Tangents

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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...

review: Litepanels MicroPro LED Video Light

September 13, 2010 Neil vN 31 Comments

review: Litepanels MicroPro LED On-Camera Light

I've been using the Lowel ID-Light whenever I wanted the specific effect that a video light gives when used for stills photography.  The not-so-gradual fall-off in the light's spread gives a dramatic quality to images. However, the Lowel ID-light can feel clumsy with the handle and battery pack that needs to be attached via the thick power cable. So I've been looking at various options to replace it ... or at least use at times that I need something compact and simple. Enter the Litepanels MicroPro LED video light (B&H) ...  Read more inside...

Review: Lightstands – Manfrotto 1051BAC & 1052 BAC & 1004BAC

June 25, 2010 Neil vN 28 Comments

Review: Lightstands - Manfrotto 1051BAC, 1052BAC and 1004BAC

I recently updated the lightstands that I regularly use, to the three of the Manfrotto range of light-stands, - the compact: Manfrotto 1051BAC  (affiliate ) - the medium-sized Manfrotto 1052BAC  (affiliate) - the taller, heavier tall: Manfrotto 1004BAC  (affiliate) They have a few interesting features. They are: - light-weight, - air-cushioned, - stackable. The air-cushioning helps prevents damage to equipment, or injury to fingers if you forget to fully tighten the section locks.  Read more inside...

review: Lastolite Ezybox 24×24 softbox

June 6, 2010 Neil vN 85 Comments

review: Lastolite Ezybox 24x24 softbox

Softboxes used on location shoots, need to be easy and quick to set up. Ideally they should also be compact. Several photographers have recommended I check out the Lastolite Ezybox. So I took the plunge, and got the Lastolite EZYBOX 24×24" softbox (affiliate). Lastolite has a range of other Softboxes as well. All just as easy to use, with the Lastolite-specific way of expanding and collapsing. There's a specific way you twist it to collapse it. It's all in the wrists.     The speedring simply clips into  Read more inside...

review: RadioPoppers P1

September 9, 2008 Neil vN 19 Comments

[ click on the photo to see a larger image] Apathy Angel against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. The settings for the image above was 1/2000 @ f1.6 @ 100 ISO, and the reason for the wide aperture was that I wanted to have the skyline appear as that dreamlike haze in the background.  The bright light though, forced a very fast shutter speed.  In this case 1/2000th would let the background over-expose a little and blow out somewhat, but give me some detail.   But to control the lighting on my model more specifically than just the available light, I used flash. For the lighting  Read more inside...

review: Nikon SB-900 speedlight

August 21, 2008 Neil vN 8 Comments

review: Nikon SB-900 speedlight

With the SB-900 Speedlight (B&H), Nikon's flagship flashgun, it is clear that they did their homework.  The SB-800 was a great flashgun, but there were certain things about it that were very frustrating, but the Nikon SB-900 gets all of this right. A huge improvement is that the SB-900 rotates 180' to either side!   Right there in this image is the main reason to get the SB-900 ... it now rotates 180' to the right, instead of stopping short at the 90' mark like the SB-800. This is a huge benefit in bouncing flash with specific effect  Read more inside...

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