Harsh, unflattering lighting can ruin a photo—and with flash, it's easy to get harsh, unflattering lighting. But flash is a necessary part of a photographer's toolset—after all, the world doesn't always provide you with the best natural light.Fortunately, it isn't difficult to get great results from flash, and in this course, photographer, author, and teacher Ben Long details the concepts and techniques behind effective lighting with flash. Ben starts with fundamentals that build on exposure principles taught in other installments of Foundations of Photography—simple techniques that improve the results from a camera's built-in flash. He then focuses on fill flash techniques and on using flash as a key light.
The course also explores topics ranging from bouncing and syncing flash to shooting with one or more off-camera flash units. Hi, I'm Ben Long and welcome to Foundations of Photography: Flash.
As you may have already discovered, it can be difficult to get good flash shots. But, as you'll see in this course, getting good results with flash doesn't have to be hard. With just a few key ideas, you'll be able to dramatically improve the quality of your flash photos. We're going to start this course by introducing some simple fundamentals. We'll build these fundamentals on top of the exposure theory that you should already know. So, if you're comfortable with shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, then you have the conceptual building blocks for learning to use your flash well.From the fundamentals, we'll move on to fill flash, the type of flash that you'll probably use most often, and that you will typically use in daylight, or other bright lighting situations.
After fill light, we'll take a look at using flash as your main light source, or key light, and that will take us into a range of topics. From flash zoom and white balance, to bouncing flash, diffusers, slow sync flash, manual flash and unicycling. All right, you're not actually going to learn to unicycle, but we will figure out some cool flash shots of someone who is unicycling.As you'll see, the best flash shots often happen when you get the flash away from the camera. So, we'll take a look at off camera flash before we dive into the use of multiple flashes to create more effective flash lighting. Flash is a critical tool for many shots. To get started, we're going to explore some of the particulars of how your flash actually works.
So, grab your camera and keep watching as we delve into the Foundations of Photography: Flash.
Nowadays, it seems like everyone is a photographer, carrying a 10 MP (or more) camera in their pockets wherever they go. But as handy as our phone cameras are, they still can’t replicate the capabilities of digital SLRs. Of course, in order to take advantage of those capabilities, you have to understand the fundamentals of photography and familiarize yourself with the specific features of your camera.
If you need some help in either of those areas, Ben Long’s Lynda.com course, is the perfect resource.Here’s the official course description:Arriving at the best exposure for a photo is part science and part art. In Foundations of Photography: Exposure, Ben Long helps photographers expand their artistic options by giving them a deep understanding of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and all other critical exposure practices. This course covers the basic exposure controls provided by all digital SLR cameras, as well as most advanced point-and-shoot models. Learn how to master a camera’s metering modes, how to use exposure compensation and bracketing, and much more. By the end of the course, you’ll know how to develop an “exposure strategy” that will allow you to effectively employ your exposure knowledge in any shooting situation.
Topics include:. What is exposure?. Exploring camera modes. Light metering. Shooting sharp images. Controlling shutter speed.
Understanding f-stops. Controlling motion. Working with a shallow depth of field. Measuring aperture. Shooting in low light conditions. Performing manual light balance. Working with the histogram.
Exposure Photography
Using fill flash. Understanding reciprocityIn the free movie below, Ben starts at the beginning by covering the basics of exposure. Check it out!
Lynda Photography
What is exposure?For Lynda.com members, if you are currently signed in to your account, you can also check out these videos from the series.Not a Lynda.com member?The ShutterModesDepth of fieldCategories:, Tags.