"Pack it and forget it!" would have been a great para phrasing of the popular infomercial line, for this post. This past weekend I had to shot a video event, since my partner was a guest and refused to work it. I normally don't shot video any more for a long list of reasons, least among them 24, or 30 frames a second is just too much for someone obsessed with "framing". I tried to do the photos, but too late the event planner already had a photographer. So I agreed to shoot the video. Packing gear for a video shoot is quite enough with in itself, but as I'm always thinking of that next-frame, I packed my Canon G9 and one of my Nikon SB-80DX flash.
And good thing I did, not only because you can always use stills in video to add a little extra to a scene, but you can never count on the photographer working the event to provide you with some shots to include in the video.
I captured enough shots using the camera's internal flash as a fill/trigger. By setting the internal flash output down by 1 3/4 to 2 Stops, just enough to trigger the built-in optical trigger on the Nikon flash which I usually bounce of a wall/ceiling or in this case a big glass lamp in the ceiling.
At the end of the day, this shot was worth the night of doing a video shot. I'm glad I got to (once again) use the Canon G9 the way I intended to, as my "pocket" camera and life-saver.
As you can tell it was a theme party (1920s)
