They are still full of mispronunciations and numerous grammatical errors, so as to remain true to the website. But at least they are now available reasonably in the UK and EU. If you drive on the left side of the road and think football is played with your feet, keep reading. __________
The Flash Centre, seen here propping up reader Richard Licence, is now carrying the set and will be shipping to UK and EU without your having to give up your firstborn kid. That means no extended waits, usurious duties or made-up UPS fees.
The price is £102.35 incl Vat (£89.00 exc Vat). Shipping to UK/EU will be £6.60 and £9, respectively. EU is three day delivery, UK is next day. After my experiences with the wonderful, deep-discount city you call "London," we worked the system to get pricing parity between the US and the UK. This may be a first in the history of the world.
It comes in at a little less before VAT and a little more after, and almost dead even when you add in the standard sales tax here in the US. Don't tell McDonalds we were able to do this, or they are gonna be pissed off.
They will be in stock as of Weds., January 14th. You can order in UK/EU from the web here. Or better yet, hit the TFC London store in person just to give Alex Ray a hard time about anything you want. (Tell him I said it was okay.)
More info on the DVDs is here, including how to best get them if you are not in the UK/EU area. And please remember that the camera adds 10 30 pounds.
Umbrellas are cheap, portable little light softeners. But there are enough choices available to make picking the right one a little confusing. Or worse yet, to end up with something that is completely a wrong fit.
Below are some of the pros and cons of each of the major types of umbrella. You'll find that choosing is easy, once you figure out how you will be most likely be using it. __________
Shoot-Thru or Reflective
The first choice you'll make is whether you will bounce off of an umbrella or diffuse light through it. This is also the biggest variable in the quality of light from an umbrella, so you'll want to make this decision first.
Shoot-thru's offer softer light, both because they are white (vs. silver) and because you can place them very close to your subject. This is simply because the shaft will not protrude into the frame in advance of the umbrella, because it is pointed in the other direction. So you'll get a larger apparent light source, and thus softer light.
Since the light source can be very close with a shoot-thru, it can also be very powerful. If you do outdoor headshots and compete with the sun's light level, this kind of thing matters. You'll want a shoot-through. Just come in as close as possible with that light source and keep it barely out of the frame.
Another advantage of a shoot-thru with a removable black backing is that you can partially gobo the light with the backing. This will remove some of the degree of coverage coming from your light source. This technique can keep light off of, say, the bottom of your frame, as seen here.
But given the same lighting distance, shoot-thru's are usually less efficient than their silvered reflective counterparts. And efficiency is important if you are lighting larger objects (such as full-length portraits rather than head-and-shoulder shots.)
To get even coverage over a larger area, you need to back that light up. And a silvered reflective umbrella will let you do that and keep a lot of light hitting your subject.
A good example is in this group shot, done with two, horizontally ganged 43" reflective umbrellas to make one large, efficient source for key lighting this group shot. It was done for one of the location shoots on the lighting DVDs inside of a dark, shiny room that just threw one problem at us after another.
The silvered umbrellas helped us keep as much of the flash's power as possible with a longer working distance. Additionally, the black-backed silver umbrellas also gobo'd themselves for us, as they were just out of the frame to camera left.
Rather than choose, I like to have this one both ways. I use shoot-through umbrellas with removable backings most of the time, but always keep a silvered umbrella or two with me. Fortunately, they are very cheap ($26 and $20, respectively) and the double-folds take up very little room in the light case. So it is easy to splurge for those two reasons.
Double-Fold or Regular
This one is easy. If space in your bag (or on your shoulder) is at a premium, go with a double-fold. If you value durability over marginal portability, get a standard umbrella.
Apples to apples, the prices are all in the same neighborhood, so this is really a physical size choice. The double-folds are wonderful little umbrellas, and at 43" they are great for general use. But you do have to be careful with them because they are constructed in a fairly lightweight manner to allow every thing to collapse upon itself.
That said, if you aren't using them in windy conditions they will hold up fine if you are careful. And you can make the tip of the shaft (where it gets clamped) stronger with a pencil stub.
Another factor to consider is whether you are using a normal stand or a 5-section compact model. With a normal stand, there is no reason to sacrifice strength and get a double-fold, as you are already committing to the linear space for the stand. May as well get the more sturdy umbrella, too.
Conversely, your choice of umbrella may dictate your choice of stand, so keep them both in mind when choosing.
Medium or Large
First of all, why not a small?
Because you can make any umbrella into a smaller light source by zooming in the flash head or choking up on the shaft (or both). And the smalls are only a few bucks cheaper than the mediums. If that. So go with at least a medium and you'll have more flexibility.
So your choice pretty much comes to something in the medium range (~43") or something in the large range (~60"). And speaking of inches, that measurement is the distance around the face of the umbrella, from tip to tip.
Why? Because it sounds bigger that way.
Second, a myth to dispel: You shouldn't use a huge umbrella with a small speedlight.
You absolutely can, but with the lower-powered flash you lose one of the biggest advantages of a huge umbrella, which is that you can back the light way up and still keep it soft.
With a speedlight, if you back that umbrella way up (say, to light a large object) you will lose effective power before you lose softness. But if you are shooting in a very low-light situation and your aperture is accordingly set (i.e., close to wide open) you can get away with it.
For just a few dollars, a speedlight in a 60" umbrella makes a gorgeous, soft, light source for close-up portraiture -- i.e., head shot, 3/4 shot. Just keep it in pretty close to the subject. And it doubles as a sweet main light mod if you add a more powerful monobloc to your bag later.
But for most shoots, a standard 43-45" umbrella is a great fit for a speedlight. It also gives you a nice power-to-effective-size ratio that works well with the small flashes.
My Suggestions
For most people, I would suggest starting with a pair of ~43" umbrellas for your first flash. One silver reflective, and one a removable-back shoot-thru. Standard or double-fold is a pick 'em, and your choice depending on the variables above. They are cheap, and adding a second won't really bump up the shipping much, either. Go crazy for once in your life.
For your next umbrella (say, if you have two flashes) I would suggest a second black-backed shoot-thru. This gives you the option of ganging them together for a huge light source in close, and/or using them high and low for "clamshell" lighting, seen in the head shot at left.
If you want to create very soft indoor light on the cheap (at close range) consider a 60" shoot-thru as a value-oriented option. And especially if your lighting arsenal includes a monobloc. But it will not have as much versatility as will a medium-sized umbrella.
Here are some of my favorite choices, all of which I consider to be good values, in umbrellas:
If your spouse (okay, statistically speaking for this site, your wife) found out how much you truly spent on photo gear in 2008, what would she do?
Why, she would grab one of your 5-section compact light stands and beat you to death with it, that's what she'd do. Fortunately, the light stand would still be usable for whoever bought it at your estate sale, because those little things are built like tanks.
The cops would first suspect your wife (they always check out the relatives first) and go about collecting evidence. And you'll be happy to know that a crime scene photographer would be using a little off-camera flash, as described in this quickie crime scene photography tutorial.
Effective January 1st of this year, ExpoImaging has dropped the price on the Ray Flash ring flash adapter to $199.95. ExpoImaging notes that the price drop is a result of their now being able to purchase the Ray Flash direct from the manufacturer, which removes a layer of distribution costs.
(Heck that's cool by us. We'll take a price drop if it is result of an alien abduction yielding the formula for transparent aluminum if that's what it takes.)
They are kicking the new price point off with a contest, in which the winner will see his or her Ray Flash photo used in an ad. (Rights stay with the shooter.) ExpoImaging also is kicking in lotsa merch for the winning entry.
One of the joys of being a photographer is the opportunity to spend your life intersecting with a steady stream of very interesting people. One such recent encounter was with author Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva), who I photographed for a literary magazine.
I never seem to have enough time these days to indulge in reading much fiction, but my wife is a big fan of Suri. My interest in him was primarily because of his alter ego as a mathematics professor at the nearby University of Maryland Baltimore County.
You don't run across too many people who can explain, in depth, the concept of infinity and crank out bestselling novels between classes.
Abstract Concrete, Redux
After a series of emails, we worked out that I would be able to photograph Suri in or near his office at the UMBC campus, before his midday class.
We would not get a lot of time, but that is part of the game (and, to me, a lot of the fun) when doing a magazine portrait. It is rather like the difference between playing a leisurely game of chess and playing a game under the gun with a timer.
An appropriate analogy in this case, because UMBC is a Big Dawg when it comes to intercollegiate chess. They delight in trapping the kings of players from schools where students pay three times UMBC's tuition.
Scouting within a small radius from Suri's office, I found an area behind his building where a weathered slab of concrete would make for an interesting background. Nearby was an indoor alcove where I could get a completely look, but I'll just be writing about the outdoor stuff to keep this post from turning into War and Peace.
In an earlier post entitled Abstract Concrete, I photographed a scientist who studies concrete at a molecular level. But for Suri, I just wanted to use the concrete wall itself as a starting point for a background.
I liked the patterns, but the tone was both too light and a little too homogenous -- both of which problems are easily solvable with a single speedlight.
Looking at this three-pic composite of the background, you can see the original (auto) exposure on the concrete as it appeared as I found it. It's just a quick grab shot, not even in focus. But it doesn't need to be in focus, as it will be my backdrop and I want to get a look at it a little out of focus anyway. The tone is maybe a stop above medium grey.
In the middle frame, you can see the the adjusted tone after dropping the ambient exposure two stops and change. I liked this one better. It is also in focus, which to my taste makes it less interesting (and more competitive with the subject) as a background.
For the third frame, I took it back out of focus (by focusing to the point in front where I would have Suri standing) and threw a little snooted flash onto it at a hard angle from camera right. The flash was about a foot or two from the wall, raking across, and fitted with a Honl shorty (5") snoot. I put the silver side on the inside to soften the transition from light to dark.
How much strobe you hit it with is purely a matter of personal taste. To me, this dropped-and-flashed background is more interesting than the plain, light grey wall I started out with. That random splash of light adds a little interest, and I can position it for nice shadow-side separation, if needed.
I frequently use this process to build up my backgrounds as a more interesting second layer to a photo. When looking for a backdrop, always realize that you can take your found surface down via the ambient component of the full exposure. Or you can bring it up with a little background flash. Or you can have it both ways, as we did here.
Enter Manil Suri. I used two SB-800s, each with LumiQuest SB-III modifier, for the key and the fill. The key light has a 1/8 CTO on it for a little warmth, and is about 5 feet from the subject at camera left.
At this distance the light is neither hard nor soft, which is a look that I like except you need to watch the shadow depth. And that depth can easily be controlled by altering the ambient exposure component.
But my ambient was being used to control the unlit portion of the background. So I would need to bring Suri's shadows up with a little fill. I chose to fill on-axis with a second SB-800 / Softbox-III, this one with no warming gel.
I could mount this flash on the hot shoe, although the SoftBox-III is a little big for that, and it would rotate with the vertical orientation of the camera. So I simply stuck it on a stand and shot from right under it. This way, you can get the bottom of the light right up against the lens barrel for more of an on-axis look to the fill.
The fill looked best at about 1 1/2 to 2 stops down, which kept the character of the hardish light without losing my shadow detail.
That one came off nice and quick. I liked it as a straight shot, but wanted to add another layer to it if I could do so without spending a lot of time. So I grabbed one of my favorite toys -- a Holga lens that has been mounted to a Nikon body cap.
I love the airy, ethereal, Holga look when it is added to hard, sculpted light. The two balance each other out like lemon and sugar in a glass of lemonade.
(You may need to click the pic for a bigger version to see what the Holga lens is doing to this photo.)
There is almost no extra time required to swap out and get this extra look. And the irony of sticking a $50 piece of plastic on a $5,000 D3 (1:100 lens to body cost) is not wasted on me, either.
CORRECTION: Although for this particular shot the Holga was back on a D300 -- only 36 times the cost of the lens...
This shot (seen at the top of this post and repeated here) was another quick add-on before going inside for the second setup. Just grab the key light and head over to under the exterior stairway to use it as a graphic element.
The process is very quick: Expose for the ambient, drop it 1 1/2 to two stops, bring in the warmed up key light (pretty close in this case) and adjust it's output until Suri has a good exposure.
The stairway and background vignette themselves because of the falloff of the nearby key light. Nothing complicated about it, but the stairs add a graphic element that gave me a second look before heading inside.
To Infinity, and Beyond
Suri really is an interesting guy. Not many people have that right brain / left brain thing going as well as he does.
If you want to see if you are capable of truly understanding infinity, take a look at his lecture on the subject, which was uploaded to YouTube.
If you plan on really trying to understand it, I would recommend two or three anticipatory aspirin, at the very least. __________
"We'd like to thank our parents, the Academy, the people who make black straws, Gary Fong and..."
Oh, wait. We've only been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards. We haven't actually won anything yet. We're just a finalist.
Hey, but being nominated is cool, too, right? Right? Hello?
Kidding aside, I am quite stoked to announce that that not only was Strobist nominated for Best Photo Blog (which is first time we have ever been nominated for anything) but the Strobist Flickr Group was nominated for Best Online Community. That's YOU.
This is hugemongous. I mean, you are sharing the dais with the likes of Android Community and the Michael Jackson Fan Forum. (If you are a a lighting photographer and a Jacko fan, it's decision time, bucko.)
In Best Photo Blog there are many strong finalists, including The Online Photographer and the always first rate Big Picture, which surfs the wires for great photos and gives them the play they deserve. (It is run by the picture desk at The Boston Globe.)
So put down that G-Phone, grab your white sequined voting glove and take a moment cast your ballot. You are allowed to vote once every 24 hours, too. Vote for Best Photo Blog here, and Best Online Community here.
You remember at the end of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where Jeff "Surf's Up" Spicoli hires Van Halen to play his birthday party? Why on earth would someone do something like that?
Because they can.
Which is exactly why Profoto hired Annie Leibovitz to shoot a series of portraits of Conny Dufgran, (co-founder and chairman of Profoto) for their 40th Anniversary. Not a bad day at the office.
Leibovitz used a new Profoto Pro-8, of course, because showing up with a bag of old Vivitar 285's would not exactly have been cool. Not that Annie has even seen a 285 in the last 20 years, I'll bet, as ahe uses Profoto. And besides, the Pro-8 has roughly the same recycling rate as an M240 Bravo. Which is nice.
Going by this video, the new high-end studio strobe comes with a soundtrack of singing angels, too. As well it should if it can keep up with a D3 firing on full auto at the lower power settings.
That's not the camera beeping along with each exposure. That's the flash signaling that it is ready to fire again.
Holy crap, is that thing fast. My guess: They swapped the regular caps in the power pack for flux capacitors. (When you hit 88 MPH, it is ready for the next frame before you actually shoot the current frame.)
Matt Hill, the man behind the curtain at the Profoto blog, was on the "A" cam shooting the behind-the-scenes video (embedded above) from the photo shoot.
Hit the jump for Matt's behind-the-scenes comments from the behind-the-scenes video, and a bonus, 100% gear porn video of all of the knobs and switches on the new Ferrari-of-Flashes Profoto Pro-8. __________
As always, it is the details that make the photo. The more I see of this lady at work, the more I realize how little she leaves to chance. Which is why I am always making mental notes when I am watching her videos.
Says Matt:
"Eckhard Heine, Profoto's other co-founder, has since passed away and when Annie was developing the concept for the shoot, I hear she wanted to honor their long relationship by including him in the photograph.
The large chalkboard you see behind Conny on the interior locations is hand-drawn schematic of one of the earliest Profoto flash generators. I saw one of Annie's crew drawing it on the chalkboard in our warehouse during prep for the shoot.
If you look closely at the right-hand side of photograph on our webpage, you will see on the computer screen a schematic from the Pro-8. The juxtaposition of old and new in one photograph... very subtle, in my opinion."
That background makes the shot, IMO. Neat thinking -- and execution.
Okay, how many photographers does it take to screw in a modeling light bulb? Well, lessee...
"There were four people (including Annie) listed as "crew", three Photo Assistants, two working on production, one on-set coordinator and four people listed as set designer, two on-set and two that were not."
Yeah, pretty much the same way I roll on a portrait shoot.
Also wedged into the scene were the Profoto documentation squad: Matt on "A" cam, Max Hull on "B," and Ab Sesay shooting stills. Matt edited, and for all I know did the background singing vocals, too.
Matt goes on:
"It was a fun day. Annie shot shot the second and third locations that day at our office. The first was at a marina in City Island at 6:30am."
Here's the result -- click for bigger in a new window:
"The setup was fluid - busy assistants like Nick Rogers setting and metering lights. During the shoot, you can see that the lights were moving until Annie saw what she wanted happening. It was a wonderful process to watch live. You can hear her asking Nick, 'Just a little bit lower to get the eye, please.' The stop-motion segments really show how she shifts the lighting constantly.
In retrospect, I learned that your first setup is simply that - a good place to start. Look, evaluate, and adapt until you get what you want.
I hear there is a lot of talk about her shooting rapid bursts of frames - anything I say about that would be a guess. Perhaps she was stretching her legs since the Pro-8 can keep up with the D3?"
(Yeah, just like the M240B, except that you don't have to bore-sight the Pro-8 a little down and to the left because it doesn't walk up and right when you fire it like the 240 does...)
"Annie was using the flash power at a very low level and shooting at a higher ISO (I heard 800 at one point). I can see how powerful that technique can be with low-noise processing and modern DSLRs. She blends it very well. Seeing all the diffused, bounced and ambient sources blend is akin to a well-performed symphony of light."
(Aw geez, Matt -- I was right there with you until the "symphony of light" remark. You still have stars in your eyes, dude...)
"The third and final set of the day was in the most unlikely spot - our Service Department. It was cramped, full of manuals, tools and work going in and out. Having a large crew on the shoot, plus our video/still crew and other people interested in seeing what was going on made it exciting. This is the shot you see featured for the 40th Anniversary, and that desk belongs to a one of our Profoto technicians."
Yeah, well. I am just thinking how much better the piece would have been with a third video camera in the mix. For next time, you have my number. __________
And now, your moment of knob-twiddling, dial-caressing, wallet-busting zen:
Official price is listed as: "If You Have To Ask..."
Thanks for the video, Matt -- and for the color commentary.
Okay, not exactly.
The Flash Centre, seen here propping up reader Richard Licence, is now carrying the set and will be shipping to UK and EU without your having to give up your firstborn kid. That means no extended waits, usurious duties or made-up UPS fees.
