my photography life that is...

i am looking for a little help in the way of lighting. currently i do ALL natural light and i really know nothing about using an external flash!?

i would like to know where i should start in the way of purchasing. what should i be looking for?? i currently have a nikon d80 and shoot children, babies, mat & weddings.

H E L P!

Hey Brooke,

I shoot Nikon as well and have 2 SB800's at the moment. I use the infrared trigger that is built into the flash, but will be purchasing PocketWizards in the very near future.

Get a pair of SB800's and start learning with one light on camera. Once you feel comfortable there, I would suggest trying some off camera stuff with that second SB800.

Good luck!

Are you wanting mono lights, or off camera flash? I use white lightning lights, and I love them.

Get a good book on lighting from the library or camera store.

And after that you should check out Zack Arias' One Light Workshop.

when i say i know NOTHING...i really mean it. ha.

i dont know where to start. i guess i would want something fairly basic so that i could expand my options. i love natural light but of course we run into times where it just isnt working in our favor. places like the inside of a church for instance.

waht would i need for a situation such as that? or to fill shadows in direct sunlight??

thanks much

Yeah, I agree with Damon, check out a one light workshop. That will get you started in the right direction!

i will have to see what i can find in my area. then find time! hehe. i am due with babe 2 in one month! i am crazy.

onelight for SURE

but, something that's pretty great if you're on a tighter budget and you like to read... strobist.com

btw, i feel like a strobist commercial, anyone getting tired of me yet?

Definitely check out strobist and look at a OneLight...

but if you know NOTHING about lighting and need a good start, bouncing an SB800 with your Nikon on TTL (which is "automatic" pretty much) will do wonders



does anyone know if a D80 has a built-in commander mode where you could control the SB800 off-camera with it?

My D70s had built in commander...I would be very surprised if the D80 did not. Can't say for certain though.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Strobist yet. That really is the place to start, and you'll be there for awhile!

Also, if you're familiar with Nikonians, they offer an i-TTL class which I'm sure you would find very helpful.

haha Matt - you're the 3rd to mention it

You can do HEAPS with just one bare speedlight Brooke - definitely start there and get to practicing on your kids.

If you're looking for examples, I currently only have one bare speedlight and use it in almost all of my images shown on my site.

Oh you mean I was supposed to actually read ALL the words in those posts??? That's funny. Well at least I gave a link!

Yeah... do what everyone else said and check out Strobist.

I don't know if this is the 'right' way to do it, but I went on ebay and bought a couple of (continuous lighting) umbrella lights and just practiced on people. If you check out my website under portraits, models 'Sam' and 'Gena' were photographed mostly with one umbrella light.

As for flash, I'm just starting to get into that more myself.