Hi everyone,

In advance of the Christmas holidays I’ve been trying out an off-camera flash setup using whatever bits and pieces that I had rattling around in a drawer. I dug out a flash bracket, and my JJC pistol grip. I unscrewed the cold shoe from the bracket and screwed it to the top of the pistol grip and, as the grip has a tripod bush in the base I was then able to screw it onto the bracket. The grip also has a trigger which, when connected to the camera’s remote port by cable allows the camera to be fired from the grip. The Godox TT350o flash is fired by the Godox X1To radio flash trigger mounted on the camera so as to keep the cabling to a minimum. I could also dispense with the flash gear and fit one of my small Godox LED36 video lights to the grip instead.

I tried this arrangement out by taking some portrait shots of my wife and I’m very pleased with the results and the way the gear handles in use. She absolutely detests having her picture taken but she reluctantly agreed so as I could test out the gear as she wants some new shots of the grandkids in particular and she would hang, draw and quarter me or possibly worse 🙂 if I posted them online. In fact I never publish private family shots online anywhere especially so of the grandkids. Somewhat of a sad commentary on the world we live in perhaps, too many unsavoury characters out there in my opinion. But many years ago I used to do quite a bit of portraiture and model photography before my photographic interests changed from photographing people to mostly landscapes.

I’ve since added a small quick release plate arrangement mounted between the bottom of the grip and the bracket so that I can quickly attach and detach the grip and use the flash handheld.

PS. I awoke this morning very early whilst it was still dark and couldn’t get back to sleep so I made myself a nice cup of tea and thought I’d take a few test “shots in the dark” inside the house to try something out so I additionally fitted one of my small dimmable Godox LED36 video lights to my flash bounce grip arrangement. It worked very well as a focus assist light source. Dimmed down to a setting of my choice the light from the LED unit was overwhelmed by my choice of flash output it was really just there to see what I was doing stumbling around in the darkness and to stop me from tripping over and breaking my neck however when on full brightness it is pretty bright and the light source temperatures didn’t clash. I think that it would also make a nice modelling light, catch light, fill light etc. or just an alternative light source to throw in the mix and its very small and light so I can accommodate it in my choice of bag. Like the flash and trigger units it also runs on 2 AA batteries which is convenient.

Kind regards

Leigh