Ask a Pumpkin!

If you've been wondering what the (newly re-assembled) Smashing Pumpkins have been up to for the past seven years, Billy Corgan and co. would like YOU to pick up your video camera and ask them a question. See?







Upload your best questions to the Ask a Pumpkin group. The band will sift through your video queries and respond in a video that will be featured on the PumpkinsMediaMilitia channel and in our music category.



Also, for those of you attending their sold-out shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium from July 15 - August 1, bring along your video cameras! The Smashing Pumpkins encourage that kind of behavior (which makes us love them even more). Send the PumpkinsMediaMilitia YouTube channel your best shots and they will select their favorites for the world to see.



Spreading the Zeitgeist,

Michele K-tel

YouTube Music

You Choose '08 Spotlight: Jim Gilmore

Featured this week in the You Choose '08 Spotlight is Governor Jim Gilmore, a Republican from Virginia who touts himself as a "strong, sturdy, electable conservative" candidate for President. Here he asks for your thoughts on how the Government is impinging upon your rights to free speech, to own property, and to bear arms.







On the other side of the campaign trail, Senator Chris Dodd got back with his Spotlight response video, in which he announced the creation of "DTV" – a new video portal that features both live and recorded video from the Dodd campaign.







Yours,

Steve G.

YouTube News & Politics

Finally: Reliable Sources for Small Gels

Gels are critical for balancing different light sources. And they are used for creating moods and color schemes with your flashes.

But the problem has been buying them in a way that made sense for people using small speedlights.

The standard, 20"x24" sheet is overkill for us, even at $6.95 a pop. What we want is smaller pieces, and more colors included at a reasonable price. The swatch books are perfect - and theoretically free, if you can find them. But that is not always an available option.

Now there are no fewer than three sources for just the kinds of gels we need. The first two are small sheets of our faves - various CTO's, CTB's, fluorescent green, etc., and the third is an easy way to get the sample pack fer sure. Each setup is a little different, so pick and choose from the smorgasboard of chromatic delight:

• MPEX: Custom-made packs, with generous-sized sheets, in colors that we need.

UPDATE: MPEX is now throwing in free, full sample-sized gel packs with the $14.95 gel pack orders while supplies last. So you got dat going for you, which is nishe, as Carl Spackler would say.

• Photogels.com: Set up by a Strobist reader, tailor-made packs just for us. He has several different versions to choose from.

• Amazon: Now selling the small sample packs for $2.50. Not as good a deal, to be sure, but a good fallback when the freebies are out of stock.

UPDATE #2: There are other sources popping up the comments, including some EU sellers. Click here to bring up the post with the comments attached.
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Thanks to those who picked up the ball on this one and ran with it - Moishe and Mason. And to Jim R. who hipped me to the Amazon samples pack.

The Simple Light

For those people who think they have to be fully ladened with a cases of flash equipment to get well-lit photos outdoors in the daytime, I offer the example of Strobist reader Brent Williamson, who specializes in shooting people in New Zealand.

The photos shown here were done with using a small flash aimed in such a way as to cross-light the subject with the sun. It's technique we have detailed here, here and here.

It's so simple, and yet produces a photo that has a crisp, 3-d look. A bonus is that the sun doesn't even have to be at a flattering angle to pull it off, either. So you can do this as you wait for the light to get nice later in the day.

Brent is using minimal equipment to get his simple, yet polished look. Just one speedlight, synched with a Pocket Wizard and opposite the sun.

The key is that the flash-ambient balance is such that the light does not call attention to itself. This is worth noting, as many novices get the lighting bug, then go out and start lighting with the subtlety of a ball peen hammer. Brent is just barely balancing the light. Maybe just a little under the ambient, actually.

It doesn't scream. It just quietly looks great.
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Oh, and if you want to live in this wonderful environment for a spell, I see that Brent's house is for rent (UPDATE: has been rented) due to his relocation for work.

Easier to Get an iPhone

Fil Hunter, one of the authors of the new edition of Light: Science & Magic, shed a little light on the supply situation Monday in the Flickr Strobist Threads. I had anecdotal evidence that the book had been selling briskly, but I had no idea just how briskly.

Says Fil:

"... Many people got the book quckly, then others had long waits, because the anticipated one-year inventory sold in 60 days! More copies are coming, but by ship from Hong Kong. Slow, but that's why the new book, 4 color, much better paper, costs less than the old one, printed in black on toilet paper.

Second printing is already 50% sold even though it's not actually available yet, with 3rd printing to be ordered soon, and with the 3rd the publisher actually has time to correct some of the stupid little nuisance wording errors I made! ..."

Stupid, indeed.

It's a great book - the best lighting book I have ever seen - and I am glad to see it diffusing throughout the photo community so quickly.

Way to go, guys. And as soon as they resupply, I'll post a heads-up.

Lighting 102 - Position | Review

This week we are wrapping up control number one, lighting position. Other than getting the exposure correct, this is the most basic control. But it is also the foundation for just about any light that you will design.

As you spend more time observing and creating various lighting angles, you'll find that this process will begin to get intuitive. You'll know exactly where to put your light(s) based on the look you have preconceived.

And you'll be able to look at an existing photo and understand where the various light sources are coming from. Even if you can't see them.

A good understanding of light-to-subject distance as a control will allow you to more effectively light on multiple planes. This will be especially important when you are creating a photo with two or more sources, whether it is multiple strobes or a combination of strobe foreground and ambient background.

In our next control, apparent light size, we'll learn how the light-to-subject distance will affect not only the quantity but the quality of the light. So being comfy with the distance/intensity thing will make the apparent light size control more intuitive.

As an analogy, being comfy with algebra really helps when you get to calculus. Put differently, if you are not really comfy with algebra, you are a train wreck waiting to happen when you get to calculus.



At Least Remember This


The important takeaways for Control #1:

• The difference between light position and camera position reveal the three-dimensional shape of the subject.

• You can visualize what portion of your subject will be lit by viewing it from the flash's position.

• Lights are extremely powerful when placed close to the subject.

• Lights can illuminate broad subjects more evenly when placed far from the subject, at the expense of power.

• Light-to-subject distance vs. light-to-background distance can be used as a lighting control.

• Varying these ratios can alter a light's useful range. This can be thought of as lighting depth of field.

• This, in turn, can allow a photographer complete control over a background's relative brightness. This is especially important when you are trying to light on two separate planes.


Nice, quiet, easy week. There is no shooting exercise this time. But going forward, your exercise is a continuous one: Try to be more aware of lighting position in your daily life.

Note the way that natural light sculpts the objects around you. Pay special attention to the light that you really like. You'll probably find that it is very different than the light that we tend to create when you get a flash and stick it onto a light stand.

At first, we tend to think of lighting in terms of softened, and placed at a 45-degree angle to the subject. Nice and safe. But a little boring, if you ask me.

Environmentally speaking, I am more likely to react to hard light. Or back light. Or rim light. Or partially obscured light. Or light transmitted through a translucent background. Light that is more unexpected and edgy.

So while the standard, go-to stuff can always be done, I am always looking for an opportunity to create the kind of light that wows me when I see it in real life. And to be honest, it probably makes sense to learn the standard stuff first anyway. It's a good foundation. And depending on what you are shooting, it can really pay the bills.

But do not limit yourself to that. Heck, you're driving, right? Don't always go for the path of least (creative) resistance. Take the curvy, secondary roads. Or go off-road altogether.

This section has been about light quantity and the foundation for light quality. Next week, we'll be hitting apparent light size. And there's a whole lot more going on there than meets the eye.

Controls one and two comprise so many different possibilities that you could spend a career exploring these two alone. (Don't worry, We won't.)

We'll do a couple of exercises on apparent light size and how your subject's tonal range and surface quality affect how it reacts to various size light sources. Then we'll be doing our first full assignments.
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Related links:

Exercise 1.1, Lighting | Angle: Lesson | Discussion | Photos
Exercise 1.2, Lighting | Distance: Lesson | Discussion | Photos

NEXT: Lighting 102: Apparent Light Size

A Note About Our Localized Sites

Hi there!



We wanted to clear up a misconception about the nine localized sites we launched on June 19: the content has not been "broken down" by region. All of your videos are available to everyone, no matter which site you set as your default. So even if you choose a particular country as your preference, the content available to you is still the same. If you prefer a more global destination, the original .com site will continue to be just that. (We're changing the icon to make it a lot clearer.) We'll also continue to program the .com home page to include the best of your videos from around the world, so just because you're featured on the UK site, for example, doesn't mean you can't also appear on the .com home page. Write to editor@youtube.com to tell us about a video you think deserves to be seen on any – or all – of our sites.



Happy 'Tubing!



The YouTube Team