Hi guys & gals!
Does anybody have experience about using the 550EX or rather 420EX flashes
with umbrellas or softboxes (like the ones from Elinchrom for example)?
What are your findings?
What I'm thinking about is a small (very small) home studio kind of setup
with one 550EX and 420EX flash (or two if I ever have the money :-). But
lighting from 2 or 3 flashes is still quite harsh... So I think I'd
need/want at least one umbrella for the 420EX. So a few quiestions:
1) Is 420EX really powerfull enough for umbrellas and/or softboxes?
2) How do you direct your EX flashes as there is no continuous modeling
light? Do you just aim everything (flashes, umbrellas, reflectors) and
hope for the best, or to you make everybody blind by constantly using the
modeling light from Camera? What do you guys do? (I can now see how those
studio flashes are easy to work with...)
3) How about the off shoe extension cord 2 - or what ever it is called,
can't remember now - you know, the 60cm long extension that takes the
flash off camera and still retains all E-TTL and wireless functions. How
is it for "general studio work"? (As opposed to macro work with flash
brackets...) I.e. is it too short and too stiff to be used so that the
flash would be on a tripod pointed to an umbrella and the camera would
otherwice be handheld (still in that home studio enviroment)? See, I'd
rather buy that than another 550EX (that I would use with flash off) or
ST-E2, which only allows A and B groups (Canon, if you are
listening... why would we buy that as it only controls the two groups?
We'd need the background too!), as it's quite a bit cheaper solution and I
still can control all A, B & C groups.
I'm not going to make money with these shots. This is just something for
me and my family. The motivation for this approach is that I have 550EX
already. I can get my hands on 2 420EX' currently, but it's not easy... so
I'll need to buy something. Buying 420EX would be the cheapest way to go,
and no, I don't have much money to spend on this (I can get the other
420EX later on). Also, I can not go the way of good studio flashes as they
are just too expensive and also too large. There is serious
size/portability restrictions here. EX flashes and umbrellas/softboxes
(and some refletors) are quite optimal in terms of size even if they are
not in the operation. Also, I'd rather have all 550EX's, sure. After all,
they are more powerfull and have manual settings (if I ever need that).
But 420EX is so much cheaper.
I think somebody else was just asking about similar stuff, but I don't
think he got any answers. So if you guys have any experience with this,
please help let us know about your findings. Is it impossible to get even
near studio kind of lighting with just EX flashes?
Best regards,
Hugo.
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** Hugo Gävert **
** [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hut.fi/~hugo **
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