Of course, you could just buy the unnamed, expensive radio triggers, and they really are worth the $400 or so if you need super reliability and other kinda groovy features, but those kind of folks will not read this anyway! I had given up on my pair of Cactus triggers. I had debated giving them away and just sticking with optical triggering (using the light of a flash to set off another flash wirelessly), but everything changed the past couple days. Here is what happened.

The problem with my Cactus radio triggers (aka “radio slaves”) was pretty simple: I would press the shutter release, and the flash would not fire. I press the test button on the Cactus, and nothing would happen. At first, they were just unreliable, which in time became utterly useless. Just a quick search on Flickr, and you will find loads of folks who love these and hate them (for these same reasons), so I figured I just had a dud pair.

So, I thought it was my battery. I changed that, and they were better for a while, but quickly went downhill again. That was when I discovered how reliable my optical flash triggering was.

I could use the pop-up flash on my camera to trigger my flash just about anywhere (around corners, through bodies, etc), at least, anywhere I had been using my radio wireless triggers. I still did not want the pop-up flash light in my photo, so most often, I deflected almost all the light with folded up paper or maybe just softened it with a coffee filter slid over the flash (high-tech, huh?).

There are two big negatives to this method of wireless flash, though. One, you are usually holding a piece of paper in front of the pop-up flash or holding a coffee filter on. That means you are shooting with one hand and sometimes at awkward angles. I did have the presence of mind to tape the coffee filter on a few times, but even still, it was a common problem.

And two (the really big downside), I am limited by the recycle rate on my pop-up flash. My “big” speedlight/flash can fire very quickly and many times in a row, but that little pop-up hangs after one or two shots and needs to recycle or recharge. And when you are doing a shoot with people (portraits, family, group, etc), and you see that perfect opportunity a half second after you  just fired…well, you miss it if you have to wait on that pop-up flash.

Having an optically triggered flash is still a great idea, but when that is a pop-up doing the triggering, you are greatly limited. If you had two or more speedlights, the “triggerer” either itself radio triggered or mounted on the camera, and the second flash triggered optically, you would be set. And that is where I am headed, but the pop-up flash just about killed my family shoot (see the last entry), and I had to find something different.

Re-enter: the Cactus triggers.

I took the Cactus trigger set and my flash down to buy batteries and test them out to make sure that was the problem. Oh, I have a little confession to make: as I was messing around with the idea of putting them back into action, I noticed the transmitter light was dim…i.e. it had a battery in it too and it was going dead. I should have known it had a battery too, but it just never registered in my head. I had figured it was using the camera’s power. I should have realized it had a battery because you can trigger it even when it is not attached to the camera. Not too quick on that one.

Anyway, turns out my brand new receiver battery was dead, because I had left it to “on” the last time I used it…at least, I assume that is why it is dead with almost no use, even though it was not receiving anything…unless that transmitter button is getting pressed accidentally in the bag…hmm. I digress, but an important digression for your information’s sake, don’t you think?

Lesson 1: turn them off when finished and possibly keep that test button from accidental “testing”.

Anyway, I replaced the dead receiver and the dying transmitter batteries, and the triggers (no-so-miraculously) worked flawlessly. One more thing, though: when I put the dying transmitter battery back in, it would still trigger the flash, but if I pressed it fast, several times in a row, it would miss a few of the clicks. With two fresh batteries, it would trigger the flash as fast as I could click the little test button. BINGO!

Lesson 2: if your Cactus triggers are not firing 100%, try fresh batteries in both transmitter and receiver.

So, once I realized it was just an issue of dead batteries, I bought some spares and put them to a field test. I am referring to the shoot I set up to fix the horrible flop of a shoot a couple days earlier. Flop shoot = pop-up flash triggered. Looking back at the photos from the second shoot, they never missed a beat; there was the flash in every photo, even when firing three or four quick shots when the family was in action.

So, for all those times I have hinted on this blog that my little Cactus radio triggers were less than wonderful, I take it back. That was probably the best $40 I  have ever spent on camera gear. If you are interested, just run over to Midwest Photo Exchange (where the cool, off-camera flash kind of folk go) and search for “cactus”. And do yourself a favor: pay $15 more for a V4 set, instead of the V2s set, which I have. You may not know it, but there are several very practical, little updates that make them much more useful in the field.

Come on, stop dreaming about $1,500 cameras and ungodly-expensive lenses, and drop $50 to make just about any flash (even that stol borrowed one from your dad’s camera bag) transform your photos from plane-jane to rockin’-awesome.

My current humbling experience all started a few days ago with a wonderful meal and talk with a photographer friend of mine. It was not him, but just watching some of the videos he has produced recently really reminded me what a two-bit punk hack I am. It was not the technique, but how he captured the power of the story.

Then today, I shot a very “ok” family portrait session. That is “ok”, as in, I do not want to say more of what I really think. The harsh sunlight made things tough, not only for lighting, but for the quickly wilting subjects. Excuses aside, though, I really want to know what happened. How do I improve? What can I learn here?

One of the key problems was a lack of familiarity with my lighting equipment. Well, more accurately, I was so focused on trying to balance the flash with the blaring ambient, I totally lost connection with the subject. I did not direct them. I did not let them know what they should do. And, to top it all off, I was not really even paying attention to them when I put the camera up to my face (or before then either).

Ok. How to fix it, though? What are some keys to making it different, and I mean small practical things?

Limit location/scene. In an attempt to give the mother a wide choice of background, poses, and set-ups (for lack of a better word), which she expressly stated she wanted, I ended up magnifying my difficulty at getting the lighting right. What I should have done is pick one or two spots, the ones I knew would end up best in the end, and spend more time there. Then, after the lighting was set right, I would be free to interact and catch that nice moment.

Be the director. To help them be at ease and to have confidence in me, I must direct. If I notice somebody is not smiling, find a way to get that out of them (well, if you need a smile, which this photo was certainly expected to have). If they are all just standing straight, hands to their sides, in the classic boring pose (because the photographer did not know what better to do), I need to help position them, pose them, suggest movement, or whatever.

Well, there may be more things, but every other “should-a” I can think of really falls into one of those two. Honestly, I really think I am going to call them up, let them know I have some “ok” shots, but nothing really nice, and I would be more than willing to set up another shoot in the next couple days.

And for the cold-hearted motivation, as if I were not already motivated enough to want to make this right, I found out during the shoot they will be printing this photo with some printer in the US to show as an example to other families here in town of that printer’s services. In other words, if I can really excel in this shoot, my work would be displayed before a wide(r) audience, and I would be first in line to provide photographic services for their family and group photos. I am not terribly concerned about that (because I live and work in a different country anyway), but it would be throwing away an excellent opportunity.

So, to add on the title of this post a little bit, it is good to be humbled, especially publicly. That reveals the weak areas of our photography and, if publicly so, gives us great motivation to improve.

A couple days ago, a friend of mine mentioned (just in an off comment, he probably did not think I would blog about it) that his next purchase was going to be a flash. For me, that set off all kinds of alarms. I know he is just an amateur working on a budget like many of us, and I also knew a little knowledge about flash photography could easily save him a couple hundred dollars.

There are loads of flash techniques. About the only on-camera technique I would even think of is bounce flash. If I just happen to be in a room where it will work, I will use this. Actually, just recently after the birth of my second child (a wonderful little girl who is crying at this very moment), I used simple bounce flash to light up the hospital room for almost all the shots.

Then, there is off-camera flash (this all relates to what flash you should buy, I promise…just bear with me). In the old days, basically, off-camera flash meant cords, and those still work great, of course. Today, though, there are many easy cordless options using either radio signals or optical infrared signals.

At this point, I could easily chase a very long rabbit trail. So, for now, let’s just say you want to know what flash to buy. But before I totally leave the how-to do off-camera flash, I can quickly say that the Strobist site is the best online resource for off-camera flash folks (from beginners to pros). Check it out. Just work through the Lighting 101 to start off.

Ok, what flash to buy? Well, if you are going to use flash in automatic mode and want it to do all the thinking for you…this is not the post for you, but here is your answer: buy the flash that works TTL (through the lens) with your camera model. Ok, done. There is a place for auto flash, but more than likely, learning just a little about how to run it manual will produce better shots.

So, if you do not really need TTL and plan on running manual anyway, prepare to save money, because you do not need the latest and greatest flash on the market. I bought a used Nikon SB-26 (which even pre-dates my camera by a few years…and that is hard to do), and did not even know at the time how perfect a choice I made. It does all the cool stuff other flashes do, but the one great part is the built in optical trigger. Basically, if it sees another flash go off, it will go off (if that function is turned on, of course). I have even used it with our point-and-shoot camera; the little camera’s flash will set off the big flash.

I have found that to be extremely useful. I usually will tape some pretty thick white paper in front of my pop-up flash so almost none of the light actually goes to the subject, but it will still easily set off the SB-26, usually even around corners, with obstructions, and such. I also have a cheapo radio trigger, but I have found it to be too unreliable. Sometimes it fires and sometimes it does not (keep in mind, I have the cheap ones…the expensive ones obviously work much better). My optical solution is much more reliable, but if I fire too fast, my pop-up flash’s slow recycle rate will hold up the photo, where if using radio, I am not held back by my pop-up flash’s recycle rate.

Ok, so if you find any old flash lying around, that will do to (more than likely). You can buy a little $10 optical trigger, slip it on the foot, and you are wireless. Actually (I am embarrassed to admit), I bought a little optical slave (another name for these little do-dads) before I realized my flash had one built in. So, you can just buy a used flash, but make sure you can adjust the power output 1/2, 1/4, 1/8…etc. Mine goes down to 1/64, and the lower the better, really. Sometimes, you just need a dash of light.

There is a new option, though. In close cahoots with the Strobist community (their Flickr group was recently voted the best online community, or something like that), LumoPro has recently come out with an all manual flash with every cord port you could want, built in optical trigger, and …well, everything the Stobist folks asked for. You can grab one of these LumoPro LP120 flashes for $130 at MPEX.com, the coolest place to buy lighting gear…they have all kinds of little lighting goodies for cheap skates like me.

The Strobist does talk about a couple other new manual flash options out there, but the LumoPro or an older Nikon strobe would be a better bet, in my opinion. If you want to know more about why, I might write more later, or you could read the reviews of those three flashes on Strobist (linked at top of this paragraph) and read his pros and cons about each. That will give you a very good idea of what features to look for (and insist upon).

Want to stretch yourself, keep up with the Strobist blog, and you will see loads of field use of off-camera flash and a wide variety of examples of work.