All language subtitles for The Formula - Reflections Academy

All right, well, congratulations on staying with me

throughout all these previous lessons.

As I already said, I know how tedious

and confusing it can get listening only to

the theory, but I really wanted you to

have all this information condensed at the palm

of your hand anytime you practice using the

flash.

Also, I wanted to have all the terminology

in place so that when we do actual

shoots and examples you know exactly what I'm

talking about.

And now comes the part you have probably

been waiting for, which is the reveal of

our secret formula in flash photography.

But the thing is that if you've been

listening closely throughout previous lessons, you might already

know our formula, as I left you bits

of clues in every previous lesson.

But let's now expose it here in one

place so that you can literally replicate it

and start getting the exact results in your

flash photography that you've been looking for.

So here we go.

My typical flash setup for the wedding day

looks like this.

I use my Canon R6 camera with 28

-70mm f2 lens.

On it I have a flash trigger mounted

throughout the wedding day and in my left

hand I hold my Profoto A10 flash.

My flash is usually in its widest zoom

setting and it's set in TTL mode most

of the time.

Then I would tweak its strength by slightly

moving the exposure compensation of the TTL by

up or down depending on the light situation.

During daytime I keep my flash head open

and in the evening I would put the

dome diffuser on, the dome diffuser that I

mentioned in the previous lesson, to even out

the light and avoid those overexposed hot spots.

My camera is by default set to shutter

speed of 160th of a second, aperture is

at around 6.3 and ISO at 400.

From there I can tweak my camera settings

in accordance with available light and for my

desired results.

Now let me show you through some examples

how this looks on a typical wedding day

and how I set the settings and change

the settings depending on the time of the

day I shoot.

When I'm inside during daylight, let's say during

preparations, I will expose for the room ambience

in my camera first, usually leaving my shutter

speed around 160, 125th of a second with

aperture around 6.3 and then I would

make a final adjustment using ISO settings depending

on the amount of the available light in

the room.

And then lastly I would add the flash,

usually at TTL minus one third or TTL

minus two thirds, so that it doesn't take

over the available light.

At this point I don't want daylight to

look like nighttime, so that's why I would

keep my flash power output lower than the

available light.

And if it's a really dark room with,

let's say, smaller windows, then I would further

lower my shutter speed.

This would allow more ambient light to be

captured and if you remember this lesson about

shutter speed, shutter speed only affects the amount

of ambient light captured and not the entire

picture, so not the part lit with flash,

so that's why I would use this setting

rather than ISO.

Next, if I'm shooting cocktails or the ceremony

in the midday direct sunlight, I would usually

fire the flash in manual mode and it

would be in its full power, as I

want to overpower the strong sunlight and light

up those harsh shadows.

So flash is full power, manual mode and

then I would set my shutter speed around,

well, as high as it can be, so

200th of a second with ISO 100 and

then I would additionally close the aperture as

much as in order to save the highlights.

Then, later in the afternoon, if we're still

outside, I would do a similar thing like

in the room.

I would expose my camera for the available

light, maybe I would underexpose it by a

stop or two and then I would add

the flash last, so that my subjects stand

out from the background while still seeing a

lot of information from the sky and the

rest of the venue.

This typically means that my flash is at

its regular TTL setting, yet if it's overcast

it might even need to go a bit

lower, so minus one-third TTL and my

camera is with shutter speed of 125th of

a second, aperture 6.3 and ISO usually

around 400.

Now, I have to say, this is my

favorite time of the day to use the

flash and I take most of my flash

pictures of the wedding during this time.

The balance between the available light and the

flash during the afternoon happens to be very

easy to set perfect and I don't need

to force flash to work at its full

power as I would have to during the

midday sun, for example.

On the other hand, if it's afternoon and

I'm inside, usually I would try to preserve

as much of the ambience as possible.

So, I would expose for the ambient light

and I would add the flash last, like

in the morning setup.

Here, my shutter speed would be around 80th

of a second, aperture around 4, because it's

really dark and ISO really depends on the

amount of the ambient light, but probably around

800.

Again, I want to show that there is

still daylight outside and that's why I would

use my flash at TTL-1, so that

the flash adds minimal power and lets me

preserve the rest of the ambient light.

And finally, in the evening, if it's dark

outside and I can't capture any ambient light

anymore, I would simply expose for the subject,

leaving the complete darkness around him.

So, typically the flash would be at its

regular TTL setting and my camera would be

at shutter speed of, let's say, 125th of

a second, aperture 8 and ISO 400, let's

say.

So, that's what a typical wedding day would

look like for me, more or less, when

I'm shooting with the flash.

As I already said in the lesson about

lenses, mostly throughout the wedding day my focal

length is between 28 and 35 millimeters and

another thing I wanted to point out is

that, I think I have it before, is

that I usually shoot everything from my waist

level, because at these wider focal lengths, people

in the pictures easily get distorted and if

my camera is too high, it can make

them look a bit short or it can

make their heads look a bit bigger than

the rest of their bodies and I don't

want that.

So, it's definitely harder to frame properly when

shooting from the waist level, but with some

practice you will get used to it and,

I mean, you get used to it so

much that you don't even have to look

at your screen, you really know where you

point your camera, you know what's in the

frame.

One more important thing I wanted to mention

is the position of my flash.

I already said that I hold my flash

in my left hand and it's around half

a meter from my camera, when I'm taking

full body shots, but it's then lower, about

20 to 30 centimeters when I'm shooting portraits.

Here's the thing, if you're further away from

your subjects, you should hold your flash higher

and if you come closer to them, you

should lower it to maintain the angle between

the flash and your subject's face.

This is very important, because if you keep

the flash at the same height, but step

in to make a portrait picture of a

person, the relative angle between the person's face

and the flash will change and it will

result in harsh shadows on your subject's face.

And as you probably remember from the lesson

about TTL, the reason I use TTL most

of the time or throughout most of the

day, instead of manual mode, is because I

move a lot and I often change distance

to my subjects.

So in order not to push and pull

the flash power output settings all the time,

as I come in closer or move further,

I just let TTL do this legwork for

me.

A quick recap of my flash formula would

be this.

I hold my camera at waist level with

lens between 28 and 35 millimeters and I

have my flash off the camera fired via

trigger and I hold it around an arm

length above the camera.

The flash is mostly in TTL mode and

my camera settings are set in accordance with

the amount of the available light.

So now you can notice that the first

part of the formula about the camera, lens

and flash position is quite easy, right?

But a bit trickier part is setting your

flash and camera settings to make the best

balance between the flash and available light.

That's why I gave you these examples throughout

the wedding day, so that you know at

least where to begin.

But of course it's never going to be

the same.

Every room, every cocktail hour, every ceremony, you

know, they're all lit differently.

Weddings are live events and you know how

quick sometimes we have to be.

So that's why I wanted you to understand

the fundamentals and the camera settings throughout the

first part of this course, the boring part

of the course, so that now when you

come to the practice you will hopefully get

yourself comfortable and confident about using the flash

in any circumstances.

I personally stick to my formula for the

most part of the wedding day, so that

I feel confident in any situation and I

don't have to get myself ready or to

be testing the light while some important moments

might be happening on the other side.

That's it!

Great!

Now you know all the fundamentals, you know

the formula and now we have only this

final part of the course where I will

show you how by using this formula you

can achieve seven totally different looks at a

wedding day or at any other project that

you might be working on.

Are you ready?

Let's go!