Types of Flash: Speedlights & Strobes

In this video lesson we introduce the two types of flash you’ll most likely use for your portrait work.

Shoe-mount units, otherwise known as speedlights, are small flash units that are designed to fit on a flash accessory shoe, or on the hot shoe of your camera. We will mount these to light stands in off-camera lighting setups.
Strobe units. Larger, more powerful flash units that are designed to be supported by light stands only.

Both types of flash come in a wide variety of feature sets including basic manual-only operation. However, units that also include TTL, HSS, and built-in sync capabilities are more versatile.

TTL

I reference through-the-lens (TTL) metering, generically as, TTL in this course. TTL is a feature that allows you to use your flash in an almost automatic way. In TTL mode, your flash emits a pre-flash when you depress the shutter button. This pre-flash is used by your camera to calculate the flash output necessary for a good flash exposure. During exposure, your shutter opens and the flash fires normally. All of this happens instantaneously, and the time between the pre-flash and exposure-time flash is almost imperceptible (it looks like a normal flash is taking place).

By contrast, manual flash (M) does not use a pre-flash; it only fires once (during exposure) and the power setting is determined by the photographer and set manually.

Referenced in this video:

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