Cactii in the Forest

I think that's the right term for more than one Cactus, right? In my case its 2 .... a V6 and RF60 variety

Cactus flash and radio transmitter, Pentax K7, lenses and a softbox to be precise ..... oh, and I shouldn't forget the stars of the show .... some woodland flowers!

Taken on the same shoot as the shots on my recent thread .... link ..., here I got up close to this little bunch of blooms isolated magnificently within the ferny undergrowth. The location is the Coombe Woods, near Croydon, South London.

This was the set-up .....




The Cactus flash was buried deep under the softbox, so a radio system was a necessity. I used the camera remote control and mirror up to trip the shutter, and controlled the ambient exposures with Manual camera mode, varying the background brightness with shutter speed changes. The flower brightness was controlled by flash power changes using the V6 controls on the hotshoe. There was a 1/2 CTO (orange) gel on the flash head to give a low-sun-like warmth while allowing a daylight white balance setting.

I used my Samyang 14mm and Pentax F35-70 lenses .... settings were around ISO 200 / 1/20th sec / F8-9.5 / Flash power around 1/8th - 1/4.












Here's one where I really pulled the background distracting brightness right down .... firstly taken with the flash switched off ....






And then the flash on ....






Still with the Samyang (although cropped a fair bit) ...





And this one with the F35-70 ....




I hope you liked the shots, and that you might like to try some flash in the woods sometime !

Nigel

Thank you Nigel for taking the time to show us this and for your last series of flash set ups, i especially like second from the bottom.

Very cool. I like it.

Dont mean to be rude.. But why didnt you choose the AF540fgz and use TTL mode.. Surely that would have been quicker and simpler... ?

Thanks Maria, Richard and Stuart. Maria, showing the photos and discussing things about their capture is just as much part of the enjoyment as the actual taking

Stuart, it's not rude at all to raise the question, keep them coming ! Here the reason for choosing the radio flash control system was the positioning of the flash and softbox. This was specifically to give side direction and an 'under-light' for nice light quality .... However as a result then there is no 'line of sight' between the camera and flash . The AF540FGZ would need optical triggering from an on-camera flash if I wanted P-TTL , and that would not work with this positioning.

The radio system will communicate with the flash reliably up to 100metres and the flash can be pretty much anywhere and not even seen, as in my case with these shots. It's very convenient, but is manual power control only.

Interesting, Nigel. My favourite is the last one, superb colour and clarity with that great little zoom lens! It must be quite a sight, seeing you with all your electronics kit set up and flashing in the forest! Did you get any comments from passers-by?

Cheers.
Philip

P.S. I think you'll find it's cacti.

As an aside, Pentax have removed the in body flash's optical trigger ability (of off camera flash) from the k-s2 and k-70 models. As well as the SR composition adjustment option.

Hence my comments around the cactus vii being even more appealing for those on a budget, added to not being able to drive off camera HSS via the onboard flash trigger anyway.

Great stuff Nigel. Appreciate the write ups and discussions.

These are excellent, not obviously flash-lit which I suppose is due to the diffuser. I wonder where Pentax is going with off-camera flash if this function is being taken off new bodies?

Yes, I'm sure I look like a man on a mission! Once in to the depths of the forest however, I saw not a soul, and glad of that too Thanks for your interest Philip ....

Thanks also Richard and Rob ..... Richard, thankyou for getting involved .... Rob, I think the light quality comes from both the diffuser type and the angle in relation to the subject. Here the softbox is fairly large in relation to the small subjects, and large means 'soft light', plus the angle of nearly 90deg gives depth to the light and brings out contrast and texture across the subject. Sort of the opposite of direct bare flash, which is often harsh and unnatractive.

With the softbox out of the frame there are plenty of different positions to try out, so given more time I would probably experiement more.

Regarding the direction of flash provision for Pentax, who knows what the plan is ??? We now have a number of different permutations of flash implementation on different bodies .....

1) Built in Flash with full features (eg K7/5/3/50) (not sure about K50 there?)
2) Built in Flash without any Wireless functions (eg K-S1/K-S2/K70)
3 No Built in Flash (eg K3II/K1)

The reasons for no built in flash are already well discussed. No wireless functioning is more difficult. Could it be cost saving, or just that the feature is seen as too 'high end' for the expected user base? Or is it to push for more sales of the AF-360/540FGZII flashes?

If its to push more flash sales, then that will have some success I'd say .... there's plenty of people who ask about what flash to use on their K3II/K1 who end up buying a new Pentax flash. But equally it may push people into buying alternatives like radio trigger systems, and this probably applies more so to users of the high-end bodies.

I myself see plenty of need for both P-TTL wireless and radio system options ..... I use these types of flash on their own and even in combination. It depends on the situation and how 'dynamic' the conditions are (eg changing light, moving subject, bounced light being more suited to P-TTL / constant or controlled light and a static subject being well suited to manual flash).

One logical development to hope for I suppose is a flash with a radio receiever and a hotshoe transmitter for P-TTL / Manual control, made by Pentax! And of course with that we would want group control and P-TTL ratios all managed from the hotshoe receiver interface. But, whilst this sort of thing is available from the competition, it is NOT cheap .... far from it!

I had wondered if Pentax were running low on code space, and dumped the optical master in favour of pixel shift for example.

Do you mean sort of like ROM memory for carrying out calculations or processes ? Don't know, surely these days such things take up tiny amounts of memory .....

McGregNI, the K50 has a fully featured built-in flash which I have experimented with an AF-360II so it is a surprise if the K70 doesn't. Thanks again for the detailed info.

Thanks, I was going on info I'd read on the forum, and I agree it would be strange to remove wireless functions from the K70, which in so many respects is a very advanced model. I can see the case for not having the wireless trigger functions on an entry level model, both to reduce cost and also on an assumption that the user base would not really be ready for that sort of advanced operations. .

It could also be a way of distinguishing more between the models and encouraging upgrades once new users realise they have things 'missing' from their initial camera choices.

The K-70 is as much a K-S2 base with a different body as it is a K-50 replacement. The K-S2 doesn't have the optical flash commander type capabilities that the K-30/50 have either.