Having mobile studio flash equipment is nice. However, when you are travelling to other countries by plain, you probably won't be able to carry it with you. This was also the case when I travelled to Spain. I planned to do a swimwear photoshoot at the beach. For this, I used a Speedlite. This is a plug-on flash and is very portable. It fits nicely into the hand luggage, and it's not heavy. The links in this blog post are affiliate links. I receive a small provision when you buy something via these links; however, that does not cause you any additional cost.
This is one of the final photos at the beach in Fuengirola. At Spreadshirt you can buy shirts with photos of the model.
At the end of this article, you can find a list of all the equipment and where to get it. For this photo, I used a Canon Speedlite 580EX II. This flash is no longer available on the market. Instead, you could use a Speedlite 600EX II-RT. If you don't want to spend that much money, you could use a Speedlite 430EX III-RT. However, this flash is less powerful. If your budget is very low, then you could use a flash from Yongnuo. For example, I have a YONGNUO YN-565EX III flash. This flash is very cheap. The price is less than 100 €. It looks like this flash is no longer available on the market. Instead, you could use a Yongnuo YN568EX III.
I do not recommend mounting the flash on the camera. The direct flashlight is not very advantageous. Instead, I mounted the flash on a Yongnuo RF-602RX transceiver for being able to fire it remotely. On my camera, I mounted a Yongnuo RF-600TX transmitter.
To get soft light, I use a softbox which is suitable for plug-on flashes. I am using a HELIOS Magic Square Softbox. I unfolded my softbox and mounted it on a lamp tripod. I used a Walimex Pro WT-803 because this lamp tripod fits nicely into a suitcase. Some years ago, I used a Walimex Pro WT-806 for a photoshoot in New York. However, this lamp tripod didn't fit into my suitcase. So, I had to check it in separately. This caused me a lot of hassle when I arrived at the airport in New York.
For this photoshoot, I used a Canon EOS 70D. Unfortunately, the EOS 70D is no longer available on the market. However, a more recent camera model is the EOS 90D. If you don't want to spend that much money, you can use the EOS 850D instead.
The lens which I used was a Canon EF 50mm F1.4 USM. This lens is easy to carry, allows apertures up to 1.4, and is not very expensive. If you are low on budget, you could use the EF 50mm F1.8 instead.
The Yongnuo RF-602RX doesn't support HSS. That means you have to pay attention to the maximum flash sync speed of your camera. The maximum flash sync speed is the highest speed at which the camera can use flash. The maximum flash sync speed of the EOS 70D is 1/250 s. That means if you don't have a flash solution that supports HSS, then the shutter speed must not be shorter than 1/250 s. However, I wanted to take photos with a low aperture value. At an aperture value of 2.5 the corresponding shutter speed would have been 1/1600 s. To solve this problem, I used a grey filter.
A grey filter reduces the amount of light. For example, an ND-2 filter reduces the light to ¼, and an ND-3 filter reduces the light to 1/8. I recommend B+W grey filters from Schneider Kreuznach because they are of high quality. So, I mounted the grey filter on my lens and set the camera to manual mode, F2.5, 1/250 s. How did I figure out these parameters? First, I set the camera to aperture priority and chose the value 2.5. Then, I did a test photo without enabling the flashes. The shutter speed was 1/1600. So, for having a shutter speed of 1/250 s or longer, I needed a B+W 103 grey filter.
You can find additional swimwear photos in my swimwear photo gallery.
| Item | Comment |
|---|---|
| EOS 90D | A camera body |
| EOS 850D | A less expensive camera body than the EOS 90D. |
| EF 50mm F1.4 USM | A lens capable of taking pictures with low aperture values. |
| EF 50mm F1.8 USM | A much cheaper lens than the EF 50mm 1.4. |
| Walimex Pro WT-806 | A lamp tripod. |
| Walimex Pro WT-803 | A lamp tripod that fits into a suitcase. |
| HELIOS Magic Square Softbox 40x40 | A softbox |
| Set Yongnuo RF-602RX transceiver / Yongnuo RF-600TX transmitter | |
| RF-602RX transceiver | |
| B+W 103 grey filter | |
| Canon 430EX III-RT Speedlite | |
| Canon 600EX II-RT Speedlite | |
| YONGNUO YN-565EX II YN565EX II Flash For Canon |