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Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

Lesson 21 from: Lighting 201

SLR Lounge, Pye Jirsa

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

Lesson 21 from: Lighting 201

SLR Lounge, Pye Jirsa

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Lesson Info

21. Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Chapter 1 Introduction

06:59
2

Welcome to Lighting 201!

03:16
3

OCF = Anytime/Anyplace

06:49
4

Chapter 2 Introduction

05:11
5

Wired, Infrared or Radio?

15:03
6

“Pocket, Medium, Full Strobe?”

13:23
7

Our 3 Favorite Flashes “Pocket Strobes”

09:26
8

4 More Flashes “Pocket Strobes” Worth Looking At

14:33
9

Our 2 Favorite Medium Strobes

12:55
10

Understanding Radios Part I: Channels & Groups

11:04
11

Our 2 Favorite Radio Triggers

07:59
12

5 Simple Steps to Trouble Shooting Radios/OCFs

15:10
13

Fantastic ND Filters at Any Price Range

09:03
14

Our Favorite “Sticks”

11:01
15

Our Favorite Ultra-Portable OCF Light Modifiers

19:38
16

12 Mounting and Must-Have Lighting Accessories

12:28
17

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Light Stand or “Stick”

08:14
18

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Monopod Light or “Boom Stick”

09:30
19

Gear Setup - Setting Up a “Medium Boom Stick”

12:15
20

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Manual Flash “Big Boom Stick”

13:30
21

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

09:40
22

Chapter 3 Introduction

04:12
23

8 Steps to Perfecting Each Scene & Image When Using OCF

12:30
24

Over Powering the Sun - Part I

16:42
25

Over Powering the Sun - Part II

12:42
26

Slow Down! Watch the Details

08:32
27

More Power Without The Power

11:03
28

Adding to Existing Light - Part I

10:52
29

Bare Bulbing with Large Groups

14:36
30

Back Lighting to Create Interest

13:33
31

Getting Crazy with the “Whip Pan”

17:27
32

Chapter 4 Introduction

03:44
33

The Flash Modifier You Already Own

12:05
34

The Oh-So Powerful Umbrella

11:13
35

Large Group Shots with an Umbrella

11:21
36

Exposure Balancing via Lightroom

04:20
37

Portable Softboxes - Westcott Apollo

10:22
38

More Light Control, Just Grid It!

12:53
39

Dusk + Modified Pocket Strobes

13:51
40

More Power? Medium Strobes FTW!

12:37
41

Perfect It In-Camera. Then Photoshop

05:23
42

Adding to Existing Light - Part II

12:00
43

Adding or Enhancing Light Direction

11:17
44

Our Ideal Group Lighting Technique

12:58
45

Incorporating Flares with Flash

10:39
46

Cutting Light, Grids and GOBOs

10:29
47

Chapter 5 Introduction

03:34
48

Fog + Flash + Grid = Dramatic Change

08:56
49

BYOL! The 3-Light Setup That Only Requires One Light!

12:07
50

What About the Fill Light?

12:15
51

Backlight + GOBO + Fog = Magic

08:36
52

Drawing Attention via Light Shaping

08:29
53

Visualizing Lights & Color Shifts

09:17
54

Mixing Ambient + Gobo w/ Flash

11:37
55

Better Light Can Change Everything!

09:47
56

Chapter 6 Introduction

01:57
57

Subtle Refinement = Massive Difference

11:31
58

Great Light Changes Everything! Part II

11:50
59

Manually Triggered RCS + Shutter Drag

11:29
60

The Right Power for Each Scene

14:24
61

Dodging and Burning via Light In-Camera

07:23
62

Subtle Light for Natural Portraits

09:14
63

Light Modification & Simple Compositing

10:16
64

Expanding Your Photographic Vision

11:37

Lesson Info

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

In this video I'm going to show you how to set up a medium strobe but a full feature medium strobe big boom stick so we have our boom bull stick right here this is again oh this is aragorn this is our lovely joe cha has named all of our tripods and monta pods affectionately after lord of the rings characters so that we know which ones are which this is a ben rowe mono pod okay so we've taken the s forehead off of this guy and again I have just our brass speaker right here up at the top so just that it's a three eighth quarter or a three eighth inch twenty thread spigot and it mounted and adapts to eh quarter twenty female on this side I know it's kind of hard to see what if I hold it all the way out there? Can you see it now now now it's probably all blurry we're going to now is going to mount the pro photo be too this is a new stroke that has come out and it's fantastic it's great because it's so much smaller than the b one and some people ask well why would I get the b two over the b...

one? Because the roughly around the same price range and the beach was only half the power that be one is this guy right here this is the b two on its two hundred seconds so the b one is five hundred watt seconds this guy is two hundred fifty one seconds so it's about five pocket strobes versus ten pocket strobes with the b one but the thing with the b one is is that it's absolutely massive when it comes to its weight and size so when you grabbed that you know what logan would you like to get me to be one just so I can demonstrate this we'll be talking more about the b one in lighting three oh one as well as for one because it really qualifies maur the studio strobe and that's what for a one is going to be particularly for his studio sides drums so look at this thank you sir now this guy is big okay so compare the head sizes to this so this is the head size on the b two this is the b one now you might be saying well the b one has the battery pack built into it and you're absolutely right to be one does have the battery pack built into it but the problem is is that with the b one well when you mount this particularly when you start mounting this onto booms and understands with armed boomed out you're putting a lot of weight on the head ok so you're putting on thana wait just on this top piece and when you start getting larger modifiers on there they be get a little bit more cumbersome it's not as portable you can't fit this like this doesn't fit nearly as well when you're traveling into something small as this guy would I can get this pretty much into any piece of luggage I want so what you're getting is essentially portability with the b two where's what the b one you're getting kind of that convenience of everything in the same package but as a handheld boom stick with a modifier on this you're going to need someone that has a bit of muscle to do it because it gets pretty heavy okay so that's kind of the main difference here yes price wise they're pretty similar but with the beach you you can also get a second head for it as well so let me give you that back that guy gonna pop him in there for display purposes fantastic that's a weird place to put it but whatever I'm not going to fight you on it do whatever you like, buddy. Okay, so that's the main thing so this guy's two hundred watt seconds but look at how easy this is gonna be regardless of whether using the b two or the b one they're both full feature strobes this guy is going to cost you at around twenty two hundred bucks it comes of the battery pack as well as the head each additional head you can get two heads for a single battery packs on additional head is another eight hundred bucks but this head just mounts directly to our spigot I'm just gonna tighten everything you could put whatever modify you want right over the front of that it fits all these new like modifiers that column they're based like super portable off camera flash modifiers they're smaller versions of their larger modifiers which are fantastic and then we have our pack right here. Now let me try and balance this guy balance. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Indeed you will stay balanced. I command you. This is the pro photo air tl remote. Okay, so this is again this is a full feature remote that allows you to control all the functionality your battery pack is indeed are your radio is built into your battery pack? I'm going take the shoe off. This shoe was meant for showing not for walking these shoes weren't meant for walking. Okay, we're gonna pop this right under our hot shoe turned this guy on we're gonna turn this guy on the wonderful thing about these be choose the wonderful thing about pro photo everything is that they're incredibly simple to use you have very, very reliable full power full power recycle times you have amazing consistency when it comes to color temperatures and so forth it's just professionally built across the board design wise menu wise, it's. Super simple to use so we could just pop this on. I have channel a right there. Channel a right here. Gonna go ahead and do a test and there we go. Ok, let's, go ahead and turn on my camera so I actually have a turn on. All right, so this is all set up and we're firing now, what's the big deal between these two between a full feature versus a manual strobe. Well, on this guy, I have high speed sync. I have first curtains think I have second curtain sink. I have t t l I have manual have every single one of these functions that I possibly could want. So I have a lot more flexibility. I could do very cool artistic things with record in sync and this strobe set up that I wouldn't be able to do at least not easily with a manual stroke setup. And granted, we're going to show you how to do recurrence. Think manually by triggering it yourself. But of course, it's not as accurate, nor is it as flexible in different situations. Now, with this battery pack, you can, of course, use a strap for it and have it handheld or you can figure out a way to kind of mount it to your boom stick. Whatever you want to do, this is the prototype that we received for us, so we're actually saying this back to pro photo and we're getting our new one soon so I haven't done any ghetto rigging of this device to my mom about yet, but be sure to know that I will do that when I get my actual unit, but we take it out on several shoots and it's a fantastic device, same with the b one that they're both great different purposes on each one of them. This is kind of that ultra portable version of there. You know, they're medium strove essentially, but let me show you something. Okay, let's, put this guy over here. Logan, do you want to get me the other big boom stick? Now, granted, keep in mind that this big boom stick does have two flashes on it. So this is basically right now double the power as the pro photo. But remember how long and convoluted this process was getting this guy set up? I mean, we had to have a special bracket for it. That kind of we played around with tons of brackets to figure out what fit. Once we got it on there, we have to power cables to the battery pack all mounted, we have the pot whether that we had to get splitter cables for that, going to each side we had to get everything mounted in up here and again when you start comparing weight of this, this is far more like the b one wait actually this is probably more heavy than the b one wait, this is literally like the same weight as a pocket strobe right now granted, I don't have the battery that I'm carrying with it, but even with the battery it's still far lighter than this set up over here on the left side ok, so what is that money getting us? Well on this side with I think all this combined we're looking around twelve hundred thirteen hundred four hundred dollars with the radio triggering everything and we're getting about five hundred watt seconds were the power, but we don't have manual control. We also have a more cumbersome setup overall, I think it's like thirteen hundred bucks twelve thirty somewhere on there with a b one, we're getting the same amount of power a much more simple setup we're getting. You know the airtel system with full feature control for around two thousand dollars or a little more in two thousand with the b two were getting a more portable version of the b one half the power but again around that same price point so you can see that you know, once you start comparing apples to apples, you're not necessarily saving tons of money it's sometimes it's just worth the investment going with nicer gear because it helps you how it saves you so much time in time, his money and its convenience to of having a better system, a more functional full feature system where I can control all my power settings directly from the camera and not have to be ordering lighting assistants around, doing all these different things and so forth. So that's one of those things where I would always present to you guys when if you're looking to just jump in the stuff and to start practicing than do so and invest in something that fits your budget right now. But when you start getting and shooting more professionally, that's when you really want to look to invest in better gear because it's going to make your life that much easier, all right, so on the budget side and you can rely on the bolts, they are fantastic units, whether you get the bolt, go docks, the cheetah versions of these guys, they're the same thing, they're really great units, and they're at a great budget point. They'll get you into basically medium strobe power for a fairly affordable price. When you have the budget look to pro photo, they are our professional strobe brand of choice, they're absolutely fantastic to use great customer service, great support and just amazing products overall all right, so that's it for this video. Hopefully all enjoyed our setup of our medium full feature strobe on our big boom stick and that's, actually it for this entire chapter on year. So give yourselves a pat on the back. I would totally give myself a pat on the back if I could, except this thing is just going to fall over. Maybe if I do it real quick. Okay, let's, go in the next video.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Lighting 201 Slides

Ratings and Reviews

Colin
 

Pye is a god. His teaching style is really engaging, breaking down everything you could want to know about each example in a fun yet detailed manner. The course is absolutely jam-packed full of great information and fantastic inspiration. This course, as well as Lighting 101, give not only a perfect foundation for anybody learning about flash from scratch, but also have more than enough tips and advanced techniques in them to help experienced flash users seriously up their game. Cannot recommend it enough.

Lê Tiến Đạt
 

I'd like to say thank you to SLR Lougne, Creativelive and especially Pye for creating this wonderful Lighting series. Pye has a great sense of humor and he is also a great teacher. He expains everything in tiny details. I love his creativity, all the tips and dedication. Recommended!

Karen Ruet
 

I'm watching this live and am seriously considering buying this course. I really like the examples and all the information. Pye is super generous and easy to listen to. I also appreciate the talk about gear and am happy that Pye is giving us options for different price ranges. Thank you, Creative Live.

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