Trapped Light

Sigma Strikes Back

2008-04-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

So it turns out my nice little $100 mistake is going to cost me more. Sigma was nice enough to repair my 24mm 1.8 but in the process they added the hidden feature of backfocus. So now I'm about 3/4 inch backfocused near the minimum focus range of the lens. This is exactly what I feared sending the lens to them in the first place. I would rather have bad bokeh than backfocus. So off to NY it goes (again).

Wednesday Update

2008-04-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

So I got my Sigma EF 500's back from Sigma and they work great. I'll be trying them today at a company function.

Also it cost me $100 to get the 24mm repaired. Haven't it back yet but it should be here soon.

Lastly, I never heard back from the London police regarding my email. A couple folks asked me to post any response I got back but alas they never did.

London Against Photography

2008-03-05T00:06:00.000-08:00

I just read this blog post by Thomas Hawk which pointed me to the London Police department's new anti terrorist campaign. In it, they want the general public to report any suspicious photographers.

Seriously? The general public is going to decide what actions are reasonable for photographers. That's like me telling famous French Chefs that vegetables are not reasonable as food.

Plus London has so many surveillance cameras they make Las Vegas look like Reno by comparison. You could play a game to see who the first person is to take a photo in London without a CCTV camera somewhere in the frame.

All this from the country that gave us Fox Talbot, one of the creators of the camera.

Sarcasm aside, I was quite disappointed and concerned about this so I emailed the following the the London police:

Dear London Police,

I'm an American living in the States and just recently read about your Counter Terrorist campaign and I'm quite shocked by your anti photography attitude. I understand this is a small portion of a larger campaign but your message is leading the public to see every photographer as potential terrorist. I am a photographer, not a professional but just a guy who enjoys it as a hobby. I take photos on holiday just like I did 2 years ago in London. I enjoyed your city very much.

Terrorism is a threat to us all and I understand the importance of safety. I was flying out of Heathrow the weekend those terrorists tried to use fake toothpaste to destroy an airplane 2 years ago. I truly thank you for your excellent work keeping my wife & I safe.

Having said that I fear your campaign is going to lead to the harassment of photographers. Worse its going to spread uncertainty & fear every time someone takes a camera out in public. Photographers are artists & they don't always follow the beaten path. They don't always take photos in the direction you want them to or the normal "tourist" stuff. The public at large does not understand a lot about photography as art and could deem any photographer as suspicious. I've seen it happen here in the States and that's without any advertisement encouraging it.

I hope you will reconsider your campaign & your position towards photographers. I did love your city but to be honest I will not be visiting again if the city creates a negative environment for photographers.

Thank you for reading this & considering my opinion.

Random Update

2008-03-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

So I've sent my Sigma flashes back to Sigma to be rechipped. I sent them back about a year ago so they would be compatible with the K10D but since then Sigma updated the flash so it can be compatible with wireless PTTL triggering. I've always wanted to try PTTL wireless triggering but I've been too lazy or busy to send them in again. Now I just have to wait. Carrying one body and one flash (without PWs) will be a hoot if anything works as planned.

I also shipped back my Sigma 24mm 1.8 lens. There was a scratch on the rear element of the lens that was affecting my wide open shots. I could see it in the bokeh and it bothered me enough to send back for repair.

Not quite as a replacement but more for travel & other purposes, I picked up a second hand DA 21mm Limited. I was a little disappointed with the condition of the lens for the price but it seems to perform great. Not thrilled with the cap so I may get a 49mm pinch cap for it and shoot without the hood.

I'm going to a photo focus group this week. I was asked to bring my Pentax camera. I'm curious if its a Pentax sponsored event or one from a Pentax competitor. I'll post more after the event.

Cookies

2008-02-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

Cookies anyone??

Photography from 10,000 ft

2007-12-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

Roughly speaking, photography is about seeing 20 stops of light, capturing 10 stops with a camera and printing 5 stops on paper.

Twenty becomes ten which becomes five.

I've started thinking that photography is less & less about capturing what I see and more about interpreting that view into a new creation. Sometimes details get lost in translation. The tricky part is to insure that the important details are retained and expressed the way I want them. That's what makes me a photographer and not a guy with a P&S.

Random photo with my 43 Limited

2007-11-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a random image from my new 43 Limited. Credit to Keitha McCall for her cool PP technique.

Quote of the Day

2007-11-30T12:51:00.000-08:00

"Good light must be credible, interesting or flattering to your subject."

Mark Robert Halper
http://www.studiomark.com/

Thanksgiving Portrait

2007-11-25T21:44:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Portrait with my FA 43mm Limited. Main thru a Shoot thru umbrella. Hairlight via a human powered lightstand.

Quote of the Day

2007-11-24T11:16:00.001-08:00

"A great portrait is a wonderful conversation that happens to have a camera present."
Jock McDonald

Quote of the Day

2007-11-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

"The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself... It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation."
Igor Stravinsky via Tony Corbell

Remote Flash, PTTL & Strobist(ism)

2007-11-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

I've been asked several questions regarding remote flash units using a Pentax system. Below is a summary of your options and the benefits of each.

There are only 3 ways to fire an off camera flash that I know of.

1) Wired connection between camera & strobe
2) Wireless optical trigger between camera & strobe
3) Wireless radio trigger between camera & strobe

PTTL is only supported by certain wired & wireless optical methods.

Now with the Pentax K100D and a single flash unit, you can pretty much eliminate any wireless optical option unless you need very little power (less than 1/8 power on most flash units) due to PTTL triggering the flash prematurely. You can add an AF540 (or AF360 & Sigma EF500) to your hotshoe to achieve PTTL optical triggering or upgrade to a K10D. The Pentax K10D obviously will optically trigger an AF540 from the on board flash. The range of the optical triggers varies depending on light conditions but 30ft is a good average.

For a wired connection, you'll need a hotshoe to pc sync adapter to put on your K100D or K10D hotshoe. Then a pc sync cable to the strobe. If I remember correctly the AF360, AF540 nor the EF500 have a pc sync port, so you need another adapter for the hotshoe of your remote flash. This is not a PTTL option so everything is set manually. However this is usually the cheapest manner to trigger off camera strobes.

The other wired alternative is to buy a PTTL specific flash adapter & cord to move your AF540 off camera. This is not terribly useful unless your goal is to use a flash bracket since the cords have a maximum distance of a few feet. Plus its expensive but it is PTTL.

Okay now for the main event, radio triggers. Radio triggers come in different flavors and at different price points. There are cheap Ebay triggers for like $40 and real expensive Pocket Wizards Multimax and a bunch in between. None support PTTL so you are back to manual settings.

Radio triggers come in two pieces. A hotshoe transmitter that fits in your camera hotshoe and a receiving unit that is connected to your strobe. Depending on the brand you purchase you may also need an special adapter/cable from the receiver to your strobe.

The cheap Ebay units are unreliable and its a gamble that they will work properly. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. But at $40-60 you could buy several units and still spend less than the more expensive units. Range is around 100 feet and they can be interfered with by other radio devices like microwaves or cordless phones.

At the top level are Pocket Wizards. Most people would use the Plus II units which are around $200 each (and you need 2). These are industry standard, always work and have a range of up to 2/10 of a mile.

In between are a couple other products. One new product is called Elinchrom Skyports. These are about $200 for the transmitter/receiver package (half the price of PWs) and from the reports I've seen work very well. Their range is up to 300 ft and are quite reliable. However they use a common radio frequency so they are also eligible for interference. There are also Tamrac Microsync units which functionally are very similar to the Elinchrom.

Quote of the Day

2007-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

Bad light plus bad light does not equal good light.

Mark Robert Halper
http://www.studiomark.com/

Checking your LCD monitor for hot/ dead pixels

2007-07-13T10:28:00.001-07:00

I thought I would follow up the last post with a simple way to check your LCD monitor for hot and/or dead pixels. This process is especially handy when you purchase a brand spankin' new unit.

The first step is to create a completely white picture and a completely black picture. The next step is just to view & fill your screen with white.jpg & black.jpg respectively. Using white.jpg look for anything that's dark (a dead pixel). Using black.jpg look for anything not black, usually blue, green or red (hot pixels).

Check the max resolution of your monitor and create an image in Photoshop that large or slightly larger. 1600x1200 should be fine for most people. Next take the paint bucket and paint the image white. Save your image as white.jpg. Next select black as your paint color and using the bucket make the entire image black. Save this as black.jpg.

Hmm, just realized I'm not sure how to do the next step for a Mac system. Well you need to completely fill the screen with your image. Maybe some nice Mac person can post how to do that.

For Windows users, open your white.jpg in the Windows Picture & Fax viewer (right click and hit preview or open with...). Hit F11 to start the slideshow and hit pause in the upper right corner. Move your mouse off screen and in a few seconds the control panel will disappear leaving you with (hopefully) an entirely white screen. Spend some time staring at the screen (I usually check it as quadrants for ease). Spotting individual pixels is not easy so don't rush. Next switch to black.jpg and look again. This time look for pixels that aren't black.

And that's pretty much it. A couple of minutes and you learn quite a bit about the condition of your LCD monitor. If you find 8 dead pixels you LCD is considered defective per most manufacturer's policies. However I always try to get a product with zero.

Testing New Lenses for Defects

2007-07-05T14:55:00.000-07:00

I feel it important to mention that while all major manufacturers have some sort of quality control, there will always be few products that don't meet expected standards. It's ultimately up to the consumer to verify you got what you paid for.

I'm not defending the manufacturers. Quite the contrary; I want to empower you to inspect your products for typical errors.

Regardless of manufacturer, when I buy a lens I run a couple of quick tests to determine its working the way it should. I'm sure there's better and more elaborate ways to test lenses, but this works for me. If you have suggestions, I would like to hear them.

First I shoot a focus test. If you have never done one of these, everything you need to learn is here: http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html It only takes a couple of minutes (after the first time).

Next I do a sharpness test. I lay a newspaper down or hang one up (usually the stock listing in the business section) and shoot it at various apertures in good light. I view the results on my PC and compare the various corners to each other. Is the left bottom as sharp as the right bottom, et cetera. I do the same with the sides and even check the center to make sure nothing seems odd. If there is a bad corner or an unbalanced lens you'll notice it quickly. And again it doesn't require much time or energy to do this test.

You should also do a quick physical inspection of the lens, making sure the glass is clear, the movement of components is proper and even jiggle the lens to make sure nothing rattles or is loose.

I usually do these tests right away while I'm still within the return period from my retailer. If I spot something that looks suspicious I return the lens and request a new one.

I recently purchased a new Sigma 24mm 1.8 and noticed it front focused. I sent it back to B&H received a second unit that tested perfectly. Sure I was bummed I had to do this but the alternative is not buying anything new or wishing on blind faith that the lens is perfect.

Other side of the lens

2007-07-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's not often I wander out to the other side of a camera lens. But with a wedding in my near future I need the practice. My buddy Tom was good enough to volunteer his services for an evening at the Griffith Observatory.

The Future Mrs. & I's engagement shots can be seen here:
http://www.pbase.com/alinla/engagement

Credit: Tom Yi

Q & A #2

2007-06-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

"Dear Al,

I saw your galleries in pBase, and I was impressed by your photos! I have a film SLR. But, I am thinking of getting into digital and am in the process of evaluating several DSLR's.

I am torn between Canon EOS Digital Rebel xti and Pentax K10D. I really like the build and ergonomic of Pentax K10D. But, as I read in dPreview, the K10D does not have as good a image processing as the competitor. As a result, the image is not as sharp!

Although, if taken in RAW format to bypass the image processing in camera will give Pentax K10D performance as good as or better than the competitors, but it will be more time consuming!

Do you have any comment/advise on the sharpness issue with Pentax K10D? Thank you in advance for your time!"

My response:

Just to clarify my qualifications to answer your question, 2 of my best friends have Canon 30D's which I've used several times & I've shoot with a 5D and XTi before.

The sharpness issue of the processor is much overrated. Your shutter speed, choice of lens and IS/SR will have a greater effect on the sharpness of your photos than the image processor. In this day in age, almost any processor is going to yield a sharp image. Are the JPEGs from the K10D softer than RAW? Yes, but not a bunch. A little Unsharp Mask sharpening is going to make the photos virtually impossible to distinguish from Canon, Nikon or Oly's.

Of all the issues between Pentax & Canon systems the processor sharpening is not what I would consider important. I think the differences on issues of price, lens availability, ISO noise, SR vs IS, ergonomics, body & lens weight are far greater between these systems than the processor sharpness. I really think you should look at those issues to make an informed decision.

At the end of the day make sure you are happy with your decision. Nothing is worse than investing in something that causes you to second guess yourself.

Q & A #1

2007-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

I've been getting quite a few questions regarding photography lately. I thought it'd be helpful to post them here along with my answers. Here's the first:

"It looks like you did great stuff with the 16-45 as you continue to do
with the others. I take it the combination of a dedicated WA Sigma
10-20 and midrange 28-75 zoom appealed to you more, but I'm curious as
to why?"

My response:

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I had the DA 16-45 and the Tamron 28-75 which is a great combo. The overlap was nice because you don't have to change lenses every 5 seconds. I used them together for about 9 months and was very satisfied.

But I found that I was taking a lot of photos at 16mm and still not getting the photos I wanted. It wasn't until two of my shooting buddies told me that I needed to get an UWA lens because the 16-45 was cramping my creativity that I realized I needed something wider. So I sold the the DA 16-45 and bought the 10-20.

The DA 16-45 is a great lens. I never had issues with it and it was a pleasure to use. However I get so much more out of using my 10-20. In fact I really don't miss the gap between 20-28mm that much. And as you can see, I've been able to produce great shots with the 10-20 that I would have never been able to recreate at 16mm. The 10-20 is probably my second most used lens after my 28-75.

For my style of photography the 16-45 is neither long enough nor wide enough, so I'd rather carry two lenses one wide, one long to give me better options.

Starting my 101 in 1001 List

2007-03-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

So I've been inspired by photographer Jessica Claire to start my own 101 in 1001.

What's 101 in 1001? It's like a New Year's resolution on steroids. Essentially you list 101 goals you'd like to accomplish and perform them in the next 1001 days (which is about 3 years for those of you counting on your fingers).

Jessica's 101 is listed here: http://www.jcsphoto.com/101in1001.html

Jessica was inspired by her friend Jen, whose list is here: http://www.fallensouffle.com/101.html

I really like this idea as opposed to NY's resolutions cuz they are more about what you hope to accomplish in life compared to what do you want to do this year.

So I've started my list. I say started because I've gotten to 29 and am stuck thinking of more. This is definitely not as easy as one would think.

So I'll post again when I'm done with my list. Then I'll update the blog whenever I've completed a task.

First item on my list... Complete the 101. Just kidding, kinda.

Visiting UCLA

2007-02-22T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Future Mrs. & I visited UCLA today. It was a fairly nice day and we had
fun walking around seeing how much the place has changed.

Didn't get to shoot as much as I'd like (constuction) plus there was
student group using Janss Steps so I couldn't shoot that. Mostly hung
out at Ackerman & Royce Hall.

But I got a new hat and some nice interesting shots. Nice time I'll
bring more lenses.

Cleveland 114, LA Lakers 108

2007-02-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

My company organized a function at the Laker game last night. I was excited to go, since I've never been to a Laker game at the Staples Center before. I'd been to half a dozen Kings games at Staples, but never a Laker's game.

The Future Mrs. & I arrived a little late but as we walked in the door of the banquet room, we were handed raffle tickets. It seems the Lakers were giving away prizes and we are the last to get tickets. Well you know where this story is going so I'll just cut to the chase. The Future Mrs. won a very nice Laker polo shirt. I'm sure it'll look good on me. As for me, well I just won a basketball; an autographed basketball; an autographed by the entire Laker team basketball that has a letter to authenticity.

It's pretty cool and looks really nice. I was pretty darn tired by the time I got home but I quickly took this photo of it before going to bed.

The Laker's lost but the Future Mrs. & I made out like bandits.

Old review - Wolverine 80GB MVP Multimedia player

2007-02-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

I wrote a review a while back on another site re: my Wolverine 80GB MVP multimedia player.

I'm posting it here because its still pertinent and it an easy spot to reference.

I have a Wolverine 80GB MVP Multimedia player. It's the lower cost competitor to the Epson units.

I took it to Europe with me and it worked like a charm. Downloaded 16GB of photos and still had all my music available to listen to when I wanted. One nice thing about it is if you take the video cable with you on vacation, you can share your photos on a TV with friends, relatives etc. I have the optional AA battery case, which allows me to recharge/run the MVP from AA batteries without a AC charger. Very convenient when in foreign countries since you don't need power adapters.

Lately I've been using it in my car to listen to podcasts during my hour commute. This thing really is the the Swiss army knife of storage devices.

Here's what I wrote about it in April '06...

I recently bought the Wolverine MVP 80GB Portable Multimedia unit from
Costco. All in all, I think this device is a great jack of all
trades. Although it does a decent job as an MP3 player and video
player, it really shines for photographers out in the field. Think of
it as a Video Ipod with a built in card reader and fast transfer
rates. Bye bye laptop, hello Wolverine.

First things first. The thing is bright orange/red and quite a bit
larger than an Ipod. Once you get past that you can get down to
enjoying the main features of the MVP. The MVP comes with an 80GB
standard 2.5" laptop drive in the unit along with a 2.5" color display
screen. It has a 7 in 1 card reader interface, reads RAW files from
almost any manufacturer and is a USB2 plug & play portable drive ready
to plug into almost any computer. In my limited testing I found it
downloaded a 1GB High Speed SD card in about 4 1/2 minutes. The MVP
allows you to read your JPEG or RAW files from either the media card
or hard drive. Its not blazing fast with 2 second delay between
photos when viewing 10mb RAW files, but it gets the job done. The
screen is sharp and the colors reproduced are of good quality. You
can zoom into your photos, read the EXIF information and start a
slideshow from the built in menus. It lets you chimp on the road and
even delete any offending photos.

The built in OS is simple and easy to use. The buttons/interface and
not going to win any awards but they get the job done with minimal
fuss. I've read the battery lasts for 6 hours of consistant use but I
think this is misleading as under normal usage you'd find it lasts
longer. When using the unit, it often powers down the hard drive and
loads items into RAM to conserve energy. While playing music it will
likewise power down the screen for the same purpose. Recharging the
unit is simple with its AC charger or via a USB cable. There is an
additional car charger and battery pack you can buy for it if you need.

Overall the unit is a pretty good idea and pretty good execution. I'm
happy with it and recommend it to anyone who needs portable storage
space but doesn't want to haul a laptop around (think weekend trips or
vacations).

Valentine's Day

2007-02-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

The Future Mrs. & I spent a nice quiet evening at home on Valentine's Day.

We did the whole candles, flowers & homemade dinner thing. I'm not much of a Hallmark holiday guy (mostly because I feel coerced) but I have to admit it was really relaxing and I got a good night's sleep for a change.

Queen Mary & the Getty

2007-02-12T16:10:00.000-08:00

I've posted some pics from the QM (my first time) and the Getty (far from my first time) at the usual spot:

http://www.pbase.com/alinla/recent_photos

The last 11 photos are the new ones.

QM thoughts: I was testing the Gorillapod so I didn't bring a tripod. Next time I'll bring a proper tripod. I had many "almost" shots that didn't quite make it. I do like the Gorillapod but if you are going to be using a tripod for every shot its not the best means of accomplishing your task.
My favorite of the bunch:

Getty thoughts: I brought my 70-200 to the Getty for the first time and didn't really think I'd find much use for it. Ironically I used it like 75% of the trip. I decided to stay outside the art galleries all day and focus mostly on people shots. Not all my shots turned out the way I hoped but I'm still a little rusty so maybe in a week or two they'll improve.
Favorite of the bunch:

Lowepro Squared

2007-02-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

So today I picked up a couple of Lowepro bags. One new, one preowned but both Lowepro.

For a little bit now I've been thinking that my current bags weren't quite meeting my needs the way I'd like them too. I got tired of living with compromises and decided I've had enough.

My daily bag couldn't quite hold my K10D body with the grip & lens on while in my bag. Plus trying to squeeze my 70-200 2.8 into the bag posed problems in of itself. While I have really enjoyed using my Canon Gadget 10EG bag for a couple of years, the time has come to part ways.

At home I have a large backpack that I've been using to store my inventory of photo equipment. I have a second goal for this bag too. I occasionally use it when I need a large amount of gear on location. Although it holds lots of gear, using it around the house to hold gear & using it on location weren't quite what I had in mind. I finally decided I needed something that was more convenient both at home & on location.

After doing some research (read as lots of research) I settled on getting a Lowepro Pro Roller bag. It looks like luggage but seems to be the best option for what I need in a home storage solution. I especially like that it can be leaned back onto itself and you can work from the bag without having to lay it down. I found a good deal on the Pro Roller 2 on ebay and took the plunge. It should arrive in the next week or so.

Finding a storage bag was difficult but deciding on a daily all purpose camera bag was near impossible. It seemed like I had a set of features I wanted that couldn't co-exist in a single bag. After a couple of weeks I settled on the Lowepro Stealth Reporter series. It seemed like the one bag that could nearly do it all. I originally thought the D200 model would hold enough for my purpose and if not the D300 certainly would. But after doing some quick math I determined that if I wanted my 70-200 2.8 to fit properly I'd have to bump up to the D400. Luckily the D400 is only $20 more than the D300. The couple extra inches of room it gives though are worth much more than that. The bag holds everything I want it to with some room to spare. I just have to remember not to pack it to the brim since it'll be too heavy to carry.

I was able to find the D400 locally at Canoga Camera. If you're in the market for a bag I highly recommend them. The pricing is decent but what really makes the difference is they allow you to bring your old camera bag full of equipment in and test out their models to make sure it fits/works the way you want it. Several other stores I've been to have you check your bag at the door before going in. I don't know about you but I'd rather stuff a new bag full of my lenses, camera & batteries to make sure it fits than guess on a model and hoping it fits when you finally get home.

Today was a good day for me. Two problems solved which really means 2 less things to think about. I'll be selling my two old bags in the next couple of days. If anyone's interested in either bag, just let me know.

From PW to any Hotshoe Flash in $12

2006-10-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

You can attach your Pocket Wizards to any hotshoe flash without any expensive PC sync cords and without multiple cables. And it can cost you as little as $12.

http://www.pbase.com/image/96399658/large.jpg

What you see there is a female port 1/8" mini plug to hotshoe adapter. It's exactly like the PC sync models only with a 1/8" mini plug instead. The beauty of this adapter is that the PW already uses a mini plug port, so the only cable you need is male mini plug to male mini plug. As luck would have it, these cables are pretty easy to find at Radio Shack, Fry's or your local electronics store and come in different lengths. I had one laying around the house; you might have one too.

You can get your hotshoe adapter from an ebay vendor. She doesn't auction the adapters directly but she will sell them to you for $5 a piece with $2 shipping ($3 International). Contact photoland168@yahoo.com (I think her name is Julie) and ask for a hotshoe adapter or just paypal her with your $7 and your address. I ordered a backup adapter and it got here in a few days.

So here's the math:

$5 Hotshoe Adapter
$2 Shipping for above adapter
$5 Price of a stereo male mini plug to mini plug cable
-----
$12 Total

Last I checked the PC sync to mini plug cables were like $40-50 so this is a pretty good deal by comparison. I hope this helps those of you on a budget.

Review of Umbrelsoft II by DyanPhos

2006-10-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

36" Umbrelsoft II by DyanPhos sold on ebay via Amvona.com.

I found this interesting umbrella/softbox on ebay. At $.025 plus $10 shipping I figured it was worth the investment to see if it was a worthwhile investment over a shoot thru umbrella.

I've disliked the idea of having the round portion of my shoot thru as the diffuser since light spreads everywhere, making it hard to control. This looked like a better solution since the diffusion panel was flat and could be spun around just like an umbrella to only light certain areas.

As you can see the flash head is supposed to enter the diffusion area, bounce off the silver backed umbrella and leave thru the diffusion panel. Simple idea that sounds like it'd be perfect for us Strobists.

The Umbrelsoft 2 comes with a little nylon sleeve to put the umbrella into. The Umbrelsoft itself is made of decent weight nylon but certainly nothing I think would withstand abuse. Certainly not as well made as my Photoflex Softbox, but then it was 10x cheaper too. Care should be taken when retracting the umbrella as the white diffusion panel can snag on the umbrella tips.

moment I realized I had a problem. My Sigma EF500 flash didn't quite fit into the hole where the strobe is supposed to go; it was too tall. I could stretch the material around the flash and insert the flash into the Umbrelsoft bIt sets up exactly like a regular umbrella, only the Umbrelsoft 2 is brought much closer to the stand so the flashhead can poke thru the special hole in the diffusion panel. It was at thisut even then the flashhead itself was pointed much higher than the umbrella's center. I believe these were designed for studio strobes where the distance from the head to the center of the umbrella shaft is rather close. My 6" flash was maybe an inch too tall. Adding my hotshoe adapter to use my Pocket Wizard just made the issue worse.

About 8 hours later, I thought of a possible solution. I decided to reverse my umbrella adapter. One end of your umbrella adapter connects to the lightstand and the other end is supposed to hold both the hotshoe flash and umbrella. By reversing the adapter so the umbrella was held by the bottom end, I was able to rotate the upper portion so the flash was angled toward the Umbrelsoft.

This lowers the flashhead considerably and as you can see the flash can now fit into the hole in the panel. Of course this sacrifices the adapter's ability to tilt the umbrella so it's stuck parallel to the horizon. However for my applications, I don't think this will be a major issue.

The Umbrelsoft 2 provides nice diffused light that is more directional than a shoot thru umbrella. It's more efficient as there's no light lost either. For $10 its not bad and certainly better light than my shoot thru umbrella. I'd recommend it for anyone with a shorter flash or anyone for which tilting the Umbrelsoft II is not important.

New Toys, Yeah!

2006-10-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

I just received some new toys! I'm quite excited to get out and play with my new Pocket Wizards Plus.

Thanks to David Hobby at the Strobist for providing a great source for them. I'm looking forward to using them on new and exciting ways. I think it'll be a little while before I'm really using the PWs in creative ways but I'm quite excited about the possibilities.

I also picked up two Nikon SB-26's flashes. I'll be using these as remote flashes. I got them from KEH in bargain & ugly condition. I'll have to test them some more to make sure I'll be keeping them but so far the idea seems sound. That will give me either 3 or 4 flashes. Sounds like a lot but after using them a bit I realize that 4 really isn't too many.

Quick trip to the Zoo

2006-09-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ended up on Sunday having an extra hour to kill. So I stopped by the zoo to see if I could get maybe one worthwhile photo in 45 minutes or so. As it turned out I got 2 I was quite happy with. I think maybe I'll try this again when time permits.

Visiting Venice

2006-08-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Ahh, Venice!!

Venice was everything I thought it would be and more. The city is so full of life.

The best advice we got was to put the map away and get lost. And we did. There's a unique aspect to Venice that you actually see more if you allow yourselves to wander than if you plan your every step.

The Future Mrs. & I spent the whole day in Venice and were exhausted by day's end. But we did a lot including, go up the bell tower (San Marco's Campanile), watch Murano glass making, learn about Venitian lace, visit a few churches, shop for souvenirs, take a Gondola ride & eat dinner with live music. Oh, and along the way we took a few photos too =)

I could have spent 3 weeks in Venice shooting the city. I had so many photo ideas that I felt sad that I didn't have more time to capture the essence of the city. But I guess that also will get filed under the "Things to Do Next Time" list.

I have 19 photos from Venice in my gallery here:
http://www.pbase.com/alinla/gallery/venice

Its so hard to pick only a few sample photos, so I encourage you to visit my gallery where there are more images. As always, I appreciate your comments either here or on Pbase itself.

Visiting Amsterdam

2006-08-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

The Netherlands, what a wonderful little part of the world. I visited for about 24 hrs and that really can't do anywhere justice but I was there long enough to know I'd like to visit again.

Arrived in the evening and we had time for a canal cruise to see the city from the water. Unfortunately it rained nearly the whole cruise and there were no good photo ops. But we did see a lot of the city that way.

We had the next morning to ourselves as were leaving around noon. I decided it was a great morning for a bicycle ride. I found Mac-Bikes which rents bicycles and off I went. 12 million bicycles in The Netherlands for 16 million people and today I was one of them. The crisp morning air was great as was the views & people. Several friendly folks waved & smiled at me. I was Dutch for the morning. Ring, ring... ring, ring (bicycle chime).

As luck would have it about 2 hrs later and several miles away, the rain made another appearance. I decided to pull into a little sidewalk cafe with an awning to wait out the rain. Unfortunately, I was pressed for time as I had to return the bike & catch my coach. Reading a map while riding a bicycle in the rain is best left to someone with 3 arms & 4 eyes. Eventually I made it but I was quite soaked. Walking to our meeting spot the rain stopped and I had enough time to buy some souvenirs.

Only 6 images in my Amsterdam page. Next time I hope it rains less.
http://www.pbase.com/alinla/amsterdam

Visiting London

2006-08-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Future Mrs & I really like London. We had fun riding the Tube to & fro, meeting new people and discovering how little our puny American Dollars would buy. Weather was hot & humid but still much cooler than where we came from.

We had about 2 days to explore London. We saw a lot in that time although my photos don't really reflect this. We had fun and would like to visit again as long as the security issue is taken care of. Unfortunately we flew back home thru Heathrow and the mess was quite surreal. If there was a hint of that again, I'll probably chose to visit elsewhere.

Nonetheless I'll fondly remember London. Thanks to the Brits for a nice visit. I'll always remember to "Mind the Gap". There are 12 images & commentary from London here:

http://www.pbase.com/alinla/london

The Art of Revisits

2006-07-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

Visiting a photography location more than once seems rather tedious to some. But there a lots of good reasons to take a second trip to a location.

Obviously there can be different light conditions which can radically change your visit & photos. In fact visiting at a different time of day is a good idea. And there also may be areas you didn't notice or explore fully the first trip. Or perhaps there was one area you wish you could have spent more time at, but didn't. Last but not least, you may just have different lenses or equipment to use.

Apart from those obvious reasons, revisiting often makes you work harder the second visit, either by improving the execution of ideas you formed the first time or looking for new ways to shot your subject.

To assist me I often go over the older photos I shot, analyzing areas of interest and looking for areas of improvement. I found I can't get enough practice on the execution of photography. If I find a photo that had a good idea but I failed to execute properly, I'll focus finding a better method to capture the idea.

On the other hand, if I like what I shot I'll practice looking for new ideas. This is fun because I don't get bogged down with technical details. Using this thought process, I often shoot less and focus on more abstract subjects/ideas.

Either way I find revisiting is helpful to keep both the mind & eye sharp.

Strobist Assignment #2

2006-07-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

So I've joined the Strobist Online Bootcamp. What is the Strobist? Well you can learn all about it here http://strobist.blogspot.com/ but the short version is its an online class to learn how to use portable flashes effectively.

The first assignment was a simple headshot. The current assignment is a portrait with a lit background. So I came up with a few ideas and developed a good plan for them. Later I shared them with the Future Mrs. and she provided great feedback and improvements.

The first idea was to shoot me, in the garage with my motorcycle. Ideally I would have liked to have three seperate flash units, but I only have 2 so I had to make do. As it turned out I was quite happy with the results although, setting up the shot, shooting & modeling can be a lot for one person to do. I took a lot of photos cuz I wasn't pleased with my expressions. Next time I'll find a model.

Tech data:
Pentax *ist DS ,Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD (IF)
1/90s f/6.7 at 63.0mm iso200 with Flash
Pentax AF360 on camera for fill in light about 20ft away
Sigma EF500 from camera right bounced off umbrella about 8ft from subject

The second idea was to shoot a simiar photo on a road with a Curves Ahead sign in the immediate background. We decided we didn't really need my bike as the attire & sign would be suggestive enough. We drove around for a while searching for a sign with the right scene, facing the right direction etc. We finally found one on Mulholland just east of Kanan. I set up the lights & camera took a couple test frames and starting shooting. As luck would have it, a motorcyclist came by, and I was able to capture him driving across the background. I took a couple more photos but I think I knew the one with the motorcycle was "the" shot.

It was a long day of prep & shooting but in the end I think it was worth it.

Tech data:
Pentax *ist DS ,Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD (IF)
1/60s f/8.0 at 43.0mm iso200 with Flash
Pentax AF360 lighting road sign from above camera 20ft away
Sigma EF500 lighting subject from camera left at eye level 4ft from subject

Planning for the 4th of July Fireworks

2006-07-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

What's the most crucial element for a successful fireworks photo on the 4th of July (other than the actual fireworks)?

Getting there early & saving your spot?
A good tripod?
Shooting a couple test frames to ensure your exposure is correct?

While all these are good & very important, they don't quite carry the weight of the most crucial step to planning a great fireworks photo.

The most important part of a great fireworks outing , is knowing where the fireworks are. That's the step that Derick, Tom & I will be making sure is at the top of our lists next year. You see, we did everything else right. Tom drove down to the Long Beach Harbor the night before to scout the area & shoot a couple of test frames. We arrived about 3 hours early on the 4th and saved our spots, with the Queen Mary directly across the harbor from us. We set up, determined our compositions & exposures and even tested a few frames to improve our shots.

All it took was 3 seconds and we realized all our planning failed. When the fireworks show started we discovered we were facing the wrong way! What happened next was a scene right out of 3 Stooges. We all said "D'oh" and tried to move our tripods to a better location. Only thing was we had no room to maneuver and had 3 tripods almost on top of each other. As it turned out we had to duck & lean out of each other's way to shoot. Tom went high & extended his 'pod fully. I went low and in the corner. Poor Derick, well he was caught in the middle. I remember thinking this isn't what we planned for. And it wasn't. We did our best in the situation, but when all was said and done, something Derick said kept ringing in my ears... "There's always next year."

You Can't Afford Not To Get

2006-07-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

So in trying to get myself a good professional image, I decided to get some business cards. And I mean real 4 color press, coated business cards. Cards you can feel proud to hand out, and not the kind you print at home and feel you have to apologize for.

After cruising various online forums reading both good & bad stories, I settled on using www.overnightprints.com. Their webpage is very simple to use and I have to say they must have the best set of online instructions I've seen anywhere. They list a wide variety of detailed instructions all based on whatever application you have installed on your computer. I used the Photoshop instructions and they were easy to follow, had graphic examples and were accurate.

After about 20 minutes (most of it was me screwing around PS trying to get the photo just right) the business card was all done and my order processed. I decided to order 100 cards because I didn't want too many lying around and I can always order more. I choose 4 color printing on one side (as a photographer you have to have a photo on the front) with a white back for room to write on. All in all with ground UPS shipping the grand total was $20. Just twenty dollars.

The cards arrived about 6 days later (I did say I ordered UPS ground). I was very impressed with both the quality & accuracy of the design. Essentially what I had seen on my monitor was now in my hands.

A couple of days ago, I found a discount for to use at overnightprints. Use the code VALUEDCUSTOMER and you'll get $10 off your order. That's half off an order of 100 cards. Now that's a deal you can't afford not to get.

Twice Around the Clock

2006-06-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Twenty thousand frames! Wow I usually don’t like to do anything I like (or anything else) that many times but the experience has been quite fun. But this last month I rolled the image counter over for the second time while shooting horses at Santa Anita Racetrack.

So I decided to use this milestone as a chance to reflect on my DS ownership.

I’m approaching 2 years of DS ownership: Zero problems (Thanks Pentax!)
I own 2 cameras: my DS & a tiny Sony P&S
I’ve bought 12 lenses since I got my DS.
I’ve sold 6 lenses with 1 more on the selling block.
I’ve borrowed 3 lenses from a family member.
I rotate through 5 sets of NiMH batteries (flash included)
I use 3 SD cards.
I’ve cleaned my sensor with a swab just once.
I’m on my second camera bag and I just bought a photo vest.
I have over 700 images on Pbase.
I am very proud of the 43 images in my Best of ’06 gallery
I just bought a domain name (a little piece of the WWW that’s my very own)
I’ve joined 2 local photo groups to go out and shoot.
I have many new friends (local & online) who share my passion for photography.
I gave away a photo calendar to friends with my best stuff from ’05.
I’ve explored and attended countless places & events that I would have never been to without my camera.
I've made a couple of perfect strangers happy by taking their photos and emailing it to them.
I’m 32 weeks into my Photo A Week project.
And started this cool little blog along the way.

The Most Important Lenses

2006-06-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Most Important Lenses for Photography

The best & most important lens to have... the one that sits on your nose!

Go see your eye doctor for a check up every now and then. Your eyesight is critical for manually focusing, checking DOF and also for post processing properly on the computer. You can have the best most expensive body & lenses but if your eyesight is slightly off, your photos will be too.

As photographers, we spend too much time & money on photo equipment to not pay attention to the health of your eyes.

Welcome to the Trapped Light Blog

2006-06-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Trapped Light Blog.

This blog has been created to share my thoughts & ideas. Most will pertain to photography which is my passion, but occassionally I'll wonder off topic.

I'm just a regular guy. I live in Los Angeles with the Future Missus. I love to spend taking photos with my friends and sometimes wondering on my own. As part of the LA Shooters Photography group & the SoCal DSLR group, I regularly join them for photo shoots. Those shoots are usually outdoors at various locations. In fact the irregularity of the shoots is something that keeps me constantly testing new techniques & methods, helping me improve.

I've been shooting digital photos for about 4 years now. I've bought & sold about 6 Point & Shoot digicams before I bought my Pentax *ist DS DSLR. About 2 years & over 20,000 frames now, the DS has provided me with stellar performance and I'm extremely happy with it.

I'm also a regular at the Pentax SLR Talk on DPReview. I find this is the single best source of information about Pentax DSLRs and its really a pleasure to discuss photography with this fine group.

Anyways, I hope this blog becomes a source of useful information and helpful for all.

Al