Here’s a quick portrait of Ivan, the manager of Mississauga’s Vistek store.
Took about… oh, all of one minute.
Here’s how.
- Set camera to manual exposure.
- Select values for Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed that will make the room go dark. Here, that was 1/160th sec, f/8 at 100 ISO.
- Put a flash on the camera in MASTER mode (a Canon 600EX here, set to using light, not radio, as a master). (You can use the popup flash on a Nikon or on modern Canons like the 7D, 60D, etc.)
- Make sure that this master flash will not fire during the shot – it fires only commands (“morse code”) to slave flashes, prior to the shot. Set this on your flash or camera.
- Hold a slave flash (in my case a 430EX in slave mode) in your left hand.
- Ensure that this flash in in TTL slave mode on the same channel as your master flash.
- If the room is very small, put a grid (eg a Honl Photo 1/4″ grid) on the slave flash.
- Aim that flash directly at the subject (really).
- Focus, recompose
- Shoot!
It really was as quick as that. When you learn good technique, you too can be quick with creative shots like this.