Archive 2012 · Good flash primer?

umihoshijima
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Good flash primer?

I'm still pretty new at photography, and am thinking about learning how to use an external flash. Can somebody point me to a good online primer about Canon flash lingo? It's even hard to know what to want from a flash until you understand some of the terms, it seems (I was looking into the Metz flashes, pricewise around a 36 or 44 but I want to know what I'm getting out of spending more on a flash).

Jan 01, 2012 at 07:33 PM

M635_Guy
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Good flash primer?

I'd get to know the Strobist site and check out there Lighting 101 links

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Jan 01, 2012 at 08:27 PM

Rusty-Tripod
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Good flash primer?

Syl Arena's book Speedliter's Handbook covers both Nikon and Canon. Very helpful. Neil Van Niewerk has one out on Off Camera Flash. I have not read it, but his book On Camera Flash was insightful and helfpul.

Jan 02, 2012 at 09:01 AM

dwerther
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Good flash primer?

http://photo.nova.org/CanonPracticalUsage/

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/3-dragging-the-shutter/

http://super.nova.org/DPR/

That ought to keep you busy.

Jan 02, 2012 at 09:29 AM

abam
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Good flash primer?

a second on the strobist site, no matter what brand you shoot with. there's a wealth of information there, and it's all free as air. (air is still free at the time of this writing.) additionally, there's a strobist group on flickr which is dedicated to exchanging technique information and discussing the strobist blog.

two things to mention about strobist.blogspot.com, though:
--david hobby (producer of strobist) comes at flash solutions from a manual-flash perspective.
--he shoots nikon, so when he does talk about automatic settings, it tends to be nikon-centric.

cheers

Jan 02, 2012 at 09:36 AM

dehrk
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Good flash primer?

dwerther wrote:
http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

+1. His book is also quite good.

Jan 03, 2012 at 04:47 PM

jturn00
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Good flash primer?

dwerther wrote:
http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/3-dragging-the-shutter/

+1 on Neil van Niekerk's site and books.

I really like Neil van Niekerk's site and books. Many sources of flash quickly go into off-camera flash/ umbrellas/ multiple flash setups and other more complicated things. While he also covers those more complicated subjects, I found Neil's site great for the beginner since as a wedding photographer, many of his techniques are the quick on camera flash techniques to get the shot with out setting up a complicated lighting setup.

Let me tell you, this technique helped me get some great shots of my twins who are constantly in motion.

Jan 06, 2012 at 09:20 AM

GroovyGeek
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Good flash primer?

Yup, Mr. van Niekerk's tutorial is the only thing an occasional user needs. Strobist is what the doctor ordered if you want to light up an elephant with 10 bulbs firing 0.1s apart without giving the elephant redeye.

Jan 07, 2012 at 09:12 PM


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