Sites&Articles

Recommended site : Strobox

Hey

In the previous post I wrote about a new IPhone app that I heard about, so after some searching I found out (I’m relatively new to the Apple stuff ;-) ) that there was already an app the help draw some studio lighting diagrams. The app is based on a common studio diagram web application that the most of you photographers out there already know.

strobox

So those guys created a very good community site that lets photographers share their photography and lighting setups, you’ll find there anything from fashion photography, wedding photography to food and objects photography!!!

All you have to do is to browse through the photography style categories and choose what you are interested in, then choose the type of light modifiers you want and of you go!

Enjoy!

Studio simulation for your IPhone or IPod

If you have an IPhone/IPod and interested in some studio photography and lighting, this application might be very useful.

As for the demostration of this little app, It looks very very impressive. For only 3.5& you can get a mobile studio light simulator, this is simply amazing.

So what it does?

The app allows for setups to be quickly laid out and added to the library.

A video of the app can be seen on the SLR homepage (just follow the support/homepage link).

Have fun and suggestions/ feature requests are most welcome :) .

(From iTune store).

So you could check this one for your own.

Enjoy!

Zarias.com probably the best “strobist” blog on the net

zack

I think that I visited Zack’s blog after watching a one light workshop promotion video on youtube (something funny about bumping into a cop while shooting the video), then I got really “in love” with him (although he is not my type ;-) ).

While strobist.com got much to commercial and diyphotography.net does it too , Zack’s blog remained untouched and keeps his goals with one off camera normal flash  (the strobist way 3 years ago).

If  you haven’t visited the site yet go on and do it now as its probably the best information source for beginners and pros as well!

This the best starting point to visit Zack’s site (my opinion),  its a  six part great tutorial about white seamless photography and how to use and do this very common technique, and master this quickly. Read it, even if its a little long one (take some coffee breaks ). There is lighting basics, setup basics and some easy photoshop in it, so you get almost all the info you need!

The only downside that I find here is that Zack mainly uses the big flash Westcott Apollo 28″ Light Modifier softbox
which my be a little expensive for beginners.

Visit this site and bookmark it, You’ll never regret it!!!

Tags:

Great blog by David James Williams

david_james

Well I found David’s site as I was looking for some DIY softbox ideas.I first read this post, about a way to attach small camera flash to a normal softbox (not those plastic softboxes, but a real one ). He used a sponge to hold the flash to the softbox ring, easy and simple. If you’re a DIY fun you should read that post, here is a link to that. David actually put the flash into the soft box but connects the flash to the tripod, while it holds the softbox. He experienced this with 50cm softboxes and claims to be able to hold the softbox weight. I would try to work with, or get a softbox that as a speed ring that attaches to a tripod and then add the flash sponge holder  to the softbox, so the softboxes weight won’t be on the flash.

flash sponge holder

flash sponge holder

After reading that opening post I started wondering through David’s blog and found many other posts that has great value for as photographers. You must read the Photography Tutorials section (in the categories menu), where David shares his studio photography knowledge with his reader.

It will be a good idea to subscribe to Davids blog via RSS for more useful information.

PS

David, Great site!!!

Tags:

Pop Photography – May 2010 – Light like a pro

One of the photography magazines that I read regularly is Popular Photography.I actually don’t remember when I first read this magazine, as my father was the one who started with it way back in the 80’s and I bealive that I can read English since I was 10, so that makes it the middle 80’s. But lets talk about the last issue of PopPhoto.

In the last issue, there is an article about “Lighting Like a Pro”, Covering some very common topics we photographers are interested and spending lot of online time reading about:

  • Using natural light-there is an example of beach model shoot, using the sun light and a reflector.You can use the DIY reflector we “designed” here.
  • Mimicing the sunlight using strobes- a very good piece on using the strobes as main lights , that allows us to get the over exposed sky if we havn’t used them. A very nice setup.
  • Mixing Daylight and strobes.
  • Jewelery shoot setup- explaining the basics of jewelery photography and how to pose your light in such a setup.
  • Advanced setup using more than 10 lights in a multi-exposure shoot. This is really advanced stuff.

This great stuff is wrapped with an article that covers the 10 things you don’t know about light.

This is a must read issue!!!

Tags: , ,

New amazing features with photoshop CS5

I must say that some of the promotional video published on YouTube regarding the soon new arrival of the Photoshop CS5 , looks to me as if its science fiction! As if those movies are some video effects and not real image retouching capabilities!

You must see this one (or any other movie just search YouTube for photoshop CS5), its really amazing work, done in a couple of seconds. Yes probably with a super duper,state of the art computer, but yet its amazing technology that  I’m eager to test!!!

You are going to enjoy this one, that I promise!

Tags: ,

Great product photography set by-Stefan Tell

Hey you all!

As most of my work is with small flashes I must bring you to this very talented Swedish photographer (Stockholm, Sweden) who is also a graphic designer.You can get to his site at this address .As I use small flashes in the tutorials you see in that site, Stefan is using “big” lights Profoto units if I read it right.The “big” lights can get you better results in many of the cases than the small lights,as the ad-ons you can work with the big light are much versatile than the one that you can get or DIY for the small light (not mentioning power and the light shape).

In Stefans blog and site you could get many tutorials , mainly about portrait photography,in those tutorials you’ll see detailed examples and diagrams for the shootouts he did.I really liked the product shootout that you can see in that link Lighting setup for Amigurumi product photography using only two lights!

I have to say that this tutorial really got me thinking on trying to get this nice result with the small flashes that I use for my product photography tutorials…So the first two things that I did after I read that tutorial by stefan is to DIY two honeycoms for my flashes, one circular shaped and on rectangle shape.

Stefan Tell

Enjoy the site by Stefan and see you soon with my next tutorial!

A great “strobist” blog

Hey.

many times I see on the net good flash photography sites,but not great sites.This one is one of the best that I visited the last month and I do recommend you guys to check it up once in a while or register to its mailing list.

This is a site by David Tejada (if I got it right),and its moto is

“Small StrobesBig Results”

Well he do delivers.

So go and visit it ,I’m sure you’ll like some of the stuff he is talking about.

Site

Great Lightroom free presets site

Hey

As I do some wedding in Israel,some of my after the wedding digital photography job is done with the Lightroom 2.2.

This program as you my know is very fast and versatile.It allows to add presets to your presets window .Those presets will give your photos some creativity boost.I bumped in that site a couple of days ago and found some great FREE presets to play with.I recommend you should give it a look,you won’t regret it!

http://www.presetsheaven.com

Tags:

Pop Photo article – how to shot your rock band

popphoto_logo

Well you all know that I really like the Popular Photography magazine,I actually believe that this magazine is the thing that got me shooting and directed me for photography (My father has a subscription for the last 20 yeas or so)…

In the last edition there was an article that explains the basic (but not only the basic) steps for shooting your rock band.This articles actually tells the story of each editorial shootout weather its a fashion shoot of band portrait.

So you should go on and read it, get the magazine or check out Pop’s web site for the full article summery.

The article is well written by Adam Elmakias and you could get it here.

Bey the way,there is a new feature in our site, You could get a free Email updatefor each article or tutorial we post in out site.You could put your email in the empty fill-in box in the top right corner.