So in the mornings, when I am having my cup of coffee, I like to watch videos of different photographers. Today I was watching Zack & Jody Gray who are wedding photographers. They were demonstrating their lighting techniques for shooting a wedding reception. I was inspired!

Ask any photographer – “What is one of your biggest challenges?” and quite often the reply is “Shooting with flash”. It is difficult to get a natural looking shot when you use flash. And so, you have to become pretty savy with off camera flash techniques and manipulating the camera’s exposure compensation or dragging the shutter. You want to get a good combination of ambient light and flash light in order to get a natural looking picture. Normally, I rely on ETTL (through the lens metering) when I use flash. ETTL adjusts the flash power automatically. However, after watching Zack and Jody I am inspired to try using my flash in manual mode. It shouldn’t be that hard of a transition for me as I use studio strobes that I set manually. With manual flash adjustment I think I would have more consistent results – ETTL does not always work consistently. And I’d also be in more control of the flash output.

So, that is my new assignment for myself this year and now that I’ve blogged about it I’ve got to do it! I’ll let you know how it turns out.