F/1.0

After eagerly following the saga of the Radiopoppers, from their vaporware inception to their current production I finally have a pair in my grubby little hands.  Oh happy day

(you want a review?  Here’s my review: radiopoppers rock my face 437 ways from sunday.  Get some.)

Now I got them to use with my newly acquired Canon 5D kit, but as it happens I still have some Pentax gear as well.  Officially Radiopoppers do not support Pentax PTTL, but I figured what harm could it do to test.

I mounted the P1 receiver on a Pentax 540FGZ flash.  Flash was set to wireless pttl slave (SL1).  Note that on the 540 the sensor you need to position the bead over is the lower right corner of the face, as you look at the flash *not* the round part in the middle (that’s just the AF assist light)

I set the K10d onboard flash to wireless controller mode, and covered the actual flash itself to ensure no light was coming out and triggering a false positive.   I fired off a few shots, and sure enough no slave firing - good!

Then I turned on the P1 transmitter, and placed it on top of the k10d.  The popup actually seemed to support it’s weight, and the transmitters fit rested nicely against the top of the eyecup.  I think it would be mountable with a little piece of velcro on top of the pop up flash!

The big moment - I fired a shot and sure enough, the slave popped!  Exposure looked correct too (roughly, just by glancing at the LCD.   I ran through a few apertures from 2.8 to 8 and the flash exposure seemed to remain consistent, indicating that metering info is working!  I could visibly see the difference in light output as the flash popped at different apertures as well.
So it seems that at least the basic functionality of the P1s works with Pentax’s PTTL wireless sytem.  it actually fires the flash, and ttl metering appears to work.   Bear in mind however, that this is far from a scientific test and YMMV.  Further testing will be needed

So I’ve done the cardboard snoot thing.  It’s cheap.  It works.  but I find they don’t last too long trashing around in a camera bag.   I really like the idea of a flexible snoot like the Honl speedsnoot, so I figured I’d try to make my own…

A quick trip down to Perl (art supply store) yielded the required materials.  2 9″x12″ sheets of “foamies” craft foam (it’s a thin, neoprene like foam material - flexible yet rigid enough to hold it’s shape) one white, one black and 4′ of velcro “wrap” (the velcro that has hooks on one side and loops on the other, so it can stick to itself if you wrap it around something)  The neat thing about the foamies sheets is that you can get them either plain or with one side covered in adhesive.   I opted for a plain black and an adhesive-backed white sheet.

total cost for materials: about $5 (the velcro was $3 and I think the foamies sheets were .59 each)

Once at home, I simply peeled the backing off the white adhesive side, and laid the black sheet on top.  Pressing firmly secured the 2 together.  They can bend and flex together without wrinkling or buckling.

I then cut 2 velcro wraps long enough to wrap around the flash head and secure it tightly.

TaDa!  instant snoot - total time to construct: about 15-30 seconds

the best part about this snoot is that it is adjustable.  For a normal throw, wrap it into a cylinder shape, and secure each end with a wrap.   If you want a tighter throw, wrap it into a cone shape.  You can get a very tight dot of light this way.

Another added benifit is that it can be used as a bounce card - simple wrap one end around the flash head pointing up, and leave the other end free.  presto bounce card.

For five dollars and a minute of work, this is something that will have a permanent place in my camera bag!

Just a quick tip if you do a lot of product/small object shots and want them on a seamless background.  Instead of rolling out a whole huge backdrop, just use a piece of matboard.  If you do your own matting/framing, you’ve probably got some on hand.  It comes in nice 30″x40″ sheets, and it is rigid enough to stay in place on it’s own when propped against a vertical surface like a wall or chair pushed up agains a table.  It gives a nice smooth curve under it’s own weight, and provides a non-wrinkly insta-seamless-backdrop.  and when you are done, you can mat your pictures with it

So unless you’ve been living under a rock (photographically speaking) for the past year or so, you’ve probably heard of David Hobby, AKA The Strobist.  The strobist blog has been singlehandedly responsible for introducing a whole new wave of photographers to the beauty and mystery that is: off camera lighting!

The problem is - a lot of this stuff is still confusing.  Heck, I didn’t “get it” the first time I read through lighting101.  Or the second.  Or probably not even the third.  And a lot of the time, the problem isn’t conceptual, it often comes down to the “nuts-and-bolts” issues - eg, things like “what works with what”, “how do I connect x to y” and “why is there a black bar across my image when I use my flash off camera but not on camera”

What I am going to do in this series of articles, is break down, step-by-step the various hardware and methods needed to get your flash off camera and firing properly.  We’re not going to worry about lighting theory or anything like that - just the “nuts and bolts”.

• In par 1 (here) we’re going to talk about the basics of how a flash works, and the different modes you can use it in.
• In part 2 we will discuss options for manual triggering.
• In part 3 we will discuss wireless ttl flash
• and finally in part 4 we will deal with some miscellaneous topics, such as x-sync, HSS, rear-curtain sync etc…

So without further ado, lets talk about getting your flash out of the hotshoe and into the wild where it belongs!

Now first of all it is important to understand how a flash actually fires.  In actuality it is quite simple - if you look at the bottom of your flash (or “foot”) there is an electrical contact, the center pin.  If you have a newer “system” flash, it may have other pins as well, but they all have the one center pin.  Now if you look at the inner sides of the foot, they are also metal.   When a connection is made between the center pin and the sides of the foot, the flash fires.

That’s it.  You could make your flash fire by connecting these two contacts with a paperclip even. (although I wouldn’t recommend it and am not responsible if you electrocute yourself trying it!)

So in essence, triggering your flash is simply a matter of making the connection that allows it to release it’s charge as a burst of light.   The catch, of course, is *how we make this connection*.

Now let’s step back for a minute.  Before we think about triggering the flash lets look at the primary “modes” of the flash.   In essence, a flash only has 1 adjustment - power.  In other words, “how much light does it put out when it pops”.  However, there are several ways of *calculating* how much power is needed or desired for a particular situation.

1. manual.  Back in the day, all flashes were manual, meaning they were essentially “dumb”  *you* set the power output by hand, based on what you calculated was needed.
2. auto.  auto flash is basically a way that the flash itself measures the amount of light needed based on settings you input.  We will not talk be talking much about auto-flash since I believe manual or ttl are more useful 99% of the time.
3. TTL.  Stands for “Through The Lens”, and is a method where the camera and flash “talk” to each other and calculate the appropriate amount of flash automatically based on the camera settings and a meter reading.

For purposes of this discussion, we are just going to talk about manual and ttl flash, as I think they are the most useful.    The point to all this is that, despite having the same outcome (firing the flash) the *methods* for triggering your flash are very different depending on whether you will be using manual mode or TTL.

In part 2 we will talk about options for triggering your flash in manual mode, what kind of hardware you need for each, and pros and cons for each option.  Stay tuned!

UPDATE:  part 2 is now up - find it here