The beauty of modern portable studio lighting (aside from actually being portable) is the speed with which you can create stunning lighting scenarios on location and on the fly. There’s a tremendous range of possibilities from really basic uses of flash to create just the right amount of fill lighting, to incredibly complex multi-flash scenarios. The consistent brilliance throughout the range of scenarios – in my thinking anyway – is the ability to adjust flash output remotely from either a master flash unit or flash enabled cameras. Nikon’s Creative Lighting System enables this ease of use to a higher degree (because of their wireless infrared integration into their flashes and enabled cameras), but you can accomplish the same results with a Canon system and using some kind of Pocket Wizard wireless trigger.

But lets stick to some of the cool technical aspects of actually shooting with off-camera flash.

Joe McNally is perhaps THE master of utilizing off camera flash and creatively crafting and shaping light for amazing results. If you want some inspiration, a quick search on the web and you will see phenomenal examples of his work.

There are all kinds of lighting set-up recipes you can track down on the web and as I mentioned this can be a simple single light scenario or involve multiple flash units. For a lot of portraits I find myself shooting with three flashes. One main “key” light, most often with a shoot through umbrella diffuser, one light on the background to give separation from the subject, and then a third “hair” light – typically high above and behind the subject shooting on an angle to give that hair shine and shoulder glow/separation. This is a fairly standard set up but the possibilities are endless.

When shooting wedding photography I have developed a super slick system that get tremendous results. I am fortunate enough to have a lighting assistant with me on most of my major shoots and so I can get a reflector or fill flash positioned where I want it very swiftly and can make instant adjustments. You can do the same thing when solo with the use of light stands and a reflector stand, it is just a bit more involved and clunky when making on the fly adjustments. What I have my lighting assistant do is angle off to the side of the bride or groom (or whomever) and he holds a flash mounted to shoot through umbrella all held on a lightweight aluminum grip. I then control the flash output wirelessly from the master flash on my camera. I have done many wedding photos in the bright sun that benefits so much from this kind of diffused fill flash.

You will find all kinds of scenarios for using off camera flash and creating images that have intense dramatic lighting, soft mellow even lighting, and everything in between.

Finally shooting with a flash is fun and creates gorgeous images.

Victoria Wedding Photographer | Dean Kalyan