Essential Equipment for Off-Camera Flash Photography

Written by Michael Alan Bielat on June 27, 2010 - 0 Comments
Categories: Flash Tips, For Professionals, Photo 101

I have been really minimizing my equipment over the past couple months and following the KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach to my photography. I thought golf was bad but I really think that photography has more gear and gadgets than anything else.

I used to bring out the big artillery for my wedding and portrait assignments and a lot of it wasn’t needed. Sure a studio strobe and AC power pack is nice to have… But my speedlights and high speed sync techniques can also do the trick. Throw in some nice light modifiers such as a soft box or shoot through umbrella and I’m in business.

So here is my list of what I found to be essential equipment for off camera flash photography:

Bowens Portable Light Stand ($48.95)
Manfrotto Swivel Umbrella Adapter ($29.50)
Impact 60″ Convertible Umbrella ($29.95)
Westcott Apollo Softbox For Speedlights ($114.95)
(2x) PocketWizards Plus II Transmitters ($169.00 each)

Nikon shooters should pick up the following:

(2x) Nikon SB-900 Speedlight ($459.95)

Canon shooters unfortunately need an extra transmitter:

(2x) Canon 580EX II Speedlight ($445.95)
Canon ST-E2 Transmitter ($229.95)

I did add the prices to show you how much each item goes for. As you can see, it can get expensive!

Want to save a bit of money? If you shoot Nikon then you can do without a second SB-900 speedlight if your Digital SLR has a pop up flash and is fairly current. You can use the pop up flash to act in Commander mode only and trigger your one SB-900 that way. This will also allow you to get away from needing those two PocketWizards. Let’s tally that up for a savings in the ballpark of $797.95! The only con here is that you are going to be limited by the flashes and they need to have a direct line of sight. BUT you get to use high speed sync which is an amazing thing if you get the hang of it!

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