Doubling, tripling and quadrupling flashes...

LostLensCap · Feb 17, 2015

Derrel said:
LostLensCap said:

Click to expand...

That was fun. I could get into putting together a rig like that.

Well,it could be yours for a mere $4,375.60 for the eight Nikon speedlights, plus $200 for the two FourSquare, four-flash brackets, plus $100 for the monopod, and then a bit more dough for the triggers and fiber optic cables to gang the flash units together. Still, the photos he made were pretty good, and the flash-fill REALLY improved the shots! The pier is an amazing place, where a person can get very close to offshore, surfable waves, from a dry,stable, elevated position with a good background.[/QUOTE]
Too pricey for me, but it would be fun to play around with.

Buckster · Feb 17, 2015

Derrel said:
Well,it could be yours for a mere $4,375.60 for the eight Nikon speedlights, plus $200 for the two FourSquare, four-flash brackets, plus $100 for the monopod, and then a bit more dough for the triggers and fiber optic cables to gang the flash units together. Still, the photos he made were pretty good, and the flash-fill REALLY improved the shots! The pier is an amazing place, where a person can get very close to offshore, surfable waves, from a dry,stable, elevated position with a good background.

I'd have to go with Chinese flashes and triggers, and a knockoff Foursquare from Cowboy Studio or something like that.

That would bring the cost down considerably.

Edit: Come to think of it, I've already got 6 flashes and enough triggers to cover 10 or 12 of them, plus a bunch of clamps and arms and so on to mount them to a stand in lieu of the Foursquare... Hmmm... Not too many surfers right now in the cold white North of northern Michigan, what with the lakes all frozen solid at the moment, but it might be fun to experiment with it anyway....

Mach0 · Feb 17, 2015

Buckster said:
Derrel said:

Well,it could be yours for a mere $4,375.60 for the eight Nikon speedlights, plus $200 for the two FourSquare, four-flash brackets, plus $100 for the monopod, and then a bit more dough for the triggers and fiber optic cables to gang the flash units together. Still, the photos he made were pretty good, and the flash-fill REALLY improved the shots! The pier is an amazing place, where a person can get very close to offshore, surfable waves, from a dry,stable, elevated position with a good background.

Click to expand...

I'd have to go with Chinese flashes and triggers, and a knockoff Foursquare from Cowboy Studio or something like that. That would bring the cost down considerably.

I'd just go with a profoto b1 and swap the reflector out lol and still be at half the price. Man has time changed things up some.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Derrel · Feb 17, 2015

Most of the four- to eight-flash speedlight videos I have seen over the last few years are basically thinly-veilied advertising plugs for camera maker speedlights at basically $550 a pop, made by the usual suspects (guys who get payed by the equipment makers). And normally, the need to use four, or six, or eight speedlights, instead of a single monolight and battery or sine wave inverter, is pretty much nonexistent, but in this case, the need to use FP Synch (or HSS in Canon-speak) was a really key factor, and in this specific shooting scenario, Black made wonderful use of the FP Synch setting the flashes offer. At one point he was using a shutter speed of 1/1600 second at f/5.6 and ISO 2,000. That high shutter speed of 1/1600 second was freezing the water and overall movement of the surfers, and the flash was creating a really nice fill and added brightness on the surfers and the water, and the flashes REALLY improved the look of the surfers, who would have basically been little more than dark outlines, as he showed near the end of the video [you know, for those who skipped the video's best part...].

Village Idiot · Feb 18, 2015

Derrel said:
LostLensCap said:

Click to expand...

That was fun. I could get into putting together a rig like that.

Well,it could be yours for a mere $4,375.60 for the eight Nikon speedlights, plus $200 for the two FourSquare, four-flash brackets, plus $100 for the monopod, and then a bit more dough for the triggers and fiber optic cables to gang the flash units together. Still, the photos he made were pretty good, and the flash-fill REALLY improved the shots! The pier is an amazing place, where a person can get very close to offshore, surfable waves, from a dry,stable, elevated position with a good background.[/QUOTE]

It is a neat concept. It's like the company that puts a 350 V8 on to a motorcycle. It's huge, expensive, and unwieldy. For a lot less you can buy a purpose built machine that will go faster and handle way better. So why do it? Why not?