Thanks Damien!

Linus, Yes Pete is right. You can zoom the Nikon SB800 Speedlight by repeatedly pressing the ‘one tree button’. The SB900 and the Canon Speedlites you need to press the ‘zoom’ button.

Once the Speedlight is off the camera it doesn’t pick up the lens focal length.

If you find your flash won’t zoom it is probably because the wide angle diffuser is engaged on the front of the lens.

Damien.

The increase of exposure is to get the skin tone spot on. We don’t need to pull anything back in Lightroom. The shot on the back of the camera looks like the one here.

Lighting stands that we recommend are the 050KA by Arri. I have just negotiated with Arri to stock these hard to get stands and distribute them online.

For bigger lighting kits I recommend the Lowell grand stand. Again this is not readily available in the UK yet.

I’ve been using Manfrotto stands recently but they are not quite up to the job I need them for so I won’t be recommending them here.

Damien.

Darren, I hope your shoots in London and Milton Keynes went well. Smiley Miley lives down the road from me. Do you remember him?

I think it means manually zooming the flash in.
If you hit and hold the Zoom button (on 580exII) the zoom distance will flash and you can manually select how you want the flash to zoom regardless of the lens setting.

Pete

Nice pictures. Got your DVDs and I am looking at them right now.

Just a quick question, what do you mean by “Speedlight that has been zoomed into 105mm”. If I were to use the pop up flash as the commander and the SB800 as the off the camera flash, how can I set the flash to 105mm? Do I set the flash to manual and zoom to 105mm before I set the flash on to remote? Or the flash will learn the setting when II use my 80-200mm and zoom into 105mm on TTL?

I love your Wedding DVDs and am looking at ways to improve my wedding pictures with the off the camera flash technique.

Thanks!

Love the extra shots in this post…
The shot through the trees where you say you dialled in loads of over exposure.. I guess you do this knowing that it can be pulled back in CS and your just after the composition initially?

And just on a side note… what light stands do you think are good value?
Cheers

Pete

Hi Damien

Just wanted to comment on your stunning images from the Bristol Urban Portraits you have posted., especially the set of images in 15 – so simple, yet so beautifully captured.

I am shooting my first off-camera session with another photographer and 3 models in London on 11th July, followed by another session in Milton Keynes on 12th July with 4 more models.

I am looking forward to this coming weekend and will forward some of my best / favourite images for some much valued critique if your precious time allows…?

Keep those images and techniques coming and thanks again for sharing with your followers.

Regards
Darren Miles – Miles of Smiles

Thanks again Damien,

John