School tip Go off-camera
Learn to control the direction and quality of light
A camera’s pop-up flash can cough up enough light to cut through shadows in an outdoor portrait. But the small size of a built-in unit and its fixed position on the camera means that the light it produces is direct and harsh. You also need to be fairly close to the subject, as the power of a pop-up flash is comparatively low.
For more punch, you can stick a Speedlite on the camera’s hotshoe, but taking it off-camera gives you control over where the shadows fall and enables the use of a larger light modifier, such as a diffuser or an umbrella, to soften and spread the light. There are two ways to get the flash off-camera: either tethered to the camera’s hotshoe by a cable or via wireless flash. Wireless flash is a two-part system, with a ‘master’ unit (another flashgun or a wireless transmitter) and one or more ‘slave’ flashguns. These systems use either infrared or radio technology; the latter’s preferable as it means you can position slave units anywhere within the (more generous) range of the master – even hidden behind objects. Canon’s two RT flashguns make it easy, though there are plenty of affordable third-party options.