Strobist lighting system

Albert Pedrosa
Photo mania

I’M a strobe guy. When I do a commercial shoot, my gear for lighting couldn’t fit in my car anymore. Although I’m a worshiper of light, I have a love and hate relationship with the sun. I like to control every inch of light that sums up in my frame.

However, when you’re shooting events or weddings, there is no take two. You are shooting as it happens and if your light is not in the right position and settings, all you can do is to do better next time. You need a system that can suggest and think on its own, working as an assistant at the same time.

This is where intelligent portable flash comes in. A flash system that communicates to the other flash devices and your camera. A system that calculates the required light from different perspectives and does all the light sampling and processing in a thousandth of a second.

There’s a reason why a Canon Speedlite and the Nikon Speedlights are almost always way above your budget. These flash devices are intelligent enough to help you achieve your shot in the speed of light. They are like your minions of light working with you as you glide across taking your shots.

TTL, or through the lens metering, helps the flash determine the amount of light needed. The flash devices fire a sample light as you are about to trigger the shutter. What it does is it measures the sample light as it goes through the lens of the camera and determines how much more or less is needed to get the right exposure.

All the considerations including the aperture of your lens, the distance of the subject, the reflectance of the scene and more are processed in a millisecond just before you take the shot. All the other slave flash devices that are part of your system perform the same processing and communicate all these data to the master flash, normally mounted in your camera, as you are about to take the shot.

Top of the line flash devices like Canon Speedlite may be expensive if you work on it individually, but it definitely shows its value when used as a flash system. With a flash system, you can group your flash separately and assign a flash compensation to the group. You can decide to increase the light at the back of your subject just by setting it up in your master flash.

Nissin Digital Flash recently launched a radio wireless system that can perform similar to the Canon and NIkon flash systems but at a more affordable price. As you develop your skills in photography, finding ways to better your shots will put you ahead in the game. Keep on shooting, everyone!

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