Ok, so I'm shooting a wedding in Atlanta GA on May 16, a week or so ago. I knew that one of my old clients (bride & groom) would be there as guests, and the reason I actually had the job in the first place (word of mouth referral is so strong). I enter the reception and low and behold, I see a camera operator with a DSLR and an off camera EX series Canon Strobe.
I scratch my head and focus in on the only other guy in the room at the moment using flashflavor other than my assistant...Wait a minute, Here is My groom from 3 years ago! He leans in and goes on about classes that both of them are taking and how he loves going everywhere using the slave setup. WOW, way to go guys! I never got a chance to scan his photos, hopefully he will send me a link when he finishs editing.
Good to see Matt & Alysia again.... I never knew FF was that addictive!
Here is the recent shoot with my client setting up some off camera action:
3 years before his addition
Cheers Amigos, Glad you are addicted :)
Mateo
On top of the speaker—awesome! That’s how I started with reception off-camera-flash… Good times, good times. (okay, now I’ll stop polluting your comment box… though I’ll keep on reading)
One trick I did learn is that you can hit the FEL (asterisk button) to pre-flash your pop-up. After FEL is set, the body won’t pre-flash again for another 10-15 secs. If you hide the pop-up (cover it with your hand) from the optical slave while hitting FEL you can save your strobe’s juice for main exposure. This isn’t nearly as cool as CLS, but might save you the hassle of breaking out triggers/sync cords for a quick shot…
Yeah, fo’ sho’...Canon pop up cannot trigger Canon 580 series (or 430’s or even 550’s for that matter). You need either a 580 series/550 set as master or an STE2 on camera to directly trigger another Canon 580 series/550/430 Speedlite. Nikon got Canon beat in the Speedlite area (and I am a Canon shooter!) as you can do that with a Nikon. Of course there are other methods, but we are talking about the possibility of using the pop up to trigger a Canon Speedlite directly here…
i know from experience how addictive it is! and it doesnt help to be constantly inspired by people like you matt!
He and another gentlemen were using another DSLR that actually had a fong dome on it. I believe they were trading back & forth assisting one another. The flash on the speaker is Matt’s, so they were able to use this system together. I’ve asked David Christensen, my 2nd shooter if he had any photos of Matt using the fong dome :)
good catch though, are you sure canon can’t trigger a slave with its popup? I’ve never tried nikon or canon, so I didnt know.
So, how on earth is he triggering that off camera EX strobe? You can’t use the pop up with Canon (like you can with Nikon) and I dont see a trigger on his DSLR? Mystery.
Matt (or Matt),
Between your inspirational shots and the learning resources provided by Hobby/McNally it’s impossible to NOT become a flash junkie.
So I see a 430/580 and a Canon DSLR body with the pop-up up. I know Nikon’s bodies can do their CLS with the pop-up but as far as I know Canon bodies don’t do that—I thought one needed a 580ex or st-e2 to be a commander. In fact, even if it was a simple optical slave, Canon doesn’t even have a way to disable the pre-flash :( Was Matt triggering his flash with some other trigger?
Great shots! Thanks for sharing!
-Miles
Great shots!