Book description
Scott Kelby, the world’s #1 best-selling photography technique books author, is here with a new concept in photography and flash books—one that’s designed from the ground up to get you straight to whatever it is you need to do with a flash right now, get your answer fast, and get you back to shooting with your flash.
Thanks to inexpensive flashes that are compatible with all major camera manufacturers (such as Yongnuo), owning and using a flash is now easily within reach for nearly all shooters, whether you're a hobbyist or aspriring professional. Once you own a flash, though, you'll have a lot of questions about how to get it to create the light you need—questions about camera and flash settings, questions about direction, quality, and quantity of light. And in addition to knowing how to use your flash, you need to know which modifiers and triggers you might need, and you need to learn use them quickly.
That’s why this book was created: to quickly get you to the technique, the setting, or exactly the right thing you need to do right now to improve your work.
Here’s how it works: When you need to know how to do a particular thing, you turn to the chapter where it would be found, find the thing you need to do (it’s easy, each page covers just one single topic), and Scott tells you exactly how to do it just like he was sitting there beside you, using the same casual style as if he were telling a friend. That way, you get back to shooting fast.
This isn’t a book of theory, full of confusing jargon and complicated concepts. This is a book on which settings to use, and exactly how and when to use them. The whole book is written in Scott’s plain-English, down-to-earth style, which makes the experience more like the two of you are out together on a shoot.
It’s time to fall truly head-over-heels in love with your flash, so you can start creating the type of images with your flash that you’ve always dreamed of, and this is the book that can take you there.
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Contents
-
Chapter 1 Flash Controls and Settings: Ya gotta start somewhere, right?
- Seven Things You Need to Know Now. If You Skip Them . . .
- Same Thing Over Here. Skip Them at Your Own Peril!
- Here’s Another Thing
- These Are the Last Two
- You’re About to Learn a “System”
- You’re Not Going to Mess with the Back of Your Flash a Whole Bunch. Or at All
- Say Hello to “Mister Flash!”
- Why TTL Might Be Making You Hate Your Flash
- The Most Common Reason Flash Shots Look Bad
- Don’t Put Your Flash on Top of Your Camera
- Don’t Use Your Pop-Up Flash to Try to Fire Your Hot Shoe Flash. Ever
- Why You Need a Wireless Controller
- Why You Don’t Want Just a Wireless Trigger
- The Difference Between Optical and Radio Wireless
- What If Your Flash Doesn’t Have Built-In RF Wireless?
- Troubleshooting: If Your Flash Doesn’t Fire
- Understanding the Whole “Brightness” Thing
- What to Do When 1/2 Power Is Too Bright
- How to Change the Power (Brightness) of Your Flash
- Where to Set Your Power to Start
- Why I Recommend You Set Your Flash to Manual Mode
- Putting Your Flash Into Manual Mode
- Getting Your Flash to Refresh Faster
- Which Type of Batteries to Use
-
Chapter 2 Next Level Flash Stuff: It’s that stuff. At the next level
- Using More Than One Flash? Then Using the Group Feature Will Make Things Much Easier
- How I Assign My Groups
- Putting More Than One Flash in a Group
- Using Channels to Keep Other Photographers from Accidentally Firing Your Flash
- Slave Mode Lets You Fire a Second Flash without Wireless
- Getting More Power Than Maximum
- Want Your Beam Wider or Tighter?
- Your Flash’s Modeling Light
- Want to Make the Light a Little Less Harsh? Put on a Diffusion Cap
- When Diffusion Caps Don’t Work
- Your Flash Has a Built-In Wide-Angle Diffuser . . .
- Using Your Flash’s White Bounce Card
- Do You Need a Flash Meter?
- How to Wait Less Time Between Flashes
- Freezing Motion
- Getting Soft Blurry Backgrounds with Flash. Spoiler Alert: You Use High-Speed Sync
-
Chapter 3 Camera Settings for Working with Flash: This part is way easier than you’d think
- Why We Need to Shoot in Manual Mode
- Shutter Speed Controls the Light in the Room
- F-Stop Controls the Brightness of the Flash
- ISO Makes Everything Brighter or Darker
- Where to Set Your Shutter Speed (and Why)
- When to Change Your Shutter Speed
- Which f-Stop to Start With
- Where to Set Your ISO
- Here’s Your Camera Settings Checklist
- The Big Secret: Balancing the Light
-
Chapter 4 Using Flash for Portraits: How to make people look awesomer
- Get It Off Your Camera
- Make It Soft and Beautiful
- This Helps a Little, but It’s Not a Softbox
- My Favorite Softbox for Flash
- You Can Make Beautiful Light for Just $20
- No Friend to Help? Get Out Your Debit Card
- Use a Strip Bank Softbox on Your Second Light
- Get a Tighter Focus and More Drama by Using Grids
- Use Metal Grids to Get Tightly Focused Beams
- Using an Umbrella to Soften the Light (It Works, but Don’t Do This)
- Big, Beautiful Light Comes from Big Softboxes
- If You Need Really Big Light on a Budget
- Instant Headshot Setup
- The Most Popular Place to Position Your Flash
- Getting More (or Less) Shadows
- If You Need Even Softer Light, Feather It
- How High Up to Position Your Flash
- How Close to Put Your Softbox
- Lighting to Make Your Subject Look Thinner
- Bounce Flash Can Save the Day
- Adding a Second Flash
- Use Fall-Off for More Professional-Looking Portraits
- Creating Fall-Off Manually by “Flagging”
- Three-Flash Edge Light Setup
-
Chapter 5 Using Flash On Location: This is truly terrifying stuff, so maybe you should skip this
- Why We Need to Put Gels on Our Flash When Shooting on Location
- How to Deal with Problem Room Light
- How to Attach a Gel to Your Flash
- Pre-Cut, Pre-Sized Commercial Gel Setups
- Easy Location Flash Step One: Positioning Your Subject
- Easy Location Flash Step Two: Metering
- Easy Location Flash Step Three: Underexposing
- Easy Location Flash Step Four: Positioning Your Flash
- Easy Location Flash Step Five: Adding an Orange Gel
- Easy Location Flash Step Six: Flash Settings
- Easy Location Flash Step Seven: Adding More Gels
- Flash with a Reflector as Your Second Light
- Getting Some Fill Light Outside without a Softbox
- On Overcast Days, You Can Use Wide-Open f-Stops to Get Soft Backgrounds
- Awesome Trick for Simple, Clean Backgrounds
- Shooting Interiors with Flash
-
Chapter 6 How to Light Backgrounds: Baby got back!
- Lighting Backgrounds without a Second Flash
- Before You Aim a Flash at Your Background, You Have a Decision to Make
- Inexpensive Backgrounds
- Which Color Background to Order First
- Using Canvas or Painted Backdrops
- Light Stands for Lighting Backgrounds
- Why the Distance You Place Your Flash from the Background Is So Important
- Turn Off Any Front Lights While Lighting the Background
- How to Light for a Solid-White Background
- Lighting a Wider Solid-White Background
- How to Avoid Spill on Your Background
- Keeping the Background Flash from Spilling onto Your Subject
- Creating a Graduated Background Look
- Getting a Tighter Background Spot Light
- Color Gels for Backgrounds
- Adding Color to Your Background
- Changing the Color of Your Background
- Spotlight Gradient Background Effect
-
Chapter 7 Using Flash at Weddings: Here comes the bright . . .
- Simple One-Light Bridal Portrait Setup
- Shooting the Bride Getting Ready
- Reception Option #1: On-Camera
- Reception Option #2: Serious Diffusion
- Reception Option #3: Lighting the Room
- Reception Option #4: Seeing Flash in the Frame
- Lighting the Group Formals
- Rotating Your Head for Bounce Flash
- Flash Behind the Bride
- Add a Gel to Match the Room Lighting
-
Chapter 8 How to Mount Your Flash: That sounds bad, but you know what I mean
- Which Type of Light Stand to Use for What
- Why You Need a Tilt Bracket
- Using Your “Little Foot” to Hold Your Flash
- My Favorite for Location Shoots: Mounting Your Flash on a Monopod
- Mounting Second Flashes: Clamp It
- Mounting Second Flashes: Joby Flash Clamp
- Mounting Second Flashes: Tether Tools RapidMount SLX with RapidStrips
- Mounting Second Flashes: Platypod Ultra
- Mounting Second Flashes: Manfrotto Magic Arm
- Holding Multiple Flashes
-
Chapter 9 Flash Tricks: Getting your flash to beg, roll over, and fetch light
- A Studio Portrait Look without the Studio
- Hiding the Flash and Light Stand
- Sunset Look on Location
- Dragging the Shutter for Effect
- Three Lighting Looks without Moving Your Flash
- If You Can’t Bounce Off the Ceiling
- If You Want to See Background Shadows
- Using Your Flash as a Prop
- Fix Ground Spill with a Double-Tap
- Special Effects Gels
- Using White Balance as a Second Color
- Pan Blur and Freeze Effect
- Stroboscopic Effect
- The Classic Hollywood Dramatic Look
- Dramatic Profile Portrait
- Two-Color Split Back Lighting
- Removing Reflections from Glasses
- Simple Two-Flash Product Lighting Setup
-
Chapter 10 Flash Workflow: If you’ve got an indoor, outdoor, or wedding shoot, then here’s what to do!
- Indoor Portrait Workflow
-
Outdoor Portrait Workflow
- Step One: Put Their Back to the Sun
- Step Two: Set Your Correct Exposure First
- Step Three: Now Make Everything Darker
- Step Four: Use These Settings on Your Flash
- Step Five: Get Your Flash Off Your Camera
- Step Six: Put an Orange Gel on Your Flash
- Step Seven: Make the Light Soft and Flattering
- Step Eight: Position It Up High, at a 45° Angle
- Step Nine: Turn Your Flash On and Take a Test Shot
- Step Ten: Balancing with the Natural Light
- Wedding Workflow
Product information
- Title: The Flash Book
- Author(s):
- Release date: November 2017
- Publisher(s): Rocky Nook
- ISBN: 9781681982755
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