What Tiger Can Teach Obama

I saw the cover and laughed as I looked through the magazine rack. 10 Tips Obama Can Take From Tiger made me glad I am not a magazine editor, but it helped in at least one sale today. I immediately came up with an idea, but it got even better. There was a pull-out section, like a Playboy centerfold, but it merely showed forty-eight pictures of Jack Nicklaus from 1940 when he was a baby up until the present in preparation of his 70th birthday.

The Wescott 28" softbox is a handy light modifier and I've gain compliments on my photos because of using it, even though they have little idea of lighting technique, which is a bit less than I know. I have an SB-25 on the way to replace my SB-600 since I have a pc adapter rubberbanded to the hotshoe because it really isn't that secure. The SB-25 has the sync port while the SB-600 does not.

I'm just beginning to learn about off camera flash, but I think I just need more experience. My first approach for this shot is knowing that I wanted to eliminate most ambient light, which was going to take a high-sync speed. So 1/250 of a second was dialed and I decided to used ISO 400 because I knew it was going to be dark inside my small living room. Then I shot at f/4 for a test with the magazine on the chair and could see immediately that it was too bright. I shot at f/5.6 and only a small bit of the magazine was flashing on the highlights screen. I stopped it down 1/3 stop, and then realized that the magazine was being held a little closer to my softbox which was just right of the camera and pointed downward a little above eye level. I then dropped the aperture another 1/3 stop at f/7.1.

I probably took nearly 100 photos. I started at one angle shooting down, then moved the camera to left and shot more. By the time I shot this frame, I had gone ninety degrees around the chair, lowered and then raised the tripod. Some frames were ruined due to anticipating the flash. Sometimes, it would be nice to have a random self-time mode so one doesn't get used to the time before the shutter is released. At 1/2 power, the flash was close enough to really get several frames of squinty eyes, but with my new CyberSyncs, I didn't have to deal with the on camera flash, which is worse. Before, I would place a sock overtop of the flash to diffuse it and enough light came through to trip the optical slave.