Weekend Strobist Setup #2

This is setup #2 that I tried.  I am on my way up. 

First of all conditions were not ideal but I am working with the subjects that I have and respecting their schedule.  I may try another location with them someday.

The biggest issue with this setup was that at 1/250th of a second I could not get rid of all the natural light.  Looking back I should have used a smaller aperture to try to get rid of more of the natural light.

This was the setup.  I used a home made light pole with a cactus trigger and the 580EX II.  I had intended to have the flash setup much farther away but the light was not powerful enough so it was much closer.  If I would have been thinking I would have removed the cactus trigger and used the build in wireless control on my 7D.  I think that the on camera flash would have been powerful enough to reflect off the garage and triggered the 580EXII.

I tried to gel the flash but that did not work very well.  A was very distraught about the red color.  Just kidding he had no idea.  See below

This is the spot of the garage that I used and a sample exposure.

This is one of the final images.  I had a lot of fun jumping with the kids and trying something new.

I still need some help in putting together presentation pictures but I thought I would give it a try.

Lessons learned:

1. Do this closer to dark so the ambient light can be removed
2. Modify the cactus receiver so I can use AAA batteries and not the more expensive camera batteries.  The receiver died at the end so I got lucky there.
3. Get exposure correct in the camera.  Photoshop was tough.