Overclock Your Speedlight for More Power

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post was originally published on April 1st, 2008.


This last weekend I got an email from M.I.T. opto-electrical engineering grad student Justin Phun, who apparently likes to tinker with commercial electronics devices for a hobby. He said he had figured out how to get into the "diagnostic mode" of the processor that controls his speedlight.

"So what," I thought.

Then he told me what he could do with his flash from the diagnostic mode. Normally this would be the point where I tell you to make the jump to read more. But before that, this:

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:
What Justin is talking about in the rest of this post will almost certainly be outside of the warranty parameters on almost any electronic flash -- even if the manufacturer's lawyers did not have the foresight to include the actual wording. And as such, I bear absolutely no respsonsibility for whatever happens to your flash if you overclock it too far.

Now, for the good stuff, hit the jump...
___________


FWIW, the word "overclock" normally is used to describe the process of speeding up a computer processor. But since there isn't really a word (as far as I can tell) to describe what Justin has figured out how to do, I am open to better suggestions in the comments. But for now, I'll use overclock for simplicity's sake.

What we are talking about is making your speedlight more powerful. Way more powerful.


Background

I try to avoid the technical stuff on this site, mostly to avoid the inevitable "can you explain this to me again" emails from reader Patrick Smith. But this thing needs a little lead-in, so bear with me.


This is the main printed circuit board from inside a Nikon SB-800. And no, I did not tear mine apart for you just to get this picture. Sometimes it helps to have friends at Nikon. (Thanks, Bill!)

The chip with the circle around it is the main processor -- the NEC 40-108. As it happens, it is used in most of the strobes built by the Big Two, Nikon and Canon. The SB-800 and SB-600 is controlled by that chip, as is every Canon flash since the 430EZ.

I am not too familiar with the earlier Canon models, but I know the SB-800 and SB-600's work fine. As do the Canon 540s, 550s and 580s. (We got it to work on all of those models in Charlotte.)

Normally, these flashes all put out about 60 watt-seconds of power, give or take. But if you own one of the above flashes, you can make it go a lot higher than that.


Turbocharging Your Flash

What Justin has found is that, by a special button sequence, you can enter the flash's diagnostic mode. These special modes are normally used by technicians to test units internally while diagnosing or repairing them.

Makes sense. I had heard of that kind of thing before with computers, and actually use the diagnostic mode to better aim my XM Satellite Radio home antenna.

But if you turn on most any speedlight in it's diagnostic mode, let it charge up, turn it off, and then turn it on again, it will charge up again. And not just once, either:

For each time you re-charge the flash, you add 60 watt-seconds of power to the next time you fire it.

Apparently, the diagnostic mode fools the charging circuitry into thinking the flash has discharged. Justin thinks it has something to do with testing the charging electronics on the testing bench. Whatever.

Short answer is, you get more power.

Two charge cycles = 120 watt-seconds.
Four charge cycles = 240ws.
Eight charge cycles = 480ws -- We are talking AlienBees territory here.



So, What's the Catch?

There always a catch. In fact, this time there are two catches.

First of all, the button sequence is a bear to get timed right. Fortunately, once you get it once, you do not have to repeat it for subsequent charges on the same pop. Just turn it off and on again for each additional 60 ws.

The second catch is more important. Way more, actually...

FINAL WARNING: Don't go nuts with it. The higher you charge up your flash, the more you will stress both the flash tube and the capacitor.

We got to 300ws (five charge cycles) easily, without seeming to stress the flash at all. In fact, 300ws is the power level in the self-inflicted "test pop" John Folsom used to potentially blind illuminate himself in the photo at the top of the post.

(Exposure info: ISO 200, 1/500th of a sec, at f/32 (with the flash set at 300 watt-seconds.)

I even did several 600ws pops with no problems. And you can probably guess what happened next...


Sadly, this is what happens on a fifteen-charge-cycle pop.

Equivalent watt-seconds: Nine hundred.

I know. I'm stupid. But I couldn't help myself.

It made a loud pop, we smelled a LOT of ozone, there was a chorus of, wince-faced "oooohs" and the flash head came out looking like the pic at left. (Click it for a closer, sadder look.)

So consider that fair warning. 120 ws? Fine. 240ws? No prob. 600ws? I'd do that sparingly.

900 ws? No.

No, no, no, no, no.

And no matter what you crank your strobe up to, it is all on you. Do this at your own risk. Although, the double cycle stuff was completely harmless, FWIW.

So, I'd say 120ws is pretty darn safe. We got that much on the SB-800, the SB-600, a 540 and a 580EX (Mk II) over and over.



Finally: The Button Sequence

Okay, follow me here. Because it is harder to get than it looks in print.


But it is easy to repeat, once you get the hang of it. Shown at left is Southern Short Course student John Folsom (the first one of us to get it) as he showed the sequence to some other students.

It took me 15 minutes of trying to get it right, then I could do it almost every time. In the end, everyone in our group was able to do it:

1. The power button or switch is all you will need to use.

2. Charge the flash up and then turn it off without firing it.

3. Wait exactly one minute, then turn it back on by holding the button down for exactly five seconds. On flashes with physical switches, just switch it on.

4. Whatever you normally see in your info screen, it should be the same -- but with the word DIAG overlaid.

5. Once you get to DIAG, the rest is easy: Turn it off, then back on, for each 60ws of power you want to add.

Again, some levels: 120ws for the chickenhearted. 300ws for the playas. 600ws is pushing it.

And 900ws gets you a fried green tomato.


If You Dare to Try It, Tell Us Your Results

Whatcha gonna do with your new 300ws, pocket-sized flash? Overpower the sun? Get more aperture on your studio shots? Blind the cat? (No, not that...)

Sound off in the comments. If you exercise restraint (as opposed to me) this thing is just awesome. Just keep it to 300ws or so.

And be patient on the button sequence -- it's all about the timing. But don't get discouraged. Once we got it, repeating it was piece of cake.

I will be traveling back to Maryland today, so please be patient on the comment moderation.



POST APRIL FOOL'S DAY UPDATE: It is not like we didn't give clues -- Phonetically, the story subject and first three commenters were: Just in fun, Jokingly, April, and All in jest. And the model number of the special chip was the NEC 4 01 08.

If you believed, it was because you *wanted* to believe. Just sayin'.

Full Review: Ray Flash Ring Flash Adapter

Ray Flash is the first commercially produced ring flash adapter designed to turn a speedlight into a ringflash. While ringlight is nothing new around here, up until now you have had to either go the DIY route, or lug around a much bigger piece of gear.

Assuming you've got the wallet to handle it, I think a lot of people are gonna go for this thing. More on the unit itself -- and how much it'll set you back -- after the jump.
_________


Good News, Bad News

I'll give you the bad news first: The Ray Flash ring flash adapter costs $300.00.

Still here? Okay.

Because despite those 300 reasons against it, the Ray Flash is one very cool pice of gear. I've been playing with one for a couple of weeks. And to a person, almost every photog that I have shown it to was pretty smitten by it.

IMO, it's gonna be very popular with the wedding and people shooters. It's small, lightweight, maintains all of the flash's TTL functions. Best yet, it loses only one stop of light as compared to direct flash.

That last bit alone puts it head and shoulders above any DIY versions I have seen or tried. With that kind of output, it is even usable outside during the daylight at modest portrait distances. Especially as fill against other lights, which is the way you want to be using a ring flash if you want to have some variety in your photos.


That's the way I used it at the Southern Short Course in Photojournalism this weekend when a group of four photographers out of Florence, SC, asked me to do a group shot of them after we had finished portfolio reviews at about 1:00 a.m. (That's still early in the evening at a SSC.)

IMO, ring flashes have a total of exactly one look when used by themselves. That is fine, if you have, say, Czech supermodel Lenka standing in front of you against a wall. But that look is gonna get old for you if you just use it as a main light with nothing else. (Unless, of course, you are using it to mint coin every week at weddings...)

To my mind, the people using ring flash well are folks like Dan Winters, who combine it off-axis light (frequently, hard light) and create some really cool schemes.

For this shot, I placed (L to R) Keri, Heidi, Erin and Rebecca about 2-3 feet away from a wall and filled them with the ring flash. My SB-800 (which powered the ring flash) was dialed down on manual so it would light them at about three stops below the exposure at which he hand-held flashes would light them. I was also shooting with a CTO gel on the ring flash and straight light on the other flashes.

Being photographers, they all lit themselves using Nikon handheld SB-800's in the special slave mode. Those strobes were set at 1/128 power. I very much appreciate not having to do all of the work myself, especially after a day of teaching and a night of reviewing portfolios. (Thanks, guys!)

Now the classic ring light coming form the Ray Flash becomes a cool, 3D-ish, wrapping fill. This is the kind of approach that gets me excited about the Ray Flash as a lighting tool. Using it in conjunction with another speedlight (or four, in this case) gets you into all kinds of funky stuff.

(You can see a bigger version of the photo here.)

As specifics of the unit itself, the two things that stand out are its efficiency and its thin size. I cannot for the life of me figure out how they got that light around the lens while only using one stop. Amazing. That bit of engineering makes the adapter more usable in a wide variety of situations. And I am definitely gonna be experimenting with this baby some more.



Speaking of engineering, this is a pretty impressive piece of optical design. It uses little light channels to guide the flash around the lens pretty darn evenly. Given that the top is closer to the flash, you know that is gonna be the hot area. But they counter it by not releasing the light fully until they are an inch or two from the top of the ring, going around. Seems to work great.

The build quality seems to be pretty good, too. I had a little bit of de-silvering (de-painting, actually...) in one of my little light fiber channels, but there was no effect on the final output that I could discern. And to be fair, this was an early production model.

They have designs either in production or on the way for all of the current popular speedlights (the mounting bracket is designed to fit the individual flash heads). It attaches with a very sturdy clamp that makes both the strobe and the ring flash adapter essentially one unit.

As for size, they say you can't be too rich or two thin. And the Ray Flash is A-list in both categories. It will easily slide into the side pocket of a Domke F2 bag, the standard bag for PJ's. When you need to use it, you simply slip it onto a camera-mounted flash and you are good to go.


Here is a straight shot, typical up-against-the-wall stuff from a seminar in Phoenix earlier this month. (No added light sources were used here.) The whole, camera-flash-adpater combo is very easy to hand hold. The Ray Flash adds very little weight or bulk to your setup.

Shooting with it is a breeze. Works great in both manual or TTL mode, although you'll probably wanna tweak your compensation a little to fine-tune the look in TTL mode. But that's easy enough.

Gelling the Ray Flash flash is easy, too. You slip a gel on the actual speedlight before you mount the adapter. The Rosco sample pack gels work great.

But $300, you say? You can buy an ABR-800 for $400, right?

Yeah, sure. But then you'd have to lug it around with a Vagabond -- or find some AC. It all comes down to your shooting venue and style. If you are primarily a studio shooter, it is ABR-800. No brainer. Or something else, which would be north of $1,000.00. Way north.

But if you are mobile -- and especially if you like the TTL thing -- you have to give the Ray Flash strong consideration. And this design clearly took a lot of time and effort to produce. Not to mention a some very expensive mold design.

For the people for whom it makes economic sense, the cost will be returned many times.

I suspect that the Ray Flash will be a hit with the hipster wedding shooter crowd. It takes up almost no room in the bag, then you just slip it on when you wanna do the funky bride shot. You can do it at each wedding -- it's always new to them, right? This thing could make some cool reception pix, too, if you are into that kind of thing.

The Ray Flash ring flash adapter is a sophisticated light modifier that fills a big gap in today's strobe gear, and will open up new possibilities for many shooters. It's great to see a company taking light to a new level.
__________


More Info:

:: Ray Flash ::
:: Ring Flash Resource Page ::

You Choose '08: The Economy

We often describe our You Choose '08 platform as "the world's largest town hall" for political discussion. Every day there are thousands of discussions on YouTube over the issues that face our communities, our families, and our world. Starting today, in this blog, we're going to put forth a six-part series focusing on public topics that are being discussed in various circles on YouTube. We begin with the U.S. economy.



It's no secret that with the declining dollar, the U.S. mortgage crisis, and the recent collapse of Wall Street investment banking firm Bear Sterns, the U.S. economy is in trouble. YouTubers like Yayatv are encouraging people to save their money, while others like billybobjoe57 warn people to sprint from the dollar as fast as they can. Some users think the solutions to the economic crisis lie with our leaders – take, for example, n8glenn, who says that Ron Paul's libertarian philosophies are the way to a better future.



Several YouTube newscasts have tackled this issue with man-on-the-street interviews, like this one from moblogictv, which asks, "What will you do with your $600 tax break?", or this one from WMALnews, which asks, "What's left of your wallet?"



And of course the U.S. presidential candidates aren't going to miss out on the opportunity to weigh in on the economy, either. Senators McCain, Clinton, and Obama all have videos proposing solutions to the U.S. economic crisis. Check them out on our You Choose '08 platform.



Finally, you can toggle through this playlist for a broader look at the conversations going on about the U.S. economy. Keep an eye out for the video from wallstrip -- it will make you laugh, even if your pocketbook is feeling wounded.







Yours,

Steve G.

YouTube News & Politics

Rethinking the Umbrella

Umbrellas are a staple of small-flash photography. Back in March of 2006, when I wrote the original post on umbrellas for Lighting 101, my go-to choice on umbrellas was the classic, reflector variety. I have done a complete 180 in the last two years, and now use a shoot-through almost exclusively.

I was going to just update the original L101 post, but decided the reasons were worth revisiting the subject.

More on why I am now a shoot-through guy, after the jump.
__________


Back when I first started using umbrellas, I used silver, reflective umbrellas on the logic that they were more efficient way to get the small amount of light coming from my flash back to my subject. And technically, I guess that is true in an apples-to-apples comparison.

But when it comes down to the way you are more likely to actually want to shoot, you can more -- and better -- light from a shoot-through umbrella than a reflective one. It all comes down to distance.

As you know, the intensity of a light source can vary greatly depending on its distance from the subject. Without trotting out the Inverse Square Rule (which I am loathe to even think about) suffice to say that the closer a light is, the more powerful it is.

This alone can be reason to use a shoot-through.

Why? Because you can position a shoot-through much closer than you can a reflective umbrella. If I am shooting in close, I can get a shoot-through in a couple of feet from someone's face and still keep it out of the frame.


This photo of UK Photographer Ant Upton from last year is a good example. The umbrella is about three feet away from him. This proximity gives me power to spare, which means I am able to shoot at a low power setting. Which also means not having to even think about recycle times.

If I was shooting with a reflective umbrella at a distance of three feet (that is to say the actually umbrella was three feet away) the shaft of the umbrella would be sticking well into my frame. But with a shoot through, I can bring it in much closer, which not only means that my light source gets more powerful but it gets much softer.

But I didn't want the light to be too soft on Ant's face. So I "choked up" on the shaft a little bit to make the light a little less soft. (The flash was not lighting the entire umbrella.)

But that proximity also gives me another advantage. When my light is this close I also have lots of control over the amount of light reaching my background, which in this case happens to be a grey room divider.

This means that it goes dark so I can now create a nice backdrop by shooting a blue gelled flash through a stack of drinking glasses to make a nice, subtle pattern.

In short, the shoot-through umbrella typically gives you more power, better light quality and better background spill control than a reflective umbrella.

Not that you should throw your reflective umbrellas away. They are very useful for shooting subjects where you have to back your light source up a little -- light small groups, etc. But find that nine times out of ten, when I set up an umbrella these days, my light is more likely to me going through it than bouncing off of it.

Stick Your Flash Where the Sun Don't Shine

I'm down in Charlotte, NC, prepping to teach a pair of beginner's lighting sessions Thursday afternoon at the Southern Short Course. I prefer not to wait for the allergy season to get to Maryland -- I want an early start for my seasonal misery.

So I am going through the Flickr pool at about midnite, faving pix. And I come across this one, by Evan Schoo. I dunno what it is about this shot exactly, but I just found it to be a little bit magical. And it brings up three very good points for adding small, battery-powered strobe to a photo:

1. Adding light to the darkest area in your photo can flip it around and make it the center of interest. It's important to know when to stop, so the log (in this case, for example) doesn't look like it came from Three Mile Island. I'm talking about the flash power level -- and this one gets it just right.

2. Cool-colored ambient environment (whether natural, white-balance-shifted or done in post) just begs for some flash color contrast, which Evan got by using a CTO gel.

3. When sticking a flash into a tight space, always consider a dome diffuser. A Sto-Fen Omni Bounce was used here, but you could use a Gary Fong Light $phere, a LumiQuest UltraBounce, a piece of Tupperware - whatever. Just get that light going in all directions, like a bare bulb. It really works for cramped interiors.

-30-

No Matter Which Swivel You Get, You're Screwed.

I got a note from Stu at MPEX that the LP632 "shorty" swivels (which have been updated to have screws in the shoes for securely mounting the newer, metal flashes) have been selling faster than they can get them in. They are on backorder for, well, awhile.

But... when he wrote to tell me that they are subbing out the LUM5099's (pictured above) for those who need a swivel, I noticed that they, too, are now coming with the little flash-securing screws.

Amen.

This is good news for people (like me) who do not want to see their SB-800's (or 580 EX II's or many other newer flashes) crashing to the floor. I hope this little feature finds its way through every single flash swivel on the planet.

-30-

YouTube Reveals Video Analytics Tool for All Users

Whether a YouTube video has 10 views or 10,000,000, people always want to know the same thing: who's watching this? Where do viewers come from? How did they find my video?



Finally, we have some answers. Today we're releasing YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.



How does this help you? Well, using these metrics, you can increase your videos' view counts and improve your popularity on the site. For instance, you might learn that your videos are most popular on Wednesdays, that you have a huge following in Spain, or that new videos that play off previous content become more popular more quickly. With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences, and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site. (Maybe even post your next video in Spanish?) And for those of you who are also partners, the more popular a video is, the more advertising revenue it can generate.



We'll be making new features and additional information available fairly quickly -- like a specific breakdown of how viewers discovered the video -- so keep an eye out as we roll out new features. As for now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under "My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos."



The YouTube Team

Flash Flavor Test Drives the RadioPopper P1

For those of you following the RadioPopper Availability Slow-Motion Strip Tease:

Matt Adcock has posted the most complete write-up (to date) over on Flash Flavor. Even though he shoots mostly manual, Matt's more comfy with the TTL stuff than I am. So he was able to put it through it's paces better than I ever could.

(Thanks, Matt!)

But wait, there's more:

Hit the jump for a new RP video which includes the above shoot and some outdoor, high-speed sync stuff.
_________





For those of you who signed up on the email list, RadioPopper is now taking (domestic) orders. More info here.
__________


Related:

:: See All RadioPopper Updates ::

Lose the Smile for More Versatile Headshots

If you are going to go to the trouble to shoot a head shot (or, "mug shot," as we called them at the newspaper) you may as well set up good light. This can elevate a head shot into a portrait and yield a photo suitable for many more uses.

And if you are going to make a portrait, shooting a range of expression can further expand the ways in which the portrait can be used.

Hit the jump for a very good, current example.
__________



British photographer Platon (whose site we accidently overloaded when we all showed up to watch his videos a few weeks back) photographed Eliot Spitzer before he became better known as Client #9.

(At least, I am assuming he shot Spitzer before that, as pretty much nobody has been near Spitzer with a set of lights since. I would think that not even Platon is that smooth...)

The photo, seen above, appears as lead art, running full-page on a two-page spread on pages 24-25 of the March 24th U.S. edition of Time Magazine.

Platon's photo was lit with a simple, two-light scheme -- soft source directly above the camera, back light aimed at the background. He usually uses a medium-format camera, with a moderately wide-angle lens, which creates both intimacy and lots of detail in his portraits.

Reverse engineering notes:

The location of the nose shadow (butterfly position) reveals the position of the front light source: above the camera. We can also see the front light source reflected in a specular highlight on the forehead. The softness of the highlight-to-shadow transfer area further reveals it as a soft light source.

The even quality of the background light tells us it was almost certainly behind the subject. It was either between the subject and the background, aimed toward the back, or behind the paper, aimed forward at the paper.

Where is the chin light coming from? Looks like the shirt, to me. White shirts kick a ton of fill in at close range. And it would have been awfully hard to hide a mini softbox under Spitzer's chin.

But what about that expression? The same photog who famously got Bill Clinton to "show me the love" (resulting in another much talked-about photo) captured Spitzer in a quiet, downcast moment, not even making eye contact with the camera.

Generally, you do not get much time when shooting celebrities and other famous people. So you have to spend your ammo wisely. You want to get a photo that connects with the viewer, but you don't have to hold the button down and dupe that look continuously for the whole three minutes you have them captive in front of you. Do you really need that 37th version of a canned smile with eye contact?

Instead, when you are shooting a headshot, spend a little time grabbing the smile (that's what they'll be expecting to do anyway) and get it out of the way. Then spend the rest of your time exploring different expressions -- quieter expressions, no-eye-contact looks, etc. It is a little more difficult, because you have to create the conversation that evokes the various looks.

But it is worth the effort. Neutral expressions are far more versatile in what they connote. A smile say only a couple of different things (maybe a couple more, if you have a dirty mind) but the quieter expressions can make much more powerful photos.

I would go so far as to say that this photo probably was not the final edit from the original shoot. It is very appropriate in the context of Spitzer's sudden collapse in the wake of a prostitution scandal. But it hardly would fit for a photograph of the "Sheriff of Wall Street" even a few weeks ago.

The fact that Platon had the presence of mind to both evoke and then capture the contemplative moment of Spitzer yielded a stunning photo which may turn out to be the iconic image of an imploded politician. Kudos, too, to the picture editors and designer at Time Magazine for spending the square inches to give it the weight it deserves.

Nuts and bolts takeaway: Not everyone you shoot is going to get caught at the Mayflower hotel with their pants down. But if you are going to go to the trouble to light someone, make sure you take the time to work some different looks into your session.
_________

Related Links:

:: Platon's Website ::
:: Original Article: Time Magazine ::

Thanks For The Marching Orders

Our week in Arizona is done. Spent much of the week hiking near beautiful Sedona -- and eating enough to more than make up for the increased exercise.

Off-camera flash took the week off in favor of ultra-minimal gear, family snapshots and trying my hand at some stitched wide-angle panoramas.

Still working on getting the sky smoothed out. My efforts at fixing the tonal banding gave me some serious artifacts on the first go-round.

Today, we are heading back to the East Coast to get back to work and reacquaint ourselves with humidity. I'll be back to a more normal posting and comment moderation schedule on Monday. Thanks for your patience this past week.

And again, thanks for the questions and suggestions you sent in. I will be paying close attention to them in the coming weeks.

-30-

YouTube Awards -- Winners Announced!

And the results are in! Hundreds of thousands votes were cast during the week-long voting process, and 12 videos emerged victorious in their respective categories. Head over here to see the winners or click here to review all the nominees, which were largely defined as the videos you favorited to watch again and again, that generated the most discussion or views, and/or made some kind of societal impact.



Tell us what you thought about this year's awards experience and how we could make it better in the future. More community involvement is definitely on the top of the list, as is giving the event more of a real-world presence (beyond the the mammoth trophy winners will receive).



Meanwhile, upload those videos and start building up an audience for them. Anything could happen in 2008...



Best wishes,

The YouTube Team

Freeze Frame: Lighting Night Snowboarding

Winter weather has been total crap here in Maryland. I dunno if it is global warming or what, but I had to hop in the Hummer and drive 200 miles -- that's 17 gallons of gas at $3.25 per gallon -- just to find some good snow last week. Sheesh.

No so in the northern UK, where the guys from the Edinburgh University Ski and Snowboard Club Shoot took their speedlights out to the slopes -- and the jumps -- for a little fun.


What works:

Nice cross lighting - including some good angle light courtesy what appears to be a very tall stand. Also, they have the ambient balance thing down pretty well, too. The sodium vapors actually add some good color when underexposed by a couple of stops. Which, it appears, is exactly what they did.

As a bonus, the slower shutter speeds (to get the balance) gave them the opportunity for some flash panning for another layer to some of the photos.

And when it starts to snow, well, those backlit flakes are definitely working. I am jealous of that weather.


I'd Consider Changing:

Speaking of the snow, I cringed when I saw that SB-800 and PW covered in ice and snow at the end of the shoot. Big flash capacitors and melting snow do not play nice. Especially if you decide to give your strobe a tongue bath on the way home. No that I do. As far as you know.

For next time: Slip a clear freezer bag over the flash and PW. it can even stay open on the bottom. Just a cheap little SB-800/PW raincoat to maybe save you $500.00 on the combo, just in case.

Actually, in the UK, it'll save you closer to double that...

-30-

The Iraq War, Five Years On

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. Though YouTube did not even exist when American missiles first struck Baghdad five years ago today, it has since been used by hundreds of thousands of people to document, discuss, and debate the most controversial war of this century.



U.S. soldiers have used YouTube in unique ways. Some have filmed holiday greetings to send back home to family members. Others have documented what life is like on the ground, and a more creative lot have filmed music videos or raps like "Lazy Ramadi", which has gained hundreds of thousands of views.



Still others have posted videos taking a more poignant look at what's taken place in the Middle East, like this video reflection posted by a defense contractor who shares pictures of his experience in Iraq. Protest videos have of course been popular, too, as regular people who wouldn't otherwise have a voice have used YouTube as their personal soapbox. And not to be outdone, the coalition forces have their own YouTube channel, where they've gotten great attention for the riveting pieces they've uploaded straight from the battlefield, like this one on Baghdad's Haifa Street that has over 2 million views.



Perhaps the most touching video we've seen came in a very unlikely form: an opera. For seven full minutes in this must-see clip, Baritone Andrew Garland softly sings the words from the last letter that Private Jesse Givens ever wrote to his wife Melissa, his five-year-old daughter Dakota, and his unborn child Carson.



There are more videos than we can acknowledge here, but check out this playlist for a look at more of the best.







Yours,

Steve G.



YouTube News & Politics

DIY: Light Beer

Anyone who has been reading this site should know by now that I am a sucker for cool lighting stuff that can be done with the aid of a cardboard box. And when it involves beer, well, so much the better.

More, courtesy photographer Nick Wheeler, after the jump.





For one-off shoots that need special supports of light modifiers, always look into the idea of making vs. buying. And Nick's DIY-enhanced studio setups are really worth following, using household items and cardboard boxes to create exactly the type of light he needs.

In this case, he uses a large cardboard box to support the glass shooting surface. Since the surface is transparent, he can light the beer from below to get a nice, internal glow before he even starts to light the bottle itself.

The bottom light is coming from inside the box, where the tan cardboard warms it up as is bounces around inside what is now essentially an undiffused softbox. The box does not soften the light a great deal -- it is just filling out a little with reflections. But it does warm the light up a bit.

What is the flash mounted on in the bottom of the box?

Another cardboard box, of course.

For a detailed write-up on this shoot check out DIYPhotography.net.

The Vancouver Film School/YouTube Scholarship Competition

Film schools have helped produce some of the greatest filmmakers of all
time -- Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, to name a few. But, in
many ways, they've also been restricted to a select few.




Which is why I'm pleased to report that today marks the start of a
partnership between YouTube and the Vancouver Film School

to make film school accessible to up-and-coming filmmakers all over the world!




Aspiring directors, actors, animators, screenwriters – even sound
designers – in all of YouTube's 19 countries are invited to step up to
the challenge in order to win one of three scholarships to any of
Vancouver Film School's 14 outstanding educational programmes.








After Vancouver Film School whittles down the submission pool to top applicants, the YouTube community will vote for the three scholarship winners.




This is your chance to continue the democratization of filmmaking and to determine who some of our brightest future film stars might be.



Check out the competition and visit our FAQs to confirm your eligibility and pick up tips on creating a top-notch entry.



Happy filmmaking,



Sara P.


YouTube Film

RadioPoppers: Not Just For Wireless TTL

I had had lunch with Kevin King on Friday in Phoenix and got to play with a set of RadioPoppers.

Given that I am not really much of a wireless TTL guy, I did not think that I would be that interested. (For myself, anyway.) But I am most definitely gonna be getting a set. And I'll bet a lot of other Pocket Wizard-toting pro shooters will be, too.

More after the jump.
_______


First of all, you will remember that many people said that the RadioPoppers could not be real because the technological problems were too great to solve. Short answer is, they were almost right.

But they did not count on the tenacity of Kevin King. I know just enough about electronics to be dangerous, and listening to Kevin tick off all of the reasons this could not be done -- and how he solved each of them -- was amazing. Suffice to say, do not ever tell this guy he can't do something.

They definitely work. But since I use Nikon's CLS in the TTL mode very infrequently, I did not think I would be interested in a set for myself. Until I thought about something else my Nikon D300 can do wirelessly at close range: Ultra high-speed sync.

To me, synching a flash over the hybrid IR/RF RadioPopper at a 1/8000th of a second seemed like much more of a challenge than merely running TTL through the new RF range extenders. But when I asked Kevin about that feature, he didn't even blink.

No problem, he said.

(Okay, now I am interested.)

The Achilles heel of FP (focal plane, high-speed) synching systems is the flash-to-subject range limitation. As the shutter speeds move up the ladder, you get less and less range out of your flash, due to the fact that the slitted shutter (at high speeds) is not catching much of the energy put out by the flash.

So, your flashing range at 1/4000th of a sec is far less than the range at, say, 1/500th of a sec. Combine this with the range limitations of straight CLS-type systems, and you can get squeezed on each end.

But if you can move your flashes close to your subject and extend the wireless communication range of your high-speed FP flash, you buy yourself lots more flexibility in your shooting. Think telephoto portraits shot wide open at 1/4000th of a sec to blow out the background focus -- yet still lit with a nearby flash, for instance.

This means you could shoot outdoor portraits with your flattering tele at noon on a sunny day with both controlled light and a nice, soft background.

We were both pressed for time, so didn't really have time to play much. But as a range test, the photo above was shot with high-speed FP flash at a 1/2000th of a second with a D300 at over 100 feet with a telephoto lens.

I was shooting straight TTL wireless flash at about 250-300 feet away earlier, too. The RadioPoppers were working just fine. And if you exceed your range, your transmitter will tell you. It has a "link status" light that tells you when everything is hunky-dory -- and when it is not.

I'll give up my Pocket Wizards when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers. But I'll be making room in my bag for a set of RadioPoppers, too. Congrats to Kevin for pulling off an engineering feat to make any DIY'er proud.

:: RadioPopper Main Website ::
:: RadioPopper Blog ::

YouTube Videos in High Quality

You may have noticed that we're now giving you the option of watching some YouTube videos in higher quality. We're making these streams available on certain videos, based upon the source file uploaded to us, and over time you'll find a greater percentage of the library is available to view in higher quality. This feature applies to all eligible videos uploaded from the YouTube community, and is not restricted to partner content, so everyone can enjoy this upgrade.







How do you watch higher quality videos? On your Account page you're now able to choose "always show me higher quality when available" or "never show me higher quality." We suggest you select "always show me..." only if you have a fast internet connection, otherwise you might find that videos don't play as quickly or smoothly as you're used to. Higher quality videos also have a link right below the video player which will allow you to select between the normal or higher quality settings.



We want to help everyone understand that YouTube will continue to evolve with the videos you're creating. We're especially excited about offering this upgrade in video quality to our community of filmmakers and animators, who have been requesting this feature for some time. As more of you guys produce great-looking videos, we want to make sure they can be seen in all their glory. So we'll continue to increase quality behind the scenes and make tweaks to support your uploads. (Remember, we can now support uploads up to 1GB in size.)



You may also wonder how video quality is chosen. Our general philosophy is to make sure that as many people as possible can access YouTube and that videos start quickly and play smoothly. That's one reason why you don't see us racing to call this "Super Duper YouTube HD," because most people don't want to wait a long time for videos to play.



Right now the Help Center information is pretty basic, but ongoing we'll be making more specific details available for those content creators who really want to tune their videos for YouTube.



Keep creating and watching...

The YouTube Team

Dan Medhurst's Snowboard Stopper

FYI, a "stopper" is a photo that does just that: Smacks you in the face and tells you to stop and look at it.

Congrats to Strobist reader Dan Medhurst, of Leeds (UK) on his photo of a snowboarder carving a turn for the cover of Document Snowboard Magazine. Simple light -- two speedlights -- gorgeous result. Click the pic to see Dan's notes, plus a link to his early test shot from when he was first figuring out the light a month ago.

Hey Dan, howzabout a little more detailed info in that Flickr caption? Give us all the dirt. (UPDATE: He did! Thanks!)
__________


:: Dan's Website ::

-30-

Beers With: Dave Hill

(Photo by Dave Hill)

Conceptual portrait photographer Dave Hill, of Nashville, has never won a photography award. Nor does he belong to any photographic organizations. So you have probably never heard of him.

(That's not him above. Dave has better pecs.)

I caught up with Dave via email for a little Q&A while he was in London recently. More from the guy who has the "Dave Hill Look" down better than almost anyone else, after the jump.
___________


Dave Hill Q&A

Your lighting, shooting and post-production style is unique, and generates a lot of conversation among this site's readers. Is there really a definitive "Dave Hill Style," or are you more subject-driven in your approach to visualizing and lighting a photo?

Well, I'm not sure if there is a "style," but I do tend to light in similar ways, even if the audiences and subjects are totally different. I have definitely studied and used other people's lighting styles that have been around way before me.

My post production process, though always evolving, has become almost second nature to me. I'm pretty good at getting the Dave Hill look by now.  :-)  But of course, not every subject works with an 8 light setup. Recently, I've been playing around with fewer lights, not always insisting on rear lights, etc.  


(Photo by Dave Hill)


You are 28 years old. In just ten years you have gone from shooting local skateboarders to photographing some of the hottest people in the entertainment industry. How does that happen so fast? When you look back, do you see a moment when things really started to gel for you?

Haha. Actually, it seems like a long time coming really. Look how much Britney Spears has accomplished in the same amount of time?

I shot for my college paper for 4 years (UCLA Daily Bruin) and then worked at Loyola Marymount University as their full-time campus photographer, working mainly with film (medium format). I didn't really know any freelance photographers at the time and didn't really know what I was doing, lighting-wise. It wasn't until I packed my bags and moved to Nashville in 2003 that stuff started changing.

I was sick of shooting for a salary and decided I would shoot as much as possible on my own, while working random odd jobs (valet parking, video editing, etc). I got a lot of flak from some of the bigger photogs in Nashville for putting up signs for $100 artist promo shoots. I'm happy I did, though. Besides getting a ton of experience, I shot one band, with a guy who worked at EMI records. He liked my stuff, got me a meeting with the label, and it turned into a lot of jobs with Nashville records labels, and then nation-wide labels. During the $100 days, I also shot an indie musician who was friends with some guys at a Seattle design firm, then called Asterik Studio (now invisiblecreature.com). 

They saw my stuff, liked it, and started using me more and more. It helped that I was willing to build huge water tanks and massive sets for almost no budgets. With them, I really got to do some great photoshop-heavy compositing work. All in all,  I guess my $100 campaign really sparked things for my career (and just shooting a ton!).


Regarding your light, do you tend to design it before the fact in a given situation, or does it just evolve as you shoot and look at the results?

If the shoot involves a planned concept, I usually have a good idea of how I will light it before I arrive on set. Of course, sometimes stuff looks great in my head, I set the lights up, and then it looks like crap, so I have to play it cool and try another set up (acting confident in front of the art director the whole time, of course!)

For less-planned shoots, like most artist promo stuff, I just set up the lights on the fly. Funny thing is, the lighting setups for planned stuff and the last minute stuff usually come out pretty similar.


Your photos, although highly produced, are also very moment-oriented. You describe them as "cinematic." How to you create these moments? Is there a lot of pre-thinking and direct coaching involved, or is it more of an organic collaboration on the set?

For all of my bigger-budget shoots, the concepts are planned out in my head at least a few days before we shoot (sometimes much farther in advance). I did the packaging photos for Chris Brown's latest CD this past summer, and I had to come up with some concepts for him based on some movies he liked. I had a lot of fun coming up with image concepts, locations, etc and finally having the budget to pull them off (sports car, big plasma screens, baby Leopard, radio dishes, etc...kinda ridiculous!). 

I did an ad for Nationwide Insurance this past summer which also involved a ton of planning, and coaching on set. We had these poor high school kids jumping on trampolines and flying into mattresses all day. The image was accurately sketched out a few weeks before we started shooting. I really love spending lots of time on single images. I really hope to do even more stuff like that this year.


Clearly, your clients are hiring you with expectations of a certain look and feel to the photos you'll make. Do you think that expectation hems you in, of gives you the freedom to stretch?

I really do feel a lot of pressure to keep progressing my style in the same direction (big composites, post, etc). Of course there are upsides and downsides to this. It's very rare that my clients aren't happy with their product since I rarely take too many chances (which is something I'm actively working to overcome!) They pretty much get what they expected. 

Recently, I've tried to tone down some of the post-processed look on a few assignments and the feedback I've gotten from the art directors is "great stuff! but can you add some of that "animated" look to the images?" So ya, we'll see how much I can grow and stretch this year... :-)  


You are shooting what many of the readers of this site would consider dream assignments. What would you consider a dream assignment?

I would love to shoot Zach Braft, Mandy Moore, and Clint Eastwood riding wild camels, with pursuing Arab militants in the deserts of Namibia for the cover of Vanity Fair, in promotion for their upcoming movie "The Desert Chronicles," directed by Steven Spielberg (of course I would shoot him for the sidebar). My wife would produce it, and all my friends would be there hanging out, assisting, etc.

Afterwards, we would explore for 2 months, shoot a lot of film, get stuck in the sand at least 4 times, then come home, and cash our checks. A month later, Universal would buy out all of the rights to the photos for their movie poster for $1,000,000.

_____________

Are you near the greater L.A. area? Be sure to stop by the Koos Art Center in Long Beach, to see Dave's work along with that of seven other photographers, in the show, Photo Pass: An Exhibit of Music Photography.



Related links:

:: Dave Hill's website
:: Official 'Dave Hill Look!' navel-gazing thread ::

The YouTube Awards Are Back!

In 2007, we witnessed an explosion of ideas and creativity on YouTube. You showed us that online video is not just a way to share pet and baby videos (though it is certainly good for that, too), but rather it can be so much more: a showcase for aspiring artists, a megaphone for everyday people, a way to learn new skills and even to change the political process.




In recognition of all of these vibrant uses of and communities on YouTube, we expanded the awards this year to include five new categories -- Best Short Film, Best Political Video, Best Sports Video, Best Eyewitness Video, and Best Instructional Video – for a total of 12. Each category now has six nominees instead of 10 (a special nod to those of you with short attention spans).




You'll also notice that the structure of the awards and the way voting works look a little different this year. Every time you refresh the page, the order of the categories and the featured thumbnail change in a random order so there can be no bias in the way the content is viewed or presented.




As you might imagine, whittling down any category to six videos was a gargantuan task and already we'll say we're sorry to the hundreds/thousands of deserving content creators who didn't get nominated. But you can't exactly blame us - you made these videos memorable and helped them rise to the top of the YouTube charts. The nominees reflect some of the most buzzed-about videos on the site, particularly the ones you bookmarked to watch later (and presumably again and again).




So head over to the YouTube Video Awards channel to start watching and voting for some of the videos that defined '07. You can vote once per day (though you may not change your vote on the same day) and you have until 11:59pm PT on March 19, 2008, to do so. Winners will be announced on March 21, 2008, at which point we'll feature them on this page as well as overnight them a trophy like no other (and believe us when we say this). Winners will also get a special invitation to a YouTube event later this year.




Good luck and have fun!




The YouTube Team

Westward Ho: Open Mic

I am in the air all day living on teeny tiny bags of Southwest Airlines peanuts, headed to the Phoenix seminars this weekend. (I do hope I get one of the jets without the cracks.)

Anyway, this means that your pithy comments will languish unmoderated all day long, as the captain hates it when I screw up the plane's nav system with my cellphone internet connection.

Especially if it interferes with the Pocket Wizard he is using in the cockpit.

If you are coming to either of the seminars, I will see you this weekend. I would say that I will be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we start up at 9:30am each day, but "bushy-tailed" usually does not apply until about 10:30. I'll fake it with Diet Mountian Dew until then.

Bring your PayPal email from the purchase transaction (I have a list also though) something on which to makes notes, a camera with a wide lens (if you want to shoot the setups) a PW (on channel 1) if you are gonna pwn me, and an open mind. We're gonna have fun.


Testing: 1,2,3...

Speaking of my incommunicado status all day Thursday, I am repeating something I have done in the past while traveling: It's open mic time. What would you like to learn more about on this site?

The biggest difference between a blog and a magazine is the real-time interactive nature of the former. This site is for you, and I always enjoy learning what you might like to know more about. Because I would probably like to know more about it, too.

Hit me with my future marching orders in the comments.
__________

(SWA 737 Belly by Strobist reader Wirehead. Click on the pic for some interesting Boeing 737 trivia in the photo's notes.)


-30-

On Assignment: Nest Egg

For my shot at the most recent Lighting 102 assignment, I went with financial planning as my theme. Specifically, riffing on the idea of a nest egg having great value. (Click the pic to see it bigger.)

I had my light all planned out in advance, and I thought it would be quick and easy. I was wrong.

More after the jump.
__________


I chose financial planning as my theme. I was looking to create a photo that would be generically useful, in a variety of ways, for my friend and fellow blogger J.D. Roth, who publishes Get Rich Slowly.

I read the blog. And I am, in fact, getting rich slowly.

Very slowly. Excruciatingly slowly. So slow that my net worth may at times appear (to the untrained eye) to actually be shrinking. But in reality, I am getting rich. Slowly. I will be ready to retire at, say, age 152.

So I wanted to create something for J.D. that was simple, textural and versatile. My initial idea was to do it with a ring light, and reflect the ring light back on an angle to edge light the next.


Problem: Golden Eggs do not like ring lights.

So, one quick test shot into the shoot, my idea falls apart. Clearly, I would need a large light source to paint the kind of specular highlight that would make a spray painted 24-carat, solid gold egg look the way I wanted.


Takeaway: If something is not gonna work, you can see why, and it cannot be changed, then bail. Go for plan "B" instead of knocking your head against the wall to fix a flawed plan "A".

So I threw up some light stands around a nest which was created by my prop department (avian division) last spring. I placed it on an old cutting board to help carry the warm tones I wanted for the photo. Then I taped some paper to the stands to make a nice diffuser. Could have done it with a big cardboard box, too. Any support in a storm.

Firing a bare SB-800 through that, my specular started to look a lot better. But it was all on one side of the egg.


No prob -- that's an easy fix. Remembering that the egg will "see" and reflect everything around it, I continued around the top and other side with more white paper. The top and right side paper is illuminated by the lit paper on the left and makes a quasi-light tent that creams out the egg nicely.

My light stand for the SB-800 was the arm of a couch. I used the couch because the kids weren't home from school yet. Thus, no voice-activated light stands. (Hey, they work cheap.)

You can see a hole in the top of the paper, too. I first thought I might like to shoot from directly overhead. But that was too symmetrical. So I bailed on that idea real quick. (Persistance, apparently, took the day off...)

At least the egg is now solved. But the nest is dark on the shadow side, even though the paper was filling it from camera right. So I built a little aluminum foil reflector which I tucked in on the bottom camera right side to fill the right front of the nest. You can see it in the setup shot if you click through.

The camera right foil-fill keeps the texture flowing nicely all around the nest, making the light as symmetrical as the composition.

It's a simple photo, built on color and texture. I wanted the color and texture to be the theme of the photo, rather than over-the-top light. But the use of soft-fill reflectors all around the top were still important, even if they do not scream, "HEY, PEOPLE! LOOKIT MY LIGHT!"

Ditto the little piece of foil. It is subtle, but it needs to be there. If the egg is seeing a highlight everywhere, the nest would look weird if it were dark on the right.

For the gear-wonks, I shot it with a Nikon D300 and a Tamron 17-50/2.8. Light was from a single SB-800 speedlight, as mentioned above. It was on full power, which got me the aperture I needed to carry focus on the nest, even though working in close.

So, J.D. there's a photo, appropriately, for you to stick away and use later when you need it on your website. If you want it for the cover of your sure-to-be bestselling financial planning book, tell Random House to call me for, uh, details...


IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE LIGHTING 102 THREAD, NEXT: L102: 6.1 - Gelling for Fluorescent

IF YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE ON ASSIGNMENT THREAD, NEXT: Peter Yang Shoots Admiral William Fallon

____________

Related Links:

:: Original Assignment ::
:: Get Rich Slowly ::
:: Lighting 102 - Specular Highlights ::

YouTube Videos in High Quality

You may have noticed that we're now giving you the option of watching some YouTube videos in higher quality. We're making these streams available on certain videos, based upon the source file uploaded to us, and over time you'll find a greater percentage of the library is available to view in higher quality.



How do you select higher quality videos? On your Account page you're now able to choose "always show me higher quality when available" or "never show me higher quality." We suggest you select "always show me..." only if you have a fast internet connection, otherwise you might find that videos don't play as quickly or smoothly as you're used to. Higher quality videos also have a link right below the video player which will allow you to select between the normal or higher quality settings.



We want to help everyone understand that YouTube will continue to evolve with the videos you're creating. We're especially excited about offering this upgrade in video quality to our community of filmmakers and animators, who have been requesting this feature for some time. As more of you guys produce great-looking videos, we want to make sure they can be seen in all their glory. So we'll continue to increase quality behind the scenes and make tweaks to support your uploads. (Remember, we can now support uploads up to 1GB in size.)



You may also wonder how video quality is chosen. Our general philosophy is to make sure that as many people as possible can access YouTube and that videos start quickly and play smoothly. That's one reason why you don't see us racing to call this "Super Duper YouTube HD," because most people don't want to wait a long time for videos to play.



Keep creating and watching...

The YouTube Team

Lighting 102: Discussion - Double-Duty Light

UPDATE #1: Adds killer shot that did not show up in tag search.

Report from Assignment 5.2 -- Double-Duty Light, in which you were asked to illustrate one of three concepts: Physical fitness, financial planning or going green. You were asked to stretch your lighting budget by reflecting and/or refracting one light source.

Lots of really cool stuff this time. We'll be looking at four examples, pointing to a few more and linking in to some photogs who went the extra mile and chose to blog or video their efforts -- after the jump.
__________


Long story short, you guys turned out to be luminary contortionists. I hope you enjoyed finding out what one light could accoplish as much as I enjoyed watching you.

This is one of those times where there was an embarrassment of riches, as far as the number of good photos was concerned. So as visual examples, I am looking at three people who took different directions with their light. (No pun intended).

Leading off is Lbeetge and his "going green" theme.

He chose to start with strong, undiffused backlight, which he sent through his plant to make it glow. This hot light coming from back camera right (via a Sunpak 4205 flash) was easy to reflect back into front camera left using two silver reflector boards.

I love the way the plant goes a little nuclear. (Or, "nukuler," as our Commander-in-Chief says.)

Starting with a hard light from the back is a useful way to stretch your lumens budget, and it translates well to working with hard, directional sunlight, too. But since you can create hard, directional light any time you want with your speedlight, this is something you can do any time, anywhere.

Batting second is Nick.Flick, who managed to conjure up a whole studio for this one-source, wrapped-light photo.

The flash is coming in bare from back camera left. It is reflected by a mirror on camera right. (Thus, the "wrap.") A fill card is at camera front light to paint a nice soft light on the cans in front.

Still not exactly sure what he shot the flash through for the background light. (Even after looking at the setup shot...)

Third up, we have treeffe2000, who did pretty much everything except for project some birds and clouds into the sky on his background.

Flash comes in bare from back camera left, lighting the coins. It is then reflected from camera right, to light the coins from the other direction. (A piece of paper was also used above the coins to catch some raw light and paint a nice smooth tone.)

A mirror at camera left also catches some raw light and sends it through a house-shaped gobo to create the background image.

The setup shot is here. Bonus points for the Elliott Erwitt book on dogs. I love that one, too.

And batting clean-up (and a grand slam, IMO) is this shot which I marked earlier -- then missed it because it for some reason does not show up in the tag search.

It is by The Light Whisperer, which is an appropriate name as far as I am concerned.

One light.

I am proud to say that I was able to reverse engineer it - but only by narrowing it down to two guesses. Try to figure it out before clicking through to the photo to see it bigger and read how it was done. This is an slick idea, and I never would have thought if it. Triple aces.
_____________


Neat stuff, all. And if you want to see more, check out:

• Paul Morton's penny -- setup shot here

• Jon's dime -- link is to a how-to post

• Meyerson posted on his quarter shot, here

• D. W. Heywood's racquetball player

• Steve's aging muscles

• Nick's nest egg -- with a how-to video

• And (other) Nick's bucket-o-coin, which took the cake for most complex -- setup here


(You can see everyone's tagged stuff here.)
_______________


Which did you like best? Why? And, while we are asking questions, where's mine?

Dog ate my homework.

(Just kidding. It's coming next. But I won't be topping that $100 egg...)

Next: My shot.

SXSW on YouTube

For the next week and a half, the SXSW festival is taking over Austin, Texas, to celebrate music, film and all things interactive. If you think a few of the shorts in the SXSW line-up sound familiar, that's because they do - YouTube features href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY4Epc2XSGc">My First Crush,
Knock Knock, "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQPDU9uqxTA">The Golden Egg and Spider all made it to the big screen, so congratulate your fellow YouTube filmmakers!



And to stay up-to-date with the music program here in the Land of Dee-licious BBQ, stay tuned to our music category for new videos from guitarist extraordinare Kaki King and Bay Area singing-songwriting treasure Kelley Stolz.



If you're attending the festival yourself, don't be shy. Get those cameras out and rolling, and let us know when you post your videos. We want to see the festival through your eyes and hear about the bands You. Just. Can't. Miss. If you need some inspiration, check out some of these fantastic video diaries from last year, as well as the festival'shref="http://www.youtube.com/user/SXSWFilmFestival"> official channel.









Cheers,

Sara P. and Michele K-tel

YouTube Film and Music

Sigur Ros Take Over

We are thrilled to let the shy and beguiling Icelandic post-rock quartet Sigur Ros take over our home page with a full, 97-minute presentation of their DVD Heima, along with 10 videos created by their fans out of unused footage from the film.



What is this otherworldly road trip? Heima documents Sigur Ros' 2006 free tour of Iceland and it's their first-ever concert film. With the shows announced only by word-of-mouth, the band ended up performing in deserted fish factories, far West fjords and tiny regional community halls. "Heima" means both "at home" and "homeland" in Icelandic.



Sigur Ros invited their fans to participate in their film project by creating a video contest on YouTube asking users to create their own "little Heima" with extra footage from the DVD. After sorting through nearly 150 videos, the band selected their favorite, by sdewitt108, whose film has been referred to as "The Cosmic Sheep."



We'll let Sigur Ros tell you (in their own reluctant manner) about the contest, the cosmic sheep, and their unique and magical film:







We hope you enjoy this peaceful journey of music and epic landscapes from Heima, as presented by Sigur Ros and, of course, you.



Takk,

Michele K-Tel

YouTube Music

Trash The Dress: Bat Cave Edition

Matt Adcock and Sol Tamargo have uncorked a new TTD video from their private grotto/studio/frolicking pool.

I mean, don't get me wrong - they are good shooters and all. But I wouldn't mind having my own, private underground cave lake to shoot in. No worries about weather, the ambient is nice and low, and bats dive-bomb the bride.

(Okay, so maybe it's not perfect.)

Check out Flash Flavor for a high-res version of the video, with lots of photos. And if you are a wedding shooter and you do are not reading Flash Flavor regularly, you're nuts. Good stuff.

-30-

Helpful Hints for the Little Guy

Thanks to the dozen or so people who wrote in to tell me about a photo used this week in Micron Technologies marketing campaign for a new CMOS imaging chip for their new "Aptina" division.

If you are a startup CMOS imaging chip manufacturer and want to copy pay homage to Micron's spiffy press release, you can see exactly how to reproduce at least one of their photos here.

(Oh, those big tech firms are so slick.)

UPDATE: This chip itself is amazing. For those of you complaining about chromatic aberration, color, etc: This chip looks to be designed to go in a cell phone.

-30-

Escape From Spring Break

It's March and, on the travel front, that can mean only one thing: sojourners, beware. In these waters, there be Spring Breakers.



For the next month, many of the Western hemisphere's finest vacation destinations will be inundated with legions of sun-worshipping students hellbent on having the most unforgettable week of their young lives. And, yes, the irony that much of that week will actually be forgotten is not lost on us here at YouTube.



Unfortunately, not everyone looking for a little end-of-winter respite fits into that enviable demographic. Some of us just want to get a little sun, a little good food, and a lot of peace and quiet. For those of you looking to avoid the throngs of young revelers, do not despair. YouTube's travel community has come to the rescue.







And for those college students thinking about a spring break that's a little more off the beaten path, here are a few fantastic ideas from some inspiring YouTube users.







Happy Travels,

The YouTube Team

Pimp My Light: Camera Repair Guy

Reader Keith Taylor photographed the owner of a very large camera repair facility for the Business Outlook issue of Gwinnett Magazine. It's a clean, two-light setup that has a lot going for it.

Take a moment to reverse engineer it (it's an easy one) to exercise your lighting muscles.

Then, for a closer look at what works in the lighting -- and a couple ideas on how to tweak it -- hit the jump.
___________


First off, you may remember Keith from his fireman shoot, which was profiled here earlier. Back then, he was using Vivitar 283's. But he has since moved up to AlienBees 400's.

Since Keith is comfy using his speedlights in manual mode, moving to the big flashes is a piece of cake. Everything you learn with a manual speedlight easily translates to the more powerful flashes.

This shot is lit in a similar manner as his fireman shot, except that the front light is coming from pretty much directly over the camera rather than off to camera left. Said front light is a small Westcott softbox. We know it is directly above camera from the way the nose shadow falls. Easy tell.

The backlight comes in at a lowish angle, hard and blue. It's obviously behind the guy, but we also know it is low from the fact that it is lighting the bottoms of the middle-row boxes.

Think for a sec what this establishes for the boxes, lighting-wise. They are pretty close to being exactly cross-lit: High front vs low back.

Also, they are cross-lit with different colors of light. This makes for a very 3-d effect on the boxes and really maps out the texture of the environment in an interesting way.

He went for broke on the blue gel intensity, which is a totally subjective choice. (Think Spinal Tap, at #11 on the voume scale.) One reason I like the blue family of gels is that they include the CTB, or "color temperature blue" group. They correspond to the opposite, CTO (color temperature orange) gels, which turn daylight into tungsten. Which means that you can get both of them in full strength, half, 1/4, 1/8, etc.

You can get a controllable tonal contrast by, say, lighting your subject from the front with a 1/4 CTO and the background with a 1/4 CTB gel, and the warm-vs-cool thing offsets in a neat way. Plus, you can make it subtle, bang them over the head with color, or anything in between.

Keith has the front-back contrast thing working for him. He also has nice internal tonal separation everywhere except for one place: The guy's head.

His head has a little hint of blue going up the left side. But Keith had better cross his fingers and toes if he wants Camera Guy's dark hair to separate from that dark background in the final product.

There are a couple of ways to go after this. The easiest would be to simply raise the backlight some and nuke Mr. Camera Guy to give him an unearthly blue ring around his head. That'd separate that black-on-black tone, fer sure. But it would also look a little weird.

Remembering Keith has a Vivitar 283 kicking around somewhere in his kit, my preference would be to take care of the black-on-black problem by raising that far background tone up a little. Wouldn't take much, either. You could bring it up to two stops below medium grey and it would separate nicely from Camera Guy's dark hair. If you gelled it to the same color as backlight number one, you'd create a full blue area in the center top that would make the first blue backlight look more natural.

You could stick the 283 right behind the backlight, pointing towards the back of the room. Or, depending on the room itself, you could stick it somewhere low in the back of the room and just wash some blue light up on the wall to make his hair separate from the blackness.

But I'm cheating now, right? Just pulling an assumed third flash out of Keith's bag, as if we all had endless light sources to work with.

There is a way he could use his backlight to do everything: Lose the reflector and point the bare bulb straight up.

Downside is, he'll have to make a little blue gel condom for the AB400 flash tube. But once he gets it gelled, that thing sends blue light out in all directions. Then, all you have to do is gobo it where you do not want light.

I would probably gobo it on the sides, and maybe a little on the top as well. I really like what the directional backlight is doing (at least, in the areas where it is happening.) Gobo'ing the top and sides would accomplish a lot. It would keep the directional light coming from the back. It would keep the blue from getting too hot on the sides close to the light. And it would send some blue light towards that back area to separate the guy's head.

See the online version of the Gwinnett Magazine Business Outlook story here, and more of Keith's editorial portraits here:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.


___________


One difference in the way good lighting photographers think (as compared to the rest of us) is that they think of light as a means of solving a problem. Other shooters just think of light as a way to create a look. And that look can sometimes grow into a starring role in the photo.

I know this because I am as guilty in this department as the next guy. More than most, to be honest.

But the hotshots tend to think of light as a tool -- one of many -- in the final photo. And to them, light is simply a means to an end rather than an end-all.

After you create your light -- but before you start making your final frames -- take a moment to anticipate the problems you'll see later which can be solved with a little tweak. It'll pay off big in your final photos.

And most important, once the light is nailed down, focus all of your attention on photo/subject interaction. This way you'll stand a good chance at grabbing some (well-illuminated) moments. When the light is good and the photog and subject are clicking together, that's a high-odds recipe for success.

___________

Related links:

:: Readers Shoot Back: Keith Taylor ::
:: Pimp My Light: Underwater Flash ::
:: Pimp My Light: Light-Painted Knife Knife ::