RocketCowboy
Senior Member
It's come up in a couple of posts that Mr Yongnuo, Tim Payne, and a couple of his friends were putting together an instructional off camera flash workshop in Little Rock Arkansas last weekend. I was fortunate enough to be one of the ~40 people to attend that workshop with the three instructors. I've done a little bit of work with off camera flash before ... I did a Meetup group on studio lighting techniques, and also did some experimenting at home when I took my first portrait shots, but this workshop was specifically working to solve four scenarios: model in shade with a sunlight background, sunlight model with a shaded background, model in shade with a shaded background, and a model in full sun with a sunlight background.
(Images don't have EXIF since they were exports for Facebook. I'll post EXIF data if anyone is interested)
(My images uploaded backwards too ... makes story telling a little harder)
I didn't take many usable images on the Saturday of the workshop. There was a lot of trial and error, taking test exposures to check balance, etc ... and in the end I just wasn't happy with the images I got. I am posting one of the first balance shots we did as a group exercise to show my starting point.
On Sunday, I lucked into an open opportunity to get some 1:1 (it actually ended up being 3:1, but still a much better ratio than the large group of the workshop) with Jason Craven, and we set up shop down the street to start working indoors before moving outdoors for a couple scenarios. What I don't have pictured here are any shots where we experimented with gels on the speed lights (I'm not happy with the compositions, but I am happy with the results we got), but then we went for some basic seated full body shots.
The first one was my exposure test, but then I cleaned up my composition a bit ... and accidentally removed most of my background lighting:
When we were moving gear outside to set up for the next series of situations, we noticed the piano was getting some optimal natural window light, so did a quick detour for a no-flash shot:
With that done, we wanted to go for some over the top dramatic lighting with the model in full sun, but also hitting her with full power off the speed light. Metered and exposed for the background, the single speed light just out of frame gives (I think) a nice effect on the model.
Finally, since it was starting to get hot, we moved the model back into the shade, and my last image was an attempt at a properly exposed background and then lighting the subject to blend in with proper exposure. I could still use a little extra light on her hair to get it to stand out against the tree ... I actually recomposed the shot with a little less aperture to bring the background down slightly, but that shot has some distractions going on in the background so I like this composition better.
I learned a lot from the weekend, and am looking forward to working with it more over the July 4th weekend to see how well I do have the hang of it. I did notice I need to come up with a better way to transport gear when moving between locations, because the three bags I was carrying were too heavy, AND I didn't end up needing most of that kit, but live and learn. Secondly, I'm really enjoying the flexibility of having radio triggers rather than optical only, so that I don't have to compromise light locations to ensure LOS with the commander flash master.
The Facebook group just announced this evening that they will be repeating the workshop at the end of October, in Little Rock again. With the lessons they learned from this past weekend, I expect even better results from anyone who's able to attend.
(Images don't have EXIF since they were exports for Facebook. I'll post EXIF data if anyone is interested)
(My images uploaded backwards too ... makes story telling a little harder)
I didn't take many usable images on the Saturday of the workshop. There was a lot of trial and error, taking test exposures to check balance, etc ... and in the end I just wasn't happy with the images I got. I am posting one of the first balance shots we did as a group exercise to show my starting point.
On Sunday, I lucked into an open opportunity to get some 1:1 (it actually ended up being 3:1, but still a much better ratio than the large group of the workshop) with Jason Craven, and we set up shop down the street to start working indoors before moving outdoors for a couple scenarios. What I don't have pictured here are any shots where we experimented with gels on the speed lights (I'm not happy with the compositions, but I am happy with the results we got), but then we went for some basic seated full body shots.
The first one was my exposure test, but then I cleaned up my composition a bit ... and accidentally removed most of my background lighting:
When we were moving gear outside to set up for the next series of situations, we noticed the piano was getting some optimal natural window light, so did a quick detour for a no-flash shot:
With that done, we wanted to go for some over the top dramatic lighting with the model in full sun, but also hitting her with full power off the speed light. Metered and exposed for the background, the single speed light just out of frame gives (I think) a nice effect on the model.
Finally, since it was starting to get hot, we moved the model back into the shade, and my last image was an attempt at a properly exposed background and then lighting the subject to blend in with proper exposure. I could still use a little extra light on her hair to get it to stand out against the tree ... I actually recomposed the shot with a little less aperture to bring the background down slightly, but that shot has some distractions going on in the background so I like this composition better.
I learned a lot from the weekend, and am looking forward to working with it more over the July 4th weekend to see how well I do have the hang of it. I did notice I need to come up with a better way to transport gear when moving between locations, because the three bags I was carrying were too heavy, AND I didn't end up needing most of that kit, but live and learn. Secondly, I'm really enjoying the flexibility of having radio triggers rather than optical only, so that I don't have to compromise light locations to ensure LOS with the commander flash master.
The Facebook group just announced this evening that they will be repeating the workshop at the end of October, in Little Rock again. With the lessons they learned from this past weekend, I expect even better results from anyone who's able to attend.