If you can use ambient light, that is great, with that ambient light if you can use a reflector it is also a very good thing. But if you need to use a speedlight (flash) to get enough light, then here are a few tips to make the pictures look great. Thanks to Caryn Esplin, and Rachel Anderson for compiling these great tips.
- DON’T use the flash on your camera. This gives you direct light from the front and makes the subject look flat. Make a triangle with the subject, the camera, and the speedlight. The puts the light off to the side and adds shadow to the subject giving it definition.
- Use M (manual) mode. In M mode set your f-stop to f/5.6 and your shutter speed to 1/200. If it is too dark you can up this number to 1/60 or go as low as 1/250.
- Use the exposure compensation at -2 to underexpose the scene to make up for the white light coming from the speedlight.
- Set the camera WB (white balance) to ‘flash‘ to also compensate for the harsh white from the speedlight
- Lower the power of the speedlight. This makes the light less harsh. The lowest setting is 1/128, and the highest you can go is 1/1. 1/1 makes the battery die quickly.
- Speedlights also have a zoom setting. Make the light more focused by increasing the zoom on the speedlight. the longest is 105mm.
- Consider snooting the speedlight. This is when you wrap up the speedlight to make the light even more focused. You will only use this technique when you want really narrow light.
- On your speedlight use the ‘slave mode’ (S1). This is when you would use the flash on the top of your camera to set off the speedlight. You still get the triangle of light.
If you would like suggestions as to what speedlight to use, let me know in the comments.
Bonus:
When using a radio trigger for your speedlight please do the following:
- have good batteries in speedlight and receiver
- use the manual mode on the speedlight
- make sure the channels on the speedlight and the trigger are the same, or you will not activate the light with the camera
- turn the receiver on
- make sure the connections are secure
- the receiver needs to face forwards