Moving the flash off axis from your camera will create better depth than straight on. It makes the photo more interesting. It handles red-eye and more. Let’s take a look at these two photographs and you decide what looks better.
On camera flash is not very flattering even with a smile.
Off camera flash adds some dimension and character and reduces red eye. Alright, well to my eyes the second one looks better (this was a very fast 35 second shoot, it wasn’t for any purpose other than to illustrate the two different on camera vs. off).
Unless you are simply documenting something as some newspaper photographers do, taking your flash off camera is where it’s at in terms of producing quality portraits. (There are many places where you can use your camera off flash such as in real estate photography, architectural, and many others but I am mostly focusing here on portraits.)
Very Abbreviated History of Flash
Flash is defined as “a brief illumination” or “sudden burst of light” and in today’s terms for photography it’s more closely defined as “a sudden burst of artificial light used for illuminating a subject.”
Creating flash didn’t start with electronics it started with a boom. Well not really a boom. It started with the smoky, stinky, blinding, bright ignition of flash powder that not only made more than one subject nervous of being lit on fire, it also had resulted in a couple fires.
This photo depicts an early photographer igniting flash powder from an electronic switch. Prior to even this an assistant would often ignite the powder with fire on a special stand.
This type of lighting existed until the 1920’s when the flash bulb was created though some photographers continued using powder flash clear into the 1950’s. In the 1920’s flash bulbs were created. These were popular with newsmen in the 1930’s and is so often depicted in movies detailing press in that period.
These bulbs were safer, more silent and didn’t stink quite like the flash powder. Flash powder was definitely more of a “studio” type thing whereas in the 1930’s one wouldn’t carry around a stand with flash powder and ignite that while trying to catch a picture of some VIP passing by.
The flash bulb looked more like today’s incandescent bulb and they were one-flash wonders. One exposure and you had to change the bulb which was hot. I could only imagine that if you wanted several shots, as a news photographer, you’d have to carry a satchel of bulbs.
But still even these lights weren’t 100% fool proof safe. If you got a crack in one and it went off it could explode and that’s never good for the photographer’s face (though the crack would make the are turn a different color to alert the photographer of the crack). Thus reflectors were used which did at least two things, first it protected from blowback by a bulb should it happen to blow and second it directed the light a little better throwing it forward instead of going everywhere. This increased light intensity among other things.
In the 1960’s Kodak created flashtubes and magic tubes, small cubelike “flashes” that go on top of the fire, that had 4-8 bulbs and were user rotated.
There have been various variations (pretty variable I know) but flash eventually evolved to what you see now. And thank God! Today’s flashes aren’t one time uses (can you imagine a one time use Nikon SB-900?!), they don’t have to be set on fire, and they are consistent in the color temperature being produced. Even better, modern flashes have variable power some getting down to 1/128th power. Try exacting that with flash powder!
Typical modern flash
So now that we are more thankful for the advancement of flash technology, let’s take a look at how to make flashes even better by getting them off your camera.
- PC Sync cords (electrical).
This is the cheapest alternative that happens to be pretty reliable. If you are on a budget then you may want to stick with a cord. This will connect your camera and a flash but not all flashes/cameras have the needed ports and so you may have to buy an adapter that goes into the camera’s hotshoe. Besides being cheap which is a benefit, a major drawback (in my eyes) from using sync cords are, well they are cords. Cords need to be wrapped up to be stowed neatly and when you have them connected to camera/flash then you have a wire hanging off your camera which is cumbersome. Plus if you aren’t paying attention, they can be tripped over. Definitely not for me but I’d use one in a pinch if I had to.
- Infra-red or Optical
This method uses infra-red pulses or beams that signal from camera to flash to fire. It uses no cords and that’s good. But this method is sometimes less reliable than corded but the range may exceed your cord, depending. One drawback to infra-red is the communication misses, such as if you were to play your flash around the corner and thus inhibit the sensor from receiving it’s queue to go off.
There are different proprietary infra-red systems built into the cameras and flashes made by the same manufacturer. For Nikon this is called Nikon CLS and they have chosen to use I-TTL while for Canon it is called E-TTL.
For a very informative resource on
- The current best method for triggering your flash off camera is: Radio Frequency Triggering Units
There are many of these available from cheap Chinese knockoffs available on Ebay to the better ones such as Elinchrom Skyports right up to what I use and what David Hobby calls the gold standard, Pocket Wizards.
If you are a professional then you likely use these or perhaps the Elinchroms. If you are aspiring to be a professional or are serious about flash photography, you will want to invest in this type of triggering system. The PW’s boast a 1600 foot range that need no line of sight. One unit connects to where your flash is while the other sits in the hotshoe on your camera. But with complete reliability comes some cost. At roughly $160-180 a pop it is no small investment especially when you have several flashes. But hey, if photography is where you (want to) make your money, then this is what you will eventually end up owning.
Now that you know the different methods of getting your flash off and away from your flash, a whole new world opens.
My next recommendation is: learn the jargon of OCF. Actually, I hadn’t seen the video in a couple of years and had forgotten that much of what I wrote here is covered there with a visual. Oh well. Check it out then head over to Strobist to begin learning at 101.
No comments:
Post a Comment