john_sack

I am a lurker on this bboard until now, and have learned a good bit

from my reading. But sometimes the big picture is missing, which is

what a newbie like me needs. I have found the teaching responses that

some write to be wonderful. I read them several times.

My main question is about lighting for informal family portraits, in

homes and backyards and such. The issue that has me stumped is

portability of equipment (not weight so much as the need for

electrical supply, i.e., flash vs. strobe vs. monolight), rapid setup

and configuration, and ease of learning/growth. I am pretty sure I

want to use non-continuous lights (though I recognize from many other

posts that it is easier to learn with continuous lights; I'm hoping

digital will help me there).

Background: I am an avid but amateur photography. I use a Canon 20D

and so far have only a 420ex that I use for on-camera work. I

frequently shoot events (such as fundraisers, where people move around

a lot), so have been limited to what I can do with on-camera flash

(and things like omnibounce, etc.).

I decided this holiday season that I would volunteer my time at some

local churches to take photos of families (like the local Hispanic

population) that are far from home and want to send photos home for

the holidays. These photos would be taken in/around/near people's

homes because that's the only place all the people gather. I also

enjoy lighting outdoors to improve a bit on natural light, e.g.,

photos in a local park or in someone's backyard, etc. I suppose

another aspect of this is that I'll be moving from one setting to

another, with my subjects in tow, so whatever tools I use need to be

quick to use, and relatively forgiving (on camera flash with Canon's

new eTTL-II fits this in my experience). I've found that people have

patience for a minute, but not five minutes while I'm setting up a

shot and testing exposures, etc.

I don't object to spending $500-1000 or so. I suppose that's an

important fact.

I'd like to be sure I understand the next step(s) up from my on-camera

420ex, that would fit my needs for portability and easy set up and

configuration. But I also want to learn as I go, so I'm not always on

"auto pilot" (I don't use the camera in automatic, so eventually I

don't want to use the lights that way either). While my immediate

interest is people photography, I'd like to get a well-rounded

appreciation for simple commercial and other types of photography

eventually (I'll be doing a museum catalog in the spring, for

example). But in the short term I am focused on lights mostly for

supplemental lighting and fill.

My regular photo store recommended a Novatron monolight kit, with two

500w lights. Looked nice, but seemed to fail the portability test

because it has to be plugged in. Is there anything I've

misunderstood here? This sounds like something to get later on for

situations where I'm able to set up in one place. But that's not what

I'm looking at. I didn't see any battery-operated strobes or

monolight setups.

So on to flash.

The second setup they recommended was to get a Canon 580ex flash, a 36

inche umbrella to shoot into (with light stand, etc.), a pocket wizard

(or else rely on the on-camera popup to trigger the 580ex -- which I

didn't think was possible but was told it is with the 580ex) and/or

shoe cord, a 5 or 6 in one reflector kit. The main question here was

whether -- since I would be shooting couples and small family groups

-- a single light was enough and so I'd need to double everything; or

could I use the 580ex on camera and the 420ex into an umbrella The

flash is the major expense here (about $450) but the rest adds up to

about as much. Also whether the infrared was reliable enough that I

could skip the pocket wizard for now.

The third possibility was to use my existing 420ex on a shoe cord

(does anybody make shoe cords for Canon EX flashes that are longer

than 2 feet?) firing into an umbrella.

Forth was to use a diffuser (one of the "soft box" types, much larger

than a stofen) on the 420ex and keep it on camera. And use a reflector.

I have a strong tendency to want to rely on eTTL-II to handle the

exposure for me (with some FEC), because I think that will help me

move quickly without trying the patience of my subjects. Is that foolish?

I've got plenty of books and web pages on posing and such. But I

haven't found anything on lighting that is helping me with the above.

If there is something I've missed that I should read to answer the

above, I'd greatly appreciate the pointers.

Thanks for even reading this long long post from a newbie. I

appreciate any help or pointers you can offer!

John

Mark,

I enjoyed your gallery. It is close to something I've been trying to do, so I was interested in your technique explanation.

Not having been to NYC in a few years, I'm wondering how you handled the people-interaction side of this assignment. If you were only a dozen feet away, then presumably you had to deal with people wondering what you were doing. These look "candid" (i.e., shoot first, answer questions later :). Are New Yorkers more blase about having their photos taken -- even at dusk -- than people in small cities?

I think your technique of standing in a particular spot and waiting for the right thing to happen at that spot is one I hadn't thought of. For the pedestrian, you are part of the street in a way that a moving photographer isn't. Perhaps that is am important technique in getting candids on the street.

I also appreciate your insight that lead you to this assignment: looking at the photos you've taken and seeing what caught your eye. I just did that same thing for all my photos for a year (travel, event, wedding, street, zoo, whatever) and found it was always faces (or pairs of faces) that communicated something elemental (oddly enough, I found that was true in some of the zoo photos too!). Those were (in my own view) my successful photos. The rest are technically good or bad, but not something I want to stare at.

Thanks again for posting the gallery.

John