I really appreciate the patience of Janna while I took more than 15 minutes to find the right position for the lights to achieve the right color coverage on the wall behind her. She did great by keeping her concentration and giving me a great pose to work with. It made the effort worthwhile!
(Lights: used a green and a blue gel on 2 speedlites placed on the ground. The model was lighted with a single speedlite in a Exybox 80 high above her)
I did today my first shoot with a new set of Pocket Wizards MiniTT1 + FlexTT5.
In a typical indoor shoot like the one today, the IR communication would mostly work in the basic setups until I start moving around, getting too close to the softbox(es) or trying more tricky angles. In the past I’d have to revert to previous "known to work" positions and resume from there.
E-TTL is great for me, as I like to change my lights to follow the poses of the model in front but in the past, I’ve seen many black frames from that technique, sometimes breaking the flow of the shoot and affecting my mood.
But as from today, all that has changed. The radio communication of the PW TT1/TT5 units got me in every corner and for the first time I didn’t have to worry about turning heads (580’s heads–that is) to follow my movements around. The only black frame today was from empty batteries! 
That was a great way to close the year.
A happy new year to all and great light in 2010.
-Gerard.
A ring flash is a really estrange piece of kit. The light comes from around the lens creating a shadowless rendering of your subject. The ringflash ‘look’ is often associated with fashion photography and expensive, dedicated equipment.
It was a big surprise seeing this innovative flash modifier, that bends the light from a speedlite around the lens to create (approximately) the same effect, with a very portable solution. The fact that the camera system still preserves the E-TTL capabilities for metering makes you truly mobile.
Here’s an image of the product (bathroom mirror self-portrait 
)
And a first quick test with my in-house models
It really looks promising and I’ll be taking it for a ride in upcoming shoots. Keep tuned for a more detailed review of it!
-gerard
It was a great pleasure to work with such capable and great models. Hopefuly I did them some justice preserving their beautiness in pixels.
Most of the portrait work was done using speedlites in combination with a Lastolite Ezybox 60cm.
Images of the photoshoot with Twiggy a few weeks ago.
Last weekend I had some time to do work some more with the Ezybox Hotshoe. Here’s a sample of what can be achieved with it.
| Portrait taken with Ezybox |
| Natural light |
| setup: Ezybox Hotshoe ‘charged’ with a 580EX on a standard Manfrotto light stand |
This image illustrates few important points of using the Ezybox Hotshoe:
- Color Temperature - using a flash as main light provides us with a consistent color temperature of about 5500oK, the shadow where the girl is placed is actually much colder, which is visible on comparison image on the right. The portrait is much pleasing with the neutral-warm tones
- Light Control The light of the moment was quite harsh, coming slightly from the back and leaving most of the face in shadow. The Ezybox+580EX were used as main light. This was achieved in this case by decreasing the ambient exposure by 1 stop and using the flash without exposure compensation
- Portability Sorry to state the obvious but it’s really nice to have creative control over the light in the middle of the garden
The flash was used in automatic exposure mode (E-TTL) triggered by the controlled wireless ST-E2 on the camera.
is this info useful to you? Drop me a line with comments or questions. A more detailed review on handling the Ezybox Hotshoe is coming. If you have questions, now is the moment. - Gerard
This is a small test I did while walking in the woods. It was a rainy day and the natural light was very soft but totally unidirectional, revealing little structure in this mushroom. A perfect opportunity to try the Ezybox Hotshoe I was carrying with me during the walk.
| Ezybox Hotshoe on the side |
| Direct flash on camera |
| Natural diffused light |
The enhancing effect of the Ezybox on the image is evident. The light is very soft when compared to the bare flash on the camera, while the directionality reveals structure and creates a more three dimensional image of the mushroom.
I held the flash in position improvising with a stick of wood as ‘flash stand’. The flash was a Canon 580EX controlled wireless from the camera with a ST-E2 Wireless controller. The lateral placement of the Ezybox allows the line of sight between the controller on camera and the slaved flash on the Exzybox hotshoe mount.
Few minutes after the Ezybox was packed down and we could continue with the walk before the rain got us.
| This is an image of the setup showing the Ezybox hotshoe clamped down with a piece of wood in the stand socket. A little bit of creativity avoid carrying too much equipment around |
I’m still trying out the possibilities of this practical flash difusser. I’ll keep reporting my findings…
It seems logical to think about freezing during the winter, but fact is that we haven’t seen the first temperature under 0oC. Freezing time seems as appropriate.
Achieving great photos using flash is not an area where only professionals are allowed. Using simple techniques to control and enhance the quality of light produced by your speedlite will allow you to create great images, far from the red eyes and washed out look usually associated with flash photography.
Still exploring every day stuff from another point of view. This time, with another kind of light. I masked a 580EX speedlite flash with a black card where I made a hole in the middle and placed it behind this litchee skin. The result was a great red glow like a SF cocoon that is about to explode.