All posts by Passy

How to use Adobe Premiere for Videos

July 10, 2015 Passy Leave a comment

WARNING: This article contains quite a few embedded how to videos, and may take a while to load in.

Recently we built a powerful Windows computer for Video Rendering, and learned how to use Adobe Premiere to combine a series of DSLR Camera video clips into a short movie.

You can watch two of our finished products here:

and

Takin' Cover Band – Live Covers from Paul Passy on Vimeo.

If the videos are loading too slowly, they are also uploaded to our Vimeo Channel at the following links:

Takin Cover Video on Vimeo

Appetite for Destruction Video on Vimeo

These were the first two videos we ever made using Adobe Premiere. Since then we have made several more videos which you can view on our Portfolio page at the following link:

Photos by Passy Videos Portfolio

The Takin Cover Video is also available on YouTube:

The filming for the Takin Cover Video was done completely hand held, and some up and down wobbling is visible in places.

For wide angle shots it is far better to do this type of filming with a Monopod, like was done for the Appetite for Destruction Video.

However close up shots really need to be done hand held, but I am investigating getting some kind of gimble rig to do this in the future. For now it is hand held for all close ups.

For the Monopod setup I had to make my own safety strap for the camera that was long enough to raise up the Monopod, but short enough so the camera would not hit the ground if dropped! Customising a standard sling strap did the trick.

Obviously a $3000 powered zoom lens would help too, but we just do not have that sort of money around at the moment.

Getting a proper Video DSLR setup (eg. Sony A7s II when it comes out, with a power zoom lens) is possibly further down the track in one or two years time. (Estimated Cost: $6000 to $7000 !) For now it is a matter of developing solid skills with our current equipment.

How to Use Adobe Premiere CC Document

Rather than write a very lengthy post here, we have written all about how to use Adobe Premiere Pro CC in a PDF document which can be downloaded at the following link:

Adobe Premiere How To Guide by PBP

In the document there is a step by step journal of how we learned Adobe Premiere and made a Live Music Video.

There are also links in the document to many YouTube videos and useful tutorials that we found on the Internet.

Getting Started in Premiere CC

Probably the most useful video for getting started in Adobe Premiere, for complete beginners, was this one by Gary Fong:

The following video shows how to use the effect controls panel to modify Video transitions:

For Audio transitions, watch this video:

Creating Black and White Video

For Colour Correction of Clips, including making clips Black and White or Sepia, watch these videos:

and

High Contrast Black and White

The standard B&W conversions in Adobe Premiere using Desaturation or B&W effects can sometimes produce very ordinary grey looking videos.

HOWEVER

Hidden away in Effects: Video > Channels > Calculations

is a two layer blending technique where we can set one up as say green, and the other as red (blue is very noisy), and then on this same panel set up the blending mode as
Multiply, or Hard Light, or Color Burn and we get great high contrast B&W effects.

This following YouTube “How To” video shows how to do this:

Here is a short video we made trying out these techniques.

Our objective was to make a grungey black and white video in bad lighting conditions and test out the Sony A57 DSLR for run and gun video. The final result is a bit “rough and ready” but we think it captures the essence of live rock in a small venue.

This video had focusing issues, and the lighting in the venue was awful, but we believe we could use these Premiere techniques to make some better quality High Contrast Black and White clips in the future.

Creating Selective Colouring

For Selective Colouring (also known as Pleasantville and Sin City Movie Effect), watch these videos:

and

Speeding Up and Slowing Down Video Clips

Sometimes we have scenes like walking along a street, or riding a bike along the road, a crowd filling up a venue, a band setting up the stage, etc where having the footage play at normal speed will be a bit long and boring in a Video we are making.
What people usually do is make this footage run in high speed, almost like a time lapse sequence.
Speeding up a Video like this using Adobe Premiere is very easy.

We may also have some footage that we want to make into slow motion, by decreasing the speed, and we can use the same tools in Adobe Premiere to do this as well.

Here is the first video we ever made trying out these effects:

There are two ways of changing the speed of clips in Premiere.

The following Tutorial video shows both ways, and in both of them click on your clip to have it selected.

To Summarise:

First Method is Window > Tools > then in the pop up tools use the 5th one down: “Rate Stretch Tool” or press the letter “X”
Then on timeline shorten back the clip and it does not lose any footage but just speeds it up to fill the shorter length.
Stretch the clip if you want to make slow mo.

Second Method is click onto the clip to have it active and then right click on the clip and pick “Speed/Duration”
or up on the top menu click “Clip” and then Speed/Duration
If you make speed in pop up box 200% it plays twice as fast, 50% makes half speed, 400% = 4X faster etc.

For our Bike Riding Video we found that the ultra fast speed for boring riding segments to use is 800% (or 8x normal speed).

For the slower section near the boats we used 200%, but as it is a long segment riding past all the boats, maybe we should have used 400%.

The Right Click Speed/Duration % method for speeding up video in Premiere seems to work really well.
We have not investigated “Speed Ramping”, because if you have a clip that is going faster, and then the next clip is normal speed, Premiere seemed to automatically do the gradient slowing down okay.

If you want to do very smooth fast then sudden slow motion, then try out “Speed Ramping” with Keyframes, as in this Tutorial:

Watermarking Your Video

For making a Watermark on your video, from a transparent PNG file that you have made previously, watch this video:

Multi-Camera Shoots

Using one Camera on a Monopod to do the wide angle view and capture the main soundtrack (eg. A Sony A77 with ECM-ALST1 stereo microphone), and then having other people operating basic handheld fully automatic cameras (like the Sony RX100 or the Lumix LX100), enables much more sophisticated Videos to be produced in Adobe Premiere.

This was the approach we used for making our “Appetite for Destruction” Guns and Roses show band Video Montage.

The following YouTube video has good suggestions about doing multi-camera shooting:

This is an example of a finished product, which shows to change the cuts on either a beat, or the end of a phrase or verse:

This is another good music video shooting type video how to tutorial:

Synchronizing Multi-Camera Clips

For our multi-camera “Appetite for Destruction” Video we used a wide angle camera and a close up camera.

Basically the wide angle shot was laid down as Video/Audio 1, and then the close up shots were pre-trimmed and laid down as Video/Audio 2.

Then comes the challenge of getting all the pairs of clips in sync, one at a time, using Premiere’s audio track matching function.

Unfortunately, on our main wide angle video, and the close ups videos, Premiere’s automated matching on Audio track wave forms only worked about 50% of the time.

When it did work it was pure magic, but when it did not work it was very long and tedious getting the close up cut in video manually shifted along the timeline to sync up with the main wide angle video.

Once the two clips are synched, we then unlinked the audio on the Video 2 cut in clip, and muted it in Premiere. We successfully rendered the final video without removing the muted clips at all. We also found for Audio transitions that using keyframes and our own custom fade in and outs was extremely useful.

It ended up taking about 12 hours of work, from camera unloads all the way to final uploaded web video. With experience this time could be reduced, but we reckon it would take at best 8 hours to make a 10 minute video featuring between 3 and 4 songs. Therefore Video is far more costly to produce in terms of labour time compared to a set of around 50 still images.

The following six minute YouTube video shows the basics of editing multiple Audio tracks in Premiere Pro CC:

Here is another video which also shows how to sync multicam clips:

This next video is rather long and is all about editing people dancing to Dance Beats:

This next video covers doing multicam editing for a music video.
The guy who did this video has quite a few other videos on YouTube that are worth watching.

Rendering Output for YouTube and Vimeo

And finally, to get to grips with all of the intricacies of Exporting Video to YouTube and Vimeo, this video is the one to watch:

So if you are interested in making movies with Adobe Premiere, using DSLR footage, then read our PDF document, and watch all the Tutorial Videos that are in it.

Enjoy,
Passy

If you found this article useful, then make sure you give our
“PBP Photos By Passy” Facebook Page a Like.

Photos By Passy Facebook Page

How To, Nature

How to use a Polariser

March 27, 2015 Passy 2 Comments

Polarising filters are great for fixing problems with bright light conditions.

Examples include taking photos in Forests, photos at the beach, as well as indoor photos, where bright sunlight is streaming through windows into the room.

In this lesson we focus on techniques that can be used to get much improved photographs in rain forests when the sun is shining.

We also cover using Polarising Filters for indoor photos, and a brief mention of Beach Photo applications.

Forest Photography

Let’s face it, most times we go hiking, it is nice if there is sunshine, although strictly speaking it is best to take forest photos of plants, streams, and waterfalls when it is overcast.

If we just put our camera into auto mode in the Forest, it struggles with exposure and color correctness.

This results in grey washed out photos, with foilage being a strange aqua green, rather than its natural colour.

On a sunny day hiking, we would normally wear sunglasses, which makes the sky a more intense blue, as well as making plants greener and improving contrast.

To get this same effect for our photos, and stop harsh sunlight from washing out our images, we can use a “Circular PL” polariser filter.

This simply screws onto the front of a DSLR Camera, and is also rotatable. Rotation of the filter adjusts the degree of polarisation or sunglasses effect.

It is best to use good quality Japanese made Hoya brand filters, and we find these filters work extremely well.

Note that a Polarising Filter works best when the sun is shining from your left or right hand sides.

If you use a Polariser Filter facing directly into the sun, or with your back to the sun, it will often have minimal to zero effect.

As well as a Polarising Filter, we have found that good results can be obtained by also setting our camera into “Sunset” mode.

One downside of using Sunset Mode is that people’s skin colour can become very orange in colour.

For the portrait on the left in the image above, sunset mode warmed up the skin tones, and made the pink top intense in colour. Overall this was a good effect.

However in the photo on the far right, the skin tones do not look good with the orange glow caused by Sunset mode.

The photo in the middle has sunset mode turned off, and the people look more natural. However the scenery in the background is grey with a strange aqua green hue in the ferns and tree leaves.

Polariser with Sunset Mode Examples

The following pictures show Auto Mode versus Sunset Mode with Polariser Filter.

We think you will agree that the right hand side Sunset Mode pictures look far better than the Auto Mode photos.

Using a Polariser Filter really makes the colours “pop” and look beautiful in the Forest.

Polarising and Indoor Photography

Natural light is the best medium for photos, as it is naturally diffused, and does not have the harshness produced by light from a Flash.

However, we get the same dramatic range in brightness as we do in the forest. Eg. Light near the windows will be washed out with white overexposure, and shadow areas will be dull and grainy.

Using a Polariser filter smoothes all of this out, with the added benefit that we can see scenery that is outside while looking through the windows.

One side effect of using a Polariser for Indoor Shots, is that we can get areas that are “light blue” in colour.

In the bedroom shot above, the blue looks okay. But the blue reflection on the dining room table is not so good, and probably should be photoshopped out.

Polarisers and Beach Photography

At the beach we wear sunglasses to cut down the glare from bright sunlight reflecting off the water and white sand.

Beach photos also benefit greatly when our camera “wears sunglasses” in the form of a Polariser Filter.

Like with Forest Photos, Polarised beach Photos will turn out with intense colour, and beautiful blues and greens and “see-through” water.

There is the downside of people’s skin colour tones being a bit orange and non-realistic, but this is a small price to pay compared to the overall beauty of the entire image.

We have not had a chance to try our Polariser Filter out at the beach yet, but when we do, we will update this lesson with some “Before” and “After” images to demonstrate how well it enhances sea scape images.

Polarising Filters Videos

Here are a couple of Videos which show how to use a Polariser Filter, and the improvements in color which can be achieved.

Like Us On Facebook

If you enjoy our Free Photography Lessons Photos By Passy, then you owe it to yourself to like our Facebook Page.

Click Here to Like our Facebook Page

If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

How To

Selective Coloring

January 25, 2015 Passy Leave a comment

For people interested in the Technical side of Photography, here is the latest of our “How To” articles which is all about How To Do Selective Coloring Using Photoshop.

In this article we show you how can make a color photo into Black and White, and then select colors from the Original Photo to show through into the picture.

At Photos By Passy, we love using Photoshop Selective Coloring for Car Photos.

Here are some “Before and After” Examples of Selective Coloring.

Selective Coloring Methods

There are two methods for doing Selective Coloring:

Method 1- Make a Duplicate Layer and Selectively Desaturate the Photo

Method 2- Make a Black and White Adjustment Layer and then Paint a Mask onto it.

We have found that the second method is the much better way of doing this.

The following six minute YouTube Video goes through the steps of doing Selective Coloring in Photoshop.

Summary of Selective Coloring

Basically we mask out a Black and White Version of our image, and then paint it to allow color to show through.

– Make a Black and White Adjustment layer and use the sliders to make it look nice

– Set the brushes panel to a soft round brush where pressure affects the opacity

– Set the foreground color square to black and background color as white

– Paint with this black brush on the B&W mask layer to reveal color

– Because it is a “Pressure Brush”, with a mouse the more you stop and go back over it, the more color shows through

– If you make a mistake, simply change the brush foreground color to white, and paint back over the problem area to fill in the mask hole and put it back to B&W

Adding a Vignette

As well as Color Selection on our car pictures we also added an Oval Darkening “Vignette” around the outside to finish off.

This is very easy in Photoshop and simply involves being on the layer witth the original picture (not the B&W mask) and doing:

Filter > Lens Correction and then pick the “Custom” tab and use the Vignette Sliders.

The following video shows how to do this, as well as another method involing the Oval Marquee tool and Inverse Selecting.

(Note that the Filter > Lens Correction Method is shown in the second half of the video)

Selective Colouring Photo Album

Our Photoshop Students at the High School Day Job have done some very creative work with Selective Colouring using images from Google Images.

Use the link below to view a Photo Album of their work.
Some of them used Selective De-Coloring to make existing highlights stronger, and others used pattern based selective coloring.

(I actually learned some new ideas about Selective Colouring by watching what they were doing. Together we all do better!)

Click Here to View Photo Album

That’s it for this Photoshop Tutorial.

Use your own photos, or find some in Google Images, and play around with Selective Coloring in Photoshop.

Like Us On Facebook

If you enjoy like Photos By Passy, then you owe it to yourself to like our Facebook Page.

Click Here to Like our Facebook Page

If you enjoy visiting Photos By Passy, why not get a free subscription to the website.

You can then receive notifications of new items and updates directly to your email address.

Go to the subscribe area on the left hand sidebar, (or down the bottom of the page if using a mobile phone), fill in your email address and then click the “Subscribe” button.

Enjoy,
Passy

How To

DIY Photography Course

December 2, 2014 Passy Leave a comment

Welcome to our Free Online Digital Photography Course!

Music and Photography are my passions.

Teaching Mathematics, Photography, MultiMedia, and ICT is my “Day Job”, but I manage to get out and about most weekends working as a Photographer.

Modern Digital Photography actually involves quite a bit of behind the scenes Mathematics.

An understanding of this Mathematics can definitely make you a better Photographer, even if it just means you know the best Viewpoints, Angles, and Geometric Composition to use when taking pictures with a Mobile Phone.

I have found that understanding the Mathematics of a DSLR Camera really helps me do fast effective problem solving on Photoshoots.

But don’t let a bit of simple mathematics put you off doing Digital Photography. There are lots of proactical examples and explanations to get you through.

Digital Cameras have preset Auto Modes which work well in about 80% of situations, but there are other times when a Camera needs to be put into full Manual Mode and some Mathematical Problem Solving invoked.

Here at Photos By Passy we have produced a comprehensive series of articles on Digital Photography, including plenty of real life examples as well as selected Videos which can be viewed.

We recommend working through these articles in the order in which they appear in the Overview Below.

The eight Digital Photography articles are as follows:

– Photo Composition Rules

– Digital Camera Settings

– ISO Light Sensitivity

– Aperture Settings

– Shutter Speed Settings

– White Balance Settings

– Combining Settings for Correct Exposure

– Flash Photograpy and Diffusers

Contained below is an outline of each article followed by a clickable link to the full article.

It is important to work through the articles in the order they are given here.

Like great Works of Art, the elements in a Photograph need to be arranged in a manner which is interesting and pleasing to the eye.

In addition, Photography is a two dimensional medium. Therefore we need to make use of the elements which are present in the photo to create a sense of depth and three dimensions.

Photos also need a main focal point, as well as leading our eyes on a journey through the picture.

Having these things makes for great photos, which are pleasing to the eye, and we call this “Composition”.

There are a Number of Composition Rules involving Percentage, Geometry, Symmetry, a Grid of Thirds, and even the “Golden Ratio” and its spiral.

To find out about these rules and their Mathematics, click the link below:

Photo Composition Rules

Most people use their camera on “Auto” mode, and get plenty of good pictures.

However, there are many items on a camera which can be adjusted manually to get even better pictures!

In this “How To” article we introduce several of these camera settings, and show how they can be used to create quality photos.

An overview of the three main Variables: “ISO Light Sensitivity”, “Aperture”, and “Shutter Speed” is provided.

This provides the preliminary background to more detailed articles on each of these three key items.

It is therefore vitally important to read this article before proceeding forward to the specific detailed articles.

To read the Introductory Article about Camera Settings, click the link below.

Digital Camera Settings

ISO sets a Camera’s sensitivity to light

Effectively it works like a Brightness Control on your camera, and you can turn it up higher if you are in a dark room, or in a shady forest.

If you are in Bright Sunlight, then you need to turn the ISO down to a low value or else your photo will come out all white and washed out with too much brightness.

Camera ISO is one of the three key Variables of Photography, the other two being Aperture and Shutter Speed.

Every photographer needs to understand ISO in order to get bright and clear pictures from their equipment.

The ISO sequence is: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400 and etc. For every step up in this scale, the brightness of your picture doubles.

To get the full story on ISO and how to set it correctly on Digital Cameras for a variety of lighting conditions, click the link below.

How to Do ISO

Aperture is one of the key variables in Digital Photography. The other two are ISO Light Sensitivity and Shutter Speed.

An understanding of Aperture is critically important to isolate subjects in portraits and get full detail in Landscape pictures.

The Aperture Scale consists of a seemingly odd set of decimal and whole numbers, and getting your head around these values is not at all easy for Beginner Photographers.

In this article we examine Aperture in detail, and mathematically explain where the Aperture “f-numbers” come from.

Click the following link to read the full article.

How To Do Aperture

Shutter Speed is mainly used for creating dramatic effects by either freezing action or blurring motion.

The Speed is expressed in a fraction of a second, and is how long we let light in through the camera lens to the sensor.

Think of the Shutter as like opening and closing a set of venetian blinds quickly to let a burst of light into a darkened room.

Shutter Speed, (also called “Exposure Time”), becomes critically important in situations outside of the norm, such as the following:

1) Fast Moving Sports Action

2) Dimly lit indoor areas such as Bars and Clubs

3) Night Time Photography

4) Theatre and Musical Performances

5) Indoor Photos using Flash

6) Indoors Photos where we do not use Flash

7) Photos where we want motion blur for fast moving objects

8) Bird and Wildlife Photography

9) Photographing Young Children and Animals

In this article we will show you what Shutter Speed is, what the speed numbers mean, and how to set shutter speeds to values which should produce great photos.

Click the following link to read our article on Shutter Speed.

How To Do Shutter Speed

Different light sources produce light with slightly different colour tints, but our eyes do a great job correcting these variations.

Humans do not see a shift in colour as we move from a sunny garden into a shaded area, or go into a room and turn a light on.

Generally wherever we are, a piece of plain white paper always looks white.

However Digital Cameras DO detect light source differences, and sometimes create pictures with incorrect looking colours in them.

We need to know how to perform “white balance” adjustments, so that we can obtain pictures with realistic colours in them.

White Balance involves the Primary Colours of the Spectrum forming a Kelvin Temperature Scale from “cool” blue/violet through to warm “red” candle light.

What we have is a Mathematical Scale of color, and White Balance blends various colours together so that a white sheet of paper will look white, no matter what coloured lighting we are in.

You can read the full article on White Balance at the following link:

How To Do White Balance

In this article we look at Combining Variables for Correct “Exposure”.

We tie together the three key Digital Camera Variables: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture, and discuss how to set these up to get good exposures in Camera Manual Mode.

When these three variables are optimised and unified together, we get a nice clear picture with great contrast and highlights. We say that the photo is correctly “Exposed”.

You can read the full article on Getting Correct Exposure Using Key Variables at the following link:

Combining Variables for Correct Exposure

In this article we discuss Flash Photography and how to use Light Diffusers to make Flash Photos look so much better.

Diffusers come in all types of Geometric Shapes and Sizes and create softened light which is more like Daylight.

The Intensity of Light from a point source like an on camera Flash follows an Inverse Square Law with the Distance the Flash is from the subject.

This is very important to have an intuitive idea about Inverse Square Law when changing the Power on a Flash, or when we move further away from the subject being photographed.

The full article about Flash and Diffusers can be read at the following link:

Flash Photograpy and Diffusers

Working through this series of articles will definitely make you a better photographer.

Keep in mind that I spent a couple of years working with Digital Photography to reach this level of understanding to a point where I could write about it to share my knowledge with others.

So if you are a complete beginner and feel a bit overwhelmed, then that is okay, these things just take practice and time.

It is best to work through all of our eight articles a bit at a time, try things out, and then come back to the articles to pick up a bit more of the finer detail.

The Maths is helpful, but the main thing about being a Photographer is to get out there taking lots of pictures!

Life is short and there can never be too many photos of its little magic moments!

Enjoy,
Passy

How To

How to Do Flash

November 29, 2014 Passy Leave a comment

In this article we discuss Flash Photography and how the use of Light Diffusers can make Flash Photos so much better.

Diffusers come in all types of Geometric Shapes and Sizes and create softened light which is more like Daylight

Most Digital and Pocket Cameras come with a built in electronic flash which provides an intensely bright light source so that photos can be taken indoors.

These flashes do a basic job, but often they light up too much of the scene and remove the natural ambience of the setting.

The band in the above photo are “Two Phase The Duo” who are a great Covers Band who play venues, parties, and functions.

For more information about this band check out their Facebook page at the following link:

Two Phase The Duo Facebook Page

Here are some Photos of the Two Phase Duo taken using a mountable camera flash with a light softening Diffuser attached.

Light Softening Flash Diffusers

Diffusers are various semi transparent plastic devices attach over the face of an electronic flash and soften the light on the people in the photo.

The Diffuser which is our favorite is the Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser, which was specially designed by Gary for use with the Sony A77 Digital camera.

One of its best features is that it is completely flat and can fit in a suit coat pocket, or the leg pocket on a pair of cargo pants.

It looks like a cheese grater and has elevated circular “bumps” on it (hemispeheres), which turn the flash into a simulated set of soft white LED lights.

There are several other types of Diffuser: the “Puffer”, the “Stofen”, the “Light Sphere”, the “Soft Box” and various others.

If you are ever stuck for a Diffuser, you can always fold up some white paper and cardboard and tape it onto your flash. You then tilt the flash upwards at 90 degrees and use the white as a reflective “bounce card”. The light from the Flash bounces off the white cardboard and this bounced light illuminates the subject with soft white light.

The Puffer Diffuser

If you have a pop up flash on your Digital SLR Camera, a “Puffer” Diffuser can be mounted onto the front of the Flash to soften the harsh burst of flash light and create a nicer photo.

The only problem with Puffer Diffusers is that if you have a large zoom lens on your camera, and/or a Lens Shade Hood, there might be a round reflection shadow formed on the bottom of your photos.

This happens because the Flash pops up and is not high enough up in the air away from the lens.

The other problem with just using a “Puffer” on an onboard pop up flash is that we cannot adjust the power of the flash. The flash simply sends out a big burst of light which might actually be too bright for the scene being captured.

To overcome these problems of shadow and power most photographers invest in an attachable external flash for their digital camera.

Attachable External Flash

When we attach an external flash it is designed to be as far as possible above the camera lens. This produces light which shines downwards at the person a bit like real sunlight does.

Attachable units can also be rotated through various angles, (such as 45 and 90 degrees), so that light can be bounced onto the subjects from the walls or roof.

This produces much better looking photos than the pop up onboard flash.

Another great thing about attachable flash units is that they can have their power and angle of dispersion adjusted to better focus the light on the main subject matter, and not aimlessly light up the whole room.

Light Intensity Mathematics

When using a Flash you might think that if you double the distance between yourself and the subject, that the intensity of the light on your subject will halve.

This is not actually the case, the instensity will actually be 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4 of the original brightness.

This is known to anyone who has studied Physics as the “Inverse Square Law” and it also to both light and sound.

The “Inverse Square Law of Light Intensity” is not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

“Inverse” means that when we move further away, we only get a FRACTION of the light we used to have.

“Square” means that we do “Distance x Distance” to work out the bottom number in this 1/ fraction.

This makes things get very dark very quickly as we move the Flash further away from the subject.

The Inverse Law of Light Intensity Reduction from a Concentrated “Point Source” also applies to Projectors and Candles, (but not to fluorescents or light globes in rooms).

We do not need to make actual 1/d x 1/d calculations when doing Flash Photography, but we do need to be aware that illumination of subjects can decrease rapidly as we move ourselves further away from them.

Flash Power – Auto and TTL

Most attachable Flashes have three modes: Auto, TTL, and Manual.

TTL mode is supposed to make the Flash and Camera do all of the thinking for you; however I have found for my particular setup, I get better results controlling everything myself in Manual Mode.

“TTL” stands for “Through The Lens” and the flash fires off some preliminary flashes to work out what it thinks should be the correct exposure power for the final shot it takes.

Quite a few articles and Videos on the Internet have mentioned that TTL is great when it works, but is often inconsistent.

At the end of this article are several videos about TTL if you are interested in trying it out.

Flash Power – Manual Mode

Rather than using Automatic TTL mode on our external flash, we have found that the best results are obtained from our Sony A77 Camera by setting the Flash to Full Manual Mode.

We usually start off with the power around 1/16, and if this is too dark we increase it to 1/8.

For the angle of dispersion, we set it to a 50mm lens for Night Life People Pictures.

Shooting at ISO 1250, we find that this gives nice bright results, with the background containing ambient lighting rather than bright flash lighting.

We have also found that it is better to shoot photos slightly brighter than normal, rather than darker, as we can always tone down the brightness later in Photo Shop without losing crispness and detail.

For night time venues with plain Red, Green, Blue, coloured lighting, we have found that as long as the Band does not mind a bit of soft diffused flash, we can get clear pictures of them at a power of 1/16, but still maintain some ambience.

Let’s now look at a few of the common types of diffusers for DSLR external Flash Units.

Stofen Diffuser

The Stofen Diffuser is a semitransparent rectangular cap which goes on top of an attachable flash.

I started off originally with a cheap $50 Chinese Yongnuo Flash and a Stofen diffuser, shooting all of my pictures in Manual Mode like the one shown in the image below.

It did a reasonable job, and angled up at 45 degrees it produced better results than just using the plain manual flash, or a white bounce card.

Light Sphere Diffuser

The next Flash setup I tried was a proper compatible Sony Speedlite Flash, with a Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere Diffuser.

This produced cleaner and better results than the Stofen Diffuser, but was a bit bulky on top of the camera in crowded nightclub situations.

There is a video about this Diffuser in the videos section at the end of this article.

Blade Diffuser

The final Diffuser I have settled on as my permanent setup is the Gary Fong Lightblade Diffuser because it is flat and compact and gets great results.

There is a video about this Diffuser in the videos section at the end of this article.

Soft Box Diffuser

These type of diffusers are too large and bulky to carry around for night life photo shoots, but are used for studio photography.

They are also called “Pillow Boxes” because they have soft white translucent material like a pillow case, which is formed as part of a box containing a special photography light bulb.

Effectively they create soft daylight for doing Portrait Photos indoors.

Fill Flash

When we use a Flash in bright sunlight it can blast away shadows off people’s faces and also illuminate the person with correct exposure when the surrounding background is very light.

Even just using the camera’s normal onboard flash with the camera set to “Fill Flash” mode can achieve this, as in the Birthday Party photos shown below.

Typical Flash Set Up

For night life and party photos we use the following Flash setup for our Sony HVL-F43M Flash mounted on the Sony A77 DSLR camera.

We hope this article has enabled you to better understand Flash Photography using Diffusers, and there is lots of further information in the Videos which are embedded and lsited below.

Happy Snapping!

Videos About Flash Photography

First up we have a great 30 minute video with both Theory and Real World Examples of Flash Photography.

Here is a five minute video about the Flash I am currently using: The Sony HVL-F43M.

Here is a great video all about Diffusers from the excellent “Nightclub Photography TV” YouTube Channel.

Part 1

Here is Part 2 of the above video:

The following video is all about the Gary Fong Light Sphere Diffuser

This next video is also by Gary Fong and describes the excellent “Gamma Light Blade” Diffuser

This particular video is for the Sony Flash, but the “Light Blade” is also available for Canon and Nikon Speedlite Flash units.

The following video is an excellent six and a half minute video all about using “Fill Flash” for outdoor Portrait shots.

Here is a great twelve minute video all about using a Flash to do Outdoor Portaits.

This next sixteen minute video is all about using on camera flash, with an emphasis on Canon Camera Equipment.

This video is a one hour video about NOT using flash, but instead just using ambient light with light meters and reflector panels.

Videos About TTL

Here is quick two and a half minute video explaining what TTL Flash Mode is and how it works.

This next Video shows how to see the TTL Verify Light working on Canon, Nikon, and Sony Flashes.

This next Video discusses TTL Flash Mode versus Manual Mode.

The following video is a full one hour Webinar on TTL versus Manual for Flash Photography.

PBP – Photos By Passy

All posts by Passy

How to use Adobe Premiere for Videos

How to use a Polariser

Selective Coloring

DIY Photography Course

How to Do Flash

Music and Special Events Photography and Video