I like Strobist. Hopefully, Strobist likes me. Strobist is David Hobby, a staff photographer for the Baltimore Sun who preaches off-camera flash photography on his website and at his Maryland workshop. I have always been an advocate for off-camera lighting, however I had been led to believe one couldn’t have studio quality portraits using a speedlite flash. Strobist tells me I’m wrong. Wrrrong!
And I am wrong. For a very small monetary investment I too can capture amazing, ready-for-print portraits just like Strobist. And since I’m in the photography-ing racket and enjoy taking a decent portrait every now and then, that’s what I’m gonna do.
Like Strobist says it’s not your lens, it’s your light that means the difference between an “oh wow!” picture to a piece of steaming crap covered in maggot bile. I added that last part. Ooh, hyperbole.
Therefore, right now I’m on Ebay bidding on an old Nikon SB-28 Speedlite flash which has basic features my Canon 430EX doesn’t have *cough*PC Sync*cough* and it’s at a third of the price. At Adorama, I’m buying a 45″ umbrella and a shoe mount clamp. I’m also buying ball bungees cuz, ya’know, they’re so cute. And later in the month I’m gonna bite the bullet and buy a set of Pocket Wizards, the most expensive and arguably most important item to purchase. I already own plenty of light stands and reflectors. Plus, with Strobist’s help, I can make the snoots and other accessories myself.
In all, I will have spent about $500 for a complete single-flash lighting system that is completely portable. This is opposed to paying the same amount for a single DC-capable monolight and then having to spend an extra several hundred (or thousand) for a battery system. Ya see? That would suck lemons. Big, sickly lemons. Lemons that are way past their prime.
As you can see from the photographs I’ve posted, having a light that is NOT situated smack in the middle of your camera yields pictures that are far more dynamic than those taken using on-camera flash. Incidentally, these illustrations are taken with my 420EX mounted on my EOS 20D, however, the speedlite is aimed at a white poster held up by a mic stand in the television station where I live work.
The photographs aren’t really for the station but rather illustrate techniques of efficiently (read: cheaply) shooting with an on-camera flash that doesn’t LOOK like on-camera flash.The results are slightly impressive and did garner “oh wow!”s from the news anchors whose pictures I was taking. Still, the problem with shooting with an on-camera speedlite is that you’re still limited because the flash is still ON the camera. Yeah, you can flip it around and bounce light to your heart’s desire, but what if you’re in an open field and have nothing to bounce the light off of? That’s right, you’d be pretty damn screwed.
So, speedlite on a stand, umbrella, and wireless triggers setup seems to be the most logical and cost effective way to take sweet portraits when portability and speed are the two biggest factors. The point here is that they usually are.
This will really help out my in-the-field wedding portraits and will also give me an excuse to steal borrow some of the talent from the station to use as my guinea pigs off-camera flash photography test subjects. And to pour fuel on the fire, I even joined the Flickr Strobist group. I’m fun like that.
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October 9th, 2006 at 9:25 am
I shoot all the time with on camera flash but then I am not much of a studio photographer. I shoot mostly outside. But I had some good success using on-camera speedlite.