How to Use an External Camera Flash.
When photographing a wedding, party, or any type of event, You’re not always going to be able to get an exposure with available light. But you’ve probably noticed that on camera flash, well, kind of sucks. It's probably time you upgrade to an external flash.
TODAY I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET STARTED USING AN EXTERNAL CAMERA FLASH.
Personally, when I'm using flash my goal is to make it look as little like flash as possible - and in the future, I’m going to give you some tips and tips on how to do so. But before diving into that, We need to talk about your basic settings and how your flash works. Like your camera, your flash has a manual mode. But without an effective means of metering - it can be impractical when on the move at a wedding, event, or anything requiring you to be on the move. TTL which stands for through the lens, however, is essentially your flash's automatic mode. The way it works is when you begin to make an image your flash actively meters the light returning to your camera and cuts off once its output enough light to make a proper exposure. But also, like your cameras priority modes, you can tell your flash to either under or over expose an image by varying stops. Remember, your flash doesn't know what it is photographing so it will always expose for middle gray. In my experience when photographing a bunch of guys wearing black suits I set my flash compensation to -1 When I shot weddings, when photographing a bride with flash, I over exposed by about a stop.
That's pretty much all you need to know about your flash's settings to get started.... But what do you need to know about your camera settings? Well because your flash is essentially shooting in auto - In order to have full creative control over how your images turn out its best to shoot in manual as your flash will adjust to your cameras settings for an exposure. However, It's important to note that flash exposure is solely determined by its output relative to your aperture and ISO alone. NOT shutter speed.
So in short: Set your aperture as you would normally dependent on your needs and taste and your flash will adjust. Shutter speed, on the other hand, while not having an effect on your flash exposure does have an impact on your ambient light exposure. But details on that will have to wait for another video.
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