AT LAST....FLASH

I've been taking pics in churches,
banquet halls, dances.... with poor results.

I've assembled an inexpensive package
that takes "daylight pics" in the darkest crannys..

A flash bracket from B&H mailorder $15
A 1" flash trigger cube from eBay $ 5
My old Vivitar strobe ? $20
My older KODAK 3.1mp camera $00

Results....PRICELESS !!

The strobe will reach way back into the corners.
and take 1000 pics on 4 AA cells.
The trigger cube "sees" the flash from the camera,
and fires the strobe. I've only ever seen them on eBay.
The camera, back in service as an indoor flash taker.
and the bracket, with molded handle, makes it comfortable.

If you've been having lighting probs with the tiny
built-in flash units, this is the way to go.


rj

RJ wrote:
I've been taking pics in churches,
banquet halls, dances.... with poor results.

I've assembled an inexpensive package
that takes "daylight pics" in the darkest crannys..

A flash bracket from B&H mailorder $15
A 1" flash trigger cube from eBay $ 5
My old Vivitar strobe ? $20
My older KODAK 3.1mp camera $00

Results....PRICELESS !!

The strobe will reach way back into the corners.
and take 1000 pics on 4 AA cells.
The trigger cube "sees" the flash from the camera,
and fires the strobe. I've only ever seen them on eBay.
The camera, back in service as an indoor flash taker.
and the bracket, with molded handle, makes it comfortable.

If you've been having lighting probs with the tiny
built-in flash units, this is the way to go.


rj

The main reason I would want external flash is to eliminate red-eye.
Since the camera flash still fires, does one still see red-eye with this
setup? Also, is the pre-flash from camera a problem?
Dave Cohen

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:37:03 -0700, RJ wrote:

I've been taking pics in churches,
banquet halls, dances.... with poor results.

I've assembled an inexpensive package
that takes "daylight pics" in the darkest crannys..

A flash bracket from B&H mailorder $15
A 1" flash trigger cube from eBay $ 5
My old Vivitar strobe ? $20
My older KODAK 3.1mp camera $00

Results....PRICELESS !!

The strobe will reach way back into the corners.
and take 1000 pics on 4 AA cells.
The trigger cube "sees" the flash from the camera,
and fires the strobe. I've only ever seen them on eBay.
The camera, back in service as an indoor flash taker.
and the bracket, with molded handle, makes it comfortable.

If you've been having lighting probs with the tiny
built-in flash units, this is the way to go.


rj

I have a 'hot shoe slave' I bought inexpensively several years ago. The
only ones I see now are by Wein and run about $35 - I think that's
essentially the same as you 'flash trigger cube'.

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:08:03 GMT, Dave Cohen wrote:

The strobe will reach way back into the corners.
and take 1000 pics on 4 AA cells.
The trigger cube "sees" the flash from the camera,
and fires the strobe. I've only ever seen them on eBay.
The camera, back in service as an indoor flash taker.
and the bracket, with molded handle, makes it comfortable.

If you've been having lighting probs with the tiny
built-in flash units, this is the way to go.

The main reason I would want external flash is to eliminate red-eye.
Since the camera flash still fires, does one still see red-eye with this
setup? Also, is the pre-flash from camera a problem?

An external flash will help, but any strobe that gets 1,000
flashes from four AA cells isn't going to be a powerhouse. All
strobes will reach "into the corners" to some degree. The problem
is that if the camera's aperture is set to get a decent exposure in
the corners, the rest of the objects in the frame will be horribly
overexposed. To get uniform lighting you'd need multiple slave
strobes, preferably having the ability to reduce their output.

You'll still get redeye unless the part of the P&S's flash that
reaches the subject's eyes can be greatly reduced while still being
strong enough to trigger the slave modules. Some P&S cameras have a
couple of stops worth of flash compensation, but that would slightly
reduce, not eliminate redeye. To eliminate enough of the redeye to
make it not noticeable you'd probably also need to block and/or
deflect the built-in flash's output.

The preflash will be a problem unless you use a smart slave
trigger that is designed to cope with preflashes.