Two years ago this lovely girl was literally at death’s door. Her diagnosis was hyperthyroid as well as renal failure. Her prognosis was grim. But with some wonderful veterinary care, and a stubborn little princess who wasn’t ready to leave us just yet, we are heading into Maya’s sixteenth year on this earth and in our hearts.
I got my five-year service award bonus check in the mail today, and while perusing the reviews for the Speedlite 580EX II, I discovered that the EOS 7D pop-up flash can act as the master to my current 430 EX Speedlite. Actually, I know that many DSLRs have this capability, but I did not have it with my EOS T1i and so it slipped my mind that I should have it with the 7D.
So I played grabbed my flash manual and the 7D manual and did me some learnin’ tonight. I set the pop up flash to the lowest intensity so that if it were the only flash firing it did not expose anything. All I wanted was enough light to fire my off-camera 430 EX. It worked! And then I had to practice.
Once again, the cats were cooperative.
Jezebel lit with flash to camera right and bouncing off the ceiling.
Maya framed by dog paraphernalia. Flash to camera left and bouncing off ceiling.
Jezebel again. Diffused flash to camera right (on floor).
So, for now, the 580EX II can wait. I’ll spend my bonus check on sorely needed clothes.
Playing with my 50mm lens again today. I really love the flexibility it provides as far as depth of field, but with opportunity comes challenge. Today I experimented with very shallow depth of field. It is quite the challenge to find that sweet spot, but oh how I love the effect of falling off focus! f/1.8 was a bit too tight, so I stopped down a bit to 2.2. The best results of both are below.
ISO 100, f/1.8, 1/200s, 50mm
f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/30s, 50mm
Busy day! No chance to shoot anything worthy of posting here. Luckily I have critters!
We had a guest speaker tonight in our lighting class. He gave a rapid fire presentation on Speedlite flash photography and my brain is reeling. It will take me some time to absorb what he told us, but I did latch on to a couple of concepts and had to try to apply them when I got home.
I learned the difference between TTL mode and manual mode and how to lessen the intensity of the flash so I experimented with stopping down the flash so that it wasn’t as intense.
This is Maya. She was resting on the back of the sofa about an arm’s length from me. Shot at 100 ISO, f 9.0, 1/160s. Manual flash at 1/4 which I learned tonight (a) how to do and (b) is not one-fourth of intensity but rather 2 stops down. Thank goodness she puts up with me!
© Carissa Snedeker
Carissa Snedeker Photography 