How I Shoot: The Tools

102 Comments By Rick Nunn

I get asked quite a lot about how I work with off camera flash when I produce images such as the one below. I thought it would be great to do a short series of posts that I can direct people to instead of replying to each one. In this first post I want to cover the tools I use, the second will cover setting up the lights & taking the shot & for the third I will cover post production.

Kym In The Snow *Explored*

My Tools

So these are the core tools that I have in my bag when I go out to do these sort of shots. I found it really hard to know what bits to pick up when I was getting into off camera flash photography so I wanna explain some of the options you have.

Lights

Aside from the camera arguably the most important part of the strobists tool kit. There are loads of options here depending on budget. I use the Canon 430ex, other options are the Canon 580ex, Nikon SB-900 Nikon SB-600, Nikon SB-24… the list goes on. Vivitar & Sunpak make some cheaper flash units that might be investigating if you are on a tight budget but you do get what you pay for. The key things you are looking for is that the power can be adjusted, you don’t need to worry about a flashes automatic capabilities, unless you are willing to part with some serious cash for the new Pocket Wizard ControlTL triggers, I shoot with all my flashes on full manual.

Triggers & Receivers

So really good triggers are really expensive, the real industry leaders here are Pocket Wizard – they are reliable & have an insane range. But they aren’t for me. I just can’t justify spending the amount of money on them that I would need to. A set of two go for £320 and you need one per flash and one for the camera, that would put me out £640 for me to run my current set up! I can’t justify that. I currently use the very cheap but popular PT-04 triggers, you can pick the newly designed ones up from amazon around £20 for a trigger & receiver kit. They do misfire some times & the range is no where near as good as the PWs but for the price they are great.

I have recently been looking at the Seculine Twinlink T2D kit, which seems to be something that fills the gap between the cheap triggers & the expensive ones. I think some time in the near future I will be making the upgrade to these.

Hotshoe With PC Port

I don’t connect my flash directly to the receiver, I actually sit my flash into a hotshoe with a PC port on the side, I then velcro my receiver to the top of my flash & run a cable. Mainly because I don’t trust the cheap plastic that the receivers are made from, I have already lost one flashgun because of it falling off a light stand, I don’t want to lose any more thank you very much. The hotshoes I have are made of metal and hardened plastic they also have a locking nut on them which means I can get them really tight on the light & umbrella bracket. They aren’t going anywhere! Mine are pretty similar to these bad boys but I sure as hell didn’t pay £10 each for them! I think they were around £2.50 each, totally worth it!

Light & Umbrella Bracket

This one is pretty easy, there are a few on the market, they all the do the same thing really. I have these ones, they hold an umbrella & a flash in place nicely but they do require that the flash, or hotshoe if you are using one, screw/lock in to be held securely in place.

Light Stand

Another straight forward one, you can’t really go wrong. As long as they go up to a decent height & aren’t going to fall over you are safe. I use the Konig brand ones which are available from Amazon for just under £12. But there are plenty of other options.

Update: This evening I put together a diy light stand out of some old bits I found in my dads garage, you can check it out here.

Umbrellas

Umbrellas get a little more complicated. Firstly the bigger the umbrella the more diffused the light will be. Secondly the bigger the umbrella the more power you will need to put through it. When using speedlights a good guide size to go for is between 60-100cm. There are 2 main types, shoot through and reflective, I like to keep both handy they are pretty inexpensive so it can’t hurt to have a seclection.

Shoot throughs are the white ones, you point the umbrella at the subject and pop. They also spill light everywhere though, so you don’t have quite as much control over the light, but it will spread it out better. This one would do a fine job.

Reflective umbrellas are the black ones, you point the umbrella away from the subject and the flash into the umbrella. Then the flash fires into the umbrella and all the light shines out, these will still give you the same soft light as a shoot through, but you can control where it goes a bit better. Something like this should do you.

Actually there is totally a third type, this is the kind I use pretty much all the time. I call them umbrella boxes, because they are sort of a softbox & an umbrella all rolled up into one – seriously awesome. I picked mine up from ebay & never looked back.

Camera & Lens

Use what you’ve got… that’s all there is to it. Nikon, Canon, Sony – whatever, it really doesn’t matter. As long as you’ve got a hotshoe on the top that you can get a trigger into then you are good to go. If you want to get a really dramatic bokeh effect though you are going to need a lens that hits the right sort of Fs! The lower the number the better the bokeh! Both Canon & Nikon produce a lens dubbed the nifty fifty, these are 50mm prime lenses that go down to F1.8 & retail for around £100. Really worth having in your camera bag.

Did you find this useful? Let me know by leaving a comment. Or maybe you use some different kit, I’d love to hear about it so get involved.

102 Comments By Rick Nunn Tagged — , , , Category — How I Shoot, Photography

Comments

SR blueprint

Thanks for showing this & the setup. I especially like the affect of a flash on the snow, it really makes the photo pop!

JohnONolan

This is absolutely awesome – how many 430′s do you have, out of interest? Also, can you recommend any umbrellas (and where to get em?)

Rick Nunn

Thanks everyone! I really like it.

John, I’ve got 4, and then a random flash or 2 that I picked up for a few quid if I really need. I actually just sent an email off to Gav Strange on the subject of umbrellas and stuff, DM me your email address and I’ll forward it to you.

Ash… back off! She’s mine!

Rick Nunn

Thanks again everyone.

Andy, I can’t hep myself! I am fully addicted!

Chegs, yeah I actually cropped in this tight, I preferred it this way.

wildfire_198

Dude, I don’t know how you won’t call yourself a photographer :p you’ve already made it! This is bloomin fantastic :D

Amy Elizabeth Hill

Freakin beautiful shot Rick! The tones and the atmosphere…just amazing. Definitely one of your best photographs of Kym/one of your best portraits full stop.

B.Romain

Awesome shot !

Love the snow turning into bokeh.
The light in her hair is also great.

Congrats on explorer. Well deserved.

Seen on Fluidr

HΩMΣR

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Travels of Homer Odyssey

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So nice!
Don’t forget to Tag your photo as "TRAVELS of HOMER ODYSSEY"

HAPPY 2010.

rafallano

Amaizing shot, well done

Congratulations for the explore!!!!

The shoot deserve it

Happy 2010!!!!!!!!!!

brandenharvey.com

This is incredible. The lighting around her is fantastic and the snokeh (snow+bokeh) adds so much. I love being able to see the setup!

Rick Nunn

Ha, snokeh, I like it. Thanks dude, I try and share my setups when I can/when I remember to take a setup shot. :)

Rick Nunn

Thanks

Kaarins you should post some of your light set ups too, it makes you think it through more when you look back over your photos + sharing is caring :P Right?

rick montalbano

sosososo good! i would never even think of getting snow bokeh in the background of portraits, deffinately something i need to try next time it snows

Nejc

Thanks for posting this, really useful. I’m getting into photography lately and info like this is great. So, would you recommend PT-04 triggers for hobbyist? I sure can get around some misfires, as long as they aren’t like every other shot or something..

Looking forward to part 2.

Cheers!

Rick

Thanks Adam.

Nejc, yes I would defiantly say they are a good trigger to get you started with off camera flash. They have their good days & bad days but on the whole they work very well.

Ashley

Great post, Shithead. Very interesting seeing various bits of your kit, but also very overwhelming/intimidating even with an explanation. It’s about time I splurge on some umbrellas. Thanks for the help, and looking forward to the next part!

Rick

Well Ash if you have any more questions let me know, or if there is something I didn’t explain in enough detail? All feed backs good :)

Simon

That’s a really nice post, looking forward to the next two!

One question I have is regarding the radio triggers, I have exactly the same iShoot and am now worried after you mentioning losing a speedlight.

Where did you get the Hot Shoe with PC port? If you say you can get them for £2.50 – as you say I don’t fancy paying a tenner each if you can get them that cheap!

Rick

Hi Simon,

I got mine from eBay, but I can’t find them any more. Have a good rummage around the net, I’m sure something will turn up.

Andy

Whoop, shout out for the Sony fags… Great post Rick, I was gonna bombard you with a few questions over flickr a few weeks back but now theres no need.

Thanks dude.

Dan

Great post, Rick. Some really good insights into the kind of stuff you have in your kit. Can’t wait for the next post where you talk about your methods.

Rick

Andy, lol… It’s ok I have faith that you will buy a real camera eventually. Glad you’ve found it useful.

Dan, thanks dude, I wanna try and get some video involved in the next two post but we’ll see how that works out.

MacMasore

Great post Rick! Love the drawings, now I want to begin with strobisme (but I neither have the time and the money now).

BTW:( I think you have forgotten a word in your 2nd sentence.)

Rick

I don’t think that’s fair to say; I work very hard to earn money, then I chose to spend it on camera gear. Also it doesn’t have to be expensive. Assuming you have a camera already you could get started with strobist techniques with a very limited kit:

Second Hand Flash – £40
Triggers – £20
Stand/Old Tripod £12

That comes to £72… not a lot of money to spend on something you enjoy.

With that basic kit you could do a shot just like the Lowkey Portrait I have recently blogged about. Yes I used an umbrella box in that shot but it’s not necessary; you would just end up with a slightly harsher light.

Rick Nunn

Tarunaalhadiid — I’m not really sure what you mean, all the lighting info is in the description:

“Strobist: 430 camera left 1/16 power through umbrella box. 430 behind subject, bare, 1/4 power. ”

All the little blobs of light are caused by the back light hitting the snow.

The Obviologist

That bokeh is fantastic, the lighting is pretty amazing, and the model is great. poor thing, you can tell she is freezing by her body language

Tonya

Couldn’t see the umbrella but I know which ones, been scouting Ebay & just ordered two 40″ ones.

Thanx for the info, can’t wait to try some of this. ,’;o]… {Mstee4eva on Flickr}

Martin Isaac

Love the lighting and snow bokeh
(wait… you mean someone else has already made this kind of comment!? hmmm, need to be more original… or get the comment in first!)

hery

hello, my name is hery and i’m from indonesia

i really really like your blog/website, so many things i’ve learned from your blog,thank you very very much

cheers
:)

Hisham/Egypt

Thanks again Rick, the way you lay down the info is great, so pls keep this system ON always ..

1- You start with info and theories explained simply and clearly.

2- You tail it with “Conclusion” – which under – you mention a practical brief of info mentioned above, would be the (Extract Benefit) mentioned in practical steps. making everyone comes out say .. I can do c;

Hisham/Egypt

Hi Rick, I am Hisham, from Egypt and work Graphic Designer.
Photography is essential to my work whether it is “Print Design or Web Design”. I am newbie to photography but learned a lot from your blogs with thanks, I need to have basic knowledge so I can discuss shooting situations and required results with photographers or at least give suggestions.

Please correct me if I am wrong, am I understanding right when I say:

1- Trigger: Is a remote control device fixed in Hotshoe which is fixed on top of Camera.

2- Receiver: Is a remote control device fixed on top of Flash using Velcro,Flash sits into Hotshoe which is fixed using it’s locking nut to the stand.

3- The moment you shoot trigger fixed on camera, the receiver on top of flash shoots light, as they are connected with cable. Is these 3 points right !

4- In nature law, Black absorbs and White reflects. Why is it opposite in Umbrellas.

Sorry if I look idiot in some of the above.

Rick

Hisham/Egypt,
1 — Yep.
2 — Yep.
3 — Not sure what you mean by this, there isn’t a cable running from the flash to the camera.
4 — It’s not. White and silver umbrellas reflect. The umbrellas with black, just have black on the outside of them to avoid light splitting backwards. It just gives you more control.

BillP557

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