Graduation image

ziggy53

My son just graduated from an extra-curricular course in "public speaking". ("D.C." are the initials of the course provider. This was not my idea, but not a bad thing to do.)

The instructor saw me with the 70-200mm, f2.8 Tokina, sneaking shots in the back, and asked me to do a formal of the kids for the local paper.

Fortunately, I also had the Sigma 18-50mm, f2.8, which was more appropriate for the space provided, in a school library. Unfortunately, I didn't know before-hand and only brought one flash. Fortunately, that flash was the Sigma 500 Super, which works pretty well with the Canon E-TTL, making the exposure more automated. Unfortunately, I hadn't bothered to charge the batteries, because I almost forgot about the event, and I only had the one set of batteries with me, because I thought I was only going to shoot with ambient light. Fortunately, ...

Yes, I could go on and on about what went wrong and what went right. Basically, I was underprepared. Hopefully I learned my lesson.

Anyway, here's the shot:

ziggy53

... and here is a 100% crop from above.

ziggy53

The shot information:

Canon dRebel XT w/Sigma 18-50mm, at f2.8, 1/200th sec. Sigma 500 Super flash, bounced from high and angled ceiling, with a small white sheet of paper as a reflector, rubber-banded to provide some fill and catchlight. ISO 800.

The ambient light (FL) measured f2.8 at 1/40th at ISO 800, so was not a major contributor.

This is a great bunch of kids.

P.S. My son is in the back row, fourth from the left, blue shirt, won't show his teeth.

Thanks,

ziggy53

OneWayMule

I cannot believe thats from a single flash :oogle

Andy

making the most of the situation - nice...

wxwax

Ziggy, I think you did a super job, the light is nice and even.

System

good lookin' kids-

great lookin' photo!-

george

ziggy53

OneWayMule wrote:

I cannot believe thats from a single flash :oogle

I was "sweatin' bullets" because I couldn't tell for sure what I was getting. I didn't have time to "chimp" because everyone wanted to leave, but a glance at the histogram looked promising.

Thanks,

ziggy53

ziggy53

Andy wrote:

making the most of the situation - nice...

Thanks Andy,

That means a lot. I think I was pretty lucky too!

ziggy53

ziggy53

wxwax wrote:

Ziggy, I think you did a super job, the light is nice and even.

Thanks Sid,

The Sigma flash goes wide in the bounce configuration, and I think that plus the high ceiling did the trick.

Notice I had to use ISO 800. Thank goodness for low noise dSLRs.

I have to give a lot of credit to Canon for developing the E-TTL technology. That helped a lot. I shot around 5 exposures and they were all usable.

ziggy53

ziggy53

gefillmore wrote:

good lookin' kids-

great lookin' photo!-

george

Thanks George,

They were also cooperative and fun. That goes a long way towards making my job easier.

ziggy53