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Exploring Flash, Part 1
By sirsnapalot | February 18, 2010
Nearly every camera has a flash, but I find that most built-in flashes create a less-than-satisfactory experience, unless you are just going for the snapshot. They are pretty much a pop-up (SLR’s) experience that brightens and sometimes over-brightens a scene, creates harsh shadows that show up on backgrounds, and are generally inflexible. You can of course modify the flash a little- if it’s too bright, you can try partially covering it with a finger, or try to deflect it off a ceiling or wall with limited success, but to get really creative, you need an full-up hot-shoe flash.
Canon Speedlite 580EXii
Since I have a Canon EOS50D, I chose the Canon Speedlite 580EXii. I understand that Nikon has a more flexible lighting system overall, but Canon’s is nothing to sneeze at. There are cheaper ones that this (the 430 for example), but I decided to get the best one I could.
For starters, it can control several additional flashes using infrared signaling, so if you are inclined, you can buy in addition several, cheaper Speedlite 430′s and use the 580 as a master and the others as slave units. One day I’ll have a second flash, but for now, I’m happy with my 580, and several studio lighting units I’ve acquired quite cheaply recently (future posts).
One of many features of this flash is the ability to multi-flash in one exposure. This is great if you want to capture motion or in effect, make multiple exposures in a darkened room, such as this shot:
Multi-flash Example
I had purchased a couple of shaped hole punches, and had collected punches from Post-It Notes and other various colored pieces of paper. Once I had about a hundred pieces of this confetti, I set up a black velvet backdrop (it’s always good to have some variously colored pieces of cloth around for backdrops), and got to playing with my Speedlite. I found I could both program how many times it would fire, as well as the rate of fire. So, I set it to fire 7 times at a 10Hz rate. I then set the camera manually to a 1s exposure, with manual focus. Then, I turned off the lights and sprinkled the colored snowflakes down and clicked the shutter with the remote. The flash would fire 7 times, and I would get a shot.
I did this some 30 times, and this was my favorite. Also, it took a few shots to both hone the number of flashes and the frequency of flash. At first, I didn’t even plan to use multi-flash, but found that the shots had only a few snowflakes and were not all that pleasing.
By stuttering the flash, I was able to effectively get 7 shots fired on the same frame. The 0.1s between flash firings was enough for the scene to completely change and register additional flakes, adding to the density of the shot. You can see the effect, as you can see snowflakes in some cases being a bit see-through. However, it does not detract from the shot and overall, I though the effect was pretty pleasing. And, a bit of colorful fun indoors when the weather here had been a dreadful gray for weeks on end.
More Flash stories to come as I experiment. The whole point of this blog is to both offer advice as well as to blog on my experiments, on-the-fly learning, and path to becoming a better photographer.
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Topics: Creative, Flash, Intermediate | No Comments »
