Welcome PocketWizards

I have a Sony Alpha 900 camera that I want to use with my studio shoots so I needed a way to trigger the flashes. The A900 doesnt have a popup flash so I couldnt use the Sony Wireless Flash system (I could use the HVL-F58AM to trigger the flashes but that would mean I loose my strongest flash just to trigger some other flashes). And I thought it would be cool to be able to trigger the flashes from great distances and from corners that wouldnt be able to work reliably with the Wireless flash system. Radio Triggers seems to be the way to go. You could get some ebay triggers but I read the distance they work are not so great and sometimes a misfire could happen. I dont want that limitation on my creativity so I got some Pocket Wizard Plus II.

The problem with the Pocket Wizard and the Sony system is that they dont work together out of the box. I found a article on flickr http://www.flickr.com/groups/alphastrobist/discuss/72157612003524269 that described a way to make your own cable to connect to the pocket wizards. So I bought the FA-MC1AM sony wire, cut it in half, soldered a 3.5mm mono male jack plug to it. And so instead of 1 original sony cable, I now have two `home made sony pocket wizard cables`. I am able to connect them to my F56AM and F58AM flashes without problems.

Unfortunatly the F42AM flashes dont come with an plug to connect the cable. So I was `forced` to buy the sony hotshoe that connects the the flash and has the plug. So I was happy that that worked out great. But another problem arrised, I couldnt trigger the F42AM flashes, but my other flashes worked great. Furtunatly after a while searching what the problem could be I found out that I needed to connect the flash to the camera first and fire the flash. Now if i connect the pocket wizard to the flash, I works perfect.

To connect a Pocket Wizard to my A900 I also needed a hotshoe, I got a ebay Minolta FS1100, and with it i am all set with the Pocket Wizard system.

Photoshoot with Yeng and Ann

In the meantime i have done another photoshoot this time with two persons. They were interested to have their picture taken and I like to practice. Again I stayed in the studio using a the same things like last time. The first part of the photoshoot I took some "safe" pictures, remembering what I did last time it was a bit easier to setup the lights. Here are some of the safe pictures:

After I knew they where satisfied with the pictures it was time to experiment a little. I had an serial box that I cut open with some scissors and made a snoot out of it. Together with some tape I put it on one of the flash and tried to light only a portion of the person. It took some practice in order that the light didnt shine on the background. This is the result

Power for the strobes

Since I have several flashes buying batteries everytime can be costly. Every flash needs 4 batteries and they will be exhausted after a shoot. So I started to investigate what my options are for rechargable batteries. I found out that NiHM are the best to use in a flash. The recycle times are quicker than normal batteries and last a bit longer.

There are quite a few different brands available but I eventually choose to buy some Eneloop batteries. These batteries are NiHM rechargeable batteries but their will keep their charge longer that ordinary NiHM batteries. I got a nice price on samenkopen.net so i went ahead and got some batteries for the flashes and enough batteries to serve as a backup.

Got some new strobes

I saw a nice promo for some extra flashes so I ordered two Sony HVL-F42AM flashes. They have a Guide Number of 42 and supports the Wireless Sony Flash system. The flash can be set manually to change the power output with the following steps: 1/1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 and 1/32. I can't wait to test these strobes in action.

Practice portrait shoot

To learn how to use different lighting techniques means that one needs to practice and experiment with the equipment they have. I use gray background, two strobes (Sony F56AM and Sony F58AM). One strobe was fired through an shoot-through umbrella from camera right, the other strobe i put a blue gel and aimed it at the hair. On camera left i used a reflector for some fill light.



I took this picture with an Sony Alpha 700 DSLR with an Carl Zeiss 16-80 lens. The flashes where triggered using the Sony Wireless Flash system. Here is the result of the evening






Thats it for now later this week i have some more shoots to make and will be updating my blog.

My First Blogpost

Hi everybody, using this blog i will describe and put my experiences with strobist using sony equipment.