most common

types of flashes, flash heads and speed lights.

The flash heads are something we won't be

talking about in this course, as they are

something most commonly used in studios, in bigger

productions, as they come in more powerful, but

also more robust and bulkier and heavier bodies

than speed lights.

So as you might guess, it's speed lights

that we're going to be talking about in

this course.

Throughout my career, I have purchased dozens of

different flashes and speed lights and I will

tell you a bit about why I got

which.

So here in front of me, I have

five different flashes.

An old Canon 430 EX-2, Godox 685

Canon for Canon, Godox V1 for Canon as

well and the Profoto A10 for Canon.

These are the speed lights and then I

have one flash head that I also sometimes

use and it's the Godox AD300 Pro.

So even though these flashes might look more

or less the same, there are some important

differences between them, including the price.

The first two, Canon EX-430 and the

Godox V685 are typical speed lights we most

commonly see and we know about.

These were my very first speed lights indeed

and they were quite good, especially for the

price.

My problem with these flashes is that they

use AA batteries and replacing these in the

middle of the wedding is always so annoying.

Where's the plus?

Where's the minus side?

I drop one, it rolls away.

It was just a mess.

Also, I needed so many of these batteries

and halfway through the day, I would just

be so confused with which ones were full,

which ones were empty.

It was just annoying and confusing.

And lastly, the recycling time of these flashes

or how fast they are ready for the

next shot, it was getting slower and slower

as the batteries would get emptier and emptier.

So it wasn't really consistent.

That's why I wanted a more compact and

a more consistent solution and I bought a

Godox V1.

It recycled as quickly as it could throughout

the battery's life and it solved the problems

of too many batteries.

And let me tell you, these batteries of

Godox V1 are beasts.

I have two of them, but often I

finish a full wedding day with only one.

These are crazy good batteries.

Another thing to notice here is that this

flash head is round as opposed to a

more square shape of these.

This is supposed to provide us a more

natural fall-off of the light and to

some degree it does, but I wouldn't say

that was a game changer.

The only issue I had with this speedlight

is that it sometimes, in rare cases, would

pop the light in a totally random strength

when I shoot in burst mode.

So some of the shots, and it's usually

the ones that I like the most, would

end up overexposed.

One other thing that I didn't like about

it, it was the recycling time.

It, when shot in full power, it wasn't

that fast and sometimes it would lead to

missed shots.

So I went and purchased the industry standard

of the speedlights, the mighty Profoto A10.

And let me tell you something, it's four

times more expensive than the V1, but maybe

one and a half times better.

It's more consistent in color output, in strength

output, it recycles quicker, and it flashes even

longer in bursts, although it will reduce the

power automatically to be able to burst.

But even though I think I overpaid for

it, it's the main flash in my bag.

It's slightly better, but it's better than the

V1.

But if you have the V1 and you're

thinking about this purchase, about upgrading to Profoto

A10, maybe I would consider, you know, I

would double consider it.

I would think, you know, do I really

hate V1 that much?

Because honestly, right now, if I went to

the wedding with this one, I think I

would come back with the exact same results

as I would with this one.

So, you know, it's not a deal breaker,

it's more about nuances when it comes to

these two.

One important thing to note about Profoto is

that its batteries are not even closely as

good as the ones from Godox V1, so

gear up with those.

I made a mistake of buying only two,

so for my first few projects with it,

I had to charge them midday, and I

hate that.

Sometimes I even ended up using Godox for

the party, because the batteries of the Profoto

were just dead.

And lastly, I would like to mention this

one, the Godox AD300 Pro.

What this is, is actually a compact battery

-powered flash head that has significantly more power

than any of these flashes, a killer battery

life, and even a TTL function that we're

gonna talk about later.

Despite being compact, it's still just too heavy

to deal with on a regular basis, so

I keep it in the studio and maybe

bring it for some special occasions.

Another thing that this one doesn't offer is

a bit wider spread of light, which again,

I will mention later why it's important in

my case and in this look that we

wanted to achieve.

So, you know, I have it there, but

I just don't really use it that often

as I would the Profoto A10 or Godox

V1.

So, the conclusion about these flashes would be

that, I mean, this one, this is literally

my first flash ever, and it used, I

mean, I think I used it actually for

the longest time, but as I said, I

just didn't use it that often, you know,

I would put it on for the party,

I would usually just, you know, stick it

on the camera, take some photos with it,

and I couldn't wait to take it off.

This one, I got as an upgrade to

this one and, you know, I thought it

was a bit more powerful, I thought, you

know, I don't know even why I got

it.

I just think this one was getting so

old that I was worried it was gonna

die, so I got this one in order

to replace it.

But these two are, as I said, standard

speed lights, the problem with those are the

batteries and generally, you know, I'm not really

a fan of these, I'm more a fan

of these, and I think if you want

to do, you know, serious flash photography work,

I'd rather consider something like this here.

The verdict between the Godox and the Profoto,

as I said, you have to do it

yourself, I mean, this one is great, this

one is even better, this one is not

so expensive, this one is, so, you know,

I think it depends really on the budget,

on many factors, but if you want a

good quality flash for, and you don't want

to spend too much money, I think this

one is great.

If you're not on the budget, if you

can spend a bit more and you really

want to get all these, you know, nuances

covered and every single shot perfectly exposed, then

don't think further, get the Profoto A10 and

you'll be happy for the rest of your

life, I guess.

And now that I've explained more or less

everything about my flash choice, I will go

on and show you which camera and lens

I use.

Yes, a camera and a lens.

It's one camera and one lens that I

use not only when shooting with flash, but

generally speaking.

This is my little rig, I use Canon

R6 paired with Canon 28-70mm f2.0

lens.

And this is everything I use, this is

all.

Like I don't even have or own any

other gear or equipment because this has brought

me more success and more joy to work

with than anything else.

This lens has three of my favorite focal

points, so it's 28, 35 and 50.

70 I don't really use and even 50

I rarely use when I use flash, but

I'll explain it in the next lessons.

So yeah, this would be it.

And moving on, let's see the options for

the triggers.

So as I said in the beginning of

this lesson, you will need a camera, a

flash and ideally a trigger, because the trigger

will allow you to take the flash off

the camera and take some photos with different

position of your light rather than having the

light pointed directly at your subject.

So which triggers should you choose?

Well, it really depends on which camera and

which flash you'll be using.

So for example, if you're using Godox, then

I recommend going with something like this.

It's the X-Pro trigger.

This one has a little C, which means

Canon.

They're also the ones for Nikon and for

Sony and I guess for the other camera

manufacturers.

And then the most recent one that I

got was the Profoto, also for Canon.

This is Profoto Connect Pro.

It's also a great trigger, but I mean

more or less these two do the same

kind of work.

The thing is only which camera and which

flash you will be using and you have

to get the trigger in accordance with this.

There are also these very simple and super

cheap triggers and these were actually my first

triggers that I got all the way back

when I used only this flash.

That's when I was, you know, experimenting, trying

different stuff and I just wasn't sure, you

know, whether I want to go that way

or not.

So I wasn't ready to invest anything in

triggers.

I just wanted to get something for like

20, 30 euros that will do the work

and show me whether the results that I'm

getting are the ones worth working towards.

And now when you have all three in

place, let's go and put it all together.

So you would attach your trigger on the

flash mount of the camera and secure it.

Then turn on the camera and the flash

and the trigger.

And then to make the trigger actually communicate

with the flash, you will have to make

sure that they share the same channel and

the same group.

I usually avoid channel one and group A.

I'd rather set this in a more random

setting, like for example channel 12 and group

C, because this way if there is someone

else around with the same trigger and the

same flash, I will lower the chances of

having them fire my flash accidentally or vice

versa.

Because trust me, that happens, especially at weddings.

All right, that's it.

We're supposed to have it all working and

we're ready for our next lesson.