My C1 catalogue has been cleaned up. I have a few files I will leave there because they have nowhere else to go. Neither job needs them, but also I have no relevant non-work location at the moment. My workflow has a dead spot and it has some images I like.

Portraiture to me has simplified greatly. From my early fears it could not be, I have worked it through, eliminating the overkill options, refining the cleaner and more basic ones.

Best mods; 40 something soft white shoot through/reflected brollies (only outdoors in the wind are these an issue, but that will be the case with most mods). I have settled on a shoot through as main, 45 degrees to the side/45 above (roughly), and a nearly face on reflected as fill. Generally about 1/8 power, ISO 200, f2.8 works as a starting point.

The shoot through adds some brilliance and is efficient, the reversed fills softly, gently, but tends to lack the enough punch as a key light. Both flash units are set the same as the reversed is about two stops less efficient, ideal for fill.

If a separation/rim/hair light is used, almost anything will work. A small LED, another brolly, a small, more focussed 7” reflector or 26” soft box if I have time. This is usually set about the same as the fill and I watch out for obvious “hot” light from these (not a fan), i.e. it should be, but not be obvious.

If large groups are the subject, these can be used together as is. Really big groups could be handled by my set of 4 very efficient silver 4’ brollies (soft boxes with no diffusers), but I have to work on this.

All I need is a couple of YN560 flash units, medium stands and brollies and I feel capable of most looks I want. I have added a black backed brolly recently which allows me to flag light better, but other than that, it is all good.

If I am outside and there may be wind, becasue umbrellas are sensitive to even a slight breeze, I will switch to a pair of soft boxes, large or small by situation.

Events are even more straight forward.

A flash in my left hand, flagged, a camera and controller in the other (often with the 17mm if I am shooting pairs and groups) just works. This means I can employ the flash as I want, pointing it at ceilings, walls, the floor even and the same with the camera. Previously changing shooting orientation and/or flash angle was a real pain in the $%S.

I had to re-orient the flash head, then spin the flagging foam around. The Godox units are very tight to turn, so I used the manual YN’s, which introduced other issues.

The lens thanks to format and Bokeh style can be used safely at f2-2.8 even for two deep groups, increasing flash efficiency (ISO 800 at 1/4 power produces about 1000 pops). Even 1.8 is useable. I use a zoom is the group size may vary a lot, but the 17mm fits most situations.

The beauty of the hand held option is that I can use the TTL Godox, or manual YN’s hand held at consistent distances from reflecting surfaces rather than always from the camera*. This reduces variation from several stops, to one or two and the angle of both flash and camera can be micro managed. I can also switch out flash units etc without having to change anything over on camera (literally drop one in the bag, pull one out). If I put a small tripod on the flash, I can even just sit it somewhere and fire it remotely without issue.

Even using a manual camera to balance ambient light and a manual flash, I shot a huge number of images recently and not one fell out of useable parameters, which goes to show, manual flash can be as intuitive as people say, especially if you are shooting at consistent distances. Generally you quickly learn to judge the ceiling distances after one try.

Two and a bit years ago, I hated using flash. It now feels like the safe and creative option to shooting in natural light.

*I usually set the camera at ISO 800, the lens to F2.8 and the flash to 50 zoom and 1/4 power. M43 makes 2.8 effectively 5.6 in FF terms and the Bokeh of the 17mm is very tolerant of slight misses. If the ceiling is catherdral like (well “like”), I can push the aperture to f1.8 (still a tolerant 35mm f2.8 in FF), the ISO to 1600 and the flash to 1/1, which is 5 more stops of power.