PocketWizard had been noticeably quiet recently while the flash remote landscape continued to evolve with new technology. But today they re-set the bar in announcing their new flagship models, the Flex and Mini. Slide-n-Shoot Simplicity – PocketWizard Goes Beyond TTL
Professional photographers have depended on PocketWizard radio slaves for reliable triggering of their manual flashes for years.  But, with the onslaught of digital technology, photographers have been seeking a simpler solution for off-camera TTL flash.  The available products and solutions have been good, but not without limitations or complexity.  PocketWizard has made it possible with the Slide-n-Shoot simplicity of the new ControlTL™ system, featuring the MiniTT1™ Transmitter and FlexTT5™ Transceiver for Canon.  These new E-TTL II capable radio slaves make taking off-camera flash photos as effortless as slide-in, turn-on and shoot.  

So that’s the big news for now!

Head to toe – full sized window – incandescent lamp – all included in the frame!

Is this a lighting problem that would make your head spin, or cringe away and avoid another approach because you feel you don’t have the gear? Read on, you may be stopping before you start!

We’re not talking about that faux, broad light look created by softboxes, that often leaves deep shadows. We’re talking about REALLY soft light.

How do you get it in a hurry, with minimal gear?

Think outside your gear.

Respond to your environment.

Realize the potential of all the elements you have been given.

And then you’re free to relate to your subject for the most engaging expression.

Here’s how to simplify your lighting quest by understanding the MOTIVATION – of the light in an environment.  The lighting from the picture window is northlight – extremely soft.  So to match that, you need a very large light source.  The room.

What is the ‘working‘ light source?  We’ll call it the ‘hot zone’ and it’s anywhere light directly from your strobes open, naked, bare bulbed tube hit’s a wall.  The strobe is no-longer the light source – transfer your thinking away from that.  The light then bounces from the wall – onto your subject.  What this allows you is to control the ratios of light on your subject.  The ratio controls the shaping of your subject.

What’s wrong with this image?

Canon 1ds 135mm lens – F/4.0 – ISO 320 – 1/250 second

Listen to the shadows!

The motivation is wrong – if there’s a picture window behind the subject, the eye nearest the window should not have a shadow on it! The MOTIVATION of the light is not right!

in the image above I’ve thought in terms of ‘fill light’ and put my strobe to the subject’s front (in diagram above it would be the bottom wall of the room) to generically fill the window light.

In the correct pattern as shown in our lead image (illustrated here again to the right) – rolls the light around the subject from the side offering a nice open and soft shadow toward the couch’s front and to the left of the subject.

Do you see the difference?

This is the difference between photographic lighting – and motivated and inspired lighting.  A fine distinction, but one that once pointed out – your realize your eye was giving you some unnatural feedback about. The unnatural feedback is an unconscious barrier to acceptance and understanding of your image by the viewer – remove it and you give them a better gateway to experience.

Trust the instincts your natural eye leads with as it has been trained by years of interpretation of it’s natural surroundings.

Changing the position of the light in the room, changes the Hot Zones

The result is a change in the amount of light on each wall – the amount is the ratio of light that will illuminate your subject.  So you can change the ratio and shaping of your subject by moving your light through the room.

Shadowless shaping

The bare bulb technique is faster to learn than a softbox.

Produces more natural than owning a custom studio.

Do you see any shadows you can learn from? Not really, but the subject is still nicely contoured by a very gentle cheek and eye shading.

The catch is that you’ll need a bare bulb so your average shoe flash won’t do it – you’ll need a Quantum Q Flash, Sunpak 120J, Alien Bee, Monoblock, or ProPhoto head without reflector.

Any of the classic lighting styles can be softly mimicked with very little effort in the same room by moving the position of the single bare bulb:

• Short Lighting
• Loop Lighting
• Broad Light pattern
• Closed Loop Lighting
• Rembrandt light portraits
• Side lighting
• Butterfly – with or without lens flair
• Dietrich – Paramount Portrait lighting
• Backlight portait with hard light or soft
• Wraparound lighting
• Crossover lighting
• Profile lighitng
• Dramatic Overexposure

If you’re careful when you let a little direct from the bulb light spill onto your subject the list doubles.

I will cover these styles in future posts.

• Thinking Big: outside the music hall
• Lighting a HUGE space – for anything that may happen
• + Light Control: turn the sky from white to blue
• + Balancing the Sun with flash – Crosslighting

Equals how to cross light a mountain!

One of the repetitive questions I get from people are – why such a big flash – and why take it all over with you?

Quite frankly – this is EXACTLY why!

In my lighting case that I loaded onto the plane in Rochester New York was:

• 1 Alien Bee 800 Monoblock flash unit
• 1 Paul C. Buff Vagabond portable power unit and power cord
• 1 Black Impact Air Cusioned light stand height 230cm (model #SLS-LS8A)
• 1 Pocketwizard reciever
• Paul C Buff 11 inch parabolic reflector

Here’s one of the resulting peak moment shots that I try to reach for in my wedding photojournalism. The lighting case was loaded in the helicopter’s coffin gear carrier for the trip up the mountain and across the island. But a large mono-light wasn’t all I had in my arsenal…

Of course I want to cover the whole event with variety as well as style so get past the jump and let’s talk details…This wedding took place in rural New Zealand, about 10 k from the end of the road, and the tallest mountain peak in the photos is Aoraki – Mt. Cook – the highest peak in New Zealand. The peak is where Sir Edmund Hillary trained to reach the top of Everest, and is one of the most unique ecological systems in the world. My clients live and work at the Glentanner station which hosts the Helicopter Line’s tours on the east side of the Mountain. The lake you see in the photos is Lake Pukaki it’s unique green tint is generated from the runnoff from the Tasman glacier which feed’s it.

When I talk about lighting, I talk about finding your motivation – that applies both technically (the motivation of the light) as well as psychologically. I had complete control over the location, angle and direction of the ceremony as I had earned the clients trust. It would have been easy for me to turn my back on the sun, and work overlooking the Pukaki valley, like this shot of the bride and groom after the ceremony.

But I knew that my clients watched the phases of the mountain every day from where they own their restaurant.

So I wanted to include the peak that demands attention in the ceremony photos – that’s why I brought the gear.

Helicopters are loud! But to really get a sense for the depth and scale of the valley – you can’t have it blown out to white while you adjust your exposure for the groom’s face!

With the Alien Bee firing at about 1/2 full power, I was able to get a nice amount of contrast out of the shaded side of the bride and groom.

So if you’re wondering where I placed the light – it’s actually JUST outside the frame of this fisheye image. Extened to full height on the lightstand – it’s probably only 15 meters from the bride and groom (this is an exaggerated perspective) with the 11inch reflector pushing the cone of illumination toward the center. You can see the false sunshine on the back of the neck of the woman to the left closest in the frame.

With the highlight points of the ceremony taken care of I was able to shoot the group and family shots quickly – and with the same dramatic background. The we moved to some portraits.

Here I used the sun as rim light, and keyed the exposure from the strobe – darkening sky to the dramatic blue hue!

I then moved my position capitalizing on a different part of the environment as the strobe provides the side illumination to brighten them against the backlit clouds. The tonal control afforded by LAB color space and my ONE ACTION workflow gives me the power to lighten the areas of weaker illumination and hold the detailed contrast in the bright clouds. The secret sauce included in the ONE ACTION workflow tools allows me to custom taylor this balance in one step.

Again I’m ‘bending‘ the sunlight onto my subjects without changing the light in the environment, so that you might assume that the sun was coming from camera left when in reality its positioned directly above the couple.

One of my favorite shots from the day, again with the fisheye – but the interesting characteristic of this photo is the counter intuitive gear that was used to make it. On camera flash. The trick when using limited tools is to use them selectively. I changed the settings on the Canon 550ex shoe flash to zoom (narrow) the beam emitted to the 70mm setting. I then changed my camera’s exposure compensation to -1EV – and my flash exposure compensation to +1EV.

With these settings I have ask the camera to underexpose the ambient light (darkening the image + sky) and have ask the flash to output more light (brightening whatever it is aimed at). So by narrrowing the pool of light emitted I aimed it off axis to the right slightly and hit my subjects while raising my arm and walking through the clumps of rugged grases. So yea, I actually shot this without looking because I trust how my gear works.

I also used the mini soft box I keep in my bag for a few shots on Lake Wanaka’s gravel shores.

Photoflex XTC softbox on Canon 550ex flash – 2-3 meters from subjects held by walking assistant.

Notes on natural light…

I don’t want to give the impression that a whole shoot by me is dominated by ‘lighting tricks’ or driven purely by lighting concepts.

In this image I used the High Dynamic Range functions of the ONE ACTION to bring out the tender embrace of the bride’s father walking her to the ceremony. Keeping your awareness in a place that allows you to capture whatever is about to occur, is a skill that will inform your artificial lighting even more.

If a spontaneous spin is in order, then you’re not going to setup a flash in time.

Allowing a visual infatuation with texture doesn’t start in photoshop – it starts as you absorb each environment you get to photograph.

Having a sense for light and dark, doesn’t start when I apply a vignette overlay in photoshop – even though this image uses one to help accentuate it’s design.

And instructing the Helicopter pilot to wait until the very last moment of setting sun is hitting the top of Mt. Cook shows how I use my sense for the natural light that goes beyond recognizing – but into planning for your my own success. I instructed the pilot to land at 5000ft elevation amongst gathering clouds, and since the couple had chosen the most experienced pilot the company had to offer – as well as sweetened him up with free coffee a few times – we were able to make this relatively dangerous landing and photo session possible.

The only reason we were able to make this picture is because of Nigel’s experience, daring and willingness. He told us that on his warning we would have to be back in the chopper within 1 minute, because if a cloud covers us – we can’t take off – because the pilot flys visually. The helicopter is perched on loose stones, and Nigel got out and propped us up with extra stones before he would let us get out. The helicopter is idling with the blades spinning so we can make a quick takeoff. On the port side of the bird, there’s probably only two meters to the edge of the cliff from the rotor tips. So Nigel has made a pretty difficult landing at my request, so that I can capture this scene. Again my thanks go out to him.

From this angle, you can see the clouds at our elevation across the valley.

Oh boy wouldn’t I have loved to had the time to get to the Tasman Peak & Ben Ohau Mountain Range side of the valley to land the couple on the west facing ridges – but that will have to wait until next time. From that side I could get more of the turquoise hues of the glacially fed Lake Pukaki also. So if you’re reading this an considering a destination wedding in the mountain ranges of New Zealand – please pick this adventurous photographer! I really need another try at examining this beautiful landscape.

Related Lighting Tutorials:

• Thinking Big: outside the music hall
• Lighting a HUGE space – for anything that may happen
• Light Control: turn the sky from white to blue
• Balancing the Sun with flash – Crosslighting

After Flash:


Softer Balance:

I’m using my usual Alien Bee 800 with 11 inch silver reflector on a vagabond power pack unit.

What do I mean softer balance?  Can you see it?

The effect of changing your exposure to be able to capture the sky is a matter of balancing your strobe output with the brightness of the sky.  Here in these New York afternoon portraits I wanted to get the light streaming through the clouds as well as the antique aircraft while managing to highlight the bride and groom.  Checking my exposure for sky values led me to decrease my ISO to 100, increase my shutter speed to 1/250th of a second which is limited by flash sync speed, and then choose an aperture that under exposes the sky by 1-2 stops.  The final variable – to my thinking the only variable (as the other features of the image are dictated by my goals) is how much output should I set the flash to.

Do you see how I isolated my variables and got down to the core decision?

Not sure if I wrote that clearly, but that is the essence of ‘Hear the Shadows’……

Regarding Gear, the reason I carry such high powered strobes is to be able to make decisions without limitation by my flash output.  

Getting down to post production

Blue Skies – Lightroom Preset

I used my Blue Skies Lightroom preset and then moved into photoshop’s L*A*B* colorspace

I have a few posts coming up describing how to get the most out of your situation even if you really want to shoot directly into the sun. Here’s a good example with a vintage style applied with the ONE WORKFLOW actionset. I was able to quickly modify my overall contrast type with a single adjustment layer to lower the contrast and flatten the highlights. In the same layer, just a quick shortcut away, I tinted the global yellow (warmth) saturated the green, and tweaked the red, and darkened the blue. L*A*B* color mode is ingenious that way. A texture from the ‘Dark Descent’ texture package helped dapple and roughen the tonalities in an organic and random way.

So there you see how I use all the facets of photography, lighting, and photoshop to create a memorable set of portraits. Take a loot at their thank-you card design:

When I speak on achieving higher creativity, I talk about light being the entryway for more possibility.

Above is one of my shots lit with an Alien Bee 800 with 11 inch reflector with a Roscoe 3442 gel for 1/2 CTO conversion. Below is a shot within seconds of the above, without the off camera lighting.

I shot that basic image with a couple different focal lengths:

I hope that these shots inspire you to look at the big things around you and consider how your creativity would lead you to interpret them with lighting. However, don’t just assume that your off camera light must light the whole building, I prefer to think of lighting a scene:

Since my strobe lighting my photographs is 40 meters away, I don’t have difficulty choosing an exposure when my subjects move because the whole scene gets even light.

So when I have my exposure, I begin to explore the space photographically just as I would with natural light. Sometimes I look to my LCD for review, but otherwise I just work off the concept of the light that I felt and saw as I was setting up and testing. If you’ve never seen any available light photographs from me, take a look at this Bahamas Destination beach wedding photographer’s dramatic, atmospheric, cloud, sunset, portrait slideshow.

For an exercise, setup your light at dusk and get far enough away that your exposure is consistant. Get comfortable and explore the light, hear the shadows with me.

Off Camera Flash by JVS » 2 Day Lighting & Portrait Workshop with JVS & Anne – October 7th & 8th

Ok so you ask who is JVS – that’s ok, I know you may not have heard about him, since he’s been living the happy life in Dallas ever since getting married and retiring to oh, 20-30 weddings a year.  Regrettably, the industry doesn’t reward true visionaries – it rewards self-promoters.  He’s the former…

Joseph Victor Stephanchek was there at the beginning.

The beginning of the cultural revolution of wedding photography, like circa 2000-2003.  And he did a good bit of the Sisyphean task of getting the wedding imagery market out of the doldrums.  

I know, you probably weren’t in the industry yet – but he’s not an old timer, he’s an innovator.  He’s a visionary – there’s nothing like the work he produces and shows. Pick a gallery from his documentary weddings portfolio and see if you’ve ever seen such an intense vision?

And lighting is not about technique.

It’s about vision!

Technique follows the vision, and so I recommend that you take a chance with your time and money, have a trip to Dallas and meet the man (and his woman).  Dallas really rocks the photography world, making NY jealous!  So all you New Yorkers better hop a plane and get some lessons to get yourselves back in the game!

2 Day Lighting & Portrait Workshop with JVS & Anne – October 7th & 8th

Now a little more about JVS:

The man can balance a handheld flash, with ambient like nobody’s business.  Which is just a statement that words don’t do justice to the creativity he can pull off with a 24mm lens and a shoe flash.  Proving the point lighting comes from vision – all the way up to the big guns, he can stun you with a powerpack as well!  So go to the workshop and get some info on anything from a Vivitar to a Profoto Pack.

Did I mention I wish I could go?  Tough thing is with my schedule, it’s hard to get an opening less than three months out.  This workshop is just three weeks out!  jump on it, 

And tell him Neil sent ya!

Read more to think outside the box in lighting large spaces for maximum creative impact…

This wedding is taking place in Founder’s Hall at the Milton Hershey School, which is providing the extraordinary ceremony entrance for Elizabeth.  The lighting I created is what’s allowing me to take such a dramatic, regal, and poignant capture at the moment her husband Scott looks up to see her for the first time!  I work as a wedding photojournalist, but I want to go beyond my client’s experiences to create pieces of art that fully describe those important moments in their lives with the frozen time power of the camera.  Notice the details in this image which was shot with my Canon 1Ds MarkII with a 50mm lens – so there’s no wide angle distortion of the height here.  You can see the individual expressions of the bridesmaids, you can see the guest holding out their point and shoot camera to capture the bride; but only my shot captures the whole space with a pleasing illumination helping to define all these elements.

Are you asking if this is natural light?

It is in-fact strobe.  Not something a little strobist could produce, but stadium sized strobe lighting. Here’s what the scene looks like without strobe:

Here is just a split second later (litterally two frames) where I had depleted the charge of the flash units by shooting continuous frames.  Ok, ok, that’s not totally fair cause I didn’t white balance it….let me give you a white balanced view just to be absolutely fair – I’ll even size it the same.

My raw file tells me I shot at 1/200th of a second @ f/2.8 with an iso of 500.

In my highlighted image you can see leftward leaning shadows from the marble pillars, but wouldn’t you rather have than then the backlit shot?

Make Light Real – is a process that can guide you to realizing your creative vision, whether it be in a enormous vault of a room like founder’s hall, or in a tiny sitting room.  Let’s talk about how the light is real, after we see a few more of the impossible without it pictures:

With strobe above ^ without strobe below V

The slight amount of direct light from the strobe hitting the side of the bride’s face cast’s a weak sharp shadow, and overall helps to sharpen the image.  Sharpening in the image isn’t just something you do in post production.  Here are a couple of my highlight images from the wedding:

I added a little atmospheric lighting affect with photoshop.

Here’s an emotional look at the bride from between the groomsmen’s shoulders and some darkening from my veritas vignette overlays.  All the contrast and wonderful shaping of the face is a result of my lighting setup, and balance of the strobe with the ambient.

Let me give you one more comparison that uses an isle shot to give you a look at how my lighting approach allows me to shoot in otherwise extremely difficult positions.

The bride received this shot in B+W and here it is.  Because I am using lighting off axis to my camera, I am able to shoot through the guests to reach my focal plane to the ring bearer and flower girl telling the full story of them coming down the isle.  Without the strobe illumination, I would be getting an overpowering flare from the outside light coming through the glass doors.

Shooting faster than my flashes can recycle I am proud to show you what it would look like without flash illumination.  You can certainly lighten it, but without the light getting into the eyes, and shaping the face and body, you’re just lightening a soft and flat photo.

Here now a couple more steps down the isle, you can see the flash illumination from the side, and the overall ambient is brought up to the shutter speed and low ISO of the camera settings.  If you were limited to using an on-camera flash, you would have two white heads in the foreground and two large shadows on the children.  If you tried to bounce, you’d be thinking – where’d that light go? – cause this is the size of the room!

I couldn’t find the stated height of the dome, but it stands about 4 stories tall.

So we’re talking about lighting a working space two stories tall, and probably 40-45 meters wide.  We know that the bride is coming out the doors on the second story to overlook the ceremony before descending to walk the isle – a very dramatic choice and one we want to help illustrate in our pictures.  Here’s a quick look at the finished setup of my lights and then I’ll talk about how I got to that setup.

Yep, three monolights!  Two Alien Bee 800Watt units, One Photogenic 400Watt monolight.  The alien bee units have the 11inch dish reflector on them, the Photogenic has the standard 7inch reflector.  Each unit is at 1/4 power.  We’ll refer to them from right to left AB1, AB2, and PG3.  Let me give you a 4 shot walkthrough of the whole space so you can how the light is filling the space.  

Starting from the right with the lights in the frame

Here you can see where the focus of my light is collecting on the domed ceiling.

Creative balance is the path to Making Light Real

That is why we study the Tao

So back to the lights PG3 was the ’sparkle’ light – it was set to point directly at my subjects, albiet at a lower power, but that small amount of direct, hard-light provides a giant increase in perceived sharpness.  If you would like to understand the effect find yourself some deep shade and set your exposure to be accurate, then add just a light touch of hard light source (like a small shoe flash) at -2 or -1 to the exposure.  It’s very important that the amount of light you add doesn’t change the exposure.  Notice it in small details,the way hair or skin texture is rendered.

Deeper perception leads to greater creation.

Ok, so the challenge was to use the Alien Bees to give me a very soft(in quality of the light) boost in my ambient light quantity.  To do that I must transfer the source of the lighting from a small one at the strobe head to a large one – like a three story dome, if I only had a perfect dome the size of the room.  Oh wait – I do.  Yea so pushing the light into the far side of the room to provide a balanced exposure was the goal.  The Alien Bee 11 inch reflector is the perfect tool for the job because it is highly efficient, no light power is lost, and it throws the light out in a gentle cone so that no direct light falls on the ceremony location because that would completely throw off the balance and quality of the light.  AB1 is covering the walls and ceiling to the back of the room, opposite the balcony and ceremony.  AB2 is throwing it’s light up and over to the dome top and left side of the balcony.  The Alien Bees are putting out roughly 16x more light than the Photogenic to fill the entire auditorium with an extremely gentle light.  Hopefully that illustrates the power necessary to reach certain creative goals, and the freedom that the power gives you in your working process.

Why three, couldn’t just one light do it?

Yes, but without the same control over the balance – I’ll be covering how to balance a bare bulb flash in several tutorials over the next couple weeks.  Secondly, one strobe unit would almost certainly need to be at full power output, which exceeds the recycle time needed after each shot.  I wish to be able to shoot continuous bursts of 3-5 shots and so I adjust my setups to only use 1/4 or less of the flash output giving me that 4 shot burst.

Leave any more questions you have in the comments and I’ll answer them.

If you like this training article, consider purchasing the Video Tutorial on the color blue and continue improving your photographic perception and craft.

Lighting is simply about contrast.

Contrast defines shapes.

Clearly seen either one will help you make a good picture.

If you’re a beginner, don’t be tricked by f-stops or ratios; remember to see what you’re interested in – and then get enough light on it to make a picture.  Don’t loose your muse, before you start.  Gaining complex lighting does not help you  gain a better picture.

Here I used an Alien Bee 800 set to minimum power with 30 degree grid spot on the standard 7 inch reflector. Roughly 6 feet from the model. You can see the falloff starting at about the hips.

Canon 1d – 50mm lens – f2.8

Lighting for Creativity – click here to register!

Part1: Listen to Neil’s personal journey. And share his understanding the creative power light has brought to his image making process.  Make the visual connection between creativity and light on many planes as we discuss the implications for our spirits, our businesses, and our cameras.  You will be personally challenged to break through your own personal psychological limits before moving on to part two – in the field.

Part2: Light with Neil in the field.  Neil will approach a location he has never been before, with a subject he’s never shot before and attempt to share with you the running dialog in his head as he ‘lights for creativity’ in bringing out the qualities of the location, subject and mood.  His challenge will be to transform the location with creative and expressive power.

Part3: Finish with flair. Neil will download and photoshop his raw captures live while taking questions from the audience as he goes.  If you think there’s some kind of dark magic locked up inside your computer, come check inside Neil’s as he accentuates the visual phenomenon in his photographs using Photoshop. 

Sponsored by:
Central Portrait Branch – Professional Photographers of Ontario
Professional Photographers of Ontario

Click here to register. We welcome all skill levels, you’ll get something out of it! 

So I was out on an engagement shoot and had done all the normal stuff and wanted a little something extra…

But the simple daylight angle was not very flattering and the busy environment of the playground rope piece made for a very messy image – cool – but a little too messy – what could I do quickly to improve the impact of my couple in the space…

Here I am climbing around searching for the right perspective….

Read on to see the final shot and read about my camera settings making it….

This was shot at ISO 100, F8 and 1/250th of a second with a 15mm fisheye lens.

The small soft box in a large environment creates a pool of light.  With such a wide angle lens I was able to obtain a vignetted feel highlighting the engagement ring and the couple with soft directional light in the midday sun.  To darken the background I chose a low ISO and a fast shutter speed which has the effect of lowering the contrast of the ambient light.  I increased the output from the TTL flash head to +1 EV for the flash output, transforming the flash light from fill to the main exposure source.  A quick tweak in photoshop could dramatically increase the contrast without blocking the shadow tones if I thought the client would like a more dramatic look – so I’ve created a very flexible capture.  As I listen to the shadows, I note that there is a nice Rembrandt caress across both their faces.