Just a few snapshots - no cable to upload them, but we saw the biggest iguanas I’ve ever seen in my life.  Seriously these things were huge - had to be about 5′ head to tail.  Just strolling around the pool at my relatives condo… Got a few shots with the G9.  what a trip.   

back this coming Wednesday, a real post when I get back!

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Independence Day is coming up, and that means fireworks shows! Now admit it - we’ve all been guilty (at one point or another) of whipping out a little pocket camera and snapping away at the fireworks, handheld, in P mode, probably with the dinky little on-camera flash going too. Yeah, I’ve done it too…

BUT…

with a little effort and a bit of technical know-how you can go from blurry, underexposed, globs-of-color-on-film shots to beautiful, crisp, rainbow bursts that will be the envy of your friends and neighbors! (grin)

(note: a lot of the techniques here are similar to the ones in my article on photographing lightning, so you may want to read that as well (LINK -opens in new window))

First things first:

GEAR:
most of this will be assuming you are using an slr/dslr. You can shoot fireworks with a pocket digicam, but it is harder. If you have one with manual controls, most of this info will apply, but pocket cams have never been known for good long/low light exposures so YMMV.

you will need:
1. a camera (duh). at least something that lets you control the aperture and has a “bulb” mode (meaning the shutter stays open as long as the button is held).
2. a tripod. we’re talking exposures of several seconds, it is impossible to hold the camera steady. Tripod is a must (the sturdier the better to cut down on “mirror slap”)
3. a cable release. used for bulb mode. Note that most wireless remotes will *not* do “bulb”, only set exposures. There may be some out there that do, but most likely you will need a *corded* remote release.

Now, on to the specifics:

TECHNIQUE:
first, set up your gear. make sure the tripod will not be disturbed/bumped during the exposures. Set up the camera on the tripod, attach the cable release. Frame the anticipated “action” area.
Before the show starts, put your camera in Aperture priority mode and take a few “test” shots to determine a good exposure, (I prefer slightly on the dark side). I like to adjust it to an aperture that will give me a decently exposed image at a shutter speed of about 2-4 seconds (since this is usually about how long I open the shutter with the release.) this isn’t an exact science, it’s just to get a rough estimate the the aperture needed for your approximate exposure time. Since the actual bursts of light will expose regardless, we are basically just calibrating the exposure for the ambient light here. Once you are comfortable with the exposure, leave the aperture set as it, and switch into M (fully manual) mode. Turn the shutter speed all the way down until it goes into “bulb” mode. Now you can manually control your shutter - when you press the button down on the cable release, the shutter will open, and stay open until you let go of the button. This way you can exactly control when the exposure stops and starts.
note: make sure you camera is set to manual focus, else you will lose shots while it “hunts” for a focus lock. Most likely focus will be set to infinity, but if you are really close/have a long lens you might need to adjust. Regardless, get it set and leave it.

There is a “rhythm” to photographing fireworks, once you get the feel for it, it’s pretty easy to “anticipate” the exposures. You can usually hear the rocket going up, a second or two before it bursts. This is when I like to start the exposure. Hear the rocket - CLICK - burst - wait a second or two for the “trails” of the burst to expose - release shutter. That’s basically it! I find most of my exposures are in the 3-5 second range. As the show goes on you will probably adjust your aperture, or even set a “preset” exposure as you find the “pattern” of the show. Either way, you still generally want to be starting your exposure right as the rocket goes up before it bursts. The exception to this is when the show gets really “intense” and many rockets are going at once, it can be difficult to tell by sound alone. In these cases, hopefully you have a general idea of the exposure needed, and I will sometimes just set an “average” exposure and just keep clicking the shutter. Kind of “spray and pray”, if you will

TIPS AND TRICKS:

What lens to use?
- this really depends on 2 things: how far away from the action you are, and how tightly you want to frame the shot. Farther away = longer lens, closer = wider. The examples on this page were shot with an 85mm lens (equal to 127.5mm when using a 1.5x crop camera, like most dslrs) I was about 4 blocks away, shooting from a balcony of a high rise apartment building. I like a pretty tight framing, as it allows the actual fireworks to dominate the picture, rather than extraneous elements, so I tend toward longer rather than wider.

Framing the shot / vantage point
- This is a matter of personal taste, but I like to include the surrounding scenery in my shots to give “context” to the fireworks. (As opposed to pointing the camera up an having just the bursts against an empty sky). Usually the best way to do this is to get to a high point, so you have an unobstructed view of the surrounding area. I happen to be lucky in that my apartment’s balcony looks out over the Philadelphia Art Museum (where the fireworks show occurs), So I’ve got a great vantage point without leaving the home. But even if you don’t you can probably find something. If you live in an urban area, many high-rises have roof decks that make great spots. Tops of parking garages are also good. If you’re in a rural area, this might not be as much of an issue, since there is probably more space, and less “stuff” to get in the way of the shot, but a high vantage point is still good.

- The clearest shots often come at the beginning of the show, and after pauses in the shooting (of fireworks that is, not photos!) this is because the accumulated smoke will either not be too bad yet, or have had some time to dissipate (respectively).

-Speaking of smoke; if possible, is is advantageous to set up in an orientation where the wind is blowing at a 90 degree angle to your position. This way, the accumulated smoke from the rockets will blow out of the picture frame as quickly as possible, leaving less to “muddy” your shots.

Capturing multiple bursts.
- A cool trick if you are using bulb mode is to capture multiple bursts in one exposure. Basically they way you do this is to use bulb mode to keep the camera’s shutter open, expose one burst, then cover the lens with something to block out extraneous light, but *keep the shutter open* until the next burst, uncover the lens to expose the burst, re-cover it and so forth…

The trick here is to have something that will block light out of the lens, but NOT TOUCH IT, as the vibrations of bumping/touching the lens will ruin the shot. One common method is to use a black/dark colored baseball cap - the “bowl” of the cap will block light from entering the lens without touching it (this is what I do). You could also use a black piece of cloth, a black cardboard cylinder with one end capped etc…

Basically the sequence goes like this:
- As the first burst starts, expose normally using bulb, however, when the burst ends, instead of releasing the shutter, leave it open and with your other hand, cover the lens with your cap/coth/whatever, being careful not to bump/touch it.

-Wait

-As the next burst starts, remove the covering for the lens, expose the burst.

Repeat as desired (note,you may have to close down the aperture for these kinds of shots to compensate for the increase in ambient light over the length of the exposure)

Finally when you have enough bursts, release the shutter to finish the exposure.

CONCLUSION:
I hope these tips help you all get the most out of your holiday fireworks pictures. Photographing fireworks is not all that difficult once you get the hang of it, and can yield some spectacular results.

Enjoy the holiday everyone!

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(you want a review?  Here’s my review: radiopoppers rock my face 437 ways from sunday.  Get some.)

Now I got them to use with my newly acquired Canon 5D kit, but as it happens I still have some Pentax gear as well.  Officially Radiopoppers do not support Pentax PTTL, but I figured what harm could it do to test.

I mounted the P1 receiver on a Pentax 540FGZ flash.  Flash was set to wireless pttl slave (SL1).  Note that on the 540 the sensor you need to position the bead over is the lower right corner of the face, as you look at the flash *not* the round part in the middle (that’s just the AF assist light)

I set the K10d onboard flash to wireless controller mode, and covered the actual flash itself to ensure no light was coming out and triggering a false positive.   I fired off a few shots, and sure enough no slave firing - good!

Then I turned on the P1 transmitter, and placed it on top of the k10d.  The popup actually seemed to support it’s weight, and the transmitters fit rested nicely against the top of the eyecup.  I think it would be mountable with a little piece of velcro on top of the pop up flash!

The big moment - I fired a shot and sure enough, the slave popped!  Exposure looked correct too (roughly, just by glancing at the LCD.   I ran through a few apertures from 2.8 to 8 and the flash exposure seemed to remain consistent, indicating that metering info is working!  I could visibly see the difference in light output as the flash popped at different apertures as well.
So it seems that at least the basic functionality of the P1s works with Pentax’s PTTL wireless sytem.  it actually fires the flash, and ttl metering appears to work.   Bear in mind however, that this is far from a scientific test and YMMV.  Further testing will be needed

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A quick trip down to Perl (art supply store) yielded the required materials.  2 9″x12″ sheets of “foamies” craft foam (it’s a thin, neoprene like foam material - flexible yet rigid enough to hold it’s shape) one white, one black and 4′ of velcro “wrap” (the velcro that has hooks on one side and loops on the other, so it can stick to itself if you wrap it around something)  The neat thing about the foamies sheets is that you can get them either plain or with one side covered in adhesive.   I opted for a plain black and an adhesive-backed white sheet.

total cost for materials: about $5 (the velcro was $3 and I think the foamies sheets were .59 each)

Once at home, I simply peeled the backing off the white adhesive side, and laid the black sheet on top.  Pressing firmly secured the 2 together.  They can bend and flex together without wrinkling or buckling.

I then cut 2 velcro wraps long enough to wrap around the flash head and secure it tightly.

TaDa!  instant snoot - total time to construct: about 15-30 seconds

the best part about this snoot is that it is adjustable.  For a normal throw, wrap it into a cylinder shape, and secure each end with a wrap.   If you want a tighter throw, wrap it into a cone shape.  You can get a very tight dot of light this way.

Another added benifit is that it can be used as a bounce card - simple wrap one end around the flash head pointing up, and leave the other end free.  presto bounce card.

For five dollars and a minute of work, this is something that will have a permanent place in my camera bag!

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As we mentioned in part 1, manual flash is essentially a “dumb” flash mode- meaning that no flash metering is done by camera or strobe.  you simply adjust the power to whatever you want, and when the flash pops, it fires at that power, every time regardless.

now aside from the control and creative aspects of using manual flash, (for more on that check the strobist blog) one of the great things about it is that it gives you the greatest range of hardware to work with.  In essence, any strobe that has a manual setting will work with any camera capable of triggering a flash!  NOTE - one *large* caveat to this is that some older strobes use a high trigger voltage, which can fry the delicate electronics in newer digital cameras.  Just be careful if using old/used flashes and double check to make sure the voltage is safe for your camera.  This isn’t an issue with any current/modern strobes AFAIK.

Of course the downside to having such a wide variety of hardware to work with is that there is no real establish “standard” for hooking it all together!

So let’s take a step back for a moment.  Consider if you had a manual flash in your hotshoe, on camera.  How does it fire?  Well, as we discussed in part 1, to make it fire you just have to “close the circuit” in the “foot” to allow the capacitor to discharge, making the flash go pop.  So what happens when you push the shutter is that the camera sends a little pulse to the center pin in the hotshoe, which creates that circuit and allows the flash to fire.  Shutter clicks, flash goes pop, and voila - you got a flash exposure.   So now in order to do the same thing with the flash *off* camera we need some way of getting that same “FIRE” pulse from the camera to to the strobe when you click the shutter release.  That’s really it - all the various cables, pocketwizards, wireless trigger etc… are in essence doing the same, simple thing - providing a way of transferring the FIRE pulse from the camera to the strobe.

So - there are basically 2 ways of getting that trigger pulse from your camera to your off-camera strobe.   You can use a wire that physically carries the signal directly from camera to flash (as if it were sitting in your hotshoe)  or you can use some flavor of wireless transmitter, which “carries” the signal wirelessly.  As the simplest (and likely cheapest) option, let’s talk about wires (or sync cables) first.   Pretty straightforward - it’s just a piece of wire!  One end connects to your camera, one end to the flash.  You click the shutter, the signal goes down the wire, and the flash pops.  Of course it’s the whole “connecting to camera and flash” that becomes confusing, since there are several different physical connectors that can be used!

Although the good news is that since there is no “communication” through the cable (remember all it is doing is physically transferring the “FIRE” pulse from the camera) the connectors are practically, if not physically, interchangeable.  Meaning if you have connector X on camera and Y on flash, you simply need a cable with X on one end and Y on the other (or an adapter that converts X to Y)

The second piece of good news is that for all practical purposes, there are only 4 types of connectors you have to worry about.  They are the “PC” connector, the “Household” or “HH” connector, the 1/4″ monoplug and the 1/8″ miniplug (shown below)

The PC connector is the closest thing there is to a “standard” for sync cables.   Note this has nothing to do with “personal computer” it is simply the type of cable connector.   Some flashes have built-in PC ports for a PC cable to plug into, and some camera bodies do as well.  (pic shows the PC socket on a canon 580ex II) If you are lucky enough to have both a camera and flash with PC sockets - congratulations, simply get a PC cord, plug one end into the camera, one end into the flash and voila!  your (manual) flash is now connected just as if it were in the hotshoe.   Of course not all flashes and camera bodies have built in PC sockets, so what happens when we want to connect PC-socket-less cameras and strobes together?

Well, the camera still has a hotshoe and the flash still has a foot with that center “firing pin” in it, so we get ourselves some adapters.  One sits in the camera’s hotshoe, and one connects to the flash’s foot (a hotshoe adapter)   We can get these adaptors in various “flavors” with different connectors.  The most straightforward ones will simply have a PC socket.  So in essence you are simply adding a PC socket to your camera and flash via the hotshoe/foot.  Connect the 2 adaptors with a PC cable, just as you would with built-in sockets and again you’re good to go.  The fire pulse goes from the camera’s hotshoe, through the adapter, down the PC cable, through the adapter on the flash’s foot connects with the center pin, and pop goes the weasel! The beauty of this is that it will work with any camera/flash combination since it is just making the connection through the hotshoe (on camera side) and foot (on flash side).  The camera doesnt care what flash you are using - it just sends it’s pulse regardless, and you can stick any flash you want in the shoe adapter at the other end, and it will fire since it’s just getting it signal through the foot just as it would on camera.  Here are a couple of examples of hotshoe adapters with male PC and femae 1/4″ phono receivers:

Now personally I *hate* the PC standard.  Hate it, hate it, hate it.  I think the connectors are badly designed, fragile, and have a tendency to get damaged/bent out of shape or come loose at inopportune times.   I dunno, maybe it’s just me. PC is generally the “accepted standard” so, if you are just starting out, it’s probably easiest to go with, since it’s rather ubiquitous.

The Household connector (HH) is an alternative to the PC cable.  It functions exactly the same, except the physical connectors are different.  The HH cables actually use the same 2 prong connector as a standard US electrical cord.  I feel this is a much more robust and reliable connection personally, but I know that is arguable.   The cool thing about the HH standard is that you can use ordinary household extension cords to extend/split your cable if needed.   The downside to them is that there are no cameras or flashes (AFAIK) that have a HH port built in so you always need an adaptor on your flash’s foot and camera’s hotshoe to provide the necessary connector.  I personally have a nice little HH cable that has a built in adaptor that fits into my camera’s hotshoe on one end and a standard HH prong on the other end.  I slide the former onto my camera and plug the latter into an adaptor for my flashes foot and I’m good to go.  (see below)

So when it really comes down to it, all you have to do to fire *any* flash off camera with a sync cable is:

• stick an adapter in your camera’s hotshoe
• stick an adapter on your flash’s foot
• connect the two with a cable.

The 1/8″ and 1/4″ connectors are generally used with wireless transmitters, so now lets talk a bit about wireless transmitters and manual flash.

The good news is that if you get the whole business with the adapters/cables this will be easy.  Wireless transmitters are accomplishing the exact same thing (getting the “fire” pulse from camera to flash) they just do it a bit differently.  There are a number of transmitters out there, the primary ones being the ubiquitious pocketwizards, along with the elichrom skyports and the so-called “ebay triggers”.  The thing is *they all do the exact same thing*  In essence there is no difference between the $200 pocketwizard and the $25 ebay trigger other than range reliablity (although that is a big difference - once you’ve torn your hair out after having 50% of your shots not fire due to a flakey ebay trigger, $200 will seem like a small price to pay for rock-solid reliablity) (16 channel ebay trigger shown: note the contact on the transmitter that connects to the center pin of the cameras hotshoe)

But I digress… in essence they way all wireless triggers work is that there is a transmitter that attaches to your camera and a recieciever that attaches to your flash.  Just as with a cable, when you click the trigger your camera still sends that “fire” pulse - only this time it goes into the wireless transmitter.  The transmitter says “aha, I see a “fire” pulse” and sends a RF (radiowave) signal to the reciever (attached to the flash).  The reciever gets this signal, and goes “aha, the transmitter told me that the camera just sent a “fire” pulse” and then the reciever generates it’s own pulse, which goes to the flash.  The flash pops, and bob’s your uncle…  (this all happens in milliseconds).

Of course the “gotcha” with the wireless is that just like a cable, they need some way of connecting to your strobe.  Generally the wireless transmitter (whether pocketwizard, skyport or ebay) sits directly in the hotshoe of your camera, and connects directly to the center pin, so there is generally nothing needed on that end.  The receiver, however needs to be connected to the flash somehow.  Fear not, though - it’s basically the same procedure as with a cable.  You simply need a short cable that goes from the wireless to either the PC port directly (if your flash has one) or a hotshoe adaptor with a PC port in it.   Pocketwizards and Skyports have a 1/8″miniplug connector (same as a normal headphone jack on a portable audio device), and actually come with a little 1/8″ to PC cord (meaning a 1/8″ miniplug on one and and a PC connector on the other - See below)  in that case all you need is a hotshoe adaptor for the flash foot that has a PC socket and you’re good to go.  I didn’t have a pocketwizard to illustrate, but the 16ch ebay transmitter happens to have the same socket as a PW, so just pretend it’s a pocketwizard in the picture!

The ebay triggers are slightly different - they come in 2 flavors, the 4 channel and the 16 channel.  The 4 channel have the advantage of actually having a hotshoe built in, so they attach straight to the flash foot, no cables required!  The 16 channel use a 1/4″ phono plug connector, but they also have a PC socket on the back (which tends to be kind of flakey) so you can either connect them to a hotshoe adapter with a pc socket (using a short PC cable) or you can get a hotshoe adaptor that takes a 1/4″ phono plug directly.  Best place I’ve found is www.flashzebra.com.  The guy who runs it, Lon, is a really fantastic guy and has pretty much any adapter you can think of for conecting cameras and strobes, particularly “specialty” ones like the 1/4″ phono hotshoe adapter for use with the 16 channel ebay triggers.  (direct link to product here).  Check it out for all your crazy flash-connecting needs.

16ch ebay receiver and hotshoe adapter with 1/4″ phono from flashzebra:

Anyway, that’s pretty much it - hope that clears up some of the confusion regarding hooking up strobes for manual flash!  Stay tuned for next time when we will talk about wireless TTL!

P.S.  I should also mention that there is a 3rd way to trigger a manual flash, namely “Optical slave mode”  Not all flashes have this capability but for those that do it basically means that the strobe will fire whenver it “sees” another flash with it’s optical sensor.  This can be useful for example if you fire one flash with a camera and have a second one in optical slave mode.  The second flash will “see” the flash from the first one and fire itself. The dowsides to this are 1) it will fire whenever it sees *any* flash so if there are other folks around using cameras with flash, they will be setting it off as well 2) it requires the strobe be able to “see” the burst of light from the first flash, so it becomes unreliable in bright sunlight and finally 3) it will not work in combination with wireless TTL flashes (more on that in part 3)

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and it’s funny that even now when I shoot 99% digital, in my head post processing still means “adjust exposure/contrast and dodge&burn” :-)  Oh, I do the plenty of b/w conversions, and skin touchups/etc… when shooting a model, but I really havent explored too far into the territory of *creative* post processing - using photoshop and lightroom to actually alter the picture to realize a specific creative vision.  Even my “sunshine in the rain” series (which generally evokes the reaction “wow was that photoshopped?”) was done 99% in camera.  The only adjustments were, you guessed it: exposure/contrast adjustment and some selective dodging and burning!

However, I’m going to change this.  Frankly I’m not one of those grumbly “it’s only real photography if it’s 100% in camera” purists.  In my book, any tool that helps you realize a creative/artistic vision is fine by me.  so to that end, I’ve resolved to work on my “creative post processing skills”.  I’ve started building a texture library, and plan on playing with incorporating textures into some of my work.  I’m also experimenting with cross-process and split tone effects in lightroom, as I have always loved that aesthetic.  (for some really cool cross process work, check Brian Auer’s blog, particularly this: 10 reasons to love cross-process film) Here’s a new split tone preset I have been playing with in lightroom.  I like it’s aesthetic, particularly in this shot:

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The problem is - a lot of this stuff is still confusing.  Heck, I didn’t “get it” the first time I read through lighting101.  Or the second.  Or probably not even the third.  And a lot of the time, the problem isn’t conceptual, it often comes down to the “nuts-and-bolts” issues - eg, things like “what works with what”, “how do I connect x to y” and “why is there a black bar across my image when I use my flash off camera but not on camera”

What I am going to do in this series of articles, is break down, step-by-step the various hardware and methods needed to get your flash off camera and firing properly.  We’re not going to worry about lighting theory or anything like that - just the “nuts and bolts”.

• In par 1 (here) we’re going to talk about the basics of how a flash works, and the different modes you can use it in.
• In part 2 we will discuss options for manual triggering.
• In part 3 we will discuss wireless ttl flash
• and finally in part 4 we will deal with some miscellaneous topics, such as x-sync, HSS, rear-curtain sync etc…

So without further ado, lets talk about getting your flash out of the hotshoe and into the wild where it belongs!

Now first of all it is important to understand how a flash actually fires.  In actuality it is quite simple - if you look at the bottom of your flash (or “foot”) there is an electrical contact, the center pin.  If you have a newer “system” flash, it may have other pins as well, but they all have the one center pin.  Now if you look at the inner sides of the foot, they are also metal.   When a connection is made between the center pin and the sides of the foot, the flash fires.

That’s it.  You could make your flash fire by connecting these two contacts with a paperclip even. (although I wouldn’t recommend it and am not responsible if you electrocute yourself trying it!)

So in essence, triggering your flash is simply a matter of making the connection that allows it to release it’s charge as a burst of light.   The catch, of course, is *how we make this connection*.

Now let’s step back for a minute.  Before we think about triggering the flash lets look at the primary “modes” of the flash.   In essence, a flash only has 1 adjustment - power.  In other words, “how much light does it put out when it pops”.  However, there are several ways of *calculating* how much power is needed or desired for a particular situation.

1. manual.  Back in the day, all flashes were manual, meaning they were essentially “dumb”  *you* set the power output by hand, based on what you calculated was needed.
2. auto.  auto flash is basically a way that the flash itself measures the amount of light needed based on settings you input.  We will not talk be talking much about auto-flash since I believe manual or ttl are more useful 99% of the time.
3. TTL.  Stands for “Through The Lens”, and is a method where the camera and flash “talk” to each other and calculate the appropriate amount of flash automatically based on the camera settings and a meter reading.

For purposes of this discussion, we are just going to talk about manual and ttl flash, as I think they are the most useful.    The point to all this is that, despite having the same outcome (firing the flash) the *methods* for triggering your flash are very different depending on whether you will be using manual mode or TTL.

In part 2 we will talk about options for triggering your flash in manual mode, what kind of hardware you need for each, and pros and cons for each option.  Stay tuned!

UPDATE:  part 2 is now up - find it here

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1 year ago today, I embarked on this strange experiment of “blogging” that all the kids are doing nowadays.   And I kind of like it.  I know I’ve broken pretty much all the rules of writing a “proper” blog (particularly not posting on a regular schedule), but cut me some slack, I’m still a n00b.

As such, my primary resolution for this blog for the upcoming year is to maintain a regular 3x/week posting schedule - probably sun/tue/thur.  We’ll see how it goes!

Also, since it’s only been recently that I’ve started to get any kind of real traffic, I’m going to be reposting some of my earlier articles, for those new to the blog who may have missed them.

A big thanks to all my readers and commenters, and I’m looking forward to another great year!

-Ed

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And of course, our wonderful models who endured our shenanigans with poise and humor for almost 5hrs, Stephanie, Marina, Svitlana, and Elitka.

We met at my studio on in old city, and after assembling (along with tons of gear) we ventured out into the wilds of independence park
We started off at a the nice “cobblestone-y” area around the Ritz, and used a set of beautiful curved staircases for backdrops, with wide angle lenses to practice balancing flash/sky exposure. Got some nice shots, and then moved over to the picturesque little alley next to the old city tavern.

We then moved over to the steps of the first bank of the US, where we proceded to take over the sidewalk (and even the street!)

One of the best surprises of the evening came around 7:15 - we were still shooting on the steps, when the sun hit just the right spot in the sky, turning the glass building across the street into one giant reflector, throwing this beautiful *intense* warm light everywhere! We did a bunch of non-strobed shots, taking advantage of the spectacular natural light. It’s these little surprises that really make an event like this!

We wound down the evening in the park, doing some shots with greenery etc… and then to Buffalo Billiards for the survivors for the celebratory post-shoot beer (the most important part of any shoot). All in all a great time, and I’m looking forward to doing it again.

And of course the results: check the FLICKR THREAD as we post our shots from the meet! Looks like some really great stuff!

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Anyway, came back with some nice shots and we’ll be heading out again for tomorrow’s Strobist meetup!

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• Speaking of gear, Epson just relased their sucessor to the popular R2400 printer, the R2880. I personally use the 2200 for medium prints (8″x10″ to 13″x19″) and it’s a fantastic printer. I can only image the 2880 is even better! Scott kelby has a nice article on it HERE.

• The Inimitable Chase Jarvis has a thought provoking article on the creative process and originality of ideas called “Doing Stuff First. Or Not”
  

• Rob Haggart, AKA “A Photo Editor” has a really nice interview with Charis Wilson (Edward Weston’s wife)

• Finally, on the business end of things, dPS (digital photography school) talks about branding your photography business. Worth a read.

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Not only humorous and inspirational for aspiring photographers, but there are some real pearls of wisdom there. Definitely worth watching - over an hour, and I honestly wish it were longer.

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First on the “photographer’s rights” front we have some good news.

• Thomas Hawk reports that a Galveston Jury clears photographer who refused to stop photographing an arrest. score one for the good guys.
• and some not-so-good news

on a related note this is an oldie, but a goodie:

• The Photographers Right - a flyer explaining your rights when stopped or confronted for photography

Moving on to the business world, David Ziser of digitalprotalk has a nice article:

• 20 pointers for running your business out of your home - what you need to know.

And PDNonline has an some interesting numbers on the business of wedding photography:

• PDN’s 2008 Wedding Photographer Survey Results

Finally for some technical stuff:

• Nikon files a patent for a in-viewfinder digital display
• Ken Rockwell explains MTF charts
• TinEye service finds your photos on the web (cool!)

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My master plan was to use a laptop to set up a ad-hoc network (meaning the laptop acts as wireless router, creating it’s own network) and set the eye-fi to auto-upload shots to it, in essence creating almost like a wireless tethering solution.

Unfortunately, speaking with eye-fi support, they informed me that this would not work, as the card needed an actual “internet connected” router to send the photos through. Bummer.

However, their new offerings are enough to make me look at them again. Notably they have 2 new models in addition to the basic eye-fi card the Eye-Fi Home, which strips out the internet functionality and just has “upload to computer wirelessly” and the Eye-Fi explore which adds *geotagging* to the photos.

The “Home” looks promising as it may finally do what I need (connect via ad-hoc network), and the “Explore” is simply cool. I love the idea of geotagging. Maybe it’s not a big deal for studio work, but it would be awesome to throw one of those in my G9 and tag my street/travel shots. From what I can tell it needs a wireless AP to do this, so it’s not as good as a dedicated GPS module, but still. very cool concept and definitely something new and cool in the world of photography.

And how often do you say that about a memory card!

Eye-Fi homepage

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Here are the first two pieces, just as “proof of concept” I will now be starting a series I am tenatively titling “Stories in Wax and Pictures” as a collection of portraits incorporated into encaustic works. Should be an interesting project!

(click the images for larger versions)

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Now, normally when scouting, you go around and when you find a potentially good spot for a shot you fire off some frames

However, I like to use my G9 for scouting - not only because it is light and compact (I toss the g9, a sync cord and strobe in a little shoulderbag, and it weighs a few oz.) but for the *movie mode*

In addition to my reference shots when I find a good spot, I will flip it into video mode, and pan around the area - recording all the angles/light in the area - as well as speaking some “notes” about my ideas for the shoot. That way when I get home, I not only have my still images of the locations, but a bunch of little video clips showing all the angles, with narration along the lines of “corner of x street… light coming from the west… will place model in front of the tree/car/whatever… with a reflector to the left and single strobe to the right”

or something like that

This way I remember *excatly* what I was thinking at the time for the shot/setup.

Anyway, hope it’s a useful tip - it doesn’t have to be with the G9 either, any pocket cam with a video mode will make a nice companion to your SLR when scouting locations! (though with the G9, I find I hardly need the SLR backup)

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The current design of F1point0.com represents my first real attempt at making a wordpress theme of “my own”. To be fair, it is based off some existing code (the nice “limau orange” theme by Bob at blogohblog.com) but that was only because I saw it had a similar structure to what I had in my head, and I knew I could modify it easily. I’d say I reused about 50% of the structure.

I’m most proud of the little “red dot navigation bar” which I structured and styled entirely from scratch (it was modeled off a navbar I liked from an old rapidweaver theme I used once!)

there are still a few very minor glitches (the nav dot disappears on blog archive pages) but they should be fixable.

I know it’s not a big deal for a lot of you with web design experience, but for a n00b like me it’s quite exciting!

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I’m honestly not sure what to make of this - seems like kind of a weird combination for a “cross-licensing” agreement. On the one hand, it will surely be good for Pentax to have a company with the weight of Microsoft backing it, but on the other hand I am leery of the direction MS might influence Pentax in. I fear that MS would push Pentax toward more flashy, mass-market, consumer-level electronics (aka toy cameras) and away from what I feel to be their greatest strength: Fantastic optics and well designed cameras.

I mean really - not to bash Microsoft, but how often do you hear the words “Microsoft” and “well-designed” in the same sentence. I cringe to think of the feature bloat

Although to be fair, it is really to early for more than idle speculation. We’ll have to wait and see how this pans out.

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• David Tejada has done a great post on making a very professional looking beauty dish out of hardware store parts (for a speedlight/strobe). Awesome - I may just have to give it a shot myself
• http://davidtejada.blogspot.com/2008/04/beauty-dish-for-sb-800.html
• a *huge* pack of photoshop actions over at reynespho.com. I’ve only checked out a few, but they seem good!
• http://www.reynsphoto.com/articles/Post_Processing/extra/70_Photoshop_Actions_app.php#
• and finally: 44 random photo tips. definitely some useful stuff here:
• http://www.photoprotips.com/20080421/44-random-photo-tips/

that’s it for now! more to come soon.

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one of the downsides
to me of digital imaging is that it lends itself to *not* printing your
work. Back in the “olden days” of film negatives, you *had* to print -
there was no image other than the print (I’m not counting slides) This
of course had downsides of it’s own - prints take up space, and are
harder to catalogue

but with the advent of digital, I feel like
more and more people are simply chosing not to print their images,
sharing them electronically via the internet and photosharing sites
etc…

And in some ways this is great. it is convenient, it
is quick, it is easy and it doesn’t cost anything. Prints are somewhat
more time consuming (if you do them yourself), require physical storage
space, and cost money.

but there is something wonderful about
the experience of looking at a rich 16″x20″ print, nicely matted and
framed that simply cannot be replicated by staring at a computer
monitor.

Another advantage to printing is that digital noise and grain is not
*nearly* as offensive in prints as it is viewed 100% on a computer
screen. I hate it when someone will rant on and on about minute
differences in noise performance between x camera and y camera and iso
settings etc… and when I ask them how it looks in prints they admit
that they never actually *print* these images. Arrrrgh.

So do it! make some prints! there is no reason not too, it’s as easy
as uploading a file to mpix or such and ordering. Photobooks are good
too. it is simply amazing to me that I can get a nicely printed and
bound book of my photograhs for < $20. (I’ve been pretty impressed
with blurb) I feel like it’s pretty much made the old-school 4×6 print
album obsolete.

With so many options available, making printing easier than ever it is really a shame not to print your work!

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Now I am not one of those die hard “protect copyright at all costs” - I think that the internet and digital distribution is changing the business model of selling photography much in the same way that it changed the business model of selling music. Those who adapted and embraced the new model and the new media profited, those who cling to the “old ways” (cough - RIAA -cough) are doomed to fail.

HOWEVER, this bill has *serious* ramifications for copyright and fair use for photography. It is absolutely *ripe* for abuse.

John Harrington, of “Photo Business News & Forum” has written about it far better than I ever could. I agree with his assessment entirely.

check out his article here:

http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/05/orphan-works-2008-wolf-in-sheeps.html

and email/mail your representative!

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Wednesday seems like as good a day as any to do it, so here are a few cool things I’ve come across recently

Wired has a nice dSLR roundup featuring the k20d, which fared well. I want one

• http://www.wired.com/gadgets/gadgetreviews/news/2008/03/gadgetreviews_prosumerDSLRs

The RadioPopper P1s are finally shipping, and they seem to be a huge hit. Some early testing experiences here:

• http://www.flashflavor.com/2008/03/18/276/radiopopper.html

On the subject of wireless flash triggering, here is a cool write up by Scott Kelby on the Elinchrom Skyports (so cool if you have elinchrom studio lights!)

• http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1192

Random coolness: the combustion of a BMW engine cylinder filmed at 10,000FPS (actually filmed, *not* CGI). even cooler is how they did it.

• http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/07/video-cgi-be-damned-inside-the-bmw-m3s-v8/

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