Speedlight Tutorial: Day to Night Technique

Wireless lighting allows you to create dramatic lighting scenarios that enhance your images. Although it may seem daunting, using Speedlights off-camera is easier than you think. With Nikon’s Creative Lighting System, you can easily set up a Speedlight or two (or more) and control their output right from your Nikon D-SLR.

Corporate photographer David Tejada is a location shooter; traveling to where his subjects are found—on construction sites, inside factories and executive offices. David brings a minimal amount of gear with him on location. By using a minimal amount of equipment, placed correctly, the viewer is given the perception that the lighting situations in the photographs that David produces are more complex.

Play it Again

You might think the only way to turn day into night is by blocking out the sun. David will show you how you can control your exposure to make it look like nighttime. Add in a couple of deliberately placed Speedlights to give the subject the look of being lit by a lamppost or bare bulib over an adjacent doorway—and gel the Speedlights for added drama. Because David was positioned in bright daylight, he made sure to use the lens hood on the lens. Concerned that the built-in pop-up flash's signal would not reach the remote Speedlights because of the lens hood, David placed an SB-700 on the camera's hot shoe which acted as the Master.

Watch the video, to learn how to turn a busy mid-day city street into an image that looks as if it were shot in the middle of the night.