Good questions.. as you can see I am obviously a noob.
Well personally, I'm a street/portraiture kinda guy. I dabble in lots of stuff tho.. but mostly street and portraiture.
I am 26 this year and what I really wanna learn are lighting techniques.
I know about fill flash and have tried manual setting on my speedlight with satisfactory results.
But I wanna learn more from experts who can tell you what settings to use just by looking at the available light.
So basically, the next thing I wanna learn is lights. be it studio or strobes.
Thanks guys.
no expert can tell you what settings to use if you don't tell them what style you want in the first place. And if you
already know the style there's no reason why you can't figure out the setting without an expert telling you the
obvious. There is no such thing as a precise setting. Everything is a loose translation.
Defination of settings include not just the flash power, but modifers, distance, direction etc etc.
Defination of why the lighting made the photograph look nice also depends on another number of variables. "Nice"
by itself is a variable.
Hence the fact is, a range of settings will still give the same look, but we had to use 1 setting, so that's what we
say the setting was.
We do testings like the next guy/girl, maybe we take less time than the average person but we still test. We
also do our research before-hand, consult fellow professionals, exchange ideas, etc. No different from a hobbist might.
It'll take a super expert with > 20yrs experience to just step in and dictate lighting ratios from the get-go. And that super-
expert can in no condition just transfer that knowledge & experience over. Gut instinct, intuition, can't teach that.
You having a full time job makes it slightly harder to be an assistant. It's better if you learn from yes, more
books & magazines, youtube, websites, fellow clubsnappers, etc. You can save money to get 1-2 speedlight(s) to
learn lighting ratios etc, get a few different lightstands, light modifiers etc to better control light.
But really though, why the need to do this? What's your final destination? Is this just a curious thirst for knowledge or
you want to moonlight as a portrait photographer? Plenty of hobbist learn from available resources, and also the same
people are able to offer portrait photography without needing to follow an expert. All through old school trial & error,
now made easier with digital. I'm not going to judge their quality of work though, that one you need to do it yourself
and decide what "level" you want to be and reach.
If you're totally serious and needing to learn from an expert, get a full-time assistant job to a good professional, quit your
full-time job, take a
significant pay deduction and slog along for the
sake of passion.
If you can't do that, then just learn like most of everyone else, financially safe at your own pace.