The long evenings are closing in now and I am regularly finding myself shooting at bedtime with no decent light. I was inspired to get my flash out again after watching a really cool video about capturing motion with second curtain sync. I was very frustrated to discover that I cannot convince my Canon 6D to perform second curtain sync with a third party flash. I couldn't quite justify shelling out a few hundred pounds for a Canon Speedlite last year and so decided to go for a much cheaper Yongnuo YN560 III along with the YN506-TN flash controller. I wasn't sure how much use I would get out of a flash and just wanted to play around. I was particularly interested to have a go with off camera flash.
Generally speaking I am happy enough with the Yongnuo but it would be wonderful to take advantage of the ETTL function and have the camera and flash communicate with each other. At the moment I need to keep adjusting the flash strength up and down to find the perfect exposure. With ETTL, the camera works it all out for you so that you can just focus on taking pictures and keeping your subject engaged. I also want to play around with second curtain sync.
Last year I seem to remember having the flash off camera and pointing at my subject. This week I picked up the same approach just where I left off.
Day 352 - My husband made me the most amazing gin and tonic this weekend. It had figs and blackberries in it. How could I not take some photos of it - as I was drinking it. There is a lot of potential for photographing splashes and motion in liquid as the flash gives the image some definition.
Day 353 - The following day I thought that I might make my life a bit easier by placing the flash on the shoehorn and bouncing the light around. My trusty helper Roo was willing to assist. He is pointing in the same direction as the flash. He has a wobbly tooth that he cannot resist playing with - thus the funny facial expressions in some photos.
The results can be very variable and you have to fiddle around with it but it is possible to get a nicely exposed picture and only use ISO 100, which is amazing for this time of year. Perhaps I should use it all the time.
Then we took some cool photos in the bath. This one is my favourite.
Edited in Lightroom
Further edit in Photoshop
I sent this second image to my mobile and then Instagram where it came out completely different. It is so frustrating to have so little control over how the colours come and an not understand what is going on.
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