Most excellent series! You really make that combo sing! I'm still convinced that the 1DsmkIII gives a slightly different look to the images vs the 5DmkII. But everything I've ever seen from that lens is nothing short of incredible! I've shot with the older model before (the f/1.8) and it was just AMAZING. I wish I owned it.
add me to the crowd of amazed!!! Simply stunning. I also appreciate the explanations and answers to questions you have provided. Not only did I get to view master class pictures I was also able to learn a great deal. Thank you for both.
WebDog, the 135 and 200/2.8 are great lenses, don't get me wrong. Where the 200/2 shines is in the AF, in my opinion. I use spot focus, and move the focus point around with the joystick, so I don't focus and recompose.
First your pictures are great and your set-up just delivers. I am sure it helps you be more productive than most other players.
I am double impressed that you can get such a high keeper rate hand held. I cannot get a pronounced difference between the 200L 2.0 and the 135L hand held. Of course the dismal close and few AF points on the 5Dii may be part of my problem. And the D's are just too big and heavy for me.
Additionally, the bokeh on the 200/2 is visually better than the others.
Compared to the 135L as I find the bokeh quality equal - of course you can get more blur with the 200 2.0L, but that's another story.
nice series, great control of ETTL on wireless mode. I have questions for you:
You mentioned you set ambient light underexpose by 1-2 stops, FEC 1/3 to 2/3 up, using HSS. As I assumed you use AV mode:
1. how far do you place your main light and kicker from subject?
2. how do you measure ambient exposure? Spot metering on some 18% grey subject? Do you have to lock the exposure since you will move the focus point to eyes and shoot?
jhartman: could you post a few of the pictures w/o any postprocessing? I'm curious how much of the 3D "pop" is from the processing and how much is the lens' smooth bokeh...
"1. how far do you place your main light and kicker from subject?"
As close as I can get them without either being in the picture or causing lens flare.. Obviously with a longer lens, that means the lights can be pretty close to avoid both. On the closeups the main softbox can be as close as two or three feet away from the subject's face. This both softens the light and gives many additional exposures on a charge of batteries (at f/2 the flash is just a tiny wink, anyway).
"2. how do you measure ambient exposure? Spot metering on some 18% grey subject? Do you have to lock the exposure since you will move the focus point to eyes and shoot?'
Spot meter. But on a 1Ds when using ETTL the metering mode goes to Evaluative even if it's set to Spot (what's up with that, Canon?). I bump up the flash exposure to +1/3 to +2/3 with because Caucasian skin is lighter than 18% gray. If they have a very light colored top I will bump it up even more. Darker outfits require a reducing of the flash EC. Experiment to taste.
Regarding the exposure lock, I use the Custom Function I: 7 (Spot metering link to AF point) which moves the metering along with the focus point.
Still unclear how do you do ambient exposure measurement?
1. My understanding is flash measurement ties to where your focus point is, in other words, flash is measured just before shutter is clicked, no flash lock used in your case.
2. Do you measure ambient with center point on some 18% grey subject, lock it, then move focus point to the one you will use, focus and take the picture?
3. Or you seperate shutter and focus, take a read of ambient and hold shutter half pressed, move focus point to right one, focus and take the picture?
4. One thing I found, if some diffuser is used and flash left not very close, say full body shoot, ETTL will always underexpose the subject, no matter how much FEC added. In this case, best way to do will shoot it in manual flash mode. Did you see this happened?
Ambient exposure is indeed tied to the focus point (actually, an larger area than the normal 5º spot, as I mentioned, because metering automatically switches from Spot to Evaluative when you go from ambient exposure to ETTL).
Because I'm focusing on a face, which in the case of my mostly-Caucasian clients is brighter than a gray card, I set the flash exposure to overexpose slightly to compensate. The ambient meter setting determines the contrast ratio between the flash and the 'fill', which is the ambient light. The lower the ambient setting, the darker the area not exposed by the flash, i.e., the shadow side of the face, the background, etc. I like to set it to about -1/3 to -2/3 stop to give the flash just enough pop to light the face properly (and also allows me to standardize my WB to the Flash setting on the camera) without giving an artificially 'flash' look.
Questions #2 and #3: No to both. No need, because the above method works just fine.
#4: The only reason ETTL would underexpose a full body shot is that the flash is too far away or that the aperture was too small to give the proper exposure to the subject. I've never had this issue, although even with my groups I shoot at f/8. You could test this by racking up the ISO in a series of identical tests on the same subject (same settings throughout). If your exposures start getting better at the higher ISOs, the flash isn't powerful enough. If nothing happens, you've got something else going on. But the use of any kind of light modifier should not change the exposure (of course, it WILL require more light in a modifier, but ETTL should compensate).
Even better than admiring jhartman's terrific work, make sure to read his posts answering technical and practical questions. As if the photos weren't proof enough, he really knows his stuff. The thread title might've led one to believe this thread would be about the 200 f/2L IS, but the real meat here is the lighting technique--simple yet so effective when done right. Who says E-TTL is unpredictable, eh? Not when the photographer knows what he's doing
Oh yeah, the lens is kinda nice too
