One of the things I have been looking at, recently, is refining my flash capability. Most flashes FLOOD the area with concentrated light and that can be a lot MORE light than you really need, even when you clamp down on all the settings. Often, when modifying the camera settings, you soon find yourself operating with light settings you really do not want to use. Tight apertures, higher shutter speeds and lower ISO, to compensate. The thing is … all these adjustments have their respective limits.
Normal camera settings for a standard portrait flash shot are around (and this is rough, but quite normal)
Ap: f/4 or f/5.6
SS: 1/60 or 1/125
ISO: 400
Most flash exercises/experiences are a virtual experiment in terror, with you usually having to accept whatever TTL setting the flash can do and the spread it offers. With external flash modifiers, your illumination options become far more controlled, but YOU need to get into the game to make proper use of them.
Portable grids offer a very direct concentration of light, illumination only a 10-30 degrees of the area in front of the flash (depending on the distance) and allows multiple flashes to be strategically placed and reduce the amount of post-processing image manipulation you may have to do to produce the desired response.
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It can put a nice spot of light in one place, without affecting other illumination. So, for example, if you just want to isolate and illuminate just the dancing couple, here’s a convenient solution.
A
diffuser box provides a wider, diffused lighting source beam, but eliminates the flash scatter of the naked flash head.
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It softens the light and allows shadows to become less harsh and again, a real time saver against subsequent post processing. While the flashes diffusing, drop down screen can be handy, to offer a more balanced looking source, this can be more appropriate.
The cost of these additional items is relatively cheap, but they can improve your flash efforts enormously. Just work with them and practice their use. The time will come and then you will be ready with an alternative lighting solution rather than just a bare flash head.
