There's Always Time For Cube...Lume Cube

Okay, This is a fun product. If you are authorised to have fun you may continue reading. If you have received a cease and desist order from the fun police please continue on with another blog post. We'll be running one on responsible behaviour later in the month.

The Lume Cube is a sealed light that can be used to take pictures with whatever action camera or smart mobile device you might have. When we say sealed we really mean sealed - the manufacturer cautions you not to open the back since if you do the warranty will leak away. Otherwise you are free to take the thing diving to 100 ft.

Inside the case is an LED light - an extremely bright one - a battery, and enough electronics to control it through 10 steps of  steady illumination and a flash mode as well. You can pump the thing up and down manually with two control buttons on the top or use a Bluetooth - equipped device and an App to fiddle with it remotely.

This latter option will also give you the facility to check on the USB charging, battery status, and to control a series of the little things.

For the non-cool still photographer who doesn't want to App it, there is an on-board optical sensor that will slave off other on-camera flashes. The dark forest macro mushroom photographer who has to backpack for their fungi will love this thing. I've just taken a good shot of the cat's pre-packed dinners at 800 ISO for f 5.6 and 1/340 of a second and it almost makes me hungry for tuna chunks...

It has a 1/4" tripod socket at the bottom and I note that there are a number of mounts available for it. there's a dual - bar rig with a GoPro mount on the bottom to give you dangerous ideas.

A well-made product and a chance to do a lot more with light than you thought.

Mmmmmm. Tuna.....

The Area 51 Look - Rotolight Is Out There

I'm really regretting not getting busy a little earlier in the year and building the box of scale model cactus I bought at the hobby shop - I would have gone all-out with a desert scene and stranded campers.

We first saw Rotolight about four years ago when it was introduced as a macro light for field use. It looked like a novelty ( well it is novel...) and we didn't pay it much heed - until the people who use their still cameras to take video started to get into LED light panels. Rotolight introduced a series of accessories for the flying saucer and the whole business started to get cleverer.

Whole business? That should be hole business because that's exactly what is in the center of the Rotolight - a hole to shoot through. You're looking at the RL48B here and that central doughnut hole is designed to snuggle down over the foam windshield of a microphone as it rides the hot shoe of a DSLR  - providing a direct steady light forward for an interview shot.

Quick wits will note that it can also be used as a ring-light if your lens is smallish and can see through that hole without too much vignetting. Fortunately the Tokina 35mm DX macro lens can and that's how I got the closeups of the Chevy.

Here's a reference shot with the standard Elinchrom EL lights and a white balance of 5300º K. All jpeg, no alterations.

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Here's the Rotolight as a ring light. ISO 400.

And heres a close encounter of the Roswell kind - I must admit this is two Rotolight shots blended as I wanted to use the light as front fill as well as UFO. But still no fiddling with the white balance.

If you wish to change the WB, however, Rotolight have provided a set of Lee filters that are stored inside the body of the light. They are ring-shaped and you pop off the front cover and sandwich them into the light above the LED elements. looks like you can make quite a few changes, and in fact the Rotolight people in Pinewood, England also turn out quite a few strong colour Lee gels to make accent and funky lights. A little expensive for rave dancing, but...

All UFO joking aside, I can see the still workers who chase fungus in the forest benefitting greatly from these lights. They are totally portable and one-button easy to use. They'd be perfect for mirror-less macro and compact macro.

Take Me To Your Leader - Rotolux Lands

There is something vaguely alien about the Rotolux RL NEO cine light - particularly when it is mounted on a Cullmann suction mount. You expect it to shuffle along and shoot x-rays out from its eyes...

Well, you can also mount it on your DSLR and video camera or on top of a standard tripod. There's a 1/4" socket on two sides of the circle.

The light is LEDs in two separate circuits - driven from 6 AA cells or an ancillary A?C adapter. The two circuits are to supply two different colours of LED - and there is a mixer panel on the back  to blend the white and the amber. A readout lets you know the exact colour temperature that you are pumping out.

In addition, one of the controls also allows a true-fade of both colour sets - you can accurately supply illumination or fill in any environment. You can also add a set of round filters for further CT adjustment - they are included in the pack.

Note that the light supplied will be a round catchlight for the eyes - good for natural results.

We come in peace...

Tiny Studio With Cullmann And Promaster

 For the last year I have been shifting a number of interesting boxes from Cullmann around the shop shelves. The studio support sets come in various sizes - from basic to humongous with every camp known to man - and up to now I have never experimented with them. And normally I try everything that is lying around undisturbed. Ask some day about the container of hydrochloric acid and the pool chlorine...

Any rate, the Flexx Support Set is the one I raided to make the editorial studio. The desk drawer slides backward and provides and edge to attach the camera support. I elected to attach the X-10 camera to it and it is totally solid. Exposures of a second are no problem.

Fortunately the exposures can be shorter than that with an aperture of f:8 to f:16 - the camera runs at ISO 500 now and there is a Cullmann Copter tabletop tripod that acts as a light stand. On top of it is a small Promaster LED 30 light unit. If I can wangle one of the new LEDGO units we'll have even more power and shorter exposures.

None of this lighting is Steve Sint stuff - it will take a little more time to figure out  good main and fill for this tiny area - but the ability to shoot fast and illustrate as soon as an article is written in invaluable.

Anyone who shoots products or tabletop subjects would be well advised to come browse among the Cullmann accessory kits.

First Fruits Of The Furniture - The New Fuji Lens - With The Old Fuji Lens

Okay, that could have been clearer, but as long as you have read this far, you might as well continue...

The new editorial desk has been equipped with a seamless scoop to facilitate taking product shots. In the grand tradition of the Hazel Leaf Studio AKA DIY Palace, it is comprised of two sheets of A3+ matt paper and one big piece of mounting board. It wedges into the tabletop of the desk and a tripod holds the Fuji camera to take pictures of the Fuji lens.

The lighting is supplied by the Catch As Catch Can Company, but this will be improved upon. After all, we ARE a camera store...

The subject of the photograph is the latest and nicest of the Fuji X-Mount lenses. 56mm f:1.2. Sharp as on the focus plane and soft as behind it. The ideal companion for X-E2, X-Pro1 and X-T1 if you are gong to be a low-light street photographer or natural-light portrait artist.

Be prepared for a hefty lens - not as weighty as some of the DSLR lenses, but more than some of the other Fuji glass. It is a deliberate lens to use. Be prepared for a real snap as it comes into focus.

The picture of the 56mm is pin sharp itself because it is taken with he Fuji 60mm macro. Almost the same focal length but an entirely different philosophical approach to it - it is a lens that will produce extremely big extremely close images but only opens to f:4 - hence the tripod. But what a magnificent working optic for art copy or collection recording.

Numismatists and philatelists please take notice - A Fuji X-series camera and this lens will make the best images of your possessions that can be done - and you can do them yourself. You've been promising yourself that you will document the collection. Winter is coming - now is the time.

Light Up My Life With LEDGO

As you can see in the picture of the Shinkansen pulling into Yamagata station last week, even the highest of tech needs a little light some time - particularly if it is going to slug it up through the snowy passes in the twilight. Those are pretty powerful lights. There are deer in the woods in the Japanese mountains and salarymen in the centre of Tokyo and they both leap onto the tracks...

You may never be confronted with the same problem at 250Km/h but in case you are, have you thought of attaching one of the LEDGO LED light panels to the top of your digital camera? They run off standard AA batteries and Sony rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Those aren't included in the kit, but they do supply a hot-shoe mount and a set of colour-corrected diffusion panels to cope with different forms of ambient light.

You can do video easily because they are silent and stills because they are really bright. The adjustable dimmer in the back will let you match the level of illumination to perfection.

Only $ 145 for single panels and they are in stock now.