Saturday, February 21, 2009

Canon 430EX II Speedlight Flash


Over the weekend I got a Canon 430EX II Speedlight Flash to use during both night and daytime photography. Needless to say I am pumped. It giving me a whole new venue to experiment with and I recommend a hot shoe flash to any one interested in photography. I wager that a $300 flash will help your photography more than a $1000 super fast lens.

Unlike the built in a flash, a hot shoe can pivot and be aimed away from the subject enabling the light to be bounced off the ground or a nearby window. For this photo I aimed the flash away from the subject and bounced it off the ground.

In addition to using my flash at night, I also use it in the daytime to illuminate faces and details. Here is an example.

Without a Flash.

With a flash. Here is another one during the day with a flash.

Here are some more Links,
Canon 430EX II Speedlight Flash (Amazon),
Canon 430EX II Speedlight Flash (Review),


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey man, love the blog, great stuff you have going on here. i'm interested in taking up photography and putting up original pictures of things on my blog that i own and things that are personal to me and inspire me. i'm struck by how great your shots always are. for someone who's interested in trying out photography, do you have any tips, recommendations, etc, any particular sites you used to guide you? how did you settle on your camera in your research? thanks for the help and keep up the stellar work!

Foster Huntington said...

Paul,
Your blog is off to great start. I also study history in at my college. I got into photography in October of last year. It bit me and i was hooked. I did all of my research and purchases on line.

For reading up, these two links were really helpful,
http://www.youtube.com/user/cameralabs

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/

the most important thing i can pass on to you is that lens makes the picture. I would take my 600$ dollar body with a 1000$ lens over any 1400$ body with a 400$ lens any day. I didn't have lens before i bought my digital body so i went with the canon xsi because it is affordable and comes with a good kit lens. i recommended that to you. From there you will see what kind of photography you enjoy and then upgrade accordingly. You could get a slightly used one on ebay for like $600. I all of my big purchases (camera and my lenses) have been slightly used off ebay and i recommend it any one everyone. if you dont want to step to an slr just yet, i would get a professional point and shoot like a cannon g10 for 450$. Let me know what you end up doing and i am glad you enjoy my blog,
Foster

Anonymous said...

hey thanks for the insight, foster. looks like i have some saving to do haha. i'll definitely be doing some more research on the cameras. my blog so far is a decent start i think; i started it for a few reasons, mainly 1)i wanted a voice in this new blog world, and 2) i want it to set the tone for a future project i'm going to tie the blog into. i know the success of a blog rests on originality through personal perspective, and i feel that the copy/paste posts that i've done, while interesting, are still limited in terms of what i want to the blog to feel like. i want my blog to have a much more original/personal feel and your blog is fantastic in that regard. i try to schedule a few posts per day, so be sure to visit again. i've got some really good stuff coming out this week that i'm excited about. thanks again. btw what's ur focus in history?

Foster Huntington said...

paul,
my focus is on how science and technology effects society. I really glad you think that my blog feels personal, thats what i am going for and i completely agree, original content is key. I try to post 6 times a week and focus on content. Some times its hard to come up with posts but it has a been a great experience for me.
foster

Eloise said...

Hi Foster
I read this post a while ago and was so impressed I bought the canon 430II EX for my Canon 500D/t1i. I'm very surprised at the difference good lighting makes to portait photography and now I'm excited to take photos of the people I love. Where has good lighting been all my life? Thanks for the recommendation, I bought this flash instead of a macro lens I've wanted. Great post!