Playing with new gear
I have been purchasing some new gear the last few weeks and today was the first opportunity that I’ve had to spend some time playing around with it. Tara and I ran some errands this morning and in the process, I picked up some subjects in the form of Hot Wheels.
For the past three years, I’ve been using the Nikon Creative Light System for all of my off-camera flash photography. CLS is great, but it’s limited in the fact that it’s strictly line-of-sight and it’s really only effective within about 20 feet or so. One of my new purchases was some RadioPopper Jrx Receivers and Transmitter. These devices allow for remote triggering of flashes up to 300 feet away (and more!). Considering my subject, I really could have used the CLS but this was a new toy – it must be used!
In addition to the RadioPopppers, I also purchased a couple of Vivitar 285HV flashes. These are great inexpensive additional sources of light. One problem though, they use a proprietary sync port. Time to break out the solder gun! I had found some instructions to modify the flash to utilize a stander 3.5mm (1/8″) male mono jack. It took about 15 minutes and when I attached the flash to the RadioPopper, it fired the first time!
Last, I had to set up my Bogen Super Booms and 24″ x 24″ Lastolite Eazy Box softboxes (more new purchases). I know this sounds like an awful lot of gear to take a picture of a toy car, but the trick with shooting anything with a flash is to make it look like you didn’t use a flash. In order to do that, you need to modify the light source (in my case, strobe flashes) and make it appear much larger than it really is. That’s where the softbox comes in. The softbox disperses the light over a larger area, making it appear like a much larger light. Using the boom allows me a lot greater control over the placement of the softbox. The end result is a nice, softly lit image without all of the glaring reflections common when using a bare flash. Spending time learning how your gear works in a controlled environment like this is a great way to avoid those “gotcha” situations when you are out with a client.
OK, all the gear is ready. Almost. The last bit of software I wanted to try out (yes, software) was the OnOne dSLR Remote iPhone app. Wow. This is really cool tech. By connecting my dSLR to my laptop, and running the dSLR Remote server app (free from OnOne), I am able to remotely control my dSLR from my iPhone!. We’re not talking bare minimum here – we’re talking full control! I was able to change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, use live view and fire the shutter. The image that was just captured displays on the iPhone as well as transfers directly back to the laptop. After about 80 shots, I had a small hiccup when the server software crashed. A quick restart and I was back in business. Now of course, the dSLR is tethered to the laptop via a USB cable so it’s not exactly a mobile solution. However if you are like me, I love the new screens on the dSLR’s but there is a limitation to how much you can see on them. Being able to immediately view the image on the laptop is a really great way to make sure you’re capturing what you thought you were.
I spent about 90 minutes in the garage in my makeshift studio, trying different settings, learning how to use the new gear, and capturing some pretty cool images!
