Help: budget flashgun?

kitschenalia

kitschenalia

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I have a Canon EOS 500.... I posted about a Christmas card shot I tried to get indoors during daytime - I'm finding without any extra lighting I'm so limited, and as a beginner, with limited time it would be good to be able to take photos in the evening too.

Here is the thread to give you an idea of what I'm trying to achieve:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=2126948#post2126948


Would this be helped by a flashgun? I can't afford a proper Canon Speedlite but I could stretch to a Jessops own make one and diffusor bag.... would it be worth spending the money, to increase my photography "hours"?

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/76123/show.html

OR:

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/67557/show.html

Or even a real cheapy like this:

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/35585/show.html

Would it be worth buying one of those adaptors to raise it up also? Like this (not sure if the metal pole is included here?):

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/9105/show.html

thank you :)
 
I use a Jessops 300D with my Canon, as bounce (just learnt why I do that yesterday!). OK, it's not dedicated but it will not kill your flash circuits and it has a built-in slave trigger. I can use it off camera and keep the on camera pop up as fill. I can pretty much put it on a shlef pointing where I want it and the camera flash sets it off. Of course, not too far awy or the camera flash is not enough to trigger it but consider a slave flash as an option also... especially as it means I can use it with any camera.

Arthur
 
Get a YN460 from Flash in the Pan for £35. Works perfectly well - rotates all the way, and he sells omni-bouce-type things for £3.

Definitely worth playing around with, I love my flashes now :D
 
Arthur, do you mean this one?

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/35585/show.html

So I get a bit confused - I thought it was best to avoid on camera flash as it will wash subjects out? I'm not sure I know how fill in flash works - is it the camera that works out how much extra light is needed (rather than something you control yourself)?

thanks for the help :)
 
Um, the on-camera flash is the pop-up one, you'd need to be real close for it to wash out. The one I mean is the 300D , not AFD, but pretty much any slave flash will do the same job.

Arthur
 
I don't think he has a website, but you can see what he has for sale on this thread http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=157807

I've ordered a fair bit of stuff and the service is excellent, and he has laods of good feedback from other members, plus he'll answer any (even stupid) questions you have about setting stuff up.

Also have seen the Strobist website? Not for buying stuff, but for learning how to do flash - http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html Really excellent for learning.

The YN604 one has 180 degree movement on the head, and you can also move rotate it sideways so you can still bounce when you holding the camera in portrait.
 
Anna, thank you. I've now set aside the cheaper of the flashguns in my local Jessops, JUST because it made sense - none available online, none in Aberdeen, but one sitting waiting for me in an even nearer town that I need to go to later today, so I can have it today.

I've had a look at his thread though and there is some other stuff I want so I think I will def. use him!

Thanks for the link to the strobist page, I will check that out, I don't know where to begin :)
 
Oops! crossed post with Anna :D

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Link to Flash In The Pan's page on here http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=157807

To the OP, TBH if you know what you're doing you can get very good results with modest equipment - it's how you use it, not the equipment itself. This applies particularly to flash and while there's nothing that difficult about it you need to understand how light works with a bit of learning and experience.

The only way to really do that is to have a go, and you can get some fabulous results with a a hot-shoe gun. I would get an auto-exposure model as opposed to the really cheap manual-only guns, and a reasonable amount of power. Nissin seems to offer a lot for about £100 I think.

Here is the shortest lesson in flash photography ever written!

The bigger the light source, the softer the light. Eg, small light source like direct flash casts harsh shadows, big light source like a softbox or bounced off a ceiling/wall gives soft shadows. The closer the light, the bigger it gets relative to the subject.

Inverse square law - double the distance equals one quarter the brightness. This is how light falls off over distance, ie if one area of your subject is one meter away from the light, another area two meters away will have one quarter of the brightness falling on it. That's two stops, which is the difference between white and mid-grey, ie a lot. Understand the inverse square law!

Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. That is, light bounces off a surface (ceiling, reflector etc) at the same angle that it strikes it - same as a snooker ball off the cushion.

I would get the Nissin and also a reflector - make one with a sheet of 2x3ft white card and stick silver foil on the other side. That will get you going with loads of potential if you use walls and ceilings creatively to bounce the flash off, plus the reflector to fill in the shadow side.

Good luck :)

Edit: handy trick for really easy/good flash pics is to use a bounce card, or hi-lite panel. Many flash guns have one built in. Makes an amazing difference. Have a look here at a tutorial www.abetterbouncecard.com The old fella's a hoot and he talks sense :lol:
 
Hoppy, thank you :)

I now understand a bit more! Will make a reflector tonight..... I'll look at getting the one you suggested a bit later on, when I have more money. Although I HAVE the money, I am supposed to be replenishing the money used on the camera and oops, I haven't done that yet - I think the £35 will make me more popular ;)
 
I don't think you realise how expensive a hobby this is when you first get into it, thinking you only have to buy the camera - but it sucks you in and you want EVERYTHING! One of the shops near me told me lots of people leave the boxes so they can sneak that new lens into their camera bag without their partner knowing ;)
 
kitschenalia said:
Hoppy, thank you :)

I now understand a bit more! Will make a reflector tonight..... I'll look at getting the one you suggested a bit later on, when I have more money. Although I HAVE the money, I am supposed to be replenishing the money used on the camera and oops, I haven't done that yet - I think the £35 will make me more popular ;)
Click to expand...

You're welcome bud. Hope it helps. It took me many years to realise that those three things posted above are the key factors that make light do what it does.

Cheaper guns are fine. Just make sure that if it's manual-only that you have a power switch to vary the output, or it will be much harder to control. If it's got E-TTL then that will take care of the exposure for you and saves messing about checking the LCD/histogram all the time.

If you find yourself running out of light, which is quite possible if you're bouncing off the ceiling for example, then doubling the ISO effectively doubles the power of the flash and using a lower f/number does the same. By juggling these two controls you can work in a wide range of situations.
 
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