Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Creative Flash Photography Workshop using Flash Wave III

One of our most popular workshops was held at Abbottsford Convent on Saturday. Our Creative Flash Photography workshop is designed to help people understand flash from the ground up. In fact, it is designed to do more than that. It helps photographers see that flash is a powerful lighting tool that can transform their vision and their photographs. 
The morning presentation is about the technicalities of flash - understanding guide numbers and calculating exposures, seeing the potential of flash both on and off camera and utilising it to transform their photographs into lighting masterpieces. We deal with the technicalities and principles of flash in a way that I do not believe many others would. First of all, we talk about Guide Numbers, a concept largely forgotten in a TTL photography world. But understanding how it is used to calculate flash exposure is vital if you are going to be versatile as a photographer and enabled to use any flash in any situation. Once understood, it enables any photographer to buy a generic flash and calculate the correct f-stop settings and ratios for any flash unit. Our lovely model for the day was Azra Dedic and her surprisingly willing boyfriend, Alister. 
Recently, Creative Photo Workshops has started using Flash Wave III remote triggers and receivers for our workshops. These units are very reliable and very well built and a set of them will cost you about one third of the price of  two PocketWizards. Like PocketWizards, they can also be used to fire your camera remotely. They are also a little smarter than PocketWizards because the receiver has a hotshoe mount built into it, meaning that the flash can actually sit on the receiver. With Pocket Wizards, your flash needs to have a PC connection from which it can dangle quite precariously.  They are new to Australia but they can be bought here and here. Contact me if you wish to know more about them. Better yet, come to one of our Creative Flash Photography workshops or our Advanced Flash Photography workshops and use them yourself!


3 comments:

Willie said...

Totally agree with the concept of learning Guide Numbers.

Modern flash systems are actually perfect virtually 100% of the time, but knowing WHY is the basic foundation.

Much the same as Auto exposure systems are brilliantly accurate virtually all the time, but knowing how to correctly expose MANUALLY is the basic foundation.

Once a photographic newby gets those principles and understands how to do it themself , they can then more fully understand what the tools are doing in the auto mode.

Andrew Bott said...

Picked up a set of Flash Wave IIIs after attending this workshop. Tested them at home on a flowerpot. No probs. Convinced a gorgeous Mexican girl to model for me by the beach in St Kilda on a cloudy evening....fail. Triggers wouldn't trigger. At all. Had the instruction book with me and tried everything, but quite possibly user error. TBC.

Susan said...

had an awesome day with the Flash Photography workshop in Hobart today despite the reprimand for my composition (it was nerves) I will be back tomorrow for Day 2 and Natural light - thanks guys it was great fun and love the basic maths

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