Education Field Instructional

Joe McNally Teaches You The Basics of Lighting

Chris Gampat
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06/17/2015
1 Min read

Last Updated on 06/17/2015 by Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Profoto B1 500 TTL product images (8 of 9)ISO 4001-50 sec at f - 4.5

TTL lighting can either be one of the simplest or most difficult lighting modes to work with. It stands for Through the Lens Metering, and photographer Joe McNally is teaming up with Profoto to explain it to you in the video after the jump along with other things like lighting ratios and high speed sync.

TTL works by working with the camera’s metering–specifically with the aperture and the ISO since they directly affect the way the light is rendered in the scene. He also evangelizes the Profoto Air system, which we have to admit is very good. What you may not know is how the pre-flash works in TTL communication.

The other videos explain lighting ratios and how they work. This is more complicated and involves using more than one light source–they’re best done manually to ensure that you get exactly what you want but Profoto and other systems let you set lights up in ratios. Beyond that, they also talk about High Speed Sync, which involves shooting with a faster shutter speed than the camera typically allows to kill more ambient lighting. If you can’t shoot with high speed sync with your flash (not be confused with flash duration), many photographers have used ND filters to get the same effect.

B1 high speed sync Joe McNally lighting nd filter profoto ratio TTL
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.