love the ikea batteries, the 2450 ones. For my every day carry flash and my triggers and before I got the V860's and the V1's. I used them in my flashes also. Cheap and good. Only thing, they lose about 1% of charge every day, so charge before the event if you want the full 100%. Also, the cheap charger from Ikea does not charge to a 100%, more like 80% for whatever reason. You can get it to 95 with the cheap charger by just charging again after the first go, or get a decent charger. Power enough for the godox triggerr, no bugs, no misses etc.
Hallelujah - at least there is another photographer out there who truly gets daylight balanced FF. Where I live and shoot in Perth, Western Australia, it is predominately blue skies and sunny all year round. Nearly all of my gigs and outside events are shot between 10am and 3pm - meaning I am shooting in harsh sunlight all the time. It can't be helped because these are the times that people are around on weekends and these are the hours that events are run in. I was tired of getting people with racoon eyes and just horrible harsh light. A few years back I worked out how to use daylight balanced HSS fill-flash for all of my shoots. I mostly use my Z 24-70 2.8s lens with my Godox V1 on board. I always shoot manual indoors and in the studio, because I can control everything. On my events people are in shade one second, dancing and jumping in bright sunlight the next - you don't have time to change anything at that rate. For this reason I always have to shoot TTL outdoors. I put my Z6ii on Aperture priority, usually shoot wide open, auto ISO and I underexpose the flash (the actual setting on the flash) by -1.75 stops. As John would say ".....it just works"! By underexposing the flash that much, it is never overpowering and you can never tell that flash was used. People comment on how lovely my images look in bright sunlight and when I'm on gigs and events I don't understand why none of the other photographers use flash - they must have missed the memo! Because I use a big diffuser on the flash and it is up close to the people, it softens the harsh light, takes the yucky shadows away and really makes the colours and skin tones stand out. It was for this reason alone I bailed from shooting Fuji for ten years and swapped over to Nikon. Like John's Sony - Nikon and the Godox V1 do fill-flash so well that it really takes the stress out of shooting in harsh lighting.
Thank you! I just had s shoot like this - 1 minute in shade, and the other in the bright sun. I ended up shooting just you are describing- TTL and underexposing flash (ILCE-1 with HVL-F60RM)
I love doing this same method but with the AD200 ring flash. I am usually using it as a fill on TTL -1 to -2 stops from ambient and you will never be able to tell unless you see the ring reflecting off the eyes.
Thank you for sharing info. I have this flash for almost 7 months but it is just in my drawer.. im aftaid to use it coz i thought i need a commander and that is so expensive. Its amazing that you manage to nail some beautiful shots with a flash on cam
Great content. I'm looking forward to diving in to the world of flash photography. Have only been using natural light. You say your photos are straright out of camera. Do you shoot in jpeg? RAW photos don't look so "finished". :)
Most of the images I put on RU-vid are preprocessed in Lightroom just by importing the raw file - so that does add a little something. I will also tweak exposure in some cases.
Thanks for posting. A convoluted question. You are a professional photographer who does most of his work in a controlled environment. Meaning, a model shows up at your studio, she will have make up on, choice of clothes, hair done, and whatever else a model needs to do prior to a shoot. As a photographer, you have lights (stands, shades, backgrounds, umbrellas, etc...) in your studio and will have a pretty good idea on how to set them up to accomplish the look the model wants. So what happens when you look at your watch and it is quitting time? You shut down your studio, you place the ingots of gold, from a hard day's work, and put them in the safe. You lock the door, maybe you bring one of your cameras along, maybe the SL2. You are walking to dinner, with your daughter next to you (probably because you offered to pay for the food, or maybe emotional blackmail - my favorite, or maybe Chinese food). Hang in there, I am approaching the finish line. As you are walking you see a great spot for a picture. You only have the SL2 with no flash. You asked your daughter to walk over and pose, she resists, but you remind her of the Chinese food and family guilt (if necessary). She complies. How do you deal with the lighting when many, if not most of your tools are not available? Or more plainly stated, how do I/us the regular hobbyists/amateurs/schmucks who are in Italy, France, Iraq, vacationing take well lit images without having access to your tools and/or services? In my experince after seeing pics of friends and my own pictures as well, many of the pictures are very poorly lit. Or so they seem. Figured you could use some light reading when you read this post in the morning. You are welcome.
Well first it would have to be one spectacular spot because I would be hungry…. Next, I do always carry my camera with me along with a speedlight and remote in my bag. So for me it would either be an on-camera flash or a hand held off camera flash - depending on the situation. I don’t have more than one camera and one lens in my cary bag but I always have some sort of speedlight with me.
Great video! I’m on-the-go frequently taking pictures of my toddler and wife, and I take a lot of vertical shots with my a7c ii. In your experience, is the 28 going to be ok for those vertical shots or should I really be using the 46 for that articulating head to aim upwards?
nice review. beautiful portraits. can you please explain how you set your camera (mode A or manual with speed lower than sync speed ? auto iso ?) and flash (ttl ? hss ?) for outdoor shoots with fill flash you are showing
When I’m testing flash/camera combos I usually go back and forth between full manual and aperture priority. So exact settings are not a priority to record for me. Every situation is different. But the positive side is this strobe works well in all modes.
Thank you for doing this video. In portrait orientation, can this flash be twisted up? Or would this generally be only for landscape orientation? Thank you.
I think it depends on the location and natural light you’re working with. I normally shoot in landscape but on occasion will go portrait and then play it by ear with the flash orientation
Have you set your metering exposure to ambient & flash? That would blend your exposures for one exposure instead of laying your ev and topping whatever the default flash power is in ambient only.
The only thing I’ve tried is the Sony Sony FA-WRC1M Wireless Radio Commander with the Sony FA-WRR1 Wireless Radio Receiver - with a third party flash. That works in manual mode.
Cause Sony allows you to shoot in Aperture priority with shatter speed set as “ISO AUTO Min. SS” at which the ISO sensitivity starts changing. This function is effective for shooting moving subjects. You can minimize subject blurring while also preventing camera shake.
Thank you! Just bought HVL-F28RM yesterday. I already have HVL-F60RM and was considering buying Sony commander. But it’s more expensive than HVL-F28RM, so I figured I’ll give it a shot to use smaller flash as a commander. Have you tried it?
I have. My only issue is that I am set on the smallest on camera transmitter I can get. (Which is why I still use the Profoto Connect as much as possible)
