Up the Creek!

Here's our new amplifier - a Creek 5350 SE. I'm really liking what I'm hearing so far....

Wheel of Steel

The retrolution rolls on! Here is our first step on the road from lo-fi to hi (well, mid, anyway) -fi. It's a Technics SL-1200 direct drive turntable. Hoping to go cartridge shopping after the weekend. And then there's the preamp, amp, and speakers to go :)

Hand Lamp

Does anyone want a job as V.A.L. (voice-activated lightstand) in my studio?

Power Organization

There's a little bit of spring cleaning going on in the studio. One of the most annoying aspects of my Strobist activities is that there's always batteries needing to be charged for cameras, flash units, and everything else. I counted seven power adaptors on my desk, for computer, phone, hard drives, plus a load of battery chargers. This was taking up way too much valuable real estate in my already cramped quarters.

My solution to this problem was to commandeer one shelf of my equipment store and make it into a "charging station". I fixed a power strip, the Maha charger's adaptor, and all unnecessary lengths of wiring under the shelf, leaving the top free for the charging units and batteries. This is what the underside of the shelf looks like:

The power strip is mounted onto a board (to keep wires from projecting too far down into the lower shelf space), the excess lengths of wiring are tucked in the plastic conduit, and the Maha power adaptor is secured with a Velcro strap. The output leads are fed through holes drilled in the shelf.
And the top looks like this:

So it is all neat and tidy. This arrangement also has the advantage that if I go on a road trip, or off on a long day's shoot, I can bring the entire shelf - everything is strapped or Velcro-ed in place.
The plastic battery boxes keep the same sets together, and contain flags of card, green on one side and red on the other, which indicate whether the batteries are charged or not. The flags also go into the Nikon battery covers, and my CF card cases to let me know whether a card is blank or not.

Now, as to the rest of the spring cleaning... I'll leave that to another day :)

No Hassle!

I got a loan of this beauty to play with - it's a Hasselblad Super Wide C, with a 38 mm f/4.5 Zeiss Biogon lens. It seems to be working OK, and it's now loaded with film, so I'm going shooting. Bye!

Meet The Family

Here are my Nikon lenses:

• AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8
• AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8
• AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8
• AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 D
• Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 D
• AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 DX

What's in my bag...

It's been quite a while since I posted a pic of my equipment, and there have been a few new acquisitions lately, so here's the most recent shot. There's a fully annotated pic here on my Flickr page, if you're interested in the gory details...

Leitz Camera Action

I went to an antiques market in Des Moines today, and found this:

It's a Leica M6. It looks nice and clean, the battery cover and body cap are missing. The guy who sold it to me said it doesn't work, but the shutter seems to work on all speeds, and the winding mechanism seems OK too. I'll need to get the missing bits and a lens so I can test it.

Oh, yes, I paid $12 - that's twelve dollars - for it :)

Day 133

The Cognisys Stop Shot controller, which makes possible the balloon shots, and others (even better) that are yet to come :)

Day 113

Some more gratuitous camera porn. The 70-200 f/2.8 VR is probably one of Nikon's best ever lenses.

Day 105

I get to play with a PC-E Micro Nikkor 85mm f/2.8D for a while. This lens has movements - it can be tilted, as in the photo, and shifted off axis - this allows control over perspective and depth of field. I'm really looking forward to testing it - it should be great for doing product shots and architectural scenes.

Day 92

My new Firewire card reader. It's about twice as fast as my USB reader, and I got it free when I bought a card - now that's decent value!

DIY Softbox Part 2.

Part 1 is here.

Now we get to the fabric diffuser. I'm using a small offcut of white ripstop nylon - because that's what I have. Any material that diffuses light could be used - tracing paper, Roscolux, Target shower curtain, etc, as long as it doesn't give it a colour cast. There are many ways in which the diffuser could be attached to the box (Velcro would be an elegant solution), but because of my sartorial ineptitude, I elected for a "no sew" process.

I cut four strips to fit inside the front edge of the box...

...and stuck them together with Gorilla tape to make the frame.

The frame should be a snug fit in the front rim of the box.

Ripstop nylon rips even less if you cut it with a soldering iron, and for other synthetic materials that do fray, this is by far the best way.

The fabric is cut a bit larger than the frame.

The corners are cut off, then the diffuser is stuck to the frame with spray adhesive.

The completed softbox ready for testing.

Test shot 1. Without the diffuser. Nikon SB-900 set to manual 1/64th power and zoomed out to 18 mm, and triggered by Pocket Wizard. Exposure 1/60 sec, f/14, ISO200, WB auto. The shadow in the top left corner is cast by the edge of the softbox.

Test shot 2. Diffuser in place. Strobe settings as above, exposure 1/60 at f/11. I'm very happy with this result :)

The setup the test shots. The strobe and box are just propped on bits of scrap wood for the test. The next part of this tutorial will deal with making a mount for the strobe and a means of fitting the assembly to a lightstand.

DIY Softbox Part 1.

I have been wanting for some time to make a small softbox for my product shots. Well, I finally got the project under way. There are lots of tutorials online already, but I thought I'd show you how I did it.

My plan is for a box about 16' x 12", made of black foamcore lined with aluminium foil, fitted with a wooden collar to which attachments can be fixed, and with provision for a grid.

The materials for the box are: 2" X 3/8" softwood offcut, black foamcore, aluminium foil, black duct tape. Other items required are: sharp knife (I used an X-Acto knife), pencil for marking out, straightedge, scissors, spray adhesive, masking tape, woodworking glue, a sheet of coarse sandpaper, and some old newspapers.

I made the collar first. The dimensions I used were purely arbitrary, I just wanted to create an opening large enough to accommodate the head of any speedlight I had, with a little to spare. Woodworking is not my forte - I simply glued the pieces together.

Cutting foamcore is easy, but I'd seriously recommend the use of a metal straightedge, rather than a wooden one. (Do as I say, not as I do). The use of a cutting mat reduces slippage, prevents damage to the work surface, and avoids trouble with the Significant Other.

The four sides of my softbox. The "thin ends" are sized to fit the wooden collar, and the "wide ends" are cut to give a 16" X 12" opening. It is important that the lengths of the tapered edges are the same on all pieces - this will ensure a good fit.

The panels are scored with the craft knife to allow the foamcore to be folded into position.

The softbox assembled with masking tape to check fit.

The tutorials that I have seen recommend crumpling the foil and then flattening it back out again to reduce specularity, but I find this method tedious and the foil always tears for me, so I just pressed the foil against a sheet of very coarse sandpaper (I'm using 40 grit here), and rubbed it down with a piece of soft cloth. This gives an even lustrous finish that should give nice diffuse reflections.

The panels are sprayed with adhesive (the masking tape is useful, the newspapers are essential), and the textured foil fitted in position and trimmed...

...the four panels lined with foil.

Inside view of the box during assembly. I'm very pleased with how the textured foil looks in the finished article.

The box taped up with black duct tape.

In the next part, I will make the front diffuser for the box, and do a couple of test shots.

Part 2 is here.

Soap Portrait

My latest job is to photograph a bar of soap for the Prairieland Herbs website. Without the box and label, it's a bit more challenging to make a bar of soap look interesting. Here's what I did:

And here's how I did it:

There are detailed notes on this picture on my Flickr page.

The UPS Man Cometh...

...and he brought my new walkabout lens - a AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 17-55mm f/2.8G IF DX. Cant wait to try it out!

SB-26

I'm going to sell some of my flash units to upgrade to newer models. Here are the pictures I made for my Craigslist posting.

Nikon D300

My new camera arrived a few minutes ago...

Going to play with it. More later. Bye :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Just some gratuitous camera porn.

Digitally disadvantaged :(

My digital camera stopped working the other day, so I need to use film. I'm lucky that I have my Mamiya RB67 and a decent supply of film.

Here is the RB being used to photograph some presents I got at the Spinners' Guild Christmas party last Friday (It had to be postponed due to bad weather). The camera doesn't have a built-in light meter (indeed, it's totally mechanical, so it doesn't even need any batteries!), so I used my Sekonic L-358 meter to measure the exposure. Also in the picture is my home made reflector panel, which I used for fill lighting. Now all I have to do is get the film in for processing.... and wait. How spoiled we have become with the instant gratification of digital cameras!

As soon as I get my pictures back, I'll post some here.

BTW, I took this pic with Maggie's 1.3 megapixel Sony :)