Controlling portrait lighting - help/education needed??

rickp

I'm on this road trying to learn about portrait photography lighting.
I've been doing A BUNCH of research on lighting kits and now I'm off to the next step of this trip. Triggering the light.

I googled portrait lighting and found a lot of info on where to setup the lights. I also found the different preferences and techniques used.

At this point I'm using 2 lights. One main, lets say with a beauty dish on it and a second with a softbox, I'll can also use a reflector.

So my question is how do I control the lights? I have a pocketwizard Mini TT1 and a Flex TT5, but that only controls 1 light. If i go this route I need another TT5.
If I use the cables, how does that work? I've never used them.

I'm sure this is REALLY elementary for some, but how do the cables trigger both lights, and how to I setup the camera to do this?


Any help on this would be very helpful.

Thanks
R.

pathfinder

You need to decide if you are going to depend on ETTL to do your flash exposure settings for you, or if you are going to use Manual Flash exposure, where you determine the proper exposure with a flash meter or with your camera's histogram, and then use that information.

My suggestion, if you are going to do studio shooting, with studio flashes with softboxes, and beauty dishes, is to use Manual Flash. If you can tell your subject where to sit or stand, and they will do that and not move from that location, use Manual Flash. Once you determined your exposure, it will not change unless you alter the flash to subject distance ( or dial you flash power up or down ) and you can set you shutter speed and aperture, and only have to watch your subject and your composition. You can ignore exposure as it will always be correct, if set up properly in the beginning. If you are shooting manual flash, most studio strobes ( and a few speedlights ) have an optical sensor, and will fire when another flash lights up triggering them. So you only have to trigger one of your studio strobes with a PW or a PC cable.

If you subject will not hold still and moves around a lot ( think small children or candids in a venue ) then, ETTL can do wonders for your nerves. If you are going to use ETTL via MiniTT1 and Flex TT5s, you will need an ETTL capable flash and Flex TT5 ( or equivalent ) receiver for each light you want to use off camera. Without a receiver for each speedlite, there will be no ETTL information for that speedlite.

The are cheap optical triggers for strobes and speedlites made by Wein - usually cheap too. Some speedlites do not offer a PC cable input and may need a hot shoe adapter with a pc connection built into the hot shoe.

Paramount makes heavy duty cords and adapters for strobes and speedlites

rickp

PAthfinder, great info, thanks

Let me ask you, I currently have a 1 PW Mini and Flex, if I add a second speedlite 580EX II and set it as slave to the first 580 I loose ETTL? It will shoot at whatever settings the first speedlite is set at right??
So connecting it to a second Flex TT5 I can manipulate it's power on it's own. Is that correct?

R.

pathfinder

I am not sure how you are wanting to set things up. If you are using a Mini and a Flex receiver, any speedlite attached to them are left in their normal ETTL mode - eg: not set as a slave or as a master. How can one 580ex be a master if it is setting on top of a Flex receiver, and your Mini is in your hot shoe? It can't.

If each 580ex is on its own FlexTT, you can set them to different power outputs via Canon's group A:B:C settings. You can see more information here

Or you can add PW's Zone Controller to your MiniTT which is what I would consider - it is inexpensive and allows you to adjust the groupsl A:B:C easily and quickly through your MiniFlex connections.

rickp

Ok!! I was assuming that I could still set the off camera flash to master and still control a second flash (slave) without it being on the camera.(with my PWs). I assumed the PW would transfer that functionality.

I guess I'll have to get a second TT5 to control the second light if I go with PW. OR get other inexpensive wireless triggers and not use the PW at all.
I'm trying to take advantage of what I currently own (1 Mini and 1 TT5)

R.