That was until I figured out a very cool feature in Lightroom. I’m not 100% sure when it was introduced, maybe Lightroom 2, but it’s definitely there in Lightroom 3 and 4. So below are the step-by-step directions on how to time sync multiple cameras using Lightroom. Please note, there is a big caveat to these directions, you must remember to do the first few steps at the wedding or you will still be SOL.

Step-by-Step Directions for Time Syncing Multiple Cameras in Lightroom

Step 1: If you have an Apple iPhone, go to the App Store and download a free app called Clock! by GoldenPlum. What’s special about this clock app is that it counts in seconds, which is what you need unlike the default Apple iPhone clock that only does minutes. After it is installed, it’s called Clock GT.

Step 2: With all your photographers and cameras assembled, launch the app and have everyone take a picture of the time and date that is displayed. Make sure you photograph the display with EVERY camera. I’ll call this the time reference photo. And don’t worry if everyone takes the photo at a slightly different time, it won’t matter.

Step 3: After the wedding is over, I import all the wedding photos into Lightroom. I don’t have anything special setting other than Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog. I should note that my  camera is set to do continuous sequence and not reset the numbering, although I doubt this makes much of a difference. Also they way my Lightroom Catalog is organized might make a difference. I have it set to Organize By date and Date Format is 2012/05-21. This way all the photos from all the cameras go into one big folder so that I can filter easily as well as pick my favorites for blogging and/or portfolio. I know some people may do it differently, so YMMV.

Step 3a: You only have to do this step once. While in Library mode, go to View in the menu bar, and make sure Show filter bar is checked. You’ll notice a Library Filter: bar appears above the thumbnail photos. This is important so that you can filter by cameras.

Step 4: In the Library Filter: bar, select Camera Info from the drop-down in the far right corner. This will open up 4 panes directly below. The first pane is Camera. Select the first camera you wish to time set. When you select that specific camera, the thumbnails below will now filter to only show shots taken by that camera.

Step 5: Look for the time reference photo and record the time and date.

Step 6: Select all the photos. Keep in mind that you still have the filtering set to one specific camera.

Step 7: In the menu bar, go to Metadata > Edit Captured Time…. A new window will appear. Make sure you have Adjust to a specified date and time selected under Type of adjustment. Under New Time, and next to Corrected Time:, change the date and time to match the information you wrote down from the time reference photo and click Change.

Step 8: Repeat Steps 4-7 for all other cameras. Then make sure you select All under Camera in the Library Filter: bar, otherwise when you go to Develop mode, photos will be missing. That’s it! You should notice that all the shots are in the correct time synced order now. Neat trick huh?

Something Else I Learned

No doubt you’ll encounter this problem sooner or later. Let’s say you and your 2 other photographers forgot to take a time reference photo at the very beginning and now it’s the end of the wedding, what are you going to do?! Simple, take the photo at the end then. What I found is that it really doesn’t matter when you take the time reference photo so long as you take it on each camera. Generally when I do getting ready photos, I tend to only use one camera and one lens. I don’t pull out my other Nikon D3 until we do the First Reveal, so I take the time reference photo when I pull out my other body. If you tend to be forgetful, I would recommend that you do it with all your cameras at the same time to avoid forgetting. Let’s say by the off-chance you might have forgotten and realized days later that you never took the time reference photo. In theory, you should still be able to take a time reference photo and then still sync all the time up successfully, but I haven’t tried this. All this only works if YOU DO NOT CHANGE THE TIME ON YOUR CAMERAS. After you take the time reference photo, do not, under any circumstances make any adjustments to the camera’s clock or you’ll create all sorts of problems for yourself. Typically my cameras are within ~1 minute of each other +/-1. And I rarely use two cameras except for weddings or events, so most of the time I don’t worry so much about the time.

Easy, meet my little friends: Sanyo Eneloop NiMH batteries. They are the best thing since slice bread. They’re inexpensive, hold a charge very well, and recharge in like one (Canon 580EX II and Nikon SB-900) to two (Canon 550EX and Nikon SB-800) seconds from a full power discharge. A set of four with charger can be had for $18.95 from B&H Photo Video and an 8-pack for $19.99, but the best prices I’ve seen are at Costco whenever you can find them.

I would recommend using Ni-MH batteries over Lithium Ion (Li-ion) for flashes, as Ni-MH does a better job of handling full-power discharges and is quicker on recycle time. I should note that I tend not to fire full-power flash blasts, but rather try to shoot for 1/4th power for faster recycle and less battery drain. At 1/4th power on the flash, I can shoot an entire wedding before needing to recharge the Eneloop, but YMMV depending on your shooting style.

The Canon E1 hand strap is great for extra hand holding stability, especially when using longer telephoto lenses and slow shutter speeds. It’s also designed so that you can use your regular camera strap in addition to the E1 hand strap. I’m not a huge fan of camera straps so I used this extensively on my Canon EOS 1D Mark II and often times with my 70-200mm f/2.8L IS and it helps balance it out and I wouldn’t have to be afraid of dropping my camera and lens either. For $23, it’s a good investment. Note that the E1 hand strap is intended for 1D-series and cameras with the battery pack attached. If you’re looking for a hand strap that works with SLRs without the battery grip, consider the Nikon AH-4 hand strap. It’s considerably more expensive, but it mounts to the tripod mount on your camera and is more secure than the Canon E1.

Here’s a very cool video that has been getting quite a bit of attention on the blogsphere by Lee Morris of Fstoppers.com (cool website and concept BTW) that is well worth watching and showing to photographers who think that a new or the latest camera can make their images better:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now a number of people have criticized on the blogsphere about this video and the high cost of studio strobes used and that at that point, any camera could be used to get similar results. And that may be true, but doesn’t that really just reinforce the message that your camera doesn’t really matter? I would definitely like to see another professional photoshoot done with maybe the iPhone 4, but in an outdoors setting with reflectors and diffusers. I think that would certainly silence a number of the critics in regards to the expensive lighting equipment. Actually that does sound like a fun project that might be a really good idea for us to try on a future photoshoot… Stay tuned.

Behind-the-scenes shot of San Francisco Bay Area wedding photographer Richard Bui using a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II with ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter to trigger an off-camera flash.

The Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2 is a portable infrared wireless transmitter designed to wirelessly trigger Canon Speedlites. For the most part, it does that well. But unfortunately, there some severe limitations that makes it a waste of money. If you’re in the market to purchase a ST-E2, wait and read this post first before making your purchase, you won’t regret it.

Ratios, But Where’s Group C

While the ST-E2 is able to control Groups A and B of the Canon Wireless Flash System’s (CWFS) Ratio System, it has no control settings for Group C. While perhaps not an often used Group, it seems rather short-sighted not to allow the user whether or not they want or need to use Group C.

The reason for the lack of Group C controls might have something to do with…

The Lack of Digital Controls

Did you know that Nikon’s wireless transmitter, the SU-800 Commander Unit, has a digital display back where power can be dialed in to each Group, including Group C? It also allows you to flash exposure compensation. Canon, on the other hand, opted for analog controls with few options. And of the few options, you can’t…

Set Flash Exposure Compensation…In Your Dreams

© Jamie McKerral/Flickr.com

With the loss of control to use Group C, and to add insult to injury, with the ST-E2 you can’t set flash exposure compensation unlike the Nikon SU-800 or a Canon 580EX II Speedlite. This is a fairly critical important item for a wedding photographer such as myself, as we’re always looking for soft, diffused light and if we can’t easily dial back the flash output, that doesn’t help us. Yes, I know you can dial back exposure compensation, but that doesn’t help when I need to dial back flash and exposure compensation to create a nice saturated background while keeping nice soft light on my subject(s).

UPDATE: I’m aware that you can set flash exposure compensation from your camera, but that’s only if you have a newer camera model.

In The Line of Sight

Unlike the 580EX II Speedlite, the ST-E2 uses infrared to transmit the necessary signals to get Slaved Speedlites to fire. Unfortunately this make the transmitter very line of sight. Unlike the 580EX II and Sto-Fen trick I talk about here, you can’t really do much other than put the ST-E2 on a OC-E3 sync cable to put the infrared transmitter more in the line of sight of the Slaved Speedlite. And unlike a Speedlite where the head can swivel and tilt as needed, the ST-E2 does neither.

I’ve also read a number of online posts where the ST-E2 has limited range outdoors. I’m willing to bet it’s because the infrared signal dissipates quickly in bright sunlight. I’ve never had a problem triggering Slaved Speedlites with my Master Speedlite using the Sto-Fen trick.

No Manual Mode

Coal Miki. Found on Flickr.com.

I was recently shooting a wedding and while flash ETTL is great at balancing ambient and fill, but not for creating dramatic lighting. This is where Manual mode is great as it gives the photographer full control. Unfortunately, you can’t access Manual mode with the ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter, which is amazing that Canon would leave out such an important feature. This alone makes having a Speedlite as a Master transmitter make more and more sense. Canon definitely needs to release a ST-E2 Mark II, until then, I’ll be holding off purchasing this guy.

Other Complaints That Are Less Significant But Still Annoying

The ST-E2 uses the same crappy hot shoe design as every flash prior to the 580EX, the “slide-in-screw-down”. It doesn’t really affect the operation of it, but it is a lot of wasted time screwing and unscrewing the ST-E2 to put it on and take it off.

Did you know that the ST-E2 doesn’t use a standard type of battery such as a double-A or triple-A but rather uses a 2CR5? Not a huge deal, but stock up.

Say Something Good

For ~$220, the Canon Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2 helps with auto focusing by emitting the red LED grid to help in situations of low-light. Although the red LED grid makes it hard for you, as the photographer, to blend in and get candid shots sometimes.

Conclusion

So if you have been considering the ST-E2 to use as a wireless transmitter and/or auto focus assist, don’t. If you buy this unit brand new at B&H Photo Video, it’ll cost you $220 versus a brand new 580EX II Speedlite for $445. While the 580EX II is double the cost of the ST-E2, it’s also double the usefulness. Imagine this, you’re photographing a wedding and the ST-E2 drops and breaks. If you have more than one 550EX, 580EX, or 580EX II, you can use one as a Master unit, not all is lost. But what if you only had one ST-E2 and one 580EX II and it’s the 580EX II that dropped and broke or malfunctioned? That ST-E2 will be just a nice auto focus assist unit. If $445 is too much to drop for a new 580EX II, consider buying it used for ~$300. If $300 is still too much, consider getting the 580EX (~$225-250) or even the 550EX (under $200) from Craigslist.

It’s better to invest the money into something that gives you more bang-for-the-buck.

[2011-06-05 UPDATE: Check out this review by one of our buddies, Winter Wish Photography, on the Yongnuo "John Snow" ST-E2.]

In order to get the full benefit out of this series of posts, you must use Canon and also use Canon Speedlites. For those who use Nikon and Nikon Speedlights, go buy Joe McNally’s The Hot Shoe Diaries or attend one of his workshops. You guys are fortunate, you have Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System), which is phenomenal. For the rest of us who are already using PocketWizards, Elinchrom Skyports, Quantum FreeXWire, RadioPoppers, and/or a host of eBay wireless transmitters, let me introduce you to the world of E-TTL wireless flash and offer reasons of why you should add this to your arsenal of tools.

Canon Wireless Flash System – What It Is

The Canon Wireless Flash System (CWFS) is the system used in all Canon Speedlites that allow Speedlites to be remotely triggered wirelessly (read more information on the Canon Professional Network). There are actually two components to CWFS: wireless triggering and ETTL. The first thing you need to know about CWFS is that you can trigger mutliple Speedlites in ETTL or full-manual mode, the how will come later.

Canon Wireless Flash System is only available with EX-series Speedlites so if you own an older generation Speedlite, the EZ-series, you will not be able to take advantage of E-TTL, thereby reducing the usefulness of CWFS. At current writing, there are only three Speedlites that can act as “Master”, meaning they can control the settings and functions of the other Speedlites, which are: Canon 550EX, Canon 580EX, and Canon 580EX II. You need at least one Master-capable Speedlite to trigger other Canon Speedlites.

The E-TTL Advantage

I’m a huge fan of PocketWizards, owning three Plus II as well as the Sekonic L-358 light meter with the PocketWizard built-in trigger. You could be a block away, hide them behind doors or walls, and still trigger them. My other photographer uses Elinchrom Skyports as well as many other photographers. You can’t go wrong with either. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with remote radio transmitters such as the PocketWizard and Skyports is that you have to run in full-manual on both camera and flash. In studio environments where the lighting remain constants, it’s not much of a problem. Outdoor photography is the challenge especially when trying to balance ambient with flash as the ambient lighting is almost never exactly constant unless your flash is proving 100% of your light, otherwise known as “overpowering ambient”. Shooting in full-manual requires your subject to occupy the same constant distance from the flash or risk under-or-over-exposure. And if you have more than one Speedlite and want to use different power levels, you have to manually dial in the power setting on each Speedlite. There has must be an easy way! Enter E-TTL.

The advantage of being able to use E-TTL with off-camera flash is ENORMOUS. Here is just a small sample of what is possible with using the Canon Wireless Flash System:

• Let the camera do all the thinking, you set the aperture or shutter speed and the camera does the rest
• You can use Aperture priority (Av Mode), Shutter priority (Tv Mode), or God-forbid, Program (P Mode)
• High-speed sync (go beyond the max-shutter-speed of 1/200th or 1/250th)
• You don’t have to spend an extra $100-$200 for additional triggers on top of the ~$200-$400 price tag of each Speedlite
• Put Speedlites into Groups and trigger them at different power levels
• Control Groups, power level, switch modes on all the Slave Units from the Master Unit

© J.Chan/Flickr

So how does all that help you? Let’s try some practical examples. I love to use fast-glass such as the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM especially wide-open on sunny days for the beautiful subject isolation it can produce with flash for fill on the subject’s face. That usually means shutter speeds of anywhere from 1/4000-1/8000 of a second shutter speed. Using the Speedlites with radio triggers means that I’m stuck at 1/200th or 1/250th (depending on your camera) of a shutter speed or risk black bars in the pictures from the shutter curtain opening and closing at various points throughout the frame. That means instead of being able to shoot at f/1.2, I’m either forced to move to a shaded area or increase my aperture to at least f/6.3 to get a shutter speed of 1/200th or 1/250th; either cases are not very appealing. But by using CWFS, I can take advantage of high-speed sync which will let me use the flash up to my camera’s maximum shutter speed. Keep in mind, depending on how bright it is outside, you can have this same exact problem even photographing at f/2.8.

Here’s another example of how CWFS can help you. You have 10-minutes to shoot a couple’s engagement photos and they want to photograph with as many different backgrounds as possible outdoors at a park. Factoring in walking time and developing shoot locations (if you didn’t scout beforehand) leaves you with a realistic time of 5-7 minutes. Imagine how long it would take to set up an off-camera flash on a stand, take a guess at aperture and shutter settings, take a test shot, and make adjustments and then shoot a couple frames, move to another place and repeat the process. With the Canon Wireless Flash System, my off-camera Speedlite set to Slave, I set my camera to Aperture priority and decide how much depth-of-field I need and take the shots and move on to the next place and repeat.

By using E-TTL for lighting, the camera sends important information to the Slave Speedlite(s) such as distance information so the Slave unit knows how much power to fire to get proper exposure. If your subject moves further away from the Slave unit, more flash power will be applied to compensate and likewise if your subject or Speedlite moves closer together.

There are countless other examples I can give, but this gives you the general point of the E-TTL advantage.

But My Remote Radio Transmitters Do E-TTL Already

There are a number of companies who has expanded their remote radio triggers to do E-TTL such as PocketWizard’s Flex, RadioPopper’s X-series, and Quantum’s FreeXWire. Each of those remote radio triggers are amazing and they each have problems of their own. Most notably with the PocketWizard Flex is that using a Canon Speedlite 580EX II causes radio interference resulting in severely limited triggering range. Also the Flex cannot do groups (they call it zones) without an extra device. For the most part, from what I’ve seen, they seem to work well. But here’s one thing to consider: cost and product infancy. The Speedlites already cost a fortune and to spend another $100-$200 on top of that cost can get very expensive, very quickly.

Why not take advantage of a system that is OEM and offers many functions that these other radio remote triggers are selling to you? Also remember that PocketWizard, RadioPopper, and Quantum has to translate the secret code being transmitted from camera to flash that holds all the E-TTL information, necessary for the flash to fire with the proper settings. I would rather remove the middle-man and let the camera and flash speak directly to each other, less to get wrong that way in my opinion.

Also, this may seem trivial, but more detached parts mean more to lose and more to haul around. The Speedlites aren’t exactly tiny equipment and as you tack on more stuff such as transmitters, it can get cumbersome. I rather save the space in my bag for spare batteries.

The Headbanging Limitations of Canon Wireless Flash System

So I brought a few points of why to use the CWFS and it would only be fair to discuss the issues that I’ve come to experience with it also. Most people are aware that the Master unit fires the flash as part of the exposure of an image. In 99.9% of the time, I set the Master unit to trigger-only meaning that the flash emitted from the Master unit triggers all the Slave units but has no bearing on the final exposure of an image. Unless otherwise stated, what I discuss below is with the Master unit as a trigger-only.

The biggest issue is the Slave seeing the Master signal and there are multiple parts to this, so I’ll tackle them one at a time. The first obvious problem is the Slave unit’s receiver doesn’t see the flash emitted from the Master unit because it’s out of line of sight. For example, behind a model as a highlight. There are a couple of ways to solve this. If you are close enough to wall that is semi-reflective, you can bounce the Master unit’s emitted flash off a wall and position the Slave unit’s sensor towards the same wall and it should trigger. This doesn’t always work as sometimes you’re not near a wall and/or it’s not reflective enough. The second trick, devised by the clever Joe McNally, works more often than not as you put your Master unit on a off-camera flash sync cable (OC-E3 at B&H Photo Video or Amazon.com) and have it held in a position where the Slave unit will see the emitted flash. Here’s another trick that works if the above two aren’t working. You could try the two tricks again BUT zoom the Master unit to its maximum blast of 105mm thereby concentrating the intensity of the burst which may give you that little bit needed for the Slave unit to “see” the information. Trigger in blazing hot, direct, daylight sun? No problem. I have this product that I can sell to you for a very low and limited price of $199.99 each called a Sto-Fen Omni-bounce diffuser. Kidding aside, you can purchase them for $19.99 each at B&H Photo Video or on Amazon.com for $14.20. Stock up on these as they are invaluable and are easily lost. The beauty of these things, they aren’t only for softening or diffusion, but rather they “capture” the light so that the Slave units see the flash emitted. I use these ALL the time, especially in direct sunlight and my slaved Speedlites have never failed to fire. The Sto-Fen also helps when you have two Speedlites on each side of your Master Speedlite. Turning the head to one Speedlite will cause the other not to fire because it can’t see the flash being fired. Here’s a picture to illustrate the point:

In both cases, the flash fired, but notice how with the Sto-Fen on, you can actually see the light fired (left picture) but in the picture on the right without the Sto-Fen it doesn’t look like the flash fired when it did. I can get Slaved Speedlites to fire 50+ feet away with the Sto-Fen on (video coming soon to prove this point) but would be lucky to fire a single Speedlite from ~25 feet without a Sto-Fen and zooming the flash to 105mm!

Another big issue many complain about with the Canon Wireless Flash System is Canon’s choice to use a Ratios System for working with Groups (A, B, and C) of Speedlites. Unlike Nikon’s CLS where each Group’s individual power can be set, you set Group A and B in relation to each other. The choices are 1:1 (equal power) to 8:1 (Group A is 4x more powerful than Group B) and 1:8 (Group B is 4x more powerful than Group A) in 1/2th stops of power. See the chart below to understand:

You do get to set Group C’s power independently of Group A and Group B. The reasoning in Canon’s world is that Group A would be key light, Group B would be background/kicker/highlight and Group C would be hair highlight. At one time I hated the Canon’s Ratio System, but once I learned how to exploit it and make it work for me, I’ve found it not to be bad as I thought it was.

I will be doing a post on the Speedlite Transmitter, ST-E2, in the near future. What you need to know about it right now is do not get it, it’s not worth the money and I’ll explain why in that post.

Sum It All Up

So if you’re new to or have used Canon Wireless Flash System briefly, you should now have a bit better understanding of how this can effectively work for you. Keep in mind that CWFS is not the end all solution to all your lighting needs. There are many cases where remote radio triggers will be your lifesaver such as situations where the flash is placed so far out of view, it can’t see the flash from the Master unit. But in many, many cases, CWFS let’s you work so much more fluidly and quickly as you take advantage of all that fancy metering technology in your camera you paid good money for.

So here’s the gist of what we discussed above:

• Using Canon Wireless Flash System, you can use Aperture, Shutter, Program, or Manual modes and utilize the beauty of E-TTL. E-TTL controls the power output of your flash based on thousands of calculations by your camera. Let the camera do the hard work for you.
• With the Canon Wireless Flash System, you can use high-speed sync which will let you exceed the max-sync speed of 1/200th or 1/250th of a second.
• Because the Canon Wireless Flash system relies on light being emitted, it does have some shortcomings, but through creativity and ingenuity, you can make it work for you.
• Buy a couple of Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce Diffusers for all your Speedlites. Extremely valuable, especially if you plan on using flash in broad daylight or direct sunlight. Get it here and/or here.
• Buy a few Canon OC-E3 cables. You’ll need it in some cases where you need to get creative with your Master unit. Get it from B&H Photo Video or Amazon.com.
• Canon Wireless Flash System may not solve all your problems, but will certainly help you tremendously.

In the next post about CWFS, I’ll be going over some of past photo shoots, our lighting setup, and how CWFS worked for us.

There are many condemned and decrepit buildings with warning signs of asbestos strewn upon boarded up doors and broken windows making for an urban explorer’s wet dream and, in our case, a great site for urban portraits.

Having scoped potential shoot locations with Rendy Lai earlier in the week and seeing some great backdrops, the concept of a cowgirl/singer (Taylor Swift-ish) photo shoot with Jane Hwang came to mind. The results:

In the shot above, the abandoned building we used for the backdrop was actually in shade, dark shade. Shot with only ambient lighting would have produced a rather boring picture. So taking inspiration from Joe McNally‘s The Hot Shoe Diaries (page 98-101), I decided to simulate sunlight. I threw a single Canon 580EX II with a full-cut CTO (Color Tungsten Orange) gel and threw it up on a trusty c-stand, slightly higher than the model, to create a downward direction of light. I setup a second Speedlite, this one right at Jane’s height with a snoot with the power dialed down for added fill-flash. The reason for the second Speedlite is to ensure that the cowboy hat wouldn’t cast a shadow over her face.

These other shots were shot using only a single flash with the Lastolite EzyBox on a c-stand. One thing to always keep in mind of, especially when there are reflective surfaces are: 1) make sure you don’t appear in the picture, and 2) make sure your lighting equipment doesn’t either. Having a c-stand with a boom arm makes this very easy to accomplish.

I alternated between using my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM and Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM for the shots above.

Our next model is the lovely Stacey Madamba. With her, we were doing more of a fashion photo shoot. With the abundance of great backdrops on Treasure Island, all we had to do was move 25 feet from where we shot with Jane and we had all the makings for the next photo shoot. I can’t say enough how much I love the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens. The images that the 85mm can produce are just beautiful and I hadn’t been using my 85mm lately so this was the best time as any.

Being a connoisseur of cigars, I had a few stogies packed along which became the perfect prop for Stacey and our shoot. All these shots were taken with the 85mm at f/2.0 with a single off-camera flash using the Lastolite 24″ EzyBox.

As the sun was fast fading and our models a heartbeat from hypothermia, I wanted to coax out a few last shots against the shoreline with San Francisco as the backdrop with the fastly fading sunlight. We managed to get packed up and over to the shoreline where I got a few frames of Jane and Stacey using very little equipment: my 1Ds Mark II with the 24-70mm and a 580EX II with the Lastolite 24″ EzyBox held by Rendy. I switched over to full-manual on the camera, dialing in 1/20th a second shutter speed at ISO 200 and kept playing around with the settings until I got the look I was going for, which ultimately was 1/3rd of a second shutter speed at ISO 400 to get some of the nice ambient lighting. I don’t quite remember if I left the flash in ETTL or switched it to manual, but it was triggered using the built-in Canon Wireless Flash System. One thing that some people may not know is that you can run your flash in ETTL mode while using full-manual on the camera. This lets the camera figure out the necessary flash output power for you in situations where you might not have the time to fiddle with setting the flash power manually. I don’t recommend this all the time, as the results can be unpredictable, but sometimes, when it works, it really works. I took a series of ~ten shots and we were done before the ladies completely froze to death. I’ve been asked as to why I used such a slow shutter speed. Using a faster shutter speed would result in a black or very dark background and since I wanted to capture the fading sunlight along with the city lights in the far distance, I needed the shutter speed to stay open long enough to get the ambient. The flash keeps the subject sharp because at the moment it fires, it “burns” that portion of the image in and keeping the sensor open allows for the background to “burn” in afterward. So in essence, you’re actually doing a double exposure in one shot. Neat huh?

As I’ve had a number of people ask me about how I trigger the Speedlites. I use Canon’s Wireless Flash system which is identical to Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System) because I wanted to be able to use ETTL. Be on the lookout for a future post about the Canon Wireless Flash System.

You can see more of the pictures I took on our Facebook page and be sure to check out our other photographer’s pictures:

• Lynn Truong
• Rendy Lai
• Tibor Duliskovich

Makeup was done by the amazing Van Pham and hair by the equally amazing Penney Do.

A special thanks to my good buddy Eric Lee who provided a lot of much needed support as my VAL (voice activated lightstand) and doing behind-the-scenes pictures and videos (to come).

A Few Things To Know About This Post

• Ryan Brenizer did not initially call this technique “The Brenizer Method”, that’s what many other people have called it and it stuck. In many of his earlier posts, he refers to this technique as panoramic stitching.
• When I wrote that “Ryan Brenizer invented” this technique, I now realize that invent was the wrong word to use. He no more invented this technique than Columbus discovered America. Rather I should have said he developed another use of panoramic stitching.
• Ryan’s way of doing the panoramic stitching is slightly different than how I document it below. This was never meant to be, in any shape or form, the official way to do the Brenizer Method. This was just how I found it worked most successful for me.
• I have nothing but huge and deep respect for Ryan and his amazing wedding photography work and his work is truly an inspiration to me.
• You can see many more of his panoramic stitching on his blog here.

See the video from B&H Photo Video with Ryan Brenizer explaining the panoramic stitching technique, otherwise known as the Brenizer Method:

Wedding photographer extraordinaire Ryan Brenizer invented this really cool technique while on his honeymoon which is dubbed “The Brenizer Method”. For those who may or may not have heard of it and are not sure of what this technique is exactly, it’s essentially using a telephoto lens to create a very shallow depth of field as if shot with a wider angle lens. This technique makes a dSLR image look like it was shot by medium format.

Despite the directions Ryan posted here, followed by a very informative Facebook video and here’s a behind-the-scenes video also, there is still confusion amongst some people of how to do it and what you are achieving. Well, done correctly, you get this (photo copyrighted by Ryan Brenizer):

© Ryan Brenizer

This is a result that can’t be achieved with a wide angle lens no matter how fast of an aperture. You can see more of the Brenizer Method here and by others on Flickr here.

So what is The Brenizer Method?

Essentially it is the same concept used by landscape photographers known as panorama stitching except instead of stitching a bunch of horizontal shots together to form a wide image, the images are horizontally and vertically stitched to create a wide and tall image not unlike a square. And because you are stitching together many files, you are creating a very high resolution image that can hold up to very large print sizes without loss in quality. By shooting at a very shallow depth-of-field (DOF) and then stitching the shots together, you’re exaggerating the shallow DOF.

In the image above, created from 47 images, Ryan used a Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4D shot at f/1.4. If you were to take the same image with the same 85mm at the distance he was standing, you would probably only get a half body shot of the couple with a background that looks like a wash of colors; which is fine if that is the look you are trying to achieve. If you stood back far enough to get the same framing as the image above, the people would appear very small in relation to their environment thus losing the intimate feel of the image above. That is one of the major drawbacks of a telephoto lens have more of a voyeuristic feel. That is one of the primary reasons photojournalists use a wide angle, to capture a sense of intimacy. If you used a wide angle lens to capture the same framing, you would achieve the intimacy, but lose the focus on the couple as the background would not exhibit the same bokeh as telephoto lens can.

Here is a sample of a shot I did. One shot, taken with the 85mm at f/1.2:

It’s a nice shot, but a bit distant and detached. But what if we used the Brenzier Method? Here’s another sample picture with the same pose and distance with the same lens at the same aperture, but with 50 images stitched together:

My Experience and How I Do It

In my experience, the results are best achieved by using a medium-telephoto lens (i.e. 85mm) with a very large aperture (i.e. f/1.4 or larger), of course that doesn’t mean you can’t use a wide angle (i.e. 16-35mm) or a zoom telephoto (i.e. 70-200mm) with an aperture of f/2.8. When I use The Brenizer Method, the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM is what I reach for. You also have to use the lens at the widest aperture as you are trying to take full advantage of shallow DOF, so I would have my aperture set to f/1.2 or f/1.4. Bare in mind, that your results may vary depending on whether you use a full-frame or a crop factor sensor.

Before getting started, there are some important things to remember that Ryan points out in his Facebook video for the Brenizer Method:

• You must separate auto-focusing from your shutter button so that when pressed it is only locking exposure. The auto-focusing is then delegated to another button, usually the * button on the back of the camera. With newer bodies, they have a dedicated AF-On button that you can use. Nikon users will find they have a AE-L/AF-L (auto-exposure lock/auto-focus lock) button which you should use.
• You must set a white balance. If you don’t, you’ll have a lot of pictures with varying white balances which will make the final image not look right. You can either do a custom white balance of the scene (easy, quick, and accurate), shoot in RAW & fix it later (a pain in the ass), or select a preset white balance (easy and quick, but not always accurate).
• It does not matter if you shoot in RAW or JPEG, just keep in mind that if you shoot in RAW, it just means more processing time and larger files to deal with. I generally shoot in JPEG cause there is no major added advantage to shooting RAW for this technique.
• If you choose to shoot JPEG, make sure you set the quality of your JPEG to the smallest setting. You’re not taking a single picture, but rather 20 or more and stitching them together so you don’t need to worry about quality on each of the shot as the final output will be a very high quality image. You could shoot at Large, but keep in mind that will exponentially increase processing time.

The steps to doing The Brenizer Method is rather simple once you get the hang of it, but it takes a bit of practice. This is what I commonly do, but YMMV:

1. I determine the background I want to use and how I want to pose my subject. I make sure that my subject(s) are in a comfortable pose that they can hold for at least 30-seconds without moving; quite important as you do not want motion blur in your shot.
2. I start by taking a reference shot to get an idea of how the shot roughly looks. This also lets me know if I need to stand back more or not by visualizing how much I want of the background.
3. Right before I begin getting my shots, I generally take a random shot of something like the ground, my shoe, or anything just so you know where the beginning of your stitching images should take place. You’ll find this is very helpful when you extract your images. After I’m done, I usually take another one of these shots so I know where it stops.
4. I then set my focus to the eyes (since I want the eyes in focus, you can set your focus to anything else), auto focus and begin snapping pictures of the entire subject(s) first making sure I get a lot of overlap. It is very important that you do not move where you are at or you will shift focus. It is also very important that you do not refocus as the focus is set to be on the eyes. After I’ve taken a number of overlapping pics of the subject(s), I begin getting shots of the background. Why we do the subject first is to ensure that we don’t get any motion blur as it can be difficult for the subject to hold the pose for too long. I’ve included a sample pic so you can get the idea:
5. The arrows are just for directional purposes. You’ll notice that I did not include any indication of when to take a shot because that is a personal preference, but you should overlap a lot and it’s always better to take more images than less. Hopefully the picture will give you a very good idea of how I do it.
6. After I get back to the office, I extract all my images, except the ones for stitching, into Lightroom2. Rather, I download the images for stitching to my desktop into a folder I create to easy organize all the images.
7. 2010-09-08 UPDATE: So in my experience, I’ve found out a few things. You do not need to go overboard and do 100 images to get a cool effect. Having more helps make the effect look amazing, but it also is more prone to failure and heavy computer crunching. Just cause you shot 30 images for the Brenizer Method does not mean you have to use them all. This is where it’s a bit important to overlap your shots. For example, say you’re doing the Brenizer Method, you’re 90% done and someone walks into your shot. You can either pause, but hold your position until the person has left the shot and take a few more shots to compensate, otherwise, you’ll have to skip including that one JPEG because you’ll find “ghosts” in the final merge. If you find your final product has some weird anomalies, I would recommended finding the JPEG that is the issue and not including it in the Photomerge.
8. I then launch Adobe Photoshop CS3, I go to File > Automate > Photomerge…
9. A new window should open, under Layout: Auto, Source Files Use: Files and make sure Blend images together is checked.
10. Click Browse and select the first 25% of the images you took, select Open, and click OK. A mew window will open and start the merging process.
    • Note: you can try and select all the images, but unless you have a super powerful computer, Adobe Photoshop will crash. I’ve had this happen multiple times and finally figured out that if I split up the merges, it works quicker and without crashes.
    • You should try not to do anything else on the computer while the merging is taking place or it can crash the merge or you’ll find your computer running extremely slow.
11. Once the merge completes, you should see a somewhat incomplete shot (that’s normal because you are only merging 25% of the total images at a time), save it as a PSD file and close it.
12. Repeat Step 8 & 9 until all the images are complete and you have four PSD files (you might have more or less depending on how many batch of images you are merging at a time).
13. Repeat Step 6 & 7, and click on Browse and select only the PSD files and click OK.
14. Once that finishes, you should have a complete looking image. Crop as necessary and make any exposure corrections as needed.

So the final image size is quite large and capable of being cropped very liberally. Good luck and happy shooting!

2009-11-28 UPDATE: Here’s another really good tutorial by daifuku on how to do the Brenizer Method.

2010-07-16 UPDATE: Photojojo has had this up for awhile, another simple explanation of how to do the Brenizer Method. I’ve been meaning to link it for some time now.

2010-09-08 UPDATE: I know the shot of Anna (model above) isn’t the most terribly interesting use of the Brenizer Method, and in an effort to showcase more of it (and my improvement with it), I’m including other Brenizer Method shots I’ve done recently:

Brenizer Method, 7 photos merged. Shot with 85mm f/1.2L at f/1.2.

Attempt at nighttime Brenizer Method. 43 images. Shot with 50mm f/1.2.

Why Use A Light Meter

For general, standard photography such as quick snaps of the kids, a day at the beach, and even sports photography, a light meter would be difficult to use because of the high speed pace, there wouldn’t be much time to meter before taking a shot. You’ll end up missing more shots than it’s worth.

So where do light meters shine? Portraits, mainly. We at Bui Photos shoot a lot of our portraits outdoors and with flash strobes off-camera. Because of that, it’s far easier to photograph in the Manual mode exposure because we know exactly the look and feel of what we want to achieve whereas our camera doesn’t. In case I’ve lost you, unless your camera is broken in Manual mode, there is no auto exposure metering because you have to set the shutter and aperture yourself.

So how do figure out what shutter and aperture to use in relation to the power of flash and ambient lighting? What if you want more flash power than ambient? What if you want to balance ambient and flash? Unless you can meter the scene with your eyes and translate it to a f-stop and shutter speed values, you’ll have to do what many people do: guess and chimp. By guessing, you would set your shutter speed to your max sync speed (1/250 on a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, 1/200 on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II) and set your flash power to half or quarter power for faster recycle times and guess an aperture of f/5.6 or something and take a shot. Then you review on your LCD to see if it looks good or not. Repeat and make the changes as necessary. Terribly inefficient wouldn’t you agree? And even if you think you nailed the exposure, wait until you extract those images on your computer, you’ll find you were still off. Look how much time you are wasting on the technical aspect in setup and post processing! I don’t know about you, but I rather be spending time being creative. Also keep in mind, unless you are using one the new fancy cameras with their high resolution (920,000 pixels) LCD screens, the LCD screens on your camera are not good tools to judge color or exposure because it’s not accurate! You can use the brightness histogram which will be a bit more accurate, but in certain lighting conditions, it won’t help you much.

This is where the light meter comes in to ensure that you don’t just have good exposure or close to perfect exposure, but perfect exposure. After you’ve properly calibrated and learned to use a light meter, you’ll find that you’ll trust the values from your light meter more than what you see on your camera’s LCD. When I use the light meter, I put my model where I want her to be, put a strobe based on how I want to light her, pull out my meter and set it to my max sync speed and ISO  and do a test pop and it tells me the exact aperture and how much flash power versus ambient. I can either bring my light source closer to the subject or dial up the flash power to get less ambient lighting or lower my flash power for more ambient lighting. Set those values in camera and start the creative process!

By getting perfect exposure and setting custom white balance, everything is properly exposed and the colors just pop. Not only that, when I extract the images, instead of wasting time correcting color and white balance issues, I’m spending time selecting keepers and cropping.

You’re probably wondering why a light meter is more accurate than the camera’s built-in exposure meter, the answer is simple. The camera’s built-in meter works off reflective metering which functions with the camera metering light reflecting off the subject. This works well for the most part, but in situations where lighting is all over the place, the camera can be tricked and meters off the brightest part and under-exposes the entire scene. In a case of a forest with some light beams coming through, the camera might be confused with the light beams and try to expose for it which would make the entire scene under-exposed. With a light meter, usually used as an incident meter (you can get light meters that are incident meters with reflective meters built in) which measures light directly as it would fall on the subject and gives you a very accurate metering of the scene. In addition, you can move the light meter to meter multiple sources an average all the readings for a proper exposure. An example would be a portrait shot where you have your key light, hair light, and fill light. Each of the light sources are pointing in various directions and with a light meter you can read the output of each light.

Light meters also work extremely well for ambient metering for the very same reason. Even if you’re not using strobes and shooting only with ambient lighting, you can meter your subject and dial in a precise aperture/shutter values to get perfect exposure.

Which Light Meter Should I Buy?

For the most part, any light meter will work plenty fine. I personally use a Sekonic L-358 with RT-32 remote trigger module because we are heavily invested in the PocketWizard system and the L-358 lets us remotely trigger the strobes when we press the measure button. If you don’t use PocketWizard, but some other wireless trigger technology, you could still use the L-358 and just not buy the optional remote trigger module and trigger the strobes manually. The second biggest reason I like the L-358 is because it tells you how much flash power is being used versus ambient. This is a real plus because you don’t have to guess at values if you want more ambient than flash or more flash than ambient; a very powerful tool that I use very often.

One of our other staff photographers uses a Gossen DigiPro F and likes it for it’s slim profile and no-nonsense use. You can’t really go wrong with either Sekonic or Gossen. It really comes down to what your needs are and which light meter offers what you need.

Conclusion

Getting perfect exposure doesn’t have to be difficult or pain-staking. It doesn’t have to even be done in Photoshop or Lightroom. It’s much faster and less destructive to get the exposure at the time you take the image as opposed to fixing it later. One of the best investments in this area is a light meter, whether it is a Sekonic or Gossen, you don’t need a $600 light meter. The entry level Sekonic or Gossen do more than plenty for many people and saves you time and saves your sanity, it more than pays for itself. Be on a look out for how to use a light meter in a future post.