5/8/09 - Remote Triggered Strobes

I've been messing around with lighting with remote triggered strobes. For flashes, I currently have two Canon speedlites (a 580ex and a 580ex II). I am triggering these using three Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers. One sits in the camera hotshoe and one for each flash connected via PC Sync cords (note that the 580ex does not have a PC port and therefore needs a special cord with a built-in hotshoe. The 580ex II has a PC port)

The Pocket Wizard Plus II does not support E-TTL, so must be used manually (Note: Pocket Wizard now has a fully E-TTL supported receiver and transmitter for Canon). The method I use for getting the appropriate flash exposure is to use my light meter. The one I have has a strobe mode where it will not take an ambient reading until the flash is fired. For the two sessions I did below, I was going for a 1:4 ratio.

The first session was done inside the old observatory on top of the Blue Hills in Milton, MA. Somehow I managed to convince some friend to get up early un a sunday morning. I was looking for something dramatic to take advantage of the stone walls and winding staircase. So, I told my models to, "think Scooby Doo!!!" as the descended the stairs. I setup my main light to camera right and a background light to camera left. This was no easy task since there wasn't much room to work in. In hindsight, I wish I had the strongest portion of light on Rebecca in the middle to even things out.



The next session was with my wife Lisa for her PanMass image (NOTE: PanMass is a two day 180 mile ride to support the Jimmy Fund). I was going for an edgy, badass look (no small feat considering my wife is just not the badass type).

For this, I had her and her bike about 3 feet in front of a brick wall. I put my main light 45 degrees to my model at camera right and a background light to camera left.