Speedlights & Speedlites: Creative Flash Photography at the Speed of Light

by Lou Jones, Bob Keenan, Stephen Ostrowski

Canon Speedlites and Nikon Speedlights are small, off-camera flashguns that can provide big results - if you know how to use them properly. Acclaimed Boston photographers Lou Jones, Bob Keenan and Steve Ostrowski guide you through the technical and creative aspects of how to get the most out of these powerful tools in this indispensable guide, packed full of inspirational images and comprehensive diagrams of the lighting set ups used to capture them. They are significantly more advanced, lighter and considerably cheaper than a standard flashgun, and have many advantages. They are small (and cheap) enough that a number can be carried in your kit, and they can be used in combination, triggered wirelessly. They use through-the-lens (TTL) metering, which allows you to use the in-camera LCD and histograms to calculate the required power/direction, rather than havng to use a light meter or trial and error. They use proprietary, dedicated technology (from Canon and Nikon) that means there are no compatability issues. Getting the most out of them, however, remains a mystery - most photographers still just use their speedlights in the same way as a standard flash gun. This is where this book comes in.

Genres: Photography

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2009

Reviews

[Brian Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quote from page 92: "Making photographs look simple is often the hardest lighting task." That pretty much says it all! All-in-all this was a pretty good book. I've had a pair of SB-800 units for 7 years and some aspects are still mysterious; so I learned some things from this book (like why my pop-up still flashes when it's in pure commander mode; and turning on a flash sets my white balance to flash even though the camera LCD doesn't change).