Circle of Light...

Wow, that title sounds like a cult doesn't it "Circle of Light"...well it's not, it's just a description of my newest lighting modifier, the Ray Flash. This is a product that is distributed by ExpoImaging, which also makes Expodisc, the custom white-balance disc that just seem like a waste of plastic to me, but a few photographers I know swear by it. The Ray Flash is a ring-flash modifier that can attach to any dedicated speedlite from Canon or Nikon. It redirects the light from your speedlite down and around your lens giving you the ability to create a near shadowless splash of light on your subject and giving you a really awesome looking catchlight in the eyes. I decided to blog about this since I got quite a few emails, Facebook messages and "what is that thing?" questions from people I've never even met before, I think all due to Moshe's photos of me (from his blog and Facebook page) from this past week's DC Area Photographer GTG.

Thanks to Moshe for these shots!

Hey Jim Garner...if you're reading this, yeah thats a Boda shoulder strap that's starting to tear...

I gotta say, the thing works as advertised: It creates a virtually shadowless fill on your subject and bathes them/it in smooth diffused even light... however that can be a very good thing or a very bad thing depending on your subject and your artistic intention. In all honestly this thing will probably spend a lot of time in my camera bag, but I think I'll definitely find uses for it in certain  circumstances. I don't do the normal "studio" portrait stuff, and those of you reading this who do, should definitely look into trying one of these out yourself. I shoot out in the world and don't have a studio with pull down backgrounds and props, so I was looking for something super-light and ultra portable, and the Rayflash fits the bill. The next best thing is the Alienbees ABR800 which looks like a stellar product (also only $100 more than the Rayflash), but its heavier and doesn't run off a speedlight I'd already have with me anyways. The ABR800 would require me to plug it into a wall or run it off a big external battery pack, which I don't feel like lugging around everywhere.

I see the Rayflash as my go-to lighting modifier for things like macro shots where flash is necessary, full face headshots where I want to smother details (such as a face that has some wrinkles or some significant wear-and tear, where I can eliminate shadows caused by the extruded details) and when I want some on-axis fill but don't want that "snapshot" look that a direct on camera flash give you. So enough talk...here come some samples I snapped last week at the National Harbor.

Kenny wants a Rayflash for Christmas... I'd send him mine if he started using Nikon gear...LOL!

Be careful using on-axis flash with glasses...I was not...

Check out that catch-light...and Hadar's modeling skills...

Flash set to 1/128th power to use as a very light fill to the ambient exposure...probably how I will use the Rayflash most frequently going forward.


Used as a fill, you can see the effect along the wood on the back of the chair...for some reason I love this shot...can't figure out why...

Flash turned off...Megan Beth as our model!

Flash turned on...richer skin tones, less harsh shadows! That white corner is what I mean by "it doesn't fit right on my D3 (shot taken with a 50 f/1.8, a VERY small lens)

Don't photographers make great models? So the bad news? The Rayflash costs about $300 which is quite a lot for a piece of plastic that doesn't actually flash itself, it requires your speedlight to do all the work. That said, if you were to build your own or buy other similar products, the light loss would be far more significant. By some work of incredible engineering or some dark magic they actually were able to build this thing and only lose 1 stop of light!!! That's crazy impressive. That means you can still shoot at smaller apertures at a reasonably fast frame-rate without killing your batteries every ten seconds!

Be sure to try one out before you hand over the cash though, mine doesn't exactly fit my D3 properly, although it fits my flash like a glove. A email to Expoimaging (and less than a 5 minute wait for a reply! AMAZING!) allowed me to discover they have individual models to fit not only specific flashes, but also specific camera bodies. Apparently the place I got it from thought I said D300 when I said D3. I bought mine from Ace Photo (a local photo store) but I'd highly recommend buying your Rayflash - if decide you it fits your style - from either BHPhoto or Adorama, as Ace Photo doesn't let you return it if it's not right for your workflow...not even with a restocking fee! Thankfully Expoimaging is able to exchange my Rayflash out for the proper model! Great customer service!

PS: Whoa, my watermark is doing something weird and I'm not planning on re-exporting these images to fix it...do not attempt to readjust your set, I am controlling the vertical and horizontal! LOL!

Game changer...

I usually don't like to post about things I haven't actually spent time using or was not present for, but this is too big and most people won't have heard about it (and most won't for a while until this company starts to pick up speed). About a year or so ago a company called RED decided to build a video camera called RED ONE, but this wasn't a regular consumer video camera, it was a fullblown professional digital cinema system that is completely modular. Not only that, this system is able to produce video at 4k resolution at 30fps (4k is around 2X 1080P high definition). The tag line of this company is "making obsolescence obsolete". This is something they have taken to a whole new level with their two new product lines that have been announced only a few days ago. They unveiled the EPIC and SCARLET systems which they refer to as DSMC's which stands for Digital Stills and Motion Camera...yeah that's right, I said Digital Stills (hence why I'm blogging about it). RED has gone and made a modular DSLR. Stop the presses, roll out the red carpet (no pun intended) and alert the media! Now for the really cool stuff!

You buy a "brain" of whichever system you want to go with...then you get to decide what components to buy to do what you want to do! If you want a shoulder mount video camera that shoots at 3K at 120fps, you can do that, if you want a full blown cinema studio over-the-top monster camera...at 28k resolution at 24fps...yeah you can do that too! On the still photo side you get to choose your resolution from 4.6MP (megapixels) all to way to a mind-bottling (like it's so crazy your mind gets trapped in a bottle) 261MP!!!!!!! And the best part of all of this? You won't have to buy new lenses when you decide to move up into the big leagues, that's right you can strap on your best Nikon, Canon, PL and Mayima lenses on and start shooting both photos AND video!

Oh and one more thing...coming soon: 3D!!! Oh yeah...that's why I said GAME CHANGER!

Check out RED.com for more info. As much as I love my Nikons...this is a very good thing for the industry and I hope they sell LOTS and LOTS of cameras!

Fresh Coat of Paint...

I recently decided my main website was a little bland and I definitely hated not being able to display my images at sizes larger than 800X450 (a non-standard aspect ratio for photographs). I've decided to rebuild my site and it now supports resolutions of 1200X800 (I could set it higher, but right now most visits to the page are screen resolutions of 1280X800 and 1400X900, so most will be able to view at almost full screen!!!). The actual interface design changes a bit, but it's more of an evolution rather than a complete top-to-bottom redesign. A lot of the visual elements and color scheme stays the same, just the content and the resolution of the content changes. Also now when viewing a gallery you have the ability to view a 'thumbnails' view or email a link of any image to friends or family, which is really cool! So if you see a picture on the site you just HAVE to show someone, you can email them a link directly to the one you want them to see! (Tip of the day for Mac users: You can select a portion of the screen for a "screen shot by clicking "command-shift-4", I've been asked about that numerous times...just figured I'd fill in everyone who didn't already know)

Here I've posted a quick screenshot of the before and after, see how much empty space there was around the old one? Keep in mind these images were taken on a monitor with a resolution of 1920X1200, so your display will most likely show less empty space.

Look at all that empty space not being used...so bland!

Complete redesign, menu options on the bottom, larger display, no more boring white background!

Thumbnails view inside of a gallery...

Email pop-up window for emailing images to friends and family!

So what do you think? I hope to be finished getting everything the way I want it by the end of the day (Friday) so I can go ahead and make it live, until I do the old site will still be visible.

Coming soon to a blogspot near you...

WOW! I just realized I haven't posted anything in almost 3 weeks, whoops. Well I'll have at least 2-3 posts by next week up to make up lost time. I got a new photographic tool(toy) that I'm gonna post some review stuff up, including some sample photos I've taken and some others I expect to take later this week. I've got some other updates as well coming soon that I've been spending a bit of time working on, which I hope to announce by Fri/Sat of this week, well at least I'll tell you about it by then if it hasn't launched by then. 1 billion points to whoever can either guess A) what new tool/toy I picked up or B)what I expect to announce/launch by the upcoming weekend.. first person to 2 billion points wins the prize...which is to be determined. (BTW check the Drobo post, I've added an update to the bottom about the past couple week's experience)