Chip, I use this setup mostly in my home, where I have the ability to do a small studio work. Interestingly, the room where I do my studio setup has an unusually curved and angled white ceiling, and what I *typically* do when I'm shooting in this room is to bounce the on-camera flash off the ceiling (at full power), of course triggering the second 550EX on the stand with umbrella. The results I get from this technique (in this particular room) are great.
However, when I'm using this setup on location, I'll generally use a ratio just as you describe, with something like a 3:1 ratio with the umbrella as main light. Even when using this setup (depending on the circumstances) in an automatic mode, it generally gives me great results. In most cases, I like to shoot manually, setting my own shutter speed/aperture. I like to shoot at anywhere from f5.6 to f8 for groups, but sometimes at f2.8 for individuals and couples, usually dragging the shutter a bit, but that varies depending on the results I want. Sometimes I want the backdrop to blur out a bit, but sometimes I want emphasis on making sure I get everyone in a multi-tiered group in focus, so...you know what I mean. When I submit film to my lab, they are able to return outstanding prints to me when using the setup I described, and when I'm shooting digitally and doing my own work in Photoshop, I find the images are easy to work with and exposed (in most cases) very well. Those histograms sure to help on the digital side ... ;-) For individuals, couples, and even small groups, this setup is great. Don't know if I'd try and use it for large groups. An example of a group of nine girls shot using the setup discussed here can be seen on this page: http://www.ruscelli.com/group_photo.htm (I quickly posted this page to show an example of results.) Hmmm...hope I answered the questions well enough... Al Ruscelli ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chip Louie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 1:46 PM Subject: RE: [inbox] Re: EOS Speedlite and SoftBox. > > Hi Al, > > What kind of numbers go you get with this setup? I'm assuming that you use > the umbrella as a main light and the on camera light as the fill running > 2-3:1? I'm thinking that used in full manual mode they work okay. But can > you tell us how reliably TTL works with this setup? Can you tell us what > you are getting for exposure values? I'm interested, it wouldn't require > much for me to reproduce your setup as I have a lot of the stuff (stands, > lights, Turbo Bat., umbrellas), already. Thanks for your input. > > > Cheers/Chip * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************
