One more from Sunday’s course.
This time, a portrait of model Tara that I made to help explain multiple flash TTL. Straight out of the camera it is:
Multiple-flash TTL lighting
How was this made?
With a small Traveller 8 softbox on the main light, a gridded gelled flash for the background, a snooted flash for the fill light, and a gridded gelled flash for the edge light.
Four speedlights, and all using TTL.
A few things to remember in such portraits:
- You need a catch light in the eyes.
- Set your white balance to “flash”.
- If you have space, longer lenses are good (in this case, though, I use a 50mm prime lens).
- Avoid the ambient light doing any work: choose 1/125th second at f/5.6 or f/8, say; and be sure to disable “Auto ISO”.
- Lighting is all about what you do not light: avoid bathing the room in photons. Think about what you light, and how.
- With Canon’s e-TTL or Nikon’s CLS/iTTL, you only get two or three groups of light. So if you have four lights, some of them will have to be in the same group. My fill and edge light are thus both in group “B”.
Keep those in mind and your portraits will be well lit.
Straight out of the camera? Wow!!!!!
Question: Is an umbrella a substitute for a softbox, or do they do entirely different things?
An umbrella throws light into a wider area; a softbox is just as soft, but more directional. That is why it is such a great device. Even a little softbox like the Honl Traveller 8 is great that way.
Hmmm, I just checked it out. I may pick one up. Thanks for responding.
With TTL, how do you make one flash as the key/main light and the other as fill light?
Using multi-flash TTL!