how to do Off Camera Flash Photography | tips and tricks

Off Camera Flash Photography

There are lots of new things or hacks you can try with your DSLR camera including your fancy ( and expensive ) camera equipment, isn’t it?

In this article, you’ll find some good hacks related to off-camera flash photography.

You will also get to know the reason why you need to learn and apply off-camera flash photography.

The most important one is to capture better images when you go out next time without the inbuilt flash.

As a photographer, if you’ve questions like when you should use this lightning effect and when you shouldn’t then this is exactly the article you need to read.

so now let’s begin the article and understand some fun facts and needs of this type of photography.

What is Off Camera Flash Photography??

Off Camera Flash Photography

So, the sweet & simple meaning of off-camera flash photography is that you don’t need to use your attached ( in-built ) camera’s flash to capture images.

Now the question is what do we need to do when we need to apply flash to capture images?

Haha, don’t worry about this type of photography as I mentioned earlier you don’t need to use your inbuilt flash.

Instead, you can use external big flashes (if your budget is high) or use the Speed lights to get sharper and prettier images ( if you’re low on the budget ).

Why OFF Flash Photography? | The Purpose

If you are using a normal DSLR and you are capturing images in low light but not using any wide aperture lens then you’ll not get much better images during low light.

You can play around with shutter speed and aperture to get better images during low light.

But this can result in grainy pictures, and also, a slow shutter speed is not preferred by most photographers unless you want blurry images.

So for this reason, If you want to capture bright images in any environment, you can use this type of photography.

( You can get more examples of off-camera flash photography at the bottom of this article.)

If you don’t know how to use shutter speed and aperture then you can find it here…

Also if you don’t know how to capture awesome images with your DSLR then the COMPLETE beginner guide on “how to use my first DSLR camera”, you can find it here for FREE…

How To Do Off Camera Flash Photography??

If you want to know and learn how to capture beautiful images with off-camera flash photography you need to understand all these topics.

You can even learn tips and hacks to capture the best images using off flash camera.

MOST important Rules

Here are some important rules which you need to follow to achieve better results in off-camera flash photography.

So to get better images using off-camera flash you first need to understand the basic rules related to this to capture better images.

This type of photography is not too easy but as the name suggests to capture pictures in this type of photography you need some off-camera lighting (Flashgun/ Speedlight).

If you are shooting indoors or at a closer distance to your model then for that off-camera lightning (Flashgun/ Speedlight ) equipment is not a big deal.

But if you are shooting outdoors or some portrait etc then you must need some big off-camera lightning (Flashgun/ Speedlight ) and that all are very expensive.

(you can buy it cheapest rates if you want to just experience off-flash photography !!)

Best Way To Do Off-Camera Flash Photography

Now that we know the basic requirements and rules for Off-Camera Flash Photography, then let’s move forward.

And let’s understand how to get and use off-camera lighting (Flashgun/ Speedlight ) to get more quality light and good images.

The most important and basic requirement of all is to carefully choose a light, full background.

If you are shooting outdoor for portraits or anything, then your background must be cool and colourful as colours can have a large impact on your pictures.

Off Camera Flash Photography

For example, let’s assume if your background contains too many amounts of lights.

And with that, if you are shooting during the night time or even evening or early morning then there is no need to use this lighting (Flashgun/ Speedlight ).

otherwise, you’ll get the worst images, so make sure your background is soft and noise-free.

Buy This Required Top Rated Products To Do Off Flash Photography

In situations where the background contains low lights, you can use off-camera lighting (Flashgun/ Speedlight ) to enhance the quality of your pictures.

Then the last thing left to do is just set your model in the perfect position to get the best results.

Importance of Settings

So if you’re not a newbie and familiar with flash photography then these tips are not for you.

When you are clicking images with off flash by default you are bound to get much better results.

But if you are a fresher in the field of photography and want to learn new things and experiment with them then you must try this.

And if you’re getting a better result then what’s the harm in that !!?.

In case you want to change your output by changing the off flash setting then you can change the aperture or shutter speed but it depends on the background you choose.

Most Needed Gears

As I said if you are using any lightning tools then you don’t need to buy all that other stuff.

Using your lighting tools you can capture great pictures but if you want you can still buy a flashgun or some big flashes.

The one thing needed is practice, yes it’s true, you don’t need other expensive stuff to get a better result in off-camera flash photography.

Like every other thing, you can master off-camera flash photography with just a bit of practice after which you will know which setting has what effect on your pictures.

And you will be able to create stunning images.

Choose a Better Pose for Your Model

So as we already know we are using off-camera flash so you should give a better pose to your model so when you turn on the off-camera lights then your model looks much hotter.

Off Camera Flash Photography

source: nylon

So the basic strategy behind this is to set it to light about 30 degrees or less above your model’s head(see this image) to get better results.

Hence, when you capture an image it gives damn hot results.

Capture When Sunlight Is Too Much High

So as we know when we use off-camera lighting equipment and there is too much amount of natural or artificial light source available then it’s next to impossible to capture smoother images with our equipment.

For this, you need to have an understanding of shutter speed.

Basically, there are two types of shutter speed one is low and another is high.

If you are capturing images when sunlight is too high then make your shutter speed at max (as a requirement but more than 1/300)for better images.

You can take a look at the article mentioned below to understand the fully detailed working of shutter speed within this website.

Best time to capture off-camera flash photography

So as we understand if your background contains low light or interesting objects then you can capture this type of photography.

Even if the background is natural or colorful then this technique proves to be of benefit and gets you better results.

Shooting during the night is also one of the best times to capture images using off-camera flash photography, it’s extraordinary to edit the original image to black and white photography.

So that’s all about off-camera flash photography, I hope you like it and share it, thank you.

About Author

Manthan

Hi, I'm Manthan I'm a professional photographer and founder of photographywith.com. this site hosts all of my writing on photography stuff like blogs, reviews, editing, and much more. whatever I learn new, I publish here as a blog with some good and easy examples. Cheers, Manthan

Hi, I'm Manthan I'm a professional photographer and founder of photographywith.com. this site hosts all of my writing on photography stuff like blogs, reviews, editing, and much more. whatever I learn new, I publish here as a blog with some good and easy examples. Cheers, Manthan

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