I’ve always been interested in getting an off camera flash gun like a speedlite or equivalent. Anyway I bought one and frankly using it has been disappointing. I just can’t get my head around the process of making a photo using it.

Can anyone provide me with some simple steps to get a half decent photo using a flashgun?

here’s quite a good workflow that worked for me:

Strobist workflow

Strobist – Blogspot

Go on a course….

I’m no photo genius but I think the way you tend to be taught in these courses really helps you to get the most from your camera.

They’re not silly expensive, unless you want them to be.

I’ve done a fairly cheap 2 day course at Laycock Abbey for around £100 and another tutor I have used in the peak district is no offering 1 to 1 tuition for not much more than £100 for a day.

Here’s one from my Laycock Abbey flash photography course
Ella Rose

I was well chuffed with it!

I think this was the provider of said course
Going Digital

Simon at worldinfocus.co.uk is a great teacher.

There was an online thing I read which also provided some good tips, I think it was called strobist101 or something like that.

Other than that trial and error!

Hi scholarsgate, what kind of subject matter have you been photographing with the flash?

Also can you describe what the main problems are you have come across? Is there any chance you can show any examples? It might help to see where you are going wrong.

I’m a commercial/advertising photographer and have had the pleasure of lighting some really tricky items over the last 20 years!So if I can help i will.

That blogspot link is a great one. Many many people I know have followed that through to great success.
There will be many pros on here who can give great advice, but I was in the same place as you last summer and wanted to photograph a piece of hifi I designed, so here are some basics I used.

One basic thing you might be missing is sync speed.
Most flashes work best with a shutter speed of something between 1/250-300th so go into Manual mode, set the shutter to that

Then choose a aperture that gives the required depth of field. For product photography you may want an f-number greater than f11.

Start with a low iso – My Canon seems to like ISO160

Take a photo, view the histogram and adjust flash brightness/closeness until exposure is good.

If you’re at max brightness, then you can widen aperture, or increase ISO depending on the compromise you want to make.

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I think the main thing for me has been softening the quality of light and bouncing the flash off reflectors, lightboxes, etc in order to partially fill shadows. I also ended up with 2 cheap yongnuo flashes to do this job.

My first results are here:
http://www.luminmusic.com/lumin-s1.html (gallery is halfway down the page)

Ideally, for this kind of job you wouldn’t use flashes at all – fixed lights would make life 10x easier.

Most flashes work best with a shutter speed of something between 1/250-300th so go into Manual mode, set the shutter to that

This isn’t correct. There is no minimum shutter speed. It is based on your camera what the maximum shutter speed will be so check the manual.

For product photography you may want an f-number greater than f11.

It totally depends on what you want from the image. Over f11? yes if you want all you can get out of the DOF. Meaning as much of the product in focus as possible. However you might want a little area in focus and the rest out of focus. In that case you would use a lower aperture. There are no rules, it’s based on what you want to achieve.

Start with a low iso – My Canon seems to like ISO160

You can use any ISO. If you just have one off camera flash you might find it isn’t powerful enough to light your subject as you want. So in that case increase the ISO.

Remember though that the higher the ISO the more noise you will encounter so lower is better.

Another option no one has mentioned is constant lighting rather than flash. If your preferred subject matter is static this is a great option. Cheap too.

Its all about balance, trial and error and the links provided by others are a great source of info.

How are you firing it? How far away is it?

Most flashes work best with a shutter speed of something between 1/250-300th so go into Manual mode, set the shutter to that

LOL

oh – apologies if I’m way out on that one.
That’s what works best with my Canon 60D, flashes and yongnuo triggers.