Tangents

Hudson Valley Click – photo shoot

July 27, 2011

Hudson Valley Click – report-back on recent Shoot Out

I’ve mentioned the Hudson Valley Click before – a group of photographers in New York state who arranges monthly shoots for members, and any visitor who’d like to attend. They are all good opportunities to network and more importantly, to shoot some and play with the photography toys a bit. I just came back from the latest shootout – The Totally Kick Ass Wedding Shoot Out. It was pretty cool again to get to attend and photograph various models and come up with ideas.

This time I decided to whip out the Canon 5D mk II and lenses, and also the PocketWizard TT5 transceivers for Canon, and give it all a spin. The photo above is of one of the models, Jill, where I tried something with a slightly more Gothic feel to it as dusk fell.

Just for interest, here is the pull-back shot:

I wanted her framed between two large vines, and then lit up with the speedlight and the shoot-through umbrella. Why no softbox like usual? Because I’d somehow forgotten the Lastolite Ezybox’s lollipop at home. So an umbrella it was. It works well too.

camera settings: 1/50 @ f5 @ 800 ISO

The speedlight was triggered by the FlexTT5 transceiver (B&H) on my Canon 5D mk II. I used the AC3 ZoneController (B&H) on the TT5 to control the speedlight’s output. I started off with TTL flash, but quickly dialled to manual output via the AC3.

In the frame you can see two cables run down from the speedlight. The one cable is the Canon CP-E4 Battery Pack (B&H) supplying juice to the speedlite, and the other is the Canon OC-E3 off-camera flash cord (B&H). The off-camera cord is to separate the Canon 580 EX II from the TT5 so that the radio-frequencey interference generated by the 580 EX II doesn’t impede the TT5′s reception of the signal. I also had a Ferrite choke on both cables – the battery pack and off-camera cord, so that the RF interference doesn’t travel down the cable. This is in accordance with some of the suggestions to extend the range of the Canon 580 EX II with the PocketWizards. You’d hope that Canon would implement a silent for this for the 580 EX II, like they did with the 430 EX II, but this hasn’t happened yet. Probably won’t. In the meantime, there are these work-arounds.

Finally, a thank you again to the cool team at HV Click for arranging another shoot out that was fun and interesting. And if anyone is in or near the Hudson Valley region, check them out, either on their MeetUp page, or their Facebook group.

Equipment used with this photo session:
Canon 5D mk II (B&H); Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS (B&H)
Canon 580EX II Speedlite (B&H); Canon CP-E4 Battery Pack (B&H)
FlexTT5 transceiver (B&H); AC3 ZoneController (B&H);
Canon OC-E3 off-camera flash cord (B&H)

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17 Comments »

Hello Neil,
compliments as always.
A curiosity ‘.
What time was quandoa your picture was taken.
Manual flash settings?
Thank you for everything you do has become very important … to connect every day and see your work.
Good day and good work Neil.
Edy Trigona Genoa Italy

Comment by edy — July 28, 2011 @ 5:27 am
The photos were taken around 7:45pm … evening.

Manual flash settings … the actual manual power setting has no meaning here. If I said it was 1/2 of full manual output, it would just be a number, and it would tell you nothing about the method of getting to the exposure settings or how the light was set up in relation to her.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2011 @ 6:49 am
neil,
i am a bit confused, why do you need the AC3 when you have the mini and flex?? cant i adjust the ttl power thru the camera?? thanks

Comment by mike s — July 28, 2011 @ 8:53 am
ps right now i only have a single flash using off camera, does the AC3 come into play when there are multiple flash, in different zones, different power levels??

Comment by mike s — July 28, 2011 @ 8:55 am
Mike … if you use a TT5 with your remote speedlite, and only a TT5 on your camera, then you have TTL (only) control of your off-camera speedlite. You have to dial your flash exposure compensation (FEC) then to control the speedlite.

You have no way to control the remote speedlite from your camera’s TT5 itself.

To do that, you need the AC3, and from the AC3 control whether the remote speedlite is in manual mode, or TTL … and what power setting.

So it can work without the AC3, but then you only have TTL mode. With the AC3, you instantly have more options open to you as to how you control the remote.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2011 @ 9:16 am
Neil, Great job. I wanted to thank you for all that you do. I own both your books and am always checking your site for this kind of great info. Thank you for sharing what you have learned and making us all better photographers in the process. Best wishes.

Comment by Moe — July 28, 2011 @ 9:24 am
Neil,

Absolutely beautiful image, love it, detail, pose, lighting.

This image along with the bride in the shade from the “using the available light” is not random post are fabulous.

Cheers,
Trev.

Comment by Trev — July 28, 2011 @ 10:49 am
So, what happened when you used TTL initially? Was the exposure changing too rapidly as the sun was going down? I need to get into manual flash sometime.

Comment by Stephen — July 28, 2011 @ 12:22 pm
With the initial TTL mode, the amount of dark tones in the image made it difficult to get consistent exposure as I zoomed in and out.

Since our model, Jill, was in a fixed position in relation to the light, manual flash is just much easier.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2011 @ 1:02 pm
Excellent image, Neil.

Can you tell us a little more with the metering of your camera and flash relative to ambient? I’m guessing you metered about 2 stops dark in the camera and let the flash come to the necessary power for correct exposure of the subject?

Comment by Bob — July 28, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
Bob, that was in fact the approximate process. However, when you look at the image without the flash, you have to keep in mind that there are two areas there … the sky and the vine plants. I can’t expose for both correctly in camera. So my exposure was based on the sky … and I wanted it to appear dark and moody. So I chose settings where the sky appeared like that … dark and moody. I didn’t meter specifically for 2 stops under … but it ended up being thereabouts.

Then flash picked it up to give me correct exposure for my subject.

Here is one of the initial test shots where I decided on my exposure settings to start with. But as the light went down, I brought my shutter speed lower to keep some color in the sky.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2011 @ 4:39 pm
Neil, great post. Love your work and helpful tips.
Just curious if you’ve tried Pocketwizard’s AC5 to help with the noise.
I guess I’ve been fairly lucky, my 580EX II hasn’t been too noisy. Only had some issues with it a few times so far.
Thanks again for sharing!

Comment by Dennis — July 29, 2011 @ 3:47 pm
Dennis, I have the AC7 shields, but haven’t used them during a shoot yet. The way I isolate the 580 EX II, seems to work. Few mis-fires.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 29, 2011 @ 4:02 pm
Great shot! Do you ever gel your flash outdoors when it’s towards night time? If the color temp is cooler at night, your flash woud warm up the subject without a gel since it’s a warmer temperature than the ambient, but what if it were too warm, woud you ever cool it down with a slightly blue gel to match the color temperatures?

Comment by Jonathan — July 29, 2011 @ 4:09 pm
There wasn’t much ambient light registering on the model at my camera settings, so there wasn’t motivation to gel the flash to help with blending the flash with ambient. And no, I’ve never cooled the flash down with a gel.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 29, 2011 @ 4:23 pm
Niel…Fabulous photos of Jill. I told her just how lucky she was that you picked her for the shoot.

Comment by Marvin Litman — July 29, 2011 @ 4:24 pm
Love that shot Neil. Having the flash lit model framed by the dark hedge looks great

Comment by Jason Smith — July 31, 2011 @ 2:29 am