Studio strobes on location

Well after the little test I did at home I figured I'd do a little field testing of my UPS powered Studio strobes. So I packed up the family for a portrait in the park. While I didn't get the shot I wanted, it wasn't due to the strobes or the power supply. Using a 45" shoot through umbrella, I was able to keep up with the sun at 3/4 power and below @ anywhere from 10 to 15 feet from the subject, I never ran out of juice on this rather quick session (50-60 shots).
What didn't work were my crappy Cactus II triggers - they failed to fire about 30% of the time and my camera was never more 6' from the strobe at any time. I'm getting real sick of these things - gonna have to buy me some REAL triggers when money isn't so tight.
The faulty triggers lead to a lot of frustration in the family portrait (see Matthew, my youngest) since I was taking each shot on a timer, I'd have to run around the pond for each shot. Needless to say, running over there and then having the trigger fail really sucked. (you can see me in the picture about to through my hands up because I thought the strobe didn't fire) One thing I am going to order right after I finish this post is a remote trigger for my camera, this self-timer approach is for the birds....

Running Studio Strobes on a UPS for Location Shooting

Well, before spending the $170 in parts for the DYI Vagabond posted on myJTP.com's youtube channel. I always wondered why I couldn't just use my computer's UPS. It's 725VA, self contained, built in charger, really cheap (<$100) why wouldn't this work? Well I got some time to do some testing and found out the following. Using my Photogenic 600ws monolights I was able to get 125 full power pops off of my fully charged UPS (battery in the UPS was about 2years old) til it cut power when the battery reached about 19% charge. Recharge time on the strobe was about 3.5 seconds, so not really as fast as pluging into a good 'ol AC outlet. Not really enough for a full shoot but I could do in a pinch. The battery in the unit is about 1/3 the size as the one in the Vagabond, so that explains why it didn't last that long.
So it worked but there is alot of chatter on the flickr groups about the need for a pure sine inverter to power strobes. I believe my strobes have a transformer rectified front end that charges the capacitor bank which is the worst ones to run off a approximate-sine inverter like my UPS - I didn't fry anything in the process, and nothing even got too hot in the process, but I think to be safe, I'll build the DYI kit with a pure sine.

I got mine...

One of my favorite bloggers and Mentors, David Hobby at the Strobist.com put out some corny magnets for us Off Camera Flash users. I just had to have one, since I didn't have the patience to do the world wide scavenger hunt for them, I did the logical thing - bought some strobist gear at Mpex, 2 shoot through umbrellas and some sync cords for my cactus triggers (it pained me every time I put a flash into those flimsy hot shoes.

Oh and for the pic, I cheated and used an Off Camera FLASHLIGHT in lieu of a flash, it was a quick and dirty setup....

Tough guy Setup

scale: 1 sq. = 1 sq. ft.
Found a cool lighting diagram maker on the web so I thought I include my diagram of the setup I used for 'Tough Guy'. Pretty cool tool. May start doing this for all my shots.

Just one take, CSLR Challenge 143

2009095_Spring Studio_141, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Sometimes you only get one chance to get the shot. This was a fun shot I did just before packing up the 'studio'. It took a bit of planning - and an assistant. Lighting was provided with a single off camera strobe fired into a styro-foam igloo soft box. I bumped the iso up a bit to lower the strobe power down to 1/32. At this power I the strobe could cycle fast enough to keep up with the frame rate of my camera.
So once it was all set up, prefocused, and pre exposed, I shook the bottle really hard and started the cork, as soon as I saw it start to move, I put it down on the table and had my assistant hold the shutter down to fire off a series of shots. This was my favorite. I like the shot just hated the clean up afterwards.... BTW the shot took third in the CSLR challenge #43

CSLR Challenge 139: Results

Head n Hands, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Well 'Shadow Detail' came in 10th. But the follow up shots I took for the challenge where I was just playing around with my fisheye lens did much better. 'Head n Hands' placed 3rd and got some traction on flickr as well. Surprising since it had my ugly mug in the shot...

I'm flattered...

20071120-Backlight-126-7.jpg, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

So my last minute shot in the 'Vodka Shoot' done for the CSLR "Backlight" Challenge was actually the one that everybody liked. It placed 6th overall and the actual Vodka shot didn't place!
To top things off, "The Strobist", David Hobby, the creator of the 'less gear - more brains - better light' blog, added my pic as one of his favorites!
Since I've probably learned more off his blog in a month than I've learned in years on my own, I'm really flattered one of my pics caught his eye... cool.

Vodka Shoot Setup

Heres a the setup I used for the 'Vodka Shoot'. My Table was a sheet of glass on 2 sawhorses, a sheet of 4x8 pegboard was clamped to 2 light stands. (I was originally going to use the canvas you see on the floor to do the shoot be I saw the pegboard laying against the wall and thought I'd give it a try - the effect was really a pleasant surprise.

3 Strobes were used in the setup the main light was the 55oex behind the peg board set at full power. On the stand behind the camera was a 580exII set at about 1/16 power through a long snoot and a green gel. Finally the last 580exII was set at 1/32 power and hand held during each shot - the snoot let me just spotlight just the details on the front of the bottle without upsetting the backlit pattern being created by the peg board.

Notice the 'Strobist' light modifiers - Snoots were all made from sheets of black hobby foam and velcro and thats not a cooler under the sawhorse - that's my Softbox!

It was a fun learning and experimenting on this shoot - looking forward to the next challenge (My 'Reflections' shot took 6th place - 'Colors of my Holiday' (shot below) did not place)

First 'Strobist' sports portraites

20071026-Toughguy-37, originally uploaded by photogeek21.

Well just barely a week after starting to read the strobist.com, I was inspired to go out and shoot some off camera flash shots in an attempt to capture some cross light balancing with the sun just about 45 min before sunset. I'm very satisfied with my first attempts. With a little more practice I may start offering sports portrait session as part of 10framesasecond. I'm still cheating abit keeping the flashes in ETTL not the Manual settings that true Strobists demand, but hey, it was my first time and the big thing was getting the flash off the camera.