Communicating with a handheld flash

- We've looked a at lot of theory and we've explored on camera flashes. In this chapter we get to take the flash off camera and start crafting lighting. This is where the real creative power of flash comes into play. There are many different flash units out there, and like cameras, they all have their own interfaces and designs. Therefore I can't tell you how to use your particular flash. Fortunately I don't have to, because all flashes have to offer certain features and controls. In this movie, we're going to take a look at what those are so that you can take the time to look up the controls that you'll need to work through the rest of this course. You can, of course, attach your flash directly to your camera's hot shoe, just by sliding it in. Later, we'll see why that's useful. Right now, I want to get the flash off camera, which presents the problem of how the camera will communicate with the flash. In the How to Buy a Flash section of my Advanced Flash Course, we cover a number of different options for camera communication. I can plug in different kinds of cables, I can use infrared, or I can use radio. Radio is the most flexible because it doesn't depend on line of sight but it's also the most expensive. This particular flash has a radio transceiver inside it so it's ready to receive radio control. To transmit that control, I will attach this compatible transceiver to the hot shoe of my camera, just as if it were a flash. I really like the convenience of a transceiver built into the flash. It's less to carry and it's less to hassle with during a shoot, and increasingly there are more flashes available that offer built in radio control. Most flashes can also be triggered optically. That is, they can detect the light from other flashes. So if you have radio control of one flash, it can trigger others optically. That can save you some money, as it might mean that you don't have to buy a transceiver for every flash you want to use, and it'll let you use flashes from different companies. In a multi-flash set up, one device will be the master device that controls the other devices. In this case, I want the camera's transceiver to be the master and the other devices to be the slaves. On this transceiver I make that decision when I turn it on. I can either set it to be a transmitter, or a receiver. I want it to transmit so I'll switch this to TX. On some flashes and transceivers, that transmit mode is referred to as Commander mode. I need to make a similar decision about my flash. On some units you'll have a similar transmit or receive switch. On this flash, I use the mode button, which lets me change from local mode, where all power is controlled using the controls on the flash, to master mode, where this flash controls all the other flashes. That would be useful if this flash were directly attached to the camera, and finally, slave mode, which tells the flash to listen to commands from a master unit. Here's a flash made by a different company. It doesn't have a radio inside. If I want to work with it, then I need to attach one of these compatible transceivers to the foot of the flash. Now, I set the transceiver to receive mode. That slaves it and the attached flash back to my master unit over here. We now have a way for these devices to communicate with each other. At the simplest level this means that they can fire at the same time, but with radio transmitters, we get more than just remote triggering, we can also control flash power remotely. This is a huge convenience, especially if you're working with multiple flashes and you've positioned some of them up high on stands. Not having to go around to each one to make adjustments, being able to control it all from the camera, that's quite a luxury. To get that full control, your flash must be compatible with your transceiver. This flash is not. I will get remove triggering but I'll have to adjust power by hand on the flash unit itself. If you want to shoot TTL, you should know that there is no standard for TTL protocol. Every camera vendor creates their own system and some camera makers even have multiple TTL protocols. If you want TTL compatibility, then you have to buy a flash that offers a TTL system that's compatible with your camera. In this course we're going to mostly control the flashes manually. I don't want you to think that means you should ignore TTL technology. I want to do everything manually because I think that will give you a deeper understanding of how flash exposure works. Once you've got that, then you can choose whether you want to use TTL or manual control. So if your flash offers TTL metering, you need to figure out how to turn it off. TTL might be a mode on your flash. It might be buried in a menu on the flash, or in the case of these cactus flashes, it might be something that you control from the transceiver rather than the flash. In your manual you might find this control listed under manual mode, or manual control, or disabling TTL. This flash is all manual all the time. It doesn't offer a TTL mode of any kind. The advantage of that is that all manual flashes are usually less expensive. If you have an all manual flash, you don't need to figure out how to disable TTL. Finally, in manual mode, your flash will have a mechanism for controlling flash power, as well as a flash power readout. The readout is usually a fraction, and control is probably a pair of buttons or maybe a dial. If you're using a radio transceiver, then you should also have a power control and readout there. Learn where these controls are. Since we're going to be working manually, this will be a critical feature. If you've gone through all of that, your flash should now be in a non TTL mode, or maybe it was all manual to begin with, and you should know how to dial its power up and down, through radio, a cable, or infrared, you should have remote control of flash triggering and maybe of flash power. Again, and I'm not discouraging you from TTL flash rather I want you to learn the rudiments of flash exposure. Even if you do shoot TTL for the rest of your life, this understanding will help you better understand what to do when TTL goes wrong.