At 18:10 3/12/01, Barry Bean asked:
Out of curiosity - why not a T-45 instead of a pair of T-32s?
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B.B. Bean bbbean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bean & Bean Cotton Co/Bean Farms http://www.beancotton.com
Peach Orchard, MO
Barry,
Three reasons:
1. I had a T-32 and had just bought a second one (for other reasons).
2. Shadow control.
3. This bracket setup could be used with the OM-4 and the T-32's in TTL
Auto,
and in Normal Auto with the M645 by flipping the T-32 panels over.
I didn't list red-eye control because a T-45 (or BG-2 with T-32) has the
head sufficiently far enough away from the lens axis that its risk should
be near zero.
A lot of wedding style photos are made "portrait" versus "landscape." A
T-45 head is on top of a flash handle, to the side of the camera body, with
its base plate extending under the camera if it's mounted on the camera as
originally designed. The arrangement is similar to using a BG-2 with a
T-32 in its hot shoe. While its head can always be kept above the lens,
it's always off-center too. Subject shadows will fall to the side, albeit
lower (diagonally across from the side the head is on). This is much
better than a shoe mounted flash and turning the camera "vertical," but
still not as good as always having the flash directly above the lens.
One could disconnect the handle from the baseplate and try to hold it over
the lens regardless of which way the camera is turned by using a long
enough TTL cable. I tried this with a BG-2 and T-32. It was very
cumbersome holding the flash over the lens with the left hand while trying
to hold the camera in the right hand, and operate the shutter and winding
lever. The right hand was doing too many tasks. It was more than my right
hand could handle, and a third hand was needed to focus the lens! If the
BG-2 and T-32 were left mounted to the baseplate, the shadows (IMO) were
unacceptable in certain situations when the subject(s) were too close to a
wall or other backdrop. It's more of a problem at the reception when it's
not possible to reposition people very often. Candids pretty much just
happen; you either get them when it does or you don't.
The specific flash bracket I used (a Newton) allows the camera to rotate
under the flash. Stroboframe and several other companies make similar
ones. This aspect of the flash bracket isn't clearly shown in the
photograph or explained in the text.
BTW, if you use a "camera rotating" bracket of this type it is less
cumbersome if you have a handle on the left side with a cable release
mounted in it that can be operated by the left hand. This frees the right
hand for rotating the camera as needed, focusing and winding the film. It
took a couple rolls of film to get accustomed to operating things this way,
but worked pretty quickly after the short learning curve.
The advantage of a T-45 (and a BG-2/T-32 with "C" cells) is a fast flash
recycle time. I was able to significantly shorten the normal T-32 recycle
time and extend the number of flashes per battery set by using two of them
with 1600 mAH NiMH cells.
The disadvantages of a flash bracket are it's heavier than a T-45 or BG-2
and top-heavy with the battery laden flash heads mounted that high (a
handle on the bracket left side helps with this too).
Kinda long-ish but walks through some of what I tried along with the logic
for it that ended up with the double flash bar.
-- John
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