While no clear trends emerged, I was struck by the presence of many sleeker styled, more compact units. These lights are designed for portability and user-friendliness, with a special emphasis on affordability. I had expected to see a snowball effect in strobes with digital control, but that was not the case.
I have split this report into Studio and Mobile Strobe...
Like many manufacturers, Pentax is constantly striving to upgrade their SLR cameras. At this year's PMA show, Pentax released the new ZX-L, called MZ-6 in other countries. This mid-range model benefits from some of the technology developed for the...
Every year manufacturers and distributors unveil new products at trade show events. They see these shows as the best venues to garner the attention of the gathered members of their industries and to show them their latest wares. In the photo industry this has traditionally been the annual Photo Marketing Association (PMA) Show, which we have always covered. This year that event was subsumed into the larger Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Among the latest trends in lighting are the increasingly popular LED lights. While these lights were initially aimed at video, they serve a purpose in still photography as well, notably as accent or fill lights. In studio lighting, we have new monolight kits; and in speedlights, we have a new TTL ringflash along with a wireless TTL remote. We’ll also look at some interesting lighting accessories as well.
Still the only independent lens maker to design and produce 35mm SLR cameras, Sigma continues developing and upgrading their line. Replacing the previous SA-5, two new models were recently introduced. The SA-9 and the SA-7 are very similar in...
The Nissin Di622 Mark II offered some notable improvements over the original Di622, but that flash didn’t offer the firepower of the Nissin flagship Di866 Professional. So I was curious and eager to see what the new Di866 Mark II Professional had in store.
Wow! That’s all I need to say about the new Nissin Di866 shoe-mount flash. This baby has to be experienced to be believed. I was impressed with the other flash units Nissin first sent me, but this new flash sets new standards in technology and user-friendliness. For starters, the Di866 features wireless TTL that lets me take advantage of the latest camera/flash exposure advances. Second, it...
Macro photography seems to be in a golden age. Maybe it's the proliferation of digital point-and-shoot cameras with incredible macro focusing capabilities. Maybe it's the new breed of inexpensive macro zoom lenses, or maybe...
Photography is all about light and photographers are always looking at ways to modify it. Visit any studio of a working pro and you’re bound to see softboxes, umbrellas, cones, snoots, grids, beauty dishes, parabolic reflectors, etc. Each has their purpose in changing the shape and/or character of the light. Using the same light source, you can modify it from a sharp, harsh, point light source with distinct shadows to a soft, even light source with very little or no shadows. With that in mind I decided to give one of these modifiers a test, the Paul C. Buff PLM v.2.
Let me tell you about my first experience with a Vagabond Mini. I was teaching one of my lighting workshops, using a flash unit with its battery pack. The light and battery pack were a kit I’d purchased as a combo. We’d been shooting a while and the battery pack was almost dead when one of the other photographers there told me he had a Vagabond Mini in the car. We unhooked my dead battery, and using the AC power cord from the flash unit, proceeded to just plug in to the Mini and keep on shooting! And shooting, and shooting… You see, this thing really supplies a lot of flashes and can be used with many flash units. But let’s start at the beginning…
The recently introduced Photographer's Warehouse PerforMax AK4001 MLC AC/DC electronic flash is similar in appearance to this firm's previous monolight models, but includes one major difference. This new model can operate on...
If Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate were graduating from photo school this year, the advice he would be getting instead of “plastics” would be “speedlights,” and why not? When compared to a monolight, the biggest advantage of using a shoe-mount flash is that they’re small and portable, which means you can take them anywhere. Today’s shoe-mount flashes—or speedlights as camera manufacturers like to call them—are sophisticated, seamlessly blending natural light and flash as well as having the ability to group several flashes together, trip them wirelessly, all the while calculating the correct exposure.
Photoflex's newest lighting series are the LiteDome Kits, versatile softboxes that have been designed for strobe lights using the proprietary Photoflex Strobe Connector. There are a number of things that the LiteDome Kit has going for it, including portability, power, and outstanding performance. Even though it's being targeted at all levels of photographers...
One of the difficulties of getting involved in studio work is trying to figure out where to begin. There are so many different lighting systems and so many equipment options available that it's not easy to figure out what's essential, what might be nice to have, and what really isn't necessary, at least when you first begin. Just what type of lighting do you need...
When a photographer hears the name "Photogenic Machine Company," he or she immediately thinks of small rugged AC-powered flash units used primarily by portrait photographers. Photogenic Powerlights have been around for decades, and have...
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