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Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes

Lesson 26 from: Lighting 101

SLR Lounge, Pye Jirsa

Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes

Lesson 26 from: Lighting 101

SLR Lounge, Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

26. Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Chapter 1 Introduction

01:26
2

Why Just One On-Camera Flash

04:22
3

5 Reasons to Use Flash

10:37
4

Common Flash Myths

06:51
5

What Makes Flash Challenging?

04:56
6

Chapter 2 Introduction

01:36
7

Flash-Strobe vs. Ambient-Constant Light

08:19
8

Flash vs. Ambient Light Exposure

03:07
9

Flash vs. Ambient Demo

06:42
10

Flash and Ambient Balancing for Natural Effect

07:11
11

Flash and Ambient Balancing for Dramatic Effect

04:19
12

Flash and Ambient Balancing for Creative Effect

07:10
13

Understanding Flash Duration

08:37
14

Chapter 3 Introduction

01:34
15

5 Common Key Light Patterns

08:38
16

5 Common Key Light Patterns w/ Diffusion & Fill

07:42
17

5 Common Secondary Light Patterns

08:28
18

3 Primary Subject Patterns

05:27
19

Light Qualities

09:56
20

The Inverse Square Law

07:50
21

Inverse Square Law in Practice

08:21
22

Corrective White Balance

10:02
23

Creative White Balance

05:47
24

Chapter 4 Introduction

01:58
25

On Board vs. Hot Shoe Flash

05:57
26

Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes

08:59
27

TTL vs. Manual Control

08:12
28

TTL vs. Manual Recycle Times

04:43
29

Flash Power & Zoom

09:18
30

HHS vs. ND Filters

12:29
31

FCS vs. RCS

07:11
32

Chapter 5 Introduction

01:38
33

4 Tips When You Must Use Direct Flash

06:00
34

Bare Bulbing Done Right

11:42
35

Grid Snoot + Direct Flash

06:43
36

Mini Beauty + Direct Flash

06:08
37

Ring + Direct Flash

07:52
38

Understanding Modifiers

09:24
39

Direct Flash + Shutter Flash

09:07
40

Chapter 6 Introduction

01:55
41

Ambient vs. Direct Flash vs. Bounce Flash

14:27
42

Silver Bounce

14:27
43

More Light Silver

11:02
44

Soft White Bounce

15:41
45

Overhead Bounce

11:39
46

Overhead Bounce + Fill

09:42
47

Event Bounce

12:42
48

Chapter 7 Introduction

01:38
49

Natural vs. Dramatic Light

17:43
50

Filling and Refining Existing Light

08:44
51

Coloring Light for Corrective Effect

13:33
52

Coloring Light for Creative Effect

10:27
53

Chapter 8 Introduction

00:43
54

Case Study 1 - Dramatic Sunset

09:45
55

Case Study 2 - Desert Sunset

10:04
56

Case Study 3 - Sinister Headshot

09:40
57

Case Study 4 - Family Portrait

08:21
58

Case Study 5 - Athlete Portraits

11:19
59

Case Study 6 - Working Angles

07:22
60

Case Study 7 - Drag + Composite

08:09
61

Case Study 8 - Less is More

07:16
62

The Good Karma Jar

01:41
63

Favorite Feature Flashes

05:52
64

Favorite Manual Flashes

21:35
65

Favorite On Camera Flash Modifiers

21:21

Lesson Info

Full Feature vs. Manual Flashes

Full feature versus manual flashes each have their pros each have their cons and really the primary deciding point between whether you get a full feature versus that manual flash is just gonna be your overall budget. The price points for full feature versus manual flashes are very, very different, and if we all had the money, well, there's not really any reason to get manual flashes because full feature ones do what emanuel flash does and a lot more so let's discuss these differences, and then you guys can decide if it's in the cards, especially when you're going the lighting to one and three one. If you need multiple off camera flashes, you might benefit from getting manual flashes because they're much less expensive, so if they get destroyed a ruined or something goes wrong, then they're less expensive to replace, although they are a little more cumbersome and controlling, but let's, talk about these differences now over here on my left I have the foe ticks metro's plus now if there ...

was one third party full feature flash that I would recommend, it would be this one. The photos me charge plus is around four hundred bucks and this is as full featured as a flash gets you could get it for both nikon and cannon systems. They'll probably come with additional support for other camera systems as well in the future and for what? The price point is for forty bucks, you're getting a lot ok? Let's, talk about what you're getting. So with a full feature flash, you get focused assistance, ok, so you can typically see that on the front there's gonna be a little infrared beam that will in front being is actually to help you in dark situations to get your focus all time. But what else this includes? We have tl and manual control detail means through the lens exposure, basically. So when you are firing your flash, basically it's goingto fire a pre flash. Okay, so it is pretty instantaneous, so when you take a shot, it looks as if your flash just fired once, but in reality, your flash actually fired a pre flash to test the exposure. And then what does the flash do? It measures the amount of light that it needs to put on to the subject, not a tale is a nice starting tool, kind of like a nice starter tool for for those that are getting new ak you two are getting into flash, but it does have its limitations. We'll talk about that in a little bit. They also have high speed sync. Okay, so we can actually take the shutter speed above one, two hundred of a second, which we'll talk about again more later on they also include rcs rear currency we talked about that a little bit earlier when we're dealing with slowing down the shutter and using either f c s first curtains sink or rcs were couldn't sink manual flashes don't have that in addition includes pulse mode or hurt modes where we can basically make the flash fire multiple times within say a shutter duration so if I wanted to set my shutter speed toe one second I could have my flash fire five times within that one second to get different kinds of types of creative effects we also have infrared triggering okay so unlike say a five eighty x we would have infrared where basically we can use the five index to control another off camera cannon flash that has infrared now in the metro's plus we actually go a step further the metro's plus includes radio triggering which is far better than in frederick radio triggering will actually allow you to trigger an off camera unit that's out of line of sight basically that you cannot see that's much further in distance and so forth infrared is great when you're ten feet away but radio is fantastic at one hundred feet two hundred feet and so forth in triggering off camera flashes again this is really more of a lighting to one in lighting three on type feature but these full feature flashes some have that ability built in the canon six hundred ex artie is another radio triggering flash system but that comes in this guy and this is only for bucks so this also includes radio control so we can actually control other metro's plus units from this unit on our hotch you okay? So I can actually control if I'm using off camera flashes off camera me chose plus is I could actually control all of those from this one unit. This also includes off camera tpl or some full peter flashes include ofthe committee tio meaning that the off camera flashes I can actually use that through the lens exposure mode as well so I don't need to set to manual I don't need to sell my own exposure it'll do the same thing as you're on camera full feature flash would do it'll fire a pre flash right when the shutter open and he will get well just before the shutter opens and then when the shutter opens it'll fire the actual flash based on that reading and gets okay, so that was a lot of different features. Those were nine kind of primary features of a full featured flash and basically again depending on the model that unit that you get some full feature flash and may have some of those features some we have all those features it just depends there's kind of different varying degrees okay, what are the cons of a full feature flash? Well the main one that we've already talked about is the price. This is four hundred bucks manual flashes you can get for seventy bucks, eighty bucks, one hundred bucks this one is the best manual flashing get and it's one hundred eighty bucks so obviously this is more expensive when you're talking about getting on the lighting to one in lighting three on where we need to buy three or four of these units that gets quite pricey very quickly. Ah, six hundred ex artie is five hundred bucks and the sixty ex artie that's cannons version of basically this same flash with its own built in radio and everything it's five hundred bucks and I do prefer it just a little bit over the metro's plus just for sake of kind of it's. Just a little bit more refined overall, but as far as the third party full feature flash the hood recommend for any system I can't go wrong with this metro's plus, you know, I mean it's absolutely fantastic. If it's in the budget and you shoot cannon, maybe the six hundred e x artie is where you want to go, but otherwise I would say, look to the meters plus what are the other cons? Well, with all these crazy features built into this one single unit, the backside is going to get a little bit more complex it's going to be a little bit more complicated control there's going to be a lot of features that you kind of need to learn where the buttons are and how to use so you are going to need to consult your manual just a little bit to figure out exactly which button to press now the great part about this is that radio triggering is the exact same whether using pock wizards or a six hundred dx artie or where they're using the metros plus system it's simply learning how to control the radio via whatever system that you have and for that you need to refer the manual the same thing with, say rare curtain sink recurrent thing functions the exact same way across the board it's just bring out which button to push to get to it all right, so our favorites on the full feature side is the meters plus for the price point is four hundred bucks my number two is the cannon six hundred ex artie and while nikon flash systems up until this point have been absolutely fantastic and actually quite far ahead of cannons, they've lagged a little bit in getting out eh radio triggering version of their flash system. So the best nikon flash currently available is still the nikon s p nine nine ten which is actually more expensive than the cannon six hundred yaks artie and the metro's it's five hundred bucks plus it doesn't have radio triggering, so I'd probably say ifyou're on nikon go with the metro's plus and wait until my gun comes out with their new system at least for now okay let's go for the manual flashlight down the manual flash side this is incredibly simple to talk about because really there's only two pros number one is that they're far less expensive we've already talked about that and number two is that it's simple to use guys this only khun do one thing just flash and it flashes in manual mode it doesn't have tl doesn't have e t t l it doesn't have high speed sync it doesn't have rear curtains sink it doesn't have any of these full featured options is simply is just a flash and there's kind of there's kind of a beauty to that simplicity that's all it is so all you need to worry about is your zoom and your power setting that's all so on the con side that's the main con is this is just a flash there's no advanced features there's nothing else there's no the focus assist there's none of those advanced features coming in a full feature flash our favorite of the manual flashes is this guy the limit pro lp one eighty and we'll talk more about flashes independently when we get to that point the video we're going to talk about our favorite flash unit's overall from a manual and full feature. But some other great honora mentions are the newer tt eight fifty, which is one hundred bucks, the vivid tar to eighty five h b, which is a hundred bucks, and each of these I have kind of a noose like annoyance with each of these little flashes there. They all have one of these issues that I just really don't like except for the l p one eighty, which I guess the most annoying thing about this is it's more expensive. And then the young know also the five sixty three, which is seventy five bucks. So obviously, this is the most expensive this is. Oh, I guess this is two hundred bucks around one, eighty two, two hundred bucks. Depends where you get so it's double the price of other manual flashes, if not a little more that's. My only annoyance with you, but otherwise you're fantastic. I love you. I could, I could just, you know, married you, but when we go the next video instead.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Lighting 101 Slides

Ratings and Reviews

Sid
 

The best class for understanding light and lighting there is bar none. Pye is an excellent teacher and the quality of the material provides for a rich and very informative experience. Pye breaks down the fundamentals in easy to digest packets and then elaborates as needed. If there is one class that you watch this is it! Worth purchasing and saving for future use. I would also HIGHLY recommend downloading the saving the PDF of slides that accompany the videos. Again, and can't say it enough, this is THE BEST video to lighting on Creative Live. A must watch for the novice and the expert.

Petra
 

Great course, I highly recommend it if you want to become a more confident flash user. Pye is a wonderful instructor and just such a nice guy, it's a pleasure to listen to him

Simon Metselaar
 

This is the best thing that happened to me since I've been into photography. What a lifesaver. Unfortunately I already payed for some courses that are not Pye, but Pye just nails it. Amazing, and kind of a life hack. Thanks again :)

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