It doesn’t matter if you are a regular user of strobes or speedlites on locations, we can all agree these tiny (in comparison) battery powered flash are a must-have in any camera bag. They are small, light, portable, run on AAs and depending on your viewpoint, even affordable.
Speedlites have come a long way, with more power with each newer model. However, power or lack of is still one of the biggest weakness of a Speedlite. Even more so if you put a softbox or umbrella in front of it.
So you arrive on a shooting location, no clouds in the sky, and the sun is super bright, how do you light when you only have a Speedlite?
Zoom.
On a Canon 580EX2, it can zoom upto 105mm. What this does is concentrating all its power into a small area and therefore increasing exposure to that area.
1.
Zooming the Speedlite to 105mm and aiming to the face of the model, since she is wearing black pants, it doesn’t matter if its out of the flash’s range.
Settings: 1/200 @ f11 @ ISO100 … the lens was 85mm f1.2 @ 85mm
3.
The key is to aim the flash at an angle which won’t cause unpleasant shandows across the model’s face.
Settings: 1/200 @ f3.5 @ ISO100 … the lens was 85mm f1.2 @ 85mm
