The Hot Shoe Diaries

We've mentioned Joe McNally before and despite being a Nikon photographer (everyone has a cross to bare) he's a damned fine photographer... proof that it is possible to transcend the limits of a camera and still make good pictures! ;-)

Anyway, he recently published a new book called "The Hot Shoe Diaries" and is all about big light from small flashes. While it may be heavily Nikon-centric, it gives a great insight into how Joe makes his stunning pictures and if nothing else provides an enormous amount of inspiration to get out there and do it.

He walks you through his lighting process and while he may travel with enough small lights to stop a Nepalese sherpa, he devotes 110 pages to shooting with one light. Yep, one light is apparently all you need!

If you've been thinking about doing some more of the strobist stuff, then we strongly suggest picking up a copy.




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Off camera cord OC-E3 is your friend for wireless flash

It's Tuesday so I needed a photographer to feature, but in lieu of some photographer here's a tale of how even the simplest accessory can be your saviour in times of need.

The humble off camera cord OC-E3 sits on your hotshoe and connects the master flash to the camera. In fact the camera thinks the flash is on the hotshoe so you get all the control but now the flash is off camera and you can move it for better lighting. 

Just yesterday out on a shoot I was trying out some strobist techniques with a Speedlite 580EX II firing in to an umbrella high up on a lighting stand; nine or ten feet high up. The big problem was getting the flash in the umbrella to trigger reliably with the wireless from the on camera flash. Getting the on-camera flash on the end of the OC-E3 and in the hands of a VCA (voice controlled assistant) meant the assistant could hold the master and aim it at the high up Speedlite in the brolly and I could get on with the shooting. I was using the master flash only to trigger the slaved one in the brolly after all. The VCA let on later that he'd seen this kind of trick on Joe McNally's blog some weeks ago so a Nikon trick works on the Canon's too.

Some of you will think; that's a 60cm cable length only on that OC-E3, but remember you can daisy chain them together too for more reach. Another thing is that the older Off Camera Cord 2 also comes up on ebay a lot for little money and they work just as well. If you're handy with a soldering iron you can even remove the short 60cm curly cable and replace it with a longer length of ethernet patch cable. Off camera cord and wireless E-TTL lets me use high speed sync to kill the ambient a little easier than using a dumb trigger like an ebay trigger or pocket wizard.

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Your opportunity to be the featured photographer on Tuesday

Hoping that you've noticed the previous Tueday postings have been mostly to highlight individual photographers and their causes, this is your wake up call to get in on the act. With traffic climbing here on a weekly basis this could be a great chance for your own promotion in 2009.

We're now contacting and collecting photographers for selection as the guests for something we termed Tuesday Tog. You get the opportunity to answer some of our questions, share some of your most inspirational work and even blatantly promote your own online presence or cause. If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of then leave some comments for us or by email to blog 'at' blabpictures -dot- co -dot- uk, sorry about the adress spacing but if you're human you'll understand. Mark the comments with DON'T PUBLISH in them and that way your details won't be all over the web - yet or again.

It's just before this post goes live, and I've just read a peice about being a professional photographer penned by Joe McNally on his blog. Ignore the title, it's a peak inside the mindset of a photographer with a mesmerising narrative that means you'll loose about 5-10 minutes whilst you read it yet gain some pearls of wisdom once you understand it. What's more Jason over at CanonBlogger has a great peice about the difference between male and female photographers.

Time to get out there and make contact, male or female you could be the photographer offering your insight for free and reaping the rewards as one of our Tuesday togs.

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High speed sync

Now this, this is all kinds of crazy. And no, I'm not talking about the fact that there is a double post today. This just had to be shared....

Many of you may know of a guy by the name of Joe McNally - a truly great photographer and someone who has mastered flash on location in almost every conceivable situation. Now we like Joe, even though he shoots Nikon... But for those that see his work and think "hmmmmm am I missing something with Canon and the flash system?" The answer is no and Syl Arena is the guy to prove it to you.

How does 1/8000sec sync flash in the middle of a bright day using Speedlite 580EX II flashguns sound? Interesting? Yeah, we thought so too. It seems that Syl managed to get hold of 12 580EX II flashguns on loan from Canon USA and a bunch of RadioPoppers as flash triggers and he built a ring light on a wooden frame. Well, he's calling it a ring lite, but it's more like a square light to me - but I'm just splitting hairs.

He used the RadioPoppers to trigger the Speedlites and so get enough power output for high speed synch at 1/8000sec. Pretty cool, huh?

So why would you bother? Well, high speed sync allows you to achieve a shallow depth of field when using flash in bright daylight with a fast aperture lens. Alternatively, you can turn day into night just by upping the shutter speed so you don't record as much ambient light.

We'll do more on high speed sync flash in a future post or two, but for now, we just wanted you to see this!

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At Nikon's expense...

There's an amazing video reaction to the recently announced Nikon D3x DSLR camera on youtube. It seems that some photographers think that 8,000 US dollars is a bit too much money.

At least the Canon guys have been shooting with a fast aperture 24mm lens for some years.
On a slightly more reasoned Nikon footing there's a short selection of outtakes from the new Nikon School DVD about the Nikon flash system. Great news for Canon is that you can only buy this in the USA and there seems to be no plans to bring it over here. Cue the JoeBob show

In a return to more regular topics for this blog you should check out the initial thoughts of Ed Terakopian on the EOS 5D Mark II; it seems that Ed has a camera so that he can review it for the BJP Christmas edition - reads more like Santa stopped at Ed's door a few weeks early.

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