I'm A Flasher

Well, last night Ryan and I did a number of strobe (flash) tests with some new gear that we've been trying out.

First, we experimented with 2x Canon 550EX (now replaced by the 580EX ) strobes and 1 Canon 420EX (now replaced by the 430EX ) strobe utilizing their integrated slaving ability. By using one of the 550's as a the master and the other two strobes as slaves, we were able to dial in a particular ratio of fill light as seen in this image:

This is a ratio of 1:4 (top light to rear left backlight). The rear right flash (the smaller 420EX) was set to -2 stops of underexposure.

Be aware that these files have not been corrected in any way other than setting white balance in Adobe Camera RAW (exposure @ 100, shadow @ 0, brightness @ 50, contrast @ 0, saturation @ 0, curve @ linear, detail @ 0). Originally shot in Adobe RGB (1988), these files were converted to sRGB by Adobe Image Processor when they were converted to JPEG. Unlike most of my galleries, these files can be viewed at original (6 megepixel) resolution.

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Given our druthers, we found the entire experience to be extremely frustrating. Don't get me wrong, the flashes are amazing and seem to automatically create great images. However, compared to studio strobes... whoa... what's going on and who's in control here?

Essentially the Canon strobes are extremely intelligent and the master only seems to call out for the other flashes to fire when it deems appropriate.

Here's an interesting shot that I took on a whim:

We were playing with a new Chinese Wireless Transmitter that I purchased off Ebay for essentially nothing compared to the (much) more expensive Pocket Wizards. Ryan was running around the house trying to see how far this transmitter would fire from. The answer, a LONG way (they claim 300' but I'm not sure I believe that). Anyway, I went and found him as the studio strobe was still happily firing as I walked around the house. I found him in the garage and he had the flash pointed down so this is a bounce shot off of unpainted concrete in almost complete darkness. Ooooh! Moody!

So, what did we learn? The Alien Bee's studio strobes are amazing compared to battery powered on-camera strobes... they're wicked fast to recharge, insanely bright, and much more easily manually controllable. Well duh, I just explained the reason anybody would buy studio strobes. Regardless, the portable flashes are of great use as well (no wires) as I'll likely demonstrate tomorrow when I shoot the Austin Apartment Assoication's Casino Night in a dimly-light cowbow dance hall (no natural light for those folks...). What else did we learn? Just as everyone says, there's soooo many dimensions to good lighting. We learned that there's about a billion things we don't know.