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Postby BrianC » Jan 16, 2007 9:05 pm

Mark! The pictures were great! If I can get some any where near that good I'll be happy with my A630!
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Re: Did I mis-state the model number?

Postby NZcaver » Jan 17, 2007 12:09 am

Mark Ostrander wrote:The camera that I got for Christmas is the Canon A630, not the SD630. I looked on the Canon website, and believe this to be the one.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/contr ... elid=14108

Oh. :doh: Sorry.

Forget what I said previously about the optical viewfinder and the AA batteries - yours has both. Nice! All it needs now is a hot shoe, and maybe a remote control. :wink:

I think I'm screwed with any of the red-eye reduction modes, but don't know what the 'slow synchro' means.

Basically, it's taking a time exposure (slow shutter) image AND firing the flash at the same time.

http://www.storyphoto.com/journalism/phototip_nine.html

Out of curiosity - on a camera that works well with a firefly, is there a term for the way the flash works?

It's simply a single flash - like you always got with the old 35mm camera. No digital pre-flash to set the white balance. And FYI, the redeye mode won't do you much good either if you're using a slave flash. In this mode, a camera usually fires 6-12 rapid flashes to dilate the pupils of anyone staring at the camera before snapping the shot - thereby lessening the redeye effect.

P.S. Nice caving photos. :kewl: I think I visited that cave a couple of years ago during Convention.
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Still no joy on firefly and Canon A630

Postby Mark Ostrander » Jan 17, 2007 10:31 am

The cats and I were experimenting last night in a darkened living room with the camera and firefly. I tried all the settings that I could think to do. Even tried manual focus, thinking that it might be related to the autofocus.

I did not try anything related to the color balancing. Not knowing anything about the multi-pulse flash from a technical standpoint, it wouldn't have occurred to me that it was related to the white balance. I wonder if there is an option in there that would help.

Thanks for the positive words on the pictures!

We'll get there eventually.
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Postby Realms » Jan 17, 2007 8:06 pm

Yes Mark the pics look nice. Limrock was a learning place for me as well. Isn't it amazing how different the pics look after you get the flash off the camera. We will have to do a photo trip soon :-)
never stop imagining what could someday come to pass...
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Postby BrianC » Jan 19, 2007 2:01 pm

Ok! Wendy you wanted to see what the A630 could do! This is my first good picture with the help of Splunker Bob!
Image
Splunker Bob showed me where to set up, he controlled the lights, told me what settings to put the camera on, all I had to do was push the little button on the top![/img]
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Postby wendy » Jan 19, 2007 2:05 pm

BrianC wrote:Ok! Wendy you wanted to see what the A630 could do! This is my first good picture with the help of Splunker Bob!
Image
Splunker Bob showed me where to set up, he controlled the lights, told me what settings to put the camera on, all I had to do was push the little button on the top![/img]



cool, good job! cedar ridge crystal is a good place to take pics, i need to head back up there sometime, i'll let ya know. :-) hopefully i will get my per diam check from work soon, so I can get my camera
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Brian - Awesome photo

Postby Mark Ostrander » Jan 22, 2007 5:56 pm

Brian,

That is an awesome photo you posted. Nice to know the A630 is going to be good for something. Do you remember any of the camera details for the shot? I counted at least two remote flashes. It almost makes me wish I hadn't sent that Firefly 2 back for an exchange for the F3 model. I could have just bought the F3 and used it's flash to trigger the F2. Alas, I only have the one flash right now. Someday, though.

Keep it up.

Mark
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Firefly

Postby Bflareau » Jan 22, 2007 7:17 pm

Brian - are you happy with your FF-3? I am about to purchase one and was debating the extra $ for the programmable component. Sounds like you decided it was worth it.
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Postby BrianC » Jan 23, 2007 10:52 am

This was my first set of pics with this camera. Splunker Bob set up the shots and basicly all I had to do was push buttons. I have never used digitals before, so this was a learning trip! Two people Cely and his cousin JD did the flashes.
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Firefly 3 with digital camera

Postby Mark Ostrander » Jan 23, 2007 11:00 am

In my posts from a couple weeks back, I was talking about difficulties synching my digital (Canon Powershot A630) with a recently-purchased Firefly 2. I couldn't do it. I tried all the options and settings I could think of, but no joy. Mike Cato was good enough to get together with me, and we tried the same combination of camera and flash, but with his Firefly 3. We were successful in having the FF3 'learn' my camera's flash and synch with it. It was just a conference room test, but we know it works. I have since sent my FF2 back and am trading it up for a FF3. So yeah, the FF3 is going to be worth the extra money. You will at least need one to start the flash cascade in synch with the camera shutter.

Looking forward to an underground test when I get the FF3
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Postby BrianC » Jan 23, 2007 11:17 am

We had no flash on the cameras, Hand held flashes sometimes we were able to get 2 or 3 flashes each!
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Postby SpelunkerBoB » Jan 23, 2007 8:03 pm

BrianC wrote:We had no flash on the cameras, Hand held flashes sometimes we were able to get 2 or 3 flashes each!
There were 3 strobes used on this shot. A Vivitar 285 was used for the right background whic fired a small slave lighting the right side of the main formation grouping. Another strobe was fired at least 2 times for the left side background. On some of the shots the Vivitar was fired a second time out front, but I think Brian missed it on this one. I have some decent shots from this session that I would post, but I'm not quite sure how to do it.
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more questions for BrianC and SpelunkerBob

Postby Mark Ostrander » Jan 24, 2007 10:11 am

Hi guys,

Having the same model camera, I am wondering just how "manual' you went for the shoot. Bob mentioned a flash going a couple of times - that implied you had the shutter open for quite a while. Does that mean you were in the Shutter Priority or fully Manual mode? Did you set the aperture to a low or high f-stop? Did you do anything special about the focus? I ask the latter because on a couple of my stream shots, the stuff I wanted was out of focus because I think the autofocus was looking way down the cave passage. I recall from above-ground film photography that the depth of focus is wider at the higher f-stops, but below ground it might be hard to get enough light in to make a good picture.

Thanks for the info!
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Postby bigalpha » Jan 24, 2007 4:02 pm

Mark -


A higher f-stop (i.e. 8 or 16 or 22), the less amount of light that is getting through, so you will have to decrease your shutter speed, which shouldn't be too big of a problem. I imagine that your pictures should come out exposed properly, as long as you allow for enough light from your flashes. I would expect that the biggest variable is how high you can go in regards to your f-stop.
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Postby paul » Jan 25, 2007 8:06 am

If you are using flashes only to light the subject (as in a cave) the shutterspeed will have no bearing on the exposure - only the aperture (meausred by f-stop).

Also many digital cameras so not actually use an iris to control the amount of light entering the camera as on film cameras (related to the f-stop).

The light can be varied by a type of filtration affecting the sensitivity of the CCD. Depth of field is a consequence of the size of the hole (and hence area of lens) through which the light passes - so quite often varying the f-stop on digital cameras has no effect on depth of field.
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