White throated sparrows

[finnbay]

LOTS of white throated coming to the feeder. Just a few shots from this evening. Canon 40D, ISO 400, manual at f5.6, 1/200. Canon 550 EX used as a fill, set to -1 1/3:

[Dbl]

Cool work Ken, nicely done with the flash.

[finnbay]

Thanks, Dan. I'm still working my way through this fill flash bit, but it's coming.

[Dbl]

This might have been a good case for Av in camera and let the ETTL do some heavy lifting and go to HSS when the light is good. Ride the FEC to get where you want. The only problem with manual flash in my opinion in this case is even a small change in distance to subject requires you to change your flash output or aperture.

My rule of thumb for any flash work is if the subjects are moving and changing distance I use ETTL on camera or off with a flash chord if it is possible. If the subject is stationary I go to manual exposure and manual flash.

If I want to control ambient exposure of the backgrounds then I'm back to manual exposure and manual flash. Aperture controls subject exposure.

I've been doing so much flash and strobe work the last few weeks I've had a chance to do a lot of experimenting with settings. Its all a constant refinement of technique, but it sure is fun manipulating the light to get some cool effects.

[finnbay]

Experimentation is exactly what I have to spend more time doing. I was going to play with some Av settings but started to get too dark. Next time. You up to making a lot of posters lately?

[Dbl]

Lots of posters, team schedules and a lot of team and individual work. I've been a little too busy! I've seen about as much soccer as I can handle the past month! A few more big jobs in the next few weeks and then the busy winter sports start kicking in.

[finnbay]

Dan,

Strobe question. I have, a 550ex, a 580ex and pocket wizards. I should be able to shoot and trigger from my camera if I hook the pocket wizard receiver to the 580, use it as a master and the 550 as a slave - correct? What I don't have is a sync cord, and as I understand it, all I would need to get is a PW pc sync cord. Make sense? Will it work?

[Steve Foss]

Nice captures, Ken. When I use fill for on birds/animals (well, and people for that matter), I do it just as Dan has suggested, with Av, HSS and FEC.

[Dbl]

Shoot me an e-mail Ken, I think I know where you are headed. How many PW's do you have, where are your flashes on camera or off?