(this is part 2 of my “buying your first flash” post) In my previous post, I suggested buying the following equipment: Godox TT685 speedlight Godox XPro radio trigger Godox 60x060cm softbox kit with S-type bracket Godox 260T lighting stand or similar In this post I’ll discuss setting up each one so that you can get …
If you’ve always described yourself as a “natural light photographer” plunging into the world of artificial lighting can be very confusing. What gear should you buy? This guide will attempt to answer that question. I’d like to think it’s reasonably objective about what’s good and affordable but of course it’s influenced by my biases. As …
Lighting stands are usually the simplest part of a lighting setup. They’re not asked to do much except deal with the consequences of gravity. You could say they play a supporting role (ha!). Most people will buy a stand based on price. If you’re more discerning you might worry about how tall it is or …
I don’t shoot enough outdoor portraits but I love the challenge when I do. It’s over a year since I did this shoot but given that it’s Star Wars Day today (May the 4th… be with you) it seemed appropriate to post it and discuss how it was created. While visiting friends in NSW, I …
I was in Sydney over Xmas 2017, catching up with family and various friends. As per my usual habit, I took way too much camera/lighting gear so I decided to make use of it so I could pretend I had justification for carting it all up there. After shooting some cool photos of Lucy being …
Late in 2013 at The Melbourne Camera Club I did a session on lighting backdrops. The final images are not particularly exciting (I was lighting a mannequin head) but you may find the technique and outcome to be weird and interesting. One of these photos was shot using a white paper background and the other …
In terms of gear, there aren’t a lot of new ideas in photography. Sure, certain gadgets or techniques may go in and out of fashion but it’s rare to find a piece of gear that does something radically different to light. This can mostly be blamed on the physics of light being a reliably constant …
It’s common to see photographers using an on-camera speedlight when wandering around shooting at some kind of indoor function, whether it be a wedding reception or a funky nightclub. For best results in these environments, you first need a basic understanding of flash lighting and how it differs from shooting with just continuous light. I …
While my main interest is photographing people, a nuttier passion I have is photographing fireworks. It started out as just another photographic challenge but these days it’s turned into a slightly strange obsession of mine. Generally speaking, if you know how to use a camera then fireworks photography isn’t particularly difficult to do. You don’t …
Earlier this year I picked up a Godox s-type bracket softbox kit and it impressed the hell out of me in terms of design and value for money. A friend then bought a Godox AD600 flash unit and when I saw what it could do, that impressed me too. Then I bought some of their …
