A $99 MUST HAVE in Photography!

[Music] Wow [Music] what's up everybody Peter be could' here welcome back to another video of all the videos that we've made in the three years almost that we've been doing this together I've done a lot about photography I've done a lot about video done a lot of vlogs a lot of stuff one thing that I've never covered is a flash an external flash for a DSLR camera mirrorless camera whatever now inherently from youtuber standpoint any type of videos that have to do with audio lighting nobody likes them they never do well they never perform well but I still got to make it because it's important and I think no matter where you are in your journey as a photographer hobbyist professional being able to have a flash or have used one or have experience with one or learn a little bit about it is important because full disclosure I don't use a flash often anymore when I was shooting events and as being paid for events weddings any type of event weddings were particularly where I used flashes and that's when I had about four of them that's when I was using them a rampantly rampantly rant I was I was my use of flash was rampant that's better yeah now not so much I'm vlogging I'm shooting stuff on the go I'm using available light using a video light right here I just don't really have a use for a flash anymore but today we're talking about flashes but I don't want to talk about the typical flashes you see most professional-grade flashes you're looking at a 470 X 2 from Canon a 600 IX 580 X you got all the nikon flashes the equivalents and Sony's and all the other brands they're expensive you're looking at like $600 Canadian for me anyway that's a lot of money to spend on something that's not the most fun thing to buy when it comes to photography you're like really famous spends six hundred dollars on a flash that's sucks it's like when you got a fixture dishwasher or something or you need a new o-ring for your washing machine no that just sucks flash to me this day it's the equivalent it's just not a good time but the professional results that you can get by using a flash looks great so the flash we're gonna be discussing today is not a can it's not a sony it's not an icon it is none other than young new digital yn5 60 it's this one so this flash is a hundred bucks it's 99.99 on Amazon oh that's Canadian to look at the reviews here we just scroll through all of these happy people that's what caught my eye I thought how does it have so many reviews for being so cheap let's open it up try it out and then I'll talk to you but a couple tips that you can do when using a flash and how to just get going with it start getting better portraits because that is 100% what's gonna happen hundred bucks get a little soft case that's not bad just give you a nice little view of this get your screen on the back all your buttons that's the front there's your sensors right there use these buttons to push forward move up that's like your little bounce cards so if the flash is pointing up you got a little bit of Bounce going forward your batteries in the side here and two batteries installed these feet the hot shoot clicks into this locks down you can have it sitting wherever you need it we're gonna put it on the camera there's a lot going on here it's not the most easy to use but this does have the nice rotation so no matter what orientation you're shooting at you've probably seen pros or a lot of people that shoot events with their flash shooting straight up and you might just be thinking yourself where is that going how is that even that's flashing the atmosphere we're shooting that into into the Sun and the reason for that is because if you were to point this straight at a subject and fire it yes it would light the subject but it would just flatten everything with such a harsh light directly in front of the subject it's not gonna be flattering it's not gonna look good it's gonna take away all the contour of someone's face that's gone that's why a lot of pros a lot of people who know what they're doing with the flash are gonna point it straight up there are ways to point it straight forward and get decent results that's using something like a light dome I think there's one called the Gary Fong light dome that goes on top and you've probably seen it looks like Tupperware looks like a piece of Tupperware that just sits on top of your lens in fact there are people that use Tupperware instead of paying the premium and it's gonna diffuse everything 360 no matter if you're pointed straight up or if you're pointing that flash directly into someone's face it's gonna make it way nicer is gonna give you that softer life the same kind of softness that you're getting from like a video light right now this light is diffused so if I was to pull this down all this diffusion there's still another diffuser at the very back in front of that light but you can see as an example right now this light is a lot more harsh on my face it does look as soft and cinematic and evenly lit now if this light was pointed directly at my face you would lose all the nice shadow fall off on this side it would just be full blast and it would be too much it just never really looks that flattering it would work but it wouldn't work very well now we put this diffusion back this is just a more natural softer organic looking lighting setup that's what we want to try and achieve with this as well I don't want it to look like Oh was that guy trying to figure it as flash settings when he took those photos back when I was shooting weddings it was imperative to have that light dome on top of a flash and you're shooting the dancing and all that stuff and you want to have a fast shutter speed and get nice crispy bright sharp photos it really helped without having to blind people and pointing that flash directly upwards to get that bounce along with the diffusion with the light dome on top it just made real flattering images everything just looked really really nice and those instances that when you're shooting that type of event it's hard to do your options without a flash our pump up the ISO really really high try to bring that shutter speed down a little bit lower to capture more light but then people are moving around so fast that you're getting a shutter dragging things or blurry and it's just starting to get weird especially Elia ten years ago shooting at 6400 ISO that wasn't really an option it just did not look good now with low-light capability being way better in cameras it's not as bad but you're still gonna get a crisper sharper image using a flash in those environments and you're guaranteed to just block those shots off the people who are paying you for those photos are probably gonna be happier when they're lit well now another accessory we grabbed on Amazon and all this stuff was like less than a hundred and twenty bucks total is a little bounce card here what this is gonna do is probably give you a strap drop that down that's actually really nice like that's nicer than some of the ones I was using when I paid a lot of money for them and now what you're doing if you don't have anything like that light dome because they're a lot more expensive this was like 15 bucks or something when the flash fires upwards this large bounce card that has a lot more surface area it's gonna direct some of that light forward here's an example of the flash just pointing straight up there's a portrait of myself and then here's that same portrait using the bounce card you can see how it fills in a little bit more now here's a portrait with the flash straight on you can see that just doesn't look very good at all and you lose all of that contour that I was talking about earlier so having this is an accessory or the light dome are really gonna help your photos when you're using a flash one of the extra cool features using a flash is the wireless capabilities of a flash there are things called wireless transmitters you may have heard of the term pocket wizard before there's a lot of different brands and what you would do they're called flash triggers like wireless flash triggers you would set this up on a light stand or put the feet on and have it point in summer and you would put that wireless flash trigger on top of your camera so when you fire the flash fires like a slave so this axis is slave that trigger talks to the slave it fires the light it sounds just like a like a good studio strobe so one of the cool things to do is to set this up on a light stand put them at diagonal corners of a dance floor with some sandbags that's key and using that radio remote I could take supercool pictures of people and have that flash firing as backlight having flares come over people's shoulders and that was a really really unique way to get awesome unique creative photography when you're shooting stuff like an event now a mode that this flash doesn't have that the Canon ones do that I'm used to using is a mode called ETTL which stands for evaluative through the lens now there's two versions up at the first and the second the second I believe uses the the metering system kind of like an auto mode for your flash you leave it in that mode and it kind of just does everything for you and it knows when you're zoomed in you're not setting the focal range of the flash to determine the output based off your distance and all these things it's kind of just like your dummy's mode you throw it on your camera you turn it on it meters everything great and does a pretty good job you can still adjust the power but you're just ready to rock with this one you're gonna be adjusting a little more because it doesn't have that specific function it's got power saving which is pretty good because if you're just like wandering around an event and you've got your Flash on power saving that's cool using available light and natural light it's gonna give you a different look than a studio lit portrait will give you and it just comes down to what you're trying to convey or what you like as far as a photographer all of our preferences are different now using a flash is going to give you sharper photos for the most part because brighter pixels equals sharper pixels so is it a good accessory to have in your camera bag at $600 I would say you need to be shooting events or have a professional reason to shell out that kind of money for a flash if you're just a hobbyist and you're looking to dabble and learn more something like this for a hundred bucks with the bounce card you can't go wrong and so far just having a first look at this it looks pretty solid but I will let you know if it fails via Twitter so that's it for me today guys just a super-fast one for you wanted to touch on this if you want to go deeper into flash photography I think it would be fun to maybe rent a studio and film a video on location actually going through a photo shoot maybe a professional portrait shoot with lights strobes different types of Flash and the settings you might use if you're interested in that let me know but as far as like a first look for a flash under $100 because it's $99.99 I can say that that might be the one you want to look at alright that's it we're done we're done here hit the like button hit the bell I mean do it you want it's real life ultimately I would appreciate it you be you okay I'll see you guys in the next video please bounce card oh wait no no [Music] Wow bow-bow-bow boom boom boom

Channel: Peter McKinnon

Views: 970,575

Keywords: Peter McKinnon, Peter McKinnon photography, Peter McKinnon Tutorials, Photography, Cinematography, Learn Cameras, Learn Photography, Learn Video, Video tutorials, Camera basics, Flash, Flash Photography, On Camera FLash, Canon 580 EX2, Canon 600EX2, 600EX, Canon Flash, Sony FLash, Nikon Flash, Yongnuo, Yongnuo Flash, Portraits, Portrait photography, how to get better portraits, studio lighting, Lighting tips

Id: SLgOGTeQ-ho

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019