Life seen through the lens of photographer Phil Steele
If you own a detachable Speedlite-style flash, and you are shooting with it on your camera, you are wasting your investment in that expensive flash.
Face it, on-camera flash sucks. It drains the life out of your subject and makes everyone look like they are posing for a police line-up or a driver’s license photo.
You gotta get that flash off your camera!
The video above is my YouTube “commercial” for my off-camera flash course. Frankly I don’t know if it’s cheesy or if it’s cool, but I had fun making it, and people seem to love it on YouTube, so I thought I’d share it with you here.
Choosing the right flash can be intimidating to beginning photographers. It’s easy to find lots of jargon-laden technical specifications, but hard to find a simple analysis in plain language of which flash is the best one for your needs.
I’m going to make the choice easy for you.
Speedlite 270EX
If you are a Canon shooter, you basically have three options at the time of this writing in 2010: the Speedlite 270EX, 430EX II, and 580EX II.
We’re going to immediately simplify it by eliminating the little 270EX right out of the gate. In my opinion it just doesn’t make economic sense. (more…)
It’s not every day you get to have this much fun. Photographer Brad Mahler booked a suite at the Hard Rock Hotel, lined up some great models, and invited me to join him for a day of shooting. How could I say no? Check out this video for a behind-the-scenes look at the whole process.
By the way, if you’re a gear geek you’ll notice the difference between our lighting setups. Brad is using his big Alien Bees studio lights, while I’m using my favorite small-flash setup, shooting Canon Speedlites through umbrellas. You’ll see me using both the Canon wireless (master/slave) system, when I need one light, and radio triggers when I need two lights.
If you’d like to know exactly how all this works, you can get the full story in my new 9-video course called “How to Shoot Professional-Looking Headshots and Portraits on a Budget Using Small Flashes.”
That’s my first video product, and I’m pretty damn excited about it, so if you think it sounds interesting, check it out, or at least hit one of the social media links below and share this video with your friends!
Click to enlarge
I just shot a headshot session with a lovely San Diego jewelry designer named Stephany. These were done in my own living room with a combination of window light and Canon speedlite flash (off-camera, of course).
If you’d like to see larger versions, plus some additional shots from this session, click any photo.
These were shot as part of the practice sessions for my online video course “How to Shoot Headshots and Portraits on a Budget Using Small Flashes” in which I explain exactly how I do these shots with minimal equipment.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
The Hoop Unit performs in the lobby
In a previous post I wrote about shooting an indoor event in a dark warehouse with the Lumiquest 80/20 with on-camera flash. Today we’re going to look at another option for event photography: using an Off Camera Shoe Cord to get the flash off the camera.
If you want to view the photos before reading about them, see the gallery here.
Last night I attended the San Diego Burning Man Film Festival at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. You can always count on the Burning Man community to turn out in fanciful costumes that make great photos.
Since I knew I’d be holding the camera in one hand and the flash in the other hand all night, I chose my gear based on weight: the super-light Rebel 350D and the 430EX flash (each considerably lighter than carrying my heavier DSLR and 580EXII flash). Unfortunately, my workhorse lens for indoor photography, the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, is a monster, so the camera is still quite a brick to hand-hold all night. Not to mention front-heavy as hell on the tiny Rebel body. But these are the trade-offs we make. (more…)
Self portrait in my living room
It’s about freakin’ time. For years I’ve pestered family members, friends, and occasionally even strangers to stand in while I’m testing a lighting setup or indluging some photographic whim that requires a human subject in front of the lens.
Thus I’ve gradually trained all the people nearest me to duck out the back door if they see me coming with a camera in hand. “Sorry, dude, gotta run. I think my parking meter is about to expire.”
So what’s a photographer to do? I have a constant need to test lighting setups, particularly those involving multiple radio-triggered flashes, which require delicate adjustment to get the right balance. I like to know how these things are going to look before I try it out in the field. When it comes time for the actual shoot, I don’t want to force the talent, or the client, to sit through this agonizing process of tweaking. (more…)
The posterior of my Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS
I’m kicking myself. Maybe I shouldn’t be, because the guy at the camera repair shop says it’s probably not my fault, but still…
Here’s the story. After returning from the Burning Man festival, I knew my cameras needed cleaning but I put it off for a long time. So one day recently I got them out and started cleaning—and I noticed a weird little spot on the rear lens element of my Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS.
I can’t tell if it’s a water spot (how would that even happen?) or perhaps something that’s been there forever and I never noticed. It’s faint, and my test shots don’t seem affected by it, but it bothers me. This is my main workhorse lens, and I want it to be perfect. (more…)
If you’d like to view the photos before reading about it, see New Year’s Eve Party. (Warning: Some are slightly NSFW, no nudity, but there are some, um, colorful people here).
It’s the worst possible conditions for photography: a vast, crowded warehouse, minimal light, and no ceiling to bounce a flash from. But somehow we’ve gotta light this scene! We know that on-camera flash sucks and will make everything look flat and washed out like a DMV driver’s license photo. So my first inclination is to carry a wireless-triggered speedlite in my outstretched left hand while shooting with the camera in my right. That would get a nice angle on the light and make everyone pretty.
But this is New Year’s Eve. I’m wearing a tux, and a speedlite won’t fit in my pocket, and besides, I want to keep one hand free to embrace friends or carry a cocktail.
The solution? (more…)
