My big oppertunity.....

Jaffster

Jaffster

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Danny
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I windled my way into getting a photoshoot with Jimmy Anderson today, it was for a marketing company who wanted him wearing their product.

I was told by the Sales Director of the company that if this goes well then there would be plenty more work coming my way. Fantastic, right?

I arrive about an hour before Jimmy was due to turn up, strobes ahoy - I had my 4 flashguns tucked away in my bag, light stands, backdrop, umbrellas/softboxes, you name it I had it. Fully confident in my abilities I set the backdrop up and then setup my strobes. 15 minutes before he turns up and I'm happy with setup I go to do a test shoot and..... nothing. Dead triggers. Batteries are fine, the transmitter has died a death.

My world instantly came crashing down. Fortunately, I carry some small cheap continuous lights in my boot just incase. They're really cheap ones that I bought for emergencies like this. The pictures came out.... ok. Some serious white balance issues as the lights didn't overpower the natural light and I had no other choice than to proceed with the setup I had. I will be rescuing these images all night, 53 shots which all have horrid white balance casts.

I will never, EVER invest in cheap triggers again. 2 years I've had these in all conditions and weather and they've never let me down once. I come to do what is probably my highest profile job ever and..... they stab me in the back.

I have backup bodies, lenses, memory cards, chargers, batteries, I even carry a backup battery charger - yet I don't carry spare wireless triggers!
End of rant.
 
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OUCH!! :(:( If its any consolation, my uber expensive pocket wizards are playing up too, had a small shoot this morning, had to resort to Nikons CLS which was fine for this, but now need to have a look at them and see if its just a transmitter battery problem [it has one of those large flat watch battery things], or they need re-programming to each other, or worse case scenario, they need to go back under warranty.

So tell me, Jimmy Anderson, PLEASE tell me you mean a tall man that's good with a ball or I will be SO disappointed :lol:
 
Did none of your flashes have a wireless commander function? Might be a good idea to keep a sync cable in your car from now on or to keep several pairs of cheap triggers, or to buy another flash that can be used as a wireless master rather than throwing all your eggs into one basket
 
The story lacks a lot when you dont explain who jimmy anderson is... i ahvent a clue?
 
Yes, Jimmy Anderson the cricketer :lol: He's a really nice bloke, not quite what I was expecting - really quiet and quite humble.

I invested in these triggers probably 2 years ago and they've been so solid, they aren't even branded! I paid £80 for a transmitter and 3 receivers.

I'll definitely be investing in either Pocket Wizards or Cactus triggers.
 
Jaffster said:
Yes, Jimmy Anderson the cricketer :lol: He's a really nice bloke, not quite what I was expecting - really quiet and quite humble.

I invested in these triggers probably 2 years ago and they've been so solid, they aren't even branded! I paid £80 for a transmitter and 3 receivers.

I'll definitely be investing in either Pocket Wizards or Cactus triggers.
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Sorry, run that one by me again, you'll never buy cheap triggers again, so you'll be buying Cactus ones? To me they're the definition of cheap, unreliable triggers.....
 
There's another reason to shoot with natural light! Buy some more triggers and have more than one set. Sod's law always says things will fail at the most inconvenient moment.

Could have been worse. You might have been photographing someone we'd heard of :D
 
Oh. Still no idea who he is. Never look at adverts or read women's mags so I have no idea who any of those people are even with a photo with their name underneath!
 
Key here is redundancy.

Before you go on a shoot you should be able to smash to pieces any one bit of equipment and still be OK. Ideally any two.

Could you not have used a speedlight on the body firing backwards to trigger the strobes optically ?
 
The top half of the image has the correct WB but the bottom half is really cold. If only Lightroom had a White Balance grad filter...

Is there any other way to rescue these other than exporting 2 images with different WB and then mashing them together in Photoshop?
 
KIPAX said:
you built him up in this thread... then plop... :)
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From Burnley too, Tony I am disappointed with you... I bet you have pictures of him on your hard drives somewhere.
 
Jaffster said:
The top half of the image has the correct WB but the bottom half is really cold. If only Lightroom had a White Balance grad filter...

Is there any other way to rescue these other than exporting 2 images with different WB and then mashing them together in Photoshop?
Click to expand...

Yep, do it this way but using a mask and the soft brush technique for a better flow.
 
Hodders said:
Could you not have used a speedlight on the body firing backwards to trigger the strobes optically ?
Click to expand...

This. I don't know Sony, but surely their top of the line flash can act as a master / they all have optical slaves so you could just fire one on low power on camera to trigger the rest.

Ah well, all done now. G'luck with the 'shopping. :thumbs:
 
I didn't even think about the back up thing but I did a favour for my Mum at the school she works at with. Took the lights and highlite with their trigger. the bag and boot of the car had a total of 4 flash guns and a spare set of cheap RF602 trigger and receivers incase I needed them.

When triggers are so cheap (compared to everything else) having a spare trigger or receiver is a no brainer. at least you will have a spare battery if you ever need it.
 
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