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bpsphoto
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« on: July 28, 2008, 07:34:56 AM » |
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Ran into an interesting problem today. I had a shoot with our ambassador, and it was the first time I'd tried to use my D200 with my Hensel light kit. I've traditionally used it with my Hasselblad, about 50% as slaves to an on-camera flash and 50% plugged directly into the camera. I've never had any trouble with it.
As I was testing the setup, in the ambassador's house just before the shoot, at f/8 on ISO 100, with the strobes slaved to the on-camera Speedlight 600, the lights were popping, but not registering on the image. I tried f/5.6. Still nothing. I tried ISO 400 at 5.6. Nope. I tried 5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/15, still no flash showing up on the picture. I rechecked with my light meter, and everything was as it should be, ISO 100, f/8. {insert your favorite curse here...mine involved a deity, sex and damnation}.
Luckily, I live 4 blocks from the shoot, unluckily, it's straight up a hill, it's humid for Athens today (we may get our first rain in nearly 2 months today) and 33C. I ran up the hill, grabbed my D200 book and, just in case, my Hasselblad and a couple rolls of film. I got back with about 5 minutes to spare. The book left me unenlightened, though I did think to try rear curtain sync. Still effin' nothing. So I attached the speedlight to the Hasselblad and ... no flash at all. Huh? Merde. Scheise. But in English, silently, so as not to alarm the ambo's press agent. I got the cord out of the bag, plugged in and everything was beautiful. Flashes popping, still showing a reading on the meter of f/11.7 (I had VC400, which I shoot at 320), and that great, loud CHUNK sound of the 501's mirror. Shoot went off without a hitch. Get the proofs tomorrow...hopefully I'll still be saying that the shoot went off without a hitch. Impressed the ambo with my massive film camera.
So the question is: How the heck do I make my D200 and my Hensel lights talk to one another? Or, should I just sell the D200, use the money to buy that gorgeous Epson scanner we talked about a couple weeks ago and just go on as if digital cameras were still in the US$10,000 per mp range? But really, how do I get the camera and the lights talking?
On the upside, you know when you have a big shoot, interview, first meeting with her parents, other important event, and you go over The Worst Thing That Can Happen? It did. That was the worst thing I could reasonably imagine happening, and I survived it. In fact, I triumphed. I kicked its ass. And that made a potentially disastrous event feel pretty great.
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