DIY Speedstrap

I haven't updated this blog in a LONG time! I really want to get back into it, been having a bit of a cold spell. And so I've come back with a vengeance.

And wanting to increase the size of my camera accessories bag I decided to do some home DIY and make a speed strap. If you don't know what one is, it is very useful to attach things like gels, gobos, snoots, children or whatever you like really. Thanks to Mr Hobby over at Strobist for tips on how to make these, I've decided to post up my efforts.

You'll need:

1 x Scissors

1 x Pineapple

1 x Bike Inner tube (preferably a mountain bike as its wider)

Some sticky velcro

Cut inner tube enough to go around the flash and overlap a bit.

Cut it in half along the long edge and wash it out with soap water to get the powder and glue off. When its dry put a couple of inch long velcro bit along the inside edge (I'd advise the spiky bit)

On the other side completly cover the length with the other velcro bit (soft bit hopefully). Here it is pictured with an official Honl speedstrap at the bottom which retails about £10.

And the finished result!

Cosst about £2-3 and with that you can probably make at least 4 speed straps.

6 Flashes, nom nom nom

We had some Cactus triggers and receivers arrived today, the new version 4's, and so far they are great, very impressive range and reliability, so we decided to do something fun, fire all our flashes at once at someone, typically me. Usual sillyness as can be expected from us.

The Importance of Experimenting, and the Whacky

It is definately fun to experiment with your camera, even in the craziest of ideas, like making a camera rocket launcher.....well modelled by Rory.

A Cold Spell

Today was bloody freezing and not such a good day for shooting (had some bad news at home), yet I was at the studio and wanted to take my mind off things, so got back behind the camera. Luckily my photographer friend JP was there to pose for me as well.

I thought I would take a picture of the setup just to show what an easy setup it was, one light hitting the background, one lighting him via an umbrella, and a poly board giving some fill on the right. Simples.

And heres a doodle of it.

CLS & High Speed Flash Auto FP

Today my friend Will came over and while he was playing the ukelele I managed to set up two SB900's to yet again practise with the CLS function. Again, it worked a charm and the results, while pretty amateur, look good and were achieved incredibly simply and quickly.

For this image I set up an SB900 behind Will in the service hatch triggered at 1/64th power, and another SB900 fired from in front of him at 1/8th power.

I then tried the Auto FP feature, it allows the camera to go much faster than its sync speed, this also allows me to use a much wider aperture for an amazing depth of field not usually possible with flash. Demonstrated again with Will. This was shot at f/1.8.

The joys of modern flashes and CLS

Until today I have only ever used one type of flash, and that was the twenty something year old Nikon SB-24, fully manual on such a recent camera as my D90.

However with money from Santa I could finally get my hands on something new, something meant for it. So after a rather rubbish trip to Jessops and a really terrible lying salesman I bought a Nikon SB900. Then my flatmate Rory also bought one, just like buses ey! You wait a year for one and two come long at once!

And so after lots of reading and practising we have been playing with Nikons genius Creative Lighting System (CLS), a wireless TTL control. And have been loving the results!

And trying CLS in a light tent with Rory's D90 on display.

Playing with light

My flatmate and fellow photographer Rory and I decided to spend Christmas Eve playing with flashes and light.

The light in the middle was made by swinging a torch from the room light with string over a 15 second exposure.

Just a regular night in!

We used Nikon Capture Control Pro which I would certainly suggest any Nikon users to try out.