In this Off Camera Flash Photography Tutorial for Beginners, we take flash photography outside with Godox flash and Sony cameras. This how to guide will help strobists master outdoor flash photography. Unlike using off camera flash indoors,when outside you are restricted by the environment. It’s important to look at the ambient light as one layer, and flash as an additional layer. So the best method is to get the ambient light just how you like, and then add in flash to personal taste.
My entire kit of gear : https://kit.co/robhallphoto Follow me on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2sj7Lsq
Gear Used in this video:
Godox AD600 Pro / Flashpoint Xplor 600 Pro TTL : http://bit.ly/RHX600P
R2 Pro Mark II : http://bit.ly/R2ProIIS
Cheetahstand Rolling Boom Stand : http://bit.ly/2ZywCIc
Glow EZ Lock Quick Octa : http://bit.ly/rhezocta
Flash Photography Tutorial
This series of videos is designed to help off-camera flash beginners quickly advance to lighting with purpose. First, this series assumes you have an understanding of the exposure triangle, and are capable of controlling your camera in Manual mode. While it’s possible to use flash with semi-automatic modes, I think it’s a requirement to understand lighting in manual mode if you want to take control of all aspects of your images. This series is broken down into short, easy-to-digest lessons that progress you from balancing a single light, to using multiple lights outdoors to drive home the story in your image.
– SERIES PLAYLIST LINK –
-SERIES VIDEO LIST-
Balancing Flash Exposure : https://youtu.be/JB3NhpZ5wa4
Balancing Flash Exposure Outdoors: You are Here
Light Modifier Selection: https://youtu.be/1MetpNeY6r8
Quality of Light: https://youtu.be/djjI0WWpJ4Q
Direction of Light: https://youtu.be/kfWyIl8vb0s
Using Quality and Direction to Control Light Patterns: https://youtu.be/zrd3MVRQofQ
Using Color Correction Gels: https://youtu.be/xiuECJ3-crc
Light Meter Basics : https://youtu.be/7I998hpvzoc
Balancing Multiple Lights: https://youtu.be/oXZC-qTdIlM
Matching Fluorescent Lights with color correction gels: https://youtu.be/aAH2DhlYNyU
Inverse Color effects with color correction gels: https://youtu.be/serU9DiBVBs
Bringing it All Together Outside: https://youtu.be/Hm8Nzh0ThsM
Using Light to Enhance Storytelling:
Selecting Flash Equipment:
Original source
49 responses to “Flash Photography Tutorial : How to Balance a Flash Outdoors”
A very good tutorial for balancing flash outdoors with regards to exposure. Though I'm curious about how you would set the white balance in a scenario like this? I note that it's an overcast day and generally, the colour temperature of flash is closer to sunny light conditions than overcast. So would you set the WB for the main subject (illuminated by the flash) or the background which is dominated by the overcast conditions? Or would you set the WB somewhere in between the two light sources to balance it out?
Nice work… Short. Sweet. To the point.
I've been doing landscape and natural light portrait photography for years. I finally got a flash trigger and the ad200pro for outdoor portrait/fashion photography. And these videos are a great help to learn a new skill set in the world of photography.
Thank you
Buy a sekonik light meter instead of hit and try with flash power
What’s the point of being outside if the background is nearly black lol ?
Thanks man…direct and simple…awesome!
Thanks a lot, i search googled for how to use flash without a light meter and found this is what i need 🙂
what gear do i need for this?
By adjusting your aperture you also affected your background sharpness. Not a problem if you’re going to totally black background, or you don’t care about a soft background. It’s better to use shutter speed to adjust ambient.
was looking for an hour how to set it up as i never used flash and came across many useless videos, then bam and i found this, all clear now 😀
Robert,
Great video finally I understand the concept, well done Sir.
Mike
Can’t you just adjust the shutter speed instead of changing both the Flash power and your aperture?
Sorry for the silly question … does it also work to change 1 stop of ISO for 1 of flash? is there an aesthetic difference beyond the question of depth of field and noise?
finally a great video on flash and not 90% talk about gear. Thanks!
Best video I’ve seen
Thanks just learned a lot from this
I think I fell in love with that light stand!
What about showing us a continuous lighting beauty shoot using the Godox sl60 and a beauty dish or octabox? Thoughts?
fuck sake does she need a shit
You videos are very good, there isnt too much waffle, they arent too long and they are easy to follow. Having just purchased my 1st flash head and light meter your vidoes have been a great help. Thanks.
Sorry, I love your work Rob, reviews and stuff is great, but here this video just makes little sense to me. I'm from Australia where we deal (more often than not) with extreme dynamic outdoor light days. Cloudless skies etc, harsh shadow lines. Here… in your video you've picked what looks like an over cast day to do some outdoor flash work, you can tell as you're talking to the camera, if you look at the model there is no real harsh shadow lighting coming from her at all, in fact the subject has some beautiful natural shadow lines falling on her face from the diffused sun already! Perfect natural light portrait daylight! Using flash here makes little sense and really is just ruining the shot.
You started off with the background already too dark, then further darkened it?!… at most with this kinda shot you want your flash to be more fill light than key… it just looked very.. 'unbalanced'.
I think you can do better and you know it.
Thank you for this video , I am a quite confused since I thought that ambient /background light was controlled by shutter speed while aperture was changing the flash lighting on the subject . Thx for your feedback on this .
Hey Robert thanks for the video… I just wanna ask your what's the best softbox for weeding photography. Please answer my question. Thank you so much
Thank you for this tutorial 🙂 excellent work
A good one.
Well done! Nicely uncomplicated finally someone who keeps it basic!
Thank you for the video. Just subscribed. It was straight forward and very clear. You didn't wasted your viewers attention with an endless irrelevant introduction like many youtubers. I really appreciate. Thank you.
Amazying… so great when we learn seeing the pratical thing
This is good but I would have liked a little more depth on why did you chose iso/and shutter speed. Otherwise is was straight forward.
Nice video
You're good, teaching skills and delivery was perfect.
I thought you'd darken the background by choosing a shorter shutterspeed. And flash power by the aperture
Can you keep the same process using a speedlight flash instead of the strobe ?
I found this very helpful and well explained .. Thank you for sharing .
This was well explained in such a short time vs other photographers. Can you do a part ii with HSS and contrast the difference?
Your video is really helpful. Can you please make video on indoor shoot with AD600 Pro.
Robert if you wanted to darken your background why not increase your speed instead of closing your lens if you already are above your sync speed? Got me on that one…………In the studio I can see that but outside. . . . . ????
Had to click the bell again, somehow wasn't getting the notification, weird.
Hold on a second there, Mister. I learned that shutter speed controlled the ambient background light.
Really nice videoooo! Thank youu
Look at those puppies.
Stunning model
Great vid, Rob. Concise, organized, informative, and super clear. Keep’em coming, sir!
Such a good video. Thanks!
Short and Informative Video. Thanks.. Greetings from Chowdry Photography, Bangalore, India!!
Hello there Robert, where can we find the R2 PRO trigger for Sony ? can't find it anywhere online. Cheers
sometimes practice gives you the light bulb where everything clicks, but Sometimes all you need is a video…thanks man you just helped me a ton lol
great video Rob & often this is the hardest thing to master shooting flash…
I thought that shutter speed controls ambient (background) brightness while aperture controls the flash exposure.