For gear, I kept it (relatively) simple - Canon 5D and 1D Mark IIn bodies, 17-40 f4 and 70-200 f4 lenses and one 580EXII flash with TTL cable. I knew that I'd want to get wide shots of the river dyeing and close-ups of the boats, so the lenses were in the right ranges. Looking back, an even longer zoom would have been useful, but I don't need one enough to have bought one!
Normally, Chicago is cold and overcast in March for the river dyeing. This means one has to bundle up against the cold, but the lighting is soft and even - perfect for shooting the river. This year, however, Chicago was sunny and warm - great for being outside, but the harsh sunlight cast shadows across the river. The Mark IIn made short work of this, however. Instead of my usual Manual exposure mode, I switched it to Aperture Priority at f4 (and ISO 200 for a faster shutter speed) and AI Servo mode for focusing. The camera was in its element, capturing perfectly exposed and in-focus shots in both sunlight and shade at 8 frames per second. It was almost too easy!
For the parade shots, I wanted to use the flash to single out people and their outfits and under-expose the ambient. In bright sunlight, that means high shutter speeds and a fill flash with High Speed Sync. High Speed Sync lets you shoot flash above the usual sync speed. It comes at the cost of 1 to 2 stops of light as it uses pulses of light instead of a single flash, but the 580 EX II has enough power for most situations. I put the flash on the TTL cord so I could aim it at the subject and set the exposure in Manual mode to under-expose the sky by about 2 stops. This ended up being about 1/2000th at f4 (ISO 100). Shooting at 17mm meant the flash would only cover a portion of the frame, which is what I wanted. In fact, I zoomed in the flash a little, to 50mm, which made the flash coverage even smaller but gained a little more output. I shot into the sun, using it as a rim light and filling in the shadow with flash.My friend James had a similar idea, it seems. He and shot the parade on Greenville Ave in Dallas. In his photos, he kept his 580 EXII on the hotshoe with a Sto-fen Omnibounce and shot in Aperture Priority mode at f2. He set exposure compensation at -1EV which underexposed the ambient and made the flash-filled subject stand out. The softened flash blended well with the soft ambient - he had the benefit of cloud cover for his shots! At f2, focus can be tricky, but the background will blur nicely and James used this to great advantage, particularly in his close-up portraits.
Interestingly, if James had been shooting Nikon, this setting wouldn't have given him the same results. Nikon couples the ambient and flash exposures, so a -1EV setting in aperture-priority mode would under-expose both the ambient AND the flash exposure. To get the flash to fill in a correct exposure, a +1EV flash exposure compensation would have been needed. This changes with the new Nikon D4; the exposures are separate in the new flagship body.
High Speed sync can only be achieved using proprietary flashes and can be quite an investment, but for getting great results in a short amount of time, it can be invaluable. Photographer Nick Fancher shows this off very well in this video, an inspiring look at speedy workflow and a must-see for high speed sync shooters.
The rest of my Chicago photos are here.
more later soon
