Making Your On Camera Flash Look Like A Natural!

We've all seen it before. Flat looking images that spell bad photography. It's easy to take pictures when you've got tons of light around but what happens if you've got an event gig to shoot and all your working with is a couple of spot lights in a night club basement? The best solution? Get a flash on that camera! But how you use it will make or break the moment your trying to capture.

First of all let me tell you what flash is used for in my work as a photographer. Basically it's used to fill in what natural light can't. Period. Anything more will come off as unnatural and feel off. We've all seen those mom and pop images of super exposed group shots with hard shadows all over making your subjects look just plain nasty. You gotta know your technicals and get some quality gear if you wanna step up the plate. So where do you start and what do you need?

Here's a list of my gear for nightclub events and performances.

Canon 6D
28mm 1.8 Prime or 24-70 2.8 L
Canon 480 EXII
Gary Fong Lightsphere

And that's it...Really, you don't need much but the rest is in your settings. Adjusting shutter speed and aperture is the next step if getting great looking pictures.

So What's The Settings?

Aperture should be the first thing you set when testing your pictures. Start with a middle range of 5.6 just so that if you have any group shots to take, you'll have all your subjects in focus. Remember that the lower the number the more light will come in from your flash but too low and your gonna get some people out of focus. So that's where ISO comes in handy. Try not to go past 1600, since it can look rather harsh on your images mainly due to the strong light source.

As for flash settings, best to stay with ETTL. A night club or performance event can be so dynamic that you won't have time to constantly change your flash settings. It's difficult enough being on manual and playing around with your camera settings. Make it as simple as you can.

To me shutter is used for one thing only, and that's motion blur. In a night club with lots of small lights you can get really creative with light painting effects and really give your pictures some personality. To create cool motion blurs, set your aperture pretty wide like 2.8 and shutter speed at 1/4 second to 1 second and shoot. Then move the camera around a little and the camera will record your movement making cool light painting style effects. Not all of it will be gold but take a couple and adjust your settings as you go and your bound to find some really cool stuff.

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Diffusers are also a huge part of getting your flash photography to soften and look more natural. The Gary Fong light sphere is by far the most quality , easy to use and portable of the bunch that I've seen on the market. I've also used a Stofen box but in comparison the Gary Fong makes the flash light a lot softer. It may be a little on the big side but hey, people might think your professional right?

Why not let them.

So that's how I roll. Pretty simple and compact set up. The rest is knowing your gear and capturing the moment. So don't be afraid to show up and be bold. The best part of night club events is the party atmosphere. So have fun, let loose and make it show through your photographs.

KEEP SNAPPIN'!

Chris From Manikmati Photography