Tag Archives: flash photography

Phottix Odin – The Best Alternative To Pocket Wizards

It’s been a couple months since I first bought my first flash trigger and receivers, and let me tell you, I’ve never looked back. I lost my Canon infrared flash commander at a festival I was shooting at, and decided that it was time to switch up to radio transmitters and receivers. After deliberating over Pocket Wizards and Radio Poppers, I was being continually put off by the price, and then I came across the Phottix Odin.

The product came up in my news feed in Twitter, from the well respected photographer and blogger, Michael Zelbel, who had been trialling the product for a while. What I saw shocked me, not only because of what it can do, and the way it does it, but because of the price too.

I’ve had experience with both Pocket Wizards and Radio Poppers in the past, and I’ve enjoyed using them, but they have been a little bit difficult to control at times, as they’re somewhat unintuitive. Because all three of these products use radio waves, then there’s much less interference in the signal than you get with infrared, because it doesn’t rely on line-of-sight to work. The distance that it works with does vary depending on the weather, and location, but they will work over 100 meter if you want them to. And if other people are using the transmitter as you, you have 4 channels to choose from.

The Product

The product in question is the Phottix Odin, and they are by far the most intuitive flash triggers that I’ve used to date. The transmitter has a screen on it, and that’s the secret to the product’s success in my opinion, because it allows you to change the power of three different groups, from one place, with the click of a couple of buttons. The whole interface is so easy to use that I didn’t even have to read the manual, which is a rarity for flash gear with me. So with the most basic setup, where all the flashes are on manual, you can be in once place, and experiment with different lighting as much as you like, with ease.

These triggers also handle much more complicated, ETTL setups, where you want to use ratios over two groups of flashes, to control the amount of light that each flash group is outputting. This isn’t typically the easiest thing to do, but with the screen on the transmitter, again, it’s as simple as a click of a few buttons. The addition of the screen is refreshing after using other products, and it makes you wonder why it’s not been done sooner.

For those that don’t know, ETTL stands for Evaluative Through The Lens, and what is does is utilize a pre-flash to measure the light reflected back from the subject. You won’t actually see two flashes because when the shutter is pressed, a very short flash burst is fired from the unit and the metering system reads the results, then makes the necessary adjustments, hence the name, evaluative through the lens. This technology used to be much harder to transmit through radio-waves, which is why it’s so expensive, but Phottix Odin have found a way to make it much cheaper.

So far, we’ve covered manually setting the flash power, and using ETTL, but you can also use both at the same time. Because you have three groups on the transmitter, you can make adjustments to each one so that one group has less power, one has more, and one has full power, as decided by the ETTL metering. The biggest selling point of this product for me, is the ETTL metering, and the more you’ll learn about it, the more you’ll begin to see it’s worth.

I don’t know about you, but I use high speed sync a lot of the time with my flash, because it allows me to shoot at much higher speeds, for when I want to try some low key photography, or I’m shooting in the sun, but want a wider aperture for a shallower DoF. Another advantage of this product is that you can still use high speed sync (HSS) with your flashes, even over the radio transmission. This is something that cheap transmitters which you see on eBay, can’t do. For those of you that don’t know, HSS is a continuous, and much faster oscillation of light, rather than a single flash, and this allows the flash to operate much faster, allowing you to shoot at higher speeds. It will still appear to be a single flash though, because it happens so fast. You can also use rear curtain sync, which is available from the same button.

The product is only available in America, but you can find it on eBay in other countries, such as the UK, where I live. I’ll also say that I’ve not had any problems the miss-fires at all so far, which is always a possibility when you take a product which used radio waves that are designed to be used in another country. The product seems to be very reliable indeed.

There is one downside for some of the readers on this site, and that’s that the product only works with Canon so far, but it will be coming to Nikon within the next few months. If you’re thinking of upgrading your flash transmitters, or buying one for the first time, then I would strongly suggest this product, and even if you’re using Nikon, I would probably wait for the Nikon version to be released, because the price really can’t be beat. You can pick up the transmitter, and two receivers for only $429.95. If you were to buy the Pocket Wizard’s inferior version, it would cost you more like $637.00. You can also buy the parts one at a time, so if you’re only looking for one receiver for now, click here: Single receiver.

Here’s a link to buy the product, with one transmitter and two receivers.

There’s plenty of videos cropping up on the internet of the product being used, but my favourite has to be Michael Zelbel’s own, and the video that convinced me to buy the product. Check it out if you’ve still not made up your mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5XVQfrGANA

Great Advice For Your First Photography Job

Introduction

Because of the time in which we live, we’re fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of new camera technology at a much lower cost that ever before, and with that comes a whole new range of photographers. It’s one thing to develop your skill, it’s another to start your own career, but hopefully this article will help you on your way.

Advice

When you’re looking for a photography job, you may find yourself applying for positions that are way above your skill and experience level, and this is something you need to watch out for. Only apply for jobs that you’re qualified for because otherwise you’re doing your client a disservice, by not providing the results that they’re expecting and you’re giving yourself a bad name before you even start your career. Start with a small or relatively stress free job where you’re not going to be under the pressure of only being able to have one chance to get a photo.

Try out as a second shooter first to get some more experience before going it alone. Second shooters are often found at weddings, so if you find another, well established photographer, and show them your portfolio, you may be in with a chance of some paid work. Always try to get paid for this sort of job though because there will be no doubt that the photographer will also be charging for you.

Make sure that you’re charging the right amount of money, because it’s common for photographers when they’re starting out to feel like they should charge less than a full time photographer. Don’t do this as it makes it harder for you to start charging proper money in the future. You need to remember that a good photographer can easily charge $500+ a day, so if your client is looking for a proper photographer already, they would have already been quoted this sort of money, so you shouldn’t feel bad quoting the same.

As a photographer, you’re there to get the photos that are required of you, nothing more and nothing less. When you’re working with large groups of people or speakers and events, you’ll start to feel like you stand out, making lots of noise snapping away, but this isn’t necessarily so. If you move slowly, rather then quickly, you won’t make any sudden movements which attracts attention to yourself. If you keep cool, calm and collected, you’ll find that you’ll be more focused and end up taking better photos, as well as looking more professional.

If you’re going to be taking professional photos, then you need professional gear. Make sure you’ve got an external flash unit (pop-up flash won’t cut it), and a couple of decent lenses. I know that you can get great photos from entry level SLRs, but it would reflect badly on you if that was all you turned up with. If you’re starting to get paid jobs, then you should really be investing in better gear too. If you can’t afford to buy better gear, then you should consider camera rentals – there are companies everywhere which will provide you will all the top quality gear that you could possibly need.

If your camera has them, then I thoroughly recommend using custom dials. I have 2 on my camera so I can easily switch between different settings, depending on what I’m shooting. This is very useful as you’ll find that you may only have one chance to get a photo of certain situations, and if your camera is not set up for that shot then you might miss it. I typically have them both set to manual, but one set up for flash, and one without flash.

Events usually have pretty poor lighting so make sure you carry a flash and some fast lenses with you. Wide apertures are really important in low light, as you won’t want to push your ISO too much for fear of noise. Be careful when you’re doing group photos though as people will likely be at different distances from the camera, so you’ll want to make sure that they’re all in focus by using a narrower aperture and possibly a flash. This is all basic gear that you should have before you start quoting for photograph jobs.

Get everything in writing. I’ve turned up to events in the past and found that something had happened to their main speaker and they may only need me for 1 day, rather then 3 they had booked me for, but because I had it all in writing, it wasn’t a problem. If you’re interested in more tips of writing up an agreement for your future clients, I go over everything that I cover in my post on corporate event photography.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, then I’d encourage you to come and join me and other photographer over at the Facebook page, where we share photos and more tips and techniques.

How to Capture Great Photos in Low Light

What We're Covering Together

The buttons you press on a camera to produce the right exposure in low light, are all the same as when you shoot in the middle of the day; the same rules of exposure apply, it's just a little harder to get there. When there's less light in a scene, you have 2 choices; either you create more light yourself or you change the settings on your camera to react differently to the light available. This tutorial is all about how to do that.

Exposure

If you've not read the tutorials inside my Understanding Exposure blog post, then I strongly suggest you go back and read them now – there's a lot more to it then you may think. Putting that aside though, you basically have 3 ways of getting more light into your camera in a low light situation; aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Aperture

This is the hole the light passes through in your lens and the wider it is, the more light it lets in. Rather confusingly, the wider the aperture, the lower the f-number, so bear that in mind. This step isn't particularly useful if you're still using your standard kit lens as you'll find that your maximun aperture is somewhere around f/3.5, which won't let in enough light to really help out. What I suggest is to buy a cheap, but effective prime lens with a maximum aperture of about f/1.8 (Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 ii) – this is commonly referred to as a 'fast' lens as it allows you to take photos at faster shutter speeds. The photo below was shot on film but if i remember rightly, it was f/1.7 for 1/30 of a second at ISO 200.

The point here is that if you want to take a well exposed photo in low light, you need to have a lens with a wide aperture as it lets more light in. Setting your lens to stop at f/1.8 actually lets in 4 times more light then f/3.5, which is a huge difference for a small change in number. A wide aperture will produce a shallow depth of field though, and there's no way around that, unless you make your aperture narrower again and increase the ISO or slow down your shutter speed.

If you're taking photos of groups of people in the pub or somewhere, be careful about how wide your aperture is because you'll end up with half the people not in focus. This is a good time to use the flash, but take my advice and invest in a proper external flash unit, it'll make a world of difference.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is step 2 in creating an exposure and also affects how much light enters the camera – the faster the shutter speed, the less light that will enter the camera. If you're out and about in a low light situation, chances are you're not going to have a tripod with you, so you'll have to be careful not to select a speed too slow or you'll end up with blurry photo.

As a rule of thumb, the average person can take a sharp, blur-free image by setting the speed to a fraction of a focal length. For example, to take a photo at 30mm, you would set the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second; any slower and motion blur is likely to occur. It’s worth noting however, that this rule is only relevant to full frame cameras. For a crop sensor, due its magnifying effect, you would be better off choosing a speed of 1/45 of a second and you'll need to drastically increase your shutter speed if the subject is moving.

If you happen to have a tripod with you and you're shooting a still object, then you have the ability to make the shutter speed virtually as long as you want. What I recommend is shining a torch on your subject so that you can focus properly and using an external shutter release trigger to minimalise camera shake.

Another technique worth trying is using a relatively long shutter speed in a crowd of people and capturing their motion blur while the objects around them remain still, like in the photo below.

ISO

This is slightly more tricky to manage on most cameras as the higher the ISO, the more digital noise there will be, and this can be pretty ugly. If you're struggling to get the exposure you're looking for with just changing the shutter speed and aperture, then the best thing to do is to raise the ISO. Remember how stops work though, if you double the ISO number, you're doubling the amount of light that your camera is seeing.

I find that high ISO's on my camera aren't very good at determining colour so you might want to consider changing your photos to black and white. That gives the photos a nice warm and old feeling to them and the high ISO actually adds to this. Typically though, I don't raise my ISO to anything further then about 1600 – if i need more light after that, I use a flash unless i'm doing it for artistic effect like the photo below shot at f/2.8, for 1/8 of a second at ISO3200.

Low Light Photography with a Flash

When you're shooting groups of people in low light, it's best to use a flash. As I explained above, if you don't have your aperture too wide, you're going to end up with a shallow depth of field and not everyone in focus.

If you only have a pop-up flash on your camera, then you're limited with what you can do with it really, but some of these techniques will still apply. Firstly, just because you're using a flash, it doesn't mean that you can set your ISO all the way back down to 100, because if you do, you'll start to lose background detail in the dark. I like to make leave my ISO on about 400 as I feel it's an acceptable amount of grain and detail – all cameras are different though so play around with yours to see what you're comfortable with.

If you're using an external flash then it's best to bounce the light off of a wall or ceiling or to use a diffuser to make the light look a lot less harsh. A lot of the time when a flash is used properly, someone who's not really into photography can't even tell that a flash has been used, which is exactly the reaction you want. Image below was taken at f/5.6, 1/50 of a second at ISO 500 with the flash bouncing off the ceiling.

Playing with light trails can produce some really cool results, and all you have to capture this is to take a photo of someone with a flash pointed directly at them, and have the shutter speed long enough to capture the blur that comes afterwards. Have a look at my example below taken at f/11, for 5 seconds, at ISO 100.

Tips

Here's some tips to bear in mind when you're using your camera in low light conditions:

If you're in a dark room and you want your photo to accurately capture the environment you're in, the photo should be a little bit underexposed.
Getting the photo take priority over worrying about ISO noise.
Keeping your elbows together and not leaning forward will help you to hold the camera steady for longer, allowing you to lower your shutter speed.
Turning up your camera's exposure compensation will help your camera to overexpose, and in darkened conditions, produce more accurate results.