Pro on my shoulder
posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 in Photographers Matt Adcock
I've been doing a bit of jet setting lately and recently ended up in a beautiful outdoor Atlanta city setting for David & Laura's wedding. The day prior to the wedding, Laura told me that she spoke on the phone to her future Father-in-law for the first time every! He had a ton of questions about ME and when I was shooting and where etc.... I knew from the beginning that David's father was a photographer. I didnt have a problem with the father of the groom toting around a rig and shooting all night, if that is what he wanted to do. However, laura informed me that he was forbidden to pick up a camera until the reception :)
Wedding day, I meet Van White. Van tells me that his photography club in Virgina is anxiously waiting to see the photographs from his son's wedding... Initially, its a bit of pressure when you start to shoot for a man and woman to be wed and one of the fathers is a pro, standing right next to you on just about every frame. Every now and then, asking questions and getting answers from me... Hopefully he was able to have fun and not drool over the 85 1.2 and the 50 1.2 that I was using :) He also had his eye on my Radio Poppers....
I just wanted to say THANKS to Van and give a shout out to his photography club. Cheers Amigos!
Bottom line to our style and approach... having fun. It also helps to keep the mindset to love your clients. If the love is equally shared, it always makes for a bigger improvement in your delivery.
Cheers!
Here was one of my favorite flashflavor images from the wedding: 1 off camera slave triggered by pocket wizard.
ISO 400 F3.2 at 1/200
I really loved the illumination on the side of her face opposite to the strobe.....likely spill from his white collar. Oh, just so you know: I used and St-E2 with a pocket wizard velcrowed to the top for the entire wedding. NO on camera flash for ANY of my shots. My associate did use a bit of on camera bounce...
Check out David & Laura's slideshow if you want to take a peek at the rest of the day!
Cheers and thanks for taking the time to read FF.
mateo
ISO 400 F3.2 at 1/200
I really loved the illumination on the side of her face opposite to the strobe.....likely spill from his white collar. Oh, just so you know: I used and St-E2 with a pocket wizard velcrowed to the top for the entire wedding. NO on camera flash for ANY of my shots. My associate did use a bit of on camera bounce...
Check out David & Laura's slideshow if you want to take a peek at the rest of the day!
Cheers and thanks for taking the time to read FF.
mateo
12 comments for "Pro on my shoulder"
Matt,
what setting was your remote flash set to?
Not sure if this should be on here or in the flickr pool, but i'm getting frustrated!
I got my first pocket wizards the other day. So now in my arsenal I have two pw plus 2s, an st-e2, a 430ex and a 580ex and it appears still next to no wireless capability!
I didn't realise connecting the 580 and 430 to pw's required expensive aftermarket cables! Am I better buying these (i'm in UK and sourcing them locally seems impossible) or buying cheap vivitar 285s or nikon sb24s?
If this sort of post isn't meant to be here, I apologize, I just really want to join the wireless lighting cool kids!
Thanks,
Ian
I got an email from a FF reader about the batteries for the ST-E2.
Here is the link to the rechargeable battery:
Thomas Distributing
No need for an assistant on this one. I used a stand in the against the wall to hold a bare nikon sb-28 aimed at the crowd of people...
Assistants are VERY handy though, highly recommend you bring one if you can.
The auto focus assist really works like a champ and without all the weight of the 580, yeay :)
Ahhh. That makes sense about using the ST-E2 as ONLY autofocus assist. So what did you use for your off-camera strobe? Speedlight w/ umbrella on a monopod? I'm guessing you must shoot with an assistant?
Thanks.
Ah, the world of off camera flash! Thanks for answering those queries. I've just purchased my first set of pocket wizards, was holding out for radio poppers because i'm more familiar with ettl but living in Scotland, it seems we may be in for a bit of a wait. And with weddings imminent I want to get creative with some (pardon the cheesy-ness) FLASH FLAVOR!
Cheers,
Ian
Cheers to you from the Virginia Beach Photography Club! I'm an active member there and we appreciate you taking the time to give a shout our way. We can be found at www.vbpc.org and we have a lot of talented members - Van White is one of them!
Yep, Greg is Correct.
Although I did use the ST-E2 with the popper at some points during this wedding, I also used the ST-E2 as an Auto Focus Assist ONLY. The top batter door gets velcro, and the pocket wizard just sticks on. I plug into the pc port on the camera.
Without a flash ON camera, the weight of the body is significantly less allowing us more maneuverability. If you are always dialing down the exposure on your flash and using an off camera source, try using NO on camera flash and only the ST-E2. You may be surprised!
Cheers & thanks for dropping by,
mateo
Matt y Sol,
Que Linda! Once more you continue to convey that look and feel specific to the artistas. I wanted to comment specificly on the first image with the book very nice use of light with the shadow. One might almost think that was P|S CS3 in action. This pic on the main post, I think could use a hint of exposure. Any way thanks for the post.
Rating: Duelce Muy Duelce y Suave!
I just checked out my ST-E2, thinking that I must have missed a pc socket or something. I'm wondering how you hooked up a Pocket Wizard? For my last wedding I used a Radio Popper on mine, but would like the flexibility of using a Pocket Wizard to get a little more 'umph' out of an umbrella light. With the RP, you're limited to ettl (which isn't a bad thing -- don't get me wrong).
Let us know how you hooked up your ST-E2!
Dave
Hey Ian, no the St-E2 is Canon's stand alone ETTL IR trigger, if you were to use a radio popper it would be in conjunction with the ST-E2 I would explain but thats another kettle of fish entirely.
The reason for using the ST-E2 is not as a trigger but for it's AF assist beam.
Greg.
Really great set of images, they're so clean and sharp! I guess the 1.2 lenses are pretty sweet!
I might be missing something, but you say you had an st-e2 with a pocket wizard on the top for the whole shoot, do you mean a radio popper?
Was there a lot of flash used in the images? Its really subtle if so!
Thanks, and great blog btw!
Ian