New Toys

Picked these up on Ebay the other week. Four Yongnuo speedlites with a WIFI controller (already had the camera). I've been wanting to get more portable gear so I thought I'd explore flash photography. I've been a constant light guy for a while, but 1k's are getting heavy to lug around and they take a lot of juice to run. Also picked up two white umbrellas and two smallish softboxes. One softbox I'm currently modifying the speedring to accept both flash and two 4000 lumen LED bulbs.

That's quite a haul! I have two Canon 600EX-RT (Radio Controlled) that I bought from the Canon Refurb store at a steep discount from a new. But for the controller, I bought the Yongnuo version for about $80 (Compared to almost $300 for the Canon version). So far the Yongnuo controller has been working like a champ! I have heard good things about the Yongnuo flashes and if I ever get any additional speed lights, they will probably be Yongnuos.

Finished building the flash mount. Started with 3/16" flat bar aluminum to make the rings. The base of the bracket is 3/8".

Mounted to a stand.

And with the softbox attached.

Ok, here's a dumb question - why did you build your own flash mount rather than just buy one ready made?

I looked on the Ebay seller's store and didn't really see what I wanted. Me being me, I also like making things. At some point, I want to make aluminum fenders for my car. So any chance I get to break out the torch to weld, I take it.

This is what separates success from the mundane. By that I mean: the ones who "customize" their gear will get results they want. Those who don't get results they must settle with.

Use everything from cellophane wrappers in front of a lens (to soften an image) to a styrofoam cup in front of a flash unit (to soften the flash harshness).

Be inventive.

I'm very inventive. I often employ a thumb in front of the lens!

LOL, with a 400mm lens, a real talent!

Not to mention a looong reach!

Greg: Are the threads all still 1/4"x20 (TPI)?

Yep. Surprisingly, the move to metric hasn't happened.

Greg; RF trigger?

These are the 560III's. They can slave optically or RF. Max sync speed is 1/200. The commander for them can control 6 groups with both power and zoom remotely. The newer 685's can sync to 1/4000, but the commander for them only has 3 groups. It is always a compromise.

Slick.

You've set some rusty cogs turnin' y'know.

"Painting" a room for interior shots is a viable market yet. Realtors and "staging" outfits seem to do a crummy job of interior photos.

That could be fun. The reason I went with rf was so I could bury the flash in a soft box and not worry about triggering it with a master flash. In the first photo, you'll notice each flash has a letter on it. A,B,C. Those correspond to each group on the commander. A is always my key and B is the fill. C=hairlight and D is background or a special. That way I always know which group to adjust when shooting. You could also set several flashes on the same group so they could be adjusted with fewer buttons pushed. An example would be if you wanted light coming in a couple windows. You could set flashes outside all grouped to D.

BTW, those cogs were turned all by yourself.