Dustin Diaz Photography

56/365. For Frodo! ~ Aragorn (LOTR)

I didn't think I would think this so early, but... I love my SB-900. Having owned an SB-600 for so long, I didn't think there was anything more than I would love from the 900 except more power, and larger zoom range on the head. Oh no no. Just the UI itself was fun to play with. Despite my interest in learning the math behind flash exposure... I don't "actually" like thinking about when I'm taking pictures. And yet at the same time, I don't want full TTL either.
Enter the SB-900 with it's cool ability for you to just plugin numbers, and let it do its thing. Tell it what aperture you want at what ISO for a given distance — it recommends a power setting :) — Not to mention, you can also set it to "distance priority" where my camera sends it my exposure information, and the flash makes up the exposure based on how far away your subject is (LOVE).

If all that was jibberish to you.... here it is in simple terms (by the way, this counts as my strobist info).

I walked up to that tree on the left, set my flash on a stand behind it, and pointed it over at that other tree on the right. I set the zoom head to 24mm (even though I had a 50mm prime on my camera), then thought to myself "Hey, It's Bokeh Wednesday!" — So I told the flash I wanted to make an exposure at f/1.4. I also made a "guestimate" that the tree was ~about~ 10 feet away.... so I twisted the power setting dial until I saw a reading of 10 feet.
I walked away, kneeled down, and took this shot. It was like magic :)

Yes, I know, not the most exciting photo in the world, but I was quite happy with how well lit such an ordinary scene was.

And now that I'm done boring you, Happy Bokeh Wednesday!

for the bokeholics. have a great thursday.
Explorer'd thanks everyone!

Half of me was expecting ET to fly by, but I knew that wouldn't be possible without a full moon so I gave up trying to look.

Palms flourished the town of San Pedro, these were some just by our suite on the beach.