Phottix’s 500 watt-second Indra500 TTL Studio Light merges speedlight and monolight technologies and is controlled by the company’s Odin TTL Flash Trigger that works with Canon and Nikon SLRs. (Indra is the Hindu warrior god of sky and rain.)
I had the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks with the Profoto B2 Location Kit. Said kit contains one power supply with two batteries, two flash heads, a carrying bag, and more. Profoto also sent me a bunch of light-shaping tools to experiment with.
The trend of using continuous light sources for portraiture that I saw at last year’s WPPI show continues unabated with Westcott’s Two-Light Daylight D5 Softbox Kit being the latest offering. The kit uses fluorescent bulbs as a light source, although that word barely appears in Westcott’s early press material for the kit. Part of the reason may be that when it comes to photographs of people, fluorescent has a negative connotation but nothing could be further from the truth.
Studio lighting hardware is going through the biggest change—a paradigm shift, really—since the flashbulb was invented in 1929. There are many trends and fads with LED’s popularity seemingly having equal parts of both. LED lighting also appeals to DSLR and mirrorless camera shooters who want to capture stills and video.
The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) member magazines recently convened for their General Assembly to vote for the best photo and imaging products launched by the industry in the last 12 months. The voting took place during the General Assembly that was held in spring 2015 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The flash bracket has become the “forgotten accessory” in photography but it’s still an essential tool if you’re looking to achieve consistent studio-quality lighting on the fly.
If you read our story on "7 Reasons You Still Need a Flash Bracket for Photography," perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to purchase one of these photography workhorses. Here are our recommendations for 8 Great Flash Brackets to help you achieve studio-quality lighting on the fly.
Portrait photographers get to practice their craft with an amazing selection of different light sources, including everything from hot and cold continuous lighting to power pack-and-head and monolight flash systems to speedlights. Each has its own unique advantages and disadvantages depending on the kind of work you do but when it comes to flash, I’ve always been partial to monolights because of their built-in power supply. I’ve had a monolight fail on a job before but because the other monolights on hand had their own power supply, I was able to complete the assignment.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken a flash photo and wished a) it wasn’t so washed out, b) it didn’t have those harsh, black shadows behind the subject, c) it wasn’t so bluish all over, or d) it were possible to do it all over again because the results just plain sucked. Does this picture sound familiar? You need a flash modifier. In fact, you may need a BounceLite.
Light is a precious commodity in close-up and macro photography. The closer you get to your subject, the more light you lose through lens extension. Move to within inches of the subject and your camera or body may block the existing daylight. Also, the closer you get, the more depth of field you lose, so it would help to stop down. All of this translates to a need for additional light—in other words, a supplementary light source. What’s more, when shooting live critters and wind-blown plants, we may also need that light source to freeze subject movement, or at least provide shutter speeds that are fast enough to contain movement. To meet these needs, I’ve often turned to a macro ringflash and, alternatively, a macro twin flash. An economical alternative is an LED ringlight.
The studio lighting genie is not going back into the bottle anytime soon and LED light sources are finding their place in more and more camera rooms. Clever and versatile lighting systems such as Rotolight’s new Anova V2 and their compact RL48-B battery-powered portable lights are part of the reason why.
Modern digital cameras perform so well under dim light at high ISO settings that some photographers haven’t used a camera flash for months (maybe even longer). Well, here’s a news flash for them: for a small investment and a little practice they can turn most shoe-mount flash units into a controllable package of portable sunshine.
Traditional flat reflectors do a good job of bouncing fill light when placed under a subject’s chin for portrait lighting but catchlights in their eyes can sometimes appear less than natural. Westcott’s Eyelighter Reflective Panel addresses the problem by providing an arc-shaped surface that matches the natural curvature of the human eye. Specifically designed for beauty and portrait photography, the Eyelighter reflects an arched light up toward your subject, producing not only flattering light but also a catchlight that follows the natural curve of the iris. Unlike three-piece, multi-reflector kits, this catchlight is seamless, without gaps.
Shoe-mounted flashes are handy tools. Where space or weight is a concern, a kit with two or three shoe-mounted flashes is much easier to carry than even the smallest power pack/head combo or a low-output monolight, and more versatile.