Mini Studio on a (shoestring) Budget

[Loupey]

All this high tech / high $$$ talk about lighting made me bring out my little optical flash trigger that I haven't used since getting my Canon ST-E2 infrared flash trigger.

A LOT can still be done with these little optical units. I think I bought mine for about $15. And everyone has at least one old strobe sitting around. Attach one of these babies and now you have a remotely operated flash.

Just a quick example:

#1) on camera 430EX flash direct-on (yuck! example only!) - no remote flash
#2) on camera 430EX flash bounced 180-degrees back over my head - no remote flash
#3) same as #2 but with remote flash triggered from about 8' directly in front of me and bounced up onto the ceiling.

All three with identical Photoshop post-processing.

#4) the bugger itself
#5) the bugger on my spare Metz - look ma, no wires!

A surprising level of work can be done with these little buggers. Play around and experiment with different manual flash output levels to achieve what you are looking for.

[Frog]

Interesting.
Flash and artificial light are my very weakest point with the camera.
I used to hate flash photography until I saw what happens when people know what they are doing use it.
I don't even have a seprate flash for my d80 yet and will have to see if my old flashes from my 35 might work.
I'm also going to experiment with a light i have for seasonal affective disorder(SAD) as it is a full spectrum light, can be adjusted from dim to very bright and I could build blocking pieces for it so that the light could be focused.
I have an old movie screen that I think could be used for an effective reflector.
Just stuff I'm thinking of to stay on the cheap side.

[Loupey]

Frog, whatever works is my motto If the results are greater than the means, then success has been achieved!

As long as you don't mix light from different sources, your full spectrum light will work fine. Just make sure to adjust the white balance (either manually or let the D80 do it) and you're ready.



Forgot to mention that these optical slaves are easily fooled by the pre-flash fired from most newer flashes. Even simple point-and-shoot cameras use a pre-flash pulse when the flash is used. In my example, I was using the main flash in manual mode which does not fire the pre-flash.