My favorite photography rental website, BorrowLenses had an amazing Christmas offer that if your rental ended on Christmas day, they would extend it for an additional 12 days - free! How could I resist?!? I ended up renting a flash, a 14-24mm wide angle lens and a 2x teleconverter*. The flash got the most action up front - mostly because it was the one I was most likely to actually buy in the future. :)
Since I started playing with it during the few hours of daylight we had (on the almost shortest day of the year!), I was mostly using it as a fill flash. I was pointing it up at the ceiling to 'bounce' it. Unfortunately for Matt, he was standing next to me while I was laying on the floor to get photos of Henry. I may have temporarily blinded the hubby... Whoops!
After Matt finished complaining about being blinded, Thomas got on the "too bright!" bandwagon. I don't think it was all that bright. I mean if it got you right in the face it would be, but bounced off the ceiling it wasn't that bad.
He managed to get distracted from the "too bright!" when he realized he could make Elmo ride the motorcycle. I think Elmo needs to be wearing a helmet - safety first! ;)
Back to Henry! Henry doesn't care about the flash. Henry is just happy to be bouncing in his jumper and being the center of attention. Also note the nice bokeh on the Christmas tree lights in the background. Wouldn't it be cool if I could have figured out the shape trick and they were hearts instead. Sigh...
After waiting a few hours - well waiting is a misleading, I was probably playing with them. :) Anyhow, the sun has since gone down and I got to play with the flash as the main source of light. I read up a little on using it, but I am still working on figuring out settings. I can make photos work in our house with what light we have, but I am usually forced to sacrifice ISO. With the flash I can have all of the settings I want. I just need to figure out how to optimize it.
Thomas was busy playing with this magnetic travel set I bought him a while back. He has to sit at the table to play with it because I am super worried about Henry eating magnets and don't trust that Henry won't grab a magnet Thomas dropped before I notice. Eeek!
So instead they are both captive in their chairs while I snap photos of them. And see what Henry got to play with? A paintbrush and painting tape. Second children are so abused...!
For the record - he has real toys, he just prefers random items. Why do I keep buying him toys??
This photo didn't work out so well lighting wise, but it's the only one I got where you can see his top teeth coming in! Those teeth (and the bottom ones) ha've caused chaos with sleep around this house. The boy who could sleep through the night at 3 months apparently cannot sleep through teeth coming in. Boo!
Still playing with his magnets, with the occasional "too bright!" yelled out. But notice that this one has a slightly different color to it. I was digging around in the flash bag and found there are filters you can put over the flash to compensate for the ambient lighting. For this photo I used the orange filter for incandescence and it really did make it look better. Apparently the camera knows which filter you put on the flash and automatically adjusts the white balance to match. The camera is smarter than me... "/
As a reward for being oh so patient, I set the boys up to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It's the 50th anniversary of the movie this year and I thought they would love it. Ha - not so much. Thomas made it through the first 10 minutes and then brought me his Cars DVD to watch instead. I tried to convince him that Rudolph was way cooler. Yeah, he didn't buy it. Oh well, maybe he'll love it next year...
The last play photo for the day was with my ever faithful model. :) She didn't seem to mind me playing around on which direction to bounce the flash. The flash will shoot straight on, then has several options of pointing up - all the way to vertical. But you can also rotate the flash side to side, so the possibilities are pretty limitless. And she was very patient with my testing - I think the end result on this one was up and to the side.
*The teleconverter was such a disappointment. It's not the teleconverter's fault. I didn't read the fine print closely enough and apparently my zoom lens isn't compatible with it. I was so bummed I'm not going to be able to get any fancy moon photos. Oh well, that's what I get for rushing to reserve rentals... Small price to pay in the long run and the flash has made up for any disappointment!