I was for the past few years far too busy with Technology and Photography work to keep this blog updated, thats all changing now as I'm going to be posting more about photography and travel photography on the cheap to get photographers out in front of what is interesting (Hint, that is really one of the best ways to get great shots!)

I will be reviewing some products that I find of interest in aiding to make better images without breaking the bank or cluttering up the process. This is particularly important in the travel space where many of us as photographers are faced with the catch-22 of focusing on shooting at the risk of losing focus on whats actually happening. I hope to give some tips and tricks for ways to make good content while not usurping all of ones time while on a travel vacation.

For those looking for the adapter.  

A quick FYI for anyone looking for the adapter. I'm currently using this with a modified cable soldered into the USB dongle, it makes for a very nice an efficient setup, I'll post some details when I get a chance!

 

The Lastolite Trigrip / Triflip handle fix

   

I like my Lastolite Trigrip, its a nice diffuser (a bit pricey though, so I only keep a few), very comfortable and well made except for one defect.  I've purchased 2, and my friend 3.  So between the 2 of us we have 5 of them in various sizes but of the 5, 3 of them have had the velcro handle strap detach from the plastic grip.  The strap is held in with a metal pin that is hot glued to the plastic handle.  This seems to fail and the pin detaches,  I don't know where mine went, I just opened it up one day and it was gone.  Now Lastolite will repair it if you send it back in, but I don't have the time or desire to, plus the one I have has some sentimental value as I had Joe McNally sign it when I went to his advanced workshop.  So in looking at it I decided to just field repair mine.  All I needed was a simple zip tie.

As you can see the fabric strap has a loop in it where the metal pin would go, so I just replaced it with a zip tie that I wrapped around in the inside to the handle attaching it around the diffuser frame.

First I pushed the zip tie through to the other open end of the handle.

I next looped it back over so that it now wrapped around the frame of the diffuser.

Next I simply put the strap onto the zip tie and closed it up.

To clean things up I cut the excess from the zip tie off, and then pushed the head of the tie inside where it won't be seen.

And Viola, here it is all done and ready to be used again.

High Speed sync output tests....

(warning, this is a highly geeky post)

Ever wondered what the light coming out of your Nikon flash looked like output-wise when in Auto-fp High Speed Sync? Here are actual samples as taken with my pocket DSO and a photo-transistor.

I did this to put to rest some conjecture out on the internet. This is a proper method to understand what flash output is doing vs time. We can see output intensity and duration for a given shutter speed.

I tested this using a D90 I had lying around combined with an sb-800 flash set into manual power. I handheld the camera and aimed it towards the photo-transistor that was connected to the scope. The total output could be varying as I was handholding it and readjusting, but the graphs shape and duration are valid.

What the graphs will show are the following.

1) Output is practically continuous as the flash is pulsed for the duration necessary ensure a proper exposure.

2) When additional power is requested in auto-fp, the intensity of the flash is increased.

3) Full frame sensors use short auto-fp durations for the same shutter speed as compared to crop bodies.

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/200th sec shutter (Clipped output going up, a regular flash pulse is a huge output of light that tapers off)

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/250th sec shutter

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/500th sec shutter

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/1000th sec shutter

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/2000th sec shutter

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/4000th sec shutter

Now for a comparison of more power and also a full frame body.

This shows the D90 at 1/128th power and 1/32nd power, it is hard to make out but overall power is increased out. I noticed this when I shot it at full power, but didn't document it with a picture.

The last image shows how the light output waveform is different for the same shutter speed with a different body. I utilized my D700 for this test. In retrospect I should have made a test with my D300s as well to see if the two crop body shutters are different mechanically.

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/1000th sec shutter

Nikon D90, SB-800 1/32 @ 1/1000th sec shutter

Nikon D700, SB-800 1/128 @ 1/1000th sec shutter (Note shorter duration)

The Penny Office Depot Pencil boxes are back! With a twist this time...

So with the back-to-school sales, Office Depot is selling one penny pencil boxes again (The black ones I posted about last year made great snoots for my sb-600/800's)! Yay! But here is the thing, this year they no longer have black color ones, only bright kiddie type colors. I was bummed when I noticed this, but this year they replaced the black ones with clear ones!

So when you're given lemons, make some lemonade, right? These clear ones make for great quick light diffusers! putting it on just like a snoot it works great for blasting light in all directions, up, left right front back etc! I tested it and it was very effective on my green frog, providing a nice catch light while pushing a lot of light straight up. Noticing this, plus thinking about what to do with the insert part of the pencil box, I cut the end off and put a small piece of aluminum inside to stop light from going straight up. Now the light pushes back down reflecting around more and hopefully diffusing a little better. It greatly controlled upward spill. One could take this even further and make a curved reflector inside the box part so that light would only push out of front and sides, or even just the front.

Here is a shot of it lighting up my froggy test subject.

So for only one cent you can have a nice diffuser that won't look too ghetto, ala the David Hobby soup container. It also won't break the bank and cost as much as a Fong whatchamacallit. Just think of how many of these you could buy for one of his! (btw, limit is 3, so hurry up and grab some while you can!)

Hanging out with Joe at Dobbs Ferry...

There are very few workshops that I ever get excited about, but when it comes to Joe McNally my ears will perk up. His working career is just amazing to me and a feat that will never be done again as the print industry is gone as we knew it. The previous year Joe had these one day workshops where you hang out and learn while Joe goes through lighting setups, solves problems, and then lets the attendees shoot his lighting solution. A great bargain for the money considering his 15 to 1 ratio, and the fact you get to listen to his colorful stories about hanging out his helicopter or freezing this body part off. I hesitated that year and regretted it.

So this year when the chance came up, I really wanted to make it out there. Then to make it even more appealing Joe created an advanced workshop pushing things further, and quite frankly something more up my alley. The advanced workshop covered high speed sync, multiple exposure, some advanced lighting techniques as well as mixing big and small light. I really wanted to sign up, and when my friend Piotr was able to go it was a done deal!

So what did $500 get us? A great deal in my opinion. We spent well over 8 hours with Joe, chatting with him and admiring his lighting and camera gear and well run team of friendly assistants. We had a great lunch and ample water to keep cool during the day. We also received a nice bag of swag from his sponsor friends! Just the 10 hours listening and watching Joe do his thing was well worth it, everything else just made it priceless.

So we arrived at his old former studio, a great space with tons of character and Lynn greeted us. I'm not usually an autograph nut but I always thought it would be fun to get Joe's not in the typical book format, but on a lastolite trigrip, one of his favorite lighting modifiers. So both myself and Piotr pulled the trigrips out and he graciously signed them for us.

He did mumble a funny comment after signing friend Piotr's, "Just wasted a perfectly good modifier". He asked for him to sign it big and use the whole space. I'm kind of glad Joe said that, it totally fits his character, plus I thought my friend was crazy too!

So we unloaded our gear and Joe did his introduction as well as having us introduce and tell what we were interested in exploring for the day. After that Joe gave a short presentation of some of his work, filled with his colorful back stories to every image.

After that we jumped into the studio and started working light, small light and big light.

He showed us a few of his favorite techniques, created some problems then solved them.

After lunch we went into a blacked out area for some long exposure action! Joe set up for a multiple exposure 2 frame shot with the beautiful Maria Arce, a model/stunt woman/martial artist/actress etc etc..

I captured these BTS shots handheld doing very long exposures, 2 to 4 seconds, stealing Joe's main flashes to expose my shot. By doing this I could get somewhat sharp images while having a Camera held up against my body for 4 seconds long.

I tried a similar series using a friend in an Indian Sari during the winter and had many technical issues with it, so when Joe ran into similar problems it was great seeing how he troubleshot things. Eventually he punted on the multiple exposure and went for a single exposure with rear curtain pose.

After we wrapped that up we moved into the last 2 hours, which Joe said was our time. He grouped us into 4 people and sent us out with a model and any lighting we wanted to use. We had two 1 hour sessions, 1 model per hour, and four photographers to taking turns. I was happily suprised that Joe ran things the exact same way I do when I give workshops. He has the same belief that to be a better photographer you need to understand how to properly assist and understand the lighting. Group shooting was a big no-no as well as he said only the photographer should be shooting, and that he'd fire an assistant on the spot if they were shooting between him during a shoot.

We started with Phil, a great former cop with a very character driven face. Super nice guy and very easy to work with. I chose to go the CTO route during my turn and change the mood of the glass roofed room.

During the next hour we switched to Christina, a great young model with a firecracker spirit. One light in high speed sync for the first shot, then went to a 3 light setup on the lower one. She was great and posing and hard to keep up with how fast she could change her expressions.

At the end of our day Joe mentioned there would be a surprise on the rooftop, He told us that anyone that wanted to stay late could join him on the roof while he shot Maria doing jumps in the sunlight while Joe tried to fight back with 6 sb900's and high speed sync. Who wouldn't jump at the chance! So after an interesting tour of the building, Joe took us on the scenic route to get to the roof, we arrived up top where it was broiling hot.

Here are a few shots of what Joe was up too..

All in all an incredible day with the master of flashes big and small. The rest of the weekend continued to be exciting as we scheduled a model shoot in the city. But I'll save that for another time...

Thanks so much to Joe and his incredible staff, best workshop ever!!

New version of the Wireless USB adapter available....

I just found out a new version of the wireless USB adapter is available from Cables Unlimited, which would explain why availability of the old one had been drying up. The updated information came from a readers blog that built one using the newer trulink device, thanks Justin.

The build should be the same, the packaging of this unit is more elegant then the previous, and it has external antennas which could be useful. It will however still require an external power pack. Also the price seems to be a bit higher.

Need seamless paper? How about a 100ft (update:225 ft!) roll for the same price as 36ft?

For those photographers looking to shoot with seamless paper, this might be a deal for you if you're looking for white and not the 107" size thats so hard to transport anyway.

I wanted to buy a roll of regular seamless and when I noticed the typical 53" roll contained 12 yards and ran about $35 shipped, I thought to myself that paper in that size should be cheaper. And it was. I remember buying some plotter paper and I knew the rolls were bigger then just 12 yards.

So I did a little research and found this deal, HP Universal Heavyweight Coated Paper (60 Inches x 100 Foot roll) for just $17.95 + $16.46 shipping or about $35. Whats great is that you get 64 feet more and its also 7" wider!

Here is a link to the 100 foot roll I ordered from amazon,

UPDATE, there is this roll that is 225 feet long with free shipping, dunno how long it will last.. (link below shows a different price, but when I click on it it goes to $17.99) YMMV

If the 225 foot roll price is still high, this is a 150 foot roll (its not heavyweight however) someone else found on Amazon..

The paper works great, its a nice bright white and I like having the extra 7" to work with side to side. I'd prefer 107" when shooting but its just not practical for me travelling. This deal works out great and I have plenty to spare! Actually, I split the roll with some other photographers so we all have some white seamless now.

The $2.99 laser trigger

(laser not included!) Its actually an IR trigger, but lasers are so much cooler! I wanted to trigger the camera to very specific action so I thought i'd get an optical trigger. There are a few commercial ones out there but as a fun hobby project (I love repurposing equpment btw) I thought this toy RC car lap timer would make for good inexpensive optical trigger. After adding a plugin jack and a diode, I had one that will trigger my pocket wizard which in turn will trigger my D300.

The lap timer is actually made for the Radio Shack ZipZap mini rc cars. They can be found for just $2.99 shipped on ebay. I comes with the lap timing scoreboard and an IR beam railing for the opposite side of the lane. two AA's power the lap timer, and 2 AAA's power the IR emitter bar. You can use the emmiter bar to make a beam for triggering. It works well but the object needs to be big enough to completely block its wide range. The laser level I'm using on the otherhand has a very tight beam, and even a single water drop passing through its path can trigger it.

While testing the stock unmodified lap timer I noticed that the Red LED on top would turn off whenever the beam was broken and be on when the IR beam was seen by the timer. So I decided to do a quick modification by adding a diode and an 1/8" (3.5mm) mono connector. That would allow it to connect to a pocket wizard transmitter.

The transmitter would trigger my DSLR with the addition of an inexpensive pre-trigger cord from Calumet (it was $9.99)

For the Canon folks...

Here it is in action, this is reject test shot that happens to show everything. You can see the laser on the right side, my water dropper in the middle, and the laser trigger on the left. The drop broke the beam, and traveled the distance seen when the camera shot it. For those needing a poor mans adjustable delay and using flash (in a dark room), one trick you can do is rear curtain sync. By syncing rear curtain you can adjust when the flash goes off, and in turn creates your exposure. If you need more discrete timing you'll have to build an adjustable delay (I've done that too, but thats another blog..)

A prettier example of it in action. using this method I can get pretty repeatable drops in front of my camera. Not the most exciting use of this trigger, but it shows it works and is repeatable.

Here is another example of the trigger, I had another photographer "spray" the camera with a card ala 52 card pickup. The laser trigger was in front of him, and I prefocused the camera so that when the cards did break the beam they would be in focus. We did a this a few times and got pretty good results, I plan on doing some more exciting triggering once things warm up and I can get outside.

All in all the trigger has been a success, it looks a little funny, but hey it cost less then a happy meal and now I can trigger things like the cool sharks in Austin Powers!

Possible new Tether power source

So while at Radio Shack I saw this on clearance for $9.95

I picked one up and hopefully I'll run some tests on it, I'm thinking it might be useful so long as I keep the power jack available to use regular batteries in case this thing dies. (proprietary batteries are a pet peeve of mine unless I have a spare or 2 or 3) Based on the 5.2v spec and up to 500mah draw it might work, but real testing will tell the tale. Also I have a bunch of interesting projects in Draft mode, but I haven't had the time to post them, Soon though as its getting cold here in Chicago and I won't be able to shoot outside as much!

I got Schmapped!

So early in the year I went to Garfield Park Conservatory to try and work the light and get some pictures that had the feel I wanted them to have, not the way they were actually lit. It was rainy and cold on the day I was there, a very flat cold light. So I gel'd up and tried warming things up in different ways, some worked some didn't. This shot was just a quick snap I took of powder puff tree in full bloom. I flicked a little light with my strobe on a stick and snapped off this DoF shot. I liked it as I thought it looked like a fireworks explosion. Well fast forward to a few weeks ago, and Schmap contacted me about it asking if they could use it. Flowers are not something I usually shoot or usually have an interest in shooting, so I was suprised anyone even noticed it. Well I guess they picked it and put it into their guide. I'm okay with them using it since I consider it a snapshot and not my more serious work.

Schmap Link

Deal of the Day - The pencil box snoot!

Office Depot has these nice little Pencil Boxes for back-to-school, only $0.79. I was looking at them and thinking they might work as a snoot. I do like my cereal box/gaffers tape ones, but this his a very nice high grade plastic so I figured it might be worth the gamble. So I picked up 2. They fit my SB-800s very snug, but the black part does fit over them. I figure I can cut it to fit and I've got a store bought looking modifier for under a buck.

The even better part is the inside, its a nice translucent plastic that lights up just like an expensive diffuser material for a flash. So its 2 for 1, you get some nice material to play with to make your own design for a diffuser and a snoot.

Let me know if you pick one up and find a good use for it!

The Canon 5D Mark ii - Exposed

Well if you haven't noticed I like to tinker. I always have and probably always will. So when I get bored I fix things, all sorts of things. A while back I started repairing digital cameras for fun. Recently after I bought my D300 another damaged D300 came up for sale that had taken a humpty-dumpty fall from a tripod with a 70-200 2.8 attached. I bought it for parts just in case anything happened to my new D300, but after ordering a new button I had it all fixed up. Its now my backup camera to my other D300.

So last month I was reading about a Canon fellow that had the misfortune of having his newly acquired Canon 5D mark ii fall into a lake while setting up for a shot. I bought the camera from him for salvage to see if I could get it working. I figured best case I could and then I'd play around with it to see what Canon has to offer. Worst case I'd end up parting it out eventually to recoup my money. Since I fixed the Nikon so fast that I never got a chance to document any of it,I figured I'd document the tear down of this camera body as it might be of interest to someone out there.

I even made a pointless video that I sped up showing the partial tear down. The video isn't the best as it was my first time trying to do something like this, but you can see as I strip away the rear, top and side panels of the 5D2 to expose and inspect the inside for water damage. I found very little water exposure on the first time tearing it down, but on later tear downs to find the odd behavior it was giving I found the board that was lightly corroded.

Here is the main culprit, it was the board on the bottom of the body. There was corrosion on 3 of the ribbon connector areas and 2 of the surface mount ICs. I carefully cleaned them off and sprayed the entire board down with a 0 residue PCB contact cleaner. The camera has been flawless ever since, but only time will tell, and with water damage you never know for sure, corrosion can kill very slowly and create odd issues with systems, in this case the buttons acted irrational and certain shooting modes would do different things.

I have since cleaned all the corrosion off and its working fine, although I do plan on ordered a new board from Canon at some point. I bought one lens for use with it, and one flash and I will be documenting some of the obstacles I found using off camera flash with Canon. I will also show some hacks to get things to work, like rear curtain sync and high speed sync.

One other side note, the body construction of the 5D2 I was not particularly impressed with for a camera in its price class. I would have expected a stamped steel frame in the lower end bodies, but not in one thats a notch from the flagship. This is my own personal opinion however having seen both the D300 and 5D2 on the inside. The D300 skeleton looks like its battle ready, a large cast body wrapped in plastic, the 5D2 had a simple and not rugged design. Also I really wish there was some solid weather sealing, I didn't see any o-rings at all on the 5D2.

More to come later...

Quick Deal of the Day - USB Swivel

I was at Radio Shack when I came upon this, a USB Swivel, Radio Shack part #26-785 on clearance. I think the original price was $6 something but it was Clearanced at just $1.37. Perfect to getting more rotational flexibility for the Wireless Tether. This should be a nationwide clearance item, so if you happen to be there it might be worth picking up!

PS - I have a big post coming soon, I just have to finish editing the video.

Yet another iteration of the wireless tether....

..

This one I'm about 90% happy with and will probably be the last modification I do for a while. I had a little spare time this weekend and decided to modify the original version I had made. I was going to put it into the MB-D10 AA sleeve, to make for a slick integration.

The more I looked at how to engineer putting the PCB into the sleeve the more I noticed some compromises. I didn't want the dongle inside the MB-D10 as it does generate heat as well as being the antenna. Since range will always be an issue the antenna needs to be put into the best possible location. I was planning on having a USB connector right near the side of the latch on the AA sleeve. I was planning on making the cuts when I noticed that this would create an odd grip. The dongle would be jutting out of the side and it would have make the grip somewhat awkward. I felt the grip without it and I could see it getting in the way when switching from landscape to portrait, also gripping it I felt it could get in the way of the left hand.

So for this reason I abandon the idea of putting it into the grip. Back to the Pocket Wizard integration! I have gotten 3 of my PWs working and the others seem to be having microcontroller issues, I'm hoping its just a blown clock circuit, but I haven't had time to play with them anymore.

After dissecting a few of them I did notice where I could put the components to have the dongle plug in. It would require a custom PCB since the original board is far too big to be inside there. Maybe with all the connectors removed it could be done, but I didn't feel like going down that road. Plus I didn't want to get too crazy hacking up my transmitter since I have to share it during shoots with other photogs that don't have a PW.

So back to the drawing board, I decided to just integrate the wireless USB into a pocket wizard case. Its a bit big, but it has the 2 AA compartment and I could easily place everything inside without issue. So I started doing that and got about 75% done when it dawned on me this was a good solution for me. A lot of times when I'm using this tether its to look at lighting situations and in most all those cases its with off camera flash. If I have my wireless USB adapter in a PW on top of my camera, then were will I put my real PW transmitter? Hmm. This is an interesting part of the creative process, ideas that are good in the mind sometimes just don't' pan out. For someone that doesn't ever use a PW or an on camera flash this would work. But for me I'll always have either an SB-800 or a PW on top of my camera. So for now I've scrubbed putting a device into the PW case, at least the case is ready for it though. Back to the drawing board.

Looking at the SB-800s 5th battery option gave me some inspiration to make a piggy back add on that would go onto the back of the PW. I don't really care about the real estate back there anyway, and its high up where an antenna should be. Win-win. I also decided that I'd share the battery power from the PW with the wireless USB. PW's are not battery hogs, and going through a set or 2 of double AAs in a few hours is okay with me.

This design has everything I wanted, I could use it off camera by just putting it into a small case on the strap, that would free up my hot shoe for a flash. If I needed no on camera flash/controller then I could place the PW + WUSB on top and have everything all in one.

Building this was fairly simple, I didn't even change the right angle USB connector to a flat. I used a 2 AA battery holder from Radio Shack, cut out openings for USB and power. I also put a power switch into it from one of the previous 4AAA holders. I had to epoxy that into the case, but it went well. For power there are 2 spades that for now are getting wedged into the battery compartment of the PW. the 3 volts from there go inside the piggy back. Power is sent to the very small PCB that was inside one of the Energi to go power supplies. I use that as my 3v to 5v upvoltage circuit. The 5 Volts then gets sent to the wireless USB PCB.

I have the USB connector that goes to the camera in place. But I wanted a cleaner look so I cut up a mini-usb cable and soldered it in directly. This gave me the perfect run length with no slack. The USB connector still works however should I want to put the tether on the strap or my body and use a long cable. Also I can remove it completely if need be and the only modification to the pocket wizard was a small notch to let the power wires slip out of the battery cover.

Here a a few pictures going around if, feel free to ask questions guys.