This weekend I had the pleasure of sharing my knowledge with another attendee of my private workshop. On the second day we went out of the studio to learn how to light at any time of day with minimal gear.
So I attach my favorite speed light, the Canon 580EXII, to the hot shoe of my Canon 5D Mark II.
It was a sunny day under a blue sky scattered with big white puffy clouds and a beautiful model sitting on a white country wood fence.
So I proceed to show Jeff, my workshop attendee, how to set up the 580EXII in order to capture the beauty of our fashion model while still maintaining details in the blue sky, puffy clouds and green grass. The model was facing the harsh sun so I had Jeff scrim her with a 60 inch shoot through umbrella. I then set the flash to ETTL and high speed sync mode, dialed up the flash exposure 3 whole stops and zoomed the flash head to 105mm. I was standing about 8 feet from the model with an 85mm lens on the camera.
Now this is the awesome part! I then set my shutter speed to 1/1250th of a second! My fstop was 4.5 and my ISO was 200. I shot away and this was the beautiful result even under a mid day sun. I LOVE this flash!
The possibilities are endless. The high speed sync mode is my favorite feature. I now am not limited to syncing at only 1/250th of a second! I can capture details in my background and control my contrast by using a very fast shutter speed.
Now, my only warning is have a good amount of double A batteries or use an external battery like a Quantum Turbo 2×2. Also very important is that you can’t shoot fast because you will end up blowing up the flash because of all the power your asking it to pump out by pushing it 3 full stops and zooming the flash head to it’s max at 105mm. Which is another great feature. Being able to zoom the flash head from 24mm all the way to 105mm gives the photographer so much control and room to play with.
The Canon 580EXII is one piece of gear that is always in my bag.

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