Photography Lighting Equipment

What is a Speedlight in Photography?

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Written By Nate Torres

This is a guide covering everything you need to know about speedlights.

What is a Speedlight?

The Speedlight is a small battery-powered flash that can work either when mounted or not. The two basic settings are Manual and TTL.

Speedlights are starting to gain popularity among portrait and even studio professionals. They are small, very light, quick to set up and tear down, and lastly the price.

Originally, the term Speedlight was coined by Nikon in early 1960. They used it to name Nikon flashes that aren’t built into the camera. Then Canon showed up with their own term, Speedlite.

Nowadays, manufacturers will use one of the two terms to refer to their camera-mounted portable flashes.

The original camera-mounted flash units were manual and would always output the same amount of light. Shortly after, automatic flashes were released.

The automatic flashes use a sensor that is mounted in front of the flash to adjust the intensity of the flash.

Time goes on and all of a sudden TTL is now mainstream.

TTL is the abbreviation for Through the Lens, it means that your camera both monitors and controls your flash to give you the proper exposure.

Basically, it’s an automatic version that lets the camera decide for you.

As usual, innovation naturally comes with a big price tag. Luckily, other companies have reverse-engineered said Nikon and Canon Speedlights to make them more affordable.

In short, the Speedlight definition is a battery-powered portable flash that can be both mounted or not.

speedlight example
speedlight

How to Use a Speedlight?

Here’s how you use the speedlight:

1. Attach the Speedlight

Mount the speedlight onto the hot shoe of your camera. The hot shoe is the slot on top of the camera body designed to accommodate external flashes.

Secure the speedlight in place by tightening the locking mechanism.

2. Power On the Speedlight

Turn on the speedlight and ensure it’s ready to fire. Most modern speedlights have indicator lights that show when the flash is charged and ready to use.

3. Adjust Flash Settings

Depending on your camera and speedlight, you can control flash settings in various ways. Familiarize yourself with your camera’s flash settings menu and your speedlight’s controls.

Common settings to adjust include flash power, flash mode (manual, TTL, etc.), and zoom level (if your speedlight has a zoom feature).

4. Choose the Flash Mode

There are different flash modes you can use:

  • Manual Mode: Set the flash power manually. You control the output level.
  • TTL (Through-the-Lens) Mode: The camera and flash communicate to automatically adjust flash power based on the scene’s lighting conditions.
  • HSS (High-Speed Sync) Mode: Enables you to use flash at higher shutter speeds, useful for outdoor portraits or when you want to control ambient light.

5. Adjust Flash Angle and Position

Experiment with the angle and position of the speedlight. Bouncing the flash off ceilings, walls, or using a diffuser can soften and spread the light, resulting in more flattering and natural-looking results.

6. Sync with Camera

Ensure your camera and speedlight are synchronized properly. Most modern cameras automatically synchronize with compatible speedlights.

However, if you’re using an off-camera flash or older equipment, you might need to set the sync mode manually.

7. Take Test Shots

Start with test shots to determine the best flash power, angle, and position for your specific scene. Review the results on your camera’s LCD screen and make adjustments as needed.

8. Experiment with Flash Compensation

Flash compensation allows you to adjust the output of the flash while retaining the ambient light. It’s useful for balancing the flash output with the natural light to create a more natural look.

9. Modify the Light

Consider using light modifiers such as diffusers, softboxes, gels, and reflectors to shape and control the quality of the flash.

10. Practice and Learn

Using a speedlight effectively takes practice. Experiment in different lighting conditions and scenes to understand how the flash affects your photos.

Over time, you’ll develop a better sense of how to achieve your desired results.

11. Learn to Control Flash Power

Mastering flash power allows you to control the intensity of the light on your subject. This skill is particularly important when balancing flash with ambient light.

12. Continuous Learning

Speedlight photography is a skill that can be continuously refined.

Study tutorials, books, and online resources to deepen your understanding of advanced techniques.

How Does a Speedlight Work?

As mentioned, speedlights have two basic settings, Manual and TTL.

TTL

TTL mode is similar to the Auto mode on your camera where it makes automatic adjustments based on the information from your camera’s built-in-metering system.

Placing your Speedlight into TTL mode and holding the camera button halfway down will trigger a pre-flash.

Your camera will pick this reading and input this info to the Speedlight to predict the approximate settings for a good exposure.

It will consider both the distance from the light source to your subject and the amount of light reflected off the subject.

Manual

You can also set your Speedlight to use a manual flash setting.

If you set speedlights to manual flash, you can set different power modes to 1/1 which is full power, 1/2 which is half power, 1/4 which is quarter power, and so on.

Setting the power yourself can be difficult so it is best that you use a light meter when trying to configure how much power to use.

If you choose to set the Speedlight into manual mode, you are made responsible to control the flash output which you dial in.

You can also control its output by placing the flash closer or further away from your subject. The closer it is to the subject, the more intense your light intensity is, and vice versa.

Why Would Someone Choose Manual Flash Over TTL?

Well, considering your model will be in multiple poses in the same spot. It is beneficial to have a light source that is consistent in every shot and at the same distance from your light source.

TTL is best used when you want to take the guesswork out of using the Speedlight flash because it will automatically adjust the exposure.

The thing with TTL is that it can be inconsistent, if your subject is moving or other light sources change, then you’ll get different flash intensities. If you have it in a manual flash, then you have far more control and continuity in your images.

What is the Purpose of a Speedlight Flash?

The purpose of the Speedlight is to add additional lighting to conditions that are too dark for handheld photography.

You can only do so much by changing your settings to allow shooting in dark conditions. Most of the time, you’ll need a slow shutter speed and that requires you to use a tripod.

Shooting at a slow shutter speed makes your image prone to motion blur. Since it’s almost impossible for most photographers to have their hands not shake for 5 seconds, they need a tripod. Oh, and maybe use a remote shutter release too as an extra measure.

A Speedlight allows you to comfortably handhold your camera to achieve more balanced exposures in daylight.

You can also use it to add exposure when shooting at higher shutter speeds, allowing you to freeze fast-moving subjects.

Need more power than a built-in pop-up flash, but still want it to be flexible? Get a Speedlight.

Shooting handheld in low-light conditions but you’re at your ISO limit? Use a Speedlight.

Besides those, you can also adjust the power of your Speedlight. This helps you to effectively control the spread of light, either you want it to match your lens focal length or ensure the correct spread and light intensity.

It also provides a white card to bounce the flash and also includes a diffuser to create softer flattering light.

So to wrap it up, photographers will mainly use this affordable accessory to help their handheld photographs for exposure issues.

To further explore the purpose of speedlight flashes, check out this in-depth video by Patrick Berger.

What is the Difference between a Speedlight and a Flash?

A speedlight is a type of flash that sits on the hot shoe.

Other flashes include:

  • Pop-up Flash: the flash built into the camera
  • Strobes or Monolights: larger studio lights

How Do I Choose a Speedlight?

Speedlights are taking the photography world by storm, leading to many photographers purchasing the product on a whim.

Some go for the most expensive speedlights, thinking that high quality is guaranteed by a high price. While some choose the cheapest options, without considering that manufacturers would lower the quality of the product to make it cheap.

For starters, it’s highly recommended to purchase a Speedlight produced by your DSLR’s manufacturer.

Afterward, you can choose products from a third party such as Metz that works with your DSLR. With the majority of flash features being controlled through the camera, you must take advantage of all the available features.

They also come in many ranges of powers/intensity. By looking at the guide number, you’ll figure out that the more expensive a product gets the more power it has.

Canon will usually have a range of four flashguns: 270EX, 320EX, 430EX, and lastly 600EX. The numbers, for example, “270” is a guide number of 27 meters that relates to your ISO at 100.

Using your basic ISO you can determine the guide number by multiplying the subject distance by the f-stop number. You can also determine your aperture by dividing your guide number by subject distance.

This is important because your light intensity is also determined by the distance of your Speedlight to the subject.

Also, consider features like head rotation if you are planning to soften or change the light on your subject. There are also “zoom” features that are available in high-end models.

It allows the Speedlight to detect changes in the focal length from 24mm to 105mm, automatically. This can help you concentrate light to cover long distances.

To further explore the subject of choosing a speedlights, check out this in-depth video by Jiggie Alejandrino.

Is TTL Flash Necessary?

Through the Lens Flash or TTL flash can receive information from the camera’s light meter. This happens by the multiple contacts at the camera’s hot-shoe.

Assisted by the metering information from the camera, the TTL flash will automatically set the necessary power output. In modern equipment, the metering becomes really accurate, leading you to easily take well-exposed images.

Each manufacturer has its own TTL flash, some of which are:

  • E-TTL : Evaluative TTL, by Canon
  • i-TTL : Intelligent TTL, by Nikon
  • P-TTL : Preflash TTL, by Pentax

It is considered that Nikon CLS has the most sophisticated, best technology, allowing the user to have more individual control of the camera.

The Nikon CLS allows multiple ratios between multiple groups, you aren’t given complete control though. On the other hand, Pentax doesn’t allow you to configure groups.

“But do I need it?” you say. Well no.

Many photographers will recommend you skip TTL and go straight into Manual mode. For photographers, control is simply everything they wished for. Going TTL will make most of your images less desirable, flat, and dulled by their flat background.

While TTL focuses on correctly exposing the subject, photographers still want their fair share of dramatic lighting with shadows and highlights in some areas.

The more control a photographer has over their image, the better it generally is.

Another problem with TTL is its margin of error. Every time the TTL Flash sends the signal back into the camera, there is a possibility that your camera settings would change.

Shadows, highlights, ambient lights, clouds, and everything else can change the metering. Compare that to when you go manual, you can just set the power and it just stays the same until the end of time.

To wrap this section up, let’s compare the pros and cons of a TTL Flash and then compare it to a Manual flash.

TTL Flash Pros:

  • Flash power and zoom are set automatically when connected to the camera, either via hot shoe or infrared.
  • TTL can be used in any camera mode, Automatic, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and scene modes.
  • You can also use it in manual mode.

TTL Flash Cons:

  • A TTL equipped with an off-camera flash will mostly be unreliable. Its measurements are affected by the sunlight and line of sight.
  • Pretty expensive, mostly five times the manual flash
  • Hard to replicate results.

Manual Flash Pros:

  • Really affordable, you can get a quality build manual flash with only $100 (meaning you find a speedlight without TTL feature)
  • Full control of settings
  • Acquire a faster understanding of your camera and how to use light effectively

Manual Flash Cons:

  • Only viable when shooting in Manual Mode
  • Both power and zoom must be set manually.

Oh and please note that TTL is still a great feature. Sometimes photographers can’t efficiently use manual mode at a location or venue with inconsistent lighting.

It may not be great, but it does get the job done.

There is also detail about HSS (High-Speed Sync), which you shouldn’t worry too much about when starting out. If you want HSS, go with a TTL.

Manual flash is limited by the camera’s shutter speed (usually around 1/200s to 1/250s). A TTL paired with a compatible camera will get you up to 1/8000s.

To further explore the subject of TTL vs manual, check out this in-depth video by ZY Productions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a flash and a speedlight?

In photography, a flash is a generic term used to describe a device that emits a burst of light to illuminate a scene or subject. A speedlight, on the other hand, is a type of flash that is designed to be lightweight, portable, and easy to use on a camera or off-camera.

Should you get a speedlight or strobe?

If you need a flash that is portable and lightweight, and you plan to use it primarily for on-camera use or in small spaces, a speedlight may be a better choice. However, if you need more power, control over lighting, and versatility, and don’t mind the additional bulk, a strobe may be a better option.

When should you use Speedlite?

Filling in shadows, creating a catchlight, balancing ambient light, and adding creative lighting effects.

Final Remarks

So, “what is a Speedlight?” It’s essentially a flash with fancy technology that measures and helps you get optimal exposure to the subject.

It mainly serves as a second source of light to fill in shadows for photographers shooting in poor lighting conditions. Half pressing the button will emit a pre-flash that measures all those little details for you.

While the TTL flash does get the job done by lighting your subject, you miss out on the creative opportunities and freedom to control your settings.

Both have limitations and their usage should be adjusted to your needs and ability. That’s all from me, good luck!