Step by step Creating great light

Six steps to luscious lighting with a single off-camera Speedlight

Baseline exposure

In Manual mode, choose the aperture, ISO and shutter speed to control the ambient light and give you a baseline canvas to build images from.

Fix ambient light

Fire the shutter and review the image to ensure you have the ambient light as you want it, adjusting your camera exposure settings until happy.

Add depth

Position your Speedlight. Try placing it at a 45 degree angle to your subject. This will create depth to the image, with a nice subtle fall off in the shadows.

Remote settings

Set the Speedlight to Remote and ensure it matches the Group and Channel settings from the CMD unit. Use TTL and a softbox to improve the quality of light.

Adjust the flash

Take a shot, then adjust flash power using flash exposure compensation. For portraits, a setting of around -0.7 EV works well for a main light in a softbox.

Finishing touches

Fine-tune the image by making adjustments to the angle of the light that hits the subject or get creative by adding coloured gels in front of the flash.