Easy Off Camera Flash

There are a lot of misconceptions regarding off camera flash. One of which is that it is expensive, I am here to say that is utter rubbish! I used a 42.99 yn560ii flash gun, a 24.99 softbox, and the wireless triggers from ebay cost a whopping 6.99! It really is amazing what results you can achieve without the expensive branded equipment. Granted you will need a little knowledge of the basics as it is all fully manual, but it is a starting point and one of the greatest ways to learn.

DSLR’s have a sync speed, this tends to be 1/200th or 1/250th but this does vary. Basically this is as fast as you can set your shutter speed before you will see black bars in your image. Using your flash off camera you will notice that no matter what shutter speed you set the flash exposure will remain the same, this is because the duration of the flash gun is so much faster than the cameras shutter speed. You use the shutter speed to adjust the ambient light on the scene. Once you have your shutter speed set, start to play around with the aperture. This will not only affect the ambient light but also the amount of light from the flash getting into the camera so this can be a great way to adjust the brightness of the flash without having to repeatedly keep changing the power setting on the flash gun.

 A scenario where you might want to use your flash off camera would be outside. Image a bright scene, you try to take a portrait of your friend and expose for the background. What you find is your subject has fallen into darkness as the brightness of the background is far greater than the brightness of the subject of the portrait. Ok so just expose for the subject right? Well you could but then you see that the background has completely blown out and you have lost any detail in the sky. In comes off camera flash. Set the exposure for the background and then fill in your subject with the flash. Simple!

We all have styles we like and aim for when starting out, but once you start to experiment you slowly find your own style. Another good thing about everything being manual is that you will learn how to light different situations the more experience you get. Whether you are using your flash as a fill or a main light, you will steadily learn how to balance your flash power and temperature with the available light.

Here is my review of the flash gun I use, the Yongnuo 560ii

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd_DBCVdqzs

So why not have a go today, and see just what a difference getting that flash off of the hotshoe will make to your photography!