Canon Speedlite Selfie

Well, the flashes did not take their own picture, but they at least self-lit this one. You may recognize the above image from the recently-posted Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT Flash review. I thought you might want to know a little more about the somewhat unusual image.

This shows 6 Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT Flash units lighting themselves. The flashes were triggered from a Canon ST-E3-RT Speedlite Transmitter mounted on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR with settings of ISO 100, f/11 and 1/200. I used a Sigma 24-105mm f/4.0 DG OS HSM Art Lens set to 57mm.

The six flash units are in their included shoe stands and their heads are angled to -7 degrees (slightly downward). The flashes are sitting on a black back-painted glass desk surface. I am standing on a stool with my feet just under the glass table top and leaning forward until the center AF point was centered in the reflection of the lens. Yes, reflections of me in the glass were an issue. I partly resolved this problem by wrapping a black fleece jacket around my legs.

You would not believe how well this setup lights up dust and other imperfections in the glass. I microfiber-cloth-dusted immediately before and a couple of times during this shoot. But the strong angled light across the black surface still found lots of dust and made it glow. Photoshop's Dust and Scratches noise filter quickly removed most of the dust problem. I used the history brush to restore details that were removed with the dust (including the flash names).

Here is another similar image: Speedlite Art