Chris and I received this Portable Speedlite Studio Kit From RPS Studio the other day. We had a chance to run it through the PhotoGizmos Gauntlet, and for the value, we were pleasantly surprised with what was capable out of the box. Speedlites are not included.
We opened up the box and inside there was 1 travel case which held 2 Light Stands, 2 Umbrella Swivel Adapters for Speedlites, and 2 Convertible Umbrellas. Everything seemed pretty standard quality except for the knobs on the light stands. Our concern with that is over time the knob would be able to get stripped away from the screw it was attached to. The type of person who should consider this product is someone who already owns a couple of flashes that are capable of being optically slaved, or can get a couple of off-camera flashes for a decent price. (The Old Vivitar Thyristors Still Hold Their Own). If you are rough on your gear, you may want to avoid this kit as the durability of the hardware is not top notch.
For everything you compromise in hardware quality on the light stands, you gain in the value of the kit. Ace Photo has the kit available for $129.99. If you wanted to purchase all of the kit components separately you would be looking at a cost around $200. If your looking for a way to take great auction photos or some nice portraits of your kids then this would be a great way to start learning your different lighting ratios and configurations. Everything is fairly lightweight and easy to maneuver around.
One disadvantage though is from the effective watt power of speedlites. Speedlites do not come close to what most strobe kits offer as far as power goes. So to get properly exposed results you need to keep your lighting setups pretty tight around what your photographing. If that is not an issue, then this may be a good option for you.
If you want to use Canon/Nikon Speedlight Flashes via infrared transmitters your lighting configurations will also be limited. This is due to hardware and shoe configuration, the body of the flashes need to be turned 180 degrees from the flash head in order to get infrared to receive properly. You can work around this more so indoors with infrared since it is capable of bouncing off walls.
PhotoGizmos recommends this product as a Value buy.
Acratech Focusing Rail fits into any standard “Arca-Swiss” type quick release clamp and provides 95 mm (3.75”) of precision movement. Macro Focusing Rail features a high precision, gun drilled, lead screw for precise movement and light weight.
Weighs less than 1 lb (.45 kg) with quick release clamp.
Easily holds 25 lbs (11.4kg).
Over 95 mm (3.75”) of precision movement.
125 mm (5” long) rails.
Precision C.N.C. machined.
Compatible with Kirk, R.R.S., Arca-Swiss and other Arca-Swiss style quick release clamps.
Beautiful satin black anodized finish.
Fits all standard tripods (1/4-20 and 3/8-16 threads).
Fits ¼-20 and 3/8-16 quick release clamps.
Laser engraved scale markings.
Solid precision feel.
Made in U.S.A.
Easy grip rubberized knobs.
All knobs are secured so they cannot vibrate loose and fall off.
Put an end to rubber bands, tape or sticky residue from gluing velcro to your expensive strobes. The Speed Strap fits any shoe-mount strobe unit, attaches and removes in seconds, and provides a large wraparound surface area to quickly attach a combination of our Speed Gobos, Snoots, Gels, and upcoming Speed Grids. Non-slip so it won’t budge when attached.
Keep light from flaring into your lens when using your speedlight as a background or hair light. Our Speed Gobo attaches quickly with a Speed Strap (required, not included, see below). Reversable, tough ballistic-type black nylon on one side, white polymer on the other so you can also use as a bounce card. Buy 2 for a great barndoor setup. 4″ x 7.5″ Honl Photo
Concentrate the light from your shoe-mount flash for dramatic cinematic lighting with my easy to use snoot. Perfect for everything from dramatic portraits to concentrating light on background elements. Attaches and removes in seconds using my popular Speed Strap (not included, see below). Made of tough ballistic nylon with grey interior that produces a soft falloff. Fits most any on-camera shoe-mount strobe. 8.5″ long. Exclusive Patent Pending design.
Speed Snoots are adjustable to fit a wide variety of flashes, including Canon’s 430 to 580 Speedlites and Nikon’s SB24 to SB900 Speedlights. To check fit for other flash brands and models:
Measure the outside circumference of your flash, then add 1.25″ (32mm) for the added thickness of the required Speed Strap. If your final measurement falls between 8.5″ (21cm) to 10.5″ (27cm) the Speed Snoot will fit properly on your flash.
NewExposure, exposed—the BetterPhoto way! addition to a favorite series—25,000 sold!
A complete course between the covers of a book
Assignments, diagrams, tips, and illustrations, plus stunning photos
Exposure. It’s essential to producing high-quality photographs, but mastering exposure is difficult. At last there’s a BetterPhoto guide to exposure, packed with BetterPhoto’s signature assignments, diagrams, tips, and illustrations. It’s like a full-scale photography course between the covers of the book—all taught the BetterPhoto way, just like photographers learn at the top photography-instruction site on the web. There’s plenty of information here on both digital and film photography, discussing how different file formats affect exposure, how to adjust digital files, color correction, combining digital exposures, and much more. The author’s stunning full-color photographs make this hardworking guide as inspiring as it is instructive. Sean Arbabi’s photographs have been featured in 250 publications and by 150 companies, including National Geographic and Microsoft. A BetterPhoto.com instructor, he lives in Danville, CA. Visit him on the web at www.seanarbabi.com.
·Prime standard lens is ideal for portrait, still life, or low light photography.
·Fast f/1.4 aperture for outstanding depth of field control.
·Rounded diaphragm blades create a more circular aperture for smooth, beautiful bokeh at large aperture settings.
·PENTAX SDM autofocus system for accurate, quiet focusing.
·Weather and dust resistant construction for safe and reliable operation in the field.
·High performance Aero Bright coating on internal lens elements offers high refraction index for improved light transmission with minimal ghosting/flaring.
·Quick-shift Focus System for instant switching from auto to manual focus.
·Focal length equivalent to 84.5mm (in 35mm format).
·Developed specifically for PENTAX digital SLR cameras.
The Ray Flash is portable and lightweight, and has been designed to take advantage of a camera’s TTL metering capabilities. Because the Ray Flash relies on the hot-shoe flash to generate its light, it contains no electronics, no flash tubes and requires no cumbersome cables. The light distribution is accomplished through a sophisticated system of internal light-shapers designed to distribute and project the light evenly around the lens.
The Ray Flash creates a unique ring flash lighting effect: a three-dimensional shadow-wrapped look around the subject. Because ring flash light originates from a circle around the lens, it produces a virtually shadowless look on the front of your subject, while producing a soft even shadow around the edges. The versatile Ray Flash is ideally suited for fashion, wedding, portrait, journalist and macro photography as either a main or fill-in light.
Exposure control:
All TTL functions operate normally when using the Ray Flash. As with standard flash use, manual exposure control requires the use of a light meter or test-shots.
The Ray Flash is designed to fit the Canon 580EX (I & II) and Nikon SB800 flash units. Weighing about 16 oz, the Ray Flash is lightweight and is easily supported by hot-shoe mounted flash units. The 4 1/8” internal diameter of the Ray Flash is large enough to accept almost all professional lenses from Nikon & Canon. For the model range see the chart below.
Light output:
The Ray Flash results in minimal light loss from your flash’s standard output. The Ray Flash does not change a flash’s color temperature.
Aperture Settings for Ray Flash by Shooting Distance:
Hahnemuhle USA, North American distributor of high-quality digital art media from Hahnemuhle FineArt GmbH, has just unveiled a premium quality, canvas print wrapping system called Gallerie Wrap. Gallerie Wrap is a complete system of easy-to-use fastening components and stretching frames to accommodate most popular imaging formats. It requires no special tools and, with a little practice, allows artists and photographers to produce professional quality gallery wraps in minutes.
Gallery wraps are images printed on a quality canvas digital medium, such as Hahnemuhle Daguerre Canvas 400gsm or Monet Canvas 410gsm, then stretched and mounted to a frame with the image wrapped around the edges. In recent years, this type of presentation has become extremely popular because of the artistic look it lends to almost any image.
Traditionally, to obtain the gallery wrap look you would have had to outsource this work to your local frame shop. With the new Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap System, however, you can make the canvas print, stretch and fasten it to the frame yourself, at home, in about 5 minutes!
Hahnemuhle Gallerie Wrap stretching frames are available in two sizes. The Standard Stretching Bars offer a frame depth of 1 ¼” tall, and the depth of the PRO Stretcher Bars is 1 ¾”. There will be a total of 17 bar lengths that produce all common size frames and more; so that you can tailor the frame size to suit your requirements. The Standard version is offered in the following lengths: 8”, 10”, 11”, 12”, 14”, 16”, 18”, 20” and 24”. The Pro version offers the following lengths: 20”, 24”, 30”, 32”, 36”, 40”, 48” and 60”.
The baLens consists of a snap-on lens cap with a removable translucent dome in the center. By simply putting the cap on your lens, pointing the camera at the light source and doing a manual white balance, superior colour correction is easily achieved - easier and more accurate then the camera’s auto white balance setting.
Simple. Smart. Functional. Change the way your camera sees colour. Go from orange, blue and green-tinted photos to beautifully captured colour by setting a custom white balance with the baLens Cap. Achieve a look that’s not always possible with in-camera automatic white balance or in-camera white balance pre-sets. Just squeeze both side tabs of the baLens Cap for easy placement or removal, even with a lens hood in place. Its center pinchrelease mechanism and streamlined design helps prevent the baLens Cap from accidently bumping off, either when traveling or shooting in a crowd. The patent-pending baLens White Balance Lens Cap system comes with interchangeable neutral and warm filters. So no matter how challenging the lighting, with a baLens Cap you can get better colours right out of the bag. Available in 52mm, 55mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm, and 77mm sizes.
Simple to use:
With the baLens Lens Cap mounted to the lens, take a reference exposure of the light falling on your intended subject with the camera set in - manual focus/auto exposure mode. The baLens Lens Cap will allow the setting of a custom white balance based on the actual colour temperature of the light source or sources. Under the camera’s menu functions, locate the custom white balance setting and apply the reading Warm filter effect is for use when you wish to achieve warmer skin tones, ie: for portraits, or overall “warmer” colours in photos.
BRNO implements very strict quality controls. For example, once the formula for the center filter pieces are mixed, a pre production sample is taken and measured against a control sample on a photospectrometer and densitometer. Once this is approved, then samples are taken from production pieces during various times during output and retested. While it is impossible to have 100% accuracy with any product, the accuracy range is much better than the built in range of a a manually set white balance temperature using Kelvin and actual output. Actual color temperature as measured by a Gossen 3F Color Meter:
Nikon D3(version 2.0 firmware) AWB: 4777/5750
Nikon D3, manually set to 5560K: 5360/5550
BRNO baLens, Neutral: 5742/5780
BRNO baLens, Warm: 6386/5780
High Quality Snap Cap with interchangeable domes.
Available in 52, 55, 58, 62, 67, 72 and 77mm sizes
Replaces lens cap so eliminates carrying extra accessories.
Ready for use when camera and lens come out of the case.
Secure bayonet locking ring to attach domes to cap.
