Shooting With One Light Or Flash

Shooting With One Light Or Flash

By William Lulow

Whenever there isn’t enough light present to make a picture, the flash on your camera will probably pop up so that you will have enough to make a “proper” exposure. Isn’t this great? If there isn’t enough light, light gets added automatically! What could be better? The problem comes with the kind of light these pop up flashes provide. This type of flash is called a “BUILT-IN” flash because it comes with your camera. If your unit is attached to your camera via its “hot shoe,”  it is called an “on-camera” flash. And, although it will usually light the scene in front of the camera, the light it makes is:

• Harsh
• Direct
• Specular
• Comes from camera position
• Doesn’t light the background
• Usually is not strong enough for specialized uses

What makes the light harsh?

1. It is aimed directly at your subject
2. It is of very short duration
3. It casts harsh shadows on every other part of the subject

What makes it direct?

1. It is coming from the camera position
2. It is not changeable
3. It produces a very flat type of light which simply lights the subject

 What makes it specular?

1. The flash on the camera is usually quite small compared to the subject
2. It acts as a “point” light source
3. It causes bad reflections on shiny objects and even on people’s face
4. It will cause “red eye” which is really the reflection of the retina in a person’s eye because the flash point is so close to the axis of the lens itself

Why doesn’t an “on camera” flash light the background?

1. Since it is attached to the camera, the strength of the flash will only go as far as the subject
2. Backgrounds will be black because the flash only measures lamp-to-subject distance
3. Even automatic flash units will only measure lamp-to-subject distance.

So, as your photographic expertise grows, you will want to do away with most on-camera flash situations in favor of using off-camera flash setups.

Most camera manufacturers make flash units that can be used off-camera. They can be connected to the camera with a special wire or wirelessly. There are specialized brackets which take the flash off the lens axis and elevate it to approximate a “Hollywood” type light. This eliminates red-eye and gives the subject a more overall light. It is still harsh in nature, but at least it is coming from a different direction. The thing to strive for is to have a flash unit that is attached to a light stand that you can move around to create different types of lightings and moods. One of the problems with these “speedlights” even if they are attached to light stands, is that they cannot be aimed down. They can be aimed directly at a subject and also aimed up at several angles including directly at the ceiling. So, they are limited in the kind of light they can provide. You would need to invest in more of a studio-type speedlight that can be aimed in almost any direction.

Here are a few models:

Then, there are still others that are a bit more professional quality like the Dynalite Baja units:

These are really good units that are also called “monolights” because they are battery-powered and require no wires or electric plug in. They can be set up in any position on a light stand. One that’s becoming a “high end” light these days is the Profoto monolight:

These are expensive, but easy to use and set up. There are less expensive versions of this light on the market as well. One produced in China called Godox, one made for Adorama Camera in NYC and Westcott makes one as well. I have looked at all of them and decided to replace my 30-year-old lights with the Westcott version seen below, even though my older units were working perfectly well.

This is one of Westcott’s smaller monolights, the FJ200, but they are reasonably priced (400w/s for about $600), so it is possible to obtain a few of them for the same price as ONE Profoto model. One of the best things about these lights is that they don’t require any cords. The batteries are fairly long-lasting and the whole unit is much lighter in weight.

Today, I use my ON-CAMERA flash in conjunction with my Westcott lights to shoot various events. My on-camera flash is a small Canon 430EX III-RT:

I modify this unit by adding a large BOUNCE CARD to it to diffuse the light and keep it as soft as possible:

So, once you have chosen which studio flash system or just plain hot lights you wish to use, you can then begin to position them as per the diagrams in these articles and experiment with the kinds of effects you get. That is basically how I began and through a lot of study and experimentation you can arrive at a number of different lighting setups that can be very creative.

Here is a beginning setup to test the new monolights. The studio set here is much cleaner than it used to be because these lights have no wires and there are no power packs that run them. Everything is built into the heads themselves.

Here is an example of what you can do with one light:

The light was placed to the right of the camera and I let the left side of the face go into shadow. This one light, however was bounced into my large, round umbrella which made it very soft and created a kind of “surround light” to the subject. (There was also a light placed low on the background to give it that gradient look of light to dark, bottom to top.)