I'm in the middle of a rather large corporate facility / product shoot taking place over the next several months using Canon Speedlites (I can hear all the nikon guys laughing in the background). The last time we did this was about five years ago and I hired a local pro who used film and typical studio strobes for most of the shots. Although the images turned out great, the process was fairly disruptive to the employees due to the size of the gear being lugged around and the lack of adequate electrical in the areas we planned to shoot. It was also a very expensive undertaking and in today's economic climate we needed to come up with a much less intrusive and less expensive approach.
BTW - I know some pro shooter is going to read this and flame the living #$%^ out of me for doing this work "in-house", but with the economy as it is, you gotta do whatcha gotta do!
So we're going to take a page (or two) out of Mark's buddy Joe McNally's latest book The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes and shoot everything using small strobes combined with natural light and controlled with some basic, low-cost light-shaping tools. I'll tell you right up front that I'll be stealing every good idea I can from Joe McNally and David Hobby (Strobist) with a little bit of Kirk Tuck's "minimalist lighting" techniques thrown in for good measure.
As I finish each type of shoot (small products, large products, facilities, manufacturing processes and (some) corporate portraits, I'll post some articles on each situation with things that worked and things that didn't. I expect to make several hundred (million) mistakes so it should be entertaining at the very least.
For those of you interested in using Canon's flash system here are a few good articles from PhotoNotes.org to get you started.
- Flash Photography with Canon EOS Cameras - Part I
- Flash Photography with Canon EOS Cameras - Part II
- Flash Photography with Canon EOS Cameras - Part III
Posted in Photography Tagged: Canon, Canon Flash System, Canon Speedlites
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