Creative Flash Photography

Make a big impression with small flashes! In this book, Tilo Gockel shows you how to make magic by mastering the use of light. You will learn how to use speedlights to create amazing photographs in any lighting situation. Tilo uses 40 lighting workshops to teach his methods for producing impressive flash shots in portrait, fashion, macro, food, still life, and high-speed photography. The richly illustrated, easy-to-understand workshops are filled with recommendations and instructions for flash setups, detailed lighting diagrams, and tips and tricks for how to achieve the look of high-end studio shots using simple, accessible equipment, even in your own home. Also included is information on the settings that will help you master complex multi-flash situations, as well as tips on how to create cost-effective, self-built accessories. Foreword by Strobist.com's David Hobby.

Canon Speedlites and Nikon Speedlights are small, off-camera flashguns that can provide big results - if you know how to use them properly. Acclaimed Boston photographers Lou Jones, Bob Keenan and Steve Ostrowski guide you through the technical and creative aspects of how to get the most out of these powerful tools in this indispensable guide, packed full of inspirational images and comprehensive diagrams of the lighting set ups used to capture them. They are significantly more advanced, lighter and considerably cheaper than a standard flashgun, and have many advantages. They are small (and cheap) enough that a number can be carried in your kit, and they can be used in combination, triggered wirelessly. They use through-the-lens (TTL) metering, which allows you to use the in-camera LCD and histograms to calculate the required power/direction, rather than havng to use a light meter or trial and error. They use proprietary, dedicated technology (from Canon and Nikon) that means there are no compatability issues. Getting the most out of them, however, remains a mystery - most photographers still just use their speedlights in the same way as a standard flash gun. This is where this book comes in.

Professionals and advanced-level amateurs seeking to push the envelope and enhance the creativity of their shots are shown how to add mood and manipulate color in their images with this guide. Using a technique known as off-camera flash, digital photographers discover how to alter a viewer’s perception through the use of shadows to mask certain details or to draw attention to a specific feature with a simple beam of light. From a survey of the gear required to create these effects and a detailed description of how the basic techniques are executed to more challenging instruction such as close-up techniques, on-location portraiture, black-and-white photography, and capturing motion, this handbook offers digital photographers step-by-step directions for picking up the tips and tricks to set their work apart.

Canon Speedlites and Nikon Speedlights are small, off-camera flashguns that can provide big results - if you know how to use them properly. Acclaimed Boston photographers Lou Jones, Bob Keenan and Steve Ostrowski guide you through the technical and creative aspects of how to get the most out of these powerful tools in this indispensable guide, packed full of inspirational images and comprehensive diagrams of the lighting set ups used to capture them. They are significantly more advanced, lighter and considerably cheaper than a standard flashgun, and have many advantages. They are small (and cheap) enough that a number can be carried in your kit, and they can be used in combination, triggered wirelessly. They use through-the-lens (TTL) metering, which allows you to use the in-camera LCD and histograms to calculate the required power/direction, rather than havng to use a light meter or trial and error. They use proprietary, dedicated technology (from Canon and Nikon) that means there are no compatability issues. Getting the most out of them, however, remains a mystery - most photographers still just use their speedlights in the same way as a standard flash gun. This is where this book comes in.

Mastering Nikon Speedlights is the most comprehensive guide available for anyone using or wanting to learn more about the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS). Starting with an exploration of how to work with light, the book teaches you everything you need to know about understanding the direction and intensity of light, using light meters and metering modes, controlling exposure, and much more. You’ll learn the specifics of how to use the full range of Nikon Speedlights and accessories, including past and current models of cameras and CLS compatible flashes—and in the process you’ll find out how to get the best shots with your gear, whether you have a whole box of equipment or just the basics. The book includes practical, real-world photo shoots—portraits, action shots, and product photography—starting with one light and gradually working up to multiple lights so you can observe the progression of the light from one flash to many. No matter what your subject or shooting scenario, Mastering Nikon Speedlights is an essential resource that teaches you how to produce the light you need to achieve great results. Offers a thorough discussion of the qualities of light, how the camera measures light, and the settings needed to record an image with proper exposure Provides a complete overview of all the components that make up the Nikon Creative Lighting System, outlining how to use the different Speedlights and accessories to correspond with each camera’s unique capabilities Covers how to use the Nikon Speedlights off the camera using the Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL) features built into the Creative Lighting System Features several examples of real photo shoots, showing you how to take great photos in a variety of situations, building from one flash up to multiple flashes

Flash! presents a fascinating cultural history of flash photography, from its mid-nineteenth century beginnings to the present day. All photography requires light, but the light of flash photography is quite distinctive: artificial, sudden, shocking, intrusive, and extraordinarily bright. Associated with revelation and wonder, it has been linked to the sublimity of lightning. Yet it has also been reviled: it's inseparable from anxieties about intrusion and violence, it creates a visual disturbance, and its effects are often harsh and create exaggerated contrasts. Flash! explores flash's power to reveal shocking social conditions, its impact on the representation of race, its illumination of what would otherwise remain hidden in darkness, and its capacity to put on display the most mundane corners of everyday life. It looks at flash's distinct aesthetics, examines how paparazzi chase celebrities, how flash is intimately linked to crime, how flash has been used to light up - and interrupt - countless family gatherings, how flash can 'stop time' allowing one to photograph rapidly moving objects or freeze in a strobe, and it considers the biggest flash of all, the atomic bomb. Examining the work of professionals and amateurs, news hounds and art photographers, photographers of crime and of wildlife, the volume builds a picture of flash's place in popular culture, and its role in literature and film. Generously illustrated throughout, Flash! brings out the central role of this medium to the history of photography and challenges some commonly held ideas about the nature of photography itself.