Hands Up Muybridge - I've Got A Fujifilm Repeater...

Idling away on the South Perth foreshore one evening, I was trying to think of a use for the Perth skyline. I mean, they've taken a lot of trouble putting lights on the buildings and all and it seems only courteous to take some sort of notice.

Then I read further into the instruction booklet that came with the new Fujifilm EF X-500 electronic flash. The Fujifilm people make a reasonably good set of instructions and the flash itself is easy to master. The bit that intrigued me was the arrangement that could be made for multiple flashes.

You have three decisions to make via the page buttons and the scroll wheel:

a. Level of manual flash power.

b. Number of flashes that you want to fire.

c. Length of time over which you want to fire them.

Each one of the flashes will record as a separate illumination in the final frame while the background will keep burning into the image. If you want to capture the movements of the subject cleanly, you need a black backdrop...but anything else is pure art.

To work in South Perth at twilight you also need an open space that people do not intrude into. Short of laying perimeter mines, there is little you can do to achieve this. The world, his wife, and their relatives visiting from another planet will all walk back and forth behind the model. Some will walk in front. It is an exercise in restraint - on your part - because they ain't gonna be on theirs...

The results? More like Marcel Duchamp descending a staircase with his clothes on than I really wanted, but intriguing nevertheless. The rigid precision of the flash firing is probably going to be very useful for motion studies, but against an inky backdrop. The flash fires at lower powers if you command it to fire often or at small intervals - there must be some time required inside it for power to be built up in the capacitor, after all. But given the good high ISO performance of the Fujifilm cameras there is a surprising amount of light coming off the flash head.

The model is the beauteous and patient Jane Hebiton.

The Fujifilm X100F Camera Under the Spotlights

Every item of equipment for sale in the photo shop is under a spotlight - and some are under enough glare to suggest a three-ring circus. This is all to the good - every camera maker and advertising department knows that every time a fuss is made about something people will focus on it, and they might concentrate long enough to reach for their wallets.

The new Fujifilm X100F examined this week IS a worth successor to the other cameras of the series - the leap in performance since the original X100 I own showed out on nearly every level. Had I elected to make larger images than just the little illustrative ones for these articles, the lead would have been wildly increased. But that is for me...would it be so for other people. And just WHO are the people who would be wise to buy this camera?

a. The one-camera family.

If you are going to have one camera to do the best job for all members of the family - mum. dad, and the kids, make it a one that delivers the goods. And delivers them simply enough so that when you haul it out and press the button, you get the picture. Better yet - the less experienced shooters in the family can also get good results.

b. The traveller.

I am thinking here of the frequent traveller who needs a record of what is seen from a normal point of view. Choose another super-tele camera to go to Africa for polar bears or Manitoba for lions. Choose this one to go to Melbourne or Madrid. The lens is wide enough and long enough for most travel shots, and if you need to expand or contract there are screw-on supplementary lenses that are excellent. I use a wide-angle one all the time for car shows.

c. The daytime flash shooter.

Whether it is the car shows, or brides, or architecture in the Western Australian sunshine, you'll need to fill flash somewhere. If you try to do it with a conventional focal-plane shutter you'll be in a world of calculations and compromise. Some shots will be inpossible because of the failure to synch properly The leaf shutter on this camera synchs at all speeds and if you pair it with a new Fujifilm EX-500 flash unit, you can work with minimal stress.

d. The grub.

Oh, this is not a waterproof camera, but it IS a sealed one. No opening the lens mount for changes and no inrush of dust onto the sensor. The relief from worry is palpable.

f. The stylish and trendy.

 Not that you can ever be on-trend for longer than 15 seconds anyway, but this retro-style is classic, and classics keep on coming back time after time. The camera has the bits you want to twiddle in the places you expect to find them. If you are a twiddler, it is rewarding. Of course you can put the camera into Programmed Automatic and just cruise if you want to.

g. The diarist.

Like the regular traveller, the diarist wants to record it simply, but with enough detail to provide for art or science later on. 24 mega pixels will do this, and the ISO auto settings will generally help you to nail it in an instant. Even my old X100 does daily duty for advertising shots and ideas capture. It beats the silly mobile phone all hollow for resolution and dynamic range and the ergonomics of holding it out the window while driving at 90 miles per hour down St. Geo Tce - steering with your knees -  are ever so much more convenient.

h. The collector.

 Collectors are strange creatures. They amass piles of things the rest of us ignore, and the funny thing is that they like to look at other people's piles as well. Thus the catalogue shoot and internet share site.

Most collectors are not professional photographers, but the ability to produce a clear close classic of an image is more useful to them than to many people. They rarely want Instagram filters to mess up their pride and joy collection - a camera like this that can turn out clear illustration time after time without adjustment is perfect.

That may sound boring, trite, and pedestrian to artistic photographers, but no-one wants to have to spend an hour tweaking the image of a 19th century pram if you have 800 of 'em to photograph.

i. The hipster.

Naw, I'm just joking. They are still looking for 828 film for defunct Kodak folding cameras from 1940. The thought of getting a good result easily would be anathema...

The Long-Awaited Fujifilm Flash Gun

As an honest weblog columnist I can do no better than to send you off googling for a YouTube clip made by the Fujifilm Guys. It features our own Warrewyk and Will - Australian photographers and Fujifilm demonstrators - putting the new Fujifilm EF-X500 speed light through some of its paces.

I'll wait here until you go see it and then come back. You'll probably want to search up the official Fujifilm Australia site as well to check out the technical specifications of the new gun.

Okay, if you're back you'll have seen how easy it is to use the EF-X500 to do fill flash with the new Fujifilm X-T2 camera in broad daylight - making use of the supplied diffusion box to soft the result. No longer should anyone have to struggle with fill-flash ratios and get either black or blasted results.

The simplest drive - that of TTL - should work flawlessly with all hot shoe-equipped Fujifilm X series cameras. The other modes require some learning but the estimation of power should be pretty straightforward if you are going to use Manual. Unless you know you are going to need all the power of the full dump, you are probably best trying a first exposure at 1/4 power and then going up or down from there.

People who are familiar with the previous Fujifilm EF-42 flash will be pleased with a number of improvements:

1. More flash power. GN is now 50. Illumination even with direct flash is remarkably even. 5 Metres away from the backdrop muslin.

2. Metal foot to the hot-shoe mount. There is also a locking lever rather than a plastic wheel to keep it fastened to the camera.

3. Manual power levels down to 1/512 of full power in 1/3 EV steps. Macro work particularly catered for. The Chevy and the Airstream trailer are 1/64 scale and that's done with one on-camera flash + diffuser

4. Master and remote modes available with optical command. Regular TTL and Commander are indicated by green panel and Slave mode is indicated by the amber panel.

5. LED video boost light available on front of unit.

6. Locking flash head tilting and stiff detent swivelling of flash head.

7. Up to + or - 5 EV in 1/3 EV steps. And Glory Be, it is done with a simple rotating thumb wheel rather than a series of button presses!

8. Socket for EF-BP external battery pack. ( YES! )

9. Up to 3 separate lighting groups in the master/slave relationship.

It is the unit all we Fujifilm users have been waiting for. For myself, the stiff detent and the locking tilt mechanism are wonderful, as they allow better control of the flash head when a heavy diffuser like a Gary Fong or Mag Mod unit is fitted. An event shooter can mount the flash, turn the head 90º to the right, and then just raise and lower it from portrait to landscape orientation to perfectly match the light angle to the camera. The EF-42 can do this too, but is weaker and allows the head to flop out of place as you move around.

The battery pack, when available, should also take some burden of waiting for recharge in the middle of a fast-developing event.

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...?

Unscrewing It All Up In The Dark

Did goe to the BP service station at Baldivis South Saturday even and was greatley amused.
It was the site of an unofficial organised impromptu motor car show. A meeting of minds at the McDonalds. A pouring of passion at the petrol pumps. Sort of a cross between Saturday Night Fever and American Graffiti, but nobody looked like Harrison Ford  or John Travolta. There were a couple of contenders, mind, but they were both mature women so I was respectful.

Well, the cars were wonderful and if you want to see more go to hrhoa.wordpress.com but the interesting thing proved to be the way the post-sundown twilight made the cars easier to photograph, and the artefacts that started appearing as soon as the sun was completely gone. Both observations will serve me well in the future.

Note these two pictures of '57 Chevys. Top one is the first taken, and the bottom is the second.

Note the flare and light spots of the first one. That's a clean B+W UV filter on the lens - I keep them on as a matter of course for protection. The second shot has the filter screwed off. Both are tripod jobs. You can decide for yourselves which has most atmosphere, but for me, I think I may be leaving the filter off in still air in the future.

Note as well - every bit of gear for this sort of shooting is right off the shop floor. No special bits - visit the shop or go onto our on-line store to look at Fujifilm cameras, B+W filters, flashes, and Cullmann tripods. Special recommendation for mirror-less - the Cullmann 622T.

" Go Out And Go Mad "

That's a famous phrase from a former CE employee - uttered when the deal had been done and the customer was going out of the shop with the precious new camera held gingerly in both hands. It was an injunction to go have fun - to explore - to shoot a thousand shots and discover what the equipment was capable of.

Occasionally you would discover that the equipment could go mad by itself.

Case in point is the adventure at the Hyde Park Community fair on Labour Day. I attended and had a good time. I scored an old-fashioned* lemonade from the Girl Guides,  avoided the attention of the worst of the political pressure groups, and photographed the veteran and vintage cars.

Hyde Park is a full-sun and dappled shade venue and you need a fill flash and your tongue stuck in the corner of your mouth sometimes to get acceptable exposure. In some cases you get science and in some you get art. In the case of the FIAT sports car I seem to have gotten a little of both, mixed with madness.

The car is a simple red colour - well it would be, being an Italian sports car. I mean, let's be realistic about these hings. And an Italian motoring enthusiast restored it and displayed it. Red.

There it is front and back, and the rather simple interior as well. Sweet little thing. Good lines  and a tiny little motor. I always try to give my car blog readers a look at the engine bay as well as the outside.

But look at what the Fujifilm X-T10 does when there is massive overexposure of red. The camera was operating on Programmed mode at the time and there was a spritz of .5 flash from the EF42...but look at what has become of the external red paint colour. Yellow!

My theory is the sensor just spat the dummy with the over exposure. I am not sure if it would do the same with any other colour, but that will be the subject of a separate series of experiments. I'd call it funky but I'm afraid of inadvertent typographical errors...

* I was a bit disappointed that they used the phrase "Old-Fashioned" as it suggested something with whisky. It turned out to be lemonade...

To check out the Fujifilm X-T10, flash and lenses feel free to come in store and have a play. Or order several on line. They come in silver and black.

Bow Chicka Wow

This piece of sexy equipment from Camera Electronic needs an eighties soundtrack and purple satin sheets. Okay, we got the sheets, but you'll have to add the music in your heads.

It's a flash bracket. A very flash bracket. Perhaps the most high-tech OOT flash bracket that you will ever see in your life. It is a tribute to high-grade aluminium, the wonders of CAD CAM, and a childhood studying H.R. Giger machines. It is not steam punk but it may be Techno punk...If The Terminator took wedding photos he'd use this flash bracket.

There are two reasons for this design:

1. Event photographers need to balance their flash above the axis of the lens on both portrait and landscape orientation to allow the flash shadow to fall behind the subject.

2. They could.

The mechanisms that on other flash brackets might be simple hinges or 1/4" bolt holes are here developed into artistic delights. Look at the stainless steel keeper that secures the interchangeable camera plate to the main casting. They did not need to do that with such complexity or precision but they did. Likewise the indexing bolt that stops the motion of the vertical piece in the tow basic positions - it is reminiscent of the recoil mechanism of a 1.1" multiple antiaircraft gun on a pre-war USN treaty cruiser. You gonna get that from anyone else? No.

The main casting and the adjusting trigger are also suggestive of the aircraft cranes on the same cruisers - leading me to suspect that the designers may have pilfered the plans from the Bureau of Ships. - or the plans to the Brice-Partington submarine for that matter. I shall institute discrete enquiries within the Admiralty.

I am a little taken aback by the name engraved on the side of the casting - is this a blatant attempt to market it in Australia? Will it pop up in the Canadian market as The Beavershot? Or in the German shops as Der Adler? Are there enough wedding shooters in South Africa to sell it as The Giraffe?

Well, no matter - buy this now and you'll never buy another - because you'll never need another - it is built with more precision than your motor car. And you will never be confronted with some amateur at the wedding using a better one. Image is, after all, something that you can trade on.

Now isn't that a Happy Ending...

The Neutral Density Controversy Explored - Through A Glass Darkly

The future, as George Orwell would have it, is grey. We can supply it in varying strengths and configurations, we might add, and it in different diameters. Big Brother would approve.

The neutral density filter makes things go darker. You can make things go darker by one f stop - or two, three, four, six , nine, or ten stops quite readily with commercially available products. You can get filters that allow variable density from 1 to 8 stops - just by rotating the filter. You can get filters that start out at the top with a dark patch and then fade out half-way down. You can even get in-built neutral density filters in some special cameras.

The uses that people out these humble little bits of glass or plastic to are manifold:

 Landscape shooters position the partial filters so that bright parts of their scene are brought into the camera at a lower intensity  - the sensors then cope with the highlights much better.

Special effect photographers stack up extremely dark filters to allow long exposure times - and eliminate people from cityscapes or convert moving water to flowing mists.

Photographers who need to balance flash with daylight and high shutter speed sometimes need to use neutral density filters to make the complex equation work.

Videographers can use the variable density filters to provide fade-out and then fade-in scenes. The variable ones are a bit of a risk for some stills shooters as the angle that the filter may subtend might mean that odd patterns occur during shooting - video people rarely have this problem. Smaller sensor or the fact that the scene is there and gone?

The advent of the frame systems for filter holding ( Cokin, Lee, etc.) meant that rectangular filters could be made that slid readily up and down in front of the lens for the partial blocking of the scene - the graduated ND filter. These are readily available with either a sharp or a gradual transition between density and clear - you pick which makes the image look the best then slide the thing up and down until it matches.

Note: Popular legend has it that Cokin neutral density filters have a colour tinge that the other brand does not. I cannot see it myself, but it's not worth arguing about. Nearly all good DSLR and mirror-less cameras have fine tune adjustment of magenta/green in their menus and if you think you can see something you can crank in a bit of green. You could put it in as a custom channel, I shouldn't wonder.

I am pleased with the 3X ND filter in my Fujifilm X-100. It enables me to use a slower shutter speed out in the sunlight if I am using a higher ISO for the extra dynamic range it provides. And it is just a button click in the menu. The trick is to tie a string around your finger to remind yourself that it needs to be turned off later...

Yongnuo Duo Fire Flash Fast

No, I didn't just replace the colour in Photoshop Elements - though I could have... The Yongnuo people have colour-coded their transceiver set packs for either Nikon or Canon users.

In either case they work effectively with the respective TTL flash systems for these camera types. They provide 7 channels in 3 groups - can throw out AF lights to help focus - and can do high speed synch. Of course you can always switch to manual control as well.

You'll not on the packet that it shows a separate PC connector socket at the side of the transceiver - this is very useful if you are also triggering off studio flashes or older -odder - units. As with many of these control boxes, the more options you have the more useful it is - there are all sorts of things that we think up later on in using external flashes, and the less adapters and blocks you need the better. It gets to look like Heath Robinson as it is.

The Leaf Shutter And The GT 40 - Look Into The Lens

Those of you who operate the Hasselblad 500-series cameras can go to coffee. As can the users of Fujifilm X-10, X-20, X-30, X-100 series, Canonets, Bessamatics, and Crown Graphics. The rest of you stick around.

The reason they have gone is they know what the leaf shutter can do in bright sunlight. And you can stop laughing  - yes, I know they can stick open or go slow but if you have them serviced regularly by Ernest you won't have that problem. What I mean is they can synch with flash at high speed.

Ah, you say, I have this setting on my super flash that says high-speed synch and there is a setting in the menu that says hyper-super flash and if I download an app and send a command to Cheyenne Mountain I can get mine to synch at 1/250 of a second...good for you - at least you recognise that you need to do something - but leaf shutters do it so simply.

The shot you see was taken in bright Sunday sun on a community oval. The ISO was 200, the aperture was f:11, and the camera - a Fujifilm X-100 - could be left to its own devices to deal with the exposure of the background. The fill flash was an old Metz Cl-1 that could be set onto one of the automatic settings and left to IT's own devices. All I had to do was stroll around and point the thing at the Cobra cars.

Never mind thinking or apps or the superhyper whatever. If I wanted the background darker, I dialled the compensation dial on the X-100 to - 1 or -2. If I wanted the car brighter I dialled the Metz to one click higher. I never did have to go to a full power dump - even in full sun.

Those of you who want art can do otherwise - modifying the light or tilting the horizon or draping dead fish on the cars just as you please. I am delighted with the sort of fast clear illustration that a Fujifilm leaf shutter  camera produces. And when there are subjects that are exotic, colourful, and available like the GT40 Ford I get exactly what  want.

Note - when you are taking race car pictures you have to squat down a lot. Three formula ones and a sports car equals a half hour at the gym.

Sun On A Stick - Lastolite, Hahnel, Fujifilm, Ford

Why do we buy those glossy photo books from Amherst press that purport to tell us how to take fabulous pictures? The ones entitled " Boudoir Macro Photography Made Me A Millionaire " or " How To Pose Prawns and Shrimp"...

Because they are colourful and about 6 mm thick and cost just under $ 50 and promise to teach us something that we need to know. The horrid realisation comes to us later as we round the last corner of the book and come into the index: we knew the stuff already, all the book had was some pretty pictures, and our $ 50 is gone.

Thus my own emotions upon finishing a book that promised to unveil the secrets of attaching a speedlight to an extendable pole and synching it to a hand-held camera. The secret I really wanted to know was how the author got the idea past the publisher. 

But all was not lost - it encouraged me to go out into the front yard last night with a Lastolight extendable pole, a coiled TTL cord with two terminal blocks, the Fujifilm EF42 flash and the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 camera. The subject was the daughter's old Ford hunched in the dark.

A note before starting - me flashing speedlights in the front yard after dark has ceased to surprise the neighbours and they take no alarm from the discharges. Should you wish to do the same you may have to alert your own neighbours or at least come over my house to experiment. Bring beer.

Coiled cords are not featherweight devices - long enough to reach out to a fair distance for an angled fill or main light means there is a fair mass swinging between the camera and the top of the pole. You sway and lurch and if you were trying to do it in a crowd you would whack someone with the thing for sure.

If your speedlight uses an external battery you can run the cord up the pole but the link will need to be cordless.

Some cameras achieve this easily with a slave mode for the flash and a command mode for an on-camera flash. The Fujifilm X-Pro 1 has no in-built flash so you need to think about this. Ideally one might use two of the new Nissin i40 flashes to command and obey but then ideally one might wait for the promised Fujifilm new flash.

A smarter idea for me will be to pop a Hahnel Combi TL transmitter on the top of the camera and have the receiver sit under the EF 42 out at the top of the pole. The Hahnel items are pretty reliable and very lightweight. As they are rated out to 100 metres, they should have no trouble with a 2 metre distance.

It means there will be no TTL but a few test shots should sort that out. And it means that the EF 42 can fire into the lovely little Lastolite soft box for good skin tones. It won't do a thing for the Ford, but.

The Professional Image - Or How To Command Respect With A Lastolite Reflector

Professional image is a topic that you'll read about in lots of publications. Advice is given on how to appear professional when advertising in the media, when presenting yourself to a potential client, when commanding a shoot, and when presenting the finished results. They stop dead there...no-one tells you how to be professional after that when the client steals the images, refuses to pay the bill, and goes defiantly bankrupt.

Well, you are on your own there...any advice I could offer would be suspect. By that I mean that if you followed my advice both you and I would eventually be suspects....

No - this blog is about looking professional enough at a shoot to get cooperation and respect. Oddly enough you needn't be getting paid for the photography to appear in this light - you just need to look as if you know what you are doing and are doing it to a purpose.

A car show is a perfect example. You might be just the same as every other wandering dub looking at the machinery but if you carry a DSLR with a big enough lens you look as if you are a pro. Never mind you don't need it, and could do quite as good a job with a mirror-less camera like a Fujifilm or an Olympus - it is not the fact of the thing but the perception of the public we are dealing with here.

Likewise if you have a big flash on the camera. A good idea for technical reasons, but again it makes you look like you know what to expect when you press the button.

Oddly enough, the giveaway used to be a big camera bag but as everyone who aspires to back pain carries one these days, people do not credit it anymore.

The biggest help to this image thing- and the effect is to move the crowds back so that you can get a clear shot of the equipment - is to have an assistant carry a reflector and use it to light up the dark side of the car. Even if it does not actually help the lighting, it shoo's off the wanderers for at least 10 seconds and allows the clear shot. The Lastolite Triflip reflectors are a good choice - big, oddly shaped, and with a convenient handle to control the position. You could use it yourself as a diffuser or reflector propped against your knee but the assistant idea is more effective.

Only disadvantage of an assistant is you have to buy them a hot dog and a big orange drink to keep them on site. No good laughing and saying you left your wallet at home - they swat at you with the Lastolite.

Final note - the professional look is a variable thing - your attire and behaviour at a wedding should be different from that at a burlesque show. Mix them up and trouble ensues.

Real World Batteries - Toshiba And Fujifilm

I screwed up my courage last week and asked Ernest about batteries for flash guns. Then I took his advice...and bought a set of the Toshiba AA cells for a weekend shoot. $ 4.80.

The advice proved good. I used the 4 cells in a Fujifilm EF 42 flash with my Fujifilm X-Pro1 and an 18mm lens. I set the ISO to 320 and wandered around Big Al's Poker Run car show for 4 hours. The camera was set to do forced flash - it fired every time - frequently on +1 or +1.5 flash boost due to the nature of the harsh light contrast.

Over 280 shots on the day. I should have expected 120-140 from the set of batteries. But there is the 280 on the card and in my hard drive.

Whether this is due to the sterling nature of Japanese electricity or the Fujifilm flash is remarkably economical, I don't know - but this sort of performance means that I'll be using the combination in the future. I can't remember getting anywhere near this level of performance with alkaline Duracell or Eveready in the past.

Wireless Connections VS Connectionless Wires - Hahnel et al.

A general rule of military operations is to keep things as simple as possible - if there is less to go wrong less will go wrong. It will still go wrong, mind, but the area that you'll need to fix will be smaller.

For years I have suggested this to people who want to fire flash guns somewhere other than on the hot shoe of the camera. The choices have been:

1. PC cable from the camera to the flash gun. PC Socket or hit shoe adapter.
2. Infrared transmitter on the top of the camera and infrared receiver in the flash gun.
3. Infrared code from the on-camera flash and infrared receiver in the flash gun.
4. Radio transmitter on top of the camera and radio receiver into which the flash gun plugs.
5. Radio transmitter built into the camera and radio receiver built into the flash gun.

Old hands will recognise the proprietary system their camera operates on - some Nikon cameras  will work with No.3 and the Canon EOS 5D Mk III will do the No.5 with the appropriate flash gun. These people are catered for so they can go to the coffee shop now and wait.

The rest of us have to choose a system that will be simplest and most reliable for our circumstances:

1. If you are in a studio that has fixed lights and camera - and there are such things - and you can route a PC cord to all the lights, then do so. As long as you are not going to clothesline yourself with the wire you have a foolproof hard-wired connection.

2. If you are always moving about your studio in the half-dark and the lights are also being shifted, opt for an IR or radio trigger and make your life easier and safer.

3. If you are going to shoot outside with the flash gun at variable distances and positions choose a radio system. The IR might work but might be blinded and/or intermittent in bright sunshine.

4. If you are faced with the choice of using a system that gives a go/no go signal to the flash gun or one that has a radio frequency TTL conversation going on between the camera and the flash gun, consider whether TTL is going to be absolutely necessary.

The price you pay for it is extra complexity and increased battery usage - but sometimes the extra control that you can exercise from the camera position is worth it.

It will be larger and pricier than the go/no go wireless version.

Note: for any of the electrical systems take note of the battery requirements - opt for the ones that use commonly-available batteries. ALWAYS carry spare batteries - reliability of these systems is fine if there is enough voltage.

If you can do what you want to do without flash or with a folding reflector then you have eliminated one more complexity. Mind you, ask the photo assistant who is tasked with holding a 5' x 6' reflector at the beach when the sea breeze picks up what they think of your decision....

Fongarein, Fongarehere, Fongaregood

All Hail The Mighty Fong!

This universal diffuser claps onto the font of any speed light flash to diffuse the light and fill it into the shadows of your picture.

No more Panda Eyes on your bridal portraits and no more couples caught like rabbits in the headlights at parties. Soft fill in that goes out to the edges of an interior - but doesn't burn out the main subject.

The new universal velcro strap secures it to any flash - I know because I just got up from the laptop right now to try it on a new Nissin i40 - and you have a far better fill than could be obtained with the little box diffusers.

We've got a stack of them in store right now.

Pursuant To Our Previous Communication...With Nissin

This is the only time in your life when you will read good news that starts with " pursuant to our previous communication...".

Yesterday I tested out the Nissin i40 flash with my Fujifilm X-10 here at the shop. Today I gave it a further wring-out in Stirling Street in bright sunlight. Make no mistake about that - Western Australian sun is bright and hot, as you'll have found out yesterday.

The sun plays hell with exposures when you need to get detail into deep shadow areas - hence the use of fill-flash for this time of day. The Nissin i40 has a setting called Slave Digital that takes its command from a digital camera's on-board flash. You set it up for whatever power you want and then hold the flash out to wherever you think you need fill from.

But does it work if the camera's flash is just a dinky little thing and there is an overwhelming external light? Wouldn't that be the worst possible scenario? Well, have a look.

Even in the toughest test the i40 responded. In the past I have had to cobble up shades and put slave flashes in improbable positions to get communication, but this one just goes off when wanted without fuss. And I know that if it will work in Stirling Street at 10:30 AM in summer, it will work every blessed where.

Kerboom!....With Nissin And Fujifilm

Well, it works.

I have just given the new Nissin i40 flash a run with the little Fujifilm X-10 that takes the editorial photos for our shop - and i am impressed. Impressed enough to fork out some of my own money for one.

It slotted onto the hot shoe and went into TTL mode flawlessly - no big surprises there. Tilt, auto zoom, all the bells and whistles we expect from modern flashes.

Then I turned it to Manual and shot the sequence of flashes you see in the photos. 1/128, 1/16. and 1/1. But you see how it worked? - no cord connection - the flash operates as a slave from the X-10's little weeny on-board flash.

So, you can hold it in your hand, shoot your main from the end of your arm, and have the little on-board peeper as a fill. Or put it on the shoe, dial it up to 1/1 and do fill flash out in full sunlight. With the X-10, 20, 30 or X-100 series cameras you can synch up to at least 1?100 - I tried it. Woo Hoo.

It's got a video light there, and an auto setting for non-TTL cameras...and a metal shoe for reliability.

And if you are a micro 4/3 person, there is a version of this for your camera. Also if you are a Canon or Nikon person.

$ 295 looks like a real bargain for this much Kerboom.

Under The Sun - Gillam Road With Fujifilm

Every year I hope for an overcast day in Armadale - specifically on the date of the Gillam Road hotrod and kustom car show. And every year the Meteorological Bureau laughs and laughs and laughs...and turns the heat up to "9". Yesterday was no exception.

But yesterday was the first occasion that the car show rig of Fujifilm X-100 - EF 42 flash - WCL-100 wide angle adapter lens - Sunwayfoto bracket was tested.

The components have had separate runs in other circumstances - the weaker sun of Melbourne or the cloudy skies of Singapore - but this was the toughie; full WA sun on polished cars on asphalt. If it works here it works anywhere.

Well, it works here.

The leaf shutter design of the X-100 lets me set the aperture on f:11 and leave the camera to find its own speed - I am not restricted to a slow shutter speed. The ISO of the capture is 400 and the dynamic range is 200%. I'm shooting RAW since the whole thing can be decoded by Aperture or PE10.

I suspect I could also use the Fujifilm X-30 as it has a leaf shutter as well, but that's an experiment for the future. As it is, the WCL-100 means I am seeing with the equivalent of a 28mm lens on a film camera - wide enough to let me come inside the crowds and get a good bit of light on the cars but not so wide as to distort the noses or tails of the cars.

The EF-42 has enough punch to effectively fill in WA sun. I run it at +.5 for the outside shots and .0 for the interiors. I noted that I shot 300+ shots yesterday with forced flash on a plain old set of Duracell alkaline AA's, so it is economical in operation.

Final note: the old Camera Electronic Mitsubishi van cannot last forever. Clients are invited to vote for which of the following vehicles should be purchased to replace it.

There - That Bit Right There - That's The Bit....With Leica

Up the top. On the hot shoe. The flash.

That's the star bit on the new Leica D-Lux.

Okay, it has all the stuff that the previous post said and the lens is extremely impressive as it powers out - very steady. Never mind some of the optical conjuring tricks that you see on other brands - when this Leica lens comes out it is all business.

Note also that Leica have firmed up the detent stops on the aspect-contol slider on the top of the lens. No longer will you inadvertently slip off to 9:16 and end up with funny pictures....

But it is that little flash that gets the juices circulating. Those of us who use fill flash for nearly everything from Plymouths to post-mortems appreciate the extra distance from the lens axis that the flash tube assumes with this flash. It means less red eye and the light goes out easily past any lens filters or hood you may employ.

The flash derives power from the Li-ion battery in the camera so you don't need to keep hunting up AAA's all the time. It powers up fast - 4 seconds from cold camera to ready to go - and ever after it is ready as fast as you intend to shoot.

Slip it off if you want to slim the profile of the camera. There is a positive button latch to keep it on when it is mounted.

A sweetie of a flash. Leica probably want me to be all elegant and upmarket and exclusive when I describe it but it IS a sweetie of a flash.

Kudos To Qudos - The Nicest Little Light In The Shop

Okay, I normally poke fun at the miniature video camera scene - the action-cam that is attached to skiers, motor cars, and mountain bikes. The little invitation to the emergency department at RPH...

Other people love 'em - they seem to be the necessary accessory for the adventurous life. They have sold steadily since their introduction a few years back. And lots of manufacturers make add-on bits that mont them or retrieve them from ever more hazardous positions. Now we have a REALLY good action cam light made by Qudos that may well have other photographic applications.

The light runs from an internal 3.7 v 1000mAh battery - it has a waterproof cover at the back where the adjustments and the charging socket are - you refuel it from a USB port.

In the packet are an action -cam mount that lets you attach it to your GoPro. And thence to any of the other GoPro mounts. There is one sealed metal on/off button on top.There is a hot-shoe adapter.

Three LED lights in the working face and there is provision for adjustable output - low and high. You can narrow or spread the way the beam comes out. The blessed thing will pump out from 70 to 400 lumens and apparently you can run from 35 min to 4 hours.

Okay, I take it all back. This really works. It is bright enough to act as a fill for the Fujifilm X-10 and it seems to pump out an additional stop of light. WooHoo. it is small, light, rugged, and effective.

A serious contender in what might be a strobists lighting pack.