Welcome to the IGTV series we’re doing every two weeks on Profoto’s Instagram called “Slice of Pye”. We’ll be covering a myriad of topics, discussing lighting principles, and showcasing a ton of Profoto gear in action over the course of the next year so please join us over on IG.

Tune in to our next episode: April 22nd at 2 PM PST!

In this video, we will give you 10 steps for setting up your Profoto lighting equipment using the Profoto A1x, B10 Plus, and the Air TTL Remote. If you’ve just unboxed your gear follow this guide to getting it set up and ready for photoshoots. You can watch the full episode below:

 

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We wanted to create a series of reference videos for you to look back to if you had issues with your gear, questions about settings, and troubleshooting your flashes. This video is for those of you that have just unboxed your gear and you are unfamiliar with it. Here is a 10 step user guide to setting up your Profoto Flashes so you can start shooting with them:

1. Update Your Firmware

Grab each of the devices that you’ve purchased and you’ll notice that there is a USB port. Download the firmware for each device and update them by plugging them into your computer. If I ever notice an odd bug while syncing my flashes, it’s usually fixed with a quick firmware update.

2. Charge Your Batteries

I know it may be tempting to start shooting right off the bat when you get your hands on your new gear, but if you want to keep your batteries healthy and working for a long time, charge them fully before use and make sure they don’t lose their charge by sitting on the shelf.

3. Attach Your Batteries

Once your batteries are charged, insert them into your lights. Insert the battery so the metal attachment side goes in first and then the second side will click into place.

4. Power on Your Gear

All Profoto lighting equipment essentially operates the same way so powering on your systems should be pretty similar across the board. Hold down the power button and follow the instructions after if necessary.

5. Select a Channel on Your Remote

Now that all of your gear is powered on, you’ll want to sync your flash(es) to your air remote. Press the bottom right button to switch to different channels (anything from 1-8, my favorite is 5, for no apparent reason). If you are running into radio frequency issues, it is likely because that channel is being disrupted or being used by another user.

profoto gear setup

6. Set Flashes to Selected Channel

Now that you’ve set your remote to your desired channel, make sure your flashes are set to the same channel to sync them with your remote.

7.  Places Flashes into Groups

I am going to give you my favorite setup for weddings for setting my flashes into independent groups. For weddings/events I am shooting with my A1x on-camera, which serves my main light and my remote for my other flashes so I set this flash to Group A. My secondary lights, my off-camera lights on stands, will be set to Group B.

8. Toggle On/Off Different Groupings

The flashes are all set into their appropriate groups so I trigger them on and off depending on what I am shooting. For instance, if my 2 flashes set as back lights to be the same power than my on-camera flash, I can now adjust the flashes that are set in the same group to the same power or trigger them off when I don’t need that extra pop.

9. Adjust Power on Different Groupings

Using the Air TTL Remote I can adjust group power settings by 1 stop increments. You can also do this with your on-camera A1/A1x that is acting as a remote.

10. How Power Works

This topic deserves its own video to explain how flash power works, but you’ll see in this video I go through a quick rundown of what full-power means for each of these Profoto Lights. This way you know approximately how much power you will need for each light so you don’t waste time messing with the settings or the flash’s energy with too high of a power.

In case you missed our last episode, you can watch them all on the Profoto IGTV channel! We hope you enjoyed this episode of Slice of Pye, please feel free to share or re-watch the IGTV video at any time to reference the material we covered! For more tutorials and lessons on the fundamentals of lighting, check out our Flash Photography Training System!