New Pocket Wizards!
- This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated Dec 12, 2009 at 1:34 am by
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I haven’t sprung for the PW’s yet, but I do have a cheap-o wireless trigger (Cactus) that’s served me pretty well. So far, I haven’t gotten any really great shots with it, but it’s fun to play with.
Most of the time, I just use Nikon’s built in wireless flash capability – I find that things are too fluid in the field to spend the time fiddling with manual flash settings, so the ability to use ttl metering with the off camera flash is great. I’m sure you get a lot faster with experience, but I’m certainly not there yet.
A couple of off-camera flash shots:
In this one, the angler was in deep shadow, so I needed the flash to bring him back up with the ambient (you can see the edge of the shadow at about his elbow):
Edit: the flash is up and to the right outside the frame – roughly where the sun would’ve come from if it hadn’t been blocked by the root ball of a huge downed tree.I agree … Opens up the door to some very cool ideas. I have an Alien Bee’s setup and still need to add a flash or two. I have a couple of more creative projects in mind. Hopefully, I will get around to actually executing them this summer. Other than that mostly portrait type stuff up til now …
Matt,
I agree with you about the “Commander Control” built in by Nikon. I use it all the time. I have been mounting my flashes to tripods and using the Nikon commander mode to control my flashes. It is also nice to hand hold or have someone else hold an off shoe flash with this setup. The down side to this is that you have to have the built in camera flash up or another speed light attached to your camera body in order to use this mode. If I want to eliminate having flash on the body there is no way to trigger my off shoe flashes. Having the PW’s will give more flex and range. They are def. on my list this year.
PS.
Matt,
The down side to this is that you have to have the built in camera flash up or another speed light attached to your camera body in order to use this mode. If I want to eliminate having flash on the body there is no way to trigger my off shoe flashes. Having the PW’s will give more flex and range. They are def. on my list this year.Jason,
You may already know this, but if you don’t want any on-camera flash in the final image, you can use the pop-up (assuming your camera has one) as the commander, but select “–” in place of “TTL” in the commander menu on the camera.
JayMorr, you’re too nice. Thank you my friend!
Matt beat me to it but yes, you can set the camera mounted ‘master’ to ‘off’ (—). You can also leave it on and set it way low to fill some shadows a titch. BTW, you can increase the commander mode range by using two SB800’s w/ a G. Fong type diffuser on the camera mounted 800 ‘master’, and keeping the window of the remote 800 (or 600) facing you. The 800 gives you lots more punch than the built in and you can aim it.
Here are a few samples of wireless flash rescuing the day and making people happy:
With the food shot, I simply had someone hold the diffused unit above and behind the plate and let the rest splash on the background w/ good results.
The night shot is obvious with a wizarded strobe (or three) illuminating the tent, fire and moonlight doing the rest. (With wizards, you can hit the button as many times as you like on night shots).
And finally on the third shot of the tent and dog, the tent (although white) was a black hole photographically with nowhere to put a stand/ strobe and still pull off a natural feel. And World Cast Anglers really wanted it to look more inviting to help sell their overnight trips etc. My ‘eureka moment’ was deciding to simply put the speedlight w/’fong’ right on the far wall nightstand, gel it really warm, and ‘voila,—> instant lantern. 😀
db
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