Nikon® Creative Lighting System: Digital Field Guide, Second Edition

Chapter 4. Advanced Wireless Lighting

One of the most amazing attributes of the Nikon Creative System is the Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL) feature. As you probably already know this feature allows you to use any number of Speedlights off-camera to create a limitless amount of lighting possibilities. The AWL feature can be infinitely tweaked and you can add as little or as much light as you desire. You can do all of this by controlling it from one central Speed-light, right on your camera's hot shoe.

This is likely most important feature of the whole Creative Lighting System because it enables you to progress from straight ahead on-camera flash shots to being able to create professional looking lighting patterns. Because the Speedlight output can be controlled completely automatically, you can experiment with moving the lights and creating different effects without worrying about changing the settings of your Speedlights every time you move them.

The Advanced Wireless Lighting feature of Nikon's CLS makes it easy to get studio type lighting even outdoors.

Flash Setup for Advanced Wireless Lighting

As with any type of photography, when you use AWL you need to do some planning ahead of time. Generally when using remote flashes you have a specific goal that you want to achieve, whether it is a stylized portrait or a simple product shot for an online auction. There are many practical applications ...