Clamps, stands, arms and adapters — Photography podcast #35

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #35 is all about using sim­ple acces­sories to make your photo shoots go smoother. In par­tic­u­lar, we dis­cuss clamps, magic arms, flash adapters and light stands. All of the acces­sories can be used in mul­ti­ple ways mak­ing them extremely ver­sa­tile in a vari­ety of shoot­ing situations.

Manfrotto superclamp 035
Man­frotto Super­clamp #035

Manfrotto spring clamp 175F
Man­frotto spring clamp #175 with threaded adapter (088)

Manfrotto spring clamp with flash mount
Man­frotto spring clamp‚#175F with flash mount

Manfrotto magic arm 237HD
Man­frotto flex­i­ble magic arm #237 HD

Opus umbrella mount OPL-SW0316
Opus umbrella mount OPL-SW0316

Opus umbrella mount on manfrotto master stand 004
Opus umbrella mount on man­frotto mas­ter stand #004

Superclamp 035 attached to magic arm attached to springclamp 175
Super­clamp with arm attached to spring clamp

master light stand 004 with arm and superclamp holding a reflector
Extendible arm on man­frotto mas­ter stand #004
attached to super­clamp hold­ing a 32.5 inch reflector

Pur­chas­ing these items through these links helps sup­port this site:

Man­frotto super clamp at B&H
Man­frotto super clamp at Amazon

Man­frotto spring clamp with flash shoe at B&H
Man­frotto spring clamp with flash shoe at Amazon

Manfrotto‚flexible arm‚at B&H
Man­frotto flex­i­ble arm at Amazon

Manfrotto‚master light stand‚at B&H
Man­frotto mas­ter light stand at Amazon

Photoflex (sim­i­lar to‚Opus) umbrella flash mount‚at B&H
Photoflex (sim­i­lar to Opus) umbrella flash mount at Amazon

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this set of images.

Photo of the week
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Arkady Renko and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

Arkady Renko - Stranger

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Samirah,‚ Carl­son Chu and Yves Janse. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more. Spe­cial thanks to Nico Pin who has helped make this blog more user friendly and look funkier.

Grab the light now — light waits for no one

Another res­o­lu­tion I am mak­ing this year (start­ing today) is not to tarry when I see great light. Great light doesn’t wait for you, great light doesn’t give a crap about your sched­ule — You wait for great light and when you see it you must grab it by its invis­i­ble balls.

Yes­ter­day was an amaz­ing exam­ple. I woke up and thick fog was every­where — Everywhere!

I LOVE FOG.

For me, fog is great light. It evokes a rare spe­cial mood and feel­ing.
.…but I’m a busy dude and work beck­ons me con­stantly so I checked the win­dow peri­od­i­cally while I waited until I was ready to shoot. Guess what — once I was ready the fog had almost dis­si­pated. Boy was I upset : (

So as a last resort I got into my car and chased the fog until I found the best patch I could find. It was okay fog and I think this self-portrait is not bad.

Point is — Now I have think about what could have been instead of know­ing that I was shoot­ing at the best pos­si­ble time.….

self portrait fog

Bring your camera everywhere — resolutions

It’s so obvi­ous. Just bring your cam­era every­where and you’ll take more pic­tures.
By tak­ing more pic­tures, you’ll learn what works well and what doesn’t.
You won’t regret miss­ing shots.
When you SEE that great light you’ll be there to record it.

So that’s one res­o­lu­tion that I’ll try to stick with this year. I intend to bring my cam­era every­where. (I have a lot of gear so I’m only bring­ing 1 DSLR body, 1 lens and 1 flash)

Another res­o­lu­tion will be to do more reviews. I get a fair amount of email ask­ing me what I use in terms of equip­ment or what I sug­gest. This com­ing year, I intend to share more of what I think are great photo prod­ucts. From photo gear to soft­ware to wires to books — reviews are coming.

Happy new year every­one! All the best for 2008 — Keep on shooting!

Christmas tree photography — Photo podcast #34

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #34 talks about how to pho­to­graph Christ­mas tree lights or just Christ­mas lights. We focus on 2 tech­niques, using JUST the Christ­mas lights them­selves, or using on cam­era flash.

No flash christmas tree photograph
Christ­mas tree with only the lights themselves

christmas tree with flash
Christ­mas tree with on cam­era flash


PHOTO OF THE WEEK
This week, the pho­to­graph by John Gladdy and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.


– Thanks as always for the sug­ges­tion of this very pod­cast by Chris Smith. Thanks as well to Pierre B. for his com­ments on our last pod­cast on Stu­dio pho­tog­ra­phy for begin­ners. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing first link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below the photographs.

Too much snow jails you

This is what 40+ cen­time­tres of snow looks like when you are stuck inside. It looks and feels like jail. In this shot I tried to cap­ture ‘being snowed in’.

snow photograph

Photography portrait studio lighting for beginners — Photo podcast #33

photography portrait studio lighting

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #33 talks about set­ting up a begin­ner pho­tog­ra­phy por­trait stu­dio. In this pod­cast we dis­cuss using dif­fer­ent types of flash sys­tems as great choices for in stu­dio por­traits. We talk about using small portable flashes, pack and head sys­tems and monoblock flash heads. We also touch on the acces­sories that you’ll need includ­ing a flash meter, umbrel­las, slaves, pc cords etc. Although the empha­sis is on inex­pen­sive stu­dio setups, any of these setups are likely to serve both tra­di­tional and dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phers very well for years to come.

Due to the length of this pod­cast we’ll skip photo of the week this time around.

Links men­tioned in this pod­cast include:
Nova­tron
Viv­i­tar
Sun­pak
Alien bees
Pocket Wiz­ard
Stro­bist

Thanks as always for com­ments by Al, on our last pod­cast on Mul­ti­ple expo­sure in pho­tog­ra­phy and thanks very much to Sami­rah of our pho­tog­ra­phy forum for her sug­ges­tion that inspired this par­tic­u­lar pod­cast. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing first link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below the pho­tographs.

Multiple exposure in photography — Photo podcast #32

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #32‚talks about mul­ti­ple expo­sure in pho­tog­ra­phy. In this pod­cast we dis­cuss the dif­fer­ent ways we can cre­ate mul­ti­ple expo­sures includ­ing in cam­era mul­ti­ple expo­sures (with dig­i­tal and tra­di­tional cam­eras) as well as cre­at­ing mul­ti­ple expo­sures using an enlarger or Pho­to­shop.


The above 2 photographs‚were taken ‘in cam­era’ by expos­ing 2 images on 1 frame of film.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK
This week, the pho­to­graph by Esther Her­nan­dez known on Flickr as‚Maguapho­tos‚ is very apros pos because it is a mul­ti­ple expo­sure cre­ated in a graph­ics pro­gram. I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

multiple exposure

Other links men­tioned in this pod­cast;
Jerry Uels­mann‚- Mas­ter com­bi­na­tion printer
Pos­ing mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy‚- cov­ers a wee bit of tegan’s sug­ges­tion‚
‚- Mas­ter com­bi­na­tion printer‚- cov­ers a wee bit of tegan’s sug­ges­tion‚‚- Mas­ter com­bi­na­tion printer‚- cov­ers a wee bit of tegan’s sug­ges­tion‚‚

‚- Thanks as always for com­ments by‚Rob, Al, DaronJ and Cindy on our last pod­cast on pho­tog­ra­phy tele­con­vert­ers . Thanks very much to Sami­rah and Tegan, mem­bers of our pho­tog­ra­phy forum‚for their sug­ges­tions on future pod­casts. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing first link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below the pho­tographs.

Teleconverters in photography — Photography podcast #31

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #31 is all about tele­con­vert­ers. Tele­con­vert­ers are an appa­ra­tus that you put between the body of your SLR or DSLR cam­era and the lens. It then increases the effec­tive focal length of the lens on the cam­era. In this pod­cast we dis­cuss their advan­tages and disadvantages.

Thanks again to Norm for his com­ment on last week’s pod­cast reflec­tors in pho­tog­ra­phy.

New seg­ment again this week — PHOTO OF THE WEEK
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Zseike and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fan­tas­tic.
Image removed at Zseike’s request.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing first link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below the photographs.

Using a Reflector in photography — Photography podcast #30

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #30 is all about how to use reflec­tors to bet­ter your pho­tog­ra­phy. We focus on com­mon types of reflec­tors, when to use them as well as why reflec­tors are an essen­tial item‚for every‚photographer’s toolkit.The fol­low­ing pho­tographs illus­trate how effec­tive a reflec­tor can be to add light to sub­jects that are in shadow or that need a lit­tle extra boost of light. Note how espe­cially the eyes of both my boy (Ziglet the cat) and my wife (pos­ing in ‘Pulp Fic­tion’ style)‚receive extra illu­mi­na­tion and become much more vibrant when a reflec­tor is used. Note that the expo­sure DID NOT change for any of the reflected/unreflected shots. I also did not do any manip­u­la­tion what­so­ever in a graph­ics pro­gram as I wanted to clearly illus­trate the effects of chang­ing only 1 vari­able. (adding a reflec­tor) You can click the pho­tographs to enlarge them.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this set of images.‚


Ziglet — No reflector

Ziglet — With reflec­tor — Eyes and face are vibrant

Ziglet — No reflector

Ziglet with reflec­tor doing its job in the photo

Carmy — No reflector

Carmy — With reflec­tor — Eyes and face are vibrant

Carmy with reflec­tor doing its job in the photo

New seg­ment in the pod­cast — Photography.ca — Photo of the week -
This week, the pho­to­graph is by Arkady Renko and I com­ment in the pod­cast on why I think this pho­to­graph is fantastic.

Photography by Arkady Renko

Other pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast;
Flickr
Lead­ing lines in pho­tog­ra­phy
The rule of thirds in pho­tog­ra­phy

Thanks as always for the com­ments by‚Bekka, Al and Norm‚on our pre­vi­ous podcast‚where we Interviewed‚fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Rafael Gold­chain. We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

Rafael Goldchain Interview — Photography podcast #29

This pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast‚fea­tures an inter­view with teacher and fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Rafael Gold­chain. In the inter­view Rafael tells us about his past work and we delve into his lat­est work called Famil­ial Ground.‚This work‚contains over 50 mas­ter­fully cre­ated self-portraits based on Rafael’s fam­ily his­tory and the influ­ences of the dif­fer­ent cultures‚that help make up his‚life. Rafael freely talks about how the project came to be, as well as all the tech­ni­cal ele­ments of the project includ­ing; light­ing, shoot­ing, print­ing and dig­i­tally post pro­cess­ing the photographs.

More of Rafael’s por­traits from this series can be seen at Lumi­nous Lint‚and Robot Fol­low.
A few of Rafael’s older images can be seen on this site, Photography.ca
For more infor­ma­tion on Rafael’s work, he‚can be con­tacted via email‚rafael (a t)rafaelgoldchain(d o t)com

Other pho­tog­ra­phy links men­tioned in this pod­cast;
The Applied Pho­tog­ra­phy pro­gram at Sheri­dan Col­lege.
Pho­tog­ra­phy at Ryer­son
Fine art pho­tog­ra­pher Susan Meise­las

Thanks as always for the com­ments by daronJ and‚Gary‚H on our pre­vi­ous pod­cast Pos­ing mod­els in pho­tog­ra­phy . We LOVE com­ments and sug­ges­tions so please send more.

You can down­load this pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast directly by click­ing the pre­ced­ing link or lis­ten to it almost imme­di­ately with the embed­ded player below this set of images.


Rafael Gold­chain
Self-Portrait as Naf­tuli Gold­szajn
[Famil­ial Ground] — 2000‚
Light­jet chro­mogenic print — 30 x 40 in‚
Pro­vided by the artist — Rafael Gold­chain
b. Kras­nik, Poland, early 1800’s
d. Kras­nik, Poland, late 1800’s

Rafael Gold­chain
Self-Portrait as Reizl Gold­schain
[Famil­ial Ground] — 2001‚
Light­jet chro­mogenic print — 30 x 40 in‚
Pro­vided by the artist — Rafael Gold­chain
b. Poland, 1905
d. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1975

Rafael Gold­chain
Self-Portrait as Don Moi­ses Rubin­stein Kro­n­gold — Middle-aged
[Famil­ial Ground] — 2000‚
Light­jet chro­mogenic print — 30 x 40 in‚
Pro­vided by the artist — Rafael Gold­chain
b. Ostrowiec, Poland, 1902
d. Cuer­navaca, ’‚©xico 1980