Originally shared by Lisa Bettany
**Hello! Nice to see so many new faces on Google+ 🙂
Here is a photo of me setting up a flash for a lovely magic hour beach shoot on a beach in my old hometown of Vancouver BC.
Learning how to use a flash off your camera is an important step for taking more professional looking portraits. I won’t lie, when I first started using off-camera lighting techniques I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was scared, confused and completely intimidated by flashes, remote triggers, and vicious umbrellas that continually attacked me and my models with their pokey metal spokes!
This is when I discovered David Hobby’s Strobist blog. The DIY off-camera photography he was doing and talking about was exciting, challenging, and relatively inexpensive. One day I sat down with a box of biscuits & several pots of tea and read through his entire Lighting section: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
Once I’d learnt the basics, I felt somewhat reassured and started experimenting with strobes, sometimes even on the job (shh.. don’t tell), but usually taking pictures of myself and friends. Eventually I learnt how to use the gear and saw such an improvement in the quality of my photos. Unfortunately, never did tame that umbrella and I have a few scars to prove it 😛
If you want to get started with a really easy one-flash set up here is all you need:
1. A flash. I use a Canon 430 II ($260) or 580 EX II ($550). The 580 EX is more powerful and has some nice bells & whistles, but if you are just starting, get the 430. I bought my first flash for $80 second hand on Craigslist.
2. A remote transmitter and a receiver. I recommend getting 2, FlexTT5 Pocket Wizards: http://goo.gl/2ofj5 ($220 each) or a much cheaper option is the Paul C Buff CyberSyncs. For beginners I recommend the Trigger Transmitter ($60) and a CyberSync Receiver (battery) ($70) http://www.paulcbuff.com/cybersync.php I used the cyber syncs for almost 2 years and they worked really well.
3. An umbrella + light stand kit. Wescott makes a nice, 43″ umbrella set for ($70): http://goo.gl/whX5u
Feel free to ask any other questions you have about off-camera lighting!