You Know, You're Soaking In it?

Geeze, Narelle, You coulda told me...

For those of you who have come into the lounge room late, the cultural reference you have just read is a Robina Beard advertisement for Palmolive washing-up detergent  from the black and white era of Australian television. The product I am spruiking today is a camera accessory from about the same darned time. Trust Camera Electronic to have a steady supply of them...

Well, stop laughing. The Premier AC Mini Slave is one of those products that are older than dirt but exactly the right solution for any number of photographic needs. If you're not a studio shooter you can go boil the kettle but if you do any work that involves fixed flash draw nigh and give heed.

The Premier product is the latest name for something that I have seen as far back as 1964.  I'll bet it is older...It is a self-contained electronic flash that screws into an standard E 27 Edison screw socket for 240 volts and then converts this to a self-firing strobe flash. There's a magic eye inside it that sees when another flash has gone off in the vicinity and then fires the slave in synch with it. Some of the models have open flash buttons and some have little synch sockets but some just fire in sympathy and that's that.

The power level is about what your'd get from an old Metz 45 unit - or a Canon 430 EX or a Nikon SB 700. Not inconsiderable power. The real advantage if the fact that it is screwed into the normal AC current so it charges instantly and for free. When you need a fixed flash, this is the cheapest way to get it.

I use it under my product table. A standard Arlec outdoor floodlight fitting takes the Premier flash and sits on the floor facing upwards. When the main flash above the table fires, the slave fires as well, and whites out the paper under the subject. Do a little measuring and fiddling and you never have to touch it again.

See. It works a treat. 

There is a domed cover that diffuses the light, though not all that much. If you needed less power I'd pack it with something sophisticated, like a Kleenex...

You can also tape bits of gel over the light inside for colourful effects. I used to make artificial footlight effects for dancers this way. Three Premier lights on the floor didn't overpower the rest of the studio set-up but filled in nicely underneath.

I suspect that these humble accessories have been the starting point for a lot of budding studio shooters and they would probably be equally at home in photobooths. Or police lineup shots.

Less than a hundred bucks and they last forever - I love 'em.

The Canon Lab - Eyebrows Up - Part Two

Back on the YouTube channel again today and two more of the Canon videos that explore the idea of laboratory experiments with photographers. By all means go to the youtube.com site and dial up:

THE LAB: EVOLUTION

THE LAB: DECOY

Watch the first one first.

When I did I was highly amused to see the rules - three simple objects to be photographed with Canon cameras and lenses by a series of photographers, but no-one was allowed to take the same photo twice. Essentially, as the props were used, they were used up. The items provided were:

A banana.
Some flowers.
An egg.

Bananas get peeled, flowers get trashed, and an egg - eventually - gets broken. And each person confronted with the history of what ever was in front of them had to make something visually interesting out of it. Most succeeded.

Those of us who have worked with materials in a studio know pretty much how this works - certainly the still life and food shooters know all about time limitations on their subjects. Portraitists do too, even if they do not recognise the fact that people can rise to an occasion, but eventually peak and then decline. The cruelest of us treasure the images taken just before the sitter bursts into tears and falls off the posing stool. They don't get ordered a lot by the client but if the sitter ever becomes famous they are the sort of files that sell very well to gossip magazines...

And now to THE LAB: DECOY...

The premise of this exercise was to have 6 photographers do a small portrait session with a man who was presented to each one of them separately - with a different persona and history. To one he was a millionaire and to another an ex-convict. One met him as a fisherman and one as a psychic...

They all took different portraits during their sessions and they were all surprised at the end to discover that the personae they were asked to " flesh-out "...a term used in the video...were false. The chap who acted as the subject was none of the things they were told, though he was a pretty good actor.

The purpose of the video was to show that the end result of an image is often coloured by the pre-conceived perceptions of the photographer. Yes, indeed, and that also applies to whether they are looking at a skyscraper or a seascape. Or at someone who has lied to them. I should be interested to see what photograph they would take of the subject - or of the director of the video - now that they know they have been deceived.

In the case of the producer of this impromptu social experiment perhaps the kindest thing would be to  oversharpen a JPEG in the hope of producing a halo...

Uncle Dick

The Silent Studio Assistants Pop Up

Getting some help in the studio when you are tackling product shots can be nerve wracking. You have to advertise the position, read the resumés, conduct interviews, choose a candidate, fill out the tax file and workers comp forms, and then wonder whether they are going to show up on time.

Some days you wonder whether they are ever going stop talking, or eating, or go home...

Well cheer up, because Cullmann have come up with some pre-packaged answers to your problem; kits of camps, holders, grips and props that can be the extra hands in your shop when you really don't want to hire extra hands.

The studio accessories from Cullmann are well-made and for the most part explicable. By that I mean they look like something that was made for a purpose and you can figure that purpose out by looking at them.Here are three kits grabbed from the shelves with slightly different content for slightly different jobs.

a. The FLEXX Tabletop Set. This gives you a clamp to grip the edge of a table or upright, an extension pole with 1/4" socket on the bottom and screw on the top, and a small ball head. The camera plate of the ball head unscrews and reverses to become a small flash shoe.

That's one hand free to do other things with - not you have three at our disposal. Like hiring half of an assistant...

b. The FLEXX Support Set. This has the clamp, extension poles, mini ball head and adds a suction cup attachment, a Copter tabletop tripod, and an accessory grip. Another hand in the mixture. Now you have a full-fledged assistant holding things steady for you as you shoot. And doing so without singing or muttering under their breath...

c. The FLEXX Assistant Set. This one has three spring clamps - a big one that grips the tabletop or a pool support,, and two smaller ones that grip products, gels, reflectors, or flags. The connection in this case is not rigid - it is a flexible gooseneck in metal. You get one of the mini flash shoes as well for a speed light holder.

With Cullmann you are really only limited by your own imagination as to how you combine the elements. Here they are in individual for so that you can plan your rig. Wise studios get several kits and keep a supply of the parts in a big box. The time that they save in positioning articles is money in the bank.

Oh, the heading image? That is from the Little Studio's pantry. It is a 60-year-old tin food canister full of rice and popcorn. It served to prop up that product boxes beautifully. Not for sale, but if you visit the studio with beer I might pop some...

Bending Over Sideways To Please The Client - Tilt/Shift Part One

This is not a column about business relationships. It is about optics. If you want the other sort you'll have to go to Dale Carnegie or The Better Business Bureau.

Three manufacturers that I know of currently make tilt/shift lenses that can be used on digital cameras; Nikon, Canon and Samyang/Rokinon. There have been others in the past but my researches don't turn them up readily now. The one in use in the studio today is the Samyang 24mm f:3.5 version with the Nikon mount. Of course you can get it with a Canon mont as well...

Cynics may be forgiven for looking at the design and screwing up their faces, but I'm not here to judge whether or not Samyang unbolted another maker's design and reverse engineered it. Nor any I going to make the obvious comment about the use of high-grade plastics to replicate someone else's metal part. Take it from someone who used it that it is well-built and works as it should.

You don't get AF with these lenses, nor do you want it. You get MF and ADJF...Adjustable Focus.

 And you get to adjust it in ways that are at once artistic and practical.

The subjects that people cover in the studio can sometimes be challenging in that they are longer than the depth of field of a lens will cover. Stop down as much as you like, you still can't get everything in focus -and clients demand everything in focus. If you need to use a wider aperture for artistic effect, you are in even a worse fix.

Here is where the tilt mechanism of these lenses comes in. They are the way to produce the Scheimpflug effect - the phenomenon that occurs when you rotate the lens and the sensor to intersect the plane of the subject. Sounds complex, turns out to be surprisingly visible in the viewfinder, and nails the focus along the length of the subject - in this case a 1:24 Chevrolet Fleetline. Even at a modest aperture, it's in focus.

All in focus from headlight to rear bumper.

Away from the plane that you select, it goes out of focus faster...so if you want to create a fuzzy effect that is where you do it. Again useful in the studio to diffuse the backdrop and smooth it out. The clients want to see the products, not the brick wall behind them.

Note that the focusing you do with this lens is with the broad front ring. It's well damped, and does not creep. The lens is a pleasure to use.

As always, available now in-store or on-line.

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.

Defeating the Glass With Light

Look at that title - normally photographers are trying to do just the opposite - use glass to tame light. But there are times when you need to go at it the other way around.

We've all been to museums, shops, and galleries where interesting things are displayed under glass. It is under there to prevent you from getting your grubby hands on it and degrading it - or to create a sense of wonder and desire on your part. The awkward part comes when you want to take a picture of it.

Sometimes the people selling or displaying the things won't let you do it - for fear of breaking some law or giving away some advantage. Sometimes it is to allow them to sell their own pictures of the objects in their own bookshop - this is a classic ploy for some museums. No good you taking your own pics when there are postcards to be sold!

Even if you are allowed to shoot photos, you frequently fall foul of the way the goods are displayed:

1. The items may be behind tinted glass.

2. The glass surface may be dirty - filthy dirty in some cases.

3. There may be dodgy lighting in the display case. Dodgy in positioning and intensity and definitely dodgy in white balance. Some lights do not have a colour temperature - they have a colour fever.

4. Strong lighting outside the display case may reflect on the glass surface and obscure the contents.

Oddly enough, this is exactly the situation that pertains to outside displays at one of my favourite events - the car show. If a car owner chooses to wind up the window and it is dim inside while bright outside you cannot get a good picture of the interior of the car.
This happened so often that I evolved a way to deal with it that can be applied equally to the museum or shop.

First - if you are not allowed to use flash you can't do this. Likewise if your camera can never come off of an "automatic" sort of setting, you are stuck. But if you are not so restricted, here's what you do:

1. Put the ISO up to 400-800.

2. Put the camera in Manual mode.

3. Set the shutter speed to 1/125 or 1/180.

4. Set the aperture to something between f:4 and f:11. You'll be experimenting with the first couple of shots and can dial yourself into the correct exposure after you see the results.

5. Set the flash to manual as well and try your first shot at 1/2 power.

What you are doing is making your camera's sensor blind to the ambient light but sensitive to the powerful blast of light from the flash. If you are careful to keep the camera and flash pointed at an angle away from where the light hits the glass, it'll go though to the subject and not come back as a reflected blast onto the camera. The depth of field being shallow at close ranges means your camera won't effectively see the surface of the glass - it will see through it.

You may also have to take your camera off AF to do this as it may insist upon focusing on the surface of the glass - and you want to select the subject yourself.

Fussy readers will please excuse the slight over-exposure on the grey Leica camera but note how much better it is than the ambient-light shot at seeing past the obstructions.

The car interior is also through a full side glass window.

A Gripping Tale Of Manfrotto

I often wonder if Manfrotto make one of everything. Their catalogs are one of the most comprehensive and well-organised documents for any shop. Of course this stuff is accessible on the net, but what a pleasure to see a well-printed book that you can refer to instantly for camera support or light support.

A particular pleasure has been the Manfrotto practise of numbering their equipment simply and then organising a number index in the back of the book. If they have been wise enough to number the goods clearly - with a number that doesn't peel off - then the whole process of sales is much easier.

A small cavil; of late the simple numbering system that prevailed a few years ago in the tripod section has given way to complex codes. We could sort out " 055 " pretty well..." MPH-54-3/PCR " is a retail misery. It may well mean something in the computer at the factory or the warehouse but out on the shop floor it hampers the affair. On the telephone it becomes worse.

Okay, back on track - gripping things. We have covered the 035 Super Clamps and the Autopoles and the fact that the form a glorious basis of stability in the studio. One of my favourite steps further is the Gripper - or the 175 Main Clamp in their catalog. I have two of them and use them constantly.

Their main duty is to grip foamcore board and suspend it wherever I want. The white board acts as a reflector and the black board acts as a flag. The 175 can attach to a 035 or to a standard light stand and will hold even large sheets of board. There are rubber teeth in the jaws of the clamp so that it will not damage the foamcore. Note that it might even be possible to suspend standard fold-out diffusors or reflectors with the 175 but you would need to hang them rather than hold them up - too floppy otherwise.

They have also served impromptu duty as product holders but really there are more delicate clamps available from Cullman for this.

How To Hold Your iPad WHen Your Hands Are Busy

We've been looking at an intriguing new item from Manfrotto for the digitally delighted - those photographers who are so connected that they have App dreams instead of nightmares.

It's a cradle for an iPad that allows all the things that the camera you are using at the time to appear on the pad - but without making it hard to do. Tethering, if you will, for dummies. It is going to need one of the later generation of DSLR or mirror-less cameras to work but the facility it will give for the shooter is magic.

Shooting a composition that someone else has to okay before you press the button? Let them see the iPad image as you compose and focus. It won't make art directors any better but it might make them quieter.

Need to see the framing for your own shot? For a video you are recording? Attach the Digital Director to a bracket on your tripod and swivel it around until you are taking a high-quality selfie. No duck faces, now...

Just sick of squinting down a viewfinder or trying to see an LCD screen in dappled light? Use the Digital Director and shield the iPad at a convenient angle.

More on the device when we get to play with it.

Rise. Tilt To Your Audience. Shift Sideways. Click Your Shutter.

If you are new to photography, you may never have done the dance. The RiseTiltShift Waltz. You have no idea what a delight you are missing.

Those of you old enough to have wrinkles that won't go away may have had a chance to use a view camera or a tilt/shift lens in the past. You know the dance, and when to dance it.

For the newbies - you do the dance when you want undistorted verticals in an architecture shot - or when you want easy stitching for a panorama - or want infinite depth of field for a product or landscape shoot at wide aperture. The Scheimpflug Principle takes care of the last named and the rising front of the camera - or falling back, for that matter - takes care of the first. The shift lets the budding panoramacist add more width to what they do and the stitching programs love the result.

While you can get massive movements on a 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 sheet-film monorail camera, you are a little more restricted with the dedicated tilt/shift lenses that the major DSLR makers provide. Nevertheless there are movements there and you can still dance.

Unfortunately right now there are very little options for we dedicated mirror-less system camera users - only a few limited sorts of adapters that produce a little movement, and no dedicated lenses from the actual makers. We can only hope that the lens designers for our respective brand choices will think to add something of this nature for the lens road maps.

Until then there are a number of us experimenting with tilt/shift movements on our old 4 x 5 cameras by attaching mirror-less bodies to the rear standard and as wide an angle lens as we can find for the front. It's a situation that really wants bag bellows and even then there are compromises in what we see on the LCD screen. One thing - a least most 4 x 5 wide angle lenses have a massive coverage foot print and on a APS-C sensor you don't run out of image as you move.

Pack In A Cube - Or How To Shoot Catalog Fast

Do you have a letter box at your house? You do? Have you noticed the people who stalk the streets and fill it with advertising flyers? They are unstoppable - no matter how many signs you put up they will still stuff your letter box with paper.

Apart from the ecological question of all that paper and ink, and the moral question of being able to defend your letter box...isn't it interesting how many pack shots and product pictures modern life uses? Someone had to take those pictures, and that someone could very well be you. If you can find - or be - a retailer who wants pack shots, you can do it with your present camera equipment. Who knows - with a little research and self-promotion* you may become the doyen or doyenne of dog food dioramas...

How to do? I used to recommend the pop-up studio set with two lightbulbs that Optex make - $ 249 worth of tiny studio. Or the cloth and wire light cubes that Glanz and Promaster make - they can go from 40cm cube to 120cm cube so there is a large range of  goods that you can put in them.

I also used to recommend that the Optex mini-studio user just turn on the two flouro tube lights and shove the goods in there - but this tended to make them look like they were being illuminated by two soft boxes or strip lights.

Now - I think that there is s better way - as evinced by the can of soup you see here. It's not for sale - it's for lunch - but it's typical of the product that goes into a catalog. The challenge is to make it look good, do it in one shot, and do no post processing. If you can do that you can start a production line of illustration that means profitable photography.

The setup is easy - the Optex mini studio is turned on. A sheet of white paper is curved into a mini-infinity set in the box and taped down. The can is set in so that there is a little illumination on the 3/4 curved front side.

The camera ( in this case a Fujifilm X-10, current version X-30 ) is set to whatever size output you want. And with Fujifilm there is no footling about with RAW - the jpegs are glorious. f:9 and 1/30 second. Tripod? Good idea if all the products will be the same size.

The new illumination trick is a standard Fujifilm EF 42 flash and a diffuser on the front of it - in this case one of the old Honlphoto plastic flaps. Really, you could use a sheet of white paper taped to any speed light you owned, as long as the speed light could fire in manual and be turned down somewhat.

 A wireless link between camera and flash completes the setup, though wired could be used if you have the connectors available - the main idea is to fire a blot of diffused light into the front of the set so that it shows the front of the product but bounces around to do its own fill as well.

The result is good, fast, and repeatable. All you need is an assistant to organise the flow of products to the set and away from them and to record what was photographed to later correlate the output. If you get the settings right the client gets a consistent batch of images that can be put into a good catalog.

And then you can pull it out of your letter box and throw it into the bin.

* Self-promotion: Unusual concept little known amongst professional photographers...

The Three B's - Canon's New 5Ds In The Real World

The three B's*. A glorious night.

Canon Australia sent some of their new Canon EOS 5Ds cameras out, and one of them landed in the hands of Brodie Butler. Last night Brodie gave a memorable lecture regarding this camera to a gathering of enthusiasts at the Oxford Hotel in Leederville.

Canon made a good choice in letting Brodie work with the new camera - Brodie can do, has done for a long time, did then, and was able to do right in front of the viewers. He can also explain what he did and why and THAT is a rare talent.

As Brodie explained, the new camera is massively increased performance packed into a familiar body shape - that of the Canon EOS 5D MkIII. If you know how that feels, you know how the 5Ds feels...but you won't be prepared for what it does until you see the results.

Over 50 megapixels available in one shot from the full-frame sensor. Available with very fast focussing. Large files, and clean. Wild amount of detail available when enlarging - the display prints that were made by Fitzgerald Photo Laboratory on Chromajet metallic paper were startling in their impact and the impact continued right down into the finest detail of the image.

Brodie was able to take photos there on the night with his trusty Elinchrom giant umbrella reflector and the same lady who had modelled for the original photo shoot. The shots made of eyelashes and detail on a fur jacket were detailed beyond belief - but there they were...

The really startling thing for the landscape, architectural, portrait, or fine art photographer is the thought that this camera can do what it does with all the existing Canon L-series lenses! People who might have been looking longingly at other medium format camera systems while shooting with their faithful Canon system can now shelve their envy - the Canon company has the answer to their dreams.

Their dreams are not going to be inexpensive dreams - this level of performance is not going to be fond in the bargain basement - but the purchase price of this 5Ds camera body or the companion 5Dsr body later on is is going to be a great deal less than the medium format option. And you have so many more lenses to choose from...

Altogether a very satisfying rainy night out - good speaker, great images, a remarkable product new to the market - a product that will be truly useful as well as technically brilliant.

* Brodie, Butler, and beer.

Tiny Little Movements For Great Big Success - Velbon Macro Slider

Old gunnery officers from the Ruritanian Navy will immediately recognise the piece of apparatus shown in the heading image:  a Skoda M 320 recovery mechanism for  the main battery of the SZENT LUDWITZCH. The ironclad may be gone but we saved her guns.

Or not, as the case may be. It might be a Velbon Macro Slider for close-up and product photography. The resemblance is uncanny.

As a macro slider it allows the careful worker to move a camera and lens fore and aft, and left and right with extreme precision. The shallow depth of field and the tiny field of vision encountered in the macro world demands the utmost care in positioning - otherwise things are just not in focus. If you try to move on a conventional tripod or studio stand the crudity of the adjustment defeats the whole thing.

You'll still need a tripod - and a good one too - and a good three-way or ball head to mount the slider. The Cullmann range has enough variety to suit most systems. I am afraid that ye canna change the laws 'o physics, Captain...and you cannot expect to sling an effective, steady macro rig on a tiny travel tripod. Choose a sensibly large size for this and accept the fact that when you need to do professional work you have to carry professional weight - even out in the field looking for wildflowers.

This also applies for studio workers who need to do product shots with great precision - publications can be extremely fussy about where the objects in the images are positioned and the difference for small subjects can be great. Use the Velbon macro slider to dodge sided to side as need be and the job becomes a breeze.

Arca Swiss - This Is One Big Cheese!

And no holes in it, either!

The Arca Swiss company is famous for letting it all hang out - in this case in about 4 directions at the same time*. Studio photographers will immediately recognise the way this Arca Swiss C1 cube has been set up - the fore and aft Sheimpflug modulated tilt/shift toggle beam position. As used to render advertising images for sock manufacturers...

Precision is a hard thing to come by in some areas of photography - pet photography  and wedding shooters will know what we mean if they reflect on it while hosing out their studios. They are more or less shooting it on the wing and the best chance they have of success is to lead the target and trust to proximity fuses. Studio product and scientific shooting is another story.

If the object that you are picturing does not breathe it can generally be persuaded not to move. And then you can position yourself and your camera in such a way as to show all the salient features of it in the best light. Whether it is the aforementioned socks, or cans of corn, or Mercedes cars, the light is controllable and the angle of the lens is too. In some cases the movement of the camera needs to be very small to produce a great difference in the optical rendering.

Arca Swiss do make that precision possible, for all I make fun of them. The heading image is taken in the tradition of all large-format manufacturers - the extremes of each movement are shown, with the tacit understanding that you never actually do that. You move little bits very precisely - and sometimes you need to move a couple of them at the same time. That's where the micro-drive geared adjustments, the friction gripper, and the scales come in.

It's all metal in there, folks, and it costs a lot, and if you are a studio that deals in science or advertising art, this is a device well worth considering. They're hand made in Switzerland and well worth the wait.

* The Swiss are well-known comedy scamps...

Reflections On The Model As A Subject

I'm not being literary or philosophical or anything. I am just struggling with reflections from the shiny surfaces of scale models in studio photography.

If it was just depiction of the scale models in a bare space the problem would be easy - I would take home a Glanz light tent, pop the car inside and flood the outside with flash light. The reflections that bounce back from the little chrome bumpers and shiny paint surfaces would be an even white with no hot spots. Good advertising picture but not the artistic effect I want.

I set the little cars in little scenes and then add more in Photoshop, but the surfaces of the cars can betray the position of the lights...and the surroundings of the studio...in little vignettes all over the model. Silver slab surfaces, flat windows, and chrome hubcaps are like little mirrors reflecting the tripod, camera, walls, curtains, and me. A dead giveaway that it is fake.

This recalls the story I heard at the AIPP convention a couple of years ago*. The chap who shoots roadways and scenes for Mercedes and Dodge so that they can strip in their studio shots of the latest cars also takes a panorama sweep picture behind himself so that the digital artist can put elements of the scenery into the shiny bits of he real cars. I thought it was a little over-complex when I heard it but I am not so sure now - I can see the problem.

I am going to have to deal with it in-studio and preferably in-camera in one shot - 'cause I ain't that good a digital artist. The next series of coffee-fuelled experiments will involve large panels of Superior backdrop paper in sky-blue or light-grey to simulate the sky in various forms and some vague shapes to suggest mountains or buildings pinned to the panels. I shall crouch behind them and fire the camera with a cable release.

And then we shall deal with the sun. Creating the sun in the studio with a flash tube that is larger than the sun in the sky...

* Name dropping.

Table Topple

I like table tops. You can take pictures on them, you can eat your dinner off them, and you can sleep on them after 18 bottles of beer. Actually, these days I can get there in 6, which means I can afford a pillow for the tabletop...I generally use a pile of old chip wrappings.

As photographic supports, however, they can leave something to be desired - mainly a backdrop behind your main subject. If you are doing pack shots or product photography you frequently need a bland or invisible backdrop so as not to encroach upon your subject. Herewith several suggestions:

1. Get a large sheet of cardboard from the newsagent or Jackson's art supply* and tape it to the front of the tabletop. Let it run back as far as you need for the subject to sit and then curve it up. Support it with a pile of books. Light the subject with $ 2000 worth of studio monolights or $ 1000 worth of speed lights and the pictures will look good. Light it with the sun and the pictures will also look good but you will have to contend with flies and wind.

2. Put your subjects inside a Glanz or Promaster light cube and light as before. The tent will shelter the subject but will itself catch the wind. Be cautious outside but don't be discouraged - many people light jewellery successfully with a light tent and a reflector and the Western Australian sunshine.

3. Promaster product table. Now you're talking. Attachment points for lighting supports and a translucent curved base - you can fire a flash up from below to eliminate shadows. Not expensive and folds out of the way. Our preferred product platform. in store now. No, you can't have the one on the floor because WE need it...we have more upstairs.

* Same cardboard but you can get Lotto tickets from the newsagent. And a smile.

Hands Across The Table - Cullmann Studio Set

I wish I had an underwater studio. Then I could employ an octopus as an assistant and whenever I was trying to photograph a complex setup on the tabletop there would be extra arms available to hold things.

As it is, what might look like a simple bunch of toy cars and their associated scenery might be propped up with toothpicks, Blu-tac, double-sided sticky tape, folded matchbooks, piles of rice...the variations are endless as I try to show he object but hide the support. Photoshop is helpful to erase shadows but the more you can do at the time the less fiddling you do later.

Enter the Cullmann Flexx Studio set. A whole kit wrapped in a nylon carry bag that attaches to table edges, or smooth flat surfaces, or cranes over from a light sand. there are clamps, grips, and a ball head with a cold shoe for a speed light. There are extension poles and goosenecks. It should allow me to get a steady shot while holding a lot of the heavier little components at awkward angles.

Guess what I am going to push for as a Christmas present...

PS: You can get smaller sets as well, but this is the big daddy and I deserve the best...

Ooh - Look At All The Coloured Lights!

1960's and 1970's - heyday of the coloured gel in the studio. With the new flash systems you could put a piece of extremely expensive cellophane in front of the and fire them off and get funky effects. We knew they were funky because we saw them in advertisements in German magazines. A lot of us weren't exactly sure what funky meant, but...

Reel forward ( Reel? I will explain reels to you later children, once the arthritis medicine kicks in.) to now and the necessity of applying delicate touches of colour to studio work. See the heading illustration. All major flash makers produce some form of gel holder for their light shapers - generally it will clip onto the front of a standard reflector:

You can enclose the gel in a cardboard frame or you can slip it in there palin. What you cannot do is slip in a piece of cheap newsagency cellophane over a modelling light (I'll explain cellophane children, as soon as the gout medicine ramps up.) as it will melt, catch fire, or start twerking. You have to use real gels designed to withstand heat.

Enter the Rosco Gels. Here are a variety of them in convenient packets. You can get colour correction, violent tints, diffusion sheets, or theatre colours. Better still, I see the Rosco people can also supply the stuff in rolls - 48 inches wide and 100 square feet on he roll. This means you could gel a soft box as easily as you could do it on a standard reflector. The big rolls are a special order through us but the small packets are in-store now.

One thing to remember with gels. Too much is rarely enough.