I Finally Start To Understand Flash and Pentax Wireless Flash Options

OK, it took a while, but I'm finally starting to really think I "get" flash, flash options, and the Pentax solutions that are out there. I pointed to this article on ok1000 last year, but thought that after the last 4 hours of hunching over a laptop with PDFs of flash and camera manuals open, a very ghetto "studio" (I started typing in "stupid" just then... ironic) setup with knickknacks as a subject I should write down a few things.

The setup I was using. Click through for notes.


Michael covered things really well in the OK1000 article, but sometimes you just have to do them yourself, by hand, with and without the manual to really get them in your head. Here's what I learned. Oh, first, equipment. The Pentax K20D of course, and the AF360FGZ flash unit, a laptop with USB cord for tethered shooting (more on that in a later post), and a big cup of tea (earl grey, hot) to keep me sane.

• The "SB" mode is really only useful if you want to keep the flash on the camera but not use it for anything other than a focusing aid. Seems useful to me only in situations where you're testing things and don't want to be yanking it on and off the camera a lot, or turning it on and off and on again.
• There are two wireless "slave" modes, 1 and 2. In mode 1 the flash works with Pentax equipment, in mode 2 it works as a triggered slave with non-Pentax gear. So if you're taking your 360 over to a friends house, and he has a Nikon setup and wants to use your flash, remotely triggering it with the flash output from his camera, you need slave mode 2.
• With wireless flash you will always need to fire the remotes with the built in pop-up flash (or another flash on the camera). There's a custom option (29) to set whether or not the output from the pop-up flash is used only for control of the remote flashes (set custom option 29 to off) or if you want it to be used for flash compensation, so both the pop-up and the remote flash contribute to the image (ie: a bit of fill in flash from the pop-up flash) (set custom option 29 to on).
  
• Some settings are done on the camera (slow sync speed mode) and some are done on the flash unit (first/second curtain). Some are confusing as well because the flash has a mode switch setting for first/second curtain, but under the flash options on the K20D there's also a second curtain mode. I believe the latter doesn't work with an external flash, only the on camera flash.
  
• Some functions are only available in some exposure modes. For example, high speed sync mode isn't available in the Av exposure mode, only Tv.
  
• Some functions will only show up in certain circumstances. For example, if you set your flash to the HS (High speed Sync) mode, the little "HS" in the LCD will only show up after you set your aperture past the sync speed of 1/180th.
  
• In some exposure modes with the Flash attached, one of the wheels suddenly starts controlling the ISO. If you're like me and always forget which the front wheel does and which the rear one does, keep an eye out for this!
• You can get very interesting using +/- EV for both the camera and the flash. IE: To raise the overall image light, set +EV on the camera, but then you can dial down the flash so it doesn't over power your subject. Or something like that. This is more a "when do I use what where" type of thing that I'm still working on.
  

So those are the cliff notes for my setup, and a bunch of my learning process (read: failing, cursing, trying again, failing, cursing, reading the manual, doing it, failing, reading the right section of the manual, and finally succeeding).

So why would you use various flash modes and what affects what in them. First the easy ones.

Slow Sync Mode
Used when the backdrop is darker. Allows you to "drag the shutter" to let more light in so the background lights up as well as the "flashed" main subject. This is where you want to adjust first or second curtain settings.

Useful for images of moving objects with a sense of speed or motion to them. IE: a dancer frozen at the peak of a jump, but with blurred leading lines. Also good to play with for dimly lit areas. David Hobby of Strobist fame uses the term "burn in", which evokes a great image of the rest of the background slowly embedding itself onto the sensor, like using a spray paint can without moving it and waiting for what you're pointing it at to become solidly filled in.

High Speed Sync
The opposite of slow sync really. Used if you want faster shutter speeds than the 1/180th or 1/250th that your camera allows. Useful for things like freezing fast action without any leading blur. Also for adjusting how much of a shot is lit. If you want to photograph a person or baby or something and not have the background lit up, only the foreground, then this is where you play.

On the back of the 360 flash it shows a guide line of what distance your flash is being effective at, it'll shrink drastically if you start pusing the shutter speed to 1/1000 or higher.

First / Second Curtain
Classic example is a moving car. First curtain flash will freeze the car but have the blur "trail" moving forward, because the flash fires as soon as the shutter opens. Second curtain fires at the end, so your moving car would be a blur line moving to a frozen image.

Adjusting Your Aperture
This controls the ambient light. A larger f-stop number (ie: f/13) will let less ambient light in, so your background is going to be darker. A smaller f-stop number (ie: f-4.0) lets more background light in, so the background is lighter.

Adjusting Your Shutter Speed
This controls the main subject. Faster or slower shutter will give you different effects in terms of the high/slow speed sync as above.

Getting a Reading
I'm now treading way into "mostly guessing" territory. Lets say you want to light a subject in a not well lit room. My guess would be take a flash-less meter reading, and see what the exposure should be. Lets say 1/4 @ f/5.6. So that's the ambient exposure. Now you're adding a flash on, so you're exposure will be something like 1/180th @ f/5.6. This is where you pick click off this site and read this exercise on Strobist 102, where David makes way more sense than me.

In fact, now I have myself setup with a nicely reproducable system, I'm about ready to start going through the Strobist classes and not be fumbling around wondering why my flash isn't firing!

Thanks for reading this far folks!

May Strobist "Newbie" Meetup

A couple of weeks ago a bunch of folks from the Vancouver Strobist group on Flickr got together to teach the newbies how to do strobist stuff, the art off off-camera lighting. The idea was to get a few experience folks as mentors, give them a small group of us green newbies, and teach what they could. The models model in exchange for pictures for the portfolios, which the photographers give them in exchange for models to create pictures for their portfolios. TFP is what it's called, Time For Pictures, Trade For Portfolio, etc.

Anyway, as one of the newbies, I had a great time and I just yesterday finally got around to processing a bunch of images, and after getting approval from the models, am ready to post a few here.

The first model we worked with was Jessti, with Glen (or Glenn?) as the mentor. His method was very exacting and precise, using a light meter, etc, and getting great results. I'll update with a pic from the session when the model gets back to me with approval to post them though.

This is actually the second model we worked with, Maggie. To light her we set up a flash on tree in the background, a bare flash as key light hanging from a tree to her right, and shoot through umbrella to camera right (manned by a V.A.L.). This second setup was even a bit nicer as it was with Steve who lives not far from me and who does some awesome and funky shoots. The setup wasn't as extreme as some of his other portfolio, but it was a different way of doing things that was cool to see.




This one is from the end of the shoot, when everyone retired to the grass there was one group still going, and I jumped in and got a few shots of Cindy. Lighting her there are flashes behind on left and right and homemade straw grid spot to camera right.

End result was a great day, meeting lots of new people, and learning a lot from the group. Well, that and a sunburnt head :) The only disadvantage with these types of strobist meetups is that there are so many people who want to learn this stuff that the setups are more done by committee in a way, and there's not a lot of one-on-one work with just you and the gear and playing around. Could also be that I was just too scared to start messing with things with 3 other guys waiting to take pictures and a model who is sitting there all made up and waiting :)

Hardware wise there were a couple of things that were a bit off for me. The K20D has a max sync speed of 180th (vs the 250th that the newer Nikons have) which meant that when things were set up and people figured out the right settings, I had to adjust things to compensate. Also even when I did my exposure settings seemed way different than everyone elses, not even just moving an f-stop or two to compensate for the 180 vs 250, but some completely different stuff. Though time alone with equipment might show that it was more me than the Pentax gear that had the problem.

The last thing was this again cemented my desire for a 70-200/2.8 equivelant portrait lens like the big boys have. The DA* 50-135/2.8 would be perfect for those long shots with shallow depth of field. The 16-45 I use most of the time gives the wrong perspective if it's used in anything but the most zoomed position (67mm equiv) and the 70-300 I have is a) slow and b) too zoomy a lot of the time (150mm equiv at the most un-zoomiest).

The Vancouver Strobist Beginner's Meetup

Saturday I was out with a bunch of other fine folks from the Vancouver Strobist group for the "Beginner meetup". This was organized by Rod, who got us use of the Life Sciences building out at UBC (and the building itself is gorgeous BTW).


The format of the meet was fairly loose. There were a couple of "pros" (not pro photogs, just people who know stuff about off camera lighting) who helped out the 12 or 13 newbies. Rod (who put the whole thing together, many thanks to him for this) gave a quick and dirty demo and then we newbies went to it.

The previous meet up I went to was more about the picture taking than the lighting itself, this one was way more focused on the lighting aspect and the equipment hands on. The hardest part for me was figuring out what I wanted to do. There were more than enough flash units, pocket wizards, radio poppers, umbrellas and stands for everyone there, but if you don't know what to do with them... I've seen great portraits, and I've seen pictures that have moved me, but under the gun I couldn't think of a single thing to do! Luckily there were a bunch of other people around who did have ideas, and eventually everyone fed off of everyone else.

Folks split off into a few groups of 3 or 4 people, rotating between acting as models (as the plan was for this not to be about the models, but about the lighting) and tweaking lighting, and taking shots. The group I was in was working on doing a "single umbrella giving a round halo behind the model" shot, some cross lighting, and some other setup. Everything from umbrellas to gels were played with, and I learned that if you set white balance for tungsten, and use a CTO (Color Temperature Orange I believe) gel on a flash, you get a super-blue environment and a properly colored skintone (as the CTO gel counteracts the blue tinge you get from the white balance). Another group working down in the hallway created some very cool images such as this one.

The lighting setups we used were pretty simple I'm sure, and the results no doubt laughable for an experienced Strobist or Joe McNally type, but for me it was pretty exciting to actually get my hands on the gear. Sure you can read about how you move an umbrella closer to get a softer light, or how to use fill flash or a reflector, but I find that when I actually do it is when I really get it (at least a little).

You can check out the Vancouver Strobist group on Flickr, and here's the thread of impressions and sample images from others. Thanks again to Rod and Victor for setting it up and helping us out.

Looking forward to the next meetup! Check out some of my shots below (clickable to Flickr where there's more setup info).


Dan who was a model for me a bunch, done in black and white to keep with the contrasty lighting.


Music man (never got his name :( ) playing with cross lighting, using one flash and the sun setting behind him.


Dan again, more "normal" portrait, soft lighting.