Flash (aaah!)

Shameless self-promotion: more backblipping has occured! Clickity here and here if you are so inclined. (I only mention it because I often miss when my girl backblips multiple times, since only the most recent upload shows up on my home page. I figure if I have run across that issue, and wish I had known there was more to see, maybe others would too? Let me know if it's a bother, blippites!)

Yeah, this picture isn't much to look at, but it was really exciting for me. You see, this coming Saturday, my girl and I are "official" (volunteer) photographers for her work's 25th Anniversary Gala. After our failed attempts at taking pictures at her brother's wedding reception, and paying close attention to the hired photographer, we realized we're going to need speedlights if we're going to do anything at the gala that people besides us will want to see. We're dealing with high(ish) stakes here, and don't want to completely fail.

So the company was willing to pay for us to rent a pair of Canon 580EX II speedlights, and they came in today. Work has been keeping me late (very late) lately, but I got out with enough time to get a little time with the flash unit and get basic comfort with it.

Which leads me back to this picture. The speedlight is in the bottom right-ish corner of the frame, and this was my first shot using the flash as a wireless slave to my Canon 7D. So freakin' cool!! I probably won't be needing that feature at the gala, but it's too cool not to try. Other exciting moments (but not nearly as picturesque, not that this moment was) was finally getting the autofocus lamp on the speedlight to work. Lack of light aside, inability to focus on the poorly illuminated people at the wedding reception was the other inhibiting factor (no, my camera's built-in autofocus lamp wasn't working at the time, for reasons I have since figured out). The speedlight's less-obtrusive red light is far better than triple-flashing people with the camera's onboard flash.

What, you're still reading? I'm impressed, I was getting bored just typing all of that, though the whole experience was exciting to me. So while this blip isn't one of my best 90%, I'm proud of the moment it represents. Thanks for reading!

Bonus points to whoever deduces what show was on the TV!