Joe McNally on lighting
We go on location with Joe McNally as he delivers a group workshop in London at Nikon School UK on the power and flexibility of portable flash
Joe demonstrates how to light outdoors using Speedlights
This issue we visited Nikon School in London, UK, to be part of Joe McNally’s ‘Power of Portable Lighting’ workshop, in which he demonstrated how to use Nikon Speedlights to full advantage using the Creative Lighting System (CLS), and the latest and greatest Nikon tech.
The day started with a talk on camera systems, and what a photographer is expected to produce. After walking us through his portfolio, Joe talked everyone through a typical shooting scenario: “I use some great gear, and it’s really helpful in creating a great shot,” Joe said. “But you don’t need 10 Speedlights to make a good image. Just one Speedlight can change the world around you.”
“If you’re shooting outside with a busy backdrop, do you want to set an aperture of f/16 to give you a shutter speed of 1/250 sec? Or would you rather engage high speed sync on the Speedlight and stop down to remove the clutter and make a dreamy out-of-focus background?” Joe explained that with a single light you can alter the perception of everything around you, and with that he started his live demonstration on how the quality, quantity, direction and colour of the light alters a photo.
To make the main image that you see here Joe used two Lastolite Hotrod Strip softboxes on heavy duty C-stands, with an SB-5000 placed on each, fitted with a single Speedlight apiece, set to A group and B group respectively. He demonstrated using radio frequency triggering and also using an older line-of-sight trigger using a light pulse from a commander flash, to fire both Speedlights. With the dancer, Jolie, leaping into the main flash, let’s look at how we got to the final shot.
You don’t need 10 Speedlights to make a good image. Just one Speedlight can change the world around you