After playing around with my recently purchased Canon 580ex II flash for the past couple months, I have finally bought all a start of the equipment to use it off camera.  I purchased:  10ft air-cushioned light stand, shoot-through or reflective umbrella and a strobe clamp.  The last piece of the puzzle was the wireless triggers.

I was looking at several options for triggering the off camera flashes.  I didn’t want to get a solution that I would not be happy with or need to upgrade in short order.  Here is my list of triggers:

• Alien Bee CyberSyncs
• Elinchrom Skyports
• Gadget Infinity V2S (eBay triggers)
• Recently Released Radio Poppers JrX /PX
• Pocket Wizard Plus II

I reviewed the products based on their advertised features along with anecdotal testimonials from various online photo communities.  There is tons of talk about off camera flash on the Strobist Flickr group.  Click the jump to find out the winner.  (more…)

I had some visitors in my house this past weekend after the ice storm left most of the capital region without power.  My brother’s friend and dog spent the night.  Once Bear got to know me, I took the opportunity to practice taking some pictures with two dogs playing together. I was trying to capture images where the dogs were either looking exactly at each other, or both were looking directly into the camera.

Here is one of the better images I captured from the set. This was shot with my trusty Canon 24-70 F2.8L with a Canon 580EX II flash.

I will post some additional images in the Logan gallery. PS.  Please ignore the dog hair on the rug, it needs a good vacuuming.

Canon has recently been running one of their semi-annual sales.  They usually run for a few weeks twice a year.  After reading many lighting blogs and forums on Flickr, I decided it was time for me to start the journey of off-camera lighting.  I picked up the Canon 580ex Mark II Flash.  I had already ordered and received my Maha battery charger so the batteries were fully charged and ready to go.

My first thought after taking the flash out of the box and loading up the batteries was that this will be heavy on my XSi body.  The overall construction of the flash is very solid and feels durable in your hand.  One really nice upgrade I noticed is the slide-lock mechanism used to attach the flash to the camera.  No more twisting a large locking screw, just slide and done.

As I just ordered the flash at this point I was not able to do any off camera work.  It’s just as well as I barely knew what all the modes and dials on the flash did.  I had done some basic reading about the 580 while I was waiting for it to arrive so I have some basic understanding of its usage.

I took about 20-40 pictures the first night of various objects and scenes around my house.  Here is one of the better ones I ame up with.  I’ll post more information as I explore the features of the flash and get my off-camera accessories.