Mastering Flash

After years of perfecting the art of rain photos, and listen to other photographers say how its done, we soon realised that not a single person I know has the ability to properly teach and demonstrate how to capture good rain photos.

And yes, there are some OBVIOUS tips, that not a SINGLE person knows, and once you know those secret tips, your rain photos will be changed forever!

Yes, to get perfectly frozen in time rain drops...you need a flash or strobe, continious LED lights dont give you that frozen in time look, its due to the fact that a flash pulses, and freezes the lit rain drops onto your sensor.

But this is definitely more of a watch and learn than read and learn kind of scenario...so check this out!

The split light technique is probably one of the greatest techniques in the movie industry...however when it comes to photography, its often over looked.

A lot of photographers actually capture amazing shots, but unintentionally using this technique, it really is a great technique to master and deliberately use.

We break down the look for you with a real display showing exactly what to look for and what not to do.

Once youve mastered and understand the spilt light technique, you will look at lighting scenarios and spaces totally different. It can be very dramatic when your shadow side is strong and deep shadows, but at the same time can be very flattering if your shadows arent that harsh.

Check out this tutorial where we break down the 7 secrets for you.

Well, is LED lights better than flash...the answer isn't that simple, so here's some pros and cons for you to make the easiest decision.

Pros:

• Controlled light, it is SO easy to see your final shot, after all with LED lights, what you see is what you get. Even when you gel them, you see that colour, move the light where you want it and you get the perfect shot every time.

• Plug-em-In, yes, if you in a studio or near a plug, you can probably plug them in...that means no worrying about flat batteries or recycle time.

Cons:

• Slow shutter or High ISO, a flash helps freeze your subject, even in a low lit situation you always get sharp images, thats because a flash pulses so fast it freezes that image on your sensor, with LED lights, you have to either use a slow shutter or higher ISO.

Wedding receptions can be scary to say the least, with the battle of DJ lights, dark lit rooms, poor lighting, ambience and just a whole bunch of terror.

As a firm believer that says use natural light when its good...thats a mere 10% of the time, meaning only 10% of your shots are perfect, the other 90% you are technically not happy with.

So here are some scary moments made better.

The Room:

Under a tent, blue DJ lights, no white lights at all, this set up stayed from speeches through to dancing.

The image on the left is natural light, and as you can see, the settings are a recipe for a grainy and terrible photo, besides the scary blue lights.

Let's hear where you biggest struggle is with flash? Although we have numerous tips and tricks coming up we would love to hear from you.

Perhaps its during the day, maybe wedding receptions, poorly lit rooms, off camera, on camera, softboxes, modifiers?

Drop a comment below and we can start a new thread dealing with common problems.