The Last POTW of 2006

Two-double-oh-six is about to go down in the record books, and we are closing it out with the final Picture of the Week. Knowing that I would be crunched with preparations for covering the funeral of former President Ford, I had another photo all picked out and the post pre-written. Then William Duffy has to come along and drop the self-portrait seen...

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Taking Chances, Classic Lighting and Hairballs: A Closer Look at the Grecco Book

UPDATE: Great news for tablet/phone/pod-toting photographers. Grecco's excellent LatDP is now available on a variety of tablet formats, here.Having been a good boy this year (or, at least, not getting caught) I got a few things on my Christmas list. One of those items was Micheal Grecco's book, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait. I know that many of...

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Ubercheap Ring Flash: Cereal Box, Styrofoam and Foil

UPDATE: Dennis' site has been taken down, but the how-to page on the ring flash has been archived here. I am leaving the old links hard-coded into the post, in case Dennis gets his site back up.As always, thanks for the heads-up to this situation that I received in the comments section.-DH_________________________________What is it about ring flashes...

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Strobist

Whether you observe Christmas or a different holiday, please accept my best wishes for a happy holiday and a healthy New Year. Don't look for any new posts until the day after Christmas, as I will be spending Sunday and Monday enjoying time with my family. My two kids are practically vibrating around the house in anticipation of Santa. My youngest...

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These... Are the Voyages of The Starship Enterprise

Continuing our "show us your photo crib" theme, Washington, DC-based shooter John Harrington checks in with his capitol city diggs.Criminy! The theatre at my local mall does not have displays that big. You may be wondering how a photographer could have the means to be so well-equipped. I would answer that not only is John a good photographer, but he...

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TGIF/POTW - 12/22/2006

It is Friday, and only three days until Christmas. (Or as my Santa-anticipating 8-year-old girl said tonight, "Two and a wake-up!")Friday means Picture of The Week around these parts. And Strobist reader SciPug has sprouted off-camera antlers and is going buck wild with trees and clouds.Actually, I got a really nice e-mail from him before I ever saw...

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Tagged: Here are My Five Things

I have been tagged by Ted Leung.According to the rules as I know them, here are five things you do not know about me:1. I skipped second grade, something I later regretted.2. I started investing when I was eight.3. I wet my pants during a 6th-grade science fair and walked home in embarrassment - five miles away.4. While interning at the Orlando Sentinel in the '80's, I was almost arrested for riding on the hood of a car on International Drive to make a photo.5. My absolute favorite food is chicken and dumplings.That said, I now tag:Ryan Saghir,...

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Show Us Your Photo Cave

Reader David X. Tejada popped a few photos into the Flickr Strobist group of himself, just messing around with SB's in his office. (We pros do this a lot, BTW. It is best not to test on the job.)Don't get me wrong. You're all beautiful and stuff, David. But what really interested me was seeing the working space he had created for himself. We got to...

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Hopefully, the Off-Camera Flash was Safe

Ever drop an expensive digital camera? I have. They are surprisingly robust, all things considered. What matters is (a) how high they were dropped from, and (b) where they land.I'm thinking this one might have to go to the shop:Speaking of extraterrestrial photo gear, check out the Nikon cameras (small|hi-res) in the space shuttle. Wonder where they keep the Canon stuff?(Via RobGalbraith.com)Editor's note: After putting this post up before bed last night, I had one of those realistic, all-night-long dreams wherein I was secretly using my own Canon...

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One Flash, Two Colors

Pop Photo's Peter Kolonia brings back a classic Dean Collins trick this month, wherein he shows you how to get two colors out of a single background light.I probably would have chosen to use a different set of colors than he did in his example shot - cool gel on the background portion and warm on the hair portion would be my choice. But the technique...

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Speedlinks, 12/18/2006

• Alien Bees has introduced a sweet-looking, monobloc (self-contained) ring light. Rumor has it Strobist reader Kirk Tuck is already engaged to his. (Must. Keep. Wallet. Closed.) • Got a herd of dust bunnies on your sensor? Learn how to clean that baby. (Warning: Cheesy illustration after link.)• Strobist reader Conrad Erb has posted a tutorial on...

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January Lighting Seminar Reminder

What with January's Lighting Seminar right around the corner, this is just a reminder for those of you who are attending not to lose track of the date. We had quite a long lead time on this one, and a related comment on the last post prompted me to refresh your memories. We are still on track. Assuming I am still on the right side of the grass on Jan...

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TGIF - POTW, 12/15/2006

This beautiful and evocative off-camera flash Picture of the Week was made by reader Patchlead, all the way down in Australia. He used a Canon EOS 20D, the aforementioned (small) off-camera flash, and a whole lotta pops at full power.If any of you wanted to play around with this idea, you could shoot with just a hint of sky left in a late-evening photo...

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Bits and Pieces, 12/14/2006

Strobist in National Geographic TravelerI woke up to a nice surprise this morning when I checked the Flickr discussion threads. Strobist was mentioned in a "best of the web" photography story in the Jan/Feb 07 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine. It's all I can do not to go buy a couple of hundred copies and pass them out to total strangers...

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How to Photograph Christmas Lights

Normally when we talk about balancing light on Strobist, it usually means balancing ambient with flash. But getting good photos of holiday lights involves a different kind of light balancing: Continuous ambient with fading ambient. You don't need a high-end camera for great results. You can use a very inexpensive digital camera and do just fine. You...

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Speedlinks: 12/11/06

In today's links: Business, lighting, hacking, Photoshopping, and using the latter for societal manipulation:Speedlinks• Dan Heller runs a neat little blog on the business of photography.• Strobist reader (and corporate shooter) Kirk Tuck is spreading the small flash gospel.• What do you do with your old point-and-shoot digicam now that you are a DSLR user? You take it apart and hack it, of course.• Lunacore Photoshop Training has a free tutorial on retouching skin.• Speaking of retouching (and the implications of the Quest for Perfection) Dove...

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Turn Your Flash Into a Super Tele

If your subject is at a distance which requires a telephoto lens, the light from a small strobe could be pretty diffuse by the time it gets there. Add this fact to the shortcomings of on-camera flash, and it's no wonder that added light is underused by many amateur wildlife photographers.Walt Anderson's Better Beamer flash extender is a Fresnel lens...

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Strobist UK Opens, And a BIG Thank You to All

The international theme continues. After opening an Amazon Canada page last week, the Strobist UK Bookshelf opens today.Further plans include a space in Amazon France, Amazon Japan, Amazon Germany, Amazon Neptune and possibly Amazon West Virginia, if we can surmount the language barriers.As with Canada, this link will make it easy for you British types...

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TGIF - GOTW

It's Friday - and yeah, I know that I normally do a single reader Picture of The Week. But some of the stuff put into the Flickr Strobist Pool this week was outstanding.I could not narrow it down to just one. So, I decided to consult the Strobist.com Rule Book, and it said:Rule #1: You can do anything you want.Rule #2. See Rule #1.So, what the heck....

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David X. Tejada on Location Shoots, Bart Simpson and Saddam

NikonPro has a neat little feature up on our own David X. Tejada. Lotsa good info in there - including how to defeat a subject who shows up for a corporate shoot wearing a "Bart Simpson strangling Saddam" T-shirt.I dunno how long it'll be up - the link is for the current cover story.Also at NikonPro this month, another Strobist reader is featured:...

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From MPEX: PW's in Tight Supply

If you are hoping for a set of Pocket Wizard Plus II's in your stocking this year, you'll wanna be extra good between now and Christmas. And even then, it'll help to know someone in the biz.They have proven to be very popular (no surprise, given that they were redesigned to be switch hitters for only a few bucks more than the old models) and are back-ordered...

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On Assignment: Stainless Steel and Cookies

A while back, we looked at double diffusion as a means for controlling the surface reflections on glass bottles. Having recently talked about the concept of apparent light source size I wanted to revisit the technique and tie the two concepts together.The assignment was to shoot the winners of the holiday cookie bake-off for the food section at The...

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The Skinny on Skin, and a Master Retoucher's Portfolio

When I first saw the Skin book pop up on the Amazon reports, I really wanted a little more to go on than the reader reviews listed on the product page.It just so happens that one of our own, Greg L, has posted a review up on the Flickr Strobist threads. Short answer is 'two thumbs way up.' But we'll get to that in a second. First, take a look behind...

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Micheal Grecco Interviewed on Lightsource

I love the serendipity of the web. Check this out:1) Someone gives me a heads-up on Micheal Grecco's new book in the Flickr Strobist group threads.2) I promo the book on the main site.3) The folks at Grecco's studio notice.4) They pop into the Strobist Flickr thread about Grecco to say hello.5) Bill and Ed at StudioLighting.net ask them if they can...

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Strobist Now at Amazon Canada

For those of you who wrote in looking for an easier way to hook up with good reading in the north country, I am pleased to announce that Strobist is now affiliated with Amazon Canada. Good books are good books, no matter where you read them. And I am told that Canada is much like the US. Except that the people are nicer, they drink better beer and...

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On Assignment: David X. Tejada, Kicking Butt with Small Flashes

First update: Adds podcast link to bottom of post.Alright, confession time. I was scanning through the new pix in the Strobist Flickr pool and I come across some thumbnails of mix-light, outdoor photos.As I was deciding whether or not to drop this guy a "hey, pal, we try to limit the pix to off-camera strobe around here" note, I opened one up.Well,...

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November Hot List: Skin is In

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been reading the site that Harrington's business book and Grecco's lighting book duked it out for the top spot in November. They are both great examples of how much knowledge $20 can buy.But what did surprise me were a couple of new entries in the list, with one coming from out of nowhere a landing at...

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