A lot of people ask me what type of lighting I use for shooting portraits outside. I often use a couple of Canon Speedlites 600EX RT.  Other brands like the Phottix (for Nikon or Canon) work well also.

For my off-camera speedlite, I have the light angled at about 45 degrees to the side and raised up a bit, and it is mounted on a softbox.

I use an Impact 24×24″ Softbox, but you could use any brand really, and get nice results.

Of course there are a lot more details I could cover, but I wanted to keep this simple in this article.

Every camera works differently in how it interacts with a flash/speedlite, and there are all sorts of considerations regarding shutter speed, high speed sync, front vs rear curtain sync, mixing ambient light etc.

Using TTL (known as iTTL or ETTL etc. depending on the brand) is the easiest way to operate your flash.  One helpful trick is to underexpose the ambient (existing) light by about 1 f/stop.

If none of this makes sense to you, I offer Light & Photography Workshops intermittently throughout the year.    Plus, when I have enough people interested, I am happy to add a ‘Learn by Doing‘ Workshop on this topic any time!  Just go to this web page and fill out the form if you are interested (look for the bright green box on that page).

For this article, I just wanted you to know what type of gear I typically use for my outdoor shots, since lots of people have been asking.

Happy Picture Taking!

Kevin Gourley