Overpowering the sun with Flex-5’s and Speedlights

Darcy Carter is one of the organizers for the 5th Annual Peter Schiemann Memorial Slo Pitch tournament which is running this weekend.  For the first time, oraganizers will have a full 16 teams, including two RCMP teams, playing. Over the last five years the tournament has raised about $20,000 which was donated to local charities, the biggest recipient being the local DARE program. Carter poses for a photo at Meridian Sports Park, north of Stony Plain, Alta on August 28, 2009.  (Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal).

In both these photos I should have moved the umbrella down so that it would fill in his face rather than being blocked by his hat.

I had a little help today. Daniel is a student and is helping out our web team this month. Today he came with me for a shoot so that he could get out of the office so I put him to work!  I wanted to see how well the new Pocketwizard Flex5’s work with a Canon 580EX flash to overpower the sun when shot through an umbrella….. I shot these two photos at 1/4000sec, f1.4, ISO50.   The bare bulb flash to the left certainly overpowered the sun well but I don’t think I got enough fill from the umbrella.  Both flashes were at full power.  In both pictures the umbrella was as close as I could get it without it being in the photo.

I’m going to try and build a rig similar to the Lastolite TriFlash and see what three flashes can do to overpower the sun in bright sunlight.