Speedliting.com Launched PixSylated has a new little sister (although she’s been growing very fast over the past two weeks). Speedliting.com, unlike PixSylated, will focus on a single theme — Canon flash photography.The site features a blog (“How-To“), pages and pages of my thoughts on gear, a schedule of events that I am teaching, and more. BTW, if you’re into small-flash, but don’t shoot Canon, you should check Speedliting out anyway. About 70% of the content is not brand specific.

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Speedliting Forum Launched Earlier this week, I launched the Speedliting Forum. As far as I know, this is the first web community that is focused exclusively on Canon flash. Several hundred Canon shooters from all around the world have joined and are beginning to ask questions and provide answers. There is even a group of sub-forums, sorted by experience level, where you can share/comment on photos. So, if you wake up one night with a question about something-Speedlite, this is the place to go. There are members online 24/7.

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SportsShooter.com Headliner Just this morning, I woke up to find that I’m the headliner on the widely read SportsShooter.com. I think sports photography is amazing. If there’s anything that proves that still photography shows us things that we cannot see, it’s sports photography. Funny thing is that my membership application to SportsShooter has been rejected twice because I didn’t have enough good sports pix to show. Maybe I’ll dust off that last application and give it another go. Seriously, SS, it’s quite an honor. You have my thanks!

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Frederick Van Interview A couple of days ago, I spent an hour talking and laughing with my friend, Frederick Van (who hosts the great TWiP podcast series) about my thoughts on flash photography. Head to Frederick’s site to listen in on our conversation. It’s also in the TWiP Episode 131 on iTunes.

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TechTock Interview Last week I spent an hour with Jack Howard, host of the TechTock podcast, talking about… small flash. As Jack dubbed the conversation, “Strobism From A Canon Speedlite Perspective”. You’ll find it on iTunes TechTock #35 or give it a listen right here.

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Speedliter’s Intensive™ Seminars I will kick off the spring tour of my seminar on Canon flash techniques next week in NYC at Adorama. Here’s a rundown of the dates on the schedule so far.

New York City – Sun March 14

Orlando – Sat March 27

Tampa – Sun., Mar 28

San Francisco – Sat May 1

Washington DC – Sat May 8 & Sun May 9

Los Angeles – Sat May 15

Atlanta – Sat May 22 & 2-day workshop May 23/24

Houston – Sat June 5

Chicago – Sat June 12

Boston – Sat June 19

London & other UK – in June or July (details TBA)

Paso Robles – 5-day workshop Oct 11-15

A whole flock of other dates are in the works for fall. The best way to find out about them is to subscribe to the Speedliter’s Mailing List (here).

PixSylated has a new sister in the blogosphere. Speedliting.com was launched this morning. Now you know the reason that I’ve been so scarce on Px for the past two weeks.

If you are a gear hound (Canon, Nikon or otherwise), the site features a number of mini-reviews about my favorite bits of Speedlite-mounted light mods, other Speedlite-oriented light mods, easy ways to move your Speedlite off-camera, and more.

Adorama Sponsors ‘Speedliter’s Intensive’ Tour

Thanks to the generous support of Adorama, I’ll be taking my Canon flash seminar on the road this spring and summer.

The first stop will be at Adorama’s flagship store in Manhattan on Sunday, March 14. Details here.

The second stop will be in Orlando on Saturday, March 27. That’s the day after Photoshop World closes. The venue is right across the street from the PsW convention hotel. If you are heading to Orlando for Photoshop World, why not spend an extra day with a legion of fellow Speedliters? Details here.

Dates for more cities will be announced very soon. The best way to learn about them is to have them delivered directly to your mailbox by subscribing to my Speedliters mailing list. Subscribe now.

Thanks Are Due To Many

Within minutes of my Tweeting the launch of Speedliting.com, many friends around the world (literally) joined in and spread the news. This following screengrab is just a small sampling. Thanks to all who are helping spread the word!

As a lifelong Canon shooter, I’ve been witness again and again to the power of Nikon’s CLS Speedlight system. In fact, most of the inspiration I found to explore the potential of Canon’s Speedlites came to me while assisting on a variety of shoots for Nikon’s leading CLS demo-man, Joe McNally. [If you're thinking "Joe Who?", let me be the first to welcome you to the planet and suggest that you check out his books on small-flash here and his blog here.]

What types of small-flash inspiration? Let’s see. There was the elephant-with-the-slinky-model in the dry lake bed followed by the silk acrobat hanging from the crane at sunset. There was the ballerina hoisted above the field of sunflowers and the bride in the desert gale. There was the girl holding the pool cue in the smokey bar. There was the leathery guy with the full-sleeve tats. And, of course, the Shining-esque model in the bay windows. Most recently, I spent the better part of two weeks in McNallyland a guest instructor at Joe’s One-Day Lighting Workshops in NY (read my review here and check out Joe’s workshop pix here, here and here.) It’s impossible to be witness to the making of so many great photographs and not be inspired.

Now, don’t get me wrong. For the most-part, I’m a happy Canonista. My first Canon, an A-1 purchased nearly 30 years ago, sits in a place of prominence atop the bookcase next to my bed – meaning it’s one of the first and last things I see every day. I think that the 5D Mark II is an amazing value in the DSLR market and praise the brilliance of adding 1080P video to it. There are a lot of lenses for the Canon system that Nikon has yet to make or only recently introduced. So, as I said, I’m a relatively happy Canonista.

But, there is no doubt, after working on location and in the studio with Joe over several years, that Nikon’s CLS Speedlight system is much more intuitive to use. Why does this matter to me? Well, as a creative, I rely upon my intuition a lot. The more intuitive a process is, the more creative I become. The more creative I am, the more interesting my pictures become.

So here’s my wishlist of features that I hope Canon will incorporate into a new generation of Speedlites.

Syl Arena’s Wishlist For Canon Speedlites

1. Put the wireless switch back on the outside. 90% of my Speedlite photography is multi-unit wireless. I still use a 580EX (which was discontinued in 2007) as my master because it takes too long to switch in and out of wireless mode on Canon’s flagship model – the 580EXII. Virtually all of my event photography uses a Speedlite carried aloft on a stand or boom. This remote unit is controlled by the master parked on top of my camera. Of course, because I want to create interesting light, I program the master so that it talks to the remote but doesn’t actually flash during the exposure. When something interesting happens right in front of me that the remote can’t cover, I want to flick a switch and get the shot with the camera-mounted Speedlite before the opportunity disappears. With the 580EXII, to go from master to solo mode, I have to hold down a button, turn a dial and then press another button – meaning that I miss the spontaneous shot in front of me every time.

2. Design the external wireless switch with four options. Canon, when you re-engineer the wireless switch and put it back on the outside, give me four options – solo, master with flash, master without flash and slave. I’m fine with having to hunt for functions through menus as long as I don’t want to change them very often – like the disabling the sleep/power saving options in Custom Functions. But, I want options that I change frequently to be right at my fingertips. So, I want to choose whether the master contributes to the exposure or not via an external switch rather than an a menu item. Also, “Off” means off — as in the unit is powered down completely. Use “solo” or some other descriptive term to describe a unit that’s working by itself.

3. Come to understand that not everyone lights from the front. Canon’s E-TTL II assumes that Speedlite remote groups A and B are lighting the subject from the front. It’s built upon the classic (think “outdated”) notion that a portrait must be lit with a key and fill at 45º in front of the subject. What if I want to use window light as the key, the A-flash as fill at 90º and the B-flash on the background? I’m not following Canon’s rules when I shoot like this. Don’t worry, the system can actually handle my errant behavior. For the future of creative photography, it would be helpful if Canon would abandon the “must light from the front” attitude.

4. Adopt a better icon for wireless mode. Virtually every Canon shooter to whom I’ve taught wireless flash has had the same reaction I did when I figured out that Canon’s icon for the wireless menu is a lightening bolt / sync arrow tipped on its side (yes, the one to the right of “Zoom”). The reaction to this little insight is always amusement mixed equally with confusion. So, please Canon, find a better icon for wireless. How about an old-fashioned radio tower with those circle lines around the top?

5. Ditch the “Master / Slave” language. Maybe “Master” and “Slave” don’t have the same connotation in Canon’s native tongue as they do in English. But here in the U.S., it’s time to ditch “Master/Slave” for more acceptable terms. Blame it on the era of PC if you must. Nikon already uses “Commander/Remote” – which I think is great. If not that, how about calling it “Tx-mode” and “Rx-mode”?

6. Call groups what they are – “groups”. Canon uses the term “Slave ID” for groups. Yet the LCD on a 580 says just “Slave”. It also says “Slave” to mean a unit set in remote mode. Since we’re going to ditch the word “Slave” for “Remote” or “Rx-mode” anyway, let’s get a label on the screen that matches what we actually say anyway – “Group”.

7. Get rid of the ratios. You have to be really old-school to be comfortable with ratios (which I am, actually). Ratios are an archaic way of controlling light levels among different groups of Speedlites. Who wants to remember that 8:1 really means that there’s 3-stops more light on the A-side than the B-side?  Dump this approach and jump into the 21st-century. There’s a huge market of Canon shooters who want to be able to control multiple Speedlites without having to do the math of how the light level from one relates to another. Nikon shooters have the ability to control the EV level of each group independently. I want this same ease-of-use. Dumping the ratios in favor of an EV approach will also enable Canon shooters to turn individual groups on and off – which is a huge feature when checking the quality and quantity of light coming from a specific group.

8. Create a true 3- or (better yet) 4-group control system. Those of us who have taken the time to get our heads around ratios (which only work for two groups), still struggle with the logic of using flash-exposure-compensation to control a C-group. There is so much to remember these days, having to remember that C-group works differently just adds to my burden. Canon, if you offer a 4-group system, then you’ll sell more Speedlites because shooters like me will come up with crazy shots that absolutely need Speedlites in four different groups. Heaven forbid that the Canon engineers think of a Speedlite system that could handle five groups…

9. Offer a digital control unit. Our ST-E2 wireless controller is an anachronism when compared to the functionality of Nikon’s SU-800 commander unit. If all you want to do is control a key light and a fill light, then the ratio slider on the ST-E2 gets the job done. But, I want to have digital (not slider) control the output of all my groups and to handle each group independently and to be able to switch a single group or multiple groups from E-TTL to Manual and to turn specific groups on/off and to do all these things without having to dig down deep into a menu hierarchy on the back of my camera.

10. Add a built-in optical trigger. It won’t take up much room. It won’t require a lot of circuity. Heck, it would probably fit right in where the relatively-useless thyristor photo-eye sits right now. An optical trigger solves a load of problems when mixing Speedlites with studio strobes. Studio shooters often want to a just a splash of light on set or to conceal a light within the frame. (Canon, consider this to be a perfect opportunity to sell more Speedlites to guys who are used to using lots of lights.) An optical trigger would also make a Speedlite more friendly in the midst of lights from other companies. Again, ease-of-use will drive users to the Canon system. Making the whole system proprietary means that few outsiders will want to change jerseys.

11. License the RadioPopper technology. The gateway to selling more Speedlites is not to find more people to buy their first unit. Rather it’s to add functionality that makes it really easy for existing owners to want to add more lights to their shoots. Wireless E-TTL is good. Radio-controlled E-TTL is great. Free me of the need for line-of-sight communication and I’ll likely put 3 Speedlites in a softbox or stuff them in small spaces on a set where a studio heads won’t fit. Wedding and event shooters totally understand the limitations of line-of-sight. I want to be able to stop worrying abut the position of the remotes relative to my master unit. Over half the size of a RadioPopper is dedicated to the battery and getting the TTL code out of or into a Speedlite. There’s got to be a bit of space inside a Speedlite for the actual circuits that make a RadioPopper work. I’m convinced that the first company to add radio-transmitted TTL to their flash units will leave their competitor in the dust for a long while.

12. Add a couple more stops of Flash Exposure Compensation. There are many instances where I want just a breath of light from my Speedlite and bump up against the minus-3-stop FEC limit on the 580EXs. If a Speedlite has a 7-stop power range, how about giving me 7-stops of FEC so that I don’t have to jump over to manual in challenging situations? Jumping over to manual means that I have to keep more factoids in my head while I’m trying to concentrate of the light and subject in front of me.

13. Stretch out the Zoom. I’m hard-pressed to think of a situation where I was shooting long lens and wanted to zoom a single Speedlite to illuminate a distant subject. Yet, I routinely use the Zoom button to restrict the cone of light so that I can place a tighter pool of light right where I want it. Detach yourself from thinking that the Speedlite zoom was made to match the focal length of the shot and you’ll see the greater logic of using the zoom as a built-in light modifier. For me, “Snoot” would be more descriptive than “Zoom”. So, you could say that I want a longer snoot on the next generation of Speedlites.

14. Include a dome diffuser. I’m sure the guys at Stofen are really happy with the status quo. I’m not. In my world, a dome diffuser is a must-have for every Speedlite. Just as I use the Zoom button as a snoot, I use a dome diffuser to enhance the effectiveness of Speedlites when shooting through umbrellas or panel diffusers. So, every time I buy a Speedlite, I also buy another StoFen. It would cost just a few nickles if a dome diffuser were packaged with every Speedlite. If Canon did this, the quality of light for the average shooter would go way up (and they’d like their photos more and tell their friends about their great camera and…).

15. Include a gel holder. The use of gels for color-correction and color effects has become commonplace. I’m not asking for a computer-chip solution – largely because I’ll continue to cut my own gels from larger stock to save money. What I’d really like though, is a way to hold a gel in place without the use of gaffer’s tape or a LiveStrong braclet. As with the dome diffuser, if every Speedlite came with one, then they’d cost just a few pennies each.

16. Ditch the penguin. There has to be a better way to diagram the use of wireless flash in the manual. Seriously.

17. Give me a breath of hope that Canon actually cares about their Speedlite system. As I said at the top, I’ve been a Canon-shooter for nearly 30 years. I’ve also been pulled into the orbit of Joe McNally’s amazing lighting style – a style that pushes his Speedlights into situations never dreamed of by the guys who write the manuals. One only need to read Strobist for a while to understand that there’s a revolution underway in the world of small-flash. Canon dominated the DSLR market for so many years, I truly worry that they just don’t care about their Speedlites.

Speedlite Features That I Don’t Want To Lose

1. Keep the High-Speed Sync Button on the outside. I use high-speed sync frequently (which I wrote about here, here and here). Being able to jump in and out of HSS at the push of a button is very helpful.

2. Continue to have incremental control between full and half-power. Canon gives us 1/3-stop control all the way from full-power to 1/128. Nikon lacks this ability to fine tune until you’re under half-power.

3. Keep the wireless sensor on the front. It’s easy for me to figure out where the sensor is if it’s on the front. If it’s on the side (like a Nikon), then I have to remember which side.

4. Keep the new battery door. Heaven help us if the guy who designed the door on the 580EX gets his job back. I’m perfectly happy with the design of the door on the 580EXII.

5. Keep the lever-lock as it is on the 580EXII. Give me a round disk (as on the 580EX) and I’ll over-tighten it again and again. The lever-lock on the 580EXII was made for simpletons like me. It gets the job done and stops me from over-doing it.

Why I’m Sticking With Canon – For Now

Honest. I didn’t plan on this article growing to manifesto proportions. But it did. So, it’s fair to ask why I don’t just jump over to Nikon and get what I want right now. After all, most of the items listed above are already standard issue with Nikon Speedlights.

1. Nikon is no more perfect than Canon. It just happens that, when it comes to flash, Nikon has been the innovator. On the other hand, it’s only since the introduction of the D3 less than two years ago, that Nikon has had truly competitive DLSR technology. I’m quite happy that Nikon’s back in the pro-camera game again. Regardless of our brand-preference, all photographers benefit from vigorous competition among the manufacturers.

2. It’s not all about the flash. Bodies and flashes may come. Bodies and flashes may go. Good glass can hang around for a long time. I’ve a good selection of Canon lenses. I’m very happy with the quality. Every photograph I make requires a lens. Not every photograph I make requires a Speedlite. To jump over to Nikon for their Speedlight technology would mean a complete liquidation of my Canon lens inventory – at a hefty price to reacquire comparable Nikon glass.

3. Canon is likely to remain the leader in DSLR-based video. There’s no doubt that the convergence of still and motion is upon us. I’m convinced that still shooters will have to morph into the world of motion or watch their skills become technologically obsolete. Given that Canon has been in the business of making broadcast television equipment for some time, I’m willing to bet that it will remain on the leading edge of dual-purpose (still-motion) cameras.

Tell Canon What You Think – Add A Comment, Then Tweet!

I can’t guarantee that Canon will even read what I’ve written. Eyes at Canon are watching the comments. Nevertheless, So, if you are a Canon shooter, I encourage you to lend your thoughts, wishes and gripes about the Speedlite system via the comment section below. Hopefully, if enough of us share our experiences, Canon will hear about this and take a look incorporate our ideas into a new generation of Speedlites (someday). [ NOTE: Keep your comments constructive. All blatant Canon and Nikon bashing will be discarded by the grumpy moderator.]

The summer run of Joe McNally’s One-Day Lighting Workshops has just concluded in Dobbs Ferry, New York (about 15-minutes up the Hudson River from NYC). As a guest instructor, I had a front-row seat and a backstage pass for the entire event. I have to say that when Joe puts on a workshop near his home turf, he pulls out all the gear and spares no expense.

I’ve never been to a workshop that had such a high ratio of staff to students. In addition to Joe, there was Lynn (his long-time studio manager and lightening rod), Drew (Joe’s first assistant), Lynda and Will (both NY pros brought in to assist), Trevi (Lynn’s mini-me) as well as Andrew, Holly, Mike and Lindsey (still more photo assistants). Jeff Snyder (Pro Markets rep from Adorama) and Mark Astmann (Product manager at Bogen for Elinchrom and Lastolight) each provided tech support for several days. My role, as a guest instructor, was to periodically translate Joe’s Nikonian into Canonese. About a third of each 15-student class was Canon shooters.

Spread across two weeks, the eight one-day sessions brought in nearly 120 students. While most were from the tri-state area around NYC, several students came from Canada, one from Mexico, one from California and a handful from the midwest. For the students, the day was 9.5 hours long. For Joe and the staff, the days were typically 11–12 hours in the studio.

The gear available for use rivaled the inventory of any photo superstore. Virtually all of Joe’s lighting, grip and camera gear was on hand. In case you’re wondering, it takes a good-sized U-Haul truck, a Suburban and several cars to move the McNally arsenal.

Joe brought in models along with stylists for hair and makeup from the Emmanuel model agency in Manhattan. Many students commented that they had never had the chance to photograph professional runway models before. I noted that even when standing around the hallways, they all seemed to strike statuesque poses.

Joe also asked several of his friends, including Joe Hodges, a 27-year veteran of NYFD, to come out and serve as models. Knowing how to light the “seasoned” face of a firefighter is as important as knowing how to light the pearlescent skin of a model. In a day, literally, a student could go home with a portfolio of shots ranging from NY high-fashion to gritty editorial.

Joe demonstrated the use of studio strobes and large modifiers – like Elinchrom’s gigantic 74″ OctaBank on the white set and the Elinchrom 39″ Deep Throat OctaBox on the black set (both were lit with the portable Elinchrom Ranger).

Joe also demonstrated the use of single and multiple speedlights along with a variety of small modifiers – like the Lastolight Triflash and the Lastolight EzyBox Hotshoe (being held aloft with the painter’s pole and adapter that I wrote about here).

The demos were tethered into an Apple Cinema display via Nikon Camera Control Pro so that the students could see what Joe was shooting. The monitor and laptop were wheeled throughout the building on a Metro kitchen cart.

We worked on sets large and small. The 8,000 square-foot daylight studio provided room for a number of sets to be in operation for student photography simultaneously. Joe also hauled the class down into the basement where the long, narrow hallways provided opportunities for completely different types of shooting.

In the afternoon, the students were set loose in small groups for an hour or so with a flash, a diffuser and a model. Their assignment was to put their newly discovered skills to work in the vast number of nooks and hideaways to be found throughout the 70-year old industrial building. These afternoon interludes also provided the opportunity for me to give Canon-specific training as needed.

The vast majority of sets were available for students to shoot after Joe finished a demo. For sets lit with Nikon Speedlights, the Canon shooters were encouraged to stuff their CFs into Joe’s D3 and shoot away. Likewise, the Nikon shooters triggered the Speedlights by putting Joe’s Nikon SU-800 Commander onto their cameras. For the sets lit with studio strobes, all the students slid Joe’s Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger into their hotshoe.

Of course, it’s no surprise that Joe’s photos from the workshops are amazing and inspirational. You can see many of his pix and read his posts about the workshops in these articles on his blog:  They’re Back, Vanessa Times Two, Rub A Dub Dub In Dobbs, Windows and Doors In Dobbs, My Friend Joe Came By, Workshops Wrap – Part One

Joe, thanks for the opportunity. It is always an honor and a pleasure.

How do you convert a painter’s pole into a professional lighting tool that can carry your Speedlite to various heights above your subjects and then collapse it down so that you can maneuver through a crowd? I want you to meet the LongArm and the MetalHead. When used together, this $50 dynamic duo has quickly become a favorite tool in my gear bag for location lighting.

The LongArm – Extendable Painter Pole

My 11-year old son Tony discovered the LongArm on a recent expedition to Home Depot. I was checking out the sandpaper and he walks over with this painter’s pole zipping in and out several feet. “Put that thing away” I barked. Then “Hey, wait a minute, bring it here.” Tony was playing with a Shur-Line Easy Reach extendable paint pole. The cool thing about the Easy Reach (aka: the LongArm) is that it’s a 3-section pole that collapses into itself with the push of a button. It has detents every six inches so that you can extend it out to the length you need in a second and then lock it in place. You (and your assistant) will absolutely love how quickly the LongArm stretches out to just the length you need and how quickly it retracts. Zip. Snap. Zip.

Shur-Line Extendable Paint Pole (aka: the LongArm) - Push the black button, slide to the length you want, release the button, and it's locked.

Unlike other painter’s poles that look like a broomstick or something used by the pool guy, you won’t be embarrassed to carry the LongArm right into the country club for the big wedding. It’s a sleek-looking combination of black foam, red plastic and aluminum.

The Shur-Line Easy Reach comes in two lengths. Model 06570, the short version, extends from 30″ to 60″.  Model 06572, the real LongArm, extends from 45″ to 108″ – think “just under four-feet to nine-feet”. I have both models and have found the long version to be indispensable. The short version is an easy carry but… just a bit too short most times. You can find them at Home Depot, Lowe’s and the like. You can also buy them through Amazon. [At Amazon: long version and short version.]

The MetalHead – Kacey Pole Adapter™

The MetalHead is the magic wand that converts the LongArm into a professional tool. If you’ve ever tried to bolt a piece of lighting gear onto a painter’s pole, you know that the threads are too fat and too short to fit into an industry standard fixture. Thanks to a tip from Gregg Zivney, who makes the great Wizard Brackets and a cool Dual Flash Bracket, I found the Kacey Pole Adapter. After showing it to David Hobby during his Strobist workshop in Paso Robles, it was dubbed “The MetalHead”.

The MetalHead (aka: Kacey Pole Adapter) converts a painter pole into a useful lighting tool.

The MetalHead provides a standard-sized pin onto which you can securely bolt a variety of lighting fixtures. It is robustly machined from solid aluminum and provides a solid base for your gear. Order the MetalHead for $19 from MPEX – MidWest Photo Exchange or $22 from the manufacturer.

The LongArm and MetalHead In Action

The LongArm-MetalHead combo can carry your Speedlite to the top of a party tent for a nice bit of bounce light. It can also carry your Speedlite over the top of table for a bit of fill light. If you need to move through a crowd, just zip it down and slide through. It used to be that we’d carry a mini-lightstand for this job. Our new rig is much better looking, easier to use, and a good bit longer.

The LongArm extends from just under 4' to 9' – enough to carry a Speedlite up to the top of this party tent.

The LongArm-MetalHead combo carries a Speedlite over the top of a table.

The MetalHead is where you start building your lighting rig. You’ll need an Umbrella Swivel Adapter so that you can control the angle of your light. (Don’t skimp here – buy a strong one.) A Speedlite with a Stofen Diffuser or Honl Grid is an easy carry. An umbrella – either shoot-through or silver – is also an easy carry (unless it’s windy). The Lastolight EzyBox (one of my favorite Speedlite modifiers) definitely pushes the boundary – of my assistant’s willingness to hoist the rig overhead for minutes on end. The good news is that the LongArm, as shown in the pic at the opening of this article, is long enough so that you can extend it to full length and set the end on the ground. Then, the EzyBox is relatively easy to loft up to six feet or so.

Thanks again to my son Tony for being the curious rascal that he is, to Gregg Zivey for pointing me to the Kacey Pole Adapter, to David Hobby for giving it a cool name and to my son Tom (in the pix above) for fully endorsing the LongArm-MetalHead as the assistant on a number of recent shoots.

[About the photo at the top: You're looking at a Canon 580EX in a cabled hotshoe attached to the hotshoe bracket on the Lastolite EzyBox (the 24" model) that's bolted into an umbrella swivel adapter clamped onto the MetalHead at the end of the LongArm. Wow, that's a mouthful. The little box hanging  from the EzyBox bracket is an Elincrom Skyport receiver. The cable runs from the Skyport into the hotshoe that holds the flash. I'm a big fan of the Skyports as they are smaller and more affordable than Pocket Wizards. Click on the photo below to see a larger photo of the rig.]

There are only a handful of perks in running a blog. Often it’s like driving in a snowstorm… you hope that one of those markers comes along to prove that you’re still on the road. One of those markers just passed – a month shy of our first anniversary. PixSylated is featured in the April 8 USA Today article by Jefferson Graham ‘Photographers eager for flash of knowledge’. Read the whole piece here.

Some of my favorite blurbs:

“People saw these images with beautiful light, and wanted to find out how to do it themselves,” says PixSylated.com publisher Syl Arena. The Paso Robles, Calif., photographer recently did a spread on his blog showing a photo technique with 12 flashes synched together.”

“Hobby, Arena, McNally and other photographers share their lighting tips with shutterbugs all over the globe, and promote their upcoming seminar appearances (McNally and Hobby are teaching at Arena’s sold-out Paso Robles workshops at $1,600 a pop later this month.)”

Now back to the grindstone. I have to publish the weekly LIDLIPS in the morning.

Based on the action I saw at the RadioPopper booth at Imaging USA two weeks ago, I’d say you should order pronto. The response to the new ‘Poppers has been huge — and rightly so in my opinion.

You can go directly to the RadioPopper store and get your order in. If you need to know more about why the PXs are so much better than the (sometimes-tough-to-use) P1s, click here and scroll down for press releases, videos, product shots, etc.

As promised, RadioPopper has a generous trade-in allowance for those who bought the first-generation P1s. For each P1 purchased prior to Oct. 12, 2008, you’ll get $125 towards the purchase of a PX. For each P1 purcahsed after Oct. 12, 2008, you’ll get $180 (the price you paid for it). You’ll need to download this form and send it in with your P1s. More details on the trade-in policy can be found here.

The line drive at 1/400 = blurry seeds flying everywhere.

GANG LIGHT – Part 2: Just how fast a shutter speed do you need to freeze the seeds flying from a pumpkin that your teenage son is trying to drive over the left field fence? Also, how do you create beautiful light on a dreary, flat light afternoon in a way that let’s you shoot at a really fast shutter speed?

Fortunately, I had a dozen Canon 580EX II Speedlites and an arsenal of RadioPoppers (all on loan from their manufacturers) so that I could try to answer these important questions. As you’ll see below, the answer to the shutter speed question is “really, really fast.” The lighting question takes a bit longer to answer.

The base hit at 1/3200 = still a bit of blur if you look really close.

Freezing Supersonic Seeds

Back in the days when I got my first SLR (hint: Nixon had just resigned), the top shutter speed on most cameras was 1/500″.  In comparison, some 30+ years later, the shutter speeds on prosumer DSLRs seem supersonic. You’d think that anything north of 1/2000″ would be fast enough to freeze pumpkin shrapnel. Turns out that pumpkin seeds are supersonic too.

I shot at a variety of speeds — all in full-stop increments from 1/400″ [1/800", 1/1600"...] When I hit 1/3200″, based on a super-chimp of the camera’s LCD, I was sure we had stopped space and time. Back in the studio, with the benefit of Lightroom and a large monitor, I discovered otherwise. Turns out that the magic didn’t happen until 1/6400″.

The home run at 1/6400" = seeds frozen in space.

Left: 1/3200" Right 1/6400" - an important difference in sharpness

My hero shot for the afternoon. Details shown above.

Lighting The Bash With High-Speed Sync

High-speed sync, as I’ve explained elsewhere, changes the way that a Speedlite fires. Rather than one big burst, the camera tells the strobe(s) to fire a continuous series of pulses. The idea behind this technology is that the strobe turns into a continuous light source for the brief duration of the exposure. To get this instantaneous recycle, the power of the flash is greatly reduced.  With high-speed sync, you can use virtually any shutter speed on your camera. [Confused? Then click on the link above and read that article before continuing.]

The downfall of high-speed sync is that it significantly reduces the power coming from the strobe. This means a couple of things: 1. you have to move the lights really close to the subject and 2. you need multiple lights.

As I wrote in the piece on Ben Willmore (here), my friends at Canon USA and RadioPopper loaned me an arsenal of Speedlites and Poppers (radio triggers). The lessons I learned with this shoot continue to erode my thoughts about the lunacy of having so many small strobes at hand. In fact, given that the second-generation of Poppers has been launched (details here) and the pesky fiber optic is a thing of the past, setting up so many lights will not be a big deal in the near future.

The Gang Light Rail - 12 Canon 580 EX IIs triggered by RadioPopper P1s

For the pumpkin smash-a-thon, I bolted a dozen Canon Speedlites onto a 7′ piece of red oak. The Gang Light Rail was held aloft by a couple of C-stands. I stood under the rail with the master Speedlite atop my camera. Given that I was close enough to get splattered with pumpkin guts every time, I don’t believe that the strobes could have been fired by traditional eTTL using the infrared receivers on the remote units. They’d have to be able to see my master unit. The geometry just wasn’t there so that all twelve units could see my master.

The pumpkin smash only deepened my affection for RadioPoppers. I was able to move in and out, left and right, without any concern for the position of my master unit in relation to the remote lights. Given that in some shots I was literally a couple of inches from my son’s swing radius, it was very nice not to have to worry about maintaining the line-of-sight between the remotes and the master.

I also have to say that I love the quality of light coming off my Gang Light Rail. The soft quality is created because the width of the lights along the rail wraps the light around my subject. Each strobe unit is a key and fill light at the same time.

You can also change the weather with high-speed sync. Did you notice the difference between the rail shot and my pumpkin shots? The rail shot was made with my camera choosing the shutter speed based on the ambient light. For the pumpkin shots, my manually-set shutter speed was 5-stops below ambient. The light grey sky turned into a storm-filled sky.

I Can’t Think Of Another Way To Light This Shot

Given the camera gear that I have on hand (Canon 5D) I have to live within the limitations of the focal plane shutter. [Again, read my earlier article on high-speed sync to understand why the type of shutter makes a difference with sync speed.]

Many comments on the Willmore piece, both here and on Strobist, suggested that I was a fool to use a dozen Speedlites instead of a big (expensive) studio pack to turn noon to night. I’m called a fool all the time. If I’m going to earn the title, I’d at least like to get it for the right reasons.

So, I’d like to preempt those same comments here and say again “I’m a Canon shooter. I have a focal-plane shutter.” Sure, I could bring in a big (expensive), bi-tube studio pack and fire it off at a low-power setting – which would give me an ultra-fast burst of light. But… there’s that focal-plane sync speed barrier. With my 5D, my sync speed is 1/160″ (the manual may say different, but I’ve fired this camera over 100K times, and my sync speed is 1/160″). So anytime I shoot with a studio pack, the fastest I can shoot is 1/160″ – if I want to illuminate the whole frame with flash. [David Ziser has a very interesting piece about shooting at faster speeds - but the pumpkin shots don't have the composition that David's technique requires.]

Let’s do the photo-math. The hero shot above was made at 1/6400″ at f/5.6. There are five and a third stops of shutter speed between 1/6400″ and my sync speed of 1/160″. So, to light with a big (expensive) bi-tube, studio strobe, I’d have to shoot at 1/160″ because that’s the sync speed for my 5D. To keep the ambient light (the sunlit background) exposure the same, I’d have to stop down five and a third stops from f/5.6 to f/40-something. Funny. I don’t have a lens that goes past f/32. Further, the edges of the frame and the background are better in soft-focus. So, how to shoot at a relatively wide aperture if my fastest shutter speed is 1/160″?

I guess I could throw on my Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter and dial in a ton of neutral density to make the studio pack work at a wide aperture at 1/160″. Maybe. Have you ever looked through a Vari-ND dialed down 6 or so stops? It’s almost impossible to see through. It’s not something that I’d want on the end of my lens when I’m dancing a couple of inches outside the arc of a pumpkin-spattering bat.

Like I said above, the lunacy of having so many Speedlites on a shoot is melting away.

More Gang Light Adventures

Part 1: I Shot Ben Willmore, 12 Speedlite Ring Light

More to come…

GANG LIGHT – Part 1: Shooter with crazy red hair, plays with 12 Canon 580 EX II Speedlites and 8-feet of red oak to build a high-powered “ring” light, then fires it with a dozen RadioPoppers in high-speed sync mode at a best-selling Photoshop author.

I shot Ben Willmore on the street in broad daylight today. There were several innocent bystanders watching. The sun was high in the sky and coming in straight over Ben’s shoulders. I centered my favorite lens right on his eye and BANG! I had him in 1/8000 of a second.

Shortly before the “incident”, Ben and I met up in San Luis Obispo on day 3 of Joe McNally’s location lighting workshop at The Lepp Institute. Joe was kind (or crazy) enough to ask me to come down for a quick talk to the 16 students in his workshop about my experiences with RadioPoppers.

Ben is also a frequent instructor a Lepp — as well as a perennial favorite at Photoshop World. You may know Ben from his many books on Photoshop. [If you're looking for a crash course in stepping up from CS3 to CS4, check out his Photoshop CS4: Up To Speed. It always gets me through the upgrade.] You may know Ben for his Digital Mastery DVDs. Yes that Ben… the guy who drives around the country and writes about his life on the road in WhereIsBen.com. If you don’t already, you should also get to know Ben through his innovative photography – which dissolves the boundary between camera and computer.

Ganging Up A Dozen Canon Speedlites

Thanks to generous equipment loans from Canon USA and RadioPopper, I’ve been playing with 15 Speedlites this week. Why? To see what I can do with more pocket strobes than even a guy like McNally should be allowed to carry.

Turns out you can stop a motocross rider flying through the air at 40 m.p.h. with enough sharpness so that you can see the individual links on the motorcycle’s chain — look for that Gang Light post soon.

You can also attract crazy looks from guys who should know better when you pull out a 2′-square wood frame that has a dozen Speedlites bolted to it. Ben’s certainly a curious and intelligent fellow. The first thing he did was ask me to put my head in the center of the lights so that he could take my photo. Actually, I think he was checking to see if my head would explode from so many strobes going off at once before he stepped in front of the rig. [Update: See the evidence here on Ben's blog.]

Turning Noon Into Night With High-Speed Sync

Ambient exposure at 1/160

High-speed sync at 1/8000

PixSylarians know that I’m a huge fan of RadioPoppers (proof here and here). It’s also well-known that I’m very fond of shooting in high-speed sync (proof here). If you’re not yet a full-blooded PixSylarian, RadioPoppers give me eTTL control of my Canon Speedlites without the hassle of a line-of-sight connection. High-Speed sync is the flash mode where my Speedlights fire in incredibly rapid bursts rather than as one big flash so that I can shoot at speeds way beyond my camera’s sync speed (1/160 on my 5D).

To make the opening shot, I did four things:

• activated the high-speed sync setting on the master Speedlite parked atop my camera – the RadioPoppers then worked it out so that all 12 remote units were also in high-speed sync mode.
• set my shutter speed to 1/8000 – to  totally kill the sunlight and turn noon to night. Even at the widest aperture on my lens (f/2.8), at 1/8000 there was no daylight to speak of as far as the camera’s sensor was concerned.
• set the Speedlites to maximum power – I used Manual for this rather than ETTL. Again, the Poppers did the talking for me. I went to Manual because in eTTL the range of Flash Exposure Compensation is capped at +2EV and I wanted more.
• adjusted my aperture until I liked the amount of flash exposure coming through.

More Gang Light stories:

Part 2: Smashing Pumpkins – 12 Speedlites on a Straight Rail

I had the great fortune to catch up with Kevin King – the inventor of the RadioPopper – over the Thanksgiving holiday. If you’re a PixSylarian, you know that I’m a huge fan of the Poppers. Kevin is an amazing guy who was naive enough not to believe the negativity of a legion of engineers. The story of the development of the original Popper is proof that sometimes it’s more important to be creative than to have a head full of knowledge. More on that later…

Kevin gave me a sneak peak at the new generation of RadioPoppers. They are, in a word, amazing. This is not a one-generation step. It’s at least a double-jump. The fiber-optic is gone! The design is compact and elegant. The new system will fire TTL-flash and non-TTL (like studio strobes) simultaneously. Every Popper complaint, workaround and mod will become obsolete with the new generation.

Click here, right now, to read the details of what’s been going on in Popperland. Then, mark your calendars for Friday, December 12, 3:00pm Pacific. That’s when the new models will be unveiled on RadioPopper.com.

The new RadioPoppers will ship in early January. Fear not if you need Poppers for holiday shoots. You can order the original P1 now and get 100% of your purchase price applied towards the new models. Yes, for a month or so, you’ll still have to jury-rig the fiber-optic with black Gaffer tape. Do so with a smile knowing that the future of wireless-TTL is close at hand and very bright indeed.