On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography

Disclaimers:
1. I do know Neil van Niekerk
2. I use very little flash

I've known Mr. Niekerk for more than a few years and there are few photographers for whom I have as much respect, personally or professionally.

While I am known for my "available light" work I do consider a mastery of light, be it available or supplemental, to be crucial for the production of great images.

Mr. Williams states, eloquently, in his foreword that we live in the age of the "quick-fix" during which period it really does seem to be de rigueur to eschew knowledge and learning.
If you recognize that "flash" is your weak point, or if you desire to improve your lighting skills & knowledge then I suggest that this book should not only be on your purchase list, at the top :), but also that you do spend the time reading, practicing and understanding the techniques and concepts presented in it, paying particular attention to Mr. van Niekerk's statement regarding manual exposure; "You decide. Not the camera." This is of key importance and is often overlooked or neglected

The book itself is very well written, using precise, unambiguous language leaving little, if any, room for misunderstanding. The chapter subjects are comprehensive.
The diagrams are clear and concise and each and every photograph in the book illustrates its point very clearly.

My only issue with the foreword is that Mr. William's statement this "is a fantastic book" is that it is not in bold print!
It is indeed a fantastic book. It's not a quick fix, I don't believe it was ever intended to be one.
It does require reading and practice, after all practice does make perfect!

George Weir

What a wonderful book. Just having read through it the first time I'm overwhelmed with the amount of fantastic info in here. And the photography in this book is beautiful. He breaks down how each photo was shot in incredible detail, talking about the equipment and camera settings. There are many before-and-after shots that show the shot with and without flash or with different types of flash that really exemplify how important proper lighting really is. This is surely a must-have lighting book for any serious photographer and I can guarantee I'll be coming back to it time and time again.

I was very skeptic on well I would like a book about non-studio flash Photography. I have read a lot of Joe McNally books and he certainly has mastered the off and on camera flash! I wasn't quite sure what to expect of this book....

IT ROCKS! I got it today and I am done with it already. I couldn't put it down. Thank goodness I had the time to read it. Here is what I love about it.....Neil shows you the shot would be typically be shot. Then, he tweaks the lighting with a flash.....shows you the difference, then makes another change and shows the different yet again. The examples in this book are AMAZING! The author knows how to teach and he does it extremely well.

Trust me when I tell you to buy this book and memorize it. It's actually going in my camera bag as a reference manual now that I marked it all up.

This might be my favorite photography book to date! Buy it.....you'll love it!

I used to be an "existing light" guy. I really hated the look of direct flash on a subject. I was having a nice chat with my brother-in-law when he told me about this website called planet neil. I read through it and I was amazed by this guy who talked about using flash in such a way that viewers wouldn't know that you used flash! I bookmarked it and told myself that I would throughly read it when I finally bought my flash.

That moment came a few weeks ago. I bought a 430EXII and went through the website again. It had a ad about the site's author also writing a book. I bought the book as soon as Amazon released it and poured through its pages.

I was just amazed at the amount of helpful information the book had. The author, Niel van Niekerk, was really obsessed about making sure that the subject didn't look like a flash was used on her. He showed a lot of examples of how a picture would look like if only existing light was used and how the lighting was greatly enhanced by using flash.

I don't know but he made a believer out of me.

He never suggested this but I went to a hobby store and bought a life-sized styrofoam head so I can practice bouncing the flash while creating a flattering kind of lighting. Sorry if this sounds weird but it is so hard for me to convince my wife to practice using the flash on her.

I think this book would be very helpful for people new to using flash and also to people who already has some flash experience. He uses a lot of examples from his wedding shoots but his techniques can be applied to most situations. He talks about using flash in different types of lighting situations. He does so in a manner that is not very technical. In fact, he only used 1 chart in his entire book.

If you want to read a bit about what he has to say, google "Planet Neil flash photography techniques". Like me, you will be amazed at what he has to say and you will probably buy the book too.

I have already finished it and I will probably read it a couple more times.

One last word about the author. I had a question about a gel he mentioned in his book so I sent him an e-mail. He responded promptly and was very nice.

This is a short, easy-to-read book with good, practical advice on using on-camera flash. The only other *good* book I've read on flash so far is Joe McNally's "Hot Shoe Diaries", which is excellent. I found myself comparing these books after having read them both.

The technical information presented at the beginning of the book was pretty good, and on par with other books I have read. I found it interesting how McNally's technique is quite different than van Niekerk's. Granted, "Hot Shoe Diaries" really focuses almost exclusively on off-camera flash(es!), and this book is about on-camera flash, but still, the choice of camera modes and techniques to measure exposure are very different. For example, Van Niekerk recommends the Zone System and manual exposure, and McNally recommends using aperture priority and using the camera's matrix metering. To each his own, I guess.

I found the chapter on flash sync to be decent, but not as clear as it could have been. The chapter on light modifiers was pretty thin. Some of the example pictures near the beginning of the book I found difficult to relate to (since it seemed they weren't always apples-to-apples comparisons). There was a panel of images that was supposed to show varying the degree of ambient light, which I expected to show differences in shutter speed, but it showed comparisons of different apertures (which obviously affects DOF).

The rest of the book is purely about how you should be bouncing the flash to get best results. There are some good examples given throughout the book showing ambient light, the setting, and the shot with and without flash, to really give you a good feeling of what's going on from the point of view of the photographer (and not just the final picture). Not every example is like this (it'd be nicer to have more). On the other hand, some examples did give the different view points, but it didn't always add to the explanation (sometimes, it was puzzling exactly what the picutre of the environment was supposed to show).

I liked how this book shows some good examples of how a single on-camera flash combined with cheap gels and light shapers, can produce very good results if used properly. This is unlike McNally's book, which shows great images (often stunning!), but McNally is often using much more expensive equipment (even with just one flash, most picutres from the "Hot Shoe Diaries" use diffusers, panels, umbrellas, and other gear to get everything "just right"). I realize that again, it's difficult to compare, since that book is most about off-camera flash.

All in all, this was a great read. Recommended.

I pre-ordered this book for a natural light photographer friend who wanted to focus on learning her flash. When I received the book I cracked it open to make sure the gift I got my friend was a decent book. As it was a pre-order there weren't any reviews yet and all I had to go on as to the quality of the book was the author's blog. I had considered purchasing a different book for my friend and was willing to still get the other book instead of this one if this one didn't make the cut, but instead of purchasing the other book, I purchased ANOTHER copy of this book for myself. This book truly is a must have for someone wanting to expand their photography skills and actually use their flash to ENHANCE their images. The book is easy to read, not too long, and chock full of valuable information. Actually, I learned a lot about basic exposure from this book also. And I'm one who already photographs in manual. AND I got to put my new knowledge to use last weekend with my first indoor photoshoot. (I had the book in my camera bag in case I needed to reference it.) WOW! What a difference!
I can't recommend this book enough!!!

On my 6 year journey from enthusiastic amateur to part time pro I have decorated a large part of my bookshelf space with all manner of photography books. While some inspire with amazing images (see The Moment it Clicks by Joe McNally) it is always those books which take you through the details of each shot with specifics about settings and the reasons behind their choices that I come back to most often. This book is possibly the best example I have come across of the latter and ranks up there with Monte Zucker's Portrait Photography Handbook in my indispensable book list.

What I found to be a revelation in this book is the in depth discussion about TTL. Since the beginning of my journey with DSLRs when a few professional photographers steered me away from TTL exposure and encouraged me to use the manual flash settings I have never really cared about or played with TTL. I would even go a step further and say that I felt that TTL was for new camera owners who simply didn't know any better. Based on what I have learnt and hours of practicing these techniques I am now shooting about 80% of my on-camera flash shots using TTL. Moreover I am getting consistently better photographs and spending much less time in Photoshop correcting exposure.

In terms of the level of the book, an understanding of exposure is required and assumed by the author and in all practical terms, photographers without a hot-shoe flash (i.e. those shooting with the popup) should spend their money on the flash before buying this book. There is very little discussion about external flash techniques, so those shooting predominantly with external strobes or in a studio environment should look elsewhere. As I mention above, the book is also unapologetic about focusing on using TTL to get optimal exposure so photographers who refuse to use automated flash metering should (open their minds and) look elsewhere.

The best thing I can say about any photography book is that it had an immediate and noticeable effect on my end product. I read the book on a plane heading to a family gathering and tested some of the concepts throughout the trip. The final prints exceeded my expectations and I continue to see the positive influence of this book in all of the on-camera flash work that I do.

Very highly recommended.

A subject that seems so simple yet so much to be learned, you may not think so until you start reading this book. Although the title states for wedding and portrait phototgraphy, the information can be applied to just about any type of photography. This book does a great job of breaking down elements of on camera flash to tailor the lighting to each image under a variety of conditions. What also makes this a practical book is that anyone with a DSLR camera has or will have an on camera flash. An explanation of equipment and tips and techniques are also great benefits this book has to offer. If you use a flash, get this book.

Background (you can skip)
Since so many reviews have already been written about this book I will keep this brief with my personal reasons why this book is so useful. I have bought TONS of photography books (at least 35), always looking for useful tips to get that pro look to my photos and extort Oooh's and Aaaah's from people looking at my collection. Lighting has always been my downfall, since I cannot seem to get the contrast, shadows, directions etc right. I bought expensive soft boxes and strobes and yet never learned to properly use them, even with all the books at hand. So I have been steadily looking for books that could give me good useful instruction on how to create positive results that would fuel inspiration (success is great fuel)!! I tried some of the books my pro friends recommended. like Light, science & Magic and found that those were too advanced and required too much skill / experience with some of the equipment (like strobes) to be the best start. And then I found this little 20 dollar lesson.

About this book
There are a few things that many photography books do that do not work for me:
- The are THICK, I mean endless pages going through basics about cameras that I do not need, forcing me to spend too much time reading, which I do not have
- They often assume deep wallets, ie. access to expensive equipment
- They often assume everyone wants to be a pro-sumer / semi-pro, whereas what I wanted was just darn good looking pictures without excessive knowledge I will rarely use
- Most of all, they assume you have tons of space and great lighting equipment.

My reality is: I am a father of many kids, I have a busy busy life. I rarely have time to go shoot outdoors. Mostly I take pictures indoors and often in the evenings, but rarely in studio conditions. In fact, my house is cramped so I cannot set up backgrounds and strobes very easily nor do I enjoy it.
Reading is something I enjoy with novels, not with photography or instruction books.

Here are the reasons why I think this book excels:
- It is thin and to the point
- I think it immediately gives you USABLE, applicable instructions to take good looking photos, augmented by flash
- It understands that not all of us have strobes, studio space and enormous soft boxes.
- It focuses on flash photography albeit indoors or outdoors, augmenting natural light or being the main source.
- It teaches quickly and efficiently

The negative(s):
- The first 10 pages are generic detailed scientific explanations of reflection and lighting. Tough material, but after that it gets applied!!
- The actual size of the book: it should have been in a little smaller format as this is one you'd want to carry with you.

Overall worth EVERY penny you pay for it.

I must agree with Adriel's 2-star review. I'm very new to flash photography and need to give Niekerk the benefit of the doubt as he's clearly the experienced one... but here is my experience; I borrowed both this book and Bryan Peterson's flash photography book from the library at the same time. I picked up this one first based on the incredibly positive reviews. Right off the bat I was annoyed by a few things; mostly redundancy in the text and continual references to things he "will not talk about in this book", very distracting. Note that those are gripes about the style of writing/teaching, not the author's personal gift of flash photography or knowledge thereof. However, I found it really hard to stay tuned and the result is that I finally gave up and learned very little. On page 23 came the clincher; a mathmatical equation that just did not make sense. After trying to make sense of it, I handed the book to my husband who not only has a degree in education, but is very gifted at math. He pored over that page for quite some time before giving up himself. That is when I picked up Peterson's book which I found to be straightforward, organized and non-repetetive. I'm already doing hands-on exercises with lighting only a few pages in. Finally; not that you can't get the point across with different styles of pictures, but Peterson's photographic examples are amazing next to Niekerks. Again, I'm open to the idea that I'm missing something with Niekerk, but that didn't keep this from being a very discouraging experience with "On-Camera Flash" and I would not recommend it to someone who needs a more straightforward teaching style.