Cactus

Great news folks! My package from Gadget Infinity arrived in the mail today! Woo Hoo!

Anyway, the contents included the following items:
- 4-Channel Wireless Flash Trigger V2, aka Cactus Trigger
- an additional Cactus Receiver
- Wireless Shutter Release for my RebelXT (350D)

Gadgets abound! So I figured I'd take the triggers along with me, as I was invited to dinner at my best friend's residence. After the initial hellos and whatnot, I immediately broke out the flash+wireless trigger and started messing around. Seeing what I could get out of the ambient lighting etc.

I finally came up with this. A 1/8th powered flash with a CTO Tungsten gel bounced off of a relatively white ceiling. The flash ended up being positions approximately one foot above and one foot to the right of the camera body. Nothing too fancy, just having fun with the new toys.

As for the items now. The wireless shutter release seems to work flawlessly. The 16 channel remote/receiver plugs right into the camera's remote shutter control port. I haven't distance tested it yet, but I can't imagine a need (yet) for being more than 10-15 feet from the camera anyway.

The Flash triggers were a little more iffy. Made of fairly durable plastic, they seem rugged enough. It would seem the pivoting shoe mount on the receiver was replaced with a segmented pivot, having discrete locking positions, rather than a free floating set up. The plus is that the piece actually locks in place. The down side, well, fewer positions. Though I suppose all of that can be corrected with the light stand swivel mount anyway.

The other thing I noticed was a tendency for misfires. In channel 0 (switch 1 and 2 in the Off position) everything works fine, with only an occasional misfire (read: once or twice since I got it). In any other channel pairing, they misfire like crazy, ranging from once every couple seconds to 2-3 times per second. I suppose this would only be bothersome in a large group of people using the same triggers, never the less...

In any case, for a total of about $80 on the flash and camera triggers/receivers, I'd say I'm quite happy with the results. In other news! Lighting 102 approaches! Less than one week to go!

Round One!

Light?!

...

Ok... that was terrible, I admit it. Never the less, here we have it folks! The results of my first attempt at using my strobist equipment properly.

My best friend came over and I some how managed to convince her to pose for me. Really it was quite free form. She sat down and we started talking, all the while her moving about trying different poses. Etc, etc, etc.

My own critical review says I probably should have used a little more strobe and a little less background light. Also, a narrower aperture to capture that little bit of the elbow that didn't make it. Otherwise, I'd say I'm ok with this being my first attempt.

As for the set up, the background light is that of a bare CFL blub approximately 10 feet from the camera/background to the camera's right. About 10 feet to the left is my 430EX at 1/16th shooting into a 43 Inch Silver Umbrella with a CTO Tungsten for fill. Nothing too fancy.

More to come as `The Girlfriend(tm)' heads over to try her hand at it. And more complex setups too!