I’m really pleased today to be able to bring you a recording of a chat that I had with photographer Syl Arena this afternoon. Syl is like the Canon version of Joe McNally, and like Joe, his teachings aren’t specific to any one system, so not only will any photographer benefit from reading his new book, the Speedliter’s Handbook from Peach Pit Press, but I’m sure you’ll find some great gems of information in our chat today as well. So here’s my conversation with Syl Arena.

To listen to this episode, either subscribe and download the audio in iTunes, or use the player at the bottom of this post.

In our chat we discuss many different topics, but also dive into the details of the Speedliter’s Handbook, which although I haven’t read fully as of Jan 25, 2011, I have seen enough to know that it’s incredibly well put together, with a wealth of information, and beautifully illustrated with hundreds of Syl’s top quality images, and illustrations. It’s not hard to see where the eleven months that it took Syl to put the book together went.

A Sample Spread from the Speedliter’s Handbook, by Syl Arena

Syl also gives us a great lesson in Flash photography exposure, and how the shutter speed controls the ambient light in flash photography, as illustrated in the below image, shot at the same time, but with such a difference in how the ambient light (sky etc.) is recorded in the image.

Display of Controlling Ambient Light with Shutter Speed

If you decide to pick up a copy of Syl’s book, you would be helping to support the Martin Bailey Photography Podcast and community by using the below link. This is an affiliate link from Amazon, and although the cost of the book remains the same to you, we get a small percentage of each sale, which will help to keep the Podcast and community going.

Speedliter’s Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites

Syl Arena’s Speedliter’s Handbook

Podcast show-notes:

Links:

http://speedliting.com

http://pixsylated.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/syl_arena

Pick you your copy of the Speedliter’s Handbook from Amazon here: https://mbp.ac/shb

Audio
Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.