On a scale of 1 to 10 it gets an 8 for DIY coolness, but a 2 for usability.  And that bugged me enough that I was back to the drawing board the next morning.

Actually, the drawing board is where I did end up, in the form of Google SketchUp, where I puttered around with a few more ideas before coming up with this:

(Click for a larger view)

Unlike it’s plastic predecessor, this new DIY multi-flash bracket is all metal; if it dies during a location shoot, it’ll be because someone ran over my lightstand, not from plastic fatigue.  In a twist of irony, the inspiration came from the DIYPhotography blog, which shared a post back in February: “Two Flashes are Better than One + Simple DIY Multi-Flash Bracket Tutorial.” The bracket in that post is a two-flash version of the one above; I saw the picture of it and the thought popped into my head, “Why not just double it?”

The final product is very much like the plans above; I added some locking nuts to keep the horizontal mounting plates in place, and used a spacer instead of a connector between the two plates – once all the parts are tightened down, it’s pretty darn solid.

Each coldshoe mounts to the plate in the pattern of: thumb-screw+nut+fender washer+plate+coldshoe.  The nut is really just a spacer, to keep the thumb-screws from coming up through the center of the coldshoes.  There’s just barely enough space between the two plates for the opposing thumb-screws to fit.  And by using the thumb-screws, I’ve maintained the ability to rotate the coldshoes in a full circle, so I can keep the E-TTL sensor on the flash pointing in any direction.

It’s still lightweight and takes up very little room in the camera bag, although I’m afraid that it’s DIY coolness factor has fallen a bit.  But since usability is up, I guess it’s a small sacrifice to make.  And it does get that 4th flash on-board, which will go even father in terms of lighting power.

Now I just need to use it.  The model I had lined up for last Saturday bailed in the morning, so I’m looking to re-book her for this weekend.  Failing that, I’ll beg my girlfriend to step in front of the camera.  But I definitely want to take this out in broad daylight with my 50mm f/1.8 and see how they’ll play together!

But what the hell, I still built it myself!  And here’s how – photos and instructions after the break:

The parts list is modest, to say the least.  The primary body of the mount is .5 cup sized Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids container.  (Yes, you read that right.)  I searched high and low for a square piece of material suitable for a body frame, and this is all I was able to come up with.  And I’ll admit right now, it is by no means the perfect solution, nor is it one that I’m likely to stick with.  But for the moment, it works.

The Rubbermaid container is joined by 3x coldshoes and a collection of misc. hardware, all of it 1/4″ x 20 spec., just to keep things simple.

I began by measuring out the center of each of the four faces, then using a hobby knife to cut holes in the Rubbermaid container, through which the mounting/structural support rods will pass.  I also used the knife to trim off the perpendicular flange that ran around the container near the top, as it would get in the way of the coldshoes.

In step two, I fed in the 2x 3″ threaded rods and their associated hardware – some washers and nuts to keep them in position within the Rubbermaid frame.  As I mentioned before, the purpose of these rods is twofold – first, they provide mounting points for the coldshoes; and second, they greatly increase the structural strength of the container.

With the rods in place (and as you can see above, one of the coldshoes attached), I used the knife to cut two holes in the bottom of the container, and two matching holes in the “Easy Find Lid” – these are for the umbrellas, two of which can feed through the container.  Because the lid is made of a flexible rubber, I left it’s holes a little smaller, for some extra grip on the umbrellas.

Here’s the finished unit, with the coldshoes mounted and a threaded connector attached to the bottom post, so that the bracket can mount directly to the threaded post on the lightstand’s umbrella adapter.  After threading the coldshoes into place, I used a wrench to tighten down all the nuts inside the container – the finished unit actually feels remarkable solid!

And here it is in action – three Speedlites securely mounted and firing in sync.  It works!

If you’ve read this far and are any kind of photographer, you’re probably thinking that I’m crazy about now.  For sure, a Rubbermaid container is NOT any kind of secure, confidence-inspiring unit that you’re going to mount nearly $1k in flashes to.  And I’m right there with you.

What I was able to do here is build a multi-flash bracket that feels surprisingly sturdy, for under $25, in less time than it took to actually find the components.  Amazingly enough, I actually have enough confidence in this contraption that I’d use it in the studio – albeit with frequent checks for plastic fatigue and cracking.

On-location, however, even I’m not nuts enough to use this thing – I get the distinct feeling that it’s just not up to being in constant motion in, say, the hands of an assistant.  And I certainly don’t want to see three of my Speedlites take a nose-dive into the dirt.

So what was the point of all this?  Call it a “proof of concept.”  There are units out there like the FourSquare and Lastolite TriFlash, but I’m still not convinced that they need to cost $65-$100+ apiece.  I still believe that there’s a better way – and I’m going to keep looking for a way to build one of these on my own.  One, incidentally, that will actually stand up to the rigors of the field.

And that can’t be used to hold M&Ms during it’s off-time.

Actually, I’m shooting for a couple of looks as the light changes.  For starters, I want to try some colorful, high-key portraits, which will be a combo of an umbrella key light and ambient sun backlight.  (For some great examples of this, check out MostlyLisa’s Flickr stream – her portraits rock!)

Later, as the light falls to twilight, I’m hoping to tryout McNally’s “How to Light an Elf” technique from The Hotshoe Diaries (checkout that chapter here on Google Books).  I won’t have a bridge in the background, but I am trying to workout a location that will show some city lights – or at the very least, some building lights showing through trees.

For this one, I figure on dropping the umbrella and trying a grid, which differs from how McNally shot it.  Dismissing the master’s technique in favor of my own sounds dumb, but who knows, maybe it will work.  And if not, then I’ll jump back to the umbrella and mutter my apologies to the photo gods!

So yeah, this is a short post with no photos (I did have some theory sketches, showcasing more of my mad drawing skills, but I lost them somewhere on my desk).  Sorry about that.  But with any luck, I’ll have satisfying results to share this weekend.

DIY Flash Bracket - side view

It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it does the job very well.  And best of all, it requires just three major parts; a horizontal adjustment track, vertical adjustment track, and a cold shoe.

I went into this project with a good idea of what I needed to complete it, although I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d find the actual components.  (I think I’d have had better luck in a good local hardware store than in Lowes/Home Depot, but in the end I did find what I needed.)

The horizontal adjustment track (silver) is the metal from a Sliding Bevel Gauge; I unscrewed the adjustment fastener and it fell right out of the plastic handle.  The side with the tape was angled to a point, which I figured was unsafe, so I used the Dremel tool with a cutting wheel to cut the point right off.  The tape is there to protect against the sharp edges of the metal.

The vertical adjustment track (gold) is a universal slide track, meant to go on a hinged box top.  There was a pivoting mount on the bottom when I bought it, which I non-too-gently removed with a hammer and screwdriver.  Bent it on the edge of a table, and there you go – a right angle piece perfect for mounting the cold shoe to.

As I mentioned before, the cold shoe was the only piece of purpose-built photo equipment I purchased for this.  It’s connected to the vertical track with a thumb screw and some washers.  Which is the same way that the rest is held together; thumb screws, wingnuts, and some washers.  Easy to adjust, easy to disassemble, and cheap.

DIY Flash Bracket - Top view

The point of this bracket vs. directly mounting the flash the umbrella adapter?  It’s simple – the optical wireless sensor remains unobstructed.  For instance, when using my ProKit softbox, the wireless sensor on the Speedlite is blocked, so getting the pre-flash signal to it is a challenge.  But with this bracket, the softbox goes on, and the sensor is lying back there free and clear, able to be rotated 360 around the cold shoe in order to best “see” the master flash.

At this point I could go out and build another of these without any trouble – it would take an hour, from the time I set foot in the store until the time the bracket was completed.  And with each bracket costing less than half the price of the manufactured version, I’m happy.  $30 and a little design time gives me a huge improvement in my wireless E-TTL control.

The bracket easily handles the weight of the Speedlite, although I wouldn’t trust it with a whole lot more.  If you’re going to start putting heavy modifiers on the Speedlite, I’d make sure they could be mounted separately, using the umbrella clamp.

Questions?  Need more detail about part of the process?  Drop me a note in the comments!

Photo credit: CheetahStand.com

Pretty ingenious – by mounting the Speedlite horizontally like this, it’s able to rotate a full 360 degrees around it’s base, which means that even with the head stuffed inside softbox, the wireless sensor window is left outside and can be positioned to best see a master flash unit’s wireless pulse.

Not so cool?  $63 price tag.  Yeah, I’ve heard it before, we spend thousands on cameras, lenses, and lights – why not drop some “petty cash” on the accessories?  In cases like this, the reason why is simple – as much as I admire the Cheetah unit above, it’s by no means part of the Space Shuttle.  I look at that and the first thought into my head is, “I can build one of those.”

Of course not everybody is a DIY sort of person – but I am.  I enjoy mulling over how to build things like this, and then prowling Lowes and the local hardware store for a couple of hours finding parts.  In fact, that’s how I spent my Monday night.  I came home with a bag full of odd stuff that I’m pretty sure I can merge into a working final product.  Total cost so far?  About $20.  At that rate, I could build one for each of my Speedlites for the cost of a single Cheetah unit.

This is a project that I hope to have tackled by the end of the weekend.  I’ll post the results – either a working DIY flash bracket, or a pile of useless junk.  But I’m pretty sure it will be the former.

Of course, being the geek I am, I couldn’t just look at the photo and go from there.  No, I had to sketch out how I planned to build my own version.  And since sketching is inaccurate and painfully low-tech, I installed Google SketchUp, watched the tutorials, and then used it to design my version of the bracket.

DIY Flash Bracket - Frontal View

DIY Flash Bracket - Overhead View

Hell, I’m impressed by how good it looks rendered like this!  Sure, it’s a bit rough and not quite to scale.  But spend some time using SketchUp and you’ll find (if you’re technically inclined) that it’s addictive.  And the things you can render once you learn some skills are just amazing!

Perhaps I should have been an engineer…

Please note: I’m not bashing the folks at Cheetah here at all.  They came up with a great looking product and are entitled to make a profit on it.  I suspect that most people will be more than happy to buy one if they need it.  Aside from being occasionally cheap, I embark on these DIY missions for fun – that’s all.

And for this one, I did in fact order several of Cheetah’s Slide Lock Cold Shoes, which look very nice, and are quite reasonably priced.

The 7D was the first Canon DLSR to include a Speedlite commander mode in its built-in flash, a feature that captured my attention very quickly.  For years now, Nikon users have has commander capabilities built into their DSLRs, SB-800 Speedlights, and dedicated commander units.  Canon shooters, on the other hand, have had…well, very little.

Very little, that is, if you’re looking for TTL control.  If you’re shooting Strobist-style, with manual flash settings, then any “dumb” radio triggers will work (although all units except the Canon 580EX lack PC ports, so you’re left at the mercy of hotshoe adapters).  So long as you don’t mind running from flash to flash to change the output, this works okay.

But for TTL flash, there were exactly two options: the antiquated ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter, or a 550EX/580EX flash hotshoe-mounted in master mode.  The ST-E2 only shoots forward along the lens axis and only triggers groups A & B; if you want to use group C, you’re out of luck.  That leaves a 550/580EX, and personally I’ve always found the idea of using a $500+ 580EX on-camera as a master unit incredibly annoying; it’s large and somewhat unwieldy, and it seems like a very poor utilization of an expensive flash.

Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter

The 7D stood to correct this with a built-in master capability; suddenly your Canon Speedlites can be controlled from the camera’s menu system.  Set your groups, ratios, manual output – no more running between flashes, it’s a whole new level of control in the camera, where it should be.

Problem is, it doesn’t work very well.  Consider the physics: the 7D’s flash measures 1″x.25″ in size.  That’s a hugely unimpressive .25 square inches total.  And because of the pop-up mechanism, the flash head will only face forward; there’s no bounce or swivel.  It’s underpowered, tiny, and restricted – puny is the word that comes to mind.

After having used it in a range of situations, I’ve become disenchanted – while it was a good idea, and a noble try at matching the Nikon system, I have to say that it is ultimately of little use.  If your Speedlites are in front of the camera, with no obstruction between them and the built-in flash, then it’ll work pretty darn well.  But start adding in any variables – the sort of variables and setups that you’ll actually find in the real world – and the whole thing falls apart.

Half way through my last studio shoot, with half the Speedlites failing to fire simply because of their physical placement, I broke down and threw the 580EX on the hotshoe and flipped it to master mode.

Whoa.

Instant change.  Immediate improvement.  Suddenly I’m blasting commands out of a flash with a 2.75″x1.5″ emitter (that’s 4.125 square inches).  An emitter that can be tilted and swiveled around a complete hemisphere, with enough power to bounce it off a ceiling.  Where before I was working in a corner with only partial success, I was able to blanket an entire room with command signals.

Overlay of Canon 7D built-in flash vs. 580EX Speedlite flash.

Sadly, there’s just no way around it.  For dependable communication coverage and command capabilities, you need a master-capable Speedlight on-camera.  The built-in mode is more gimmick than useful tool, and frankly I believe that it should be relegated to the Rebel series, as it’s more likely to fit the needs of a hobbyist/advanced amateur with a single off-camera Speedlite than it is a professional with a full setup.

What Canon needs is a whole new unit.  There are faint rumors of a new Canon Speedlite coming soon.  My guess is that it will be a unit designed to challenge Nikon’s SB-900 (which is a very impressive Speedlight).  It will certainly retain a master mode, and will likely interface its menus with the newest EOS cameras.  But in my opinion, this is still a stopgap measure.

I return to what I said before – using a $500 Speedlite solely as a commander, adding little or no actual light to a scene, is like buying a BMW and using it only to run for groceries.  A flash with the power of a 580EX is meant to be used to light a scene!

Canon needs to go back to the drawing board and design a brand new commander unit, one that will bury the pathetic ST-E2 and give professional photographers a real option when it comes to commanding their Speedlites, which they’d then be free to use off-camera as lights.  This new unit would need tilt/swivel capability, and whether it uses visible or IR light pulses would depend on the engineers, but it should be designed to throw an aimable, powerful command pulse, with no option whatsoever for actually adding light to the exposure.

Let us use our commanders to command and our Speedlites to light!

But why do you need the extender?  Consider the Nikon SB-900, the Speedlight with the longest zoom range: 200mm.  Now consider the lenses that wildlife photographers use: 400mm, 600mm, 800mm.  There’s a major disparity there.  At 200mm – of the 105mm that my Canon 580EX maxes out at – the flash is too diffuse & weak by the time it reaches a bird on a branch to do any good.  Enter the flash extender.

A flash extender is simply a fresnel lens mounted on support arms in front of the flash head.  The fresnel lens condenses the flash beam; a tighter beam suffers less fall-off and reaches farther.  There are several commercial models available, the best known probably being the Better Beamer.  It runs about $40, and I’ll be the first to admit that while I’ll drop $1k on a lens, I’m too cheap to drop a pair of Jacksons on a flash extender.  Come on, it’s a plastic fresnel lens mounted on a pair of support arms.

DIY Flash Extender

Turns out that fresnel lenses can be purchased at Barnes & Noble in the form of reading magnifiers.  Since I don’t have a Barnes & Noble within 45minutes, and my local Borders didn’t carry any, I settled for an 8×11 inch lens from Staples.  Cost $8.  I brought it home, pulled up some product photos of a Better Beamer mounted to a Canon 580EX, and took some measurements of different parts of the Speedlite and Beamer in the photo, then of the actual Speedlite.  Some mathematical magic gave me conversion ratios, which I used to calculate the dimensions I needed out of the 8×11 sheet.

Since a frensel lens works in increasing “ripples” from a central point, I plotted the center of the lens sheet using a Sharpie marker, measure out my dimensions, and cut it down to size using a Dremel tool & cutting wheel (gotta love those things!).  Managing not to lose fingers in the process, the result was a roughly  4×6 inch lens.  Since the cuts were somewhat ugly – not to mention sharp – I cut three open rectangles of black foam; one traced to fit tight around the edge of the fresnel lens, the other two wider to cover it on either side.  Some hot glue, and my lens was suddenly mounted in foam and looking better.

DIY Flash Extender Lens

Use the same mathematical magic as before, along with some hand held tests, to determine the best length of the fresnel from the flash head (about 6″).  I cut the support arms out of foamcore scraps I had lying around.  Nice and simple.  Now, when it comes to assembling the whole thing, I thought about just hot gluing it, but decided that I’d rather be able to break it down so that it would all lie flat in a camera bag pocket.  Slapped some Velcro on the end, which turned out to be sturdy enough to hold it together in use, although gale-force winds might tear it free.

Finally, a foam strap with Velcro to mount it to the flash head, and it was done.  The whole process took about three hours, much of that measuring and cutting of components.

The result?  A working DIY flash extender.  Out in the field it works as expected; I’m able to throw a flash beam onto a bird that I’m shooting at 400mm.  The beam is tight and balanced, and not only does it allow the flash to work, but it allows the flash to fire at less than full power, which is what it defaults to at that range without the beamer.

Black-capped Chickadee photographed with DIY flash extender

Of course it’s not as simple as all that to use – there is a learning curve.  The trick is figuring out how much flash compensation to dial in.  The amount varies depending on the ambient conditions, but it’s almost always a negative amount, since you’re looking for fill light, a catch light in the eye, instead of full-on primary lighting.  You also need to make sure that the flash head is aligned with the fresnel lens, otherwise the beam won’t be straight and centered, but off to one side.

There’s still a rang limit, as well.  Although the extender will reach to 400mm (my maximum focal length), it works best on subjects that fill a significant portion of the frame at that range.  If you try using it to light a bird that is very small in your frame, you’ll still see fall off, to the point where you may not notice the flash’s effect at all.

Bottom line, if you’re shooting birds or wildlife, this is something to really think about having in your bag.  Is it worth building your own?  That depends on how much $40 is worth to you, vs. $15 in supplies and a few hours of creative energy.  For me, part of the drive to make DIY gear is the fun I have in the process – I like designing and building useful tools out of unlikely stuff.  But if that’s not you, go for the commercial option.

One of the things that excited me most about the 7D was the built-in flash commander mode. Canon has been way behind Nikon in terms of flash system performance for some time now, and it’s satisfying to see that they’re finally catching up. Now, like it’s Nikon counterparts, the 7D’s built-in flash has the ability to communicate with multiple Speedlite flashes, all wirelessly. This communication covers all manner of uses – it transmits E-TTL II data, controls flash groups & power ratios, and can even control manual flash output. It can also be adjusted so that in addition to being the commander, the built-in flash provides working light as well.

Right now I only have one Canon Speedlite, but even so I’ve been able to use it wirelessly with success. Setting up the system is very easy, and once you start working with it, it’s addictive. For starters, there’s no more running between flash units to change settings. “Flash Control” is the top option on the My Menu screen (for me, at least), and all I have to do is go into the menu to change whatever settings I want. In the near future I’ll be adding two more Canon 430EX IIs to my kit, completely replacing my previous manual flash system.

With the advent of Strobist, there’s been a lot of talk about E-TTL flash vs. manual flash, and folks on both sides are quick to criticize the other. E-TTL fans don’t see the point in wasting the computing power in the equipment they’ve spent so much money on, and manual fans don’t like letting the computers do the thinking for them. Personally, I think that the answer lies in the middle – knowing now to shoot full-manual flash is a good skill to have, and will save the day sometime. But by the same token, we have E-TTL ability and we should use it. Not using it is like saying that we should us IS.

Next on the list is the fix of all bad attitude – the electronic dual-axis level display. Displaying on both the LCD and through the viewfinder, the attitude indicator shows pitch (up/down orientation) and roll (side to side orientation) to help ensure that the camera is truly level. This is probably not a feature you’re going to use very much when hand-holding the camera; even through the viewfinder, it would be somewhat cumbersome, and definitely distracting. But when the camera is tripod mounted, things really come into play. No longer do you need all sorts of bubble levels, now the attitude display does it all right in-camera.

The display really looks like an attitude indicator from the cockpit of an airplane, complete with gradation markings, for when you want one axis level but not the other. Any time that either axis achieves perfect level, the indicator bar turns green to notify you. Mounted to a tripod, this makes it very easy to quickly level out the camera – with practice, you could do it in under 15 seconds. The only down side to the system is that it’s touchy – you have to learn how much motion it takes to effect a smooth change in the readout, otherwise it can be jerky and a little frustrating. Canon warns in the manual that the readout is not absolute – an indication of level may still be slightly off, which is to be expected.

Finally, all you need to do is look through the viewfinder to recognize the vast improvements there. The new viewfinder shows 100% of the lens’ view, as opposed to the 95% of less views on past models. Five percent may not sound like much, but the difference is noticeable – the viewfinder is larger and brighter, both of which help make composition easier. The only trouble is, after years of being used to reduced coverage, you get used to the idea that there’ll be a little space beyond what you see in the viewfinder, leading you to compose your shots accordingly. You’ll have to retrain yourself for the 100% coverage, remembering that there is no buffer – what you see is exactly what you get in the final image.

Here’s one thing you don’t need a specialized version of – a background.

If this sounds counterintuitive, it isn’t. Although there are plenty of vendors ready to sell you everything from sheet paper to expensive muslin backgrounds, the reality is that you don’t need them. You have all the background you need already around you.

This shot wasn’t taken in a studio. It wasn’t taken at a state park, or a preserve, or a garden. It was taken in someone’s backyard.

The simplest setup needs only a blank, white wall. If you’re doing head-and-shoulder style portraits, and you place your model several feet from the wall and then light both independently, you’ll have a nice portrait. Let’s say you get fancy and put a color gel on the BG light, then shoot it through something (glasses, a plant, etc) to add some shadow textures – at this point, you’ve completely left the realm of “mugshots.” For proof, take a look at the Stobist site, where David Hobby regularly turns the walls of hotel conference rooms into BGs. If you can do it with a Holiday Inn, you can do it anywhere.

Personally, I don’t like artificial BGs nearly as much as I like natural ones. In my latest portrait shoot, I used white roll paper in the studio and got some great shots. But my favorite frames came afterwards, when we were doing the last few outside. And we didn’t go anyplace exotic to get them – far from it, we were in a side yard.

As you can see from my sketch, this is your fairly typical, rural yard. We’ve got our big pine tree with the rope swing as a central point, but surrounding it we’ve got the house, a fire pit, a pile of kid toys, a horse trailer, and a fenced-in pasture. Some elements, like the pasture, could be useful as a BG (most places will lack a pasture, but a garden, or a small wooded/brushy area will work just as well). Most of the other features, not so much – nobody really wants a pile of kids toys in their senior portrait.

The key then is to setup your shot so that this distracting stuff isn’t visible. Sure, you could clone it out later, but why bother? It’s far easier to just get it right in-camera. In this case, I was lucky – the sun was already down near the tree line, so I was able to work in any direction I wanted without worrying about flare.

For the rope-swing shots, I setup with the pasture in the BG – it’s an area that will go nicely out of focus without any distracting elements. The kids toys and fire pit got hidden behind the pine tree; the house was kept out of the other side of the frame by the focal length.

Next, we shot some with the model up on the front porch. It’s a nice porch, which helps, but still we don’t want to see a lot of it. So I had her stand by one of the vertical posts and shot through some ornamental grass. The BG goes dark, and the foreground elements help disguise the location.

Turn it around with the model sitting on the porch rail, and the same trick still applies; the focal length keeps some hanging plants out of sight, the horse trailer is hidden behind the model, and the toys go far enough out of focus to pretty much disappear.

I guarantee you, you can walk into any backyard in your area and find several backgrounds against which you can shoot good portraits. It may take a little creativity, you may even have to accept that some elements are there and work them into the overall shot – but it can be done.

Remember – zoom in to discard distractions, play with angles to exclude elements, and find ways to hide things in plain sight.

** For all the photos here, I’m using the 400D & 28-135mm lens at 1/200th, f/5.6, ISO 200. A single strobe with a shoot-through umbrella provides key light, while the ambient provides fill.

The main portion of the shoot was studio-based and went pretty much as predicted, although there were some early issues to overcome. The home-office space that I used wasn’t quite as large as I would have liked, but worked better than any other option I had. Ideally the room would have been longer, to put more space between the model and backdrop.

On the other hand, that would have caused yet more problems, as my roll of background paper isn’t wide enough as it is. In fact, it was causing such problems during the setup test shots done with my assistant for the day, Mandy, that I ended up supplementing it. The quick fix was to cut off the length of paper, then roll out another. I overlapped the two pieces, taping the cut-off piece to the backdrop stand and the roll sheet using painter’s tape. (There was a seam line, but the BG light helped hide it, and a quick use of the Heal tool in Photoshop fixed the rest.)

As we were just about to get started – as in, the model had just arrived – the lightstand holding the BG light took a fall, and in slow motion I watched the flash explode – batteries, battery door, and baseplate all blew off. In an amazing bit of luck, the flash’s internal workings were undamaged, and I was able to jam the battery door back on. The baseplate plastic was broken, however, so instead of mounting it back to the light stand, Mandy became my voice-activated lightstand for the duration of the shoot.

A side note – of my three Nikon Speedlights, the other two already have homemade base plates on them. One I broke after buying and the other I got cheap because of the broken plate. Since I won’t ever use these on camera, it was no big deal to open up the bottoms, remove the hotshoe connections, and glue on a dummy baseplate – a piece of plastic the right size and shape, so they can still mount to the lightstands.

Using the clamshell lighting I talked about in the pre-game post, I shot four different outfits, each in a variety of poses, with some differences in the BG lighting. The BG light varied between 1/4 and 1/16 power, depending on the colored gel or lack thereof. The clamshell strobes were set to 1/4 and 1/8. All were shot with a Canon 400D & 17-40mm lens combo at 1/200th, f/4, & ISO 200.

Clamshell lighting really is a great technique – the effect is smooth and well diffused, and shadows are minimized, especially against a white BG. It’s also easy to setup and work with – the lighted area is actually fairly large, so small movements in the model’s position don’t require resetting of the strobes.

After packing up the studio, we made a quick stop at the client’s grandparent’s house, where we did a few more outdoor shots. We were looking to capitalize on the foliage – aided by the lovely afternoon weather – and we weren’t disappointed. A rope swing in the side yard became the main site, and lit by a single flash, we were able to capture some amazing shots!

The outdoor shots are lit once more by a single strobe with a shoot-through umbrella, held aloft by my assistant. I was shooting at the max sync speed, f/5.6, ISO 200, with the flash on either full or 1/2 power to balance out the afternoon ambient.

I still cannot recommend this technique enough – once you nail down the ratio of strobe to ambient – this took me about a minute’s worth of test shots – it remains constant as long as the light doesn’t change. (And even then, gradual shifts in lighting are easily compensated for on-camera.)

All told, I took over 500 photos during the afternoon. Edited down, the client will only get a fraction of that number – but still, I don’t envy their job of picking the ones they want printed!