Never One To Let Well Enough Alone...With the Promaster LED 120

Ah, that is the universal motto of the photo enthusiast. We read a little, think a little, google a little, and then go out and fiddle a lot. We invent things to do that need not be done, and ways to do them that make no sense, and then lash the ideas together with 1/4" bolts and gaffer tape.

Just as well we are playing with cameras. If we were amateur explosives enthusiasts there would be smoking holes in the ground all over Perth...

Inspired with the Icelight 2 light painting wand, I decided to see if some of the other LED light devices in the shop could also do the same things...albeit on a smaller scale. Because I am a man who does things on a small scale - the name of my studio - The Little Studio - is not just cute marketing. I really do little bitty stuff. Not as little bitty as the macro workers, but small enough.

Okay - we have had a number of small light panels in at various times. LEDGO, Promaster, Metz amongst others. They go for various prices and are different sizes and shapes. Different price points too, but as with most things, you gets what you pays for.

I grabbed a Promaster LED 120 panel with, you guessed it, 120 LED lights on the front. It runs from 4 standard AA batteries and has a simple on/off switch. There is a shoe mount with a standard 1/4" thread on the bottom and they throw in a small bracket to bolt it onto the bottom of a camera as well. The extra icing is provision of a plastic orange cover to compensate for tungsten lighting.

Cheap as, and even cheaper now since it is on a 50% off sticker. Ideal experimenters gear.

I tried it as illumination for a colourful studio car. The first idea involved a darkened studio and the whole panel lit up from several directions. The shutter on the camera was open on bulb while this was going on - 3 seconds at 200 ISO/f:11. The switch at the back was less convenient to use than the thumb switch of the Icelight 2 but then we're talking $50 vs $700. If I was going to use this technique extensively I would add a handle to the panel using the threaded socket in the base and put a thumb button on the handle.

Then the panel occluded by several strips of gaffer tape to narrow down the beam:

Promaster don't quote their bare light temperature as such - only referring to the plastic filter as yielding 3300ºK. Ian guessing about 4500 - 5500ºK. It is times like these that I wish I had a small cheap colour temperature meter. Indeed, since we encounter light sources out in the real world that don't actually seem to HAVE a colour temperature...or if they do it is fitful and feverish...that meter would get more use than you'd think. I note that Kenko make several colour temperature meters, but they are out of my price range.

Here's a less dramatic portrait shot of Chelsea Bunz - the Absinthe Fairy - done with only the Promaster LED 120 playing on the scene.

Postscript: I have been told that there is an app for colour temperature meters. I have an app installed that prevents me from purchasing apps. It is a part of the sOS - the Stein operating system - it is a product of the CheapJohn company, and it is free...

The Newspaper Advertisement Vs The Web Advertisement

Every couple of weeks I am tasked with writing an advertisement for our local daily newspaper - it goes into a section entitled " Market Place".

The criteria for the products featured are price, providence, and practicality. It can be quite a complex choice:

 a. No good trying to sell a multi-thousand dollar item in a small column - the people who are going to enter into a large camera system or select a premium-quality lens are going to do it with a great deal of care and research. Trying to sell a Leica in a one column ad would be like trying to sell a Ferrari sports car in the back of a comic book.

The item selected needs to be affordable by a large number of people. People who read newspapers...and to put it bluntly, these days that means older people. Like me.

b. We have to be able to provide the goods we advertise - particularly if they are in that very affordable range that might just spark off a rush. We HOPE for a rush! As the copywriter I need to check whether we are likely to be able to satisfy the customers without making them wait for orders.

Western Australians do realise that we are living on the edge of the world... just before it all turns into misty waterfalls and dragons. So we do need to wait a little longer for goods to arrive. But we don't want to wait too long.

c. Practical items sell well in this lower price bracket. It sounds paradoxical, but the people who are likely to spend $50 to $100 on something want it to be able to do something useful... not just look good or be trendy. There are enough other shops selling collectable and impulse goods to soak up the throw-away money, but Camera Electronic has to be able to put something on the counter that DOES something.

By and large we have succeeded with the newspaper sales. The Steadepod has gone like a bomb for years. Cullmann tripods, heads, and accessories do exactly what people need. Hoodman gear works reliably and they have a lifetime warranty for stuff anyway - so does Promaster, for that matter. When we offer these brands people buy, and presumably get value out of the goods. I know I do.

But what about the internet advertisements?

Well our online shop is always a sort of an advertisement in itself - any catalogue is. People pore over the pages as much to dream about what they want as to compare pricing. Sometimes I think the internet site has a mind of its own, just as I am sometimes in despair at the social media machinery that seems to mutate weekly, but eventually nearly everything gets settled out.

Direct marketing offers are the province of the higher management of the firm - I don't think 'em up because I am not a party to the financial decisions of the place. Readers of this column may well be on the mailing list for them and if so I urge you to have a close read when they pop up in your feed. There are times when there are some very good bargains indeed - particularly if wholesale firms are adding cash-back offers to the deal.

You're also well-advised to get in on the special deals that accompany camera and lens launches - the beer and cheese roll nights that introduce new gear to the Perth scene. Frequently the prices are usefully lowered for one night. And you get the beer and cheese roll.

Advertisement is the soul of commerce - here at Camera Electronic we like to make sure that it is a reasonably clean soul at that. Please keep reading.

Footnote: The predictive text and autocorrect have been turned off here at the copy desk. If you find any typographical errors they are original and authentic, and should be prized as such.

Being An Upright Photographer

Last year I had a chance to see an exhibition of photographs prints that had been taken in and around the City of Perth. We might not necessarily think of our town as an exotic place for photos...but the vision of the photographers was acute enough to find dozens of unique and memorable sights. Some of these were historical but a complete mystery to me - I'm glad there were captions.

One point of amazement was how many of Perth's buildings are built with walls that slope inwards from the bottom. I think that the designers must have been trained on Mayan ziggurats...or maybe they just ran out of materials as they went higher and had to make the buildings narrower.

Of course, it may have been to counteract the forces of nature, as I noted in about 20% of the entries that the horizon sloped down from right to left or vice versa. Perhaps the buildings were only reacting to the shifting gravity. Amazing how well the ocean stayed on some prints, when it should have dripped off to the side...

Well, snide comments aside, it did point out the basic optical fact that when you point your camera up or down get in all of the top or bottom of a building, the structure will seem to taper away from you. Your eye sees it as well, but when your brain processes the information it lies to you and tells you the building walls are straight up and down, because it knows they probably are. The camera is a much more literal observer.

Pro shooters have known for years that they need to keep the camera level get the building walls vertical. Even if it is just the back of the camera, it has to be straight up and down to avoid distortion of the image. This means that the person taking the picture has to be far enough away or use a wide enough angle on the lens to get the part of the building they want on the sensor...and in some cases it means that they have to half-way up a building nearby their target to satisfy all the criteria.

Old timers like me who used view and field cameras with rising and falling fronts and lenses with a large coverage could sometimes fiddle this to perfection from ground level . Modern digital shooters with tilt/shift lenses (Nikon, Canon, Samyang) can also do it.

If pressed to it we can also go into many of the digital editing programs like Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and pick a portion of the filters that will correct this distortion. It is amazing to see how far a bad situation can be recovered, though not getting that far away from the correct shooting makes the repair a lot easier.

At this point I will admit that there are any number of photographs that have wildly converging verticals and have benefited from the look - they have been made with a deliberate use of the forced perspective to make an artistic statement. It is only the ones that have tried to be realistic and failed that we address with the special lenses or programs.

As for the tilting horizon? Well, Cullmann, Manfrotto, and Promaster all make extremely neat little bubble levels that will allow you yo shoot with the camera level to the horizon. Lots of camera s have artificial horizon indicators built into the EVF or LCD display. If you use them they work.

If your image passes through a computer between your camera and the printer...then take the time to correct that horizon in the editing program. Even if you have to measure the screen with a wooden school ruler you can still make your vision conform to the way gravity actually works.

The Product Table Or How I Learned To Love Under-Lighting

There are very few occasions when you see light coming up from under a subject in real life; some discotheques in the 80's had light panel floors, you can see it in the classical footlights at the burlesque theatre, and when you open the hatch of hell there is a sort of a lurid glow that comes up. The effect can be quite unsettling.

It is stock in trade for Disney artists and illustrators of fantasy and science fiction when they want to make a subject look evil.

But it is also a very valid technique when you are trying to illustrate products for advertisements. In many cases the art director wants the viewer to see all parts of the subject evenly lit for either sales appeal or technical illustration. In some instances this is difficult to achieve with the classic hard/soft light or even with a light tent. No matter where you place the lights, the thing always has a shadow around the bottom bits.

Enter the light table. A support for the subject that is sturdy enough to bear the weight, but either transparent or translucent to allow light to flood up from underneath. There are several ways of doing this for small subjects:

1. The Lastolite company makes a plastic light cubicle that erects with metal rods and provides a space above and a space for a studio strobe below to flash up through the floor of the photo tent. It is big and cumbersome enough to set up to make it a semi-permanent installation, but it really does do what it purports to. I would equip it with three mono-block lights to tackle any catalog item that you could fit in the cube.

2. The dear old film light table. These are made by Metrolux in Melbourne and you can get them in A4 and A3 size. The acrylic plastic surface is about 3mm thick and will hold a considerable weight. The boxes contain a circular fluorescent light that can do an even job of illuminating the underside of the subject, but you've got to accommodate the colour temperature of this to whatever you are illuminating the top bit with. Fluorescent can be tricky...

3. The Bunnings Steel Shelf solution. Bunnings sell any number of cheap modular steel shelving systems. Think $16 per upright and $ 12 per crossbeam and you can make a good product table for $ 64. Add on either glass or acrylic for the top and you are ready to rock. You don't get the light tent or cube up the top but you can get these from our shop  - Promaster and Glanz make them all the way from 40 cm sq to 120 cm sq. Not having a light cube also allows more contrasty lighting.

It is simple to put a mono-block flash down below the table on a small Manfrotto floor stand pointing straight up. I mount an Elinchrom light there and pop a Minisoft 44 beauty dish on it. Then a bit of trial and error...or in my case trial, error, bad language, and more trial...and you are there.

The series of pictures of the 1957 Ford Skyline show the progression from no under-lighting to full effect. The last picture also shows the look of holding a fill card near the subject to throw a bit of the under-light back. In all cases there is only one other Elinchrom light with a wide reflector doing the main lighting. In other words, this is a technique that even enthusiasts with a two-light Elinchrom D-lite kit could use.

For the people who want to make catalog illustrations, this technique goes one eye-catching step above the standard light cube - those who deal in glassware and jewellery will find it particularly useful. Catch an eye - sell a product.*

Remember, Manfrotto, Elinchrom, Glanz, Promaster, Metrolux, and Lastolite products are all stocked by Camera Electronic - and you can get them through our online shop as well.

* or catch an eye and give it to the cat to play with...

PS. The model in the green light is not evil. She is a very nice person. So is the Ford Skyline.

The Curious Case Of The Dark Grey Filter

Those of us who use cameras to take pictures in the bright noon sunlight get what we deserve - brilliant colours in the main subjects, overexposed skies, and deep shadows under overhanging objects. These overhangs can be eyebrows, noses, lips, chins, and bosoms. And that's just on cars - people are worse...

Well, it comes with the climate, and some days the climate picks people up and beats them against the lamp posts. It is different in cloudier or hazier places - if you have an atmosphere that you can stack for use later it will cut out a lot of the sun and diffuse the rest so that shadows are naturally filled in. In some cases it is a real boon to the outdoor shooter who deals with close and medium subjects. But for the Western Australian at 12:00 we need some artificial fill.

Reflectors are a good traditional idea - people can carry them, erect them. position them to advantage and bounce the ample sunlight pretty well where it is needed. Camera Electronic sell a variety of them from dinner-plate size up to Insanity-On-A-Frame size. Lastolite, Promaster, and Glanz are three brands to look for. You'll need a spare hand or two to use them to best advantage.

If you don't have a spare hand, you can fire an electronic flash from the camera position to do the fill. The business of balancing it to match or run slightly under the prevailing light is the tough part - tough even though TTL mechanisms in camera and flash take out a lot of the mathematics. But as the WA sun is bright and frequently cameras cannot go under 100 or 200 ISO, the exposures at synchronising speed frequently demand an f stop of 22 or even smaller. That's a tough ask of the average small electronic flash - you'll see professionals going the expensive step further of taking out field mono-block strobe heads to try to match or overpower old Sol.

The users of the  Fujifilm X-100 series of cameras or any others that use leaf shutters can cope better, as these cameras will synch their shutters up to 1/1000 and thus the aperture needed is wider  and the flash has a chance to supply enough light. But what of the mirror-less cameras that have focal plane shutters? 1/180 synch at the best and that means f:16 at noon.

Well, help is on the way - we mentioned a press release for a new Fujifilm flash later in the year. Re-reading the DP Review spiel says that it will have a high-speed synch that will up the speed, lower the f stop, and pump out more light as well. We can only hope that this promise is fulfilled because the chance of friendly and controlled cloud cover in WA in summer is pretty darn remote.

Note: Cheating by putting an ND8 in front of the lens and imagining that you have dropped the ISO by three stops is like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.* If the TTL circuit is activated in the flash it just thinks it has to pump out three more stops of light and you've adjusted nothing. The circus trick only works if you have a manual flash out there or one of the old film types that depends upon its own thyristor to quench. Whether you do it or not depends:

1. Upon whether you own an old pre-digital flash or one of the new ones that will avoid TTL.
2. Upon the amount of tootling and fiddling you are prepared to do to add more light into the fill. Consider the fact that even the most basic image editing programs allow you to boost shadow exposure...
3. Whether you can be bothered to stand there and do the photographic version of high-school algebra before every shot. I know people who do, and do it gladly, but then I know some pretty random people...Hey, Guys...

And a sop to the management. Guys and gals, you CAN buy Profoto and Elinchrom units that will pump out more light than you can use. All it needs is money, and the gear is easy to use. If you want to do this lighting you need this gear. Come in and talk to Dom or Carlos. They know, you know. Also see our on-line shop.

* And I am prepared to admit that I tried it. Hell, I tried sea slug at a Chinese banquet and lived. How much dumber could anything be...?

7 in 1 - Either A Grimm Fairy Tale Or A Photographic Marketing Ploy

We used to have reflectors for photography that had only one side. Mathematicians may see a flaw in this as topographically the disc reflector had a front and a back. And an edge, we hasten to add, for the literal-minded. But for a long time they only put a white surface on one side and left the other as a nondescript cloth that did nothing. Not no more.

Starting with a well-known English manufacturer of lighting accessories, and followed-on by a number of budget copyists from other continents, the trade has made increasingly complex reflector sets  for studio and outdoor use. Today we review a 7 -in-1 from Promaster.

These kits come in several sizes - I picked the 22 -inch set from the shop racks and unfolded all the possibilities.

The basic structure is the familiar steel band loop stretching out a translucent fabric. Then a 3-part cover is sewn up that provides 6 more types of reflecting surface. The choices of fabric take it from merely a light modifier to an actual backdrop accessory. What it lacks in surface area it makes up in versatility.

Here's the thing out of the pod. Looks like a Sandpoint hamburger, doesn't it?

Ah, but here is what was lurking - a small green screen just perfect for close-ups with one of the small GS programs. Green Screen Wizard is also available from Promaster in kits and does a decent little job.

If you are a blue screen worker this is also available on one surface. Sort of glows, doesn't it?

Silver is always a strong reflector  though it can cause hot spots if the main light source is strong.

White is flatter and a little more controllable.

Silver/gold warms an image a little.

And pure gold warms an image a lot.

That's 6. All good for photography. But the package promises 7. Here is where Promaster have exercised their ingenuity. Seizing upon the popularity of the movies " Jurassic Park " and " Jurassic World " they have introduced the dinosaur surface.

Long Eyes In The Bag - Hauling That Tele

Have you ever seen a keen wildlife photographer hauling a really big telephoto lens through the airport customs or out on a long trip. Dedicated people. aren't they? Large plastic and metal cases - aluminium road cases - giant padded nylon tubes with complex lids and catches. They look like anti-tank teams hauling their tubes and rockets - you almost expect one to tap the other on the top of the head and then stand aside from the back-blast.

Well, it you are not quite that dedicated and don't use lenses all that long, there are another alternatives for carrying and protecting the things.

If you have the lens on your camera but still want a bit of protection we can recommend the Op/Tec range of neoprene covers. These are generally known as Hood Hats and are available in various sizes to fit nearly all lens diameters. You can snug it onto the lens hood and whip it off when required.

If you want to protect the whole lens while out and about, reverse a Snoot Boot onto it. It will also serve as a lens pouch  that you can put the lens in while using another one. Heck, when it comes off the camera you can attach it to your belt with the plastic clip and be done with it.

If your purse does not run to the Op/Tec solution, you can get nearly the same protection from the Promaster lens pouches. Same neoprene construction, and a similar design. Same belt clip. Just a little shorter, though there are different sizes in their range. They have a belt loop as well.

Sometimes it is the simplest items that make life easiest.

The Copy Camera

Copy cameras used to be a very special thing. The term referred to a camera that was used to...well...copy things. It was intended for use in libraries and other institutions that needed to record flat plane images and store them on film. There were special models that looked like photographic enlargers in reverse that could reproduce whatever was on the enlarger baseboard onto Polaroid pack film. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether the reproduction was colour accurate, but at least it was quick.

Nowadays there is nothing quicker than digital, with the exception of a cat escaping a bathtub...you get to see what you captured as soon as you can see the LCD screen. For those people who still wish to use a camera to capture flat copy we have some advice:

1. Use a copy stand. Promaster make good ones that are derived from enlarger stands with additional lights on arms either side of the stand. They don't cost a fortune. and they make it efficient - trying to make a stand out of a tripod and two stacks of old text books is a royal pain.

2. Use a digital camera that lets you put a macro lens on. Really. Even if you are not going to use it at close-up distances, the flat plane it renders will be a pleasure.

3. Use one that has a flip-up or flip-out LCD screen. You can position it so that you see the preview image right in front of your eyes - very comfortable working.

4. Match your capture to your intended storage volume and final usage. No need to have a 50 megapixel camera if you are photographing matchbook covers for small jpeg images.

5. Light the material with two tungsten, fluorescent curly, or halogen lamps. Get two bulbs the exact same and if you blow one get two more new ones and replace L and R at the same time. Assess your WB with a Datacolor SpyderChecker 24 and micro adjust your white balance to suit. Saves hours later.

6. Get the subject material as flat as possible. You can cover a wrinkled surface with a clear acrylic or glass sheet if you are careful with reflections. You can put a half-sticky piece of heavy card down and press a recalcitrant piece of paper onto it. If you are ambitious you can make a vacuum box and suck paper flat. Books are a problem.

7. Use a yellow or red filter if you are copying old smudged grotty paper as it will disguise the blotches and improve the contrast.

8. Be careful of reflections and stray light sources on the subject plane and on the camera lens. Use a lens hood. Wear a black tee shirt if you stand near the front of the copy stand.

9. Use a cable release.

10. Make sure the camera is squarely mounted on the stand and looks directly down - no skewed angles.

If you want to see an ingenious solution to the business of keeping a book flat for copying without breaking its spine, google up Linhof book copying holder. They don't make it any more and you can't afford it anyway but it was very clever.

Clip Leg Or Twist Leg Or Thumbscrew? A Tripod Debate

No matter where you stand on this question, there is one thing certain - you will be firmly on three legs...

Tripod design varies in many respects when it comes to the yoke at the top and the centre column, and the doodads that make up the head, but the actual locking of the legs falls into  three general categories:

1. Twist lock - where there is a collar around each segment that tightens around the leg as you twist it.

2. Clip lock - where some form of lever flips over and either grips or cams the leg tight.

3. Thumbscrew lock - a t-shaped or round knob tightens a clamp on the leg of the tripod.

The designers scatter these different types throughout their ranges as material and/or general fashion dictates. There is also the business of price - some things are cheaper to manufacture than others and when you are pushing out a tripod for $ 50 you need to watch every penny.

Gitzo have always been the top of the tree when it comes to tripods and I cannot remember seeing anything but twist locks on their legs - this is because they are round-profile legs. The Studex 4 and 5 series have a memorable winged screw for the largest segment.

Manfrotto now favour clip locks but for some time used thumbscrews. Their strong point has been the provision of spare parts - sometimes the ham-fisted manage to break the clips.

Promaster? A mixture as they source from different factories and designers.

Three Legged Thing? Twist. Matches their minds.

Cullmann? Again a mixture, though I must say that the twist lock on my Concept One travel tripod is all I could want - it opens and closes easily and holds a mirror-less camera safely.

Is any of this applicable to what you do? If you are always running and gunning you might need the speed of the clip lock - Manfrotto video tripods are the greatest exponent of this. If you need studio steady you can use the twist lock. Still-life products do not run away.

Mind you, sometimes still-life photographers do, but that is another subject...

Generic Studio Equipment vs The Well-Known Brands

We have a great deal of studio equipment here at the shop - lights, stands, backdrop materials, clamps, accessories, etc. Some are very well-known brands - Manfrotto, Profoto, Elinchrom, et al. Some are surprises - Kupo, JinBei, and Plain White Box.

With the former you can get quite detailed catalogs, both in print and on-line. There are always new things coming out and catalogues need to change to reflect this - some are on the ball, like Manfrotto, and some are tardy. If in doubt, try to trace it on the web - despite the Chase-Me-Charlie nature of some internet research, there are good companies out there.

If you are contemplating the big part of the studio - the lights - you need to think ahead. You might start with a small space and small ambitions but find that your scope widens and the space you need to light gets bigger. When you essay to go bigger, the power you need from your flashes grows exponentially. Plan ahead so that you have some reserve now - for later.

Also plan what sort of light modifiers you'll use. The big makers make accessories for everything so you can start out with basics and gear-up as you find a need. Some of he no-name makers do not have this variety, and you can run out of choices early.

Likewise you may find that your use of a set of lights gets to be heavier and heavier as you discover how to light. If the set you start out with is a just-barely-makes-it choice based upon price, you can find reliability issues when you do regular work.

The same might be said of background stands and other structural equipment, but oddly enough this is not quite so critical. You can construct an entire studio with professional-quality structures and use the stuff for decades. But you can also make some of he lighter structures yourself out of lighter grade components and find that you get a good long time out of it. It all depends on how often you decide to strike a set and rebuild it elsewhere.

Likewise there is the fact that one simple casting or machined part may be as good as another if the engineering is simple enough. Sometimes cheap enough is good enough.

And remember that there is always Mr. Bunnings who does pine timber, welding clamps, and sheets of Laminex. If you can have the strength of character to visit the local store without necessarily buying a new Makita router or a sausage in a bun,...a difficult task in many cases...you can find a whole raft of helpful bits.

Memoirs Of A Flasher - With Promaster

" Well, Officer, it was like this...it was all dark and I wanted a picture of it and I had a digital camera and  Promaster flashgun and it was all over in a minute. You wouldn't have a cup of coffee and a doughnut, would you? "

Okay, now that we have your attention, you'll note that there is an advertisement in the newspaper from our shop for the Promaster flash guns - all different sizes and lots of fittings for different cameras. We can fit out Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony, and Pentax users and do it in TTL style.

Lots of cameras have small flashes that pop up from the top of the mirror housing or top plate of the camera - some on articulated arms that look like the pantographs on electric locomotives. These are fine as far as they go, but they do not go far. Use them for catchlights in eyes or macro work, but don't expect to light a group of people with them. For that you need a bigger tube and more power.

The Promaster flashes have guide numbers that range from 20 to 58 ( in metric terms )so they can suit a number of situations. If you don't know what a guide number is, Mr. Google is your friend. The TTL provision in many cases obviates the need to worry about it but there are still times when you need to know it to see if you have enough illumination power for your proposed exposure. Just be thankful that you do not have to juggle the mathematics of flash-bulb type vs guide number vs aperture vs subject distance vs reflector size vs subject reflectivity that was once the lot of the film worker. It was not uncommon for the photographer to burst into tears trying to do the equation and throw all the gear into a snowbank and go away searching for strong drink...

The other advantage of using a Promaster flash is it works on AA batteries ( rechargeable or one-use ) and thus does not draw down on the li-ion battery in your camera - more shots per charge. Some of the models can be switched to manual control and you can then use wireless control accessories to get an off-camera result.

And all Promaster gear has a lifetime no-quibble replacement policy.

THAT'S PRETTY FLASH!

Off Camera Flash And the Event Photographer

I have never quite decided what an event photographer is. Or what an event photographer does.

An infantry assault over open ground in the face of machine guns is an event - likewise a wedding is an event, similar to the infantry assault, but with the officers up at the front...and generally at a wedding the machine gun fields of fire overlap more...

So what does an event photographer need - besides nerve, a camera, and a hip flask? Well they either need a long lens to stay out of the way or a short lens and a flash to get in amongst it. Those of you given to fits of horror at the thought of flash may be excused - you are artists and we make allowance for you. The rest of you need to see what is actually going on.

Nearly every serious camera has some form of hot-shoe connection on it. This can be the place to put your flash if you want the light to blast straight forward. Good for police mug shots but a bit limiting for some other subjects. That hot-shoe connection is a useful place, however, to base a wireless control for your flash - and then you are as free as the air to place it anywhere that helps.

Hahnel, Promaster, Yongnuo, Pocket Wizard, and a dozen other small manufacturers make wireless flash triggers that do the job. The expensive versions have TTL connection between the flash and the camera while the economical models just send a "fire now" signal to the flash gun and you have to do all the power setting on the flash yourself.

This is not onerous on some flashes - you can lock Nikon, Fujifilm, or Canon flashes into "manual" mode and then use the button or dial control on the flash to go from 1/1 power down to 1/64 power. You get a quick feedback from the LCD screen and soon recognise how much power you need.

The greatest joy of this unleashed approach is that you can operate a light camera with one hand and then hold the flash in peculiar and particular positions to punch light into the scene. You can even abandon it to point in out of reach - as long as you can prop up the rig.
No-end of scenes benefit from fill flash - in some cases even to the extent that the fill becomes the dominant light.

If you free yourself from the top of the camera you can light anything!

The Afterthought - Promaster Lens Cloth

It is the little things that define us. Not our shape, or our power - not even our smell. it is the eyebrows, or the shirtbuttons...or the fingerprints on the lens.

Likewise the small accessories that make our photo photo experience good or bad. And sometimes we come upon these just as an afterthought.

Like this little ghost out of its sell - it is actually a Promaster microfibre lens cloth packed in a soft plastic container modelled on a camera lens. It depends on a little lightweight carabiner - you clip it onto your belt or shirt pocket...or ear if you are extremely modern.

Silly? Yes. Cheap? Yes. But oh, what a boon when your camera bag is locked up into the overhead locker and your finger has just planted itself on the front of your lens filter.
( You DO have a filter on that lens, don't you? Otherwise your greasy digit has just negated all the nano-micro-super multi coatings...)

Pop open the little plastic container, whirl out the Promaster lens cloth, and retrieve the situation.

We keep these here by the tills as catchpennies but  they are actually tiny little image savers.

The Humble Slave - Promaster

With all of today's TTL, Wireless, Air, and Radio control of the flashes, we often overlook simpler things - items that have been developed from older technology.

Suppose you wanted to use several old flash guns for a portrait setup and they were of different makes - perhaps they have no TTL connectors on the bottom at all. Maybe they don't even have hot shoe connections - just a PC synch cord coming out of one side of he flash.

Also suppose you have very little money in your pocket. How are you to synchronise the extra flashes to your camera? With one of these:

This is a simple little electronic cell flash synch. It completes the basic flash circuit when the sensitive cell on the front of it detects a pulse of light. It has a 1/4" threaded socket on the bottom, a hot shoe on the top, and a PC connector on the side - you can cater for all the old flashes you want to.

Fire a basic master flash from your camera - it can be the in-built one or something that you sling on the top. You needn't even let the light from this hit your subject - you can shield it with a piece of alfoil or cardboard. As long as the light of that basic flash reaches the electric cell on the humble slave, it will fire off whatever is connected to it.

Cost? $ 18.95.

A Balanced idea - Promaster Lens Cap

We all tend to lose our lenscaps and then have to buy more. Next time you drop yours over the taffrail or leave it in a hotel room, consider getting one of the White Balance Lens Caps from Promaster.

It clips in just like others, but features a translucent white center section that allows your camera to take White Balance readings in the custom mode  - and to get an accurate WB for unusual circumstances. Consult your camera manual - in the case of all my Fujifilm X cameras it is as easy as one click with this lens cap.

Saves a heap of time later when you are finishing your jpegs!

Standard sizes up to 77mm.

Ain't It Always The Way...Backdrops Drop Back - Try Manfrotto

As a famous iconic world beating award-winning* photo legend who works mainly in his studio ( because it has a reverse-cycle air conditioner, coffee pot, and biscuit tin...) I am familiar with backdrops. Familiar enough to use abusive language.

Paper or cloth, there are issues. The paper gets dirty, rips, runs out...the cloth sheets get dirty, attract glitter, feathers, lint, and wrinkles. A solid wall with wallpaper works very well for one or two shoots and then starts to intrude into every visual idea like a nightmare.
Eventually you long for the wide open spaces or macro work.

Mind you, there are times when the Superior paper roll backdrop or the Promaster muslin drape are perfect - fresh out of the bag or box they can provide a clean space behind the subject that subtly supports the point of focus. You need to move your lights so that this happens deliberately - ignore this and the back bit can overpower the front bit very quickly.

Worthwhile making sure that your chosen suspension system is also up to scratch in a structural sense - I dropped a 2.75 metre paper roll on a sitter once when the backdrop support system tilted over and it was only by dint of fast talking and an offer to bury the body at sea that I got out of trouble. You can be certain that I have secured the rolls ever since in a Manfrotto triple hook rack with the Expan holders. You can support the paper rolls on the portable stands as well, but make sure that the tripod legs of the stands are out there doing their job effectively.

If you're going out in the field the paper is replaced with muslin drape. If it is literally out in a field beware of the uneven surface under it and of the previous users of the field - particularly if they were cows. Some stains never wash out. If it is in a carpeted interior, pin or tape the drape down at the edges - people can trip over anything.

And sometimes you are lucky - I hauled out two cloth drops and sands for last night's costume shoot - and found that the venue had enormous freshly painted off-white  interior walls. Leave the backdrops and stands in the car? Don't mind if I do!

* I won a Posture Pin in Grade 2.

Bag And Drag With Promaster - At A Bargain Price

Good news for all you enthusiasts who will be taking your portable studio flashes, light stands, tripods, softboxes, smoke machines, and electrical cords out to a show. Or a commercial shoot. Or a wedding. Or, heaven forfend, a family party...

Now you need not carry all your goods into the venue in four old Coles cardboard cartons. Or on your back in a hessian bag. Now you can look good and travel well - Promaster studio bags and boxes are on sale.

We've got a little mountain of them in the front bargain corner of the shop floor and we've decided to run them out at 50% off their marked prices. Some are wheeled, some are not. they all will make a difference if you have to haul a disparate lot of gear into a venue.

Not: The larger amount of gear you need to carry, the greater chance the building you will visit will have 43 floors and the shoot will be on the 42nd floor - and the elevator will be out...

Muslin Or Paper? When You Really Need To Know.

Backdrops are great things. When you shoot people, products, or pets on a clean backdrop the visual concentration goes directly to the subject. This is why Irving Penn used them in many of his fashion shots and then extended the idea out into the wilds to shoot his mud men and other traveller's wonders.

Irv was an enthusiast all right, because I've seen shots of his studio in the wilds constructed of scaffolding and canvas. They are monumental things, but they ensure the separation of the subject and control of the light.

Closed to home, and generally not of mud men. we see many of our clients taking out backdrop stand kits as purchases or from the rental department. these kits are way easier to wrangle as they are essentially two big light stands and a cross bar. the cross bar breaks down into 4 sections for packing. The frame will support a 3 metre-wide backdrop and it will generally raise it 3 metres high. Not that this is a good idea - higher you go the more chance of tipping it over - especially if you are outside. Wind is a powerful agent when it hits a sail.

So - what do you use for a drop? You can essentially choose cloth or paper. Depending upon whether you are setting up on a flat hard floor - wood, concrete, or vinyl - or a softer or rougher surface like dirt or carpet, you can cover the base of the area with the backdrop. If you put a paper roll on a rough surface it will tear quickly and be an unsafe surface to walk on. In these cases, always choose cloth.

Note as well that even if you are always unrolling paper rolls like the Superior brand repeatedly onto a hard studio floor you will pick up dirt and eventually the edges of the paper will be come brittle and tear. Look upon paper rolls as expendable items.

Muslin also becomes dirty - particularly if it is a solid colour. People pose with dirty feet, or spill things on it, or pee on it. Fortunately you can throw most muslin drops into a washing machine and eventually clean them up. If the drop is a mottled type you can extend the intervals between cleaning for a long spotty time.

Transporting a backdrop to a location is also problematical if you are using a small vehicle. The rolls from Superior are 2.75 metres long and this is just on the edge of do-ability for some small cars. My Suzuki Swift won't take a full Superior 2.75 roll. The mottled muslin drops just crumple up into a duffle bag and can be thrown into the boot easily.

If you are in the habit of taking the long paper rolls out to locations and have a car - or better a ute - with a roof rack you can make a superb roll holder from a length of plastic PVC plumber's pipe with the threaded end caps - see you local Bunnings - and you can safely transport a paper roll through a hurricane.

Whichever route you decide to take, go for safety with the thing - tape down paper rolls with gaffer tape when subjects will walk over them, and stake or staple down muslin for the same reason. People can walk funny and lurch sideways at the least opportunity and sometimes the backdrops skid under them.

see the full range here

The Humbrella - Lighting On the Cheap With Promaster

It is Promaster day here at the shop - boxes of Promaster accessories have come down from the receiving desk and are being priced up. The good news is the humble umbrella holders are back and the bad news is you don't know about it.

Yet. Read on...

If you have a regular electronic flash - any kind of flash, from the modest to the complex - you can generally adapt it to umbrella shooting - and thereby make large studio lighting from something that folds up under your arm.

You'll need to get a small light stand ( Did I mention that Promaster make them?), a small umbrella ( Did I mention that Promaster make them?), and an umbrella/flash holder ( Guess what...). We've got them all here - and if you'll bring your camera and your flash in we can generally succeed in showing you how to rig the system up to fire.

For all the hoohah about soft boxes, the umbrella does a pretty good job of softening a light blast. Add to the fact that setup can be a couple of minutes instead of 15+, and you can see the attraction. Add to this the variety of surfaces, colours, and translucencies of different umbrellas, and yo can fine tune the setup to match your own contrast preferences.

Plus you can get caught in a winter shower and still save your equipment.

Camera Electronic's Big Rack O' Volts - Promaster

If ever you needed a spare battery for your digital camera, now is the time to come in and get it. We have just put up a rack of Promaster rechargeable batteries that is about half the size of Tasmania.

There are modern batteries as well as slightly historic ones in the selection - and some from manufacturers that no longer make cameras. Altogether we have 95 pegs out with far more than 95 different types.

They are at an advantageous price and carry thee no-quibble Promaster warranty.

The really surprising thing is when you turn to the more ordinary battery rack on a side wall. There are the familiar D, C, AA, and AAA batteries that we all put into torches and kid's toys. There are the little flat 9 volt batteries that go into calculators. And the little silver cells that power cameras. All pretty standard sizes, and most camera manufacturers used to configure their products to take them readily.

So when did the camera designers thing it was a good idea to make the new gear with 95+ different types of battery?

Ah, well, philosophy aside, there are plenty of batteries for everybody now. Grab a spare before you go on your holiday or to the drag races. Or the drag show. Or Tasmania.