Sunday, May 17, 2015

Learning Canon’s Flash System


I need to get this one out of the way before we begin. When you bought your Canon 580EX II Speedlite (or any other Canon Speedlite for that matter) it came with this beautiful little 57 page manual written in English, French and Spanish. I suspect it was originally written by a little old Japanese lady and translated into these three languages which goes a long way to explaining why its mostly incomprehensible to photographers. Its that left brain, right brain thing.



Never the less, you really should start your journey to Speedlite nirvana by reading the manual for each flash you plan on using. You never know. You might even learn how to say "Auto FP High Speed Sync" without it sounding like "Auto Frak'ng Hay Seed Stink".



Read the Manuals





Read the Manuals
Copyright 2009 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 50D set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM tripod mounted. The exposure was taken at 70mm, f/11 for 6 seconds at ISO 100 on Lexar Professional digital film. The lighting setup was fairly simple. One off-camera 580EX II Speedlite shot through a softbox with a small reflector adding fill light. All exposure magic was done wirelessly using Canon's E-TTL II sorcery. Post capture processing was done in Lightroom 2 using Nik Software's Color Efex Pro filters. Click on the image above for a larger version.



By the way. Once you're done reading these little gems, you really should take a peek at my four favorite books on using small strobes.


  • The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes by Joe McNally
  • The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters by Joe McNally
  • Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography by Kirk Tuck
  • Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography by Kirk Tuck

Posted in Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon 50D, Canon 580EX II Speedlite, Product Photography



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