hybrid 580 430. Fill or key light?

[puzzle]

Hi Folks,

A friend of mine has asked me to shoot some pics of her, to make a calender for a Christmas gift for her boyfriend. Eager to accept the challenge, of course I said yes and now have 3 days to prepare (shooting this Sunday). I shots I am hoping to acheive will be basic portraits and gamour shots.

I have a 580exii and a 430exii, I have also ordered some Cactus v4's but unfortunately they will not arrive in time for this shoot.

As I have no wireless triggers I will be forced to use the 580ii on camera as the master to trigger my 430exii off camera set to slave. As the 580exii will have to remain on my camera's hotshoe would it be better to use the 580 as a fill light and my 430exii as the key light regardless that the 580exii is a more powerful flash?

If firing both flash's using the 430 as a key light and 580 as fill light how do the contrast ratio's work? In order to acheive a ratio of 1:2 would I need to increase the 430exii to +1 stop over the 580exii or would I need to consider the differences in the maximum output of the 2 flash's and increase the 430 by more than 1 stop in order to acheive the desired contrast ratio?

Considering the fact that using the 580 on camera limits my lighting schemeoptions, would it perhaps be better to turn off the 580's flash and simply use it as a wireless trigger to fire my 430?

Has anyone worked using only speedlites in a similar way before? The shoot will take place in a friends apartment using scenes such as the bed, sofa, arm chairs etc ... Normal daylight ambient should also be available. I have some stofen diffusers and some DIY bounce cards so im hopefully all set for the shoot. any tips?

[PacAce]

If you haven't seen my tutorial on using multiple EX flashes in an ETTL wireless configuration, you might be interested in giving it a look:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=386863

To answer your first question, if the 580EX is going to be sitting on top of the camera, it has to be used as a fill light rather than the main. Otherwise, you'll basically end up with amounts to flat lighting.

As for the ratios, if you want a 2:1 (main to fill) ratio, you would need to set the ratio on the flash to 1:2. The ratio on the flash are in units of intensity ratio than stops so a 3:1 stop ratio would be 1:4 on the flash and a 4:1 ratio would be 1:8 on the flash. Be aware that the actual ratio results you get may not be what you thought you had specified on the flash. This is because the camera determines the ratio by reading the reflected light from the flashes which is not always accurate. You'll need to check the resulting image and adjust the ratio on the flash accordingly.

The first number in the flash ratio represents the intensity of the master or Group A flash. And the second number represents the slave or Group B flash. So, if you took the 580EX off camera and wanted to use that as the main light and the 430EX as the fill light and wanted to use a 2:1 ratio, then the ratio on the master would need to be set to 2:1 instead of 1:2 as was done in the previous scenario. (I hope I didn't confuse you with this paragraph).

Good luck.

[gonzogolf]

Puzzle,
This is a scenario where a long ocf cable is really useful. I know you just bought wireless triggers, but if you ever want to retain ettl and still not have your master tied to the camera look at one of those.

[puzzle]

Thanks guys for your really useful posts !!

Pac, I'm not sure why I didn't find your tutorial before, I think I needed to run a search under "EX" flash and not "speedlite" flash but it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for, thanks for sharing.

Gonzo, I will certainly consider an extra long ocf (canon off shoe flash?) cable for the future. I'm having some trouble finding one longer than 3" however and I think that I will have to wait for another pay day to come by before investing in more equipment, but it's a great suggestion.

[puzzle]

On second thoughts, rather than firing the 580 directly towards the subject, would it not be possible and beneficial to turn the flash to the side and bounce the light off of a large reflector to light the subject from the side?

This would give a softer fill light and would avoid the mentioned flat lighting acheived by shooting dead towards the subject?

[gonzogolf]

On second thoughts, rather than firing the 580 directly towards the subject, would it not be possible and beneficial to turn the flash to the side and bounce the light off of a large reflector to light the subject from the side?

This would give a softer fill light and would avoid the mentioned flat lighting acheived by shooting dead towards the subject?


Its certainly possible and it would soften your light, as long as its coming from the direction you want.

[dpds68]

Good suggestions here .

And you will find a long ETTL Cable here

http://www.flashzebra.com/ttlcords/ettlcords/index.shtml

[dustyporch]

On second thoughts, rather than firing the 580 directly towards the subject, would it not be possible and beneficial to turn the flash to the side and bounce the light off of a large reflector to light the subject from the side?


Bingo. That would be what I would do.

[puzzle]

So yesterday I went ahead with the shoot using the 580 on camera reflecting off of a home made reflector. (painting canvas/ wooden board covered by silver tin foil) Thanks to you guys, it worked out great and I'm very happy with the results although setting up the shots was a bit of a pain without the OCF cable, unfortunately my budget just didn't allow for that :(

Hoping to post some examples from the shoot soon!