Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh
the main aim was to check out how I can sync the Simpex Prolite strobe with the SB-900/SB-600 flashes..... I have only one radio trigger!!...... but I did use the Prolite flash as an optical slave some time back.... it synced with SB flashes..... but for some reason, the optical slave of the flash is not longer working..... its the poor reliability of these cheap Indian system that keeps me worrying..... and can't really blame these systems much, as these are the only things that I can put my hands on right now.....
anyway, the experiment to sync once again failed miserably..... and I only have the option of using the Prolite as a stand-alone flash.... may be using some reflectors and diffusers to make it work a bit better..... thats it.... I quickly switched to the other set-up that I haven't tested yet..... spent some effort in recent times to construct some of a boom-stand to create overhead light.... this was the time to try it out, before I could really put strangers under it....
I quickly realised that the light spill on the background remained as grave a problem as before.... and SB-900 was easily reaching the backdrop..... I suddenly came up with a decision to use the softbox of the Prolite to contain the light of the SB-900.... thus, the whole system instantly becomes sort of a 25"x25" softbox.... and the spill was complete gone..... to be over-sure, I switched to high-speed sync and made the background totally dark..... it worked, although with some effort...... had to invest a lot of time and labour into it.....
the other problem that sneaked in was the trigger.... my SU-800 ran out of batteries and I couldn't get one timely enough..... the D700's built-in flash was the only solution..... but the practical problem was that the built-in commander was capable of controlling only two groups of lights..... but I needed three separate groups to accomplish my setting..... couldn't give the hair-light enough power because of this and struggled to make the hair-light visible in most shots..... was also not controlling the floor light well enough.... the chair got too much glare.... it needed some go-bo to control the spill on the bottom of the image.... I wasn't using tethered shoot this time because of some USB cable problems..... wasn't able to give enough look to all the small details.... may be next time....
I used the reflector for the first time and it worked really fine.... decided to use the silver side instead of the white side..... next time would also try out the white side..... the half-light really made a difference.... it worked almost as a full light!!
the set-up....
