Well I guess it had to happen. It’s been a while and I needed to get out the flashes and do something with them again. Of course the easiest model to use has always been myself unfortunately but until I get one of those heads they use at the beauty school I’ll have to do. Since I started reading the “Speedliters Handbook” by Syl Arena I’ve been itching to get out the lights so I finally did today. Forgot how one of the flashes test fire worked so I thought my batteries were dead and I needed to charge them up. I did need to charge but I ended up doing this way too late as usual but at least I have all 3 lights and how they work clear in my head now. Just wish I had cleaned my specs off first.

OK. I’ve tried to refrain from this but it has to be done occasionally. I got a 3rd strobe and need to start working with it to see what I can do. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the lighting info and now I don’t remember all but I did have the 430EX II and reflective umbrella high camera right and the Vivatar and shoot thru umbrella low camera left fired with the optical slave. I had my new (old) promaster flash as a hair light with the Honl grid. This was fired with a Promaster module as a slave. The Canon strobe was fired with the RadioPopper JrX and the main light.
And Oh yeah. I used some Topaz Adjust and PS filters to try and pretty the portrait up. (ha! ha!)

The title tells. I often find that for the self-portrait I look way too serious. On this one I put on the EF-s 55-250mm lens. Not my favorite but part of the reason I bought it was decent reviews so I best take a better look at it. Since I have a camera that can go higher in the ISO range than the previous one it will open up new possibilities.
The lighting on this is a single 430EX II high camera right bounced off a white umbrella at 1/4 power fired with the RadioPopper JrX. Post processing with Topaz Adjust and a pass with Exposure Correction and then a pass of Portrait Drama.

Same old boring model but at least he was there when I needed him. Got a new umbrella from Amazon yesterday and got some heavy duty light stands from someone on Craigslist last week. It’s a good thing because the umbrella is bigger than my older ones which make the old cheap light stands a bit wobbly.
My lighting here a Canon 430EX II high camera right bounced with a Westcott 45″ White umbrella and fired at 1/4 power with a RadioPopper JrX. Shot at f6.3 and 1/200th of a second shutter.

Working with 2 lights tonight and ended up going too underexposed and found out that, yes, more rather than less light. I did some fixing (can’t really do that much yet) and then made lightly saturated sepia look.
The lighting was with the Canon 430EX II high camera right at 1/4 power bounced with the umbrella and fired with the RadioPopper JrX and the Vivitar 285HV at 1/16 power shot though a white umbrella and fired with the Sonia Optical Slave. It was all done at 1/200 at f8 and ISO 100. Should have been ISO 200 and then maybe the lighting would have been enough.

Bad lighting. The good thing about mistakes is if you can learn then they are not wasted. Got a shadow where I didn’t need or want one. Hopefully I’ll not make that mistake again.
The lighting info:
Canon 430EX II high camera right fired @ 1/2 bounced off an umbrella with the RadioPopper JrX and my Vivitar @ 1/4 power low camera left fired with the Sonia optical slave with the Honl snoot opened for a reflector.

First time with the RadioPoppers on the new 550D. Work fine. Of course we knew they would.
Canon 430EX II high camera left bounced with a white brella fired at 1/2 power with the Radiopopper. f8 at 1/200.

Not sure which I like best the shoot through or bounce but this is a single with a bounce again. Of course I often wish I had a better looking model to work with on a regular basis but we do with what we have.
Speaking of what we have this is getting near the end of pictures with this Canon. I will soon be selling it and moving to a newer model. It’s been just about 3 years this wonderful camera and I’ve enjoyed those 3 years but it’s time to move on.
Lighting is the Canon 430EX II high camera left at 1/4 power with the RP JrX.

I almost got it in the frame. Having myself as a model has the good points and bad. I am available when needed. That’s good, I guess. Sometimes though it seems to be hard to get centered horizontally in the frame. That’s bad. Unless of course that is what you are going for.
Tonight I wanted to be a little more centered because I was after the second strobe to be about a 180 degrees from the key light.
So here is the lighting:
Canon 430EX II high camera right fired @ 1/8 power through the shoot-thru umbrella with the RadioPopper JrX and my Vivitar @ 1/16 power fired with the Sonia optical slave through a Honl snoot.

First of all I am going back in time with the numbering here as I have some how gotten off track. Since most of these go to my blog it seems to be a bit messy changing the name later so now I am back to the right number of shots, 64.
After listening to an all about flash podcast by lensflare35 and the Digital Experience group I wanted to try my honl snoot for the back lighting. I guess it turned out OK (but not great).
So here is the lighting:
Canon 430EX II high camera right fired @ 1/8 power through the shoot-thru umbrella with the RadioPopper JrX.
Vivitar @ 1/4 power fired with the Sonia optical slave through a Honl snoot. Post processing is with Silver Efex Pro.