Flash lightning for outdoor modelphotography in sunny weather ?

It's a while ago I did modelphotography and I forgot a lot of things, hopefully you can help remind me (even on a lazy saturday :lol

1. With this sunny weather I would work with +-ISO100, I have the 580 EXII, does this flash settle the intensity itself via ETTLII or is there a big chance that I need to compensate it lower manually ? Should I use the white card or diffusor cap instead of direct flash?

2. I have no studio, but a while ago I bought a beautydish which I would love to test outside, could this be an advantage as a frontlight instead of the 580 EXII or would everything be too bright ? It's silver colour (strongest intensity), but I have a difforsorcap.

3. Do most modelphotographers work with 1 or 2 flashes outside? When you photograph against the sun you have automatically a hairlight, but then you are fixed to the composition.

4. I have a compact (recent) Canon 270 EXII which I can use with my ST-E2 as a hairlight, would this one be sufficient?

If not, in which order would you rate these flashes : 580 EXI, 430 EXII, 430 EXI, 550 EXI ?
I don't like the 430 EXI as the flashfoot is plastic/delicate, if I remember good the old 550 EXI wouldn't be comptible with ETTL II or there was another problem ?

1. Use direct for that situation. It is just a little fill light and you waste light and batteries with the flash head pointing up.

2. How big is the beauty dish? Soft light is all all about size and distance of the light source to the subject. There may not be a lot of gain using it. If it is too bright and you can't power down enough then don't use it.

3. I'm not a model photographer but I imagine each situation and shoot is specific so that determines how many flashes are needed. Some use one flash and a reflector. You can't move the sun so you kinda stuck with composition. A scrim and a flash for hair light could be used in that case but that gets more complicated.

4. Should be enough if you can get it close enough so it is not in the frame.

Videos - Tutorials - Lighting Tutorial.

http://www.stansphotos​.com

Given your lighting equipment, you are probably going to have to consider keeping the sun behind the model as a kicker. The beauty dish with the 580 in it will probably provide some nice light for head and shoulder or 3/4 shots. What I like to do is put the sun over one shoulder and then the flash opposite.

If you want to have the sun contribute more as a main then use the speedlite for fill. That suggests keeping it close to the lens axis. I leave mine on the camera, then use FEC to control how much it contributes.

If you want to do full length shots with the model in an environment the speedlites are going to be tested. Try to stay below sync speed, HSS reduces light output at least a stop maybe more depending on exposure settings.

flash LIGHTNING ?

you really have guts to do that,

KABOOMMM, BUZZZ ... !!!