High Class @ Low Cost

High Class @ Low Cost · Posted by Mike Cash, 11-02-2009, 04:57 PM

Pentax K20D
Auto-Takumar 55/2

Taken last night during rehearsal for today's recital (which I have to dash off to shoot in a few minutes).

Light was from a National PE-3057 and a Pentax AF200T, a pair of low-tech wonders from the 1980s, each of which set me back ten whole dollars.

The Auto-Takumar 55/2 is a 50 year old kit lens, which I got as a freebie on a refurbished S2 body I bought for about $25.

*Ash* · 11-02-2009, 05:09 PM

Well done Mike.
Did you radio trigger these flashes? The result is quite good, a little harsh on her face, but very accpetable.
I like.

Mike Cash · 11-02-2009, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by Ash

Well done Mike.
Did you radio trigger these flashes? The result is quite good, a little harsh on her face, but very accpetable.
I like.

Triggering was with Flash Waves.

The flashes are on manual power settings and have to cover the entire stage, with the performances ranging all across the stage and hence making fine-tuning light output impossible.....at least within the technological limitations of the flashes I'm using, anyway.

*Ash* · 11-02-2009, 05:41 PM

So you just had to work around the limitations by positioning the flashes at varying distances from the subject, I take it.
Good job with that mate.

Barnster · 11-02-2009, 06:29 PM

Nice use of your lighting Mike!

Mike Cash · 11-03-2009, 02:26 AM

Originally Posted by Ash

So you just had to work around the limitations by positioning the flashes at varying distances from the subject, I take it.
Good job with that mate.

The lights were set up alongside the seating area, each about 25 feet from center stage and angled in kinda-sorta aimed at center stage. My goal was to get somewhere around f4 or f5.6 of light at ISO800 and I was able to do that and shot the whole show today at 1/125 @ f5.6.

What I ended up doing today was on solo dances going with Takumar lenses and just the house lights. Keeping manually focused on one dancer isn't too burdensome. When I knew there would be two or more, I quickly swapped back to the Tamron 17-50/2.8 so I could take advantage of the zoom and autofocus. On some of those I used flash, and not on others. I made far far less use of flash than I did last year.

*Heinrich Lohmann* · 11-03-2009, 09:16 PM

Very nice Mike, looking forward to seeing some images of the performance.

*xs400* · 11-03-2009, 09:42 PM

Excellent work on a low budget. Well done. Thanks for reminding us that we don't expensive equipment to get a great image.