Tangents

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review: Frio coldshoe mount for speedlights

June 20, 2011 Neil vN 17 Comments

review: Frio coldshoe adapter for speedlights

The Frio is such an elegantly simple device - ready-made for those times you need to attach a speedlight to a light-stand or umbrella bracket. What makes it so neat is that you don't have to tighten a twisty knob to attach the flash. And neither do you have to un-tighten that same over-tightened knurly knob when you want to release the speedlight again. Where the Frio really shines is with the modern speedlights that have a pin & lock system. This make them nearly impossible to seat securely in some coldshoes. With the Frio's way  Read more inside...

review: Fuji X100 – photographing a wedding

June 13, 2011 Neil vN 62 Comments

review: using a Fuji X100 for wedding photography

Being impressed so far with the image quality from the Fuji X100 (affiliate), based on my initial impression of the camera, I was tempted to put the camera to a real test. A test where we remove the luxury of using the camera just as a walk-about fun camera. Instead, I wanted to shoot an event where there are real expectations from the images. With that idea in mind, I asked around if any of my wedding photographer friends would consider using me as a freebie 2nd shooter, where I would use only the Fuji X100 as my  Read more inside...

initial impression: Fuji X100 – not quite the review yet

May 11, 2011 Neil vN 21 Comments

initial impression: Fuji X100 - not quite the review yet

The Fuji X100 (affiliate) must be one of the most eagerly awaited cameras in recent times. The camera just looks beautiful. Retro-cool. With initial reports being mostly very favorable, I was quite keen to get my hands on one of these. The photograph above of Alyssa, (one of our models), was lit by LED video light. Now, when using video lights for photography, you're dealing with wide apertures and high ISOs. An immediate challenge for a camera. And the Fuji X100 excelled. The image above was from the in-camera JPG,  Read more inside...

comparison: Lowel ID-light & MicroPro LED light & Dedo Ledzilla

March 25, 2011 Neil vN 27 Comments

comparative review: Lowel ID-light & Litepanels MicroPro LED light & Dedo Ledzilla

The use of video light for stills photography has become ever more popular in recent years, as high-ISO capable cameras made it possible to shoot in lower light without having to resort to flash. The immediacy of video light - the 'wysiwyg' nature of video light - makes it an interesting light source to play with and experiment with on a shoot. The dramatic quality of the light is also quite appealing. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of video light out there: - the traditional  Read more inside...

photo session – Shawna – with the PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController

February 28, 2011 Neil vN 47 Comments

photo session - Shawna - using the PocketWizard AC3 Zone Controller

While in Las Vegas for WPPI 2011, the team at PocketWizard asked me if I would be interested in them shooting a short video clip of me using the new PocketWizards for Nikon. I didn't hesitate in saying yes!  Here is the description of the setup of the one photo sessions I did. There was another one, which I will post in a day or so. I will post a link to the PocketWizard video clip as soon as it is up. For this demonstration of the PocketWizard FlexTT5 and AC3 ZoneController, I relied on Shawna, a favorite model,  Read more inside...

using the PocketWizard AC3 Zone Controller

February 20, 2011 Neil vN 33 Comments

using the PocketWizard AC3 Zone Controller

This portrait of musician, Josh Adams, was a fairly quick set-up. I deliberately chose an area in a large hotel conference room to shoot this. A bit of a challenge to see how quickly I could get a simple but dramatic portrait out of a 'nothing' scenario. Here's the pull-back shot that will show you the area, as well as the placement of the lights: The light came from three speedlights, all controlled with the PocketWizard FlexTT5 transceivers. They in turn were controlled via an on-camera FlexTT5 (for Nikon), with an AC3 Zone  Read more inside...

Keegan – photo session w/ PocketWizard MiniTT1 & FlexTT5 & AC3

February 11, 2011 Neil vN 40 Comments

photo session w/ PocketWizard MiniTT1 & FlexTT5 & AC3 ZoneController

My friend Carol Beuchat, who works as a professional dog photographer, is back in New York for this year's Westminster Dog Show. Some of you may remember the portrait we did last year of Chanel, a champion whippet. Carol asked me to help her again with portraits of Keegan, an Irish Water Spaniel, who will be competing at the Westminster Dog Show. Keegan's owners wanted some photographs with New York as a backdrop. I immediately thought of doing this on the Jersey side, with a grand view of Manhattan  Read more inside...

review: Custom Brackets Digital Pro-M rotating bracket kit

January 30, 2011 Neil vN 26 Comments

review: Custom Brackets Digital Pro-M rotating bracket kit

The makers of the Custom Brackets flash brackets, recently sent me a copy of their latest and best rotating flash bracket, the Pro-M rotating flash bracket (affiliate), for review. Of the various makes of flash brackets I had tried out when I first started doing wedding photography full-time, the Custom Brackets was the one I settled on out of all of them. As far as I was concerned theirs was the flagship of the flash brackets. So I was curious to see what the updated model could offer ...  

the reason  Read more inside...

review: Lumodi beauty dish for speedlights

January 15, 2011 Neil vN 12 Comments

review: Lumodi beauty dish for speedlights

Light from a Beauty Dish has a distinctive look - an interesting combination of soft light with a pronounced fall-off to the edges. With a softbox there is a lot of scattering of the light, making it exactly that soft light source that it is named after.  A softbox is therefore quite forgiving of how you position the light in relation to your subject.  The beauty dish in comparison, used as a single light source, will give light that can be both dramatic and pleasing.  (Not nearly as hard as video light or direct unmodified  Read more inside...

using the new Nikon D3100 for its video capability

December 15, 2010 Neil vN 36 Comments

Melissa & Dennis - their wedding day from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.

review of the Nikon D3100 video capability

Nikon recently released two very interesting D-SLRs - the Nikon D3100 (B&H) and the Nikon D7000 (B&H). Improving on several of the entry-level Nikon D-SLRs, they also offer HD video capability (1080p at 24 fps), and even does so with full-time auto-focus capability. So when B&H sent me a Nikon D3100 for review, I thought what better test than to start in the deep end, and use it during a wedding to shoot HD video. The intention was to use the HD  Read more inside...

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