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Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lesson 7 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lesson 7 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

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Lesson Info

7. Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Lesson Info

Multiple Speedlights with Multiple Subjects

Now you guys let's go ahead and get creative let's play a little bit okay where's bobby can I get my entire gear please all my flashes all my year which is going to rock it right now please you can sit on the edge of this look atyou freaking awesome look at you guys just like okay uh let's see hands when you sit in the middle you see how her niece this's not opposing class but here I go you know my head can stop okay just got her nicer this way so you wantto do her knees the opposite way okay so go ahead and take a seat there there isn't one she's not at the top is because we don't want to make it too cliche like top top medals who how did you come up with that so you want to keep it you would not grab the order and destroy it make it order and then destroy its okay okay we have our closest to the light source but then way have her blocking completely blocking the light on hence and then we have katie on her own not being illuminated at all and not only that not only she being blocked ...

by two people now she's also the farthest from the light so before you even turn on the first flash you're already in trouble already in big trouble see we're all my speed lights right here you go beautiful can I get another soft box it up like the smaller one this one over here let's put it by katie you see these hats and stuff doesn't remind you of like a new orleans kind of bohemian behemoth kind of feel to it so why don't we just totally rocked that and totally change the room into a very new orleans kind of like mardi gras style thing and we keep it totally chilled and cool so light on the lighting on them will be beautiful but the leading in the back and we very moody you guys good she's in the fun is just like funded and heck like you can just totally rocket you know so let me put that flash and you turn it on here so this soccer first of all these backwards so we're gonna make sure it's not backwards that would be helpful we're going to put this on slave did you practice flash from this is a new one a stone that so we have a there ale that's off books we're going to put this one we're going to put this one on b we're going to put this one on see now for you guys watching on the internet it's not scary I'm only keeping everything to channel one if you're in a situation where you have lots of channels and cell phones and things going on you can change the frequency of the channel to so but let's not waste time with that channel group egg bc the and you can put multiple flashes for a group so I can grab my triple threat. That sounds so cool. Like triple threat. Baby, get out of here. I got the triple threat. I can put triple threat and I can gang on my flashes together. It's totally like getting it out like the ladies love it. You know, I was just about to say he's geeking out now, like when katie sees me doing this, you're just like, wow, I want to date that guy. Nothing could be sad people. It's all right here, it's over. Okay, actually, this is a five. Eighty x two, so I'm gonna get rid of that. I don't even know who this is. Can I get another six hundred is right there, there's there's more. All right, so I'm gonna put this is a this will be my master. So this will be I don't know who came up with masters and slaves like that's, like, really weird. Wait. Three, six, one, five, eighty. Is that right? Cool. So the whole bohemian you can't hel I's gonna going out the window very quickly, but we can still try so let's, see? I'm gonna put this is going to be a this is going to be when we put that flash from there put it here please bobby and then I'm gonna put this group and I'm gonna put it in c roberta couldn't she use the five eighty and just put it on manual and have the slave poppet to whatever? No because I'm not using optical transmission I'm using radio transmission and they're not by course compatible and I don't have enough bucket wizards to do it all money also we have to do it this way so far doesn't work cantonese very smart they made it known backwards compatible you have to buy everything again so it's beautiful okay, so we're going to put jail on this using our rogue jail stuff. Okay, okay, we don't have uh wanna pull out this stuff. Look at all this stuff from rome. Thiss guy. So what is that guy? This is just a jail back if you really want to attract the ladies like when you're at work, bust out this dude, you see this little guy? It looked would you put your flash there? And then you put this crazy thing and you walk around like that? You don't have to say a word like everybody would just be like what's your number now, so what's it like having a puppy it was it's like having a puppy oh, this puts a puppy in a hole like puppy will not even they will keep the puppy compared to this case this here very quickly put some jails here grab the little rubber bands in here rubber band is to hold the filter in place that filter goes around here now we don't have enough flashes for this setup but we're still gonna have fun with it. Okay on we're gonna use science on dh our knowledge of light to start correcting all the problems that we have the most awesome picture using limited flashes ok, we're gonna turn this into a bohemian look so I don't like the white wall what color do you guys want the world to be? Maybe like a like a brownish or something you want to think okay yeah thinking we're going to do what we can with the other are we going to leave the props in? We're going props yeah we're going to leave it maybe the couches you guys like it? Derek orange oh my gosh let's totally rocked the orange. Ok, now you realize that when you put something in front of your flash that science off flash gets activated which means you're now your flashes now traveling through trance it's transmitting the light through here so you're losing power okay hey bobby, would you mind putting this here? Man I need to like set up something else but you go and there's another one this is not very inside. Okay beautiful what's in this box. Okay, very nice and what's in this one this is channel can you put that flash in take this posture is issued okay, there is why I had him change the light is because I went that orange light toby luminary most of the wall so I needed the light source to be bigger had I just put the flash by itself and I don't mean that the warm part of it would be eliminated part of part of a will not okay, so we're going to just make the light source bigger on we're going to be able to, uh, make that wall pretty orange now. Okay, so I'm doing the job of three speed lights with just one just putting that light in the biggest. If you sir, I have good if you don't have all the tools you need you actually do you have to be more creative with it. All right. For katie she's totally going to be dark. This is not gonna work for her, so we need to change the light because I only have one light left the small light box and we know the inverse square law on we know that light travels in a vacuum on we know that light picks up whatever color hits what is the best option to light up all three with only one light source because we only have white light left what's that lighting from from directly from the front it doesn't matter. Okay yeah, but that's too direct what else? Further away further away further away yeah we're gonna put this sucker here this is going to eliminate katie now we only have one light source so we're gonna stagger them so they all get hit by lightning you're thinking this is the mentality man this is the thought process so hands I need you to take one step forward katie goes far back and just chill your back against that against that and just be able to just be chilled like yeah look at you you need to be in between them they're your head has to be in between this so the light hits it hits you you see what I'm saying let me see what you look like beautiful this's already then yeah uh no we'll keep it what's this doing here this is the six hundred oh, this is b so what's in here that's the one, eh? Oh, okay these you see which is what we want wait no, we need a main light oh, we don't have a mean light, so we used a big wall that is the diffuser that's the main light. Okay, so somebody just holds it pointed at that huge soft box you see what I'm saying? Opening is gonna spill light into my background. Let's try this is b okay bisa one sixty four yeah, give me that fifty millimeter would you please? Fifty prime is right here, right there. Take this one. Let me have I mean in the thirty five, actually, but let me see if this works okay. Oh, roberta, can we move? The lamp behind huns is head of the way. Move that red lamp from behind hans his head? Yes. Okay guys, the main light I usually put it on on group a the feel light. I usually put it in group b and especially about fifty per cent of the light output as group a and group c can be whatever you needed to be to illuminate that background and that's going to be on group c because it's the background life so are huge light here is going to be a background like that see that's going to be our be the one that's pointing towards that is going to be our a okay, so it's gonna be remain light when I go to my flash eddings make sure that they're all flash functions endings they're all gonna be on manual I have group c now is going to be on manual on which one see the background like all we're doing is changing the room toe a very orangy feel without changing the white balance on them they're being eliminated by fifty two hundred k that was being illuminated by a much more tungsten light source okay if we had another light I would put another one in that direction and make it all red okay so roberto both of the flashes are facing the kickback both of the flashes are facing the kickback in the in the soft boxes they're facing straight on I think that's a good question so they're facing that reflective ok all right this is going this way boom this is not going to fire sixty fourth sees one fourth let's see what this looks like a little movement water bottling things quick test bam fire scene oh man that's gorgeous it's the photo they're pretty cool right? Every single person is illuminated beautifully every single person is now let's see, we have any of you see any problems we can try to fix were you pointing that flash stores of all right that perfect do you see any problems? It is really really blown out okay beautiful so we're going that's flash see? So we're going to go toe external speed control flash function settings and we're going teo turn down see two one thirty seconds because I did that I'm going to uh yeah that's you work so flash here when it's too overpowering the light is coming out of bobby's flash iss a and I think it's too powerful mrs b being so we're gonna go toby now we're going to bring it down to one twenty eight sounds good. That was so sure this is let's put this one in haven group group a okay anon group a flat functions and things were gonna go to group a we're going to bring it down to one sixty fourth so you can bounce that off I was going to give you more softer light the whiteboard or the wall the one because of the nature of the way light behaves because it's going to reflect on the sun is going up sources in a bounce him okay, let's, try this one more time. Yeah, just quick, just a quick shot. One, two, three okay, on dh I think we have a pretty good fix on the on atlanta side with lois but there were two dark on katie there. Pretty cool. No, I feel like I feel like I want to make this more like reddish or whatever like I feel like it's starting to go but it's just not quite there yet, so why don't we when we bust out this one we're going to create a problem but we're going to fix it so we're gonna put red light on that wall we're gonna lose one flash because we know the science of life we're gonna be able to fix it no problem ok so to you and others have read somewhere in their weapons ready and look what he says have stopped lost three and a half okay so here you go bobby we put this on that one please roberto a couple people want to know how do you make the master not fire that's important because if you if that fires your ruins your whole mood if you have what you want there's a button there if you have the six hundred yet artie flesh if you go tome anyone there's our option that says you want the master to flyer fire or not fire if you put it to not fire the flash goes from being a speed like to just being a transmitter if you say fire then it's going to be a transmitter on dh a speed like okay in this case because we're losing one light to the background we're going to have to get really creative with light which is no problem because we know how light works you see so no problem at all nai katie you're not worried right? You look very not worried right now which is good you feel that you have faith you know so roberto's is your idea to take that be light off of katie and use it on the background yeah okay and then I'm going to get very creative with how I bounce the light of the walls to get or ovary watch you see because the thing is it really comes down to the behavior of life on dh once you see what we're going to do you'll see hato comes to kind of comes together for awesome creativity now right now we're just messing around at a real job you would have a navy a draw it out set it up until your clients to come in okay, so no problem any more questions from you guys you guys want to discuss a little bit while we wait for that soft books let's look at the internet and see what they have to after this we're gonna go over my slideshow and I wantto tio I have to stay here I'll go to my slideshow and I want to show you guys some thought process photos that I took for the last part of the workshop can I be of how the thought process works and how fast you'd do it it's already thank you bobby can we put turned that to point towards that wall so we need to make that taller I'm pointed down just there yeah well that was like a child that's okay, there we go yeah and while he's doing that roberto so we need we need to figure out way lost two flashes we lost we're going to lose that one this one we're going to actually turn down to illuminate we're going to need a couple of more people to help me one more person to help reflected right here that wall is too far away so that light source even wants to bounce light toe that light source it's so far away is goingto shine all that light and spill it all over the wall and is gonna ruin a red and orange but if I point the flash towards this light source it's a lot closer and I can't control it makes sense so we're not doing this anymore we're doing this okay, this will take care of it so all right bobby that's goodman lets go here on this point this right out here and they were gonna point it say we have to be careful here so we want that going on there this flash will illuminate hands and alana and then we have nothing for katie so the next one is we're going to bounce this we're going to turn it to the left to bounce against what was your name he'll bounce against alex is face on he's going to hit katie okay, you know what let's put that on alex there are can somebody hold this? I want you to point this right at katie flash comes on I'm gonna have this fire now I am going to zoom the head to not break the light so often I'm going to assume it to one thirty five or wanna fight all right ready guys what's your western number on that group and this was group what? This one inside there it's okay it's b remember we lost three stops almost three stops of light so we're going to bring that we're going to flash from we're going to make that a little brighter so it's a p r c yeah this one is veering okay I'm actually gonna assume this to two hundred millimeters to hit that and then that's gonna hit katie all of that just for katie see katie how special you are see was that you just pointed right this has to go full and it's gonna go and then we have ah well and it looks good there and hopefully this works we should have some pretty cool everything okay go higher on that thiss way okay ready one two three film oh yeah take a look at this this is not the right one look at the next one here starts to look pretty vintage. Okay, now watch this guys let's turn this off watch this this is the difference between knowing what's up and go ahead and you'll show that let's compare the two let's compare look at that let's go to teo on this flash turn off everything at zero and is going to just give you a right exposure flat. There will be nothing special about it even though you're all special lighting let's put that one not okay then this compared to the vintage one not the last one. Not a second to last but the third to last. Yeah, I can assure you with some editing and all that that fought on the left could be very, very, very beautiful. Very vintage. She looking very nice. Look at the balance off the orange and the red on katie, but look at the light is them is hitting them pretty pretty well balanced. Had I not had a hot tub, you read she will be pure red, so we have master again, I changed a lot of my settings. We'll try that. Master. Is that light green? Yeah. And what did I say? Because of that white is not there anymore that red spilled all over her and look at the difference. Pretty incredible. How cracked, how predictable, wass right that red light spilled all over katie because we didn't have that whiteboard. That whiteboard is what saved her color balance because photons pick up the light that they hit, so yeah, um, it's hard to understand all that but it's worth the time teo can we put that one and compare it to the other one that let me she is compare the other one that looked identity right area yeah what do you think pretty predictable right without the white card you bounced red light on katie any questions that you guys where is the remote for this thing just a review question roberto from asthma matthews I know you're talking about the gels and how do you compensate for the stops you lose you just power up power yeah I changed from one one twenty eight to one thirty two okay because of the three stops loss and that is that the only way that you would compensate you don't have to do it that way because if you bring down your s o sorry if you bring up today so it will be a universal change because we're trying to control one light at a time we need to make a loan changes that are that are alone separated by themselves okay thank you oh yeah and just to kind of summarize the section could you for steve s summarized the setup again just kind of go through if you look at the original photo that I took with my t t o flash you can see which was flat and only there was nothing special about it we brought the vintage out of this for this looks very of entities so we just painted it with better light to compliment a vintage feel, it took a little bit off off thinking. For example, the war had to be done with a bigger light source to illuminate it more evenly instead of just a single speed like you saw what I did with a single spell it when I was photographing hands and katie by themselves it was just a little tiny beam remember that so you eliminate the wall we needed to have a longer a bigger space. I also needed to put the lights farther away from that wall because of the inverse square law I knew that if I separate that life in the war, more of the light will be split will be late even me how'd I put that light inches from that wall? Then the first five inches from that will will be read and then the rest will not be you were just going to go back to white because of the fall off on I put my main light in group a might feel light in groupie on my background lighting group c in this case I have to bracken and lights andi, I decided to use my master flash is an actual firing device on we used sarah on we used a whiteboard toe basically have those photons pick up that white and give katie a nice good look tow her instead of a red look which is nothing wrong with that is just not what we were going for okay old uh changes that we made where local localised changes if we would have changed their aperture r shutter speed or are sort of aperture or our izo or distance the picture would have been quite different so uh susan if I want to show something on my computer but it's not unlike you know how could I do that? Well we'll get that arrange I just want to finish with something I know a lot of people had questions about reception lighting with camera with speed lights and I want to go over someone before I leave okay but yeah let's take that picture quick I'm going to change my s o from twelve, fifty two, four hundred and it's going to be a universal change it would all be down okay with this so we basically just have just looks darker overall here's another one real quick changes two f sixteen you can see because I changed the app attorneys manual the light didn't make it so we click on the last photo this universal changes you see all the lights changed instead of individual ones okay, okay let's see what you can do it we're not going to be able to totally okay totally okay okay wei have time for another creative shot our way have ten minutes what do you want to dio you guys want to see what happens if you put the background flashing in t ell, if you do that is going to expose for normal and it's a good throw off that color or why don't we? Why don't we add a separation light on alana let's? Try that so we can make the light be a separate be a separation like instead of a background like okay, so you see, what is that flash their long one by itself? Okay, this one's group a okay, let's put that right behind elena. And you can. You just kind of, like, hiding it's. Okay? No, we're going to go right behind atlanta picture faith can't see here highlighted external be like, control flash function savings. That was a right I'm gonna turn into a t t l but leave the other one's in manual. Ok, it should work pretty well. Let me see what kind of what's her back up like he's got some white skin with a black dress that's going average it out. If she had a full black dress, we would that probably will not work. Okay, could I see that? Just I'll just alana should be pretty cool it with her background light and it didn't work well because off her combination of outfit, take a look at that now you see how there's still too much ambient light going on in the back I want to change my shutter speed to make the the ambien darker something things yeah I was gonna ask you what would you do to make the orange and red more intense when I lower my shutter speed and you should do something cool stuff somebody must my shutter speed went from ninety to one eighty and now we fixed it but it's a little too dark to that now let's put out that light on alana let's make it a lot brighter so that's a right flesh function savings, by the way is what I do it with my manikins you just start and you write it down so group is going into manual flash and I'm going to put a full power watch watch what happens, okay? And you point that down towards her dress more like instead of like from the bottom from underneath and just kind of yeah on hide hide it from the view you just our stores like her what her dress meets her skin one two three up so well too crazy let's bring it closer to her to her like almost touching her you go already one two, three and it's like that flash by itself is like overpowering everything so universal changes one, two, three and see just changing the so and changing the aperture you start to really change the way that for the looks of that haven't changed the flash out for too much so you have all those options you see how that those other flashes are not really were doing anything anymore because the other light is reflecting that white light from alana's back all the way into the wall is that that's firing right? Yeah let's point it on you go up and put it right behind her head I'm gonna lower that power just by a little bit flash function settings when I go and I want to go to one over fourth one fourth power now you can really see the different separation light except now we have hands in total darkness so for killing mysterious you see that and some of the light is actually spinning is spilling into on indicated there so anyway let's take some questions, I guess and then we'll go from there we took a lot of cool photos off all of you guys we tried to make this into a vintage situation using our speed lies we didn't have enough speed let's, but we still can't make it work on we've got over a lot today, starting from light of the science behind it to some understandings of what the flash and how it works with the groups with wireless set ups with it we really went over to teal and manual on we really went over how for manual you have to keep track of four things that can change fast flash output one is your exposure one is your aperture wanted your shutter speed one insurer uso on I'm sorry not trying your shutter speed aperture I s o distance and the power from your flesh we also talked about how when light hits an object that photon of light has three options option a the libel transmit through the object giving you like a distorted version ofthe whatever it wass option b that photon can be absorbed by that material like styrofoam which is why people like you like it because it gives you the super soft light option c it could be completely reflected on that's the ultimate reflection is a mirror on the opposite of that would be black velvet would be like well, just suck it all out we used a black flag for hands toe craft his cheeks and make it look like a real heavy duty studio portrait but I was just thinking with one spear light on your camera on a lot of knowledge of light right on then we went over multiple flash I mean single fly shops on different possibilities you could be with thio then we did single flash with manu there we did two flashes with hands and katie appear in the wall to flash up one for the background, one for them we exposed hands with split lighting. We put a reflector, has failed to no make you look to split on. We pointed the light horse katie to fill up her face with like that was a james bond picture. Then we added a background red light to kind of contrast with a great background and give it that volume and that death. Okay, third and last we did multiple light setups. Three, four, four, speed less at the same time all on manual on. We controlled each pete light individually. And we also at the end, demonstrated how I s so changes can be made universal changes on then finally I put a flashing tl. I pointed straight at that straight at them and it flattened the whole picture, totally ruining it. Which is why detailed socks unless you need speed. So remember this. If you need speed on reliability, tl is your friend. If you need control and creativity, manu is going to be your friend is going to go to, um there's a heck of a lot more to go on flash but that's what? You have five days off lighting week five pesos for these five days, five days of lighting week, I'd encourage you guys could get yourself a manager I'm not joking on dh by it. On the internet, you khun b shift costs like two hundred bucks the best two hundred bucks you ever spent put it on your house by some of these jails from rogue and start writing down everything you can do changes, put the maybe get a male and a female. I really just rocket. Remember that if you do all this and you do not write it down on a no pet, you're basically going to forget in about three to four days. Okay, write it down with your hand. No, with a computer with your hand on. Then when you do a practice session, don't practice everything in one session, one thing at a time, so one session can be. I'm going to practice one light set up. That picture of hands that we took when he was sitting on the couch turned out really nice because I've done this a million times with a mannequin it's not because I was special, it's not because I'm a genius, he just because I have a mannequin and I use it, that's it.

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I liked this course. Except I think on segment 3 of the lighting, as stated by one of the studio audience he got the color balance of warm wrong and blue when he was talking about balancing the light (at 30 minutes in). Having said this I got the theory of balancing, and the rest of the video was excellent. It really does help to see flash as photons and understand what science behind it, to understand how light works and how to use it to your advantage. This a a great course in order to revisit now and again in order to become competent on lighting when put on the spot of having a difficult situation.

user a391f8
 

This class is like shopping at Marshalls: there are some valuable things to buy but you have to go through a lot of crap to get to them. The production value of this class is awful. The folks at Creative Live must not have a class on video editing to follow because not enough material was left on the editing room floor.. Roberto is fabulous but it must have been one of his earlier forays into teaching because he was scatological in many areas. Creative Live could have minimized this by doing some editing. He's a fabulous photographer and an even better teacher and this class would be much better if it followed the format of his 3 books: orderly and succinct. Learned a lot from this class. I just wish I didn't have to work so hard for it.

CJ McBrown
 

I have to say upfront that I have not purchased this course but the brief information he gave is spot on! I'm a sr. photographer for a large beauty company and I have to give him kudos for how detailed and accurate his explanations are. If the entire video is anything like the preview I highly recommend it.

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