Comments on: NYC photo shoot-out, Jan 2010

By: Neil

Neil — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:47:40 +0000

William .. it was bemusing to watch some (actually most!) there just start firing away at a rapid rate without confirming what they’re getting. It also didn’t help my Q-flash in keeping up with so many people firing away … especially when they use the continuous mode / motor drive. You rarely ever would do that with manual flash in a static setup.

So yes, good advice then! Breathe inbetween firing shots off.

Neil vN

By: William Eng

William Eng — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:51:09 +0000

Thanks Neil! It was great meeting you! My fave quotes from you were “guys…guys…breathe!”

By: johnlo

johnlo — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:55:18 +0000

Neil, thanks again for coming down and teaching us again. Its always great to hear what you can do with off camera flash.

By: William Chang

William Chang — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:21:14 +0000

Neil,

Thank you so much for teaching and sharing that day. I see that you found the person who gave you the extra pocket wizard by accident.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:20:49 +0000

John, the softbox i used there, is the Photoflex Q39 medium softbox 24x32. (B&H) Here's a description of the setup on I use with a speedlight in a softbox. On this photo shoot though, I was using a Q-flash in the softbox, specifically, the Quantum T5D-R. (B&H) Neil vN

By: John

John — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:52:13 +0000

Neil…

What was the softbox you used?

Thanks, John

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:50:53 +0000

Jeremy … using Olympus gear wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve had workshop attendees who use Olympus and Pentax and Sony as well.

The only limiting thing would be if you only had f5.6 zooms.

Neil vN

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:22:41 +0000

Neil,
Love the website and blog. I’d like to sign up for one of your two day workshops later this year. Any objection to non-Canon/Nikon gear? (I shoot Olympus). I’m assuming the concepts matter more than the specific dials and knobs?

Thanks,
Jeremy

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:07:11 +0000

I could have. That would work. (Keeping in mind that we can’t simply spot-meter of this dress. We would have to push the exposure a bit to get correct exposure since the dress is white.)

What I did, (and instructed the group to do), was to take a general meter reading of the scene.

Neil vN

By: fintastic

fintastic — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:27:21 +0000

Neil
“The approach there in using flash in this scenario, was to figure out the available light exposure. Once we had agreement on what our settings would be … we under-exposed by a stop. Here’s the resulting under-exposed available light image:”

Did you spot meter on the white dress to find this available light setting or chimp to satisfaction then under expose, leaving the shutter speed at 1/250 sync speed?