Long time no shoot

reyvee61

Well I finally got my Firefly and I think I'm going like it a lot:

<a href="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/Other/My-Smug-Mug/10733654_tTU9k#1175317552_Nxqxc-A-LB&quot; title=""><img src="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/photos/1175317552_Nxqxc-M.jpg&quot; title="" alt=""></a>

Took it out for a spin today with the help of my friend Debbie and Justice who is the young lady in these examples:

1.
<a href="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/People/Justice/15727640_QZVcD#1178984240_tyuid-A-LB&quot; title=""><img src="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/People/Justice/DSC9207/1178984240_tyuid-L.jpg&quot; title="" alt=""></a>

2.
<a href="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/People/Justice/15727640_QZVcD#1178984243_ppGFa-A-LB&quot; title=""><img src="http://www.hipshotphoto.com/People/Justice/DSC9280/1178984243_ppGFa-L.jpg&quot; title="" alt=""></a>

Looking at these here I think her right shoulder could be tamed a bit on the first one.....

Thoughts are always welcome

adbsgicom

Like the new toy. I've been looking around at the options for small-ish boxes for speedlites.

I'm not liking the flower hanging out into the second image. Obviously, you did, so leave that as difference of opinion.
It's odd that the CL shoulder is so hot since your light is at CR. Or did you have another kicker in there?

I think the third one would have been better had you short-lit the image. The shadows on her neck would have gone away and I think you would have ended up with more interesting facial shadows as well.

I like your choice of location and DOF in these very much.

reyvee61

Andrew thanks for your opinion.....
I wasn't sure about the flower either with this crop, I'll be playing with other options that make a little more sense with the setting.

Yeah I thought so too on the shoulder but I was shooting at ambient light settings with the flash set to manual and maybe I should have metered off her white shirt in spot mode to read the light.

On the third image the sun was setting and lighting up the area well so I thought I would start off with a little fill. I did experiment and move the brollie closer to change things up but I have yet to process them. I've had three shoots this weekend and my workload is full at the moment....

What's nice about this unit on location is that it's pretty stable in wind compared to a larger brollies, no need for weights....


Here's one where I used a 43 inch shoot thru umbrella:

NeilL

That looks a nice bit of gear Rey. What made you choose it from the pretty crowded field of similar?

Interesting that I am seeing here and also in divamum's latest sets a strong falloff of light from these small SBs. The shadows are controllable with fill of some kind, but for example in #2 the key with SB seems to be very close and the difference in intensity of the light on the subject goes from too high (imo it calls attention to itself, distracts, and doesn't look attractive) on a small area to quite low, over the distance of an inch or so. The spread of the light in #1 suggests to me that a grid/baffles might have helped.

Thinking about your ideas in these images, I wonder, for comparison, how a flash off a large reflector close in (and the images cropped tighter) might look?

Neil

reyvee61

Neil it has a robust build and can be taken dwwn and set up rather quickly. Something I will use for years trouble free once I figure out it's sweet spot...

The light does fall sharply indeed and perhaps this will not be suitable for my ambient light augmentation techniques. What I'm going to do is set up the box and find a big white wall so I can more clearly see how the light pattern behaves with the SB800 at different power levels and distances.

Thanks for further provoking thought on this, I've much to think about and experiment with.....