On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:57 AM, David Parsons wrote: > See below: > > On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 5:56 AM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> 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. > > >> 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? > 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? Thanks a bunch for the suggestions and ideas. Larry > >> -- >> Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> 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 > [email protected] > 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 [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
