Close Encounters of The Fun Kind - Stroboframe

I frequently buy items from our shop upon speculation - I do not know exactly how I will use them but I add them to the armamentarium on the off-chance that they will be just what I need. Here is a tale of one such device.

Stroboframe make brackets and flash holders for film and digital cameras - have done for years. Wedding photographers who used flash in the film era used them to drop the shadow from the flash down behind the subject. The simple geometry of the thing meant that faces looked clean and attractive and even quite small spaces could be utilised for set shots.

In a studio setting, the various flip mechanisms that Stroboframe make let people turn their cameras from landscape to portrait orientation without losing framing. A lot less shifting of tripods.

I had occasion yesterday to discover just how useful one of the larger Stroboframe brackets could be when I covered a model car exhibition. Think of these model cars in terms of close-up rather than macro subjects but stretch your imagination further to encompass your own work - and see if the brackets might be just as useful.

The bracket mounts my Nikon D300 with an 18-200 lens. The wide range of the lens is very useful when dealing with subjects that might be as small as your thumb up to full interiors or landscapes. In the case of the model car show I chiefly wanted clear illustration for my blog - "Here All Week" at hrhoa.wordpress.com. Thus meant accurate colours and adequate depth of field on the small cars - I needed f:22 if I could get it.

No problem with the Nikon flash system - the SB 700 flash has more than enough power for this task. The fact that I could mount it on the cross-bar of the Stroboframe in a TTL extension cord meant that there was absolutely no calculation or adjustment needed for the 170+ illustrations - I just selected a low ISO, a high f stop, and 1/160 of a second. Point, frame, and shoot...

The first wonderful thing about the Stroboframe is that if you need to do a vertical shot you just release the small red lever at the bottom and rotate the camera 90º. The weight of the camera steadies it in the new position and the flash angle does not change.

The second wonderful thing is the top flash bar also swivels down so that it will drop the light - and the troublesome shadow - even if the subject is tiny and close up.

The third wonderful thing is this same rotation can continue upwards for bounce flash and it is a damn sight easier than pushing the rubber button and swivelling the head. See the effect of a light bounce up on the Bonneville Salt Flat model shots.

The forth wonderful thing about this particular bracket is the peculiar rubber-covered handle on the front - it is very convenient as a carrying and support point for the whole rig - it is well balanced.

BEST NEWS - We've been having a Stroboframe sale these past weeks and we will continue it for a little while longer. 50% off is not to be sneezed at, particularly if you are a regular Camera Electronic bargain hunter.