Cactus Tiggers and Flashes and other noobish questions

[Matblack]

Right I have purchased myself a Catus V4 set and an extra reciever, seemed like a bit of a bargain and when I got them I thought 'that'll be OK I have an old Jessops flash and a Canon 420EX and I can use those', however now I've started to do a bit more research I am seeing that it is almost imperative that my flash units are manually adjustable.

Now neither the Jessops flash or the 420EX seem to be adjustable off camera and I'm wondering if this will be OK for playing or if I really need to source some other flashes; I suspect the later.

I know I've been a bit foolish not doing enough research and rushing ahead to buy the triggers :shake:

The question is really whats the best route forward, I'd like to have a play with off camera flash, are there older units out there which will give me the manual settings but won't cost as much as buying a 430EX?

Cheers

MB

 

[Rob.Marsh]

If you want control then you'll want manual adjustment on the flash. That or a lot of room where you can move the flash back.

I'd rocommend you take a look at Lighting 101 on Strobist.

Strobist is a blog site written by David Hobby, a photographer who specialises in using of camera flashgun techniques. A very informative site indeed.

A read of lighting 101 and you'll find yourself in a lot better informed position.

I am currently learning and playing around with off cam flash, I'm no expert but if you need help shout. There are also LOADS of members on here who are legends when it comes to help, knowledge ant great shots.

Worth looking at some of the advice Flash in the Pan dishes out on here and also Tomas Whitehouse to name but a few masters on here!

Rob

 

[steelydan]

The main reason for manually adjusting the flash is power. Most will go for flashes that can ouput power in steps full..1/4...1/2..1/8...1/16/...1/32 etc

You can still play with the flashes you have, unless they are not compatible with the flash (v4 i mean) you could reduce the amount of light by diffusing it with tissue paper or snoot (google)
Then what will happen is once you get the bug, you will want the flashes that can do all these tricks.

 

[Matblack]

That or a lot of room where you can move the flash back.

you could reduce the amount of light by diffusing it with tissue paper or snoot (google)

Thanks guys thats really helpful I hadn't really thought about things like moving the flashes further away or diffusing them, I have a little on flash diffuser I can use to tone down the Canon a bit and can improvise. I really bought these as a challenge to myself and a toy and I think they will help me to learn a lot. I glanced at Strobist 101 and need to go back to it as I haven't got my head around how to work out the power I would need even if I could adjust my flashes

Oh there is some fun ahead

MB

 

[Matblack]

Just to give you an idea, it was this kind of senario I am keen to use the flashes with

I thought I could put the flash in where the guy in the yellow T is and get a better shot of the skater without illuminating the whole ramp, what do we think ill that sort of thing work?

Thats just the start though and I know there will be lots of opertunities to impove my pictures with off camera flash

MB

 

[incapete]

Most off camera flash work has a bit of trial and error in it so just have a play.

Manual power adjustment is pretty key but one of my old flashes doesn't have this and I stop it down using Lee ND filters or just use it on full to blow out a white background.
Moving the flash away will also have a big impact (distance follows the inverse square law for the effect on the perceived flash power).
The other thing to play with is light modifiers - things like shoot-thru or reflective brollys, soft-boxes, snoots and gobos. All change the light falling on your subject.

The strobist blog is very good at this sort of thing - read it, follow the lessons (they're arranged as an American school so start with Stobist 101 and move to 102), try the assignments.

If you go to the Lee fliters website and pretend to be a lighting designer you can get a nice little free book of samples that are about the right size to fit on a flash head - you might need to make a holder of some sort though. In the book you'll get a number of useful filters like the white balancing CTO and CTB's as well as various stops of ND and obviously all the funky coloured ones for creative casts.

 

[Matblack]

Most off camera flash work has a bit of trial and error in it so just have a play.

Manual power adjustment is pretty key but one of my old flashes doesn't have this and I stop it down using Lee ND filters or just use it on full to blow out a white background.
Moving the flash away will also have a big impact (distance follows the inverse square law for the effect on the perceived flash power).
The other thing to play with is light modifiers - things like shoot-thru or reflective brollys, soft-boxes, snoots and gobos. All change the light falling on your subject.

The strobist blog is very good at this sort of thing - read it, follow the lessons (they're arranged as an American school so start with Stobist 101 and move to 102), try the assignments.

If you go to the Lee fliters website and pretend to be a lighting designer you can get a nice little free book of samples that are about the right size to fit on a flash head - you might need to make a holder of some sort though. In the book you'll get a number of useful filters like the white balancing CTO and CTB's as well as various stops of ND and obviously all the funky coloured ones for creative casts.

Thank you, I will definately work through the assignmments on Strobist and contact Lee filters

MB

 

[incapete]

Thank you, I will definately work through the assignmments on Strobist and contact Lee filters

MB

There's a good Flickr pool for Strobist work too.

It's a real shame Canon put the flash controls on-camera for that model rather than on the back.
I'd still have a play with it - you might struggle (or have to use filters) when balancing the flash against ambient light but in shots where you're just using the flash you can adjust it's impact by using the aperture controls. Wide open (low f/stop) lets lots of light in during that flash burst, closed down lets much less in. The exposure times only affect the ambient light.