Off camera flash basics (Strobist)

Here's my quick and dirty guide to starting to shoot with off camera flash, in manual exposure mode, and manual flash output settings.

There are a lot of different camera models, flash units and remote triggering options. I shoot with Nikon cameras and flashes. The specifics of how to set the remote options will apply to Nikon stuff, but the manual mode and how to change things and review the images and then make adjustments will apply to any gear.

Goal: Move the flash off camera, trigger it remotely, and set both flash and camera settings manually.

Reason: Letting the camera and flash do all the work will produce decent results. Moving the flash off camera, and adjusting settings manually will produce even better images.

Before I get in to it, here's a sample image. The flash is off camera left, and the settings are all manual. 1/250th, f/6.3, ISO 400, flash output around 1/8th power (I forget exactly). Subject is less than 10 feet away and through glass (at the zoo).



Camera settings
Set camera to manual exposure mode (M). Pick a shutter speed that matches the camera's flash sync speed. Mine is 1/250th. Check your manual if you're not sure of what this value is.

Start with the f/stop wide open, or the lowest numerical value the lens can be set to. This lets in as much light as possible.

Set your ISO to something that is based on the rough amount of ambient light (to start). The above photo was shot indoor, and there was moderate light, by no means a lot of it. I picked ISO 400.

Next, set your camera's flash to Commander Mode. On Nikon this is under the shooting settings in the section for Flash and Bracketing. Select built in flash settings, and choose Commander Mode. In this menu (depending on which camera you have) you can set the output of the built in flash, and the mode and output setting of the remote flash. Set the on camera flash (top setting) to (off) by toggling the mode until it goes blank. On the next entry down, set the mode to Manual (other options are TTL, Aperture Priority, etc), and choose a value for flash output. I pick something to begin from based on existing light and distance to the subject. For close subject (inside of 10 feet) you will probably want a setting between 1/8th and 1/32nd. Note, the SB-800 is very powerful, and can shoot to a distance beyond 100feet. So, inside of 10 feet it makes sense to crank the power way down.

Lower end Nikon cameras are defaulted to channel 3 and group A for triggering remote flashes, and you can't change it. Higher end ones like the D200 or D300, D2x, etc, you can choose from 4 channels and 2 or 3 groups.

Ok, so the camera should be all set: Manual mode, manual flash and f/stop, Commander mode on the built in flash unit and an output of about Manual 1/8th power for something close, and you've set the channel to 3 and group to A (if those last settings are present).

Next, set the flash unit for Remote Mode. To do this, power on the flash, and then hold down the select button which is the center part of the left/right and up/down control. After a few seconds a new menu appears. Navigate to the Remote value, and press the select/center button for a second. Then navigate down to Remote, and hit the select/center button again. Then hit the power button for a second (this gets you out of the configuration menu). Now the flash is ready to have the channel and group values set. Use the up/down and left/right buttons to pick each value and change it to 3A.

Ok, so everything should be set to start and take a test shot and verify that the remote flash is being triggered.

If that's working, continue on, otherwise go back and check the camera's built in flash settings (Commander mode) and the remote flashes setting (Remote).

The way I often shoot with a setup like this is to put the remote flash on a tripod, or put it on a monopod and hold that in my left hand. Pick something to shoot, and place the flash about 5 or 8 feet to your left (assuming you're right handed).

Flash Head adjustments With the stofen diffuser cap on the zoom head is wide open. Without the cap on, you can set the zoom head by hitting the left and right buttons as long as you're not actively in the Channel or Group value areas. How you set the zoom head depends on what you're going for. To send a wide beam of light keep the number low, maybe 24mm. To send a sharper/narrow beam set it to as high as 105mm. You might need to lower the flash output if it is zoomed to 105mm, and increase the power if you have it wide open or with the cap on.

Now take a test photo or two, make sure the remote flash gets triggered, and check the camera's screen for how well it was lit.

Here are some of the next things you can work on to adjust the exposure.

Boost ambient light - To increase the strength of the ambient light on the exposure you can increase the ISO. The raises the overall sensitity of the camera. You can also decrease the shutter speed. Changing to 1/125th will double the amount of ambient light hitting the sensor.

Decrease the flash power - you can obviously lower the power setting on the flash (via the camera's Commander setting). Shutter speed won't affect the flash since it is open for longer than it takes the flash to fire. Increasing the f/stop will lower the overall amount of light hitting the sensor (both flash and ambient).

Increase the flash power - again, changing the flash itself to be at 1/4 power will raise the light from the flash. But you can also increase the ISO, or lower the f/stop number.

Once you get the hang of the initial settings, and then how to make some adjustments, you will be surprised at the images you can produce.

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If all that commander/remote stuff is too complicated to start with, try this: Get a TTL cable, like the SC-29 for Nikon. This lets you move the flash off camera, but the camera still does all the work and uses pre-flashes in TTL mode to determine a flash output. Try shooting in Shutter Priority at sync speed (1/250th), and let the camera adjust the f/stop and flash output.

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I often shoot in a mixture of both approaches. I will have one SB-800 on a TTL cable set to Commander Mode, and let it output around 1/16th power. Then with a second remote flash in Remote mode, I'll set it to 1/16th power also. Then I might have a stofen cap one flash (often the Commander one to improve the odds of the remote triggering working), and maybe a zoomed head on the second (remote mode) flash, or a diffuser like the better bounce card (a piece of foam that wraps around the flash head to soften the light, but keep it somewhat directional still).

Here are a few more sample shots.

For this one I used a small tripod with two flashes on it, and triggered them both from the on camera flash:

setup shot


result image


And here's a setup I used for taking frog photos in my brother's pond up in Maine. I had two flashes, each on a tripod and triggered them remotely with the on camera flash. It was basically pitch black out, and entirely lit by the two flashes:

setup shot


result image


Here are a few other things to keep in mind when shooting like this.

The flashes need some form of line of sight to the flash doing the triggering. This can be bounced or direct flash. The sensor on the SB-800 is on the right side, and you can adjust the direction this sensor points in (make it point towards the camera, or something the camera can bounce its flash off of) and then swivel the flash head to point where you want it.

In remote mode, the flash can't go to sleep. It has to be ready to shoot at all times. When a flash is on camera or on via a TTL cable, the camera can notify the flash to sleep or wakeup automatically. As a result, remote flashes will tend to burn through batteries faster than normal.

The more flashes you use, the less output each needs to make, and the overall faster cycle times you can get.

Mix things up. Once you have figured out the remote flash deal, don't feel you have to do it that way 100% of the time. I will often just use a TTL cable and still shoot in Aperture priority, and TTL flash (with some plus or minus flash compensation). Or I will use two remote flashes, one set to manual 1/16th and head zoomed out and pointing where I want some strong light, but then maybe the second flash is in TTL mode at -1 ev to provide some fill light across a scene.

Good luck and get out shooting! If you have a cat, experiment on them ;)


(one flash off camera left for the face, and another behind the cat for some rim light.)


-Jon
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Off camera flash basics (Strobist)

Flash, on camera, off camera, synch speed, etc

This post is about using flash. I've got Nikon cameras, and shoot with 2 SB-800's but it should apply to just about any equipment.

Much has been written and discussed regarding flash already. Strobist ( http://www.strobist.com ) and the flickr group ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist) have lots to offer when you begin to work on various levels of flash in your photography.

But there's a fear among some people about getting past just using the on camera flash, or a strobe mounted on camera. Hopefully this post will help explain some details for moving past that.


Like I said, I shoot with Nikon gear. I've got a D70s, D200 and a D300. Most of the follow will apply to the SB-600 or the SB-800. But realize the SB-800 comes with the stofen cap diffuser, and has some extra modes available.

Modes and Concepts

TTL / iTTL - TTL is the abbreviate for Through The Lens. All this means is that the flash is pre-firing, sending out a bit of light, and the camera is metering what got lit, how the exposure should be adjusted, and how much power the flash should output, to produce a good exposure.

Flash compensation - If all you have is the camera's build in flash. it's often tough to get a natural looking image. The flash is coming from right over the lens, it is often quite strong at close range. Note, most on-camera flashes (built in flashes) cannot even come close to reaching anything beyond 15 or 20 feet. But, one thing you can do is adjust the flashes "compensation" or the flash EV. Setting the flash EV to -1 to -2 is a great range of settings to go for. This will balance the natural/available light with the flashes output.

Note, when you've set the built-in flash's compensation, and then if you add a shoe-mounted flash (Nikon anyway), the compensation setting will be added (or subtracted) from mounted flash's output (sb-600, sb-800, etc). In other words if you set the on camera flash to -1 EV, and then mount a flash unit to the camera, TTL mode, and set it to -1EV, you're actually now shooting at -2 Flash EV. If you're using a dedicated flash unit be sure to set the on camera flash's setting back to 0EV. I've been burned by this before, trying to figure out why the flash's output was so much lower than expected.

Get the flash off the camera! (TTL cable) - One of the best things you can do to improve the light produced by a flash is moving it off the camera. There's just something that doesn't look natural or that good when the light is coming from right over the lens.

The easiest way to move the flash off the camera is to use a TTL cable. For Nikons this is the SC-29. It costs around 80 dollars, and you mount one end to the camera's shot, and the other end to the SB unit. Everything else works just like the flash was on the camera. You can set the flash to TTL, FP, or Master mode for example. With this setup, you can hold the camera in your right hand and the flash in your left hand and shoot and make adjustments as you go. Off camera flash will drastically change the result you get, for the better.

Nikon CLS - I think CLS (Creative Lighting System) generally refers to being able to remotely trigger flash units from the camera, and have them each behave differently, i.e. as you've set them) to produce a complex lighting setup. This can range from the camera and flashes entirely determining the proper output, to the flashes just producing the manually set output, or a mixture of both, triggered remotely, as a complete system/setup.


The way I tend to leverage Nikon's CLS is in one of two ways:
1) I use a flash or two set to a specific TTL EV settings, and let them pre-flash, and determine how much light to add to a photo/exposure.
2) I use a flash in commander mode (either built-in, or shoe mounted sb-800), and another flash set to manual remote mode at a specific output setting (1/8th power for example).

Flash Zoom Head Setting - The SB-600 and SB-800 has a flash head that can zoom to project light wider or narrower depending on the lens's zoom amount. This will happen automatically if the flash is mounted to the camera, as you zoom a lens the flash will zoom to send light to just the part of the scene seen by the lens. While this is great, you can also set the flash zoom setting manually.

With the stofen cap mounted, the flash will automatically change the zoom setting to 14mm. With the diffuser panel dropped in front of the flash head, it will change automatically to 12mm (I think).

But, with the flash off camera in remote mode, you can gain some control over the flash by setting the zoom mm manually. You can use a remote flash set to 90mm and positioned to just light a person's face for example, instead of letting it be at a wider setting automatically. A leap you can make is to control the flash zoom head's setting and distance from a subject to gain more control.

SB-800 Reset - If you played around with the settings on your SB-800 or SB-600 and need to reset thing, you can just hold down the Mode and the Power buttons for a few seconds and it will blink and will reset the settings.

Remote flash channel and group - D70, D70s, D40 ?, D50 ?, D60 ?, D80 ?, I think for all these cameras you need to set the remote flash to Channel 3 and group A. With the D200 and D300 you can set both the channel and bank and configure settings for a tons of flashes in a few groups.

FP mode and Flash Sync Speed - FP mode stands for Focal Plane mode. To understand what this is, you need to understand how the shutter works. When you take a picture with an SLR, there's a front curtain and a rear curtain. To expose film or the digital sensor, first the front curtain opens exposing the "film". Then approximately when the shutter duration is reached, the rear curtain raises and blocks further exposure. At slow shutter speeds there's a long period of time when the "film" is exposed. When shutter speeds are very fast, the two curtains are moving at the same time for some part of the exposure. In this case there's a limited "window" or opening where light is coming in, and it's moving across the "film".

To understand how this relates to flash, realize that normally flashes fire very fast. A flash can fire anywhere (roughly) from 1/250th of a second to 1/10,000th of a second. When the shutter speed is 1/100th of a second, there's more than enough time for the flash to fire and do its full output in less time.

But, if you want to shoot at 1/500th of a second and add flash, generally it won't work. The Nikon D200 and D300 have a sync speed of 1/250th. So, that's the max shutter speed you can get when adding flash. At faster shutter speeds the problem is that the two curtains are moving at the same time, and the flash is so fast that only part of the "film" is exposed during the flashes very fast output. To overcome this limitation, the camera can be set to flash-sync mode of 1/250th FP-mode. What this does is enable higher flash sync speeds. The way it accomplishes it is by moving the curtains the same way, but the flash emits multiple bursts of light in order to add flash across the entire exposure, as the curtains are moving. You won't likely be able to see it with the naked eye, but the flash will fire tens of times for example at 1/1,000the of a second exposure when in auto-FP mode.

I first learned how to use remote flash with my SB-800 and D70s from Ken Rockwell's site. While many people have harsh opinions regarding his site and views, I have a new found appreciation for what he writes, after trying to write a few guides from scratch myself... You can see his flash guide here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/flash.htm

-Jon
Read more On "Flash, on camera, off camera, synch speed, etc"!

Flash, on camera, off camera, synch speed, etc