AboutBill Edwards Expertise Professional Digital Still Photography and Film Questions on Lighting, Nikon PRO Equipment, Portraits, and Limited Commercial Still Photography.
Experience 30 years as a professional photographer / business owner
Organizations Professional Photographers of America
Guild of Professional Photographers of Delaware Valley - Past President and Chairman of the Board
Publications Have taught photography at all levels Including Lectures at Professional Photographers of America's National Convention; International Professional Photography Guild's National Convention; State and Local Associations
Education/Credentials Numerous classes and seminars - no degree.
Awards and Honors International Photography Hall of Fame Exhibit Winning Entry
Image Published in Fuji Film's Showcase Publication
Best of Show Portrait of a Child - GPPDV
Best of Show Portrait of a Group - GPPDV
Voted best in Bucks / Montgomery County several times
Past/Present Clients Clients are mostly individual Families local to Bucks and Montgomery Counties in Pennsylvania with several regional clients from Connecticut to Florida. Our studio has raised over $150,000 for local schools and other charities.
Question Hello, I have a canon 40D and will be shooting some boxing. I cannot use flash on the camera but I can use remote flash over the ring. I have not tried this before, can you tell me what I need to buy to set up my camera for this. I can do the positioning of the flash and such but I don't know what accessories I need. Thank you.
Answer A friend of mine has done this for an ice hockey venue so I'm familiar with the setup.
As for the flash itself - I like the White Lightning X1600 on full power and they are reliable fairly powerful and not too expensive. These should be powerful enough to light up the ring from above (of course that depends on the height of the ceiling too) If not they make an X3200 also with about twice the power. I recommend 4 of these to get light onto the faces so you can shoot from different angles and keep your shadows to a minimum - place each light in the rafters several feet straight out from each corner of the ring - aiming into the center of the ring. The stock reflector that comes with each unit should be fine.
Bogen Super Clamps will attach the lights to the standard metal ceiling struts.
Then you need Pocket Wizards to remotely fire the lights in sync with your camera One for each Light - PLUS one for the camera - I like the PocketWizard PlusII which has built in versatility for other projects and costs about the same as the non versatile models. These should fire reliably from anywhere in the venue.
Just do a search for "White Lightning Paul Buff" for the lights. A reliable source for the Pocket Wizards is BHphoto.com but I like my local dealer - Allen's Camera in Levittown, PA allenscamera.com
Good Luck and let me know if you ever post some of the photos online!
