Two strobes better than one? Kelley practiced using both his stobes during our latest DSLR photography lesson
DSLR Photography Lessons with Kelley continue to up the ante. Today we exclusively shot with his two strobes, one off camera and the other on his Canon 7D's hotshoe. The USF St. Petersburg Campus was our location for today, hoping to see a lot of students walking by who would not mind stopping to be our model for a shot or two. Unfortunately we arrived just as classes started and the campus was fairly sparse. We did get a couple of people to step in front of the strobes, including a skateboarder.
First we practiced with me as the model as I helped Kelley dial in the best settings for shooting in Florida's harsh direct sunlight. These are of course not ideal conditions, but we wanted to start with a challenge. The settings we used were:
- manual exposure (mode)
- f/14
- ISO 100/200
- 1/250th
- strobes 1/2 power
Those settings can vary by the power of your strobes, what type of diffusion (cap diffuser, softbox, umbrella) and position of the sun relevant to the model. However, they can be used as a starting point and adjusted from there.
We next tried to make a photograph of a model (um, me) in shade near a wall without casting a shadow. This was perhaps the biggest challenge of the day. With a little experimenting we were able to get some satisfactory results, all things considered.
The strobist fun will continue next week when we have our 4th lesson on the University of Tampa campus. Thanks Kelley for bringing all your photo gear out to St. Petersburg!