Birthdays, Heresies and Watt-Seconds

Strobist turned two this weekend. And while I will admit that it is not yet completely potty trained, now is as good a time as any to announce some upcoming changes.

What to expect in the coming year, after the jump.
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Looking Forward

In upcoming weeks you will no doubt notice some changes. They will be welcomed by some, and poo-poo'd others.

This site started out in 2006 as a small trail of bread crumbs for photojournalism students and young pros on how to use their shoe-mount flashes a little bit better. It was designed to fill the gap between what they taught us about light in PJ school, and what we needed to know in the real world.

But over the last two years it grew into something way bigger than that. It became a place where people gather to learn about light. And believe me, I have learned more in that time than any of you have.

Given that we have spent two years digging very deeply into what kind be done with a small kit of speedlights, there is a growing danger that the site will just become a circular, self-derivative discussion. And since excessive inbreeding (especially the intellectual kind) never did anyone much good, it is time to shake things up a little.

Starting in year three, we will be expanding our coverage area into all kinds of off-camera flashes to see what we can learn form the photographers who use them.


(What the...?)

Why? Three reasons:

First and foremost, the beauty of learning to use your speedlights in manual mode means that every single skill you acquire is translatable to the larger strobes. That's such a cool thing, not to having to learn a whole new skill set just because you are moving to a larger powered light. And many of you are making (or have already made) that leap.

(That alone is reason to expand your speedlight abilities beyond TTL systems such as CLS and eTTL.)

Second, the vast majority of what is being done with big strobes today is translatable down to speedlights. And easily so, since you understand the 1/1-, 1/2-, 1/4-power thing. And as such, it is crazy nuts not to take a close look at those guys and see what we can learn from them.

Third, if you want to improve your game in any arena you really need to learn to look beyond the genre in which you are operating.

Here's how I thought while I was at The Sun shooting with light for a newspaper:

Say for the sake of argument that I was operating on a theoretical level of, oh, 20 on a scale of 1-100. Say the hot shots at the bigger papers were shooting in the 40's on the same scale. If I merely looked at what the other newspaper guys were doing, tried to learn from them, and partially succeeded, I might end up in the 30's. If I were lucky.

But if I looked at the very best people in the photo world, the 90th-percentile guys, learned from them and still failed to totally get it, I might end up in the 50s' or 60's. Kinda weird, granted. But that is the way I always thought.

So from here on out, I am going to make a concerted effort to expose you to some of the hot shots in the business in the form of reverse engineering exercises and "guest" On Assignments.

I don't care if they are using speedlights, Profotos or magnesium powder. Light is light. And we may as well be learning from the folks who are working at the highest levels.

If you have any particular favorites, leave me a URL in the comments. I cannot promise I can get them, but I can promise to look into each suggestion.

I will be translating the big lights down to speedlight-speak wherever possible. Because that is where most of us are working. Look for the first one in that series to appear later this week.

Speaking of shooting and "On Assignments," that is what you most requested on the last reader feedback post, so that is going to be given a higher priority. I want this site to be the place for the next-gen folks to learn about light that us older farts never had.

If you are a high-end pro and you are reading this site, I will very likely be hitting you up for a chance to pay your early mentors back. Or, more accurately, pay them forward. I cannot promise you riches. But I can promise you some serious, industry-wide traffic to your site. And I can also teach you what I have learned about search engine optimization for shooters.

And, as I have officially gotten bored silly with not being a regular shooter after eight months, I am back in the saddle. I will be shooting some jobs for The Sun (call me, Chuck) and would be very happy to be in the rolodex of any of you dear readers' various publications.

To that end, I have put some photos into my Zenfolio page, with appropriate contact info for possible location people jobs in the Baltimore, MD, area.

So if you are reading this from your scanning station (or, better yet, at the picture desk) of an editorial publication, I would be much obliged if you would take a moment to enter me into your system of stringers as Your Man in Baltimore. Of leave a note on the appropriate colleague's desk.

Having been a kept, in-house shooter for 20 years, this photographic dating stuff will be new to me at first. So I am going to be jotting down my "lessons learned" in the occasional OT post in the hopes that it might be helpful to some of you in similar positions.

I also have started work on what I think is a very special self-generated project. There will be more on that, soon. So between those two shooting venues, my OA's will be coming back, too.

And speaking of OA's, remember the Old Masters post from late last year? We are gonna be using those guys as a way to sharpen our reverse-engineering skills while we get our culture on. After all, they were the first quality reverse engineers of light. In short, look forward to some interviews with some dead guys in the mix. They have good stuff to teach us.

If that's not enough, we still have two sections of Lighting 102 to finish up. And then we'll be doing regular, real-world assignments as a group. I might be able up the ante a little to make it more interesting. I have a few ideas.
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And finally, for those of you who are interested, some stats from the year that was:

Over the past year ending April 5th, 2008, there were 503 posts, which received a total of 14,540,459 page views from 1,493,505 different readers from 208 different countries/territories. Heck, we even had one visitor from Antartica who read 8 posts over a span of 21 minutes.

Thanks for a wonderful year, and I am very much looking forward to learning along with you during the next.



Thanks,
David
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(Handy flash photo at top by Ecatoncheires)

You Choose '08: Healthcare

In the second of our six-part You Choose '08 series on the issues in this election, we examine one of the most hotly-debated issues of the last two decades: healthcare. Based on polls, most Americans agree that health care reform should be a top priority of the next administration. But just how should the government go about reforming America's healthcare system? YouTubers from all sides of the issue have been weighing in.





In her video “Frustration In America," faintstarlite vents about the U.S. healthcare system. As an American citizen who recently returned from living in England, where she didn't have to pay for healthcare, she provides a unique perspective on the issue. Over 600,000 people have watched her video, in which she concludes that health should be considered a basic human right. Check out some of the responses.



But not everyone believes that we should be taking cues from our European friends. Registered Nurse NanaHall55 believes the real answer lies in getting insurance companies to lower their premiums. And PropagandaBuster believes we should run from any form of government-controlled healthcare.



If the answer to your pain is getting some work done on your funny bone, check out this animated (though scathing) attack on the health insurance industry. On the other side of the debate, watch Jackie Mason's vlog in which he excoriates Senator Clinton and Senator Obama for their respective healthcare proposals.



And if you're more interested in the questions than the answers, check out IMedExchanges's YouTube channel. They're a consortium of doctors who have taken to YouTube to ask the presidential candidates questions about their healthcare policies. Their concerns provide an important window into the concerns of medical professionals who deal with our healthcare system on a daily basis.



Yours,

Steve G.


YouTube News & Politics

Introducing Living Legends

Today we are proud to launch Living Legends, a new program that invites luminaries from around the world to communicate directly with the YouTube community by answering your questions and becoming a genuine participant on the site. We plan on bringing you an exciting roster of leaders in film, sports, politics, and a whole lot more. But, first, we begin with a little rock 'n' roll.







Only these blokes are not exactly little, with more than 24 studio LPs released and over 200 million albums sold. They've got an unquenchable passion for American blues and R&B and have blended it into a uniquely British import that has influenced countless musicians around the world. Take a look at the video they made just for YouTube, part of which was curiously shot in a bathroom:







Yep, it's the Rolling Stones. In addition to their video calling out for your burning questions, today's home page features some rare behind-the-scenes footage from the band, along with a few truly unique presentations of their classic "Start Me Up," including renditions by a marching band, YouTube Award Winner and "Chocolate Rain" scribe TayZonday, and a hands-only (!) version from The Manualist:








So start thinking of a good question for Mick & Keef, fire up those video cameras, and upload your question to the Living Legends. And, of course, stay tuned for more legends to come…



Getting Our Ya-Ya's Out,

The YouTube Team

Light Faster With a Cheat Sheet

Heading into the weekend, here's a little tip to help to make you more intuitive with your flash.

One of the first hurdles in learning off-camera flash photography in the manual mode is knowing where to set your flash for that first test exposure. For beginners, it can almost seem arbitrary or random. More experienced photographers, on the other hand, always seem to get it pretty close on the first try.

Raising your first test shot "batting average" is as easy as 1,2,3. Hit the jump for a tip that's so easy, you'll probably wonder why you weren't already using it.
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Today we are gonna make a cheat sheet for your flash in three simple steps. Think of it as an mental reference point, to quickly get you in the ballpark for your most common shooting setups.

The only things you'll need are a small piece of light colored tape (I used electrical tape in white) a Sharpie (or similar, fine-point permanent marker) and a few minutes.

Here's the process:


Choose a Typical Working Distance and Modifier

Let's say, for instance, that you normally shoot people, at a lighting distance of about 6 feet, with a shoot-through umbrella.

Set up your flash and umbrella in your living room and point it at something of reasonably normal tonal levels about six feet away.

Choose a good working aperture for your portraits -- say f/8, for instance. Set your camera to a standard ISO -- say, ISO 400. And be sure to do this indoors at your max sync speed (usually 1/250) to knock out the ambient light portion of the exposure.


Zero In a Power Setting

Now, fire some test frames, adjusting the flash's power output until your exposure looks good. You'll end up with a power setting in the manual mode. Say, for instance, that this setting ends up to be 1/4 power.


Write it Down

As shown in the photo above, write the settings down on a piece of tape and attach it to your flash. In your case, you might down:


STU-ISO400-6ft-f/8-1/4


This will tell you that, through your shoot-thru umbrella, you can expect f/8 from 6 feet away at 1/4 power at 400 ISO.

Are you always gonna shoot with those parameters? No, of course not. But it is a good starting point for choosing your flash's power level. And if something changes, you'll quickly be able to interpolate a new starting point.

For instance, say you wanted to shoot at f/4 instead of f/8. You'd just drop the power two stops (to 1/16th power) before firing your first test.

If you wanted to move the umbrella in closer - say to about four feet, you'd know to either close down a stop to f/11 or drop the power from 1/4 to 1/8. In the example above, my Nikon SB-800 has a reminder to me that in a direct mode (at ISO 400, 50mm zoom) I can expect f/8 from 1/32 power at about 6 1/2 feet.

(FWIW, I am constantly surprised at how powerful these little flashes are in direct mode.)

The point is to have a normal rational starting point from which to shoot your first test pop. You'll then find that your first guesses are always pretty close, and the direction you have to go to fix it is pretty obvious.

Okay, so the direction you need to go to fix light quantities is usually pretty obvious. The problem is when you are, like, six stops off. Or is it four stops? It all looks the same -- nuclear.

Having a nice little cheat sheet on your flashes will get you in the ball park before you fire your first pop. Then, making a quick fix very easy. And pretty soon, you will not even need your cheat sheets to get close on the first try.

Reverse-engineering exercise:

If you like, take a shot at deciphering the lighting on the photo of the flash up top. Leave your thoughts in either the comments or on the photo's Flickr page. I'll post a setup shot next week.

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Related post:

:: GN: Your Free Flash Meter ::

Crackdown in Tibet

For the last three weeks, the protests in Tibet have riveted the world's attention and sparked a firestorm of debate here on YouTube. Beginning on March 10, the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's exile, monks in Lhasa led what were intended to be a series of peaceful demonstrations for Tibetan independence. But on March 14, the demonstrations turned violent and a massive crackdown by the Chinese authorities ensued. The Chinese government blamed the violence on unlawful protesters, while Tibetans accused Chinese authorities of suppressive and abusive tactics.



From his home in India, the Dalai Lama urged both sides to exercise restraint, maintaining that violence is not the means to a durable political solution to the Tibetan issue. The violence has subsided for now, but the situation remains tense as China attempts to stabilize the region and repair its international image before hosting this year's Summer Olympics Games.







Needless to say, there are many sides to the China/Tibet debate, which has been demonstrated in the videos we've seen over the last two weeks. Some of them, such as this one from NZKOF, takes the position that Tibet... "was, is, and always will be a part of China." Other videos take a very different view, such as this video from dfherman, which was filmed during a pro-Tibet rally in New York City.



Some of the videos strive to be as objective as possible, such as this clip from nocommenttv, a compilation of footage from the March 14 riots. And, of course, some videos are extremely personal. In this video, a Tibetan man now living in Canada gives an emotional firsthand account of his experiences under Chinese rule.



Yours,

The YouTube News & Politics Team

Martin Prihoda is Back

For those of you wondering what happened to Strobist favorite Martin Prihoda, he's back. Never really went away, actually. He just deleted his (very popular) Flickr account to focus on his core photography website.

Martin made a video of himself shooting the musical group "Delerium" in Vancouver. He is using big lights here, but don't go turning up your nose. There is some good info for many of you both for now and for later down the line. And I especially like the advice he gives at the end.

Hit the jump after the movie for a little bit on how to translate this shoot to speedlights if you have suddenly misplaced your pile of Profoto 7B's...
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Nice stuff, huh? But 1/250th at f/14? That's a little bit too pricey a light level for a set of SB's.

But before worrying about that, you'll need to mod at least one of your three strobes (the front one) to approximate Martin's wrap-light look. I'd use a shoot-thru umbrella, choked up a little so make the actual light source smaller than the full 43" size. You'll need to bring it in a little closer, too.

The rim lights, at 45 degrees, can be left bare if using SB's, but they will be a little harder edged than the 7" reflectors on the Profotos.

(IMPORTANT: Do not forget to gobo the rim lights to control flare.)

But what about the lofty shooting aperture?

It's all relative, actually. Since you cannot overpower the ambient daylight like Martin does with the big strobes, you wait until the ambient comes to you.

If you shoot after sundown in twilight, you'll have all the power you need to overpower the ambient with small flashes.

I'd be looking to aim for a target of, say, f/5.6 @ISO 400. That's easy to get even through an umbrella. Simply wait until the twilight dips below 1/250th at f/5.6, and start shooting.

Remember, you'll wanna underexpose the ambient by 1.5 - 2 stops. So just shoot at 1/250th as it gets darker, until it dips down to that nicely underexposed level at 1/250th. Then just start tracking the waning light by dropping your shutter speed (1/125th, 1/60th, etc.) as it gets darker.

Sure, maybe one day you'll have a set of Profoto 7B's, a generator and a mohawk faux-hawk. But until then, you'll just have to exercise a little patience and wait on the light.
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Related Link:

:: Martin Prihoda's Website ::

It's Not Like I Didn't Leave Clues...

At first, I thought I might do something simple for April Fool's., like announcing this brand new left-handed Nikon D300.

But April Fool's only comes once a year, so it's certainly worth a little more work than that.
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The clues, for those who may have missed them:

1. MIT student "Justin Phun." (Seriously, folks...)
2. The chip: The NEC 40-108 (4-01-08...)
3. "The diagnostic mode fools the charging circuitry..."
4. " ... it's all about the timing."
5. First commenter: Joe Kingley
6. Second commenter: Allen Gueste. (All in jest...)
7. Third commenter: April.

So, how'd we fake the burnt-up flash, not to mention the fake EXIF info on the lede photo? Hit the jump for more...
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First of all, yesterday's photos linked to big versions instead of the actual Flickr page, so the inevitable "April Fool's" comments would be shielded by at least an extra click. (You can click on the pics here for the actual image w/comments.)

I faked the EXIF info (you guys do so love to extract that stuff) to hide the fact that it actually was shot with a Nikon D70s using the ultra-high-sync hack at a 1/5000th at f/8 of a sec to lower the sky's tone and make the flash look more powerful. In fact, it was only at 1/4 power if I remember correctly.


You can see us at left shooting the pic last Friday at the Southern Short Course. (Thanks, Doug!)

Then I cut-and-pasted the pic onto another shot that was shot at 1/500th at f/32, ISO 200, for good EXIF info. We had to sell this thing as being powerful somehow... (The SSC guys were in on it, of course..)

But what about the nuked flash?

We were in luck, sort of. Sadly, this is what actually can happen when you go to a meetup and shoot on 1/2 power all day. And then you find out someone else was on your PW channel, running many, many more 1/2 power flashes through your SB-800 than the laws of thermodynamics allow.

I added a little color in Photoshop, but the melty fresnel stuff is all too real. Ouch. Still works, tho!

(Thanks again, Doug... and sorry about that SB-800.)

The PC board was tweaked a li'l bit with Photoshop to add an appropriate model number to one of the chips.
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Thanks to those in the know who left comments that did not give away the ruse. But I decided early on to stop moderating once I saw the first enlightened comment pop up.

Speaking of comments, the joke is on me. Blogger's comment list is supposed to have a "next page" button after 200 comments. But that does not seem to be working.

We have already topped that. So to see the comments after #200, you have to go to the comment form and click "newer." Or you can just click here.

In other 4/1 flash-related fun, the folks at PopPhoto interviewed photographer Richard Baresall on his street photography techniques...

Stay sharp next year when April rolls around. I am already thinking...