Thanks so much for your questions. With the on-camera flash I tend to ride the flash exposure compensation all night to get the exposure that I want on the subject. Exactly like I did before I started using off camera flash. I keep a careful eye on my histogram to ensure the exposure will be how I want it to be. Since the off-camera flashes are manual they act completely independently of the on-camera light. As for the bounce card, I use a Demb Flip-It, which allows me to control the amount of light that is being directed at the subject by adjusting the angle of the card. In a room with a dark ceiling, I tend to angle it forward more so I don’t lose the light and wear down my batteries too quickly. It’s a great piece of kit. Hope this helps!

–JAMIE

It looks like you’re dialing in some sort of underexposure with your on-camera TTL flash. Can you elaborate on that? And if you’re firing off the bounce card, then most of your light is heading toward the ceiling? Thanks!

If I don’t have a good idea of what something is worth (or what I want to get for it), I forgo the buy it now and let the market decide by seeing a $1 starting price with no reserve. The $1 starting prices gets people to put a bunch of low bids in early so that when the auction is close to ending it looks like it’s had a lot of interest. This can be nerve wracking though as for most of the auction you see really low prices on the item. I’ve been burned a couple of times, but usually it works out. (And by burned I just mean I was disappointed int the final selling price.)

I uses the no reserve, $1 starting price, no buy it now with a couple of items recently that both have a day left int he auction… One is an old phone that is up to $37. I’ll be happy even if it stays at that price. The other is a Quantum Turbo Battery that’s only up to $12. I’m expecting the Quantum to move up higher before it sells but maybe someone’

s going to get an AWESOME deal from me! :)

On an expensive item like a camera I’ll often put a reserve at whatever my lowest selling price is. That usually generates a bunch of annoying “what’s your reserve’ questions from bidders, but so be it.

I know that free shipping is can be considered important, but I usually charge separately for shipping… and often it’s still more than what it actually costs me to ship the item, especially if I add tracking to it.

I’ll sell a hard drive, but I’ll securely erase it by writing zeros to very sector first. When I sell a computer I securely erase the HD then install a fresh OS on it. I think that’s nice for the buyer as they don’t have to try to go through it and wipe my preferences. For things like cameras I reset the menus back to defaults and remove my copyright info from the metadata.

I often start by selling my lower priced items first to get my ebay sea legs back. I also only put up a few items at a time so that I don’t feel overwhelmed by questions from buyers.

The strip box is on a Cheetah Boom Stand which is a regular light stand with a built in boom arm.

The beauty dish is on a Cheetah Century Boom Stand which is a regular C stand that converts into a boom.

The strip box is attached to the stand with a Westcott Magic Slipper. The whole Strip Bank Kit is described here: http://www.fjwestcott.com/products/product.cfm?itemnum=2221&tbl=products&head=magicslipper

Questions: what are you using for boom arms? What’s your attachment setup for the speedlite with the strip box?

Nicely done piece!