The weather was bad during the start of my vacation, so, in addition to various errands and spring-cleaning, I migrating my email setup from Emacs-based VM and BBDB to Icedove (the more-Free rebranded Mozilla Thunderbird).
The most painful aspect of the move was converting the over-3000 entries in my BBDB contact database to the crude Address Book of Thunderbird. To do this, I hacked up a program, bbdb2tbird.el.
Yesterday I received the orders of 2 light stands, 4 umbrellas, and 2 shoe brackets that I made on eBay 10 days earlier... all three orders bouncing around together in one big box without significant packing (despite shipping&handling charges totalling $55.97). The shoe brackets seem to be out of spec and don't fit any of my shoe equipment (not Canon, nor Nikon, nor wireless triggers), and everything except for the 2 white umbrellas got smashed up due to the combined shipping and poor packing. I wrote the prominent eBay seller last night, and will let people know how that goes.
One recent good experience I did have on eBay was the purchase of two 12-inch M-to-M PC sync cables. B&H was out of stock, but eBay seller with the odd name of naive-buyer was able deliver within a few days and for lower cost. They're perfect for mounting a Cactus wireless trigger on a Nikon SB-28. (I'll blog about exactly how, later, once I have brackets and can show everything fits together.)
Speaking of Nikon SB-28, I scored another one on eBay for $48 + $7 S&H = $55 yesterday morning. Good thing my light stand shipment hadn't yet arrived, or I probably would've been too put off eBay to make another purchase.
I've liked doing portraiture using only available light, especially with my Canon 50mm f/1.4 almost wide-open on a 1.6x FOV body, which is very fast, has a flattering 35mm-equivalent focal length of 80mm, and has nice bokeh. But available light, however naturally gorgeous, can be limiting. I wanted to experiment more, I had a fashion shoot project, and I desperately needed to control the lighting for dance portraiture whenever a pose couldn't be held.
So, last year, I starting building a home studio using hotlights. After an ill-advised experiment involving 200-watt household incandescent bulbs from Home Depot, and waiting for months for a CraigsList person who promised to sell me his studio hotlights, I decided to try a set of used speedlights with manual power adjustments. They're portable, inexpensive, never require bulb replacement, and run on AA batteries.
Rather than trigger the speedlights with PC sync cables and adapters, I decided to first try the "eBay wireless triggers". Since Gadget Infinity just released a new, reportedly more Canon-friendly, version of the triggers, I ordered a 4-Channel Wireless Flash Trigger V2 transmitter-receiver kit for $30 a few weeks ago. (Note: The V2 receivers say "PT-04" on the front, just like the V1 receivers did, but reportedly are incompatible with V1 transmitter. The V2 receviers also have a "Cactus" logo.) The kit seemed to work, so I ordered another two receivers, which arrived today. I also ordered some light stands, umbrellas, and adapter brackets, and picked up a Nikon SB-28 off CraigsList.
As for the review of the wireless triggers... Shipping was prompt, and took about a week from order time to arrive via air mail from Hong Kong. Build quality was OK on most of the units, but clearly some expense was spared, which keeps them at a much lower price point than Pocket Wizards. Plugging the receivers into the hotshoe of the speedlight, on a hotshoe umbrella bracket, atop a light stand-- seems not very sturdy, so if these work out, I'll probably buy some few-inch sync cords and use those to connect the speedlight with the receiver velcro'd to its side. One of the three receivers arrived with a manufacturing defect in the hotshoe -- two metal pieces visibly out of alignment -- which makes the mount even less sturdy. That unit I might just keep as an emergency spare, rather than bother to send it back to Hong Kong.
I'm currently shopping for one or two more SB-28 units. I might also trade in my Canon 420EX on a 430EX, which could double as both an on-camera E-TTL flash for photojournalism and a manual studio strobe.
For studio purposes, I might have to kludge up some modeling lights to go with the speedlight-based strobes.
I shot the May 2nd MoveOn.org anti-war demonstration in Boston. I had to run back to a consulting gig immediately after, and only this morning got a chunk of time to go through the images.
This time was mostly for practice, and with the plan that only were I to get some stellar images would I submit them as a freelancer. I did not make stellar images happen this time, so I didn't bother people for captions info. Instead, I'll simply blog a few less-than-stellar images.
The telephoto close-up of the conservative muslim couple with baby on the edge of the crowd didn't make the cut, since I didn't get their story. A celebrity who appeared discreetly on the edge of the crowd towards the end of the rally similarly didn't make the cut. Many shots seem to be conceived and captured in a fraction of a second -- from when one notices a potentially interesting subject, to when the shutter clicks for the first time. In the sub-second space between, one is raising and preparing one's equipment at the same time one is refining an idea of why and how this could be an interesting image. When taking the aforementioned shots (as I introspect after the fact), there were brief pauses as my immediate "interesting" reaction began to clarify, and "interesting" began to feel a bit like "exploitive." The vague idea of "just in case," bred by past experience, then reared up, so I followed through on the immediate shots. In the luxurious second or two that followed, as I had time for complete thoughts, I didn't see a good reason to be shooting these people, so I moved on to other things. If I were on assignment and under obligation to turn over all my shots, I might prepare myself beforehand with different criteria on when not to shoot.
Anyway, for my safeties, here's a "STAND FIRM AGAINST BUSH VETO. NO MORE WAR SPENDING." sign, a "3,235 AMERICANS 655,000 IRAQIS HAVE DIED FOR LIBERTY? OR CORPORATE PROFIT? sign, and one, two, three speakers.
A lone counter-demonstrator ran past the front of the crowd, and, in a powerfully energetic cheerleading fashion, shouted pro-war statements whilst jumping around. I couldn't make out a clear quote, and he quickly ran off. Since this is my personal blog, I can say that I disagree with his expressed position, but the incident was both noteworthy and amusing.
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