What are groups and channels on your flash for?
Wednesday 4 January 2023, 22:44 by Liesbeth van Asselt | 3,497 views | 2 commentsThis article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.
When you start working with flashguns, you come across the settings for groups and channels. What can you actually do with them, and how do you use them in practice?
You can set your flashguns to different groups (Gr), group A, group B, group C, et cetera. You can then set the flashguns in group A to, for example, a flash power of 1/2, and the flashgun in group B to a power of, for example, 1/8.
This allows you to, for example, expose one side of the face 'properly' and slightly underexpose the other side. This creates depth in the face.
You can also control the zoom setting for each flashgun separately this way.
Channels
You only use channels (CH) when you are working with other photographers who use the same brand of flashguns as you do.
Last Saturday, for example, I gave a Paintsplash workshop, where the participants were divided into three groups. Group 1 started with paintdrum, group 2 with paint sculptures and group 3 put flowers in ink clouds. And so they rotated.
Group 1 used Godox flashguns, group 2 Hahnel and group 3 also used Godox. The problem is that when someone from group 1 presses the shutter button on the camera, the Godox transmitter on that camera sends a signal to all nearby Godox flashguns telling them to fire. Provided they are set to the same channel...
You usually do not want that. So group 1 set the flashguns to channel 1 and group 3 set the flashguns to channel 2.
Problem solved!
About the author
Liesbeth fotografeert met haar bedrijf stapfoto.nl voor websites van bedrijven. Daarnaast verzorgt ze al sinds 2004 (vooral creatieve) workshops zoals lightpainting, flitsen in de natuur, fine art, frozen flowers, paintsplash, infrarood, icm en multi exposure. Daarnaast is er een Stapfoto vakgroep voor de meer gevorderde fotografen.
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2 comments
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Arthur Wittendorp
wrote on Thursday 5 January 2023 at 11:21
| reply
Dear Liesbeth,
Translated from Dutch.
This does not only apply to studio flashes but also to reportage (shoe-mount) flashes if you use these as 'off camera flash'. With Canon, from the EX-RT 600 series onwards, you can set security with a PIN code yourself so that nobody can intercept the channel between your trigger and flashes. -
Liesbeth van Asselt
wrote on Thursday 5 January 2023 at 18:31
| reply
Hello Arthur, this blog is indeed about hotshoe flashes/reportage flashes. By the way, Hähnel flashes do not work with channels. You first need to 'pair' these flashes and triggers.
Translated from Dutch.
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