Okay, so today I decided to mess around with this off-camera flash thing again. Been meaning to practice more, you know? Just feels like something I should get better at.
Getting Started
First thing, dug out my flash, the cheap one, not the fancy brand name. Grabbed the little wireless trigger and receiver set too. Found my light stand, the flimsy one, but whatever, it works… mostly. Popped some fresh batteries in the flash and the triggers. Always forget to check the batteries, learned that the hard way.
Mounted the flash onto the stand. Then stuck the receiver thingy onto the flash’s hot shoe. Slid the transmitter onto my camera’s hot shoe. Turned everything on. Did a test fire. Pop! Okay, it works. That’s always step one, making sure the darn things are talking to each other.
Setting Up the Shot (Sort Of)
Didn’t have a model or anything fancy. Just grabbed a coffee mug from the kitchen. Placed it on the small table near the wall. Figured it’s simple, got some shape, good enough for practice.
Placed the light stand kinda off to the side, maybe 45 degrees from the mug, a few feet away. Didn’t use any modifier at first. Just bare flash. Why make it complicated right off the bat?
Taking the First Shots
Set the camera to manual. Guessed some settings. ISO low, maybe 100. Shutter speed around 1/125th, sync speed safe zone. Aperture, uh, f/5.6 maybe? Set the flash power low too, like 1/32 power. Don’t want to blow out the highlights immediately.
Took the first shot. Click. Looked at the screen. Wow, harsh shadows. Really sharp, dark shadow behind the mug. The side facing the flash was bright, the other side super dark. Okay, yeah, bare flash does that.
Tweaking Time
- Moved the flash a bit higher. Took another shot. Shadow moved down, still harsh.
- Moved the flash further back. Shot again. Light spread a bit more, but still quite contrasty.
- Upped the flash power slightly. Brighter, obviously. Still harsh.
Trying Some Modifiers (The Simple Kind)
Okay, bare flash wasn’t the look I wanted today. Dug around in my bag. Found that little white diffusion cap that clips onto the flash head. Popped it on.
Took another picture with the flash in roughly the same spot as before. Ah, better. The light was softer, shadow edges weren’t as sharp. It wasn’t amazing, but definitely less aggressive.
Then I remembered I had a small shoot-through umbrella. The cheap white one. Took the diffusion cap off, clamped the umbrella to the stand, and pointed the flash into it. Positioned the umbrella so the light would go through it towards the mug.
Took a shot. Much softer! Shadows were way less intense, light wrapped around the mug a bit more. Had to bump the flash power up though, maybe to 1/16 or 1/8, because the umbrella eats some light. Played around moving the umbrella closer and further away. Closer meant softer light, further made it a bit less soft. Interesting to see it happen right there on the camera screen.
Wrapping Up
Spent maybe an hour just doing this. Moving the light, changing power, switching between bare flash, the cap, and the umbrella. Didn’t get any award-winning photos of a coffee mug, obviously. But it was good practice.
Sometimes the triggers didn’t fire. Cheap triggers, what do you expect? Had to wiggle them sometimes. And lining up the umbrella just right took some fiddling. But overall, felt okay. Just reminding myself how this stuff works. Moving the light source really does change everything. Gotta do this more often, really.
