Day 261

261/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I  have a lot of people ask me questions about camera stuff. My roommate Jake is looking to buy a camera and we were talking about what he should look into getting. I told him flashes are where it's at, and then we did a little test.  

Forewarning, this post might be a little too camera-nerdy for some of you.


Anyway, we were talking about lenses and bodies and high ISO grain and things, and I told him he should worry less about the lens (and even the camera body) and put some money into a cheap flash. While we were talking, he was using my camera to try and take a picture of his guitar. He couldn't get a sharp picture because our apartment is like a black hole when it comes to light and he was getting frustrated. He didn't know if it was him or the camera, so I took over to see how crisp I could get it. 


I opened my lens up wide. I underexposed the picture a few stops, figuring I could fix it in post. Auto-focus was having some problems, so I put it in manual. And not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty steady with my hands. And we ended up with the picture on the left. Sharp, but really shallow, and generally just ugly.


Then, to prove my point, I went and got one of my cheap SB-24's that I got used off of ebay. Then I grabbed my cheap wireless triggers that I got off of ebay. I put the flash inside of the china ball hanging from my ceiling, which was what was lighting the guitar before. I eyeballed the level on the flash and adjusted my camera to properly expose everything. It took me all of 2 minutes (AT THE MOST!) and the picture looks 100x better. Everything is sharp, deep focus, and I didn't have to worry about my breathing blurring the shot! It's not a perfect picture, it's a little hot at the top, but with a little adjusting it could have been easily fixed. 


My point is, you can spend hundreds of dollars on a faster lens and maybe squeeze out another stop of light. You can spend another couple hundred and upgrade your camera so you can shoot at ISO 3200. Or you can spend $100 on ebay and get a flash and learn how to light off-camera (and your pictures will look infinitely better!).