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Abandoned Church Cosplay Photoshoot

A group of people I know from the convention scene went back to an abandoned church in Gary, Indiana recently. This was a great opportunity to try out some off-camera flash, so I went all the way and bought another Cactus V5 and a middle-weight tripod for a setup I was planning.

Here are some highlight photos from the excursion: 








Here is the lighting setup:

The strobist lighting setup consists of:

  • 2x Yongnuo YN460-II flash units
  • Custom Brackets CB-Mini flash bracket
  • 1x Cactus V5 trigger
  • A flash extension wire (has a hotshoe on both ends)
  • A Manfrotto MKC3-H01 tripod

The flash extension takes place of a second trigger or using the optical slave method. Both of which would have either a downfall in expense or usability. 

The optical slave method could cause issues with orientating the flash heads away from each other and, of course, having two triggers would mean more cost and more batteries to deal with. I used this setup most of the time and it worked quite well.

With cosplay photo sessions like this, it’s difficult to go back to photographing more mundane subjects. 🙂

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