TTL Off Camera Flash & Joe McNally
Monday, July 26th, 2010, 13:18Last week I attended an off-camera flash lighting techniques workshop in London run by Joe McNally under the auspices of Scott Kelby Training. This was as much a social event for me as it was a workshop, but at the same time I went in the sincere hope that I would pick up some very valuable tips and information. First off, I must admit that I am a huge fan of Joe McNally! Joe is a staff photographer for National Geographic having contributed to the magazine for over 20 years and having gained many front covers. He’s also secured covers for TIME, Sports Illustrated and Newsweek amongst others. So this guy has pedigree and quite simply, I love his work.
Joe himself is a really entertaining, witty and charming guy. His style of delivery kept things pretty interesting even when the content itself may not have been interesting in itself. In fact if it wasn’t for his delivery of the content, I’d pretty much rate the workshop as poor to below average 
It lacked structure in that there was an itinerary set out and printed notes provided, neither of which were followed by the live delivery. A lot of the content at the start was purposely basic so that a foundation was set for further content that day. But unfortunately it really didn’t move too far beyond basic and there was a lot of repeated content.
What surprised me was Joes use of TTL off camera flash. This in itself wasn’t a surprise as Joe has always been an advocate of this style of lighting and blogs regularly on it. The surprise was more to do with how long it took him to light what I would consider a basic setup due to the inconsistency of TTL flash. But he was pretty persistent, not at all afraid to make “mistakes”‘ and more than willing to accept the inconsistencies of off camera TTL flash. In most cases (not all) he eventually came up with the look and feel of the shot that he wanted. He certainly endorses this method of lighting and clearly stated that TTL has saved his arse on more occasions than it has caused him problems.
One eye opener on the day was combining high speed sync with off camera flash (TTL). Whilst I always knew this was possible, it was applied in a very different way to what I would have thought of previously. In the past, when I thought of high speed sync, it was always a tool used to kill ambient light in an exposure through the use of increased shutter speed. But Joe flipped the coin over. He wanted to use very limited depth of field for a portrait but also combine flash. Obviously by shooting wide open, shutter speeds increase, hence you enter the realm of high speed sync! I guess this opens up some creative possibilities which aren’t possible using studio heads unless they come with very small power output values.
Apart from TTL, the main thread through the whole day was really techniques to make small flash resemble big flash using varying number of layers and sizes of diffusion. He also offered some nice insights in how he engages with the subjects he shoots.
All in all I was disappointed with the content, but really happy and entertained to see one of my “idols” at work and to have him showcase his work. Couple that with having a few beers with other photographers from my camera club and it wasn’t such a bad day after all.
Related posts:
- Flash Fun At A Celbridge Camera Club Workshop
- Controlling Ambient With Shutter Speed
- Flash Triggers – Optical & Radio
- Flash 101 (Technical Bits)
- Flash Triggers – Optical & Radio
Tags: flash, joe mcnally, ttl, work shop
July 26th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Hi Dear friend ,
For months I am looking at your blog and all your new post . I may never had a chance to say thank you for very useful information and experiences that you presents here .Thank you so much and I dedicate all my best wishes to you .
Good luck !
Jahangir
July 27th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Interesting review. I don’t feel so bad now about not going. When I heard that there were going to be upwards of 200 people in attendance (was that figure any way accurate?) I decided this was something I’d rather give a miss.
There’s no doubting the quality of Joe’s work and I thoroughly enjoy reading his blog and his insights into photography in general. The guy has achieved almost cult status at this stage. But there are so many others out there that produce work as good as, if not better than Joe. But the work they do is relatively boring in comparison to what Joe does so I guess they don’t achieve the same level of notoriety. For example, someone like David X Tejada, who as some excellent videos on his Youtube channel and who keeps a very informative blog at http://davidtejada.blogspot.com/ Well worth checking out.
On the subject of high speed sync, being able to use a wider aperture during daylight was one of the main reasons professional wedding photographers used to use medium format cameras with leaf shutters, as they could sync at any speed. Having said that, 1/500s was about as fast as it got, and these days you’ve got photographers like Damien Lovegrove using Broncolor Mobil packs at 1/8000s (http://www.prophotonut.com/2010/05/23/18000th-flash-sync-with-broncolor-mobil-and-canon-5d-mk2/)
July 28th, 2010 at 1:07 am
Thanks for the link… another blog to add to my RSS subscriptions
I’ve had a quick look at the articles and whilst they’re very informative and well written, surely you wouldn’t compare the quality of the work to that of Joe McNally?
As for the home made 1/8000 flash kit.. I haven’t been able to get my mind around what exactly it is he’s doing?
July 28th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Whilst I agree that David Tejada is no Joe McNally, I think his work is very consistent and has a strong commercial edge to it and it seems to get him regular work. If you’ve got time, have a quick look at his flickr photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidtejada/).
July 30th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Hi,
I thought the Seminar was better than average, I think it did build up but just not to the level that I’d hoped it would build up to.
That said, it was a HUGE amount of gear for attempting to show how portable shooting with small lights can be done. Some of those light modifiers were not built for carrying too far without a lot of help. I think the day would have been brilliant to anyone starting off with off camera lighting, and seeing the options and possibilities. I think it’s time to admit that your up there with the experts Ciaran, and most mass market seminars like this are not going to teach you much.
except to keep an eye on the flights
Merv.
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:18 pm
interesting……As I said to you beforehand, personally I think McNally is over-rated (although I wasn’t aware of all those cover shots you mentioned!? All I know is that some of his so-called training videos on the kelbytraining site are woeful – particularly a recent set using the elinchrom quadras on location! I kid you not, it is embarrassing to watch him faff about – interestingly trying to use an off-camera flashgun as an accent light, along with the quadra in a softbox. I certainly agree that he is not afraid to make mistakes!!
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:23 pm
I haven’t been able to find that video Ross. But having seen him in person, i can pretty much guess what it’s like. There was a lot of faffing about… AN AWFUL LOT. But that said, with the exception of one set, he was always able to achieve the results he wanted (although sometimes he never really specified what he was trying to achieve until he actually arrived at it and then said “TA DA”! I still really admire the guys work and admire the guy as a person. But I don’t think he convinced me to change any of my methods.
August 4th, 2010 at 10:52 am
I find it very strange to hear that someone who is trying to achieve consistency in their results would use TTL off camera. As a matter of fact TTL and consistent results don’t go hand in hand off or on camera
. Beside being a very good photographer, Joe McNally is a big brand name and an extremely good salesman. One thing I don’t like about him is that in all his videos he is talking about how easy is to achieve a result and then he starts presenting a HUGE amount of equipment, equipment that will never be accessible to as mortals:). I always said that a good photographer should be able to achieve a decent result with the available equipment and this is where David Hobby comes in play.
August 4th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Joe certainly has a huge arsenal of equipment and indeed assistants to rely on. For some of the shots he was using stands and modifiers that not even some Gods would have, let alone mere mortals. But in fairness to him, and one of the things I was most surprised about, is that he actually buys all his own equipment (from Adorama). I always had the impression that Nikon comped him his bodies and lenses.