If each of your cameras take different kinds of memory cards, here's the reader for you.
Q: I have a DSLR that uses CF cards, a point-and-shoot that takes SD cards, and a camera phone that uses MicroSD cards. My laptop has FireWire and USB 2.0 connectors, but I don't want to attach my cameras directly and waste their batteries. What's the best card reader for me?
A: If you also have cameras that use xD Picture Cards or older SmartMedia cards, our answer would be the Zio Dazzle Hi-Speed 10-in-1 USB 2.0 reader ($30, street). It handles most cards (including your MicroSD, using an SD adapter), but it's not the fastest reader on the block, especially when fed the latest high-speed memory cards from Kingston, Lexar, SanDisk, and others.
Do you use Lexar Professional 80X CF cards with the LockTight feature? Then you'll have to use a Lexar Professional card reader for them to work properly. Available in USB 2.0 or FireWire versions ($70, street), it's stackable and works with most other CF cards.
For high-speed CF cards and nearly all SD, SDHC, MicroSD, MiniSD, and Memory Stick (including PRO Duo) cards, we recommend SanDisk's Extreme USB 2.0 reader ($25, street). It supports the full read and write speeds of SanDisk's Extreme III CF cards (up to 20MB/sec) and it will also read Extreme IV cards, albeit at Extreme III speeds. This reader is the fastest one we've found for Kingston's 8GB 133X Ultimate CF card. And it ships with RescuePro software (for Windows XP), which recovers images from corrupt or erased cards. While it doesn't accept xD Picture or older SmartMedia cards, it's priced right for everything else.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3627
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Four Light Portrait How To
Four strobes, plus fire, make for a magical portrait set-up.
When a magician friend called recently to ask if I would shoot a promotional image for his marketing efforts, I quickly researched other shots of magicians and found the majority to be poorly lit and frankly a little boring. So to set ourselves apart from the rest, we decided to do something a little different.
Our first idea was to incorporate one of any magician's best tools, fire. My friend wanted a casual look for his show, so he dressed down in his on-stage attire and I set up my lights.
I used a four light setup -- all AlienBee's. I used an AlienBee B800wattsecond (ws) for the softbox (3x4 foot box), a B400ws for the umbrella fill light, a B400ws for the background light and an additional B400ws on a boom stand for the hair light.
The graphic to the right is a setup of the studio.
Doing the setup was actually the easy part; the tough part was figuring out how to measure a flame that's only there for an instant. Another concern was figuring out how to measure it while ensuring that the lighting in the studio wouldn't overpower it. Too much strobe and the flame looks weak. Too little strobe and the flame overpowers the scene.
I finally decided to use a flashmeter to measure the intensity of the flame. After all, the duration wasn't much longer than some strobes, so it "should" work, right?
Using my old Minolta Flashmeter III, I got a measurement of f/8 at 100 ISO for the flame, so I set up the rest of the lights to balance around that, taking individual readings from each strobe and adjusting the power output of the unit accordingly. Since Kurt is a pretty rugged-looking fellow, I decided to use a stronger lighting ratio of 5:1 to give the shadows some depth and sculpt his face a little more. I matched the hair light to f/8 simply because I wanted to show detail in his hair but not blow it out. Stronger lighting would have given him a more dramatic backlighting that, in my opinion, would compete with his face and the flame. The background is slightly overexposed at about f/8.5. This was done to give the dark cloth some added detail in the final image.
4 Light Tutorial
I shot this image in RAW with a Nikon D200 and a 105mm Micro lens, which is an awesome portrait lens as well. The most difficult part about this shoot was timing the flame correctly. To my surprise, it only took us six shots to get the image that we wanted, where his "look" was good and the flame was in a pleasing position. The final image is to the right.
Overall I was pleased with the image, particularly the one part that I had no control over -- the flame. I like the lighting on his hair. It's not too much or too little, and it had the added bonus of giving his shoulders a nice rim light as well, which gave them some definition in a similarly colored background. I also like the light on his face. To me, it's sculpted to define his features and is pleasing.
My one dislike is that I cut his elbows off. But this image is intended for use in newspapers and magazines, so if I had left them in, they more than likely would have been cropped out anyway. We also cropped the image to be a 4:5 ratio, so it makes a perfect 8X10 inch print.
Other articles from PopPhoto.com
* Olympus SP-510UZ
* Canon PowerShot A710 IS
* Kid Tested, Mother Approved
* Econocam Shootout!
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3707
When a magician friend called recently to ask if I would shoot a promotional image for his marketing efforts, I quickly researched other shots of magicians and found the majority to be poorly lit and frankly a little boring. So to set ourselves apart from the rest, we decided to do something a little different.
Our first idea was to incorporate one of any magician's best tools, fire. My friend wanted a casual look for his show, so he dressed down in his on-stage attire and I set up my lights.
I used a four light setup -- all AlienBee's. I used an AlienBee B800wattsecond (ws) for the softbox (3x4 foot box), a B400ws for the umbrella fill light, a B400ws for the background light and an additional B400ws on a boom stand for the hair light.
The graphic to the right is a setup of the studio.
Doing the setup was actually the easy part; the tough part was figuring out how to measure a flame that's only there for an instant. Another concern was figuring out how to measure it while ensuring that the lighting in the studio wouldn't overpower it. Too much strobe and the flame looks weak. Too little strobe and the flame overpowers the scene.
I finally decided to use a flashmeter to measure the intensity of the flame. After all, the duration wasn't much longer than some strobes, so it "should" work, right?
Using my old Minolta Flashmeter III, I got a measurement of f/8 at 100 ISO for the flame, so I set up the rest of the lights to balance around that, taking individual readings from each strobe and adjusting the power output of the unit accordingly. Since Kurt is a pretty rugged-looking fellow, I decided to use a stronger lighting ratio of 5:1 to give the shadows some depth and sculpt his face a little more. I matched the hair light to f/8 simply because I wanted to show detail in his hair but not blow it out. Stronger lighting would have given him a more dramatic backlighting that, in my opinion, would compete with his face and the flame. The background is slightly overexposed at about f/8.5. This was done to give the dark cloth some added detail in the final image.
4 Light Tutorial
I shot this image in RAW with a Nikon D200 and a 105mm Micro lens, which is an awesome portrait lens as well. The most difficult part about this shoot was timing the flame correctly. To my surprise, it only took us six shots to get the image that we wanted, where his "look" was good and the flame was in a pleasing position. The final image is to the right.
Overall I was pleased with the image, particularly the one part that I had no control over -- the flame. I like the lighting on his hair. It's not too much or too little, and it had the added bonus of giving his shoulders a nice rim light as well, which gave them some definition in a similarly colored background. I also like the light on his face. To me, it's sculpted to define his features and is pleasing.
My one dislike is that I cut his elbows off. But this image is intended for use in newspapers and magazines, so if I had left them in, they more than likely would have been cropped out anyway. We also cropped the image to be a 4:5 ratio, so it makes a perfect 8X10 inch print.
Other articles from PopPhoto.com
* Olympus SP-510UZ
* Canon PowerShot A710 IS
* Kid Tested, Mother Approved
* Econocam Shootout!
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3707
Hands On: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0
Adobe's next generation photo software is a full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
by Jonathan BarkeyClick photo to see what's new with version 1.0.Lucky us -- we got to try Lightroom 1.0 just before its official debut. This milestone for Adobe radically rearranges key Photoshop functions within a super-streamlined virtual workspace designed for organizing and processing large groups of images. Lightroom 1.0 should be familiar to the many people who've been using the free Public Beta. The commercial version has been further augmented and refined, and it's available for both Windows and Mac OS (available for purchase February 19 for $199). The new program combines a broad range of functions -- viewing, cataloguing, image editing, multimedia output and advanced printing -- in a single package.
Although it's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the software diverges from Photoshop in three important respects: features, interface and image processing. For starters, Lightroom dispenses with most of Photoshop's graphic-arts features and concentrates on essential organizing, post-production, display and output tools for digital photographers. Also, unlike Photoshop's deep layers of menus and dialogs, Lightroom's simpler interface keeps most functions immediately at hand or easily accessible.
What's Hot
• Non-destructive editing preserves original picture data.
• Works with RAW, TIFF, JPEG and PSD files.
• Supports both Windows and Mac OS.
What's Not
• Version 1.0 lacks image layers, dodging and burning, filter effects, and other standard Photoshop features.
• No discounted bundling with Photoshop, but early adopters get a price break.
• Lightroom Beta users will finally have to pay up.
Bottom Line
• Amazingly full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
• "Virtual" processing technology points way toward further software advances.
Related
• Adobe press release.
• Apple Aperture Review
Most significantly, everything that happens inside Lightroom is virtual, not physical. That means that the photos you "import" into Lightroom's Library don't actually reside there but are represented by Lightroom-generated preview images and associated metadata. Since the software alters instruction sets instead of actual pixels, all visual edits (color, tone, cropping, sharpening, etc.) are non-destructive. So your actual images remain untouched, whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, TIFF or PSD files. This also means you can view changes in real time, batch-edit large groups of photos very quickly, maintain permanent edit histories, and create numerous virtual file versions instead of space-consuming physical duplicates. To share with others, you can export copies (never the originals) as single images or batches -- in whatever size, quality and file format they need.
Based on our experience with the Lightroom Beta, we're happy that Version 1.0 looks and feels remains pretty much the same. It's a single window (showing one or multiple images), with a Filmstrip on the bottom and info/tool Panels keyed to whichever processing Module you've selected: Library is for managing your image folders and collections, including compare/select, keywording, captioning, metadata searching and basic image adjustments. Develop has a full suite of color and tonal controls, as well as cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and other fine-tunable settings. Slideshow, Web and Print each has its own layout, text and design options, including preset templates.
Of the new features in Lightroom 1.0, two really useful ones provide different kinds of image versioning. With Snapshots, we were able to preserve multiple History states for a given file, which we could recall at any time. And, with Create Virtual Copy, we could save different edited versions of the same file, no extra disk space required. (The "copies" behave just like the "originals".) Also new are Stacks, which let us group similar images (including Virtual Copies and real copies edited in Photoshop) together as one, or Auto-stack a sequence based on capture time.
Next on our "Way Cool" list is the Targeted Adjustment feature, which acts as if Photoshop's Color Picker were connected to its Selective Color controls. With it, we could click on any area in our photo and then, by adjusting Tone Curve, Hue/Saturation/Luminance or Grayscale Mix, selectively affect just the chosen color. Two modest but very useful tools: Red Eye removal, whose natural-looking results easily best those of Lightroom's only competitor, Apple's Aperture ($270, street); and Spot Removal, equivalent to Photoshop's Clone Stamp and Healing Brush. We used it to erase a large dust spot on one image, and then batch-applied the same retouching to all similar shots. Of course, like everything else Lightroom does, these effects are non-destructive and always reversible.
Many of Lightroom's new assets are of the meat and potatoes variety: not flashy but valuable for serious work. Prime example: when importing your images from a memory card, you can specify primary and secondary download locations, as well as automatic developing presets. Others: batch export processing using Photoshop Actions, and the ability to create separate libraries. We were also impressed that Lightroom 1.0 let us create physical folders and move actual image files via drag-and-drop, just like a conventional picture browser.
Also new are preview image settings tailored to monitor size; image zoom up to 11x; a "pick or reject" flagging system; drag-and-drop Keyword Tags and a Keyword Stamp; metadata searches by camera and lens used; drag-and-drop Collections; Survey View, for comparing more than two images; and new file format options for editing images in Photoshop. Three features we would like to see Adobe add in subsequent versions: the ability to save Histories when swapping Lightroom-edited files with other Lightroom users; being able to FTP image files to another recipient from within Lightroom; and the ability to set sharpening based on output size. (Adobe says they're working on these.)
In discussions with Adobe this reviewer asked about Lightroom's compatibility with Photoshop and its integral Adobe Bridge media browser. First, they said that the next generation of Adobe Camera Raw would share the same tools as Lightroom and produce identical results. They noted that Lightroom borrows Bridge's five-color image tags and that Bridge can read Lightroom-generated XMP metadata, such as captions and keywords. They also said that, depending on settings, Lightroom could import images faster than Bridge can generate previews. Translation: the new way beats the old way.
Which leads us to our final thought: will Lightroom be a Photoshop competitor or companion, or a bit of both? Our guess it that it depends on who's using it and how. See for yourself starting February 19, when Lightroom 1.0 becomes available for purchase ($199 through April 30 and $299 thereafter) or as a free 30-day trial download.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3709
by Jonathan BarkeyClick photo to see what's new with version 1.0.Lucky us -- we got to try Lightroom 1.0 just before its official debut. This milestone for Adobe radically rearranges key Photoshop functions within a super-streamlined virtual workspace designed for organizing and processing large groups of images. Lightroom 1.0 should be familiar to the many people who've been using the free Public Beta. The commercial version has been further augmented and refined, and it's available for both Windows and Mac OS (available for purchase February 19 for $199). The new program combines a broad range of functions -- viewing, cataloguing, image editing, multimedia output and advanced printing -- in a single package.
Although it's called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the software diverges from Photoshop in three important respects: features, interface and image processing. For starters, Lightroom dispenses with most of Photoshop's graphic-arts features and concentrates on essential organizing, post-production, display and output tools for digital photographers. Also, unlike Photoshop's deep layers of menus and dialogs, Lightroom's simpler interface keeps most functions immediately at hand or easily accessible.
What's Hot
• Non-destructive editing preserves original picture data.
• Works with RAW, TIFF, JPEG and PSD files.
• Supports both Windows and Mac OS.
What's Not
• Version 1.0 lacks image layers, dodging and burning, filter effects, and other standard Photoshop features.
• No discounted bundling with Photoshop, but early adopters get a price break.
• Lightroom Beta users will finally have to pay up.
Bottom Line
• Amazingly full-featured, all-in-one imaging solution for serious shooters.
• "Virtual" processing technology points way toward further software advances.
Related
• Adobe press release.
• Apple Aperture Review
Most significantly, everything that happens inside Lightroom is virtual, not physical. That means that the photos you "import" into Lightroom's Library don't actually reside there but are represented by Lightroom-generated preview images and associated metadata. Since the software alters instruction sets instead of actual pixels, all visual edits (color, tone, cropping, sharpening, etc.) are non-destructive. So your actual images remain untouched, whether you're working with RAW, JPEG, TIFF or PSD files. This also means you can view changes in real time, batch-edit large groups of photos very quickly, maintain permanent edit histories, and create numerous virtual file versions instead of space-consuming physical duplicates. To share with others, you can export copies (never the originals) as single images or batches -- in whatever size, quality and file format they need.
Based on our experience with the Lightroom Beta, we're happy that Version 1.0 looks and feels remains pretty much the same. It's a single window (showing one or multiple images), with a Filmstrip on the bottom and info/tool Panels keyed to whichever processing Module you've selected: Library is for managing your image folders and collections, including compare/select, keywording, captioning, metadata searching and basic image adjustments. Develop has a full suite of color and tonal controls, as well as cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and other fine-tunable settings. Slideshow, Web and Print each has its own layout, text and design options, including preset templates.
Of the new features in Lightroom 1.0, two really useful ones provide different kinds of image versioning. With Snapshots, we were able to preserve multiple History states for a given file, which we could recall at any time. And, with Create Virtual Copy, we could save different edited versions of the same file, no extra disk space required. (The "copies" behave just like the "originals".) Also new are Stacks, which let us group similar images (including Virtual Copies and real copies edited in Photoshop) together as one, or Auto-stack a sequence based on capture time.
Next on our "Way Cool" list is the Targeted Adjustment feature, which acts as if Photoshop's Color Picker were connected to its Selective Color controls. With it, we could click on any area in our photo and then, by adjusting Tone Curve, Hue/Saturation/Luminance or Grayscale Mix, selectively affect just the chosen color. Two modest but very useful tools: Red Eye removal, whose natural-looking results easily best those of Lightroom's only competitor, Apple's Aperture ($270, street); and Spot Removal, equivalent to Photoshop's Clone Stamp and Healing Brush. We used it to erase a large dust spot on one image, and then batch-applied the same retouching to all similar shots. Of course, like everything else Lightroom does, these effects are non-destructive and always reversible.
Many of Lightroom's new assets are of the meat and potatoes variety: not flashy but valuable for serious work. Prime example: when importing your images from a memory card, you can specify primary and secondary download locations, as well as automatic developing presets. Others: batch export processing using Photoshop Actions, and the ability to create separate libraries. We were also impressed that Lightroom 1.0 let us create physical folders and move actual image files via drag-and-drop, just like a conventional picture browser.
Also new are preview image settings tailored to monitor size; image zoom up to 11x; a "pick or reject" flagging system; drag-and-drop Keyword Tags and a Keyword Stamp; metadata searches by camera and lens used; drag-and-drop Collections; Survey View, for comparing more than two images; and new file format options for editing images in Photoshop. Three features we would like to see Adobe add in subsequent versions: the ability to save Histories when swapping Lightroom-edited files with other Lightroom users; being able to FTP image files to another recipient from within Lightroom; and the ability to set sharpening based on output size. (Adobe says they're working on these.)
In discussions with Adobe this reviewer asked about Lightroom's compatibility with Photoshop and its integral Adobe Bridge media browser. First, they said that the next generation of Adobe Camera Raw would share the same tools as Lightroom and produce identical results. They noted that Lightroom borrows Bridge's five-color image tags and that Bridge can read Lightroom-generated XMP metadata, such as captions and keywords. They also said that, depending on settings, Lightroom could import images faster than Bridge can generate previews. Translation: the new way beats the old way.
Which leads us to our final thought: will Lightroom be a Photoshop competitor or companion, or a bit of both? Our guess it that it depends on who's using it and how. See for yourself starting February 19, when Lightroom 1.0 becomes available for purchase ($199 through April 30 and $299 thereafter) or as a free 30-day trial download.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3709
Software Hands On: In the Zone
LightZone software gives the old-school Zone System a totally modern twist.
for a slideshow with more details and images of the LightZone editing process.
Lots of photographers couldn't care less about removing their ex from a photo, adding text, or taking years off the life of a subject. What they really want to do is fix the things that they could always fix in the darkroom -- contrast, tone, and color. Light Crafts' Light-Zone 2.0 is a program for those who've gotten fed up with learning software that has far more tools than they could ever use, and who instead want more control over the way their pictures look.
The heart and soul of the program is the ZoneMapper. Based on Ansel Adams' Zone System, the ZoneMapper gives you exacting control over the amount and location of contrast in your photo. Represented by a black-to-white gradient, it works like this: Points on the gradient correspond to a smaller, grayscale representation of your image called the ZoneFinder, and when you mouse over the gradient, the corresponding zones in the ZoneFinder light up. To brighten or darken those tonal areas, simply click to create a handle, then drag it up or down on the grayscale to expand or contract the zones of the scale. Much more intuitive than Curves, you can make minute or grand adjustments very quickly.
The program treats RAW (almost all types), JPEG, and TIFF as equals, and saves your nondestructive edits as LZN files. If you like your adjustments and want to use them again, you can easily save them to drop on other images in a batch.
This second version of the software ($250 download, www.lightcrafts.com), has a much-improved interface and browser. It always works in a wide-gamut color space and it automatically converts images in other color spaces to it. It also lets you color-manage your print process and tag and convert images to other color spaces on export.
With its browser and many great tools, LightZone 2.0 may not be your total solution -- there's no redeye removal tool or method for doing batch resizing, for example -- but it's an excellent RAW converter and imageeditor. With Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, and Nikon Capture NX, there are many alternatives to Photoshop that are aimed squarely at dedicated photographers. This one's got a free trial, so it's well worth finding out if Light Crafts' modern Zone System will work for you.
The LightZone Top 5
1. Never Ruin a Picture
If you're sick of Saving As over and over, or if Photoshop's Layers have never made sense to you, LightZone's system of piling up your fixes and keeping them always-modifiable will be appealing. You'll never permanently mess up a picture again, and you can save your favorite sets of fixes to apply to other images.
2. Contrast Where You Want It
With this digital version of the Zone System, you can add contrast to your clouds without losing the shadows on the ground -- no masking required. Just tweak the tones you think need changing.
3. Select Like a Pro
One of the most taxing aspects of photo editing is selecting areas to be changed separately. Pick one of LightZone's three selection tools, then click points around what you want to select, and watch as the program builds the shape for you. Tug in or out on the automatically formed interior ring to modify the selection's feathering.
4. Edit All Files
Gone are the days when you need to convert and edit your RAW files in a separate workflow from your JPEGs. This program treats them all the same, letting you edit and adjust all your files using the same toolset.
5. It's All at Your Fingertips
Forget a thousand menus and keyboard shortcuts -- you can see everything you can do to your picture in LightZone's main window, thus making it much easier and faster to edit a photo and move on to the next.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3684
for a slideshow with more details and images of the LightZone editing process.
Lots of photographers couldn't care less about removing their ex from a photo, adding text, or taking years off the life of a subject. What they really want to do is fix the things that they could always fix in the darkroom -- contrast, tone, and color. Light Crafts' Light-Zone 2.0 is a program for those who've gotten fed up with learning software that has far more tools than they could ever use, and who instead want more control over the way their pictures look.
The heart and soul of the program is the ZoneMapper. Based on Ansel Adams' Zone System, the ZoneMapper gives you exacting control over the amount and location of contrast in your photo. Represented by a black-to-white gradient, it works like this: Points on the gradient correspond to a smaller, grayscale representation of your image called the ZoneFinder, and when you mouse over the gradient, the corresponding zones in the ZoneFinder light up. To brighten or darken those tonal areas, simply click to create a handle, then drag it up or down on the grayscale to expand or contract the zones of the scale. Much more intuitive than Curves, you can make minute or grand adjustments very quickly.
The program treats RAW (almost all types), JPEG, and TIFF as equals, and saves your nondestructive edits as LZN files. If you like your adjustments and want to use them again, you can easily save them to drop on other images in a batch.
This second version of the software ($250 download, www.lightcrafts.com), has a much-improved interface and browser. It always works in a wide-gamut color space and it automatically converts images in other color spaces to it. It also lets you color-manage your print process and tag and convert images to other color spaces on export.
With its browser and many great tools, LightZone 2.0 may not be your total solution -- there's no redeye removal tool or method for doing batch resizing, for example -- but it's an excellent RAW converter and imageeditor. With Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture, and Nikon Capture NX, there are many alternatives to Photoshop that are aimed squarely at dedicated photographers. This one's got a free trial, so it's well worth finding out if Light Crafts' modern Zone System will work for you.
The LightZone Top 5
1. Never Ruin a Picture
If you're sick of Saving As over and over, or if Photoshop's Layers have never made sense to you, LightZone's system of piling up your fixes and keeping them always-modifiable will be appealing. You'll never permanently mess up a picture again, and you can save your favorite sets of fixes to apply to other images.
2. Contrast Where You Want It
With this digital version of the Zone System, you can add contrast to your clouds without losing the shadows on the ground -- no masking required. Just tweak the tones you think need changing.
3. Select Like a Pro
One of the most taxing aspects of photo editing is selecting areas to be changed separately. Pick one of LightZone's three selection tools, then click points around what you want to select, and watch as the program builds the shape for you. Tug in or out on the automatically formed interior ring to modify the selection's feathering.
4. Edit All Files
Gone are the days when you need to convert and edit your RAW files in a separate workflow from your JPEGs. This program treats them all the same, letting you edit and adjust all your files using the same toolset.
5. It's All at Your Fingertips
Forget a thousand menus and keyboard shortcuts -- you can see everything you can do to your picture in LightZone's main window, thus making it much easier and faster to edit a photo and move on to the next.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3684
How to Pimp Your Flash
Three great ways to spark up your flash photography
Whether the flash for your SLR or DSLR is a built-in popgun or a fully tricked-out flagship, with the right add-ons, you can have more power, creative options, and fun. Here are two new shoe-mount flash accessories, and one old standby...
1 Quantum Turbo Slim Compact Battery
lighting_207_turbosc_200 For lightning-like recycle times and hundreds -- even thousands -- of pops per charge, dump the AAs and power your hot-shoe flash with a high-capacity battery pack such as Sunpak's TR2000 ($250, street) or Lumedyne's HV MicroCycler ($315, street). Cable-connected to high-voltage ports on sophisticated shoe-mount flashes, they're carried from a belt clip or shoulder strap, and are, alas, clumsy. Hence the bulk under the wedding photographer's jacket.
Happily, Quantum Instruments recently reduced the klutz factor with a high-capacity power pack slim enough to slip into a pocket. The 15-ounce Turbo SC stands a bit over 5 inches tall, and, at about 1 inch deep, is less than half the depth of Quantum's smallest Turbo (the Compact), while offering equal capacity (225 full-power pops for shoe mounts). The NiMH-powered SC also has rapid recycle (1.4 sec) and charging times (1.5 hours), and a $450 (street) price tag. Seem expensive? That's the price of elegance.
2 LumiQuest Soft Screen Diffuser
lighting_207_diffuser_200 Cameras with pop-up flashes are usually frozen out of the flash accessory action. With the LumiQuest Soft Screen diffuser, though, they can join in. It easily slips over most pop-up flashes to soften (and reduce) their output... somewhat. It's small, so don't expect the caressingly soft light of a 3-foot beauty dish. Instead, look for less facial sheen, softer shadow edges behind subjects, and better close-up lighting. Also, it can be adapted to accept 3x3-inch color-correcting gels to bring flash output into (or out of) line with background color temps. That alone is worth the $13 (street).
3 Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync
The DSLR shooter who tries using an old, outdated hot-shoe flash may be pleasantly surprised to find that the flash still works and, thanks to histograms and LCD previews, it's very easy to get great flash exposures -- for a while. The unpleasant surprise comes a month into the shooting, when that flash, indeed any flash, refuses to work on the camera. The problem? A burned-out sync circuit.
lighting_207_hotshoe_200What caused it? Flash trigger voltage that was many times more powerful than the DSLR's circuitry could handle over time. Trigger voltage is stored in a flash's capacitor, and after being put through a step-up transformer, it ignites the xenon gas used in virtually all flash tubes. In many older hot-shoe and studio strobes, that voltage can, unfortunately, ricochet back through the flash foot (or PC terminal) into the camera. The most popular flash unit of all time, the Vivitar 283, for example, used a 20-volt flash trigger -- more than three times the amount some DSLRs were designed to accept.
Does that mean DSLR shooters can't experiment with older studio strobes or hot-shoe flashes? No. Get a Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync ($50, street) to slide between flash and camera, and protect a sync circuit by stepping down trigger voltage to under 6 volts. Best thing? Its built-in PC terminal not only protects the camera's circuitry from studio strobe backfires, it also provides a PC terminal for the many DSLRs today that don't.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3603
Whether the flash for your SLR or DSLR is a built-in popgun or a fully tricked-out flagship, with the right add-ons, you can have more power, creative options, and fun. Here are two new shoe-mount flash accessories, and one old standby...
1 Quantum Turbo Slim Compact Battery
lighting_207_turbosc_200 For lightning-like recycle times and hundreds -- even thousands -- of pops per charge, dump the AAs and power your hot-shoe flash with a high-capacity battery pack such as Sunpak's TR2000 ($250, street) or Lumedyne's HV MicroCycler ($315, street). Cable-connected to high-voltage ports on sophisticated shoe-mount flashes, they're carried from a belt clip or shoulder strap, and are, alas, clumsy. Hence the bulk under the wedding photographer's jacket.
Happily, Quantum Instruments recently reduced the klutz factor with a high-capacity power pack slim enough to slip into a pocket. The 15-ounce Turbo SC stands a bit over 5 inches tall, and, at about 1 inch deep, is less than half the depth of Quantum's smallest Turbo (the Compact), while offering equal capacity (225 full-power pops for shoe mounts). The NiMH-powered SC also has rapid recycle (1.4 sec) and charging times (1.5 hours), and a $450 (street) price tag. Seem expensive? That's the price of elegance.
2 LumiQuest Soft Screen Diffuser
lighting_207_diffuser_200 Cameras with pop-up flashes are usually frozen out of the flash accessory action. With the LumiQuest Soft Screen diffuser, though, they can join in. It easily slips over most pop-up flashes to soften (and reduce) their output... somewhat. It's small, so don't expect the caressingly soft light of a 3-foot beauty dish. Instead, look for less facial sheen, softer shadow edges behind subjects, and better close-up lighting. Also, it can be adapted to accept 3x3-inch color-correcting gels to bring flash output into (or out of) line with background color temps. That alone is worth the $13 (street).
3 Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync
The DSLR shooter who tries using an old, outdated hot-shoe flash may be pleasantly surprised to find that the flash still works and, thanks to histograms and LCD previews, it's very easy to get great flash exposures -- for a while. The unpleasant surprise comes a month into the shooting, when that flash, indeed any flash, refuses to work on the camera. The problem? A burned-out sync circuit.
lighting_207_hotshoe_200What caused it? Flash trigger voltage that was many times more powerful than the DSLR's circuitry could handle over time. Trigger voltage is stored in a flash's capacitor, and after being put through a step-up transformer, it ignites the xenon gas used in virtually all flash tubes. In many older hot-shoe and studio strobes, that voltage can, unfortunately, ricochet back through the flash foot (or PC terminal) into the camera. The most popular flash unit of all time, the Vivitar 283, for example, used a 20-volt flash trigger -- more than three times the amount some DSLRs were designed to accept.
Does that mean DSLR shooters can't experiment with older studio strobes or hot-shoe flashes? No. Get a Wein Hot Shoe to Hot Shoe Safe Sync ($50, street) to slide between flash and camera, and protect a sync circuit by stepping down trigger voltage to under 6 volts. Best thing? Its built-in PC terminal not only protects the camera's circuitry from studio strobe backfires, it also provides a PC terminal for the many DSLRs today that don't.
http://www.ecoustics.com/photo/3603
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