Are cheap and cheerful slave flashes any good?

[Simpo Two]

bernhund said:

Simpo Two said:

bernhund said:

My daughter needs me to take some 'head shots' for her musical theatre uni course, so thought this could be the way to go. Any advice on distance from backdrop to avoid strong shadows? I'm hoping a flash each side will cancel one another.

No, you'll just get a shadow on each side. What you need is a diffuse light source - the quickest and decently effective way is to point your 910 skywards about 60 degrees and pull the white card out (if it has one, not sure) for a catchlight in the eyes.

Noted, thank you.

I should add that this method ('bounce flash') only works indoors with suitable ceilings (eg house, not barn!). It not only diffuses the light - the subject is lit by a big area on the ceiling not a point source - but throws what shadow there is down behind the subject, out of sight.

If you're shooting portrait format (ie vertical) then swivel the flash head round so it still points towards the ceiling. You can of course bounce it off a wall, it depends what effect you want.

Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 15th December 20:18

[bernhund]

Simpo Two said:

bernhund said:

Simpo Two said:

bernhund said:

My daughter needs me to take some 'head shots' for her musical theatre uni course, so thought this could be the way to go. Any advice on distance from backdrop to avoid strong shadows? I'm hoping a flash each side will cancel one another.

No, you'll just get a shadow on each side. What you need is a diffuse light source - the quickest and decently effective way is to point your 910 skywards about 60 degrees and pull the white card out (if it has one, not sure) for a catchlight in the eyes.

Noted, thank you.

I should add that this method ('bounce flash') only works indoors with suitable ceilings (eg house, not barn!). It not only diffuses the light - the subject is lit by a big area on the ceiling not a point source - but throws what shadow there is down behind the subject, out of sight.

If you're shooting portrait format (ie vertical) then swivel the flash head round so it still points towards the ceiling. You can of course bounce it off a wall, it depends what effect you want.

Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 15th December 20:18

Cheers, this will give me something to do over Christmas. And if my daughter gets bored; the cat's gonna get it instead!

[vexed]

So what would i need to use with the 1200d to take advantage of the built in wireless on one of those?

[Berz]

vexed said:

So what would i need to use with the 1200d to take advantage of the built in wireless on one of those?

A YongNuo RF-603 transceiver mounted on the camera hot shoe should trigger the built in wireless on the YongNuo 560 III flash. I don't have that flash to confirm. If it doesn't (even though all the questions and comments on amazon say it does), the transceivers come in packs of two so you would put the second transceiver on the bottom of the flash to trigger it when the one on the camera fires.

[_dobbo_]

I went through this process - a couple of Vivitar flashes alongside my Nikon SB600 coupled initially with light triggers (crap) then cheapo wireless ones (much better).

Testing found that getting all three to fire at once was hit and miss!



All good fun but I feel for any kind of serious work you'll end up spending as much as buying a proper flash and sticking the camera in commander mode...

When it works it's fun though!

[pidsy]

$92 gets you the yongnuo yn-560 I ii with wireless trigger:

http://yongnuo.eachshot.com/product/yongnuo-yn-560...

Very tempted myself.

[Digitalize]

Get the 560-IIIs. There's literally no reason not to.

[Golaboots]

bernhund said:

Thank you gentlemen. I might invest in the sb-r200 to be sure it's all compatible and reliable.
My daughter needs me to take some 'head shots' for her musical theatre uni course, so thought this could be the way to go. Any advice on distance from backdrop to avoid strong shadows? I'm hoping a flash each side will cancel one another.

Worth checking in the menus of your camera, my D200 can control speedlites from the pop up flash and has options for different groups etc. I think this has been present on all midrange and up Nikons since the D80 or so.