Curse You Western Australia - Curse You For Your Fine Weather

Did goe to the parke yesterday and was greatley amused.

The Vauxhall Owners Club was having their annual " Show and Shine " display. The venue was a local riverside park and the area was coated with picnickers, little dogs, and aged British tin. It was also coated with the bane of the photographer - bright noontime sunshine.

Perth does not have the advantages that Melbourne has - if you are a photographer there and you find that the light conditions are unfavourable for your subject, you can go have a cheap cappuchino and come back in a half hour and it will have changed. We get neither the cheap coffee nor the convenient scrim of cloud. We have intense bright sun blasting down on us.

Witness the shadows on the Vauxhall cars - I've softened them up a little with photoshop Elements but they are still black as an ironmonger's heart. As the sun was overhead - it WILL do that at noontime, despite repeated requests - it makes for some pretty unflattering lighting. Had I included scantily-clad models with the cars it would have been worse - dark eye sockets and shadows under all the prominent features. Ick.

If I was using the Nikon D300 outfit with the the SB700 flash on-board or at the end of a coiled cord I could have directed light into the undersides of the cars and all would have been well. The Little Fuji X-10 I used has a small fill tube but it would never have done anything outside.  It did improve interior shots for one of the Vauxhall drophead coupés but that is close range stuff.

Answer in the future? And an answer that you might like to pursue for your own field photography...a Hahnel Combi-TF set. The radio signal from the transmitter on the Fuji would go to the receiver with one of the Nikon SB700's. Putting this onto a small Manfrotto studio stand would allow me to step away and have the fill come from wherever I wanted. It is not going to be a TTL connection, but a quick test for the power level should sort that out.

A little more gear to take with me, but a pretty good way to cope with Old Sol.