by Gavin Seim: Triggering flashes wirelessly is becoming a popular creative lighting tool. Popular flashes from Canon and Nikon often have built in wireless, but its basically working with old infrared technology making it essentially a line of sight tool with limited reliability.
To resolve this, various third part products have come to the market. Pocket Wizards have been a popular choice and their early units, though larger and only providing manual control, seem to have a good reputation. More recently we’ve seen products that offer not only manual, but full auto control.
So, on to my straight dope review. First I purchased PW’s new Flex Control TL series which have full TTL functionality and high speed sync (Canon only for now, but Nikon coming soon). Sadly I was disappointed with almost useless results (for me at least). Range was claimed to be hundreds of feet and actual tests would not even produce consistent results at fifty.
by Alan Hutchison: More and more pro photographers these days are breaking out of their nice clean controlled studios to offer environmental portrait shoots.
Whilst the studio offers perfectly controlled lighting conditions, the big bad real world can throw up all sorts of challenges in your way. One of them is bright sunlight (ironically something I don’t actually have to worry about too much in my local area of Central Scotland).
But sunlight is easy to deal with, right? Weren’t we all told to keep the sun over our shoulder – i.e. ensure the light is falling on your subject. Whilst this is all well and good, with harsh bright sunlight you are going to get subjects with squinting eyes – not the most photogenic of looks. Continue reading ‘How to deal with bright sunlight on portrait shoots’
This week we talk about some great new gear and goodies, as well as hear cool tips from some great guests including the one and only David Ziser. Here’s all the glorious links and there’s a lot of them.
The Violinist by Alan Hutchison – Nikon D200 1/100s f3.0 ISO 800
By Alan Hutchison: I tend to shoot in a photojournalism style and in my opinion my best images are those where I manage to capture a special “moment”. It’s sometimes just luck, but a lot of the time it’s all about getting yourself into “the zone” and reading body language, watching for clues on when someone is about to smile or laugh, or do something a little crazy and knowing “the moment to click”. So when I’m in “that zone”, the last thing I want to be thinking about are my camera controls – I have to know them so well that I can change them without even thinking.
One area where my camera really helps to get me into the zone is the “Auto-ISO” feature.
The D3X is here. I don’t wanna get into the global politics of it all, but I felt this was worth reporting on. While I’m a Canon guy, I think Nikon makes great systems. Still, the cost of the D3X for what it offers… It does seem a bit spendy.
Frankly though I don’t blame Nikon for this outburst. I think the guy has way bigger problems. Enjoy
UPDATE: This was rumor, but It’s now official. You can see the Nikon press release here. I’ve updated details in the post to reflect released stats.
The D3X (ultra high resolution version of the Nikon D3) has been in the chatter for awhile. Here’s some rumor details over on Nikon watch. These come from the pages of a Nikon Pro magazine. Looks like the D3X is mainly a D3, but with a few changes. Still no video capability, though that should not bother most photographers… Should it?
Details: (Updated)
Full frame 24.5 megapixel FX sensor
5fps full res, or 7fps at 10 megapixels
Expanded ISO 50-6400 (No super high ISO shooting like the D3)
A new Active-D lighting mode
Cost will be about $8000 USD
Available in December 2008
Most of you readers know I’m a Canon shooter, but I have nothing against Nikon at all. My observation is that this does not offer much advantage over the current Nikon D3 other than megapixels, and will cost more. It also has less ISO range. Are any of you readers planning on picking one up? Do most of us need more pixels? Your thoughts?
