I'm a Nikon shooter so naturally I know more about Nikon gear than Canon (or any other brands for that matter). But for what I'm about to explain, it's all relative to the brand you're using.

My speedlight kit is a few years old, but I recently had everything inspected and/or repaired by Authorized Photo Service (great service and prices, btw). I call it a kit because anyone can replicate what I'm using by purchasing similar equipment.

Ask any Nikon shooter and they will tell you how fortunate I am to have four SB-800 speedlights! They are EXTREMELY difficult to come by because most Nikon users (including myself) love their SB-800 flashes and have no need to part with them until they're ready to upgrade to the Nikon SB-910 (which has some great new features, too).

If you're wondering why I have four speedlights I'll tell you that I prefer to be ready for any given lighting situation and I like to have backup equipment in the event that something happens to my gear. I often used two speedlights in tandem so I need two backup flashes as well. Quick story: I purchased my last two SB-800 speedlights from someone on Craigslist. They were pretty beat up and certain features didn't work after a while, so I was a little disappointed (but I got a pretty good deal). So I sent them off for repair and now they're as good as new!!! And the cost to update/repair all four of my speedlights was less than the cost of a brand new one!

The basic speedlight flash kit consists of one speedlight, a lightstand, an umbrella or softbox to soften the light, and a set of radio triggers to fire the flash off the camera. I've been doing off-camera flash since I started in 2005, mostly because I like being able to put the flash where I want it instead of trying to bounce it off of something from the camera.

So what should you get if you're building a speedlight flash kit? That depends on the style that you want to create with flash. Since I do a lot of outdoor portraits on the beach, there aren't too many places where I can bounce my flash so off-camera was the way to go for me. In order to balance the sunlight I realized that it's best to use two flashes at the same time, side by side. The best part of carrying two flashes at all times is that you have the power if you need it, or you can just turn one of the units off if you don't need it. I found a $2 T-brace from home depot with pre-drilled holes and used a pair of 1/4" chair leg screw-in caps to fasten the speedlight to the brace via the cold shoe flash stand. The flashes should be as close to each other as possible to avoid any strange double flash shadows. I then put this on a lightstand using an umbrella bracket and the stud that comes with it (I attach the stud to the brace using a wingnut).

The next thing you need to consider is how you're going to trigger these speedlights if they're off camera. There are so many options out there, so to save time I'll just tell you what I prefer to use. For my remote controls, I use the RadioPopper PX system. These remotes allow me to use my flashes as intended by Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS) by relaying the infrared signal via radio. They were the first system of its kind, but since then the better-known brand Pocket Wizard came out with a similar system. The goal of each system is to allow you to sync past the usual shutter speed of 1/250 and continue using the speedlights in the manner they were meant to be used.

So in order to use the flashes as intended, I need a commander to send out the signals to the flashes from my camera. Nikon photographers can use the popup flash in the prosumer models, but I prefer to use the Nikon SU-800 Commander. It's cheaper than getting another flash and its sole purpose is to send the firing signal from the camera to the flash. The RadioPopper PX transmitter sits on top of my SU-800 Commander, picks up the relay signal via electromagnetic pulses, and transmits that signal to the RadioPopper PX receivers on my flashes via radio. And because I'm using Nikon's CLS I'm able to vary the power levels of my flashes from the camera rather than from the location of the flash. I can even "turn off" a flash from my position by turning the channel off from the SU-800 commander.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen Kinstler

The light meter has made life very good for today’s photographer. Many of today’s SLR cameras do a great job of giving us the best exposure based on what our eyes see. However, you can take your photography to the next level by really understanding the capabilities and limitations of these meters. The purpose of a light meter is to help guide the photographer to find a middle grey exposure – the point where your image will retain detail in both the shadows (blacks) and the highlights (whites). There are several kinds of light meters on the market today, the most common of which is the one in your camera (a reflective light meter). The other typical ones include the incident, flash, and spot meters and we’ll discuss these meters here.

The Reflective Light Meter

The reflective light meter is the one that most people use because it comes with just about every camera these days – both film and digital. When you point the camera at the scene, the meter reads the light that is reflecting off of the subject. The camera will then choose an exposure that renders the reflected light as middle grey. So what happens when you take a picture of a black cat on a sunny day? The meter in your camera sees black and turns it to middle grey. The same is true for a white cat under the same lighting conditions; the meter sees white and turns it to middle grey. The result is less than desirable – not only because the cat no longer looks like what our eyes see, but also because the camera settings are fooled. For example, with the black cat, the reflective meter says, “That’s too dark – I need a slower shutter speed and/or wider aperture so that I can see it better” – so you end up with a grey cat, a lot of camera shake from the slow shutter speed and/or a shallow depth of field from the wide aperture. Moreover, with the white cat, the reflective meter says, “That’s too bright – I need a faster shutter speed and/or smaller aperture so that I can see it better” – and you end up with a grey cat, an underexposed image from the faster shutter speed and/or lots of depth of field from the smaller aperture. Either way, you end up with a grey cat – which is not what our eyes see. The meter in your camera is fooled into thinking that the subject is too dark or too bright and makes the adjustments based on what it sees reflected by the subject rather than the amount of light that was actually on the subject.

The Incident Light Meter

The incident light meter is a hand-held device that photographers use to measure the light that is falling on the subject. Unlike the reflective light meter, this one is not influenced by how dark or bright the subject is; it just wants to know what the exposure should be by calculating middle grey from the ambient light (a.k.a., the “available light” or “incident light”). So if we go back to the cats, the light on the black cat is the same as the light on the white cat. So in order to get the desired exposure for middle grey, I use an incident light meter at the subject’s position to measure the light that is falling on the cats. I personally like to use an incident light meter because it’s a part of my workflow – I want consistent exposures that preserve details in both the black parts (shadow) and white parts (highlights) of my images.

We started the day at 9:00 AM with introductions and moved into a review of my gear and my style of photography. We covered some of the basics of photography such as ISO, Aperture, and Shutter Speed and how they relate to the different camera modes. We discussed exposure compensation and working in various lighting conditions such as harsh sunlight and using flash outdoors. Just before lunch we talked about posing and composition so that we could practice these things with the models after lunch.

Thanks to Er’Nest Liles of EyeMazing You Makeup, our models were retouched to look their best. For the models, I had two couples, a family, and a dancer for the participants to practice with. We split into four groups by teaming everyone up with similar camera models, which proved especially useful for members who needed to ask questions about their cameras to each other.

I walked around to each group of photographers and assisted them with tips and tricks to practice. I even pulled out my camera and took a few shots, which are posted below and on my Facebook page.

Once we were finished shooting around 4:00 PM, we went back to the classroom to discuss my workflow using the images I took with the models. By using the images I had just photographed, the participants were able to see how I rename them, import into Lightroom, adjust the settings, and fix any flaws with Photoshop. We finished the day at 7:00 PM after giving out some great door prizes.

I really enjoyed meeting and working with the other photographers and answering their questions. I hope to do some more workshops in the future, so please check the workshop page and like me on Facebook to stay tuned!

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You see, both ladies are professional dancers. Cara works in New York and Jaime works in Los Angeles. As it turns out, Jaime Goodwin (the one in the top left of the collage) was a season finalist on the hit TV show, “So You Think You Can Dance?” She’s landed numerous other TV dancing roles including episodes of “Glee” as a Trouble Tone. She’s very quiet about her rise to stardom and super nice! Of course, when I found all this out I was thrilled to be meeting such a star. During my star-struck conversation (I was asking all sorts of questions) she told me that she’s also playing in the upcoming movie “Rock of Ages” as one of Tom Cruise’s groupies!!! Say whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?! GO JAIME!!!

She’s also going to be starring in an upcoming reality TV show on the Oxygen Network about a group of dancers. She didn’t have a name for the show yet, but I’ll be on the lookout for it coming up later this year. I’m still so excited to have gotten to know Jaime and her family. It was fun hanging out with them as they got to view their portraits with me on my big screen in their living room. )

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen Kinstler

So this blog is dedicated to all of my customers – past, present, and future! I have enjoyed being a part of your lives and capturing the moments that you will cherish forever. Thank you!

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2011 Stephen Kinstler