Making Light: Introduction to Off-Camera Flash eBook Review

Flash Photography  •  Photography Tips

Off-Camera Flash eBook

Making Light – An Introduction to Off-Camera Flash by Piet Van den Eynde was released today and is designed to help you master external flash photography. I think this is a very useful eBook that simplifies a complicated topic in great detail.

These chapters are written to help you get the most out of your hot-shoe flash, and an important first step in that quest is to take it off your camera. This means you’ll need a way of firing that flash remotely, but don’t worry, they explain that part.

Topics Covered (63 Pages):

• Introduction: Please Take Off Your Flash
• Characteristics of Light
• Fundamentals of Flash Formulas
• The Fundamentals at Work in Everyday Use
• Basic Off-Camera Flash Gear
• Setting up a Nikon for Off-Camera Flash: Seven Easy Steps
• Setting up a Canon for Off-Camera Flash: Seven Easy Steps
• Shooting Pictures with Off-Camera Flash: A Failsafe Ten-step Approach
• Nine Situations Where Off-Camera Flash Can Help
• Conclusion Wrap-up

The most important part of the book is the case studies in chapter 9. They were all taken with just one flash off-camera. Each case study includes the Exif info and and an explanation with accompanying images of how the flash was setup.

Making Light: Introduction to Off-Camera Flash eBook

The author says “I don’t know about you, but flash used to scare me. I found it to be complicated, difficult to pre-visualize (I’m talking about the pre-digital era here), and lacking quality results. Of course, I only put my flash on my camera and the furthest I got to softening the light was to bounce my flash behind me. I worked on full auto because I found all the rest way too complicated. So, I was an available-light photographer for a long time. Not so much by persuasion as by lack of understanding and, therefore, lack of alternative. If you have a similar attitude to flash, then this eBook is for you.”