I’ve been delving into the photography world ever since my photo class in high school. Like most photographers, I too, would like to develop it into a business of my own, but for now I just do some photography sessions on the side of my internship at Midwest. Being a college student, I don’t have a ton of photography equipment, but I’ve been looking into investing in some easily portable, off camera flashes.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to do senior photos for a family friend of mine. Two years ago, I photographed her son for his senior pictures. When I did senior pictures with him using an external, off the camera flash, I had trouble getting the flash to fire and ended up spending twice as much time trying to correct the problem. Since then, I’ve avoided using them as well as other lighting equipment because of size and malfunctions.

Not being a huge fan of external flash and lugging around a bunch of lighting equipment, I figured I’d just take the Phottix Mitros + flash out with me this time along with the Nikon D610 and two Pocket Wizard Plus III Transceivers.

After arriving at the High School track and field, I started experimenting with the flash for a few minutes. I was surprised by the power of such a small, external flash. To have some dramatic sports photos of the girls in their track uniforms, I decided to set the power to 1/64 for most of the images and then use a small diffusion umbrella.

Not using the TTL mode, I experimented with the different manual flash settings. With this manipulation, I was able to easily control the dramatic light within my photo.

For the first couple images of the girls in their letterman jackets, I wanted to go for an all over, even light on their faces. With the light stand a few feet away, I got an even light and was able to balance some of the light in the background.

For the more dramatic images, I used a higher power setting and cut down on the light in the background by adjusting the aperture settings. I consider myself an amateur when it comes to lighting, but I was pleasantly surprised with my results.

The Phottix flash boasts a fast recycling time, as well as a fast flash. This is good for anyone capturing motion or action photography.  If you’re looking for a powerful, small, and fast flash at a good price point, then you should check this flash out!