Camera Labs

I went to a seminar called Captivated by the light by ed pierce, it was mostly studio style shooting and he used a rediculous amount of lighting equipment.

I never saw him using a camera mounted flash. During the Seminar he mentioned that most of the time its easier, and looks softer to use a large light source/box The small bulb makes hard lines and shadows and it makes it more difficult to get the "right" shot.

Question for you all is:
I was interested in the 430, but now learn the 580 seems so much more capable. But what other fairly simple options do I have that might surpass a flash like this. The seminar was sponsored by Quantum so with that in mind, he had some pieces from them that seemed fairly simple/small but had a larger bulb, and seemed to be able to be used with a box.

Sorry to be so brief, but I don't really know much about flash photography, and I'd like to not spend $400 on a flash when there might be a better option. If you are all lost sorry, if you think you can add a word, that would be helpful.

thanks.

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Canon 40D kit Lens 28-135mm IS, Canon 50mm F/1.8, 10-22mm, 100 2.8 macro, 580 Ex.

Hi csmonte,

while unable to actually answer your question as I'm not an experienced flash-photographer and don't have Canon equipment, I can tell you that I find a lot of inspiration and information by reading from this website, dedicated purely to flash-photography: www.strobist.com

What they produce there is stunning and often very artistic but they also cover the craft.

Some of their "DIY" (Do It Yourself) designs for snoots and lightboxes are both cheap and easy to reproduce, with great results.

For certain photography - mostly macro and portraits in controlled environments, I - the consummate Cheap-O - have bought several different cheap LED work lights and flashlight. It puts more pressure on me to control WB and they are rather rough around the edges, so to speak - but they are cheap and produce a heckuva lot of light that you can see continuously, so the guesswork of using 1/10000sec of flash is eliminated.

Cheers