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Access all of our Tutorials, Live streams and Behind the Scenes resources & materials today from some of the worlds best award winning photographers.
with a membership
Access all of our Tutorials, Live streams and Behind the Scenes resources & materials today from some of the worlds best award winning photographers.
Neil Redfern Flash Q&A: Feathering, Falloff, Fog and 360 BTS
Neil answers your flash questions live. Why feathering beats a direct hit, how to control falloff, why fog makes your flash look brighter, and the cheap Amazon bracket behind his 360 BTS footage.
The Sun Is Tiny, Your Softbox Is Too Far Away and Your Diffuser Isn’t Softening Anything: Neil’s Live Flash Q&A
No guest, no slides, just Neil, his camera bag and a stream packed with brilliant questions from Flash Masters members.
First up, behind the scenes. Neil shows exactly how he mounts his Insta360 X5 so it films like a drone above his camera, and why a 360 camera lets you stay fully present on a wedding day instead of worrying which way your BTS camera is pointing.
Then it’s straight into light. Neil breaks down feathering versus hitting your couple head on, and why the sun, for all its size, is actually a tiny light source. You’ll see why a softbox 20 feet from your couple is pointless, how bringing your light in close creates dramatic falloff (the trick Neil picked up from Christian Cardona), and why the diffuser on your flash isn’t making your light any softer.
New to off-camera flash? Neil walks through his layering technique, the easiest way he’s found to learn it, and clears up why shutter speed has no effect on flash power until you hit high speed sync. He also explains why fog and smoke make your flash look far brighter, and shares the cheat code to getting better that almost nobody actually uses.
5. Top 5 things you will learn
- How to feather your light, using just the edge of your modifier to kill the hotspot (and why it costs you a bit of power)
- What actually makes light soft, explained with nothing more than the sun and a passing cloud
- How to control falloff for moody, dramatic portraits by bringing your light in close
- Neil’s layering technique: set your canvas with your camera, then paint with flash using only the trigger
- How to rig a 360 camera for BTS footage you can switch on and forget about
There are several other live streams/tutorials/YouTube videos mentioned on the live stream that were very helpful for our members. As promised, here are the links for them:
How to Film and Edit Behind the Scenes Video for Reels and TikTok
Behind the Scenes Live Shoot with Christian Cardona
Introduction to Off-Camera Flash
Neil Redfern
I am a off camera flash obsessive wedding photographer based in the sunny North West of England. I shot my first wedding in 2006 and since then I have shot around 500 weddings across the UK and overseas. For the past 10 years I have also been running wedding photography workshops and in 2020 I set up my Patreon, which has now grown to a community of 250 photographers all over the world. I also love to make videos for my YouTube channel, which again is all focussed on wedding photography education and ‘How I Shot This’ off camera flash videos. I am also very proud to be an Ambassador for MagMod, Pic-Time and Studio Ninja.Myself and Helen Williams set up Flash Masters in September 2022 and I am so incredibly proud of what Flash Masters will become. A huge thank you to all of our Ambassadors, Sponsors and every single member of the community for helping to make this a reality. I am so excited to see where this journey takes us all!
