Successful photographers and artists have an intimate understanding of the importance of light in shaping an image. Rembrandt was a master of using light to create moods and reveal the character of his subjects. Late artist Thomas Kinkade’s official tagline was “Painter of Light.” Dean Collins, co-founder of Finelight Studios, revolutionized how a whole generation of photographers learned and used lighting. It’s impossible to underestimate how the use of light adds to—and how misuse can detract from—your photographs.

All forms of visual art use light to shape the finished product. Sculptors don’t have control over the light used to illuminate their finished work, so they must create shapes using planes and curved surfaces so that the form envisioned by the artist comes to life from a variety of viewing and lighting angles. Painters, in contrast, have absolute control over both shape and light in their work, as well as the viewing angle, so they can use both the contours of their two-dimensional subjects and the qualities of the “light” they use to illuminate those subjects to evoke the image they want to produce.

Photography is a third form of art. The photographer may have little or no control over the subject (other than posing human subjects) but can often adjust both viewing angle and the nature of the light source to create a particular compelling image. The direction and intensity of the light sources create the shapes and textures that we see. The distribution and proportions determine the contrast and tonal values: whether the image is stark or high key, or muted and low in contrast. The colors of the light (because even “white” light has a color balance that the sensor can detect), and how much of those colors the subject reflects or absorbs, paint the hues visible in the image.

As a Nikon D3400 photographer, you must learn to be a painter and sculptor of light if you want to move from taking a picture to making a photograph. This chapter provides an introduction to using the two main types of illumination: continuous lighting (such as daylight, incandescent, or fluorescent sources) and the brief, but brilliant snippets of light we call electronic flash.

Continuous Illumination versus Electronic Flash

Continuous lighting is exactly what you might think: uninterrupted illumination that is available all the time during a shooting session. Daylight, moonlight, and the artificial lighting encountered both indoors and outdoors count as continuous light sources (although all of them can be “interrupted” by passing clouds, solar eclipses, a blown fuse, or simply by switching off a lamp). Indoor continuous illumination includes both the lights that are there already (such as incandescent lamps or overhead fluorescent lights indoors) and fixtures you supply yourself, including photoflood lamps or reflectors used to bounce existing light onto your subject.

Your D3400 has a flip-up electronic flash unit built in. But you can also use an external flash, either mounted on the D3400’s accessory shoe or used off-camera and linked with a cable or triggered by a wireless trigger or a slave light (which sets off a flash when it senses the firing of another unit). Studio flash units are electronic flash, too, and aren’t limited to “professional” shooters, as there are economical “monolight” (one-piece flash/power supply) units available in the $200 price range. Serious photographers with some spare cash can buy a couple to store in a closet and use to set up a home studio, or use as supplementary lighting when traveling away from home. You’ll need a remote trigger mounted on the D3400’s accessory/hot shoe, or an accessory/hot shoe–to-PC connector adapter to use studio flash with your camera.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of illumination. Here’s a quick checklist of pros and cons:

• Lighting preview—Pro: continuous lighting. With continuous lighting, you always know exactly what kind of lighting effect you’re going to get and, if multiple lights are used, how they will interact with each other, as shown in Figure 11.1. With electronic flash, the general effect you’re going to see may be a mystery until you’ve built some experience, and you may need to review a shot on the LCD monitor, make some adjustments, and then reshoot to get the look you want. (In this sense, a digital camera’s review capabilities replace the Polaroid test shots pro photographers relied on in decades past.)
• Lighting preview—Con: electronic flash. With flash, the general effect you’re going to see may be a mystery until you’ve built some experience, and you may need to review a shot on the LCD monitor, make some adjustments, and then reshoot to get the look you want. (In this sense, a digital camera’s review capabilities replace the Polaroid test shots pro photographers relied on in decades past.)

Figure 11.1 You always know how the lighting will look when using continuous illumination.

• Exposure calculation—Pro: continuous lighting. Your D3400 has no problem calculating exposure for continuous lighting, because it remains constant and can be measured through the 420-pixel sensor that interprets the light reaching the viewfinder. The amount of light available just before the exposure will, in almost all cases, be the same amount of light present when the shutter is released. The D3400’s Spot metering mode can be used to measure and compare the proportions of light in the highlights and shadows, so you can make an adjustment (such as using more or less fill light) if necessary. You can even use a hand-held light meter to measure the light yourself.
• Exposure calculation—Con: electronic flash. Electronic flash illumination doesn’t exist until the flash fires, and so can’t be measured by the D3400’s exposure sensor when the mirror is flipped up at the moment of exposure. Instead, the light must be measured by metering the intensity of a pre-flash triggered an instant before the main flash, as it is reflected back to the camera and through the lens. A less attractive alternative, available with higher-end Nikon flash units like the SB-910, is to use a sensor built into the external flash itself and measure reflected light that bounces back, but which has not traveled through the lens. If you have a do-it-yourself bent, there are hand-held flash meters, too, including models that measure both flash and continuous light, so you need only one meter for both types of illumination.
• Evenness of illumination—Pro/con: continuous lighting. Of the continuous light sources, daylight, in particular, provides illumination that tends to fill an image completely, lighting up the foreground, background, and your subject almost equally. Shadows do come into play, of course, so you might need to use reflectors or fill-in additional light sources to even out the illumination further. But, barring objects that block large sections of your image from daylight, the light is spread fairly evenly. Indoors, however, continuous lighting is commonly less evenly distributed. The average living room, for example, has hot spots near the lamps and overhead lights, and dark corners located farther from those light sources. But on the plus side, you can easily see this uneven illumination and compensate with additional lamps.
• Evenness of illumination—Con: electronic flash. Electronic flash units, like continuous light sources such as lamps that don’t have the advantage of being located 93 million miles from the subject, suffer from the effects of their proximity. The inverse square law, first applied to both gravity and light by Sir Isaac Newton, dictates that as a light source’s distance increases from the subject, the amount of light reaching the subject falls off proportionately to the square of the distance. In plain English, that means that a flash or lamp that’s 12 feet away from a subject provides only one-quarter as much illumination as a source that’s 6 feet away (rather than half as much). (See Figure 11.2.) This translates into relatively shallow “depth-of-light.”

Figure 11.2 A light source that is twice as far away provides only one-quarter as much illumination.

• Action stopping—Pro: electronic flash. When it comes to the ability to freeze moving objects in their tracks, the advantage goes to electronic flash. The brief duration of electronic flash serves as a very high “shutter speed” when the flash is the main or only source of illumination for the photo. Your D3400’s shutter speed may be set for 1/200th second during a flash exposure, but if the flash illumination predominates, the effective exposure time will be the 1/1000th to 1/50,000th second or less duration of the flash, as you can see in Figure 11.3, in a shot of an olive dropping into a glass. The only fly in the ointment is that, if the ambient light is strong enough, it may produce a secondary, “ghost” exposure, as I’ll explain later in this chapter.
• Action stopping—Con: continuous lighting. Action stopping with continuous light sources is completely dependent on the shutter speed you’ve dialed in on the camera. And the speeds available are dependent on the amount of light available and your ISO sensitivity setting. Outdoors in daylight, there will probably be enough sunlight to let you shoot at 1/2000th second and f/6.3 with a non-grainy sensitivity setting for your D3400 of ISO 400. That’s a fairly useful combination of settings if you’re not using a super-telephoto with a small maximum aperture. But inside, the reduced illumination quickly has you pushing your D3400 to its limits. For example, if you’re shooting indoor sports, there probably won’t be enough available light to allow you to use a 1/2000th second shutter speed (although I routinely shoot indoor basketball with my D3400 at ISO 1600 and 1/500th second at f/4). The D3400 is not my favorite indoor sports camera, but it works surprisingly well. But in many indoor sports situations, the lack of available light, and the D3400’s increased visual noise at settings of ISO 6400 and above, you may find yourself limited to 1/500th second or slower.

Figure 11.3 Electronic flash can freeze almost any action.

• Cost—Pro: continuous lighting. Incandescent or fluorescent lamps are generally much less expensive than electronic flash units, which can easily cost several hundred dollars. I’ve used everything from desktop high-intensity lamps to reflector flood lights for continuous illumination at very little cost. There are lamps made especially for photographic purposes, too. Maintenance is economical, too: many incandescent or fluorescents use bulbs that cost only a few dollars.
• Cost—Con: electronic flash. Electronic flash units aren’t particularly cheap. The lowest-cost dedicated flash designed specifically for the Nikon dSLRs is about $120. Such units are limited in features, however, and intended for those with entry-level cameras. Plan on spending some money to get the features that a sophisticated electronic flash offers. I paid more than $500 for my SB-910, and only a little less for its “mate,” an SB-900 that I purchased a couple years ago. I’ve got nearly $1,000 sunk into just two battery-operated strobes, and also invested that much—and more—in studio flash units.
• Flexibility—Pro: electronic flash. Electronic flash’s action-freezing power allows you to work without a tripod in the studio (and elsewhere), adding flexibility and speed when choosing angles and positions. Flash units can be easily filtered, and, because the filtration is placed over the light source rather than the lens, you don’t need to use high-quality filter material. For example, Roscoe or Lee lighting gels, which may be too flimsy to use in front of the lens, can be mounted or taped in front of your flash with ease.
• Flexibility—Con: continuous lighting. Because incandescent and fluorescent lamps are not as bright as electronic flash, the slower shutter speeds required (see “Action stopping,” above) mean that you may have to use a tripod more often, especially when shooting portraits. The incandescent variety of continuous lighting gets hot, especially in the studio, and the side effects range from discomfort (for your human models) to disintegration (if you happen to be shooting perishable foods like ice cream). The heat also makes it more difficult to add filtration to incandescent sources.

Continuous Lighting Basics

While continuous lighting and its effects are generally much easier to visualize and use than electronic flash, there are some factors you need to take into account, particularly the color temperature of the light. (Color temperature concerns aren’t exclusive to continuous light sources, of course, but the variations tend to be more extreme and less predictable than those of electronic flash, which output relatively consistent daylight-like illumination.)

Color temperature, in practical terms, is how “bluish” or how “reddish” the light appears to be to the digital camera’s sensor. Indoor illumination is quite warm, comparatively, and appears reddish to the sensor. Daylight, in contrast, seems much bluer to the sensor. Our eyes (our brains, actually) are quite adaptable to these variations, so white objects don’t appear to have an orange tinge when viewed indoors, nor do they seem excessively blue outdoors in full daylight. Yet, these color temperature variations are real and the sensor is not fooled. To capture the most accurate colors, we need to take the color temperature into account in setting the color balance (or white balance) of the D3400—either automatically using the camera’s smarts or manually using our own knowledge and experience.

When using the Nikon D3400, you don’t need to think in terms of actual color temperature (although you can measure existing color temperature using the Preset feature described later), because the camera won’t let you set white balance using color temperature values, which are measured in degrees Kelvin. But it is useful to know that warmer (more reddish) color temperatures (measured in degrees Kelvin) are the lower numbers, while cooler (bluer) color temperatures are higher numbers. It might not make sense to say that 3,400K is warmer than 6,000K, but that’s the way it is. If it helps, think of a glowing red ember contrasted with a white-hot welder’s torch, rather than fire and ice.

You can set white balance by type of illumination, and then fine-tune it in the D3400 using the Shooting menu’s White Balance option. In most cases, however, the Nikon D3400 will do an acceptable job of calculating white balance for you, so Auto can be used as your choice most of the time. Use the preset values or set a custom white balance that matches the current shooting conditions when you need to. The only really problematic light sources are likely to be fluorescents.

Remember that if you shoot RAW, you can specify the white balance of your image when you import it into Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or another image editor using ViewNX-i, Nikon Capture NX-D, Adobe Camera Raw, or your preferred RAW converter. While color-balancing filters that fit on the front of the lens exist, they are primarily useful for film cameras, because film’s color balance can’t be tweaked as extensively as that of a sensor.

Daylight

Daylight is produced by the sun, and so is moonlight (which is just reflected sunlight). Daylight is present, of course, even when you can’t see the sun. When sunlight is direct, it can be bright and harsh. If daylight is diffused by clouds, softened by bouncing off objects such as walls or your photo reflectors, or filtered by shade, it can be much dimmer and less contrasty.

Daylight’s color temperature can vary quite widely. It is highest in temperature (most blue) at noon when the sun is directly overhead, because the light is traveling through a minimum amount of the filtering layer we call the atmosphere. The color temperature at high noon may be 6,000K. At other times of day, the sun is lower in the sky and the particles in the air provide a filtering effect that warms the illumination to about 5,500K for most of the day. Starting an hour before dusk and for an hour after sunrise, the warm appearance of the sunlight is even visible to our eyes when the color temperature may dip to 5,000K–4,500K, as shown in Figure 11.4.

Figure 11.4 At dawn and dusk, the color temperature of daylight may dip as low as 4,500K, and at sunset can go even lower.

Incandescent/Tungsten Light

The term incandescent or tungsten illumination is usually applied to the direct descendents of Thomas Edison’s original electric lamp. Such lights consist of a glass bulb that contains a vacuum, or is filled with a halogen gas, and contains a tungsten filament that is heated by an electrical current, producing photons and heat. Tungsten-halogen lamps are a variation on the basic lightbulb, using a more rugged (and longer-lasting) filament that can be heated to a higher temperature, housed in a thicker glass or quartz envelope, and filled with iodine or bromine (“halogen”) gases. The higher temperature allows tungsten-halogen (or quartz-halogen/quartz-iodine, depending on their construction) lamps to burn “hotter” and whiter. Although popular for automobile headlamps today, they’ve also been used for photographic illumination.

The other qualities of this type of lighting, such as contrast, are dependent on the distance of the lamp from the subject, type of reflectors used, and other factors that I’ll explain later in this chapter.

Fluorescent Light/Other Light Sources

Fluorescent light has some advantages in terms of illumination, but some disadvantages from a photographic standpoint. This type of lamp generates light through an electro-chemical reaction that emits most of its energy as visible light, rather than heat, which is why the bulbs don’t get as hot. The type of light produced varies depending on the phosphor coatings and type of gas in the tube. So, the illumination fluorescent bulbs produce can vary widely in its characteristics.

That’s not great news for photographers. Different types of lamps have different “color temperatures” that can’t be precisely measured in degrees Kelvin, because the light isn’t produced by heating. Worse, fluorescent lamps have a discontinuous spectrum of light that can have some colors missing entirely. A particular type of tube can lack certain shades of red or other colors (see Figure 11.5), which is why fluorescent lamps and other alternative technologies such as sodium-vapor illumination can produce ghastly looking human skin tones if the white balance isn’t set correctly. Their spectra can lack the reddish tones we associate with healthy skin and emphasize the blues and greens popular in horror movies.

There is good news, however. There are special fluorescent and LED lamps compatible with the Spiderlite lighting fixtures sold through dealers affiliated with the F. J. Westcott Company (www.fjwestcott.com), designed especially for photography, with the color balance and other properties required. They can be used for direct light, placed in soft boxes (described later), and used in other ways.

Adjusting White Balance

I showed you how to adjust white balance in Chapter 4, using the D3400’s built-in presets, and white balance shift capabilities.

In most cases, however, the D3400 will do a good job of calculating white balance for you, so Auto can be used as your choice most of the time. Use the preset values or set a custom white balance that matches the current shooting conditions when you need to. The only really problematic light sources are likely to be fluorescents. Vendors, such as GE and Sylvania, may actually provide a figure known as the color rendering index (or CRI), which is a measure of how accurately a particular light source represents standard colors, using a scale of 0 (some sodium-vapor lamps) to 100 (daylight and most incandescent lamps). Daylight fluorescents and deluxe cool white fluorescents might have a CRI of about 79 to 95, which is perfectly acceptable for most photographic applications. Warm white fluorescents might have a CRI of 55. White deluxe mercury-vapor lights are less suitable with a CRI of 45, while low-pressure sodium lamps can vary from CRI 0 to 18.

Remember that if you shoot RAW, you can specify the white balance of your image when you import it into Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or another image editor using your preferred RAW converter. While color-balancing filters that fit on the front of the lens exist, they are primarily useful for film cameras, because film’s color balance can’t be tweaked as extensively as that of a sensor.

Figure 11.5 The uncorrected fluorescent lighting in the gym added a distinct greenish cast to this image when exposed with a daylight white balance setting.

Electronic Flash Basics

Until you delve into the situation deeply enough, it might appear that serious photographers have a love/hate relationship with electronic flash. You’ll often hear that flash photography is less natural looking, and that the built-in flash in most cameras should never be used as the primary source of illumination because it provides a harsh, garish look. Indeed, most “pro” cameras like the Nikon D5 don’t have a built-in flash at all. Available (“continuous”) lighting is praised, and built-in flash photography seems to be roundly denounced.

In truth, however, the bias is against bad flash photography. Indeed, flash has become the studio light source of choice for pro photographers, because it’s more intense (and its intensity can be varied to order by the photographer), freezes action, frees you from using a tripod (unless you want to use one to lock down a composition), and has a snappy, consistent light quality that matches daylight. (While color balance changes as the flash duration shortens, some Nikon flash units can communicate to the camera the exact white balance provided for that shot.) And even pros will cede that the built-in flash of the Nikon D3400 has some important uses as an adjunct to existing light, particularly to illuminate dark shadows using a technique called fill flash.

But electronic flash isn’t as inherently easy to use as continuous lighting. As I noted earlier, electronic flash units are more expensive, don’t show you exactly what the lighting effect will be (unless you use a second source called a modeling light for a preview), and the exposure of electronic flash units is more difficult to calculate accurately.

How Electronic Flash Works

The bursts of light we call electronic flash are produced by a flash of photons generated by an electrical charge that is accumulated in a component called a capacitor and then directed through a glass tube containing xenon gas, which absorbs the energy and emits the brief flash. For the pop-up flash built into the D3400, the full burst of light lasts about 1/1000th second and provides enough illumination to shoot a subject 10 feet away at f/4 using the ISO 100 setting. In a more typical situation, you’d use ISO 200, f/5.6 to f/8 and photograph something 8 to 10 feet away. As you can see, the built-in flash is somewhat limited in range; you’ll see why external flash units are often a good idea later in this chapter.

An electronic flash (whether built in or connected to the D3400 through a cable plugged into an accessory shoe adapter) is triggered at the instant of exposure, during a period when the sensor is fully exposed by the shutter. As I mentioned earlier in this book, the D3400 has a vertically traveling shutter that consists of two curtains. The first curtain opens and moves to the opposite side of the frame, at which point the shutter is completely open. The flash can be triggered at this point (so-called first-curtain sync or front-curtain sync), making the flash exposure. Then, after a delay that can vary from 30 seconds to 1/200th second (with the D3400; other cameras may sync at a faster or slower speed), a second curtain begins moving across the sensor plane, covering up the sensor again. If the flash is triggered just before the second curtain starts to close, then rear-curtain sync (also called second-curtain sync) is used. In both cases, though, a shutter speed of 1/200th second is the maximum that can be used to take a photo.

Figure 11.6 illustrates how this works, with a fanciful illustration of a generic shutter (your D3400’s shutter does not look like this, and some vertically traveling shutters move bottom to top rather than the top-to-bottom motion shown). Both curtains are tightly closed at upper left. At upper right, the first curtain begins to move downward, starting to expose a narrow slit that reveals the sensor behind the shutter. At lower left, the first curtain moves downward farther until, as you can see at lower right in the figure, the sensor is fully exposed.

When first-curtain sync is used, the flash is triggered at the instant that the sensor is completely exposed. The shutter then remains open for an additional length of time (from 30 seconds to 1/200th second), and the second curtain begins to move downward, covering the sensor once more. When second-curtain sync is activated, the flash is triggered after the main exposure is over, just before the second curtain begins to move downward.

Figure 11.6 A focal plane shutter has two curtains, the lower, or front curtain, and an upper, second curtain.

Ghost Images

The difference between triggering the flash when the shutter just opens, or just when it begins to close might not seem like much. But whether you use first-curtain sync (the default setting) or second-curtain sync (an optional setting) can make a significant difference to your photograph if the ambient light in your scene also contributes to the image.

At faster shutter speeds, particularly 1/200th second, there isn’t much time for the ambient light to register, unless it is very bright. It’s likely that the electronic flash will provide almost all the illumination, so first-curtain sync or second-curtain sync isn’t very important. However, at slower shutter speeds, or with very bright ambient light levels, there is a significant difference, particularly if your subject is moving, or the camera isn’t steady.

In any of those situations, the ambient light will register as a second image accompanying the flash exposure, and if there is movement (camera or subject), that additional image will not be in the same place as the flash exposure. It will show as a ghost image and, if the movement is significant enough, as a blurred ghost image trailing in front of or behind your subject in the direction of the movement (see Figure 11.7).

As I noted, when you’re using first-curtain sync, the flash’s main burst goes off the instant the shutter opens fully (a pre-flash used to measure exposure in auto flash modes fires before the shutter opens). This produces an image of the subject on the sensor. Then, the shutter remains open for an additional period (30 seconds to 1/200th second, as I said). If your subject is moving, say, toward the right side of the frame, the ghost image produced by the ambient light will produce a blur on the right side of the original subject image, making it look as if your sharp (flash-produced) image is chasing the ghost. For those of us who grew up with lightning-fast superheroes who always left a ghost trail behind them, that looks unnatural.

Figure 11.7 First-curtain sync produces an image that trails in front of the flash exposure (top), while second-curtain sync creates a more “natural-looking” trail behind the flash image.

So, Nikon uses second-curtain sync to remedy the situation. In that mode, the shutter opens, as before. The shutter remains open for its designated duration, and the ghost image forms. If your subject moves from the left side of the frame to the right side, the ghost will move from left to right, too. Then, about 1.5 milliseconds before the second shutter curtain closes, the flash is triggered, producing a nice, sharp flash image ahead of the ghost image. Voilà! We have monsieur Speed Racer outdriving his own trailing image.

Avoiding Sync Speed Problems

Using a shutter speed faster than 1/200th second can cause problems. Triggering the electronic flash only when the shutter is completely open makes a lot of sense if you think about what’s going on. To obtain shutter speeds faster than 1/200th second, the D3400 exposes only part of the sensor at one time, by starting the second curtain on its journey before the first curtain has completely opened, as shown in Figure 11.8. That effectively provides a briefer exposure as a slit that’s narrower than the full height of the sensor passes over the surface of the sensor. If the flash were to fire during the time when the first and second curtains partially obscured the sensor, only the slit that was actually open would be exposed.

Figure 11.8 If a shutter speed faster than 1/200th second is used, you can end up photographing only a portion of the image.

You’d end up with only a narrow band, representing the portion of the sensor that was exposed when the picture is taken. For shutter speeds faster than 1/200th second, the second curtain begins moving before the first curtain reaches the bottom of the frame. As a result, a moving slit, the distance between the first and second curtains, exposes one portion of the sensor at a time as it moves from the bottom to the top. Figure 11.9 shows three views of our typical (but imaginary) focal plane shutter. At left is pictured the closed shutter; in the middle version you can see the first curtain has moved down about 1/4 of the distance from the top; and in the right-hand version, the second curtain has started to “chase” the first curtain across the frame toward the bottom.

If the flash is triggered while this slit is moving, only the exposed portion of the sensor will receive any illumination. You end up with a photo like the one shown in Figure 11.8. Note that a band across the bottom of the image is black. That’s a shadow of the second shutter curtain, which had started to move when the flash was triggered. Sharp-eyed readers will wonder why the black band is at the bottom of the frame rather than at the top, where the second curtain begins its journey. The answer is simple: your lens flips the image upside down and forms it on the sensor in a reversed position. You never notice that, because the camera is smart enough to show you the pixels that make up your photo in their proper orientation during picture review. But this image flip is why, if your sensor gets dirty and you detect a spot of dust in the upper half of a test photo, if cleaning manually, you need to look for the speck in the bottom half of the sensor.

I generally end up with sync speed problems only when shooting in the studio, using studio flash units rather than my D3400’s built-in flash or a Nikon dedicated Speedlight. That’s because if you’re using either type of “smart” flash, the camera knows that a strobe is attached, and remedies any unintentional goof in shutter speed settings. If you happen to set the D3400’s shutter to a faster speed in S or M mode, the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed down to 1/200th second. In A, P, or any of the Scene modes, where the D3400 selects the shutter speed, it will never choose a shutter speed higher than 1/200th second when using flash. In P mode, shutter speed is automatically set between 1/60th to 1/200th second when using flash. But when using a non-dedicated flash, such as a studio unit plugged into the D3400’s accessory shoe adapter, the camera has no way of knowing that a flash is connected, so shutter speeds faster than 1/200th second can be set inadvertently.

Figure 11.9 A closed shutter (left); partially open shutter as the first curtain begins to move downward (middle); only part of the sensor is exposed as the slit moves (right).

Determining Exposure

Calculating the proper exposure for an electronic flash photograph is a bit more complicated than determining the settings for continuous light. The right exposure isn’t simply a function of how far away your subject is (which the D3400 can figure out based on the autofocus distance that’s locked in just prior to taking the picture). Various objects reflect more or less light at the same distance so, obviously, the camera needs to measure the amount of light reflected back and through the lens. Yet, as the flash itself isn’t available for measuring until it’s triggered, the D3400 has nothing to measure.

The solution is to fire the flash twice. The initial shot is a monitor pre-flash that can be analyzed, then followed virtually instantaneously by a main flash (to the eye the bursts appear to be a single flash) that’s given exactly the calculated intensity needed to provide a correct exposure. As a result, the primary flash may be longer in duration for distant objects and shorter in duration for closer subjects, depending on the required intensity for exposure. This through-the-lens evaluative flash exposure system is called i-TTL (intelligent Through-The-Lens), and it operates whenever the popup internal flash is used, or you have attached a Nikon dedicated flash unit to the D3400.

Guide Numbers

Guide numbers, usually abbreviated GN, are a way of specifying the power of an electronic flash in a way that can be used to determine the right f/stop to use at a particular shooting distance and ISO setting. In fact, before automatic flash units became prevalent, the GN was actually used to do just that. A GN is usually given as a pair of numbers for both feet and meters that represent the range at ISO 100. For example, the Nikon D3400’s built-in flash has a GN in i-TTL mode of 7/22 (meters/feet) at ISO 100. In Manual mode, the true guide number is a fraction higher: 8/26 meters/ feet. To calculate the right exposure at that ISO setting, you’d divide the guide number by the distance to arrive at the appropriate f/stop.

Using the D3400’s built-in flash as an example, at ISO 100 with its GN of 26 in Manual mode, if you wanted to shoot a subject at a distance of 12 feet, you’d use f/2 (26 divided by 12). At 5 feet, an f/stop of f/5 would be used. Some quick mental calculations with the GN will give you any particular electronic flash’s range. You can easily see that the built-in flash would begin to peter out at about 9 feet if you stuck to the lowest ISO of 100, because you’d need an aperture of f/2.8. Of course, in the real world you’d probably bump the sensitivity up to a setting of ISO 800 so you could use a more practical f/5.6 at 9 feet, and the flash would be effective all the way out to 18 feet at f/2.8.

Today, guide numbers are most useful for comparing the power of various flash units, rather than actually calculating what exposure to use. You don’t need to be a math genius to see that an electronic flash with a GN in feet of, say, 111.5 at ISO 100 (like the SB-5000) would be a lot more powerful than your built-in flash. At ISO 100, you could use f/5.6 to shoot as far as 20 feet.

Flash Control

The Nikon D3400’s built-in flash has two modes, TTL (in two variations) and Manual. It does not have a repeating flash option, nor can it be used to trigger other Nikon flashes in Commander mode, unlike most of its siblings. You can choose between TTL and Manual modes using the Flash Control for Built-In Flash entry in the Shooting menu, as first described in Chapter 4. Note that the label on this menu listing changes to Optional Flash when some external flash units, such as the SB-500, are mounted on the D3400 and powered up. You can then make the same flash mode changes for the SB-500 as you can for the built-in flash. Other Nikon external flash units, such as the Nikon SB-5000, have additional exposure modes, which I’ll discuss later in this chapter. Your Flash Control options are as follows:

• TTL. When the built-in flash is triggered, the D3400 first fires a pre-flash and measures the light reflected back and through the lens to calculate the proper exposure when the full flash is emitted a fraction of a second later. Either i-TTL Balanced Fill-Flash or Standard i-TTL Fill-Flash exposure calculation modes are used. I’ll explain these modes next.
• Manual. You can set the level of the built-in flash from full power to 1/32 power. A flash icon blinks in the viewfinder and on the shooting information display when you’re using Manual mode, and the built-in flash has been flipped up. External flashes can be set in the range from full power to 1/128th power.

Flash Metering Mode

You don’t select the way your flash meters the exposure directly; the two modes, i-TTL Balanced Fill-Flash and Standard i-TTL Fill-Flash, are determined by the camera metering mode—Matrix, Center-weighted, or Spot—that you select. Indeed, the built-in flash in the Nikon D3400, as well as external flash units attached to the camera, use the same three metering modes that are available for continuous light sources: Matrix, Center-weighted, and Spot. So, you can choose the flash’s metering mode based on the same subject factors as those explained in reference to non-flash exposure techniques in Chapter 4 (for example, use Spot metering to measure exposure from an isolated subject within the frame). Choice of a metering mode determines how the flash reacts to balance the existing light with the light from the electronic unit:

• i-TTL Balanced Fill-Flash. This flash mode is used automatically when you choose Matrix or Center-weighted exposure metering. The Nikon D3400 measures the available light and then adjusts the flash output to produce a natural balance between main subject and background. This setting is useful for most photographic situations.
• Standard i-TTL Fill-Flash. This mode is activated when you use Spot metering or choose the standard mode with an external flash unit’s controls. The flash output adjusted only for the main subject of your photograph, and the brightness of the background is not factored in. Use this mode when you want to emphasize the main subject at the expense of proper exposure for the background.

Choosing a Flash Sync Mode

The Nikon D3400 has five flash sync modes that determine when and how the flash is fired (as I’ll explain shortly). They are selected from the information edit screen, or by holding down the Flash button on the front of the camera lens housing while rotating the command dial. In both cases, the mode chosen appears in the information edit screen as the selection is made.

Not all sync modes are available with all exposure modes. Depending on whether you’re using Scene modes, or Program, Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, or Manual exposure modes, one or more of the following sync modes may not be available. I’m going to list the sync options available for each exposure mode separately, although that produces a little duplication among the options that are available with several exposure modes. However, this approach should reduce the confusion over which sync method is available with which exposure mode.

In Program and Aperture-priority modes you can select these flash modes:

• Front-Curtain Sync/Fill Flash. In this mode, represented by a lightning bolt symbol, the flash fires as soon as the front curtain opens completely. The shutter then remains open for the duration of the exposure, until the rear curtain closes. If the subject is moving and ambient light levels are high enough, the movement will cause a secondary “ghost” exposure that appears to be a stream of light advancing ahead of the flash exposure of the same subject. You’ll find more on “ghost” exposures next.
• Rear-Curtain Sync. With this setting, the front curtain opens completely and remains open for the duration of the exposure. Then, the flash is fired and the rear curtain closes. If the subject is moving and ambient light levels are high enough, the movement will cause a secondary “ghost” exposure that appears to stream behind the flash exposure. In Program and Aperture-priority modes, the D3400 will combine rear-curtain sync with slow shutter speeds (just like slow sync, discussed below) to balance ambient light with flash illumination. (It’s best to use a tripod to avoid blur at these slow shutter speeds.)
• Red-Eye Reduction. In this mode, there is a one-second lag after pressing the shutter release before the picture is actually taken, during which the D3400’s red-eye reduction lamp lights, causing the subject’s pupils to contract (assuming they are looking at the camera), and thus reducing potential red-eye effects. Don’t use with moving subjects or when you can’t abide the delay.
• Slow Sync. This setting allows the D3400 in Program and Aperture-priority modes to use shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds with the flash to help balance a background illuminated with ambient light with your main subject, which will be lit by the electronic flash. You’ll want to use a tripod at slower shutter speeds, of course. As shown in Figure 11.10, it’s common that the ambient light will be much warmer than the electronic flash’s “daylight” balance, so, if you want the two sources to match, you may want to use a warming filter on the flash. That can be done with a gel if you’re using an external flash like the SB-910, or by taping an appropriate warm filter over the D3400’s built-in flash. (That’s not a convenient approach, and many find the warm/cool mismatch not objectionable and don’t bother with filtration.)
• Red-Eye Reduction with Slow Sync. This mode combines slow sync with the D3400’s red-eye reduction behavior when using Program or Aperture-priority modes.

Figure 11.10 I deliberately used flash and slow sync with a scene otherwise illuminated by tungsten light to create this unconventional mixed-lighting image.

In Shutter-priority and Manual exposure modes, you can select the following three flash synchronization settings:

• Front-Curtain Sync/Fill Flash. This setting should be your default setting. This mode is also available in Program and Aperture-priority mode, as described above, and, with high ambient light levels, can produce ghost images, discussed below.
• Red-Eye Reduction. This mode, with its one-second lag and red-eye lamp flash, is described above.
• Rear-Curtain Sync. As noted previously, in this sync mode, the front curtain opens completely and remains open for the duration of the exposure. Then, the flash is fired and the rear curtain closes. If the subject is moving and ambient light levels are high enough, the movement will cause that “ghost” exposure that appears to be trailing the flash exposure.

In Auto, Portrait, Child, and Close-Up, scene modes, the following flash sync options are available:

• Auto. This setting is the same as front-curtain sync, but the flash pops up automatically in dim lighting conditions.
• Red-Eye Reduction Auto. In this mode, there is a one-second lag after pressing the shutter release before the picture is actually taken, during which the D3400’s red-eye reduction lamp lights, causing the subject’s pupils to contract (assuming they are looking at the camera), and thus reducing potential red-eye effects. Don’t use with moving subjects or when you can’t abide the delay.
• Flash Off. This is not really a sync setting, although it is available from the same selection screen. It disables the flash for those situations in which you absolutely do not want it to pop up and fire.

In Night Portrait mode, only slow synchronization flash and flash off modes are available:

• Auto Slow Sync. This setting allows the D3400 to select shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds with the flash to help balance a background illuminated with ambient light with your main subject, which will be lit by the electronic flash. Best for shooting pictures at night when the subjects in the foreground are important, and you want to avoid a pitch-black background. I recommend using a tripod in this mode.
• Auto Red-Eye Reduction with Slow Sync. Another mode that calls for a tripod, this sync setting mode combines slow sync with the D3400’s red-eye reduction pre-flash. This is the mode to use when your subjects are people who will be facing the camera.
• Flash Off. Disables the flash in museums, concerts, religious ceremonies, and other situations in which you absolutely do not want it to pop up and fire.

A Typical Electronic Flash Sequence

Here’s what happens when you take a photo using electronic flash, either the unit built into the Nikon D3400 or an external flash like the Nikon SB-500:

1. Sync mode. Choose the flash sync mode by holding down the Flash button and rotating the command dial to choose the sync mode, as described above.
2. Metering method. When working in P, S, A, or M exposure modes, choose the metering method you want, from Matrix, Center-weighted, or Spot metering, using the information edit screen.
3. Activate flash. Press the flash pop-up button to flip up the built-in flash, or mount (or connect with a cable) an external flash and turn it on. A ready light appears in the viewfinder and on the back of the flash when the unit is ready to take a picture.
4. Check exposure. Select a shutter speed when using Manual, Program, or Shutter-priority modes; select an aperture when using Aperture-priority and Manual exposure modes. The D3400 will set both shutter speed and aperture if you’re using a Scene mode.
5. Take photo. Press the shutter release down all the way.
6. D3400 receives distance data. An E-, D-, or G-series lens now supplies focus distance to the D3400.
7. Pre-flash emitted. The internal flash, if used, or external flash sends out one pre-flash burst used to determine exposure.
8. Exposure calculated. The pre-flash bounces back and is measured by the 420-pixel RGB sensor in the viewfinder. It measures brightness and contrast of the image to calculate exposure. If you’re using Matrix metering, the D3400 evaluates the scene to determine whether the subject may be backlit (for fill flash), or a subject that requires extra ambient light exposure to balance the scene with the flash exposure, or classifies the scene in some other way. The camera to subject information as well as the degree of sharp focus of the subject matter is used to locate the subject within the frame. If you’ve selected Spot metering, only standard i-TTL (without balanced fill-flash) is used.
9. Mirror up. The mirror flips up. At this point exposure and focus are locked in.
10. Flash fired. At the correct triggering moment (depending on whether front or rear sync is used), the camera sends a signal to one or more flashes to start flash discharge. The flash is quenched as soon as the correct exposure has been achieved.
11. Shutter closes. The shutter closes and mirror flips down. You’re ready to take another picture.
12. Exposure confirmed. Ordinarily, the full charge in the flash may not be required. If the flash indicator in the viewfinder blinks for about three seconds after the exposure, that means that the entire flash charge was required, and it could mean that the full charge wasn’t enough for a proper exposure. Be sure to review your image on the LCD monitor to make sure it’s not underexposed, and, if it is, make adjustments (such as increasing the ISO setting of the D3400) to remedy the situation.

Working with Nikon Flash Units

If you want to work with dedicated Nikon flash units, at this time you have these choices: the D3400’s built-in flash, the Nikon SB-5000, SB-900/910, SB-700, SB-500, SB-400, SB-300 on-camera flash units, and the SB-R200/R1 wireless remote flash systems. These share certain features, which I’ll discuss while pointing out differences among them. Nikon may introduce additional flash units during the life of this book, but the current batch and the Nikon Creative Lighting System ushered in with them were significant steps forward.

Nikon D3400 Built-in Flash

In automatic mode, the built-in flash has a guide number of 7/22 (meters/feet) at ISO 100, and must be activated by manually flipping it up when not using one of the Scene modes that feature automatic pop-up. This flash is powerful enough to provide primary direct flash illumination when required, but can’t be angled up for diffuse bounce flash off the ceiling. It’s useful for balanced fill flash, but cannot operate in Commander mode, which allows the built-in flash to trigger one or more off-camera flash units. You can use Manual flash mode and the Flash Control For Built-in Flash settings in the Shooting menu to dial down the intensity of the built-in flash to 1/32 power to reduce the output.

Changing settings is easy:

• Elevate the built-in flash. Press the Flash button on the front left side of the viewfinder housing to pop up the flash.
• Choose sync mode. If you want to change the flash sync mode, after the flash is elevated, hold down the Flash button and rotate the command dial. The sync mode you’ve selected will appear on the shooting information screen.
• Apply flash exposure compensation. If your pictures in a session are consistently overexposed or underexposed, you can dial in flash compensation by holding down the compensation button (just southeast of the shutter release) and the Flash button at the same time, and rotating the main dial. The amount of compensation from +1.0 to −3.0EV is displayed on the shooting information screen.
• Use the information edit screen. You can also choose sync mode and flash compensation using the information edit screen. Press the Info button twice, navigate to the function you want to adjust, press OK, and use the up/down buttons to enter the value.
• Set color temperature. The D3400’s Auto color temperature setting will adjust for the built-in flash nicely. But there might be times when you want to set the color temperature manually. For example, you might be shooting under incandescent illumination and have put an orange gel over your internal or external flash so both light sources match. You’d want to set the color temperature manually to incandescent. Or, you might want to use an oddball setting as a special effect. Use the information edit screen to adjust the color temperature to Flash, Incandescent, or any of the other choices, as described in Chapter 2.

Because the built-in flash draws its power from the D3400’s battery, extensive use will reduce the power available to take pictures. For that reason alone, use of an external flash unit can be a good idea when you plan to take a lot of flash pictures.

Nikon Add-On Flash Units

Nikon offers a wide range of external flash units that are compatible with your D3400, ranging from the top-of-the-line SB-5000 to the entry-level SB-300, and will probably introduce more Speedlights during the life of this book. In addition, there are a number of older units that have been officially or unofficially discontinued, such as the SB-600, SB-400, SB-800, and SB-910/ SB-900, which are still available, in both new and used condition. I’m going to concentrate on the most recent in the following sections.

Nikon SB-300

This entry-level Speedlight, at about $150, is the smallest and most basic of the Nikon series of Speedlights. The SB-300 has a limited, easy-to-use feature set suited for point-and-shoot photography and some slightly more advanced techniques. Do note however that it does not support wireless off-camera flash. The SB-300 has a moderate guide number of 18/59 at ISO 100. Its main advantage, then, is to provide some additional elevation of the flash above the camera to provide an improved coverage angle and less chance of red-eye effects. Its flash head tilts up to 120 degrees, with click stops at 120, 90, 75, and 60 degrees when the flash is pointed directly ahead. It has a zoom flash head. The SB-300 is lighter in weight at 3.4 ounces than the SB-400 it replaces, and uses two AAA batteries.

Nikon SB-400

Recently discontinued, but still widely available new from many retailers, this entry-level Speedlight was, until the SB-300 was unveiled, the smallest and most basic of the series. The SB-400 has a limited, easy-to-use feature set suited for point-and-shoot photography and some slightly more advanced techniques. Do note however that, like the SB-300, it does not support wireless off-camera flash. The 4.5-ounce SB-400 has a moderate guide number of 21/69 at ISO 100 when the zooming head (which can be set to either 18mm or 27mm) is at the 18mm position. It tilts up to 90 degrees, allowing you to bounce the light off of a ceiling, but it cannot be rotated to the side.

Nikon SB-500

This Nikon flash unit ($250) has a guide number of 24/79 at ISO 100, a speedy recycle time of about 3.5 seconds, and runs on 2 AA batteries for up to 140 flashes. It includes a built-in LED video light with three output levels, and can also be used for still photography as fill light, especially at the brightest setting. (See Figure 11.11.) It’s perfect for wireless mode (discussed in Chapter 10), with four wireless channels and two groups available in Commander mode. The SB-500’s head tilts up to 90 degrees, with click-stops at 0, 60, 75, and 90. It rotates horizontally 180 degrees to the left and right, for flexible bounce-flash lighting. If you need a zoom head to adjust flash output to better distribute light at various focal lengths, you’re better off with the SB-700 even with its limited zoom range (described next); this unit lacks zooming capabilities.

Figure 11.11 The Nikon SB-500 is an entry-level flash ideal for the Nikon D3400.

Nikon SB-700

This affordable (about $330) unit has a guide number of 28/92 (meters/feet) at ISO 100 when set to the 35mm zoom position. It has many of the top-model SB-910’s features, including zoomable flash coverage equal to the field of view of a 16-56mm lens on the D3400 (24-120mm settings with a full-frame camera), and 14mm with a built-in diffuser panel. It has a built-in modeling flash feature, and a wireless Commander mode.

But the SB-700 (see Figure 11.12) lacks some important features found in the SB-910 and SB-5000. Depending on how you use your Speedlight, these differences may or may not be important to you. They include:

• No repeating flash mode. You can’t shoot interesting stroboscopic effects with the SB-700, as you can with the SB-5000 or older SB-910/900 units.
• No external PC/X sync socket. This option, not found on the SB-700, is of limited use for those who want to attach an off-camera flash to the camera, which does not have a PC/X contact.
• Limited zoom range. The SB-700’s zoom head is limited to 24-120mm, plus 14mm with the diffuser panel. The ability to match the zoom head to the focal length you’re using can match the coverage to the field of view, so the flash’s output isn’t wasted illuminating areas that aren’t within the actual frame.

Figure 11.12 The Nikon SB-700 has most features a D3400 owner might want.

Nikon SB-R200

One oddball flash unit in the Nikon line is the SB-200. This $165 unit is a specialized wireless-only flash that’s especially useful for close-up photography, and is often purchased in pairs for use with the Nikon R1 and R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight systems. Its output power is low at 10/33 (meters/feet) for ISO 100 as you might expect for a unit used to photograph subjects that are often inches from the camera. It has a fixed coverage angle of 78 degrees horizontal and 60 degrees vertical, but the flash head tilts down to 60 degrees and up to 45 degrees (with detents every 15 degrees in both directions). In this case, “up” and “down” has a different meaning, because the SB-R200 can be mounted on the SX-1 Attachment Ring mounted around the lens, so the pair of flash units are on the sides and titled toward or away from the optical axis. It supports i-TTL, D-TTL, TTL (for film cameras), and Manual modes.

Nikon SB-910/900

The Nikon SB-910 was the flagship of the Nikon flash lineup until the SB-5000 model was unveiled. However, the SB-910 remains one of the most-used Nikon flash units (along with its predecessor, the SB-900), so I’ll continue to include it in my coverage of Speedlights for the foreseeable future. It’s still widely available new or used for about $550, and has a guide number of 34/111.5 (meters/feet) when the “zooming” flash head (which can be set to adjust the coverage angle of the lens) is set to the 35mm position. It includes Commander mode, repeating flash, modeling light, and selectable power output, along with some extra capabilities.

The SB-910 was basically a slight reboot of the older SB-900, which gained a bad reputation for overheating and then shutting down after a relatively small number of consecutive exposures (as few as a dozen or so shots). The SB-910 also can overheat, but features a different thermal protection system. Instead of disabling the flash as it begins warming up, the SB-910 increases the recycle time between flashes, giving the unit additional time to cool a bit before the next shot. While this “improvement” is not a real fix, it does encourage you to slow your shooting pace a bit to stretch out the number of flashes this Speedlight produces before it must be shut down for additional cooling.

Nikon estimates that you should be able to get 190 flashes from the SB-910 when using AA 2600 mAh rechargeable batteries, if firing the Speedlight at full output once every 30 seconds, with a minimum recycling time of 2.3 seconds (which gradually becomes longer as the flash heats up and the thermal protection kicks in). To get the maximum number of shots from your batteries, Nikon figures that AF-assist illumination, power zoom, and the LCD panel illumination are switched off.

There are some improvements, such as illuminated buttons and a restyled soft case, but, in general, the SB-910 is very similar to the SB-900 that we Nikon photographers have learned to know and fear. For example, you can angle the flash and rotate it to provide bounce flash. It includes additional, non-through-the-lens exposure modes, thanks to its built-in light sensor, and can “zoom” and diffuse its coverage angle to illuminate the field of view of lenses from 8mm to 200mm.

The SB-910/SB-900 also has its own powerful focus assist lamp to aid autofocus in dim lighting, and has reduced red-eye effects simply because the unit, even when attached to the D3400 and not used off-camera, is mounted in a higher position that tends to eliminate reflections from the eye back to the camera lens.

Note that the SB-910, like your camera, contains firmware that can be updated. The custom settings readouts on the flash itself will tell you what firmware version you currently have. If an update is required, you’ll need to download the firmware module from the Nikon website. Load it onto a memory card, and then mount the flash on your D3400 and power it up. You’ll find a fourth entry in the Firmware section of the Setup menu, marked S (for Speedlight or Strobe). The SB-910’s firmware can be updated through the camera/flash connection just like the camera’s own firmware.

SB-5000

This $600 Speedlight, introduced at the same time as the D5 and D500, is the new flagship of the Nikon flash lineup, although it’s not really a practical unit for D3400 owners. While it resembles the SB-910 and has a virtually identical guide number (34.5 meters, 113 feet), it more or less solves the overheating problem that plagued its top-line predecessors. A novel internal cooling system purportedly allows up to 90 consecutive shots, or 120 shots at five-second intervals without overheating. (Wedding photographers will love this.) However, the big news—the unit’s radio control capabilities—won’t excite D3400 owners, as the Nikon radio trigger, the WR-R10 wireless remote adapter, is not compatible with the camera. I’m mentioning the SB-5000 only for completeness.

Working with Wireless Commander Mode

The D3400’s built-in flash cannot be set to Commander mode and used to control other compatible flash units. However, if you mount one of several compatible external dedicated flash units, such as the Nikon SB-500, SB-700, or SB-910, either can serve as a flash “Commander” to communicate with and trigger other flash units. Nikon offers a unit called the SU-800, which is a commander unit that has no built-in visible flash, and which controls other units using infrared signals.

Once you have set the external flash as the Master/Commander, you can specify a shooting mode, either Manual with a power output setting you determine from 1/1 to 1/128 or for TTL automatic exposure. When using TTL, you can dial in from −1.0 to +3.0 flash exposure compensation for the master flash. You can also specify a channel (1, 2, 3, or 4) that all flashes will use to communicate among themselves. (If other Nikon photographers are present, choosing a different channel prevents your flash from triggering their remotes, and vice versa.)

Each remote flash unit can also be set to one of three groups (A, B, or C), so you can set the exposure compensation and exposure mode of each group separately. For example, one or more flashes in one group can be reduced in output compared to the flashes in the other group, to produce a particular lighting ratio or effect. You’ll find instructions for setting exposure mode, channel, and compensation in the manual that came with your particular flash unit.

Connecting External Flash

You have three basic choices for linking an external flash unit to your Nikon D3400. They are as follows:

• Mount on the accessory shoe. Sliding a compatible flash unit into the Nikon D3400’s accessory shoe provides a direct connection. With a Nikon dedicated flash, all functions of the flash are supported.
• Connect to the accessory shoe with a cable or adapter. The Nikon SC-28 and SC-29 TTL coiled remote cords have an accessory shoe on one end of a nine-foot cable to accept a flash, and a foot that slides into the camera accessory shoe on the other end, providing a link that is the same as when the flash is mounted directly on the camera. The SC-29 version also includes a focus assist lamp, like that on the camera and SB-900/910. You can also use an adapter in the accessory shoe that accepts a standard flash cable. In all cases, you should make sure that the external flash doesn’t use a triggering voltage high enough to “fry” your camera’s circuitry.
• Wireless link. Certain external Nikon electronic flash can be triggered by another master flash such as the Nikon SB-500/700/900/910 in Commander mode or by the SU-800 infrared unit.

More Advanced Lighting Techniques

As you advance in your Nikon D3400 photography, you’ll want to learn more sophisticated lighting techniques, using more than just straight-on flash, or using just a single flash unit. Entire books have been written on lighting techniques (check out David Busch’s Quick Snap Guide to Lighting). I’m going to provide a quick introduction to some of the techniques you should be considering.

Diffusing and Softening the Light

Direct light can be harsh and glaring, especially if you’re using the flash built in to your camera, or an auxiliary flash mounted in the accessory shoe and pointed directly at your subject. The first thing you should do is stop using direct light (unless you’re looking for a stark, contrasty appearance as a creative effect).

There are a number of simple things you can do with both continuous and flash illumination.

• Use diffusers. Nikon supplies a Sto-Fen-style diffuser dome with the SB-900/910 and SB-700 flash units. You can purchase a similar diffuser for other flash from Nikon, Sto-Fen, and some other vendors that offer clip-on diffusers. They provide a soft, flattering light and can be used as direct flash, as soft fill flash, or bounced as in Figure 11.13.
• Use window light. Light coming in a window can be soft and flattering, and a good choice for human subjects. Move your subject close enough to the window that its light provides the primary source of illumination. You might want to turn off other lights in the room, particularly to avoid mixing daylight and incandescent light (see Figure 11.14).
• Use fill light. Your D3400’s built-in flash makes a perfect fill-in light for the shadows, brightening inky depths with a kicker of illumination (see Figure 11.15).
• Bounce the light. External electronic flash units mounted on the D3400 usually have a swivel that allows them to be pointed up at a ceiling for a bounce light effect. You can also bounce the light off a wall. You’ll want the ceiling or wall to be white or have a neutral gray color to avoid a color cast.
• Use reflectors. Another way to bounce the light is to use reflectors or umbrellas that you can position yourself to provide a greater degree of control over the quantity and direction of the bounced light. Good reflectors can be pieces of foamboard, Mylar, or a reflective disk held in place by a clamp and stand. Although some expensive umbrellas and reflectors are available, spending a lot isn’t necessary. A simple piece of white foamboard does the job beautifully. Umbrellas have the advantage of being compact and foldable, while providing a soft, even kind of light. They’re relatively cheap, too, with a good 40-inch umbrella available for as little as $20.

Figure 11.13 Flash diffusers can soften the light.

Figure 11.14 Light from the window located off to the upper left makes the perfect diffuse illumination for informal soft-focus portraits like this one.

Figure 11.15 Fill flash illuminated the shadows for this candid portrait.