OCF for outside action and portraits

Mike Jackson

Mike Jackson

Billy Brownnose
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Mike
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But of dogs, not hooman beans. What I'm looking at is portraiture with small groups of dogs posed in a woodland setting and action shots of dogs leaping obstacles.

Out in the open using fill flash with a hot shoe mounted flash (580ex) has worked really well but I'm thinking that I'll get some nasty shadows in a darker environment.

As far as I can see there's a few options.

1. Hotshoe mounted flash with second flash to one side and reflector to the other.

2. Hotshoe mounted flash and two flashes either side.

3. No on camera flash and a flash and reflector.

4. No on camera flash and two flashes.

Then there's controlling them. As far as I can see there's two options, radio triggers or use the 580ex as a master.

Drawback of using the 580 is I'm stuck with using canon flashes (I think). Drawback of using cheap radio triggers is I lose ETTL.

Unfortunately budget is important but I don't want to spend out on the cheap if it's not going to work, I may as well hold off until I can afford a solution that works.
 
Sounds like a plan. What's the question?

Plenty of (cheaper) third party flash options that will do E-TTL - Nissin, Metz. On-board system should work fine outside if it's a bit darker. If it doesn't, a longer cord for the master usually fixes it. Or you can throw money at Pocket Wizards, or go manual with RF-602 triggers. Softbox always makes nice light.
 
It's looking like there may be some money in it. I'm working with a local dog trainer/behaviourist (Naturally Pets). They also run a canine activity club which my wife and I are members of. I started out taking pictures at some club events just for fun. This has moved on to taking shots for the web site. For this I've got free membership of the club which saves £38 a month.

I've also been posting the pictures on my Zenfolio site and had a few sales from owners with enquiries about doing photoshoots with their dogs.

This is made a lot easier due to the fact that I have access to the enclosed fields and a private woodland owned by naturally pets. Being a training centre any dogs and owners on site are fully insured as well.

Naturally Pets also provide acting dogs for various things and we are looking at putting together some decent publicity shots. You may have seen their wolf dogs in a recent commercial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-qeE_uQAK8
 
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