Marc, A "good" way to know how many times you need to flash (full power, in bulb mode) is to: previously to your bulb exposure, place the flash on the hotshoe and set your lens to 50mm (to match the zoom of the flash head when it will be "stand alone"). Now, set the biggest aperture possible on your lens (smallest f/stop). Use FEL (flash exposure lock) on your subject (your statue in this case) and observe the lighting bolt symbol in the view finder (left). If it's blinking, you don't have enough power, walk half the distance to your subject and try again. If it doesn't blink, start stopping down and do a FEL each time until the symbol starts blinking. The last f/stop were it didn't blink is your base f/stop for 1 full power flash at that distance.
Now, you're ready to use your bulb technique. You roughly calculate the number of flashes by: If you double the distance, double the number of flashes. If you stop down 1 stop, double the number of flashes. If you open up 1 stop, halve the number of flashes. Remember that your flash has a 50mm coverage, so for big scenes you need to flash the calculated number of times for each covered perimeter. But of course, you'd like an even illumination, so you need to flash on the transitions as well, "building up" your exposure with each flash. At the end, (and as usual) only experience will tell you how to flash for the perfect exposure. I just hope this starter's guide is a bit understandable and can serve you as a wild rough base. -regards & c-u on sunday... Gerard. PS: Maybe you should look after a 550ex :-) ;-) After all... * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
