What looks like potentially a great resource, Strobist: Lighting 101 aims to teach lighting numpties a thing or two about photography lighting
Intimidated by the idea of off-camera lighting? Don’t be. We are pretty much starting from scratch, so no worries. The first posts will be about what kind of gear you will need to do the minimalist strobe thing.
One thing I have to disagree with is their assertion that “light gives you far more bang-for-the-buck than does fast glass”. My nifty-50 lense is the best bang for buck I have ever spent on photography!
I am glad I came across these posts as I am in the market for a flash. I have had my eye on the Canon 580ex flash unit, items like the following will help me in my purchasing decisions
we are going to assume a couple of things:
1) You have a strobe that can be triggered externally via your camera’s PC connection, as seen in the first photo. (This example is a Nikon SB-28dx, a circa “D1 era” pro flash.)
2) You have a strobe that can be set to manual power and “dialed down,” as seen in the second photo.
Well it turns out the 580ex, despite being a leading model, does not have external PC control …
Technorati Tags: camera, flash, lighting, photography, tips, tutorials
2 Comments
I too shoot with Canons and am trying to cut down my lighting load from larger gear I used to need for large format shooting in the past.
I use a lot of multiple light set ups and would love to use the Canon flashes for speed etc. The lack of triggering options is more than disappointing.
A mile underground in a mine and with the inferred beam only covering 80 degrees makes them next to useless. I have some optical slaves from Condor of Italy which have never let me down even in the worst conditions one can imagine. They look like Ping Pong balls, bounce like them from any high and just keep on working.
Could Kaiser’s PC to Hot Shoe Adapter Mfr# 201301 or B&H# KAPCHSAQ be the answer to making canon flashes usable again when they carn’t see the inferred bleam. If so I’ll buy quite a few 580ex’s. If not its save up for lots of Quantum gear.
Just looking at Kaiser PC to Hot Shoe Adapter description and I can’t work out if that is right or not, I guess I don’t know enough about lighting to know what I am looking at!