Two Foot Putt - Golf in Still Life

Golf season is right around the corner up here in my part of the world. In fact, since the weather has been warmer than normal in the past week some courses have already opened up. Me, I’m already getting the itch to get out there.

This photo was part of a still life assignment for one my photo classes a couple of years ago. My initial idea was to arrange a couple of clubs, tees, ball markers and a golf ball, but I couldn’t get the arrangement that I had envisioned. I began to clean things up when I noticed my golf shoes on the floor. These shoes have seen a lot of fairway time (and yes, some forest time, too) so I grabbed them and began arranging the scene. I rolled a golf ball into the scene to see where it would rest, and that looked pretty good. Next I grabbed my old putter to see if that would finish the scene, and there it was.

How did I do this? I used a Canon Rebel XT with the 17-85mm IS lens and a 430EX flash shot through an umbrella off to camera left. I also used a piece of white foam core on the right as a reflector to add some fill light.

The challenge - since neither the Rebel XT nor 430EX have PC sync ports, I had to figure out a way to trigger the flash from off camera. I chose to use a couple of PocketWizards. One on the camera hotshoe and the other attached to the flash. However, as already mentioned the 430EX doesn’t have a PC sync port and I needed something to be able to hook up to the PocketWizard. I ended up using a Hotshoe to PC Connector - flash to hotshoe connector and PC sync cord from connector to PocketWizard. I can’t take credit for this idea though; I borrowed some great tips from David Hobby over at Strobist.

The one thing about using the PocketWizard this way is that the flash can only be used in manual mode, no eTTL/iTTL allowed. I started with ½ power and eventually dropped to ¼ power. I was metering with a handheld Sekonic L358. It’s a little bit of trial and error, adjust this, tweak that, to get the light the way you want. But in the end, I was happy with the result.

Enjoy!

DC