Barbie and her Nikon D700 with new Nikon SB-900 Speedlight! Flash is necessary for sunset portraits like this.Lately everytime Barbie and I have another DSLR Photography Lesson she comes with another significant new piece of photography gear. For our fourth of four lessons Barbie debuted her new flagship Nikon Speedlight, the large and powerful SB-900. Also, she got a BlackRapid RS-7 strap similar to my RS-Sport model! It was my first time to get hands on with the most powerful speedlight Nikon makes and although I was impressed with its power, there were some quirks with its controls. Like to adjust the power there is not just a plus and minus adjustment button, another button must be pressed first to select the power on the rear LCD screen.
To practice sunset and twilight portraits Barbie and I headed out to Vinoy Park which offers a great background of the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront to the west and to the southeast is The Pier and a panoramic view of Tampa Bay. It is my favorite spot in the whole city.
To get the most natural looking flash portraits in low light we had to use our speedlights in manual mode, dialing in low levels of power like 1/64th so as to not blow out the subjects (us). Barbie will be buying another 4-pack of DSLR Photography Lessons starting on Friday when we will continue our flash practice, and get the flash off the camera!
--Professional Model DSLR Photography Lessons now available!