Flash photo idea

[P3D Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

  I just mounted some Realist slides in which I got some wonderful
lighting and thought I would share it with the group.

  With my print film camera I love to use the Lumiquest 80-20
unit for ceiling bounce (2d) shots. The flash is aimed upwards and
it allows 80% of the light to bounce off the ceiling and
reflects the remaining 20% forward to fill in eye socket shadows
and put a sparkle in the eye.  It makes for wonderful photos
that don't have that big shadow/dark background effect of
direct flash photos.

  You need a fair bit of flash power to do this but with the
200 speed print film we normally use, the 36GN of my Pentax flash
is sufficient.

  The problem begins when you want to use the 80-20 for 3d shots
especially since I prefer to use Kodachrome 25. The GN is
cut in half due to the film speed and approximately half again
due to the 80-20 (depends on ceiling height, etc).  A GN of 36
becomes about 9 metres which is only about 5 feet at f5.6.

  My solution was to use additional slaved flashes doing ceiling
bounce.  For my Realist I have a Canon 533G grip type flash which
has a GN of 36m. I used it with the 80-20 to do ceiling bounce.
To boost the ceiling lighting I also used my Pentax AFZ500T flash
which has a GN of 36 also and a built in slave mode (manual).
I also used a Sunpak 2400 (GN 24m) with an external slave device.
So in total I had 80% of a GN36 plus another GN36 and a GN24
for ceiling light. This works out to a net GN of about 54m for
100 speed film (and 27m for 25 speed).

  The Pentax and Sunpak slaves were in manual (full power)
mode and the Canon was in auto mode for the aperture I used
(f8).  Thus the Canon adjusts its output so the total light
hitting the film is correct. This means the fraction of light
hitting the subject varies depending on how much of the total
light comes from the manual slaves. This is something you have
to live with unless you have a flash meter (and adjust the
slave's output) or spend big $$$ on some Metz flashes with
wireless TTL.

  The photos of my daughter in the tub turned out as good as
I hoped. The lighting is wonderful.

  In summary: if you have any old flashes laying around, connect
them to a photo strobe and use them for ceiling bounce.

  I only wish Dan Shelly had been able to put up his web-expo
then I could share it with you all.

Thanks for listening to my long ramble - Greg Erker



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