On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: > > On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:57 AM, David Parsons wrote: > >> See below: >> >> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 5:56 AM, Larry Colen <l...@red4est.com> wrote: >>> Last night I tried John's (I think it was John) suggestion about clipping a >>> light to the strobe to help aim it. While it seems to help with aiming, >>> when photographing musician in fairly low light, shining a flashlight in >>> their face while trying to set up the camera seemed to be rather >>> distracting and annoying. >>> >> Tape a large diameter straw to the top of the flash and look through >> it to aim it. Doesn't distract anyone and works in any light level. > > Except that I'm holding the flash at arms length with my left hand and > looking through the camera with my right hand, photographing musicians as > they move around. But, if I have an assistant to hold the flash, using a > boba tea straw to aim would probably work well. > That does complicate things a bit.
>> >> >>> I didn't spend a lot of time shooting, but I got a few decent shots. I'm >>> not unhappy with the results: >>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157625975573645/ >>> >>> I do think that it would work a lot better though if I had a small flash, >>> maybe a ringflash, on the camera to give it a bit of fill, so the shadows >>> on the face aren't quite so harsh. Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out >>> how to do this. Has anyone tried something like this? And succeeded? >>> >> You don't necessarily need a ringflash, any flash that is near to the >> lens axis will work for the fill that you are looking for. > > That's what I suspected. > >> For the >> style that you are shooting, the biggest impact you will see from >> on-axis flash will be opening up facial shadows, and putting a >> catchlight in the eyes, and opening up the wall shadows a bit (if you >> can, get them away from the wall to avoid the nasty shadow on the >> wall). > > The wall shadows were a bit of a problem. Part of the advantage of the snoot > with grid is that it often doesn't put any light on visible background, > which is helpful when the background is ugly. > >> >> The style you are shooting though, works well with the single hard >> light. You might want to look at using a grid in addition to, or >> instead of the snoot. The grid will also restrict the light, but the >> falloff if much smoother than a straight snoot. > > These were gridded. I've been experimenting with different snoots and grids. > >> >> >>> I suppose that with the K-x, I might be able to do something using the >>> pop-up as both the controller and the fill, but I'd want the pop-up under >>> exposing by a stop or two. I'm not quite sure how to accomplish this >>> though. >>> >> It may be possible, but AFAIK, the remote flash will need to be P-TTL > > Yes, I've got the af540. > >> for this to work, and the pop-up flash will need to be able to as a >> controller (I don't know if the K-x can do this, but two P-TTL flashes >> should be able to). > > I thought that might be the case, but I don't expect to be able to buy a > second p-ttl flash, unless by some magic my promaster p-ttl flash would work > as a controller. > >> You could also put an optical trigger on the >> remote flash and use the pop-up to trigger it. The downside to this >> is that the pop-up uses FEC values, > > FEC values? > Flash Exposure Compensation. When you select the +/- values for the pop-up flash, it tells the camera to fire the pop-up flash at +/- whatever the meter reading is. ie: if the exposure is f/8 1/60th, and your FEC is set to -1, the flash will fire enough light to expose for f/11 1/60 or f/8 1/125 (not sure what adjustment preference is). >> and the remote would be manual or >> auto mode, so you'd need to play with getting the power levels right >> (manual mode on the camera should work for this) > > I didn't think that there was any way to use the pop-up flash in manual mode. > Or did you mean an external flash, in manual mode mounted on the shoe? > You are right, the pre-flashes will trigger the remote flash prematurely unless the optical trigger can ignore the pre-flashes. > Thanks a bunch for the suggestions and ideas. > Larry > > >> >>> -- >>> Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> PDML@pdml.net >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> David Parsons Photography >> http://www.davidparsonsphoto.com >> >> Aloha Photographer Photoblog >> http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > -- > Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- David Parsons Photography http://www.davidparsonsphoto.com Aloha Photographer Photoblog http://alohaphotog.blogspot.com/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
