Tonight we went out to Jon’s Boy Scout Court of Honor and because I cant help myself I had to set up strobes. I guess people will get used to it eventually. 2 sb-26s on nano stands at 45s to the front. half power zoomed to 50mm.
Just as I had the strobes set the lights went off. All of them. Pitch black in the sanctuary I am stuck I cant go back to my seat and I didn’t have the camera with me any way so I couldn’t shoot as the boys started a candle light service. Fortunately after they lit a couple of candles I was able to see enough to get back to my seat. But what to do now? Some parents were using their on camera flashes but if I use my strobes it will nuke everyone’s eyes. Not really polite. More importantly it would blow the warm glowy effect of the candles. So I turned off the pocket wizard on the camera and rolled the iso up to 25600. Any other camera I wouldn’t have even tried but this was the much vaunted Canon 5dmkII. I had just gotten it a couple of days ago. Turns out I didnt need that much ISO. ISO 25600 gave me 1/250 at f 2.8. Way overkill. Droped the camera down to ISO 3200 and fired away.
When the lights came back on I went to the strobes and used them the rest of the evening. I cant overstate the jump in capability the 5dmkII represents. My 40d could have shot the same frames but I would not have shown them to any one.