Hey Everyone! I hope today finds you safe and healthy! Today I want to talk about my studio lighting set up and the strobes, flashes, and light modifiers I use. Now if you follow me I am primarily an outdoor photographer, and usually the only light I use besides sunlight would be some kind of LED portable light, like a Lume Cube. But did you know that I used to do a lot of tabletop photography and used strobes quite a bit? I have done portraits, mainly head shots, but I have shot weddings and even a bridal shoot. Now, I hardly do any of that type of photography and have scaled down my strobes that I used to use.  Usually, I just shoot portraits for family and friends.

Metering- When using external flashes, I find that an external flash meter is a must to get perfectly exposed shots. The meter that I use is an old one that you can't even buy anymore. It's a Sekonic L-358 and I just love it. Sekonic is the brand that I would always go to.  These meters help you get the perfect exposure using incident meter reading instead of  TTL or reflective meter reading that your camera gives you. Using this meter is easy. You just dial in the settings that you want to use and adjust your lights to it. I love this type of metering using flashes or strobes.

Blue Water Splash Flashes/Strobes- Now I have to say I have a lot of flashes. When I first started with flash photography, I started with inexpensive flashes that only 20170826_untitled shoot_0001 shot in manual mode, no automatic modes and no TTL(through the lens) capabilities.  You can get these flashes for about $50 each. The ones I got were from Yongnuo, a third-party company that makes inexpensive flashes. I have made lots of amazing photos on my tabletop studio with these flashes, and they still work great.  And if they break there is no big deal because they are so inexpensive compared to a brand name flash that comes in at over $300. I probably have four or five of these and don't use them too much anymore except for fill flash on special occasions. I have other flashes also that I use that are more high-tech and use TTL. I can use these on the camera for fill flash, like if I was shooting an event. I have a Flashpoint and a Yongnuo one, and they both work great. I also have a small flash that is the Neewer brand that is small and kind of matches my small mirrorless camera that is handy to carry around. My main strobe light is a Flashpoint Evolve 200. This small flash-like strobe is about 2 1/2 times the strength of my other flashes and is what I use for my main light when doing portraits. I only have one but would love to have another. These are fantastic strobes that have many heads that can attach to Portrait Workshop them. They are battery powered and strong enough to use outside if you wanted to overpower the sun for a special shot. They are radio-controlled, which means I can change the settings on the fly, and they also do TTL and high-speed sync. I used to have very large strobes, but these are just a little larger than a traditional flash.

Wine glass Splash Triggers- You can set off your flashes or strobes in a number of ways. They can be wired to one another and then to your camera so that when you push the shutter you get a flash. You can trigger them optically when you make one flash, like on your camera, then the rest of them flash. You can trigger with IR (infrared) like the remote control of your TV, or you can use radio signals to trigger the flash or strobe. Radio triggers are the most dependable because they do not depend on the line of site like optical and IR do, and they are not physically connected to your camera so you have freedom of movement. I have two different sets of triggers. The first one is Radio Poppers, similar to Pocket Wizards that used to be the industry standard but much cheaper.  They are a simple trigger that just makes the flash pop. My other trigger is an Godox X Pro trigger, and it talks to my Flashpoint Evolve and Flashpoint Flash and to an Godox Receiver that I can hook to different flashes. I can control each of the flashes separately with this trigger. It's very high-tech and awesome and may become the new standard, but as I'm not into flashes and strobes like I used to be, I'm not up on the latest and greatest.

Stands/Modifiers- This is where you can really go crazy because these things do not cost that much for a home studio.  You can get stands, booms, and any hardware relatively cheap, especially getting them a little here and there. Before long you have quite the setup. For light stands, I use fairly inexpensive ones. I think they were $25 each, and I have accumulated more than I need over time. Modifiers can come in many shapes and sizes. From the basic shoot through umbrella (my go-to) or the more elaborate soft boxes and beauty dishes, these are all fairly inexpensive if you're getting them one at a time.  My soft boxes are made by Wescott, and they fold up like an umbrella for easy storage as do a couple of different sized beauty dish soft boxes that are hexagon in shape. You can get lots of shapes and sizes on Amazon very inexpensively. Let me squeeze in backdrops in this category. I used to have some very large backdrops and stands that I would use when doing portraits, but I sold those and have many cloth remnants that I can put behind someone's head to make a simple back drop. These are very inexpensive, and you may already have these at your house. Also, for tabletop photography, a simple black foam core board on one side and white on the other is great for backdrops for product photography. They are less than $5 at your local craft shop.

As you can see, I have accumulated quite an array of items for my home studio. One thing I didn't mention is an old table that I use for the tabletop stuff.  I actually found this in a dumpster, but its like a 4x3 foot table that sits in the corner waiting to be used.  Like every other table, it catches anything when I walk in the room, so when I use it I have to clean all the stuff off of it. 

Well, I have rambled quite a bit this week.  So until next week, get out and shoot!

Hey Everyone! I hope today finds you healthy and safe. This week I want to talk to you about my GoPro action camera setup. Now I'm no videographer, but I do like to document my travels and exploration trips. I have a YouTube channel with some of the videos that I have made. Now, I am no expert on motion photography and don't need to do anything fancy. The GoPro is the perfect camera for me. It's small and simple to use. It's waterproof, so no need to worry about rain or dropping it into a lake or creek. It can be recharged on the fly with an external battery. These little cameras tick all the boxes for me on what I need for an action camera. The cameras I have are not the latest and greatest or the top-of-the-line GoPros, but this was done on purpose. First and foremost, the older models are less expensive but still quite capable to do what I need. The other two cameras I use are my phone and of course my main camera, although I don't use my main camera much, but maybe I should. 

The first GoPro I bought was a GoPro Session 4. It's a small square camera that can be easily hooked to a coat, a hat, or a backpack.  It's easy to use.  And like all GoPros, when used with your phone, you can manipulate all of the settings. You can also use your phone as a viewfinder, which this GoPro does not have. This older GoPro is the one that I use for my truck. I have a mount on my windshield and have it running to give me road footage while going to and from different places. It shoots in 1080p, which is just fine for me because I am not interested in shooting in 4K for many reasons. One, it takes up too much computer space, and two, because the files are so large, there is a longer upload time to YouTube.  But this little camera still works for me.

My newest GoPro camera is the GoPro Hero 7 camera.  This is a very cool camera, and it is much more high-tech than the first one. It has in-body stabilization that gives the look a much smoother shot, not as much jumping around. Much like using a gimbal to stabilize your shot, but maybe not quite as good. This little camera also has a screen on it so you can see what you are shooting without using your phone. But you can still use your phone to adjust settings if you want. The touch screen on this little camera works well. It also has removable batteries which means you can take extras with you and swap them out when one gets exhausted. My GoPro Session 4 does not, so when the battery dies you have to recharge before you can continue filming. The GoPro Hero 7 comes in a black and white model. The black model shoots in 4K and the white does not. 

How much do these older GoPros cost?  I just checked Amazon, and for the GoPro Hero 7 Black, you can get it for $249, and the white you can get for $160. Pretty cheap compared to the GoPro 9 that comes in at $450.  I'm sure it's a great camera, but I like the savings I get with the GoPro 7.  The GoPro Session 4 you can't even get off of Amazon because it's so old, but maybe you can find it on eBay or used somewhere. These prices are subject to change.

I like my little cameras and have fun using them. So until next week, get out, have fun, and explore!

Hey Everyone! I hope today finds you healthy and safe. It has been rainy and dreary here in North Carolina the last couple of months, and I haven't been on many trips to explore because of it. So today I thought I would talk about the photography phone apps that I use. Now, I'm not a big phone photography nut and use my regular camera most of the time. But there are times when the mobile phone is the best camera to use. When I take photos with my phone, I use just the camera app that came with the phone. There are apps that you can get that are supposed to be really cool, but I haven't really researched or played with any other than the ones that came with the phone. But I do have apps that I can edit my photos with and apps that help me take the photos. There are also apps that share between my computer and my phone so I have all my photography all the time. And there are apps so I can buy more stuff. Here goes a list of apps and how I use them.

Buying Gear Apps. I really use only three apps here: of course Amazon, B&H Photo, and Adorama. These are great to use when you're on the go and not at your computer. I like to use them when maybe I'm at a local camera store to compare prices or especially after I have purchased something so I can track it to my house. Three of my favorite words are "Out For Delivery!" LOL

Camera Operation Apps.  As cameras have become more high-tech, some features can be controlled by your phone, things like shutter release, lens control, and all of the settings. You can even see what your camera is seeing. I have three brands of cameras that I use to do this with: Sony, Canon, and GoPro. For the Sony I have Imaging Edge Mobile. With this, I can do all of the things listed above, but mainly I use it to connect my phone and camera together to use the GPS from my phone and transfer to my photos in my camera via Bluetooth. I can also download photos to my phone or tablet via wifi. I usually only do this if I'm out and about and want to post a photo to social media quickly. The Canon Connect app is what I use for my Canon point and shoot when I want to post quickly to social media. I can download to my phone via wifi and do a quick edit and post.   The GoPro App for my action cameras is almost essential while operating these little cameras because you can use it as a viewfinder to see what your camera is seeing to make sure it's pointing in the right place to capture the action you want. I also have one other camera-related app, and it's for my Lume Cube light. The LUME-X app lets me control the power and the color of the light from my Lume Cube. It's great if you're using it for video, and when pointed at yourself you can adjust without getting up to manually do it.

Photography Assisting Apps.  These are apps that can assist you in taking photographs. I used to have many, and now I only have a few because one app really does it all. The PhotoPills app is an app that can tell you where the Milky Way is going to be. It has a long-exposure calculator that can help when using neutral density filters for long exposures, depth-of-field tables, hyper-focal length tables, and a time-lapse calculator. It has an augmented-reality feature so you can see what your scene is going to look like in the day for night shots when it's pitch black. As you can see, it can do a lot! This app does have a price of about $10, but it is totally worth it for what you get. I also use weather apps, especially when doing night work or sunrise and sunsets. Weather Bug is my choice for weather apps. I just like it better than the Weather Channel as it seems to be a little bit more accurate for me. I also use an app called Clear Outside that will give you the percentage of low-level, mid-level, and high-level clouds in the place which will help determine the type of sunrise or sunset you will have.

Photo Editing Apps.  For me these apps are for on-the-fly editing for social media. I don't use them often, but they are handy when using my phone or tablet when on the go. The first one is the Lightroom app. This is a great app for a couple of reasons. One, you can take a photo with your phone and edit as you would pretty much on your computer and export it out the same way. But you can also sync photos from your main photo library, and they will go to your phone or tablet. This is great if you want to show off some of your photos, or you can edit on the go and your edits will sync with your mail library back home. Pretty cool! The next app is Photoshop Light. You can also make edits with this, but the main thing I use it for on my phone or tablet is to make a multi-photo collage to post to social media. It has some pre-made templates that you just plop your photos into, and it works great. The last one is the one that I  probably use the most, and that's Snapseed. It is a simple photo-editing app made just for the phone or tablet. It has tools and looks that can transform an ordinary photo into something special. Great for quick edits and posting.

Of course, there are more apps that could be classified as photo-related, like Google Earth, but I'll leave those for another day. I hope this gives you an idea of what I use as photo apps. There are hundreds of apps out there that are photo-related that I'm sure are really fun to play with, but these are the few that I use. So until next week, keep shooting and get outside!