I recently picked up a few XPLOR 600 SE lights. You said it’s overkill, but it’s not really about how bright it gets (unless you’re outdoors) it’s about how dim they get. At 1/512, even at 3x the power they still get several stops below an AD200 at the lowest 1/128th setting. When I first got into off camera flash I got dimmer lights because I didn’t think I would need extreme power…then I learned the brightness was never the problem. My AD200 is bright enough to do pretty much anything in studio, but having lower power is actually very important.
Great videos man I love it. Any chance we can get a video of someone recording you recording a house. So we need to see the movements and just see everything I guess.
Great video. I would like to add that depending where you are, it's a good idea to do a channel scan on your godox/flashpoint devices to find the best channel with least interference.
Super nice breakdown! I was honestly not a fan of flash for awhile, partly because I wasn't comfortable using it and didn't really like the results from more traditional flash photographers. But since I've added flash into my photography, it's definitely improved it for the type of work that can really benefit from it like the examples you showed. And being able to produce consistent results is a big plus for sure!
@Taylor Brown, awesome video! We would love to see a step by step guide for setting up your flash to get nice even lighting of different rooms (from small to big). Cheers man!
Hey Taylor would you and Andrei be up to make another podcast style video on both your opinions of the best frame rates to record real estate videos in, and in which scenarios each frame rate is the most optimal. If this is something that has been brought up or a video is already made for id love a link to that as well, Cheers.
Hey! 30fps is my go-to for almost everything. Allows most light in the camera for cleaner images, and you can slow down to 80% and it makes movements look smoother without warp stabilizer usually. 60fps is great if you want slower motion for things like detail shots or moving features like fire or water (or more dramatic speed ramps). Also 60fps allows more open apertures like 1.8 for detail shots without using ND since you have to speed up the shutter speed so thats handy too. Just depends on how you want the end edit to be!
@@TaylorBrownPhotoVideo thanks for the info! I'm still figuring things out on my end testing different things so I'll definitely try this on my next test run and see how it plays out!
@@xTw1sTeDK1LLAx It depends on what your timeline settings are - Some people work on a 30fps timeline and export in 30fps. I always do 23.98fps timeline and 23.98fps export. Sometimes shooting in different frame rates will affect how it looks and come out a little weird but most of the time it'll play fine as long as your shutter speed while shooting was correct (30fps = 1/60, 23.98fps = 1/50, 60fps = 1/120)
thanks for the effort and the sharing. i am working on being more consistent with setting up my godox ad200 pro and ad300. one question: you mentioned leaving the zoom to 24mm (wide) on your flashes. do you leave it at wide even if you are using an 85mm or 135mm lens? thumbs up.
Hey! I mostly keep things pretty simple and stay wide, but that's just me. It all depends on the goal you have with the added light you're introducing with the flash. The main reason to adjust it for a telephoto lens is to save power, and get better/faster performance out of the flash - so for certain uses that would matter more or less. If it needs to be narrow to reach further before spreading, or to get a little extra power potential - go tighter with a higher number zoom. If it needs to just bounce and fill a room, or fill a diffuser I go wide at 24. Hope that helps!
Hey! I'm not totally sure what you are asking.. I might have just said the wrong thing while showing what I do (set flash to wireless mode then you can do any setting from the trigger control is what I should have said) Hope that clears it up. I do use TTL sometimes if it's a scenario where it will work pretty well but most of the time I use manual power settings.
Going to shoot a student union at a large university. I have the v1 and Ad200. Do you think that will be enough? And second do you find yourself ever using a soft box for interiors shoot or any other modifiers? I assume you are instead just trying to get as much light as possible.
It all depends on the room , what focal lengths you're using and what modifiers you have. Sometimes it can work great to just bounce a flash (ad200) off the back corner to fill the room if the wall color is good for that (neutral) and sometimes it works great to just use an on-camera flash bounced up with TTL for smaller events. Sometimes I'll use both as a combo to get brighter ambient and more controlled flash near where I am taking the photos or even use a softbox/modifier directly at the people if it's a set area like a backdrop for the event or something predictable. What are you planning on?
Hi Taylor, I only started doing Real Estate photography recently, been trying the "Flambient" method and never got it work, main problem is I can't get the flash to spread nice and even across an area, always shown hotspots even if I tried to bounce it (Using Godox AD200), any solution to that?
Hey! How’s your zoom setting ? It helps to have it at the widest, but also I’ve noticed mine is a little harsher than my smaller speedlight flash too especially in smaller areas. Helps to have a modifier on it like a MagMod to soften it ! There’s cheaper options too that should get about the same result. Let me know if that helps :)
Hi Taylor, great vid - though I wonder, how do you quickly swap between flash exposures and ambient/window pull shots? I've tried using a +-2 AEB config to get non-flash shots, then switching back to non-AEB mode, enabling the speedlight, then taking the flash pop. This is pretty tedious, and risks bumping the camera between shots. But I like that I get multiple exposures instantly. Is there a way to get the flash to fire on a 6th shot, perhaps? Previously, I've also tried staying in normal shooting mode, and manually adjusting shutter speed on my phone, then enabling the speedlight for the final shot. Overall a lot of messing around in settings/exposure menus, multiplied by each room in a house. Using Canon btw, thanks :)
Hey! In this video I overshot everything to have every option for examples. I would typically only shoot 1 ambient with fill flash layer, 1-2 window exposures, and 1 darker ambient if needed (for that one I just turn off the flash and take the photo) That way all I'm adjusting is shutter speed or flash power for the exposures so its pretty quick. Also normally I'd use two flashes to get the 2 rooms with flash in one shot. Hope that helps. Smart call doing adjustments on your phone to not bump it!
Solid and great production man. Very informative!
Thanks dude!
I recently picked up a few XPLOR 600 SE lights. You said it’s overkill, but it’s not really about how bright it gets (unless you’re outdoors) it’s about how dim they get. At 1/512, even at 3x the power they still get several stops below an AD200 at the lowest 1/128th setting. When I first got into off camera flash I got dimmer lights because I didn’t think I would need extreme power…then I learned the brightness was never the problem. My AD200 is bright enough to do pretty much anything in studio, but having lower power is actually very important.
Great point! 600 is super versatile
Great videos man I love it. Any chance we can get a video of someone recording you recording a house. So we need to see the movements and just see everything I guess.
Thanks! I’ve got a few of those on the channel !
Thanks for sharing. I need to practice ocf more.
For sure! Definitely comes in handy to have options :)
Good video. Thank you.
Thanks!
Great video. I would like to add that depending where you are, it's a good idea to do a channel scan on your godox/flashpoint devices to find the best channel with least interference.
Great tip! Thanks :)
Super nice breakdown! I was honestly not a fan of flash for awhile, partly because I wasn't comfortable using it and didn't really like the results from more traditional flash photographers. But since I've added flash into my photography, it's definitely improved it for the type of work that can really benefit from it like the examples you showed. And being able to produce consistent results is a big plus for sure!
Also, I didn't realize those photos you shot of me were with the big flash LOL thought it was the ad200 or something
Same difference 😆 Yup! Glad you’ve liked it. One of the few actual “game changers” lol
@Taylor Brown, awesome video! We would love to see a step by step guide for setting up your flash to get nice even lighting of different rooms (from small to big). Cheers man!
Thanks!! For sure, great idea !
Hey Taylor would you and Andrei be up to make another podcast style video on both your opinions of the best frame rates to record real estate videos in, and in which scenarios each frame rate is the most optimal. If this is something that has been brought up or a video is already made for id love a link to that as well, Cheers.
Hey! 30fps is my go-to for almost everything. Allows most light in the camera for cleaner images, and you can slow down to 80% and it makes movements look smoother without warp stabilizer usually. 60fps is great if you want slower motion for things like detail shots or moving features like fire or water (or more dramatic speed ramps). Also 60fps allows more open apertures like 1.8 for detail shots without using ND since you have to speed up the shutter speed so thats handy too. Just depends on how you want the end edit to be!
@@TaylorBrownPhotoVideo thanks for the info! I'm still figuring things out on my end testing different things so I'll definitely try this on my next test run and see how it plays out!
@@TaylorBrownPhotoVideo another quick one, once you record in 30 or 60 should you always export in 24 frames regardless on what it's shot in?
@@xTw1sTeDK1LLAx It depends on what your timeline settings are - Some people work on a 30fps timeline and export in 30fps. I always do 23.98fps timeline and 23.98fps export. Sometimes shooting in different frame rates will affect how it looks and come out a little weird but most of the time it'll play fine as long as your shutter speed while shooting was correct (30fps = 1/60, 23.98fps = 1/50, 60fps = 1/120)
@@TaylorBrownPhotoVideo Awesome! Once again really appreciate the reply and the content!
thanks for the effort and the sharing. i am working on being more consistent with setting up my godox ad200 pro and ad300. one question: you mentioned leaving the zoom to 24mm (wide) on your flashes. do you leave it at wide even if you are using an 85mm or 135mm lens? thumbs up.
Hey! I mostly keep things pretty simple and stay wide, but that's just me. It all depends on the goal you have with the added light you're introducing with the flash.
The main reason to adjust it for a telephoto lens is to save power, and get better/faster performance out of the flash - so for certain uses that would matter more or less.
If it needs to be narrow to reach further before spreading, or to get a little extra power potential - go tighter with a higher number zoom.
If it needs to just bounce and fill a room, or fill a diffuser I go wide at 24.
Hope that helps!
Why change the settings on the camera and why the TTL if you are shooting manual? Just curious. Thx for posting.
Hey! I'm not totally sure what you are asking.. I might have just said the wrong thing while showing what I do (set flash to wireless mode then you can do any setting from the trigger control is what I should have said) Hope that clears it up. I do use TTL sometimes if it's a scenario where it will work pretty well but most of the time I use manual power settings.
@@TaylorBrownPhotoVideo Sounds good! Thx!
Going to shoot a student union at a large university. I have the v1 and Ad200. Do you think that will be enough? And second do you find yourself ever using a soft box for interiors shoot or any other modifiers? I assume you are instead just trying to get as much light as possible.
It all depends on the room , what focal lengths you're using and what modifiers you have. Sometimes it can work great to just bounce a flash (ad200) off the back corner to fill the room if the wall color is good for that (neutral) and sometimes it works great to just use an on-camera flash bounced up with TTL for smaller events. Sometimes I'll use both as a combo to get brighter ambient and more controlled flash near where I am taking the photos or even use a softbox/modifier directly at the people if it's a set area like a backdrop for the event or something predictable. What are you planning on?
Hi Taylor, I only started doing Real Estate photography recently, been trying the "Flambient" method and never got it work, main problem is I can't get the flash to spread nice and even across an area, always shown hotspots even if I tried to bounce it (Using Godox AD200), any solution to that?
Hey! How’s your zoom setting ? It helps to have it at the widest, but also I’ve noticed mine is a little harsher than my smaller speedlight flash too especially in smaller areas. Helps to have a modifier on it like a MagMod to soften it ! There’s cheaper options too that should get about the same result. Let me know if that helps :)
Hi Taylor, great vid - though I wonder, how do you quickly swap between flash exposures and ambient/window pull shots?
I've tried using a +-2 AEB config to get non-flash shots, then switching back to non-AEB mode, enabling the speedlight, then taking the flash pop. This is pretty tedious, and risks bumping the camera between shots. But I like that I get multiple exposures instantly. Is there a way to get the flash to fire on a 6th shot, perhaps?
Previously, I've also tried staying in normal shooting mode, and manually adjusting shutter speed on my phone, then enabling the speedlight for the final shot. Overall a lot of messing around in settings/exposure menus, multiplied by each room in a house.
Using Canon btw, thanks :)
Hey! In this video I overshot everything to have every option for examples. I would typically only shoot 1 ambient with fill flash layer, 1-2 window exposures, and 1 darker ambient if needed (for that one I just turn off the flash and take the photo) That way all I'm adjusting is shutter speed or flash power for the exposures so its pretty quick. Also normally I'd use two flashes to get the 2 rooms with flash in one shot. Hope that helps. Smart call doing adjustments on your phone to not bump it!