Sometimes the only time I have in the day to use my camera is while I'm out walking dogs so I am getting quite good at using my old faithful 450d with Tamron 18-270 whilst holding two furkids on leashes at the same time, and watching where another two are who are not on leashes Walking late in the evening has special challenges of slower shutter speeds, but there can be magical colours if one can get all 4 dogs to the spot you want to be at the right time!
And walking in the morning can have it's own interests and also challenges of hurrying the dogs along to where one wants to be to capture the team of men cleaning up the weed from the marina before they finish up and move away
Moved Harriet in front of a wall in the dining room. Somewhat less ambient light here as much further away from any windows than I was yesterday. And also, being a white wall makes good practice for learning to deal with shadows. Much needed practice as you can see by looking at these awful headshots and the seriously bad shadows on the wall behind Harriet. Last three shots I moved her about half a metre away from the wall, but the shadows are still there, although not quite as pronounced. 1st shot in this series is direct flash. Next flash bounced off ceiling, then reflector held above her and angled down
After a few days, I think I am finally getting somewhere, although I am consistently noticing that my photos seemed to be underexposed and I needed to pull the exposure up in LightRoom, so I tried FEC +2. This is perhaps a bit too much flash but a huge improvement on previous days attempts. However, pulling the highlights down in Lightroom has resulted in quite nice tones
And FEC +1. This is perhaps a good compromise as I haven't needed to pull the exposure up in Lightroom but is still a bit bright - perhaps I need to pull the hightlights down as per above shot
And No Flash Exposure Compensation:- Once again I needed to pull the exposure up in Lightroom by 0.48 or half a stop
Well, I have to try and figure out how to make the best use of my new piece of photographic gear - a speedlite 430 ex rt ii so here are my attempts at trying ETTL flash bounced from the ceiling and from a reflector held or propped in different positions relative to the model on camera left.
This is also a good opportunity to introduce Harriet or Hatty, my patient model. Here she is shot in natural, available light only
This is the easy bit .... She is about 2m away from the background - my lounge wall which is mostly quite dark (as in facebrick fireplace and a very large bronze picture above the fireplace. There is natural light on camera right, with french doors about 2m away providing a reasonable amount of ambient light
And walking in the morning can have it's own interests and also challenges of hurrying the dogs along to where one wants to be to capture the team of men cleaning up the weed from the marina before they finish up and move away 
