Speedlite

When I finally decided to get a flash for photography, I broke a barrier I had set for myself. I was very happy with just available light. I didn't have to do much else other than checking to see the image was bright enough. Even that could have been tweaked slightly. I was trying to get away with not doing much with as little as possible. Often that meant cranking up the ISO to a high, and usually unacceptable, level.

The break through was seeing what people were able to do with their lighting. Photos with additional light was entirely different. With and without photos of extra light made me a believer. Even short movie clips of people showing what they could do with extra light finally convinced me. Available light was not enough, and most likely would never be. I had to come to that conclusion.


I settled on a the lowest grade Canon Speedlite, the 430 EX II. I got it from my favorite photo seller- B&H Photo Video from NYC. The Speedlite 580 EX was pretty pricey for me, and I had long ago discovered that you buy in low and figure out if that is what you wanted and if it was enough. It had worked with several other hobbies and efforts in the past, and for photography gear it continued to work for me. If I like it, I could always go better. (there is ALWAYS something better)

It has been two and a half years since I first got my light, but I can still recall opening it up and my reaction. I recall looking at the instruction manual and seeing that you could set the levels of power on it. My reaction at the time was- "I don't know what/why I would use that, but I suspect I will use it in time." It made no sense to me at the time, but I was right. I would figure out why metering a light would be more powerful than just leaving it on full auto.


Since then I discovered some of the following:

* The Lightsphere is not worth it, but I had to try it to know.
* Bouncing light is a good first step to trying something new
* Taking the light source OFF camera is a huge mental step. The results for me helped me photography point of focus from stuff to people.
* Defusing the light in different ways can help make a difference
* Multiple light sources synced can be fun

While I was attempting to get better, the first step was to take the light off my camera. To accomplish this, I bought an adapter and a cable. It was cheap and effective. I was able to achieve some decent new lighting, but I was still tethered to the light. I tied to use a very cheap wireless solution from eBay, which on its best day fired 50% of the time. Not reliable or good for shooting in various conditions. Then I located the AlienBees CyberSync.

(below is an edited version what I posted on my other blog from a year ago)
There are Pocket Wizards- people live and die by them. I would have LOVED to have a set of them, but not for $169 one. Just ONE is $169. That is a bit silly... if I wanted to get just two flashes remotely triggered, I would need three devices for a total of $507. That might be easier to handle if I was a professional, but I am an amateur who is just trying to learn and get some better photos.

So those wouldn't work out unless I won them or stumbled on to a used pair which is nearly impossible.

I decided to try the PC sync cord with a splitter... I looked around for a splitter and found FlashZebra and asked them about it. They recommended the CyberSync instead of the cord or PocketWizard. For the price of one Pocket Wizard, or just about, I got two receivers and one transmitter.

I got them along with a couple hotshoe adapters, and I haven't looked back. They have fired 100% of the time, and I have been loving the new freedom and reliability.

The only downsides I can think of are:

- No on/off switch on the receiver
- The transmitter has no lock, and is a bit small. Afraid I will drop it and not know, or misplace it.
- The receivers are easily triggered on by pressing the 'on' button and stay on for 1 hour without a signal to keep them alive. Could be easily turned on by accident.
- No hook or other way to string them up to hold them.

Otherwise they just work. They work wonderfully. I did a test from about 75 yards away, no problem. I tried through my house, fired each and every time. They even sync to just about 1/250 of a second. In the almost year I have had them, they have always fired. The only time they haven't wasn't a fault of the trigger but the flash not being powered up.


Photos in entry: The first is of my dog when I first got my strobe. I was doing simple bouncing of light off the ceiling. Uninteresting, but good to know.
The second photo is of a setup I did for some macro photos of a family watch. (the entire set here)
The last is of a self portrait. No heavy editing done. The background purple was done with a second flash on the ground with a purple gel on it. The other light is a defused light through a umbrella. Fancy eh?