Lighting 101:
Speedlight for Beginners
Course Begins: May 20, 2013
Full Participation Sold Out, study along seats still available
Lifetime Member
Registration Regular Member
Registration Non-Member
Registration
Learning to use a speedlight is often intimidating but it doesn’t have to be. This 4 week course will give you the tools you need to shoot with on camera TTL flash like a pro, both indoors and out.
course fee:
$300/person for full participation
$150/person for study along
Study-along members will have access to all materials and will be able to read the forum, see others’ assignments, but will not be able to post questions, conversation, or request critique on their assignments. Full Participation students will be able to do all of the above.
registrants:
30 participants
Study along seats available.
For more information about our policies and workshop FAQ please click here.
what we cover:
- overview of the properties of light
- flash modes
- metering modes
- white balance
- understanding exposure when working with flash
- balancing flash with ambient light
- focusing with flash
- bouncing flash
- flash modifiers
- fill flash
- flash sync speed
what you get:
- weekly lessons and assignments
- detailed, personalized guidance and critique from the instructor and one TA each week.
- opportunities for peer interaction and critique
what you need: All participants must have a mastery of technical basics (exposure, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc). Participants need not shoot in manual regularly but must be comfortable doing so. You will need a camera, lens and a speedlight that has TTL capabilities (Canon or Nikon is recommended).
course instructor:
Sarah Phillips is professional photographer who specializes in on location family, child and newborn photography in addition to weddings. She lives on Boston’s North Shore with her husband and three children. www.sarahphillipsphoto.com
teaching assistants:
I took this course as a study along – I thoroughly enjoyed it!
The images I have taken so far using my flash, are now my most favourite images!
Thank you Sarah – thank you also to the teaching assistants!
Great course – great material – great teacher.
Bring on Christmas morning photos!!
I am no longer afraid of my speedlight! Sarah explained on camera in a simple and easy to understand with perfect examples in the PDF’s! Sarah taught us that you can use your speedlight to create a window almost ANYWHERE! Thanks for a wonderful class.
I just finished this course and loved it! I bought my speedlight a few weeks before taking this class, and literally never used it until the class started. The way the lessons are laid out is makes learning the different techniques that much easier. Sarah is a wonderful teacher! I have started keeping my flash on my camera so that it is available if I need it. It has helped so much catching those random moments of one of the kids that I have previously missed or been unhappy with due to the lack of available natural light. Take this course. I am so glad I did!
I am on the third week of and I must say that this class is really good! We are taught how to take images that don’t look flashy. Explanations are simple and easy to understand. I prefer natural light but there are a lot of times I miss shots as flash is needed and this class equipped me with what I need to understand about the correct way to use flash.
Oh my gosh–I soo need this class! I can’t wait until it becomes available again!
This class gave me incredible new tools and opened up a whole new world of lighting for me. I’ve always been scared of my flash and felt it was a complicated thing so it never got used. Even after using studio lights and exploring off camera flash, I was still hesitant to use my speedlight on camera as I felt it would slow me down or only give me flashy pictures. But after this class, I don’t even hesitate to put on that flash and I know how to get natural looking images with it through her lessons such as how to bounce the flash, control power, and use modifiers. I can’t thank Sarah, the TAs and my classmates enough.
I’m mainly a natural light shooter but I have had a speedlight sitting in my camera bag for years. I never really understood how to use it properly and always thought I’d rather bump up my ISO than have a “flashy” looking photo. After taking this course, I realize that I can use my flash and nobody has to know I used it all!! I was so thrilled with the course material. Each week I found myself having major a-ha moments. Sarah was a wealth of knowledge and really helped me to grasp the concepts. I highly recommend this course. Thank you Sarah and the TA’s.
This was my first workshop on CM and I’m sad it’s over. My primary focus is working available light, but I wanted to add this to my arsenal. You will be able to achieve non-flashy beautiful pictures by the time you are done with this class. I like that it also gives me a little more creative freedom if I need it. Sarah and the TA’s guidance was nothing short of awesome.
I am still amazed at the pictures I can create using on camera flash. Thanks again Sarah, April, Jes and Lisa! :)
Love natural light but hate when there isn’t enough? This workshop will help set you free from that frustration as Sarah patiently teaches how to use on-camera flash to supplement available light or even provide all the light, if needed. Sarah’s effective, pragmatic teaching style, along with the weekly lessons and assignments, build basic lighting concepts and skills in a non-intimidating and achievable manner for speed light newbies. During the workshop, Sarah and her teaching assistants answer all speed light questions, critique assignments and submitted student images and provide support for achieving foundational success with speed light use both indoors and outside. If you need a kick start to understanding on-camera flash lighting and using it effectively to supplement your natural light shooting, this is the class for you!
Lighting 101 has been a great excuse to get my Speedlight out of the box and start using it. Previously I was very intimidated to use my Speedlight, enough so to not even want to experiment with it. Now that Sarah has talked me through the basics of how flash works and how ambient light effects exposure I now feel confident enough to continue experimenting and being excited about it. I would highly recommend this workshop if you have a Speedlight gathering dust, after all’s been said it’s not that complicated! Lisa H, Jessica G and April N were a valuable asset to have on board for additional insight and advice, great workshop!
Lighting 101 has given me a better understanding of how flash works, and how to change your camera settings and use accessories to control it. I definitely still have to practice everything so it comes a little more naturally, much as I did when I learned how to shoot manual. But now, I feel like I have a foundation on which to build.
I liked the fact that some homework assignments could be inanimate objects. That helped me focus on what I was supposed to be doing in the assignment, instead of also having to worry about composition, whether my kiddo was going to pose when/where I wanted, whether she’d stay put for multiple shots while I changed settings, etc.
I think this is a great addition to CM’s fabulous lineup of classes!
If you aren’t a fan of using flash because you always think that your picture will look flashy than this is the right workshop for you. In here you will learn to control your flash in TTL mode. Flash exposure compensation, bouncing, how to control your ambient light and flash output. It’s in here too.
Sarah P, Lisa H, Jessica G and April N our teachers and assistants explain everything in detail. I wasn’t in love with my flash before this workshop but now I am totally in love with it.
Flash gives you so much opportunities in every light condition.
Thank you Sarah and the TAs for all your support.
I am just finishing up this workshop and I thought it was fantastic, pitched at exactly the right level for what I needed. The big question for me was how do I make flash fit in with the rest of the exposure triangle and this was thoroughly covered. Sarah’s feedback and answers to questions was so thorough and detailed, it was so helpful.
I don’t feel like I’m a total flash convert, I still prefer natural light, but I feel I now have the knowledge to know how to use my flash well when I have no other option, and that’s exactly what I wanted to get out of this workshop.
Thank you to Sarah and the TAs for all your hard work!