Shouldering the Burden Of Sony With Peak Design

I am going to risk it. I know the ice is thin, and the nerves even thinner, but here goes: another review of a Sony product. Or rather, a product that can be used with a Sony camera…

I have reported on Peak Design equipment before, and from the original mention some years back until now, my opinion of the brand has improved. I think it is because their design department have had better ideas and their manufacturing division has been able to translate these into good products.

The Original peak Design product we saw in Camera Electronic was a belt holder for cameras - a quick release clamp that enabled you to put a camera on your shoulder strap or belt and then secure it with a click of a button. The CE staff at the time all got samples to go away and try - I demurred  - the idea seemed uncomfortable. Whenever I tried it I envisaged disaster if I was not careful how I mounted the camera. Remember I’m the man who dropped a Leica M3 with a Summicron lens on it into a Melbourne drain. They have stopped letting me defuse torpedoes…

This is different - it is a lens holder designed to accept Sony - mount lenses on both sides of itself and then to lock onto a shoulder strap. Whether that shoulder strap is dedicated to a messenger bag or a backpack is immaterial - the clamp has a positive two-screw lock that cannot depart from it with out deliberate disassembly. You can also put the clamp onto a waist belt and depend a Sony lens from that.

It would be a blessing to a wedding or event shooter who needed constant access to a spare pair of lenses while a third lens was on the camera and who did not want to have to fossick around inside a bag while working the crowd.

Peak Design have been reviewed here before - their new bags are both elegant and practical. This accessory seems to be exactly in the same good line.

Mount is also available for Canon and Nikon applications.

The Translucent Mushroom vs The Poop Scoop - A Studio Battle

I was conscious of the anomaly of what I was doing but it was all for a good cause; I was trying to determine which of the new Mag Mod light shapers would be the best for event coverage. I had inveigled Chelsea Bunz - the Steampunk Absinthe Fairy - to come in and pose for head and shoulders shots with the IceLight 2 and Promaster LED 120 portable lights and I thought to take advantage of the chance for some Mag Mod experienmts. They were duly conducted but I am still in a quandary.

For those who came in late, the Mag Mod light shapers are designed to attach firms to portable speed lights and to give either colour, diffusion, or concentration for the flash. I want something that will let me front up to Steampunk patrons of Rigby's Bar in St. Geo. Tce when they have one of their Steampunk Balls and take well-lit portraits in a flash. I need to do full-length, half torso, and head and shoulders.

I most definitely don't want to do it with a tripod light stand or strange umbrella rig. I know this because I have tried it before and found out that in a crowded venue of people having fun, that kind of gear makes me a social menace. I need to be light, bright, and no tripod legs to trip up the dancers.

The Mag Mod Dome is the translucent mushroom. It attaches magnetically to any speed light and provides what can best be described as a bare-bulb effect. Gorgeous in a small room - the light goes everywhere and nothing gets too much of a hot spot. I would choose it unquestioningly for areal estate coverage. The pros in that game know their own lighting better than I do l but I still think the bare-bulb is the way to go.

The other choice - the Poop Scoop - has a more dignified name; Mag Bounce. I know my readers, and I am willing to bet a number of you will ask for this product by the name Poop Scoop. The manufacturers can gnash their teeth...Australians are Australians and this sort of thing happens... It does not detract from the useful nature of the device.

I find it delightful. Bigger than the translucent mushroom, and slightly more daunting in appearance, it casts a harder front of light out to the subject - witness the slightly harder shadow behind Chelsea - but there is still a some illumination that escapes upwards and backwards through the white silicone shroud, and this bounces off walls and ceilings. If the Stay-Puft man was a photographer, it would bounce off him. The fact that it projects more may be the deciding factor for open events.

The joyous thing about the Poop Scoop is the fact that Mag Mod have put two sets of samarium magnets in it at 90º to each other. You can run the speed light sideways and still project out the front of the camera. This means you can alternate between portrait and landscape orientation with a twist of your left wrist. If you're shooting a prime lens with auto focus you never need shift hands to fumble for anything. Just run and gun.

The other joyful thing is that if the event you are covering - Steampunk Ball, family dinner, or wedding - turns violent, and you have to make a run for it...The Mag Mod accessories are mostly made of soft flexible silicone rubber. You can squash them up and stuff them into your pocket as you scuttle for the door.

Shooting At Our Troops On Sunday Afternoon

Shooting at our troops on Sunday afternoon is a tricky business. I should not recommend it very often, as Australian troops in war zones shoot back, and with professional skill...

When they are ceremonial guards at Government House Open Day they are likely only to be engaged by photographers and sight-seeing tourists. They rarely fire back and when they do it is generally just words. The odd prod with a bayonet, mind, but then you get that on the Armadale train line all the time.

The pictures you see today point out wisdom and folly. And they make commercial suggestion for photographers who might also be looking around at the sights of the city. Let's start the advertising by analysing:

1. The heading image shows three chaps engaging the young guard as a photographic model in different artistic ways. One has decided that a close head shot will be the best image - another thinks a head and shoulders to show more of the uniform. He's using the portrait orientation to do it. The third shooter is waiting until the model turns his head to him as he has a wide-angle Zeiss Biogon lens on his camera.

2. The photographers have asked the soldier to pose in the sun but with his face turned away from it. This will let him open his eyes despite the light. Of course, as a British soldier, he has a tropical service helmet to protect his brain pan from excess heat. Only one of the photographers has been as wise as he, and worn a good hat.

3. The second image shows what choices the three photographers have made in their outfit for the day:

      a. Canon man with a midrange zoom. Filter on lens but no lenshood. Danger of flare.
 Good camera strap and gadget bag, but a heavy thing to carry on a sunny day. March light and you march further - the camera and lens is all you need.

      b. Leica man. That's an M2 with a Zeiss Biogon wideangle lens on it. No idea what film is in it, but let's hope for colour neg as it has the widest dynamic range. And he's not metering. Mind you, on a Perth Spring day we're at the Sunny 16 point anyway and if he's been working with the camera and film combo long enough, he should be fine. That camera will last until he's old and grey so if he keeps it he should get value out of it.

      c. Micro 4/3 man with the Olympus. He's carrying the littlest sensor of the three but probably the most processor power. And a darling of a pro-class Olympus zoom lens - the 2.8 version. He should have extremely sharp files to process when he gets home. He's wisely put a lens hood on the Zuiko and a hat on himself so there is little harm that the sun can do.

4. All of the people in the pictures are wearing shoes. Sensible shoes. Shoes that can go for a long distance. Shoes that will be comfortable at the end of the day. Unlike this columnist who chose authentic period footwear for a Victorian gentleman and suffered accordingly. I think that a great many of the facial expressions seen in Victorian portraits owe less to stern morals than to tight shoes.

Finally, the commercial moral of the piece - all the shooters made sensible choices.

All will get images to take back home. All were shooting with REAL cameras held steadily to their eyes - not mobile phones waved at arm's length. The pictures will be sharp.

All the pictures will exhibit good dynamic range and low noise.

All the pictures will be on real computers...eventually...and not left to languish on a Nokia until it is lost...or a Samsung until it ignites. The happy day will be remembered and not forgotten.

Neither will the feet...

The model: DBJ of WAGWLHA

Pass Right On Through With The New Pocket Wizard IV

Transmitters and receivers for sending signals between cameras and flash units have been legion in the last few years, but few of them have combined all of the features that people wanted - now PocketWizard have released their new Plus IV and it looks as though it redresses the situation.

What it provides:

Radio-frequency command between your camera and your flash out to a long distance.

TTL through-put to a flash mounted on the camera - in other words you can send out a manual signal to outboard units while your TTL flash on camera does the usual measuring and quenching thing.

                                               

   

Control  for 4 separate flash groups.

Control for 32 channels.

Note that you get an orange back-lit panel when you press the Mode button. When you are using flash in dimly-lit venues any on-board illumination is a blessing. Rocket Wizard have decades of experience in the field.

Auto sensing for pairing the transmitter and receiver.

Two-stage remote camera triggering. Just like the shutter button on your camera - half and full-press and then turns off to save battery power.

Receiver will accept and fire up to 14.5 FPS.

Runs on 2 x standard AA batteries or you can put external power in through a Mini-USB port on the PocketWizard IV.

And best of all - they have lain the body of the thing down forward instead of making it stick up like their old units. Much easier to move about with the camera if it lies along the top of the lens. Note that they have been wise enough to make the battery door a hinged fair rather than a slide-off cover that would be lost and trampled on.

 

1/4" screw socket on the bottom and TTL hot shoe on the top. A stand-alone independent outfit.

Find it online or in-store!

"Just Bring Your Camera"

"And I'll give you something for your film".

These two statements were frequently heard in the analog era when someone wanted you to do a professional job of sports, event, or wedding coverage but did not want to pay a professional price for the result. You were foolish if you thought that it was going to excuse you from doing a professional job - that was still the standard. But you were not going to get paid. You were a relative. Or a mate. Or the relative of a mate.

It always went the same way. The cost of the film and processing was never fully paid - they gave you something but that something was based upon their recollection of the price of a roll of Kodak Gold  or Sakura film seen at the checkout of the local supermarket. If you presented them with the actual cost of the pro neg film and the processing at the pro lab they recoiled in horror and accused you of being a gouger.

Once the pictures were delivered they asked for the negs, and then they took them off and used the pictures without any credits or thank-yous. But they would pass you onto their mates at a party to do the same thing for them...at the same rates. It was like being a football - the boots that kicked you changed but the sensation was still the same.

Well, now everything has changed. Now with the digital era the mates of mates realise that there are no more films to be bought and no more lab fees to be paid...so they no longer have to offer anything in compensation. They are entitled under their rules of the game to demand all the RAW files, all the jpeg files, and frequently the memory card as well.  You'll sometimes be offered a drink - and that is rare - and sometimes be offered "exposure".

Exposure is the method the ancient Greeks used to dispose of unwanted infants on hillsides and it is equally effective on modern photographers. The only difference is the modern mates of mates will then tell the mates of their mates that you'll do their weddings/sports carnivals/car shoots/parties for free, and you can die on that hillside repeatedly.

"Just bring your camera".

Turning Amateur - Part One

Every working or professional photographer I have talked to - from the lowly international Magnum superstars to the most famous of the Santa Photos shooters in Boise, Idaho - secretly nurtures one supreme aspiration. They have a dream to become a full-time amateur.

All through their working lives you can see them shooting envious glances out the sides of the viewfinder at the chaps in the photo vests who are fiddling with the brown leather ever-ready cases festooned with lens hood holders. It is sad to say that if it weren't for the pressures of money and responsibility they would chuck their day job and reach for their goal.

I guess it is like a lot of things in life - they are set early onto the treadmill and there are few opportunities to get off. They get trained in photography somehow - university, technical school, or trade - and find a job and start to take pictures for money and then before they know it they are hooked. They want to eat every day and own more than one shirt and sleep in a bed. The sad slow decline into financial comfort and professional success starts and they never really see themselves slipping further and further into affluence. One day they wake up and have it all, and no where to put it, and another carton of it arriving Monday...

Then they long for the wonderful world of the amateur. No deadlines. No live lines. No lines at all.

No need to justify their camera purchases to the accountant or the ATO. No need to own the best and fastest before a competitor owns it. No need to go round and slander the other professionals in hopes of getting a client away from them. No need to sit there in a bare studio looking at a bare appointment book and whistling to keep up the spirits. Heck, when you are an amateur you can go to Dan Murphy's and buy spirits at 10:00 in the morning and no-one cares...

Oh, the siren call of the hot photographic news story...and how sweet it is when the siren goes on by their house and they don't have to get out of bed to follow it.

And the charm of attending a rustic wedding in a paddock in the wheatbelt. Amongst the grasshoppers and dust and hayseeds...and they won't have to change lenses because they're a guest instead of a worker. And they don't have to make small talk with the hayseeds unless they want to.

That wonderful dawn at 3:00 AM in summer. Not a breath of wind. Clouds glorious. The roseate fingers of light making for perfect balance between outside light and a desperate real estate agent. No need to haul three light stands and a Skylite reflector up to a third storey. No need to climb on a ladder to get verticals right. No need to spend the rest of the day spotting out the cat wee from the walls. Architecture photography as it was meant to be enjoyed...by someone else.

Well, now that I have set the glowing picture ( and it isn't all just halation ) read on in one of our next weblog columns for how to achieve this. Remember: Life was meant to be more than just getting the gravy spots off a sensor.

Uncle Dick

Getting Drunk And Using A Gary Fong Lightsphere

Okay. You're reading this. That headline got you. I knew it would. Read on and see what the connection is.

Note: if you are going to be all awkward about the drunk bit, substitute barley water and improving tracts if you wish - the Gary Fong advice still applies.

The Gary Fong Lightsphere is a device that has undergone a number of development changes. Early versions were made in two grades; clear and cloudy - and you had to pick the exact model to fit your speed light. Our shop had to stock about eight of them to service all customers. It was a beeping night- mare to get the right diffuser to the right customer.

Things have changed. Gary saw the light ( ! ) and got his factory mates to make a universal diffuser that not only fit all comers but was made in flexible plastic to fold down upon itself. It could be used for a whole new range of speed lights.

The basic idea of the Lightsphere is to fire the blast of flash light vertically into a roughly spherical translucent ball and let it spill out and make optical friends from there. If the flash was connected to a camera via some sort of TTL coupling, the light that spilled out of the front of the accessory illuminated the subject while the stuff that went out in an annular pattern and up to the ceiling  was weakened but still contributed to the look of the image. You got a softened effect on the main subject and adequate illumination of their surroundings. All in one shot with one flash on or near the camera. A real boon to event photographers who did not have the luxury of complex light set-ups.

Weddings. Dances. Concerts. Environmental portraits that have to be done with minimal preparation. Not perfect but better than straight blast-flash. Absolutely better than no-flash and f:1.4 and hope that it looks like art...

It is the equivalent of being drunk and still competent. You might not be able to operate a nuclear power station or do brain surgery but you can still turn on the lights or put on a band-aid.

And sometimes that is exactly what the situation requires. Gary Fong. Making people look good the easy way.

Pre-Packed Picture Power In Little Parcels - Toshiba Batteries

So many things in our lives are taken for granted - clean water, electricity, and rhinestone poodle collars for instance - that we rarely look into where we are to get them from when we are not in our normal environment. The wise amongst us make provision for a steady supply - even when the shops are shut.

We'll leave you to seek your own sources of water and rhinestones but direct you to the thought that you really ought to get yourself some portable electricity that you can store safely in your camera bag.

You might argue that you only need AA batteries for flash guns and portable LED light blocks. Not so - more and more radio triggers are being designed to use standard AA's rather than button cells. There are still cameras that use AA cells for system power. And they can be called on the juice up any number of digital devices by means of simple converters and battery chargers - there are a number of these devices available right now.

At this juncture we can chime in with some advice from Ernest - there are some rechargeable AA's on the market that sound like a good idea for flash guns but don't prove to be. If you want to ask him for the details next time you see him by all means go ahead - he makes a good argument for decent alkaline AA's.

Well - here they are. We've been selling the Toshiba AA's in 40-battery boxes as well as 2-battery packs for as long as I can remember in CE. They are the go-to battery for sales demonstrations of speed lights and it is no wonder that when I started using the Nikon and the Fujifilm guns I should load up with them. My experience with them has been good - as opposed to the results from AA's purchased in supermarkets around the state.

Not all batteries are the same and not all are good - Ernest again and his dramatic demonstration of bending no-name batteries double with his fingers. Even some of the nationally-known brands from Coles, Woolies, and IGA can be sad little cells and poop out well before a reasonable number of shots.

Speaking of which, my experience with the Toshiba AA's in Nikon SB700 and Fujifilm EF-42 speed lights has been that they will put out about 220-240 flashes before becoming exhausted. This is good to know if you are going to budget for an event that requires a lot of flash and need to know when to change batteries so as not to be caught flash-less at the wrong time.

The other good thing about Toshiba is I have yet to see a Toshiba leak into a flash gun - even if it is unused for months.

Buy a box. You'll use them up eventually and the assurance that you always have power is invaluable.

In Praise Of Dull Days

Yesterday was a dull day. I am delighted to say. It was full of imperialist mayhem and murder but enjoyable withal.

You see, the bane of the outdoor event photographer - the sun - was veiled for the better part of the morning  by a cover of clouds. Not an unusual thing but the timing of this sort of meteorological assistance is never sure - you go to events prepared for battle.

Camera Electronic sells the goodies to fight the sun. Diffuser screens for portraitists, portable speed lights for fill flash, and battery-powered strobe sets for the more well-to-do. ( Who want to carry more break-the-back stuff on their treks...).  We deploy the light to fight the light and most times succeed - if not exactly overpowering the sun, at least mitigating the worst of the contrast.

Sort of a case of Saul vs Sol...

Well, yesterday had a high scrim of cloud that turned into a cover of cloud that turned into rain. There was little need for fill flash, though in some cases it made a nice gleam off the arms and armour. But there was one curious feature - the little cloud symbol for the WB that was meant to set the camera for cloudy conditions certainly worked but worked too well - the pictures made using it warmed up just that little bit too much. They had to be pulled back 800º k in the final computer work to render the scenes in a natural sense.

At the same time I noted that another friend using a different camera set to AUTO WB had little of this problem. I think I was trying to be too clever and Professional with a capital P.

Moral? Set the WB with ºK by all means but do a little investigation beforehand as to the best temperature. Now I know for my camera. What is best for yours?

Flash Jack From Gundagai No.1

Those of our readers who are puzzled by the heading are referred to any standard Australian folk song book. They will enjoy the Dog On the Tucker Box and Click Go the Shears and other such cultural achievements but would do well to keep in mind that folk songs are best sung out loud by earnest women in shawls and drunken men with beards. Anyone else risks being laughed at.

The flashes we are more familiar with are the on-camera pop-up variety and the speed lights that we slot into the top of the hot shoes. Studio flashes are referred to as ' strobes ' to make them sound more technical.

The humble speed light or portable flash is frequently used to  light portraits and events by separating it from the camera...and the photographer...and putting it on a light stand or tripod. Actual firing of the unit is accomplished with a cord, a wireless radio trigger, an infra red signal, or the power of the mind. The real secret of the portrait or event shot is holding the flash unit on the light stand and holding a photographic umbrella so that it catches and throws back the light.

Here's a Promaster unit to do just that. The thing will slot onto any standard half-inch spigot on a light stand and the clamp on the top grips the hot shoe foot of the flash. There is a hole down which you poke the umbrella shaft and all you need to do is draw out the umbrella until the flash fills it. Point the assembly at the victim and pull the trigger.

Here is the sort of result that you can expect from a small flash operating via the TTL method into a large umbrella. Eyes light up well, skin looks natural, and there is enough beauty modelling to make most faces look good.

The Promaster model is one of the better-made options for this and it is as cheap as. If you are doing group pics or photobooth shots you can avoid having to use a 42-light setup. You'll want a light stand and a TTL cord for your camera and flash but you'll be amazed at what the automation can do when you stand back and stop yourself from trying to channel  Ansel Adams.

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!

Car Show Sunday - Father's Day Coming Up - Photo Opportunity

Okay. This Sunday the 6th of September is Father's Day. If you are a father you have certain privileges granted, one of which is to go out to the Hot Rod Show in Fremantle.

It's held at St. Patrick's school grounds between 10:00 and 4:00 and the entry fee for spectators is quite modrate. there is food and drink and cars and sales stalls and a lot of car enthusiasts to talk to. There will be hot rods and custom cars, so you need to take your camera.

A zoom lens is useful, but make it at the wide end of the range - the cars are sometimes parked close together. I'm going to take a 35mm, 18mm and 14mm prime for my Fujifilm X-E2 and set my camera to take a medium 3:2 jpeg and a RAW file. Just for the fun of it I am going to set the X-E2 jpeg film simulation to Classic Chrome ( which is K----chrome but no-one is allowed to say it...) and then see if I would like to do that to the RAW files later in the computer. If the medium jpegs look good and I commit no serious exposure errors I will just use them for my blogging and dump the RAWs. Don't reel back in horror - Fujifilm jpegs are fabulously good just as they are. Get your shot right and it is RIGHT.

Take a flash as well, or at least remember that you have a pop-up flash on your camera. There are a lot of things that look better if you pop some light in there. If it s a cloudy day you'll have saturated colour anyway but if it has sunny patches you might need a fill-flash.

Please don't paw the cars or have your children standing on the running boards. It's not done at car shows and may get you yelled at - and we don't want angry at a Fathers Day event.

Be prepared for some bright paint jobs - rodders and custom car people are not bound by the same commercial tedium that afflicts the current new-car designer - they can think in Technicolour  and theatrical stripes. They have given themselves permission to have fun, and you can join in on Sunday.

I'll be there - come over and buy me a coffee and talk nonsense.

Uncle Dick

Heading Photo: The yellow coupe. Nothing you can buy new at a car agency today will make you feel as good as this...

Fast Report - New Go Pro Here

Pardon the poor pack shots - didn't want to open one up for the illustrations.

The new Go Pro Hero 4 Session cameras are here in stock.

Action-cam people will know more about this than I - I'm a non-action cam person - but it looks from the outside that the shape of the device has been somewhat changed.

It is smaller, sleeker, with rounded angles to the external housing . It is more of a cube shape.

The mounts and items included in the package seem to be the same size and type as for previous models - if you already have a special rig set up on your helmet, bike, or car, then this should just bolt straight in.

1080p 60fps and 720p 100fps are stated on the box. 8 megapixel at 10fps burst rate. wireless and bluetooth operation.

This may be a useful variation for those people who are going to be subject to intrusive water pressures or flailing foliage or other mechanical influences. If you are going to ride your Honda off the top of a cliff you are still going to encounter the planet at the bottom of the landscape but short of that it may be an improvement.

Note: It is still not recommended for endoscopy.

You Can Come Along And Set Up A Studio...

I used to think that " singer-songwriter " were the most terrifying words in the language, but I have concluded that the invitation to set up a studio is. Beause you never can tell how much space you'll have or where it will be.

This reflection is brought to you by an experience on Saturday, doing a small studio event shoot for my social club. I've been doing these costumed dinner shoots for what seems like decades...and the places that we end up cover a wide spectrum of suitability.

Best ones used to be the halls with big stages and lots of electrical outlets and two big sets of stairs up the sides. Those were spaces where you could haul a backdrop stand kit and three big studio flashes and a big wooden posing chair and a a variety of backdrops and furniture throws. The sitters could swan up in big gowns and nothing got snagged.

Then we got to the smaller hall - one AC socket, narrower stage, one pair of stairs. Harder to get the people onto the set, but the small compass of it meant that only one studio strobe was possible - with a big beauty dish you could manage it. One memorable setup hooked Manfrotto clamps and arms off a Manfrotto light stand and slung a square-format film camera under the beauty dish...and it worked a treat. But squeezy.

Last Saturday saw perhaps the narrowest stage yet - a sub-branch hall for the RSL that was built in the 50's. Just enough stage for a speaker and a flag - and the flag was tacked to the wall. Not even wide enough to unfurl the regular backdrop on the backdrop stands.

That was solved by collapsing the support pole and putting the side stands en echelon. There was room to put one light stand on the stage for the portable speed light ( we have eschewed the studio lights in the field and are not ashamed of it...) and as long as you shepherded the sitters past the black legs of the stand in the semi-dark, you could get a reasonable portrait. A big umbrella did the trick - like a beauty dish but I could shelter under it as I took the stuff back to the car in the rain.

What it pointed out, however, was the need for some form of attachment that could stick a speed light to a brick wall - that would have permitted a two-light setup. Also, some little flashing LED lights for the legs of the tripod. They put a big flashing light on that builder's crane downtown to keep low-flying helicopters out of it, and portrait sitters can cause more damage than helicopters...*

I have not quite yet been reduced to on-camera flash and posing them in the toilets, but if the venues get more crowded it may come to that. Smile and flush, Kowalski.

Uncle Dick

* I must poke around the Cullmann stock. If anyone was crazy enough to have a brick-wall support it would be Cullmann.

Being Safe Amongst The Cattle - An Car Event Photographer's Guide

Having survived two days at the WA Hot Rod And Street Car Spectacular - that's two days of cars, enthusiasts, and startling food prices - I can offer some advice to others who go in harm's way.

1. Take your own food. Or an Armaguard truck full of money. Venue caterers have a license to be there and so does the mint in Canberra. A coincidence? I wonder...

2. Disregard the appearance of the teenage participants. They are mostly harmless, despite wearing tee shirts that promise death and destruction. If they are not your teenagers you can breathe a sigh of relief.

3. Do not poke the cars. They resent it.

4. If you want to shoot long exposures with a tripod, go very early in the morning or stay very late at night. The crowds during peak hours are pressing enough to make tripod use inconvenient, if not dangerous. A monopod or a Steadepod is a help in those cases.

5. Up your ISO to the best high compromise figure. Find this out by proper testing well before the show. You can drop it to 400 for the outside shots.

6. Patience. The crowds that move into your shot and obscure the outlines of the car you are trying to photograph seem to work in tag teams - one lot drifts up, clings around and then just drifts off when the next team is ready to replace them. It is not a personal insult - it is just the behaviour of cattle on a range.

Sometimes you can get only 5 seconds in between herds to get the shot - be ready with pre-focus and accurate exposure.

Sometimes you can get a good clear space around yourself by singing " On The Good Ship Lollypop" in a high sweet tenor and nodding your head from side to side. Dimples help.

7. The car show promotion girls are all pretty and happy at the start of the show. At the end of the show they are still pretty but their feet hurt. If you annoy them at that time they  relieve some of their discomfort by kicking you really hard. Be warned.

8. If you ask a car owner how they made the car, they will tell you. The. Entire. Story.

9. Each car that you photograph will also be photographed by an iPhone, an Android phone, an iPad, a compact, a bridge camera, a mirror-less, a DSLR, and an instant pack film camera. The pictures will all look the same as they will all be taken with the event lighting. If you want yours to be different, use a flash - use it sensibly.

10. Go low, go high, go close (Use a tele lens if you they barrier off the car.), go dramatic. Make the shot for a purpose - and then use it for that purpose.

11. Look at all the stalls and stands and make something of them as well.

The Nervous Photographer

Are you nervous? Are you shy? Well we've got just the thing for you - social event photography! Now you can blend into the foreground in a blaze of light shouting your lungs out at strangers and fighting with burley security staff. If you are loud enough you can get tossed out into the street and if you are lucky it will be a wet street. How good is that!

This blog is brought to you by a strong cup of coffee and a note on my personal Facebook page from a friend. They are a shy and retiring sort. I have a great deal of sympathy with that as I used to be myself - until I discovered a press camera and the No.25 flashbulb.

Press Graphics were wonderful machines - complex enough to command respect and sturdy enough to be used in a club. As a club. Paired with a big flash running on D batteries and a pocket full of N0.25's you could picture ANYthing. If you had an outlet for your images it was a passport into some pretty fun places.

Nowadays some people think that they will get better event shots with a high-ISO camera and a wide-aperture lens. If they are frightened they can choose a longer focal length lens ( paying way more for it if it has a large maximum aperture ) and snipe from the corner of the room. It works for some, but it sometimes misses out on the best of the worst of human behaviour - and requires longer stalking and waiting time for the action to begin. You have to listen to the dismal music for longer...

I've always thought a better approach is to use a tough camera, a big flash, and a brash manner. Whether you are dressed as a czarist sailor from the Black Sea Fleet or a teddy boy, and I have been so attired in my time, you can engage the attention of the subject quickly and horrify them into the sort of expression that sells. One good blast and away!

My own personal favourite is the Fujifilm X-100 on manual with an 800 ISO setting connected to a Metz 45 CL-1. f:8 and 1/160 second shutter speed. If you leave the lens set to 8 feet you can just point, shoot, and run. A pocket full of caltrops is a fine idea too, but you never read that here...

The Delicate Art Of Dividing Up The Carcase

I am frequently asked about the law as it applies to photography - both the privacy laws and the copyright laws. As far as I can see if you are under 30 there are no rules - and if you are under 30, wear a fluoro Hi-Vis vest, and drive an old Mitsubishi Magna, you are excused road rules as well. Get out there and go mad...

For the rest of us - the oldies - we do not understand the copyright laws either, but we tend to be a little more circumspect about stealing other people's images and whacking them on our websites. This is not because we are moral - it's because we can't figure out how to do it.

And as far as breaching privacy laws goes by taking pictures of people on the nude beach, or Hay Street...we refrain because we cannot run away fast enough to avoid capture. That and the fact that we just do not care any more. Street photography for us is only fun if the street has a coffee shop that serves florentine biscuits and you can sit there and eat them and not have to take pictures.

But what of events? Closed events. Events that may have punters who want to have their pictures taken and might pay some money for them. How do you divide up the job?

Well, if it is a wedding you stand back, let the hired photographer do the pictures, and just hang around until they open the bar. You can do no good by taking "extra" pictures that interfere with the pro doing their work well. Be nice.

If it is a ball or party and you are allowed by the organisers to take photos - and THAT is a real consideration - see if they want a set-up or just circulating shots. If you set up, set up well - nothing is nastier than an off-hand impromptu studio that makes everything look bad. Be mindful of safety with your electric lines. Use a wireless synch and as few light stands as you possibly can. Crowds surge around like cattle and they will stumble over anything.

If you are circulating, keep your gear as simple as you can, consistent with the look you want. If you go through a crowd trailing wires, umbrellas, and extra metal arms expect to hit something expensive and/or painful.

In either case, have some clever way to let the punters see the pictures in a reasonable time. Website gallery with or without passwords - Facebook postings - nailing the proof sheets on the door of the local church - whatever you do, make sure that they get to see it.

Be classy. If you are at an event where someone else is trying to make a living with their photography - and you are just looking for a few blog shots or a chance to look down ladies' dresses, do not intrude on their business. The photographers, I mean. It all comes round and one day you will be out there trying to do the digital deed for dosh yourself - make sure that your fellow photographers will be kind to you.

Uncle " Not An Artist " Dick

The Big Blue Blanket - A Day At the Races

Did goe to the drag races yesterday and was greatley entertained. The event was far too busy and far too many colourful cars were seen to be reported here - if you wish to see what transpired you must go to:

hrhoa.wordpress.com

The blog is " Here All Week" and there will be a stream of posts regarding the races and car show emanating from it during the coming weeks. The blog you're reading right now is the work one that sells cameras so we must keep on topic...

Big Blue Blanket. Look it up in the history of WWII and see what it meant. In my case it is the perpetually surprising sky here in Western Australia - the clear blue bowl that overbears us all.

I don't see it, though it is there all round. I go out on a bright day - to the car races, say - and set my Fujifilm X-pro1 to Auto White balance...or to the daylight icon...or to 5500º Kelvin. I shoot away with the old Metz 45 flash to fill in the shadows. I bring the images back on the SD card and bang them into the computer and am confronted with - the Big Blue Blanket.

Every surface that has been illuminated by the sky - and it is all around - and is at all reflective - and remember these are hot rods with chrome parts - is blue. Sometimes it is light blue, sometimes it is bright blue. I fail to see it when I am shooting because my mind filters it out, but the camera's sensor is a faithful observer.

The answer to removing the blue is complex - I can trick the camera by lying to it that I am really in overcast or shade. There will be some artificial colours elsewhere in the jpegs, though. I can take the whole thing in RAW and fiddle the white balance later in Lightroom, Aperture, or Silkypix. I can hire a zeppelin painted 18% grey to hover over the cars as I photograph them to hide the sky.

This is difficult, as the zeppelin is not always available - this week it is off bombing Lowestoft.

Easiest idea so far has proved to be shooting the hot rods in Melbourne. They only have blue skies for a very small amount of time and frequently this is at night...

The next time I go to the Kwinana Motorplex on one of these bright blue infinite days, I shall try the effect of a circular polariser. Logic tells me that it will do something but quite what remains to be seen.

Uncle Dick

New Flash Rental Flash

The new Profoto B2 kits are available for experimenters - the Rental Department here has  two combo's ready for hire:

1. Profoto B2 Off Camera Flash 250 Air 2 - head Location kit. This is to go out at $ 110 per day or $ 165 per weekend.

2. Profoto B2 Off Camera Flash 250 Air 1 - head To Go kit. this will be for $ 88 per day or $ 132 per weekend.

Sales supplies will be arriving later, but you can whet your appetite now with a rental.

B2 Or Not 2B - That Is The Question With Profoto

There's nothing quite like a B2 arriving at night...

So last night we had a Profoto B2 plus pilot here at the shop for a demonstration of the new system. Over 50 photographers attended the session and the mission commander...Saul...gave us all a briefing about what it is and what it is going to cost.

The pilot - Stefan Gosatti - had taken the new equipment for a spin at a red-carpet affair, on a fashion shoot, and out to do twilight coverage of a sports event. He had examples on screen and printed out to show what the coverage and power of this new unit can do.

The flash is the even-more-portable off-camera flash solution from Profoto. They make a great battery-powered monohead called the B1 that can fire out 500 watt/seconds from an on-board lithium-ion battery. Heart-stoppingly short flash duration and takes all the big Profoto light shapers.

The new B2 is a battery pack system that supports the use of two small portable heads - much smaller in overall size than the B1 heads. Surprisingly, they have been moulded to still take the large Profoto light shapers....but the makers have also provided a new range of lighter-weight shapers and modifiers to match the portability.

Make no mistake - this is a pack system that you can carry round on your belt or shoulder all day but is capable of firing 250 watt/seconds - divide it between two heads as you like. It dials down to an incredibly small amount of light as well so it would be suitable for lab as well as studio use.

Okay - how did Stefan fire it? He used a Profoto Air TTL with his camera - Profoto can supply the Air TTL controllers for both Nikon or Canon DSLR cameras. If he had chosen the Profot Air without the TTL provision it could have been used on any brand of camera - I'm sure he would have been fine because he knows what light can do and how to set it for his results, but even he said that it was helpful in fast-moving situations to have the TTL to help out.

Note: we suspect other camera manufacturer's TTL system requirements will also be addressed in the coming months with Profoto Air TTL versions - don't know which ones but we'll find out eventually.

The heads have standard 1/2" light stand mounts or can be unscrewed from these for even smaller specialised applications. they are small enough to mount above the DSLR on an arm - this is the deal for he gunadrun event photographer. One head on 250watt/seconds is about 10 times the light of a speed light so you can work brighter in darker spaces...

The Profoto light modifiers for the new B2 are deliberately lighter than the studio ones - there is a new range of grid sets, barn doors, soft boxes, and beauty dishes. the soft boxes have been designed with integral diffusers and rods for very fast set-up.

Stefan found that he got nearly 200 shots from each battery charge - had he turned the power down on the lights the number of flashes would have been very much greater. Note that the charger will fill up the battery in an hour - and you can get a car charger as well if you need to top-up between jobs on the road.

My conclusion as a staff member lounging behind the counter was that the new flash is a clear winner in this class of photography. This in spite of my brand loyalty. It will become the standard of the industry for portable shooters.