WPPI - Part 2 of 4 - Highlights and Shadows

Part 2 of 4 WPPI Post covers the cool new things coming out or that were new to me... and the kinds of things that I believe need to be left in the past or buried in the Nevada desert... (feel free to disagree with me in the comments, these are just my opinions!)

Highlights:

New Pocketwizards!

New FlexTT5 Transceiver

New MiniTT1 Transmitter

Pocketwizard launched a new line of their radio triggers this past week, and I can't wait to get my hands on them! I currently use Pocketwizard PWII's which are great, but have some limitations, especially in your level of control when it comes to adjusting the power of your flashes remotely. With the PWII system, I have to physically walk over to a flash and manually dial down the power I want out of it, then walk back to where I was and check to make sure it's giving me the level of lighting I want now. The other downside of the old system is that due to the very minute delay in the camera sending a signal out to the transmitter and to the receiver, it is near impossible to use a shutterspeed faster than 1/320 of a second and still have the entire image show the flash. With the new Pocketwizards that have now been announced, I can not only adjust the power of my flashes remotely, they now have a sort of ESP, allowing the flashes to fire when I want them to! You can plug the new models into your computer and actually adjust in nanoseconds, when you want your flashes to fire in relation to when your shutter release is pressed! This allows for faster shutter speeds, meaning you can actually dial down the ambient exposure much more easily. Don't want the Sun to be overpowering your flash burst? No problem! These new models will allow you to set your shutter now all the way up to 1/500 with full flash coverage and up to 1/8000 with the right type of flash and settings! Right now they just have Canon compatible models available, but as soon as the Nikon versions are released, you can bet I'll have a set on order!

New Lasolite Triflash bracket

New bracket (image taken from strobist.blogspot.com)

Another flash related accessory that caught my eye was this new tri-bracket from Lasolite. They aren't shipping quite yet, and they're a little pricy (the rep told me about $75) but imagine being able to throw three hotshoe flashes behind an umbrella or a softbox. You can get a ton of power in a very portable package with one of these, I'm probably going to wait for another company to make something similar though, I don't think I need one of these that badly to go blowing $75 on a piece of plastic. Especially when I can use gaffers tape to hold three flashes together if I need to for less than $1's worth of tape. What's funny about this, is I thought I had seen one of these before so I didn't think much of it at first, but then I realized that the last time I'd seen someone (Joe McNally) use so many flashes in an umbrella, it was MacGyver style!

Lasolite Trigrip (not sure if this is new, or just never saw it before)

I'd never seen these before, not exactly sure if they're new, but they really caught my eye when passing by Bogen's booth. They are a great portable diffusion/reflector system that collapses up into a little round sleeve that could fit in any bag. What makes these really unique though is the triangular shape and rubber grip that allows you to easily hold onto them or even prop them up against something. I have a circular reflector and skrim, but never use it because I don't want to hire an assistant just to hold diffusers. Maybe when I start shooting $100,000 weddings, I might hire a "diffusing assistant". Just kidding!

Nik Software Plugins for Aperture and Photoshop

Nik Software is VERY cool... control points are UH-MAZE-ZING!

I've played around with Capture NX (Nikon's RAW processing application) and wasn't a fan of it, but loved the concept of control points. What this is, is a really intelligent system that allows me to select a sky or a dress or a face and it can intelligently figure out where the object starts and ends. From there it allows me to adjust that specific area of an image without having to jump over into Photoshop or another standalone application. I never realized until I happened across the Nik Software booth that they partnered with Nikon in creating the U-point technology, and discovered they are now offering a great package for Apeture that includes the whole suite of plugins! I had been using Aperture since it's launch up until late last year, when I decided to tryout Lightroom and never bothered going through Aperture for my editing anymore. Now that Nik has a great offer as a plugin for Aperture, I just might start using it again...we shall see.

Shadows:

This is probably where I'll get a couple people to disagree or flat out hate what I'm about to say. Foam posing props (fake brick walls, foam columns to lean against, ect.) and painted muslin backdrops with unicorns or Greek columns belong in Sears or Walmart and/or 1992! I'm not saying you shouldn't use muslin/canvas/whatever backgrounds or that studio shooting is outdated, or that props are evil, but what I am saying is that I believe that professional photographers who do portraits using these types of tools should try to step it up and/or modernize their studios (try to differentiate from the bargin basement photography that Sears does). Backgrounds are critical for a lot of headshot and some portrait work, especially for corporate headshots, and for young children's portraits props are very useful in getting kids to sit still or stay in one place. The issue I have with the vendors (by my count there were AT LEAST 12 different backdrop vendors and 3 or more ugly foam prop vendors) at WPPI selling those types of studio accessories, was that they were trying to push stuff that looked like it came off a 2nd-rate TV show back in the late 80's or early 90's when everyone's hair was feathered and Tears for Fears was still selling out concert arenas. There are new technologies that now allow photographers to use whatever they want as a background (check out Virtual Backgrounds, very cool concept), by either optically or digitally inserting the background the way you want without spending hundreds upon hundreds of bucks on different colors of muslin to get different looks. There are real brick walls everywhere that don't look (and feel) like cardboard. I beg those out there that use those types of tools to look for alternatives that help you grow your business and separate yourself from the outdated competition.

I'm not necessarily recommending their product (still kind of complicated) but VERY cool idea...

Another thing that will probably get some people to disagree with me on is outsourcing of editing. There were quite a few companies (I saw at least 5) that are offering to take your digital files and then edit your images for you. Sounds like a real time saver, but in my opinion, in a digital age, what defines a photographer's style is not only the images he or she shoots through a lens, but also the way those images are edited and processed. I can understand doing outsourcing of photo editing for event or corporate photography where clean, sharp images with minimal artistic flare is what the client usually wants (depending on the type of client of course), but for weddings and portraits, I feel that outsourcing your editing is like buying tickets for a cruise and giving them to some stranger, it takes the fun out of it and you really don't get as much emotionally from the final results. There are times when some photographers might get overbooked and need to ask someone to help out with retouching on a couple select images, but I feel that's different, because the original photographer will already have done their basic edits that bring out their style in their work. Just a quick rant... sorry if it offends. Not trying to step on toes, just trying to give my opinion.

Flowers in January?

This past weekend I got a chance to hang out with a TON of other photographers. On Saturday I was with 50 other wedding and portrait photogs as it was time for our monthly get-together (check the archived posts). There's a ton of photos from that on Facebook so I'm not going to post them here. On Sunday I met up with a small group of enthusiasts that met up through DPReview, with whom I've gotten a chance to hang out with last summer at the Dulles Air and Space Museum. This time around we went to the Botanical Gardens in DC right next to the Capital Building. I wanted to share some of my favorites from the day. Also you'll be happy to know I found an excellent use for my Rayflash: as a macro ringlight! So on top of using it as a great fill-light for portraits, I'm now addicted to using it for flowers and other small details (wedding bouquets, shoes, rings, ect.). Now time for the quiz, can you guess what lenses these images were taken with? Some of these images might surprise you if I told you what lens I used, because only one of the lenses I used was designed as a macro. The answer is down at the bottom. Also the gallery with quite a few more from the day are on noahhayes.net (link)!

The two lenses used today were the 105 VR f/2.8 macro (obvious though...) and the 14-24 f/2.8!!!! That's right That lens focuses so close! The images I used the ultra-wide on were #3 and #5!

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!

Nikon SB-900 Review

Well I've been playing around with Nikon's latest Speedlite for the past few days, and it's definately got some great features and updates over it's predecessor the SB-800. I have two SB-800's that I've used fairly extensively on and off the camera, and originally thought there would be no reason for me to upgrade to the new flashes as I usually set my flashes manually and don't use the CLS system (more on that a little further down) as I prefer the capabilities of my Pocketwizards (more on that later too).

Some of the obvious changes with the new model is the size and the removal of the side carriage for a 5th AA battery as well as a new interface for controlling the flash on the back. The SB-800 had the 5th battery carriage as a way to keep the flash refreshing faster (meaning allowing you to use the flash again more quickly) and it really was necessary for anyone who needed to take more than 1 picture every 1-2 seconds (which is just about everyone, except maybe...no everyone needs that). The new SB-900 has completely new electronics inside which allowed Nikon to eliminate the 5th battery and still increase refresh time between flashes. This is great for me as I hated having to have so many extra batterys with me all the time and have three leftovers from a pack of eight instead of being able to use a pack of eight to power two whole flashes. The Nikon flashes also have always been a step above the Canon flash system in being able to quickly change settings and setting up a wireless link between the flashes for off-camera lighting. This new model puts a quantum leap between the two, usually very comparable brands. (Also: the SB-900 is still compatible with external battery packs, although I don't use them, and therefore can't comment if there have been any significant changes to the way this works...looks like the same port though)

The wireless system from Nikon is called CLS for: Creative Lighting System. The two primary reasons why off-camera lighting is important: 1) On camera flashes can cause red-eye in photos and 2) On-camera lighting usually looks very bland, and creates very flat shadows with no dimension to your images. The way CLS works is by having a "Master Unit", which can be a SB-800 or SB-900 or even a DSLR's built-in flash in the D80,D200, D300, or D700 and using several "slave units" which can be a SB-600,SB-800, or SB-900. The master unit sends out a pulse of light that tells the slave units how powerful they need to flash and when, which can be set manually from the master unit or can be set to TTL (through-the-lens) which means that the camera will automatically adjust each flash to what the camera thinks will give it a good exposure.

CLS is a great system for using off-camera flash, however has some severe limitations, such as requiring line of sight and having a somewhat limited range due to it being a infared system. Because of this limitation, I've always used a device called a Pocketwizard to remotely fire my flashes as this device is a RF (radio-frequency) triggering system than doesn't have the limitations of CLS. The downside of Pocketwizards however is that each flash must be set manually on the flash itself, so if after looking at my photo I decided I want a particular flash to be a bit more powerful and light up a little more of what I have it pointing at, I need to walk over to that flash and adjust it. I don't have to tell you that this could be a non-optional thing when shooting an important event that is underway, you can't just say "Hold on everybody! I need to adjust my flash!" While this would be fine in a studio type environment or a commercial shoot, a wedding or corporate event would not be the time to experiment and be running back and forth. The product that is out there as the 'best of both worlds' would be a product called a RadioPopper, although I have not actually tested one of those out personally.

I've always found the SB-800 interface to be great, really fast to change settings, and very intuitive (except when making the flash a master or slave...you have to hold down a button for a couple seconds...BUT WAIT! There's an instruction chart built right into the bounce card! AWESOME!). The crazy thing is that Nikon, when designing the SB-900 completely changed the entire layout and design of their old model and came up with a whole new way of accessing and changing those often needed settings. The cool part is that what they changed made a great system even better. Instead of having to hold down the center button for 2-3 seconds, all you have to do now if flip the power switch to the "master" or "slave" setting, and presto...you're on your way. Also they now have a much quicker "Canon-esque (see the SX-100/SX110 series)" click-wheel for going between power settings and adjustments on the fly as well as having individual buttons for each different component of the changes you need to make. One button dedicated for power adjustments, another button to adjust modes, another button to adjust wht your intended aperture will be and another button for the zoom on your flash.

For those of you who haven't used a Speedlite extensively, flashes can zoom just (well sorta) like a lens can. The new SB-900 has a range from 24mm-200mm, which means you can have a very wide spread on your beam to illuminate a whole group of people or create a great fill-light, or you can have a very narrow beam that's great for isolating a small portion of your image with a little splash of light to make that person or object jump right out of the picture. This increased range, when used with lighting modifiers such as snoots, umbrellas, softboxes and gridspots will allow you you keep light as loose and soft or as tight and hard as you want, which just opens up creative control all the more.

Also improved on the SB-900 is the filter holder. Anyone who has used a SB-800, knows how big of a pain it is to fit the included gels into the little hole to hold the gel in place when running around with the flash. The new gel holder actually is a separate piece which goes between the plastic over the flash tube and the diffusion dome, which allows it to be held in place much more securely and not hamper ease of use. I usually set most of my gear manually, so I have no hands-on experience with this, but according to what I've read, the code printed on the gel itself will tell your camera what to change your white balance to, however the second you want to get creative with color, I could imagine that become a big pain to go through and change everytime you change a gel.

Overall the SB-900 is a massive evolution of the SB-800 that is improved in every way except portability, as the SB-900 is quite a bit larger than its predecessor. The only problem I have had with it at all in the few weeks I've been using it, is during a wedding, it stopped firing as it became overheated because we were firing about 15 full-power shots in a row with virtually no wait between shots.

This caused a rapid build up of heat from the flash tube and the flash actually started beeping at me and wouldn't fire for a few minutes until it cooled down a bit. I discovered later I can turn off this built-in safety although it will still beep at you, it will allow you to continue burning the bulb out until you destroy your flash and need to drop another $500 for a new one...but I'd recommend listening when it starts complaining to you about the heat...

Get out there and start flashing! Photography wise I mean...