[HUG ] Re: Tote Dat Barge

> Dear Friends,    
>  
>  And Lift Dat Bale, And get a little drunk and you can¹t focus, even with an
> acute matte screen. Which is why I abstain at weddings ­ a professional
> necessity but a real pain after 9:00 PM. Being the only sober person in a room
> full of drunks is no fun.
>  
>                 But I digress, I have done another wedding and tried a new
> tack. I took a leaf from some of the wedding manuals and set up a subsidiary
> light to banish some of the darkness from the reception hall behind the main
> subjects. This is old hat to other workers in the field but as I wear old hats
> anyway and this one seems to fit. I cannot say it has saved some shots and
> others where the flash has been in the field of view are distinctly worse, but
> overall I think it has lightened the atmosphere. No-one likes a gloomy
> wedding, unless it is a Goth wedding. Then gloom is charged for as an extra.
>  
>                 I envy the Nikon digital workers who seem to be able to set up
> battery ­powered SB 800¹s that slave off their cameras with no complex wiring
> and little extra weight. Whether an SB 800 would stand up to 100+ continuous
> flashes in rapid succession is another thing, but the system seems like a
> convenient portable studio.
>  
>                 My real reason for this posting, in addition to getting the
> list jump-started yet again, is to ask if anyone has a really viable
> suggestion for a flash diffuser or modifier that will improve the on-camera
> results that I get from my standard old Metz CT-1 or CL-1 flashes. I mount
> them up on a handgrip plus bracket that puts the tube above the centreline of
> the lens but I cannot for the life of me think of an effective add-on softbox
> that would be usable without occluding the thyristor sensor. Any ideas?
>  
> Uncle Dick
> 

I can speak for the SB 800¹s and nikon flashes in general as being
consistently annoyingly excellent and durable. And right on the money.
They¹ll just flash all day.
And when they¹re done flashing.
They¹ll flash some more.

Bot I gotta say this is focused light.
And the minute you put a diffuser over it of any kind you force a flash like
that to exert itself.
That said the built in diffuser and bouncer but I sometimes wonder if
they¹re worth it if I¹m going ot be flashing for hours at a time.
And you don¹t need battery packs any more the nikon flashes run fine on
double a¹s for hours.

I¹d think you could set up a studio strobe in the corder of the room and
bounce it off the ceiling to make for a less tunnel visioned event. I¹d
never done that but plenty have but I¹d have someone with another flash with
a slave running around. Lighting up behind them and the backs of their
heads.

TTL does simplify things as far as diffusers go.
As does full manual. Like using the Norman 200c which I¹d don¹t extensively.
You just make a card and paste it to the back of your flash and or on your
lens shade telling you which distances get which f stops.
And you pick a distance and stick with it.
F 11 and 5 feet for instance.
I can shoot f11 at five feet and be there for an hour.
What ever happens. I get 5 feet from it.
Run up and when I hit 5 feet I flash the thing.

Mark William Rabiner
markrabiner.com

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