Dora - Off Camera Flash

Yesterday evening my youngest daughter, Dora, persuaded me to break away from the computer and go down to the Bear River, about 10 min. from the house, here in beautiful Nevada County, CA. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to play around with off camera flash. I have a Canon 580ex II and a 580ex flash and set the on camera flash to "master" and the off camera flash to "slave" to bring on light from a side angle in order to give more depth to the subject. The sun had already set and the light was waning quickly, but with this flash set up you can still get great shots. For indoor weddings and receptions you can bounce the flash off of walls and ceilings and get nice depth with the flash but outdoors no can do. I've ordered some Radio Poppers to allow me to be more creative with off camera flash. The current infrared system of communication between the flashes has line of sight limitations and can be set off by other flashes. The Radio Poppers will convert the infrared to radio signals with a range of hundreds of feet and the flashes can still operate on E-TTL, automatically sensing the correct amount of light to flash for proper exposure. Technology can be fun!

The "slave" flash was set on the ground, camera right.

No flash needed here. I was shooting with the light behind me.

Dora, 9, wanted to shoot a pic of me. OK, but because the 70-200 2.8L IS lens and 5D were so heavy for her, I had her sit down holding the lens with her left hand and with her left elbow resting on her leg while her right hand held the camera and released the shutter. She was pretty wobbly but the photo came out fine. I was holding the slave flash in my extended left hand.