Long And Low At the Hot Rod Show - with Fuji and Nikon and Metz

The great experiment conducted over the six months regarding a camera for hot rod photography has yielded results. The Fuji/Nikon/Metz lash-up does pretty near everything that the Nikon/Nikon/ Stroboframe outfit did, and it does it easily enough that an old guy can carry it round in the sun all day.

If I am prepared to carry a second Nikon SB 700 on a little Manfrotto stand I can get great illustration of the front grille and the side panel of even the long cars. Of course, if you are dealing with something white like the '59 Impala you can get a lot more value out of those flashes.

How does this help you? If you are going to go out and climb Bluff Knoll with a camera kit bouncing in your backpack, consider whether you want that camera kit to weigh 3.5 Kg or 1 Kg. It's your back going up and it's your back coming down, and it's your back sitting in the chiropractor's waiting room...And those of you who have spent a fortnight on Ibruprofen and Voltaren can back me up...

Also consider whether you need to go to a shoot with 5 lenses. I used to do just this in the dear dead Hasselblad wedding days. Everything in the HB box including the 250mm tele lens in case the bride escaped and I needed to shoot her before she got over the horizon...My assistant, Igor, used to hump the bag and the tripod and the extra flashes and the film and the bag of rocks...( I never actually told him about the bag of rocks...) and never complained. Fainted occasionally, but never complained.

Eventually I discovered that I was using two lenses for the whole wedding. An 80mm and a 50mm, and the 50 only came out of the massive case for 5 exposures. I eventually rationalised the whole thing by leaving out half of the glass and most of the fancy little accessories. It freed up a lot of space in the case...for more rocks.

That is history - the Hasselblad outfit is long retired and recently sold, and the new owners can risk their vertebrae at their leisure. Weddings still need extra gear for back-up safety, but this can be hauled in a roller bag. Lithium AA cells power all three flashes and these are light weight. Igor looks healthier, and after-shoot processing is so much faster.

I still pack a bag of rocks but these are only in case the bride proves sluggish. And I never throw rocks at hot rod shows. Some things are sacred, you know...

Moral of this tale: Buy right, pack light, allow for wind direction when throwing rocks.

Singhing In The Rain

Here is a post for all our Sikh* photographers.

Have you considered getting one of the Promaster 72" white umbrellas for your studio? We have one in the shop right now and it is the most marvellous light shaper that you have ever seen. It is the BIGGEST light shaper you have ever seen, with the exception of the Redwing soft box we had a few years ago that needs a commercial scaffolding firm to erect.

People sometimes decry the humble umbrella, but when it is 72 inches in diameter it is not humble. It will throw massively soft light either as reflected or shoot through. It is not too heavy, though it will be necessary to consider the effect of wind if you are going to take it outside. Normally something this big in a stiff breeze has either Mary Poppins or a paratrooper under it...

If you cannot manage the full 72", we also have 60" and 45" sizes. Some of them are white and some are black/silver.

*And all those who are seeking to do good studio photos.

Great Deals From Shoot!

Hop to the phone and get yourself a bargain!

Jonathan Cousins from Shoot Photography Workshops has some specials for the coming Valentine's day - 20% off all photo courses if you book between now and the 14th. What could be more romantic!

As well, there is a 2 for 1 offer for the following courses:

Tonight's 1st Photojournalism course...11th of February

Astrophotography on the 15/16 February

Off Camera Flash Techniques on the 23rd of February

Please give Jonathan a buzz on 9228 8232 or 0419 956 878 and book in for a bargain.

Note: Planets and stars will be provided for the astrophotography course but only at night...

The Last Puppy In The Pound

We sometimes look at the shelves here and wonder. First we wonder where we are going to put things. Then we wonder where we DID put things. Finally we wonder if anyone will ever buy some of the cameras.

The ones that cause bemusement are not bad devices - they have been purchased by us for sale and will do the job they are advertised to do, and in most cases do it very well. But some of them have been designed by manufacturers that were thinking well outside the trapezoid. With one eye shut. And a cheap haircut.

Unless the buyer is of the same mind, they can languish longer than they need to. Sometimes it is a case of a design that does not have what the competitors have, but sometimes it is just a product that has been wrapped in a strange body shape. It is wonderful that humanity can have such a variety of aesthetic appreciation, but a pity that it sometimes leaves the ugly puppy in the pound.

But there is hope. Every puppy has a friend somewhere. Look at the images taken at the recent Big Al's Poker Run show. Someone once loved the 1957 Hudson and someone still does - enough to have purchased it in NSW just this last year and to have brought it to WA. I don't think it takes pictures, though.

The moral of all this is come on down and look at the shelves. If you see something that appeals to you, for heaven's sake buy it. You might be the only one save the designer that has ever liked it - your reward will be the sense of style and whatever images it will churn out. And the admiration of the staff - always a valuable commodity.

Long And Low At The Hot Rod Show

I sometimes forget just what North America was like - the tennis fans in the hotel at breakfast have reminded me of certain accents that I had as lief forgot. This morning's visit to the hot rod show in Melbourne showed me what I never saw -the amazing lengths to which the North American car designers went to make luxury cars.

Observe the Lincoln Continental. Not the longest one there for that matter but certainly the lowest Lincoln in the land. Those wheels and tires look as if they were taken off a tram, but that is a fashion in the modern kustom world. I should like to see it go over the railway lines...

 Another observation for the day was the number of can't-see-um cameras in use by the rest of the punters. Full glare and peering into an LCD screen. Folks, buy a Fuji X Series or a Canon G 16 or a Leica M! You get a free optical or electronic viewfinder in every box...You can actually see what it is you are photographing before you get it home.

I counted photographers there and compared how many were using fill flash or booster flash in the hall-roughly 2% of people with cameras that were fitted with flashes. I was pleased that they did, and I suspect they will be too.  Victoria was experiencing sunshine and they would have benefitted from the reduction in contrast obtainable by this method. One brave individual had an Olympus Trip 35 in operation and he was busy doing what they rest of us were doing but he wasn't chimping after each shot. Neither was I, I hasten to add - I have enough confidence in my Fuji X camera to know that if I am hitting below the waterline at the start the good shooting will continue. The end review confirmed this. I can say that hot rods and kustoms do help with the photos as they are either colourful or spectacular. If you can outwait the cow-like meanderings of the crowd and get a clear shot at the car you want it can be very rewarding. I found myself resorting to sending negative waves to shift them. At one point I found myself whistling " Scotland The Brave " off-key to drive one pest away. If I was writing a novel I couldn't make this stuff up...

Barn Doors

The iconic picture that says Hollywood - Marilyn Monroe standing on an air vent...No, no, no - enough of that. Expunge that thought*. I mean the iconic picture of a Klieg light on a stand with barn doors open on the front of it.

Those elephant-ear flaps at the side of the light are duplicated in nearly every lighting manufacturer's catalog, whether it is studio flash like Elinchrom or Profoto or strobist  gear from the little Chinese shops. The method of attachment is different in every case but the basic form is the same - four plates that fold into themselves set round about the light. They are different sizes and materials but they all have one thing in common - they are too small.

Shock. Horror. Manufacturer's representatives reel back aghast. Someone has discovered the truth. Dive for the foxholes...

I use Elinchrom lights in my studio and have a set of barn doors for the 21 cm reflectors. They are well-built and double as gel holders, but they do not restrict the light enough to make themselves useful. The flash tube ring is big enough that it always looks past the door flaps as soon as they are opened even a peep.

Don't accuse Elinchrom - the other people's offerings are no better. There is always some place that the light leaks out on all the barn doors.

You see, what we didn't really see when we looked at the classic Hollywood doors is the fact that they are sitting on big - focussed - lights and the doors are really massive. And the film crews supplement them with flag flats and drapes and all sorts of other light restrictions. In the end I decided to follow them.

I went to a firm that makes display banners. They sold big sheets of Foam-Core board in flat black, about 3.5 feet by 5.5 feet. I used gaffer tape to join three of these together on the long edges and the whole flat can then stand by its own effort like a dressing screen.

When I need to restrict light, once the barn doors are in place, I prop the flag flat up around the light stand and I can direct a blast of light very accurately. Actually, I have two of these flag flats and they are essential to dramatic lighting. Like most of the best studio gear, they are home-made.

And there is no sense locking the barn doors when the light has flown...

* Haven't expunged it, have you...?

Finally - A Battery To Get Charged Up About

Pardon the corny heading. Battery and charging and all that - it is he legacy of hack writing for newspapers and small publications. At least I didn't use the WAR! typeface or Gotcha!

The product that got me going is an answer to the enquiries we get regarding portable studios. Lots of people have studio mono-block kits made by Elinchrom and Bowens - as well as other manufacturers - and want to take the lights out into the open where they cannot access AC mains.

Some firms make battery sets that can power these mono-blocks.  I remember that they were lead-acid types that weighed a fair bit  and were bulky. Some units, like the inexpensive D-lite sets from Elinchrom, did not have a connection point for an DC battery. Users were forced to go over to the speed-light system and work with little AA cells.

Now they can have the battery pack option out in the field. Jin-bei is a Chinese manufacturer who has made a number of flash units, soft boxes , and light stands. They have brought out the EN-350 inverter set. Please see the images and note that they device converts the DC from the Li-ion battery to AC and allows two conventional Australian cords to plug in. Your D-lite will chug away quite happily just as usual for a hundred shots or so.

It is light enough to be packed easily over one shoulder and comes with a padded bag and a dedicated clamp that allows you to attach it to the side of a standard light stand. The whole lot in one small footprint. I should thoroughly recommend a D-lite 4 head, a 44cm Minisoft beauty dish , and this inverter for a one-light field portrait setup. I have tried it on me and it makes ME look beautiful...

Seriously useful for a small price - $ 399.

I Lost My Heart...

In San Francisco. Tony Bennett found it, but won't send it back. Bummer, dude...

I also lost my charger, download cable, and flash stand for my Canon 430 EX II, 600 RT. Nikon Sb700, and 910 flashes. That's a lotta losing, but I am careless when I go out to do strobist shooting.

Fortunately Promaster have come to the rescue - they have just sent us a supply of the multi-mount flash stands. These have thee shoe positions with locking holes for the standard flash hot-shoe and a 1/4" threaded hole in the underside for the light stand or tripod. it is a proper brass threaded socket too - good and tough.

Now the loss of the charger is also solvable with a Hahnel universal charger and the cable can be safely dispensed with now that I have a Hoodman RAW STEEL USB 3.0 card reader.

But it still leaves the problem of Tony Bennett...

The Humbrella

The humble umbrella. Gene Kelly danced to stardom with one - apparently under a rain of diluted condensed milk ( It showed up better in the Klieg lights on set...wonder what the sound stage smelled like a week after the filming?) and they have featured in French films and Japanese paintings for centuries.

They also feature in some of the smaller ready-made flash systems. The Elinchrom company make a number of two-head kits that feature theses light modifiers. They are inexpensive, easy to carry, and foolproof.

Strobist kits also carry them - you are enjoined by the makers to fire your speed lights into them and reflect the light onto your subject as a wide, soft illumination. By and large they work every time.

The heading image is possibly the laziest product shot I have ever taken, as I did not move from the editorial swivel chair to do it. It shows the rack we have dedicated to Promaster umbrellas. These have a standard diameter shaft ( As opposed to the slightly smaller Elinchrom umbrellas) and are suitable for all sorts of studio monoblocks and speed light brackets. You can get quite large ones - up to 72 inches.

There is quite a variety of construction as well - the basic black outside is standard but you can get the interior with a white or a silver finish. The white has a softer illumination - the silver harder and more specular. There are shoot-through umbrellas that are a very soft modifier and some that amount to a soft box. Admittedly it works backwards as you fire your flash into it away from the subject and depend upon the reflective surface and a diffuser panel inside the umbrella to spread the light.

Best of all with any of them is the fact that you can go out to a job in the field with them collapsed and rolled up and then erect them in a second when you are in position. Soft boxes are never this easy - you either have to assemble them on he site with much bending of arms and puffing and cursing, or take them assembled in the car. They never fit easily in any car...

They are cheap, compared to soft boxes. If you have a need for soft light anywhere I can readily recommend one. In store now.

Hark The Herald Tribune Cries " Come In Here And Buy, Buy, Buy "

With apologies to Tom Lehrer…but it is the last Saturday before Christmas and it is traditional that you come in to the shop and buy something. We would prefer that you ask for photographic equipment but if you insist on hammers or plates of liver, we will do what we can to oblige…

It is also traditional in Western Australia to panic when it comes to the holidays. People look forward to one day of the year when the shops are shut and calculate that they will not be able to get bread or milk and rush out and empty the shelves and service station tanks…and in this spirit we would like to remind you that we will be shut from 3:00PM on the 24th until after New years. So rush in here and empty the shelves - you never can tell when you will wake up in the middle of the night and need a telephoto lens. Play it safe - buy several.


Merry Christmas from Uncle Dick

Dinner Of the Camera Party

With profound apologies to M. Renoir...

What do camera people do when they are not standing behind the counter at Camera Electronic? They dine at the Duckstein Brewery in the Swan Valley, of course. This is the holiday season and with Christmas coming up we all repaired to the Duck to recruit the tissues and revive the mind.

Aside from testing the malted waters...and I can particularly recommend the Dunkel...and the sauerkraut, we indulged in that most sporting of pastimes: shooting people. I hasten to add, for the benefit of whatever spy agency monitors this blog ( Hey! to Langley...)that we used Fuji cameras and flashes for the task.

I used the X-10 and Dom used the X-Pro 1 with the EF-X20 flash. His pictures came out better than mine but that is because he did not get served his Dunkel as quickly as I. I'm satisfied, though, as I have good souvenirs of the night, quite apart from the deadly hangover and the lump behind the ear where the barmaid hit me with the litre stein.

The trick was - Dom was using the flash and I was relying upon an extreme ISO and a steady hand. I did mention the Dunkel, didn't I? The flash and the circuitry in the Fuji were able to sort out a perfect front exposure while leaving some of the back light to imprint behind thee main subject. Make no mistake - that is the real secret of party and event photography.

Never mind light from three separate directions and diffusers and assistants and artspeak - you need a clean clear front flash or at least a clean bounced flash with a little front card light to get the best out of faces. If you can get some background light and colour, so much the better. You are looking for good grip-and-grin with couples and foursomes - after that you can plan out epic shots with your three assistants and a Klieg light.

Fuji does this - I can get good selfies if I pop up the flash at 200 ISO and set the thing on P. Dom can get great G&G with the EF-X20. If you are using one of the X100 or X100s it is even better - the whole thing is self-contained and you can instruct the camera to fire whenever it thinks it knows what you want to do better than you do.

The perfect Dunkel camera...

Don't Look, Don't Look....Ahh...Too Late...

Did goe to the " Celebration of The Motorcar " at Cottesloe Civic Centre yesterday and was greatley amused.

The first point of note was the method of entry - the cash desk was unprepared for the hordes who assaulted them. $ 20 to get in - money to charity - but so many bank machines issue $ 50 notes that you need a big float to cope with ticket sales. It is a point that catches many small traders at markets, too. You only need one $ 100 note man at the start to screw up sales for the rest of the morning.

Once in, I assembled my professional-quality internationally-famous state-of-the-art image capture system ( Also known as my Fuji X-10 and a Nikon SB 700 on an old Metz bracket.) out of it's high-tech carrying system ( An old Tamrac bag and a spare woollen sock.) and started to take pictures of the cars. Then it started.

It always starts. Whenever I am out with other photographers I start to notice what they are carrying - and what they are doing with it. I try not to look - but the instinct of the sales trade is too strong. I MUST look...

I can look with some degree of pity - I have been where many of them are now, and I can recognise the symptoms. I know what impels some of them - like the man with the Black Rapid double harness and the two battery gripped DSLR cameras depending from the straps. I saw that in the shop and I saw myself as the sportswar correspondent running through the shell craters with two rigs...Fortunately I snapped out of it here in the shop before I did myself an injury. I hope the gentleman is similarly lucky - I admire his fortitude in the sunshine. And I was amazed when he pulled yet a third grip-equipped DSLR from some other portion of his person for the fisheye lens. I stopped myself from following him in case he had an 800mm telephoto and all my concepts of space and time would have been voided.

The other end of the equipment spectrum was much in evidence - the mobile phone camera. Held at arm's length and waved in the sunshine. I have been assured by mobile phone salesman that this produces a file fully as detailed as that from a full-frame DSLR with full studio lighting plus you can order pizza on it. This is patent nonsense - I tried calling Domino's on a Canon 5D Mk III and got nowhere. The man with the iPad was wrong - just wrong.

Somewhere in between were the small DSLR users  - I saw plenty of APSC Canon and Nikon cameras and the users were doing pretty well in their framing and angles. But not a one of them popped up their integral flash for a bit of fill. In some cases it would have made all the difference to a shot into dark wheel wells and the shaded side of a car. But they will get better and good on them.

One enthusiast was using a Leica M digital camera - with what looked like a 28 mm lens. He had on the correct lens hood and was focussing, squaring, and settling himself for his shots. I think he will have some good results from that Leica lens.

Later in the day I believe that Thorsten Overgaard and Saul took a number of their Leica enthusiasts to the show with a lot of the new equipment. With Mr. T's instructions they should have gotten some very good shots - particularly as the light would have been settling in from the west. Of course I still say "fill" but that is just me.

One final note for car show photographers. Car shows are crowded affairs and you sometimes want to get an undisturbed view of a car but are continually being baulked of your desire by people wandering into the frame. There are two methods of dealing with this - a pea shooter and a pocket full of small pebbles to blast them away from your front - or the Jedi Mind Trick.

For the latter, you just position yourself where you need to be for the car and stare at it. As the oicks wander in you direct vibrational mind messages to them that this is not the car they are looking for. Eventually they move away - be pre-focussed and ready for a snap shot when it is clear. May the Force be with you.

Batter Up - Increasing Your Hits

Those of you who have been following my other blog - Here All Week at  hrhoa.wordpress.com will have read of my efforts to lighten the load when I go out and shoot motor car shows. I mentioned it here as well, when I ran afoul of Western Australia's harsh mid-day sunshine.

Well, a little thinking and a determination to keep my pocket money for beer, books, and toy cars has paid off. I rustled through the Hazel Leaf Studio cassette de junque and found a metal Metz 45 flash bar, a Stroboframe 300-405 locking accessory shoe, and a Nikon SB 700 flash. The Nikon goes on remote SU-4 and manual setting, and the Fuji X10 on the Metz bar fires it off - even in the strongest direct sunlight. Powerful fill flash results, and as the Fuji synchs at all speeds. you can leave it on M and play all up and  down the keyboard.

Children - TTL flash is wonderful for weddings, kids in the park, and infantry assaults when you really have no time to think out your settings. But you never learn to light with TTL. Go manual and shoot and look and think and shoot again.

So is it lighter than an equivalent DSLR rig? Yes, by a factor of several tonnes. Does it do the job? For web publication, brilliantly well. It is the answer for the Automotive Jimmy Olsen who wants to fly but doesn't want to have to do it in the bomb bay of a B-36.

Note to photos: the local team lost woefully at the baseball last night but the Fuji was a winner. Also, note the sticker on the back of the '60 Lincoln. I didn't know whether to be delighted or appalled...

Uncle Dick's Feijoada

Look it up - look it up. You're on the computer anyway so just Google feijoada. It is what they created Tupperware containers for...

Right. Learned something of interest to Nikon and Fuji users last night - actually might work for Canonistas as well, but I have to experiment down here at work before I can confirm it. The basic problem was to go out to the field and take car pictures in bright sunlight - see my previous post decrying the sun for the difficulties of this - and to do this at a distance...about 2100 Km.

I want to take pictures of the Victorian Rod Show and the Australia Day car display in Melbourne. I could do it by one of several means: take the Nikon D 300s, the Nikon SB 700 flash, and the Stroboframe Pro RL bracket, or take the Fuji X-10 by itself. The former gives great shots but is heavy and cumbersome, and I don't want to ship the entire rig back and forth for a 10 day's holiday. The latter gives good shots but is defeated by the shadows under the cars or in their interiors.

I could rent a Nikon outfit at Michael's in Elizabeth Street but that would cost money. I could ship my Nikon outfit over in a Pelican case and then back again but THAT would cost money. I could purchase a big Fuji flash for the little Fuji but that would cost money. I am cheap. I needed to think it all out.

The answer lay in the menus of the Fuji and of the SB 700 - and hanging on the doorknob of the computer room. I switched the flash to "remote" and searched the menu for "SU-4". Then I went into the Fuji menu and enabled the external flash. The Sb 700 was put onto Manual and dialled down to 1/8 power. I pulled the Manfrotto monopod off the door and cleaned the blood and fur off it.

Fuji at 400 ISO, f:8, 1/125 second in Manual mode. Flash up. Camera fires, flash fires, SB 700 fires, perfect exposure. I have SB 700 in one hand and the camera in the other so I have off camera flash by the simplest means possible. If I attach the SB 700 to my monopod or extension pole I can do anything I want with it. And it'll cost me nothing. I'll fuel the Sb 700 with a fresh set of AA lithium batteries and I am laughing all holiday.

Note that this outfit goes into my little Tamrac shoulder bag that I got for free along with my mobile phone, notebook, and a muesli bar. The food at the Victorian Rod Show is awful so I go prepared. Note also that the Manfrotto monopod I carry to support the camera is also air-transportable, so I am good to go. I'll still visit Michaels. but only to spy on them...

Other users of other systems can benefit from this sort of flash connection - as long as they do not need the TTL facilities that the major manufacturers build into their respective systems. TTL is wonderful but you can use flash without it. We do it in a studio all the time.

Man Conquers Sun - Pictures To Follow

A few posts ago I showed photos taken at the Vauxhall Car Owners Day and whinged about the sunlight. They were taken in the broad light of noon and had the unpleasant sort os shadows that obscure detail. Of course, when you are looking at Vauxhalls that can be a blessing...

Warned by this, I went out to take photos of the British Classic Day at Pinjarra Raceway yesterday. I knew it would also be out in the open in full sun - and thought out a different rig to tackle it.

Where the first foray had been with the trusty Fuji X-10, yesterday saw a run with the equally trusty Nikon D300, Nikon SB 700 flash gun, and Stroboframe PRO-RL flash bracket. And a hat.

Well, Pinjarra did not disappoint - smelly oval, smelly cars, and smelly owners. ( Horse poo, petrol leaks, and sweat...doesn't get better.) Broads sun and enough fill bouncing back off the freshly mown infield to act as a partial reflector. And the SB 700 to fire into the rest.

The Stroboframe rig lets you do landscape or portrait with a quick flip of the camera while keeping the SB 700 way up the top out of trouble. The flash can be angled down 30º to drop onto closeup subjects. No lousy shadows crossing the subject to break a good line.

The great part about day shows is you can run the ISO low and the flash fills beautifully. No fiddling with reflectors and diffusers either - belt it out. The subjects are colourful enough to repay the bright light. If you are going to be worried about reflections on the side of the car you can always throw a handful of dirt on it...

Note also that many owners at car shows open the bonnets of their prize vehicles to show off the wonderful engines. In the case of British cars they open the bonnet to show off the wiring and gain the sympathy of the crowd. I always like to stay for the ceremonial burning in effigy of the designer of the Lucas electrical system - one year they tried to set it off by electricity and we were reduced to rubbing two boy scouts together...

Boom boom.

Smoking Hot Fresh From The Rumour Mill

Never mind the Canon rumours. Never mind the Nikon rumours. Never mind the Fuji, or Olympus, or anyone else's rumours. They are nothing, now that the Flapoflex Rumour mill is up and running.

Flapoflex goes far beyond speculation about a retro-styled camera - Flapoflex cameras are retro all the way through, from the glass-like substance used for the lens to the sensor overlain on genuine mahogany, harvested while the Philippines were still Spanish. Style that ravished them in the Gay Nineties can still set hearts aflame. Flapoflex remembers the look! Flapoflex remembers the feel! Flapoflex remembers the MAINE!

There is no portion of the rumour market that Flapoflex does not serve, from the persons who want more supposed bokeh than their brother-in-law to the tourist who may or may not be going to Asia, Africa, and Alaska in two days time. If you want the latest fantasy, before anyone else gets it, un-touched by human hands, at a price that is less than the internet, look to Flapoflex. At Flapoflex we invent the future...we just never bother to file the patent application.

Now a lot of kill-joys point out on the other rumour sites that their respective companies experience delays and setbacks in camera production. Tidal waves, Allied bombing, roach infestations...these have all been cited as reasons why people cannot have what they want when they want it. Sometimes we suspect that these epidemics and devastations are nothing but a made-up excuse for lack of management expertise. I mean, how hard is it to organise a new camera in a cloud of radioactive dust? I mean, really...

Flapoflex adopt a different attitude. We refuse to supply what you want but we do not hide behind the weather or the economic situation. You don't get what you want because WE SAY SO. It is good for your character. And it is good for us, too. If we keep you continuously dangling on the line with hints and mock-ups and mysterious advertisements, you will be far more receptive to the next model of the Flapoflex that we bring out with the LCD screen that is 0.2 mm larger on the diagonal and hinged to the right to catch you in the eye. 

Hey. That's a rumour. Are ya hungry, boy? Are ya? Sit up and beg...

Curse You Western Australia - Curse You For Your Fine Weather

Did goe to the parke yesterday and was greatley amused.

The Vauxhall Owners Club was having their annual " Show and Shine " display. The venue was a local riverside park and the area was coated with picnickers, little dogs, and aged British tin. It was also coated with the bane of the photographer - bright noontime sunshine.

Perth does not have the advantages that Melbourne has - if you are a photographer there and you find that the light conditions are unfavourable for your subject, you can go have a cheap cappuchino and come back in a half hour and it will have changed. We get neither the cheap coffee nor the convenient scrim of cloud. We have intense bright sun blasting down on us.

Witness the shadows on the Vauxhall cars - I've softened them up a little with photoshop Elements but they are still black as an ironmonger's heart. As the sun was overhead - it WILL do that at noontime, despite repeated requests - it makes for some pretty unflattering lighting. Had I included scantily-clad models with the cars it would have been worse - dark eye sockets and shadows under all the prominent features. Ick.

If I was using the Nikon D300 outfit with the the SB700 flash on-board or at the end of a coiled cord I could have directed light into the undersides of the cars and all would have been well. The Little Fuji X-10 I used has a small fill tube but it would never have done anything outside.  It did improve interior shots for one of the Vauxhall drophead coupés but that is close range stuff.

Answer in the future? And an answer that you might like to pursue for your own field photography...a Hahnel Combi-TF set. The radio signal from the transmitter on the Fuji would go to the receiver with one of the Nikon SB700's. Putting this onto a small Manfrotto studio stand would allow me to step away and have the fill come from wherever I wanted. It is not going to be a TTL connection, but a quick test for the power level should sort that out.

A little more gear to take with me, but a pretty good way to cope with Old Sol.

X-10 and X-20 - A Small Trap For the Unwary

A day of discoveries.

I use the Fuji X-10 and am delighted with it - should I lose it under a steam roller or over a waterfall I would replace it with the Fuji X-20. Same ease of handling and compact size - improved sensor action and in-bult cutoff for the back screen when you bring it to your eye. Same bottle - new wine - great flavour either way.

BUT.

The Fuji X20 flash unit is another thing. It is a small external flash unit that claps onto the Fuji shoe and locks there. It is necessary for the Fuji X-Pro1 as that camera does not have an on-board flash tube. But it can also be used on the X-10 easily. You just find the menu setting to enable external flash and set it on and blaze away.

When I tried to demonstrate this ease of use to a customer I could not get the external flash setting to appear - it was greyed out. The customer was frustrated and so was I. He wandered away to find another salesman who was younger, smarter, and faster ( fortunately he did find one...) and I was left to puzzle it out by myself. Eventually I did so.

If you mistakenly put the X-20 camera into the Automatic mode rather than Aperture priority or Program, the external flash option is denied to you. The Fuji people leave you to use the pop-up flash and that is that - I suspect it allows them to integrate the flash output with a pre-flash, but don't quote me on it. Suffice it to say that if you want to use the hot shoe, use it on Aperture priority, Shutter priority, Program or Manual.If yo select  EXR, Sp, Adv. and Auto, it don't let you do it.

There. I didn't get younger, faster, or richer, richer... but I did get smarter...

Ooh - Look At All The Coloured Lights!

1960's and 1970's - heyday of the coloured gel in the studio. With the new flash systems you could put a piece of extremely expensive cellophane in front of the and fire them off and get funky effects. We knew they were funky because we saw them in advertisements in German magazines. A lot of us weren't exactly sure what funky meant, but...

Reel forward ( Reel? I will explain reels to you later children, once the arthritis medicine kicks in.) to now and the necessity of applying delicate touches of colour to studio work. See the heading illustration. All major flash makers produce some form of gel holder for their light shapers - generally it will clip onto the front of a standard reflector:

You can enclose the gel in a cardboard frame or you can slip it in there palin. What you cannot do is slip in a piece of cheap newsagency cellophane over a modelling light (I'll explain cellophane children, as soon as the gout medicine ramps up.) as it will melt, catch fire, or start twerking. You have to use real gels designed to withstand heat.

Enter the Rosco Gels. Here are a variety of them in convenient packets. You can get colour correction, violent tints, diffusion sheets, or theatre colours. Better still, I see the Rosco people can also supply the stuff in rolls - 48 inches wide and 100 square feet on he roll. This means you could gel a soft box as easily as you could do it on a standard reflector. The big rolls are a special order through us but the small packets are in-store now.

One thing to remember with gels. Too much is rarely enough.

Coil and Recoil

The modern speedlight flash is a marvel. Gone are the days of a complex guide-number chart on the back or a dial that has four different circles in four different colours. The new flash may have nothing more than an on-off switch. It is nevertheless capable of full TTL operation with the computer in your camera and the resulting exposure can be balanced far better than ever we did when we were pacing off the distance between ourselves and the subjects.

The trick is the dedicated contacts in the hot shoe - 3 for Nikon and 4 for Canon. They pass the coded signals back and forth at the speed of light. It is perfectly feasible to take flash pictures all day and not touch any of the controls. Yay.

But when you need the direction of the flash to be different than stuck on the top of the camera you need to get that same control at a distance. Here is where Promaster comes in. They make double-ended TTL cords for both the Canon and Nikon systems - you can get them as short as 150 cm and as long as 10 metres in either coiled or straight form. Attach one end to the hot shoe, put the flash in the other end and shoot macros, street shots, product shots, and Hollywood portraits.

In-store right now.