outdoor flash & westcott micro apollo?

[LewisImaging]

just wondering what you guys do with your 580ex when taking shots outdoors. i'm thinking of using my westcott micro apollo, but just not sure. i've heard that the ettl doesn't work as well with it because it's so big it interfers or something. it seems to work fine but maybe i've just been lucky so far.

i haven't used it outside yet and was just wondering if it's even worth it. should i, use straight flash, or on board bounce card? let me know what you all think. thanks :)

[chris.bailey]

If the ambient light is the dominant light source, as it would be during the day then forget any sort of modifier as you will sometimes need the full power of the 580 to act as fill especially on High Speed Sync. As soon as the flash starts to become important I put a softbox on it i.e. late afternoon or in deep shade.

[LewisImaging]

cool. i suggested that i wanted to do it earlier in the morning like 10 or so. i'm also thinking of picking up a 32" reflector (still haven't gotten around to getting one), so i know that will probably take care of that problem too.

out of a 17-40L and a sig 70-200, which would you recomend? i was thinking the sigma. thanks for the help.

[tim]

I tried using a mini soft box once when half of the subjects faces were in direct sunlight and half were in shade. I took the soft box off very quickly. I rarely use it now.

Reflectors are a pain to use without an assistant.

[chris.bailey]

Reflectors are a pain to use without an assistant.

And just as much of a pain with an assistant when its windy :-)

[LewisImaging]

I tried using a mini soft box once when half of the subjects faces were in direct sunlight and half were in shade. I took the soft box off very quickly. I rarely use it now.

Reflectors are a pain to use without an assistant.

there will most likely be an assistant... well, an extra person with my guidance. lol

but i think i'll take your advice as well as others and just use the flash as is. would you recomend bouncing into the onboard card or just straight on?

[chris.bailey]

Straight on or 90% of your flash energy is going straight up into nowhere, overhead sun shadows take some knocking back

[LewisImaging]

yeah, that would make sense... man, i'm kind of out there lately. i think that would be a common sense issue lol.

[chris.bailey]

I was at a conference a few weeks back where the ceiling was about 40' up in the air and the so called event photographer had his camera with the flash pointed straight up. What he thought he was bouncing off I dont know :-)

[LewisImaging]

lol. i really can't stand some 'photographers'. there are a few around here the call themselves 'professional photographers' and they're pictures are aweful. what are they all of? girls wearing skimpy bathing suits and lingerie holding swords and fake guns. the girls for some reason think that they're great pictures and that the photographers are awesome and gods. i wish they could see what a real photographers pictures look like. it's so funny, one of them shoots with a sony DSC-R1 and had a friend with a canon and they {canon user} wanted to do a shoot with the canon instead of the sony and thy guy was like, 'hell no, my sony is so much better then that and blah blah blah.' such simpletons.

[LewisImaging]

sorry for the rant.