The Last Speedlinks of 2008, Evar

Before you hit the party circuit for New Year's Eve, a batch of speedlinks that you will never regret reading the next morning. Drive safe, get the hangover remedies ready before you actually need them, and we'll see you in 2009...__________Speedinks: 12/31/2008• Do you brave the winter weather for your art when you are out to get photos of wildlife in snow? Do you go even further and drag lights out to amp the quality a little? Yeah, well, when you get back to the house Moose Peterson would appreciate it if you could not track all that snow in....

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As is Tradition for the Last Week of December

Twenty years ago, Tenney Mason (my first DOP) passed along the wisdom of not taking days off between Christmas and New Year's. No real work gets done, he noted. And you can just put your feet up on your desk and plan out your next year.That kind of thinking is why he was management and I was a grunt. And I have taken that advice to heart ever since....

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A Visit from The Man

For as long as my kids can remember (and longer than that, in my case) Santa has been paying a visit to our house every Christmas Eve. The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face -- the living room is littered with presents in his wake. But in 2006, that circumstantial evidence was not good enough for Ben, my (then) six-year-old chief investgator....

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Bite Me, Hallmark

UPDATE: Photo now links to Zach's walk-thru on his blog.__________Reader Zach Hodges, whose family was apparently really into the Twilght movie, decided to unload a full can o' Hollywood with his Christmas card this year. The up-to-the-minute spoof guaranteed prime refrigerator placement for every recipient under 30, with an equally resounding "What...

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From the Archives: How to Shoot Christmas

It's that time of year again, when you can spend quality time with the family during the holiday season and secretly be working on your light balancing skills. (Try not to be too obvious.)At this point, even the most serious procrastinators finally have their lights up. If you get anything really cool, stick it in the Strobist Flickr pool for us to...

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Today's Special: A Cuppa Joe, With a Squeeze of Lime

If you are into in-person, hands-on learning there are a coupla great new options on the radar. Hit the jump for details on new offerings from Joe McNally and Bert Stephani.__________McNally has just announced that he has revived the Dobbs Ferry workshops. If you are anywhere in the northeastern US, you'll want to take a look at the new one-day programs...

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Speedlinks: December 18th, 2008

In this most eclectic edition of Speedlinks, we feature: The "Crotch Flash," a "POS," a slideshow without slides, an inside job gone horribly wrong and a little piece of American history... __________• WTJ has a video interview with a shooter who was pretty much assigned to shoot an entire issue of a fashion mag. Of interest to the alternate-style lighting folks, the "crotch flash," which shows up at about the 8:00 mark.• You know how all of those photo gear review articles in magazines will sometimes tiptoe around the fact that they absolutely...

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November Winner Makes a Splash

Congrats to Haristobald, seen above at upper right, who despite all appearances did not do this photo shoot in the nude. There's a Speedo behind that 70-200.He shot photos of his local triathlon club's calendar, did a video of the shoot and earned himself the last set of Pocketwizards left to be won in the Going Wireless contest.This one jumped out at us the very first time we saw it, and it was a unanimous choice for the November winner. More info, including links to two more videos and Martin's site on the PW blog.Thanks to all who entered, thereby...

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Beers With: Rembrandt

EDITOR'S NOTE: With apologies to every single art history class ever taught, this post marks the first in an occasional series of bar conversations with some of the Old Masters. These guys were the first ones to seriously light their work, and always merit a second look from those of us who slept through our humanities classes in college.__________Netherlands-based...

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RadioPopper Introduces Gen 2 Products

Lots of announcements hitting the blog over at RadioPopper tonight -- new designs, 1500-foot TTL range, remote control of AlienBees and WL, the debut of the long awaited "juniors," etc. Way too much to quickly digest into one post. Prices start at $59/$69 for the JrX receiver and transmitter, respectively, and go to $249 for the full-blown PX units.RadioPopper has put a lot of the info into a video, embedded above. Full-line brochure is here with more photos and specs. Lotsa yakking about it going on here.-...

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Back From The Twilight Zone

I think that even if I were Joey L, I probably would have OD'd on seeing my own Twilight movie photos everywhere in London last week.Okay, maybe that is just sour grapes on my part. The Boy Wonder's work was plastered on pretty much every flat vertical surface in the entire city. Undeterred by teenage photographers with mega-movie photo assignments,...

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I'm Speechless.

With just one day to go before the big, cryptic December 12th RadioPopper announcement, the following pops up on Pixsylated:Twelve Canon 580 EX II's, all equipped with RP1's in high-noon, high-sync, sunlight-killing formation. I am pretty sure this is the first sign of the Apocalypse.__________UPDATE: What that bad boy looks like from the business...

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Nikon CLS Video: The Lost Footage

Joe "Mexican" McNally and Bob "One-Take" Krist scotch-taped together some of the good parts from the cutting room floor of the new Nikon CLS video, for your viewing pleasure.Hit Joe's blog for more, including a look at Bob's new travel photography book which I currently am studying in advance of next month's trip to Central America. Congrats to Bob and Joe on the video, which is finally in stock and shipping from Amazon -- complete with well-deserved five-star reviews. So if you are a Nikon shooter and are busy shopping for everyone else at Amazon...

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Cheap, Soft, 360-Degree Light

I was up in New York recently, and saw a video production unit filming in the lobby of my hotel. They were using cheap paper lanterns as light modifiers for their point-source continuous lights. Very cool thinking, IMO. They are so cheap as to be nearly disposable, and take a point light and turn it into a 360-degree soft box. Adapting this idea to...

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Four Reasons to Consider Working for Free

The U.S. stock market has been cut in half. And some countries have it worse than we do. Companies are shedding jobs like there is no tomorrow. And heaven help you if you work for a newspaper or a magazine.The US auto industry is on the verge of imploding. People are losing their homes to foreclosure. And, on the off chance that you had the nerve...

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Their Secret? I'm Guessing "Free Beer"

I go to London, and look what I miss: The Vancouver Strobist group did a collective double-take when none other than Joe McNally showed up for their monthly meetup.He was in town for a gig, and probably just needed a little help figuring out that CLS stuff. (The RainCity Strobists are really good at that CLS stuff.)Joe blogged about it, and you have...

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DIY Salad Bowl Beauty Dish

This one looks pretty darn OEM for DIY. Reader Tom Seibert has a detailed post on how to make a large DIY beauty dish for speedlights, including a bracket that takes the strain off of your flash by not using it as part of the structural support. In a second post, he shows how he was able to adjust the beam pattern of the dish to make for a much smoother...

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RadioPoppers Jr. Product Killed Recast; Updates to P1s Coming

RadioPopper has announced that the upcoming RP Jr. project has been killed redesigned(?) in a way that will integrate it into a bigger system. And there is apparently a big update coming to the current P1 design. All very cryptic at this point. Original blog post here.Syl Arena has seen the new units, (much likee) and is dishing with at least a little detail.__________UPDATE: Lots of yakking on this in the Flickr group. RP's Kevin King stopped by to set the record straight and add some detail, too.-...

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Jean-Baptiste Guiton Shoots Make-Up

We get lots of portrait shoot videos around here, but not so much with the high-end product shots. And this one is a real treat, as it shows the full process for creating the cosmetics ad for T. LeClerc shown at left.It is a composite shot, with each portion being shot on a 35mm-format Canon DSLR. Even if the ad runs as a huge poster, that "pieced-together"...

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London Calling

If you are a UK'er and see an idiot walking around in shorts this week, please stop me and say hello. Or for a less random approach, I'll be at The Flash Centre in London on Monday the 8th. Please stop by!If you are attending one of the London lighting seminars this weekend, please check in here for the latest info as the date approaches.-...

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Nikon D3X Leak Puppy Catches Own Tail

UPDATE: Nikon Rumors has published the entire article, with jpegs big enough to read the text.__________Long plagued with continual leaks, today Nikon decided to scoop all of the leakers by (accidentally) leaking their own announcement themselves. That is to say, a Euro version of Nikon Pro magazine (seen above) apparently went out early, en masse,...

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T-Day Speedlinks

If you are a turkey, today is a good day get out of town. Horrible, unspeakable things are happening to your kind on Thanksgiving Day here in the US. But otherwise, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. And after you are done feeding your face, don't forget about the big plate of speedlinks for dessert, after the jump...__________• Pixsylated has been on a tear lately, with this high-speed sync tute, and an in-depth field test of the RadioPopper RP-1's.• If you have a teenage daughter, you probably know about Twilight, the juggernaut book series...

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Colin Firth: CYA PDQ

UK Photographer Greg Funnell shot actor Colin Firth for Time Out London, and knew he would only get a few minutes. Thus the "PDQ."He wanted a lighting scheme that was safe over a range of subject orientation. Thus, the "CYA."Hit the jump for a video, links and an alternate way to think about the light that can allow you to have your CYA-PDQ cake and...

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Nikon CLS Video: We'd Tell You, But We'd Have to Kill You

Good news and bad news on the new Nikon CLS video.Good news is that they are now in stock. The bad news is that Nikon Mall is only listing it on the US site, and they are not shipping it out of the country. What, are they worried that the Taliban will get ahold of this stuff or something? Seriously, Nikon, this is nuts. Tear down that wall. You have...

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Orbis: First Look / Ray Flash Comparison

Just received one of the first Orbis ring flash adapters to make into this part of the world. Since I will not have time to shoot with it for a couple of weeks I am putting up a quick unboxing vid (and Ray Flash comparison) video for those of you thinking about taking the plunge.(If you are watching this via RSS or Email feed, you may have to click through on the title of this post to watch the vids.)My schedule is such that I will not get to really work with it until after Thanksgiving, which has me feeling like the kid in A Christmas Story pining...

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Thanks for the Nomination!

Muchas gracias to whoever nominated Strobist for a 2008 Weblog award in the Photo category. (Apparently, they didn't have a DIY black-straw snoot category.)The gesture is much appreciated. If you want to second (or third) the nomination, you can do so by clicking the little green "+" button on this comment right here.This is a call for nominations....

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Cheap Bouncy Fun

A couple of weeks ago, when we ran the post on the DIY bounce reflector thingie, I got several "Do Not Publish" comments that basically said: "Are you brain dead? Do you realize you are pointing people to instructions to DIY a product made by one of your advertisers?"To that, I say:"Geez, ma, why do you always leave DNP comments on my blog? Can't you...

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