13 Sep 2009 A fresh start of flash photography
When I first started to learn about photography long time ago, my impression of using flash is just for the night time. The most advanced technique I learn then is fill flash for backlit portrait. Of course, it is just some trial and error way of reducing the flash power by choosing a smaller than normal (as the distance of my subject in completely dark situation) aperture value. The flash result for night time is also horrible and I have not learned the importance of off camera flash and bounce flash.
With the advanced in flash technology and inspiration from Joe Mcnally’s books, I am starting to learn flash photography for outdoor application again. The first thing I like to mention here is to color of flash light. A tip I have learned from Joe’s book is the use of green flash light with florescence white balance for sunset portait. The result look something like the following self portrait:
It is the purple skylight effect that make me very interested in the use of flash for outdoor. For there, I learn that I need to have some way to soften my light and change the color of the flash light. The following is some DIY things for my SB400:
