COMPARISON: Flashpoint Soft Box for Shoe Mount Flashes vs Lastolite Joe McNally 24" Ezybox

Lastolite Joe McNally 24" Ezybox vs Flashpoint 24” Softbox

My friends at Adorama sent me a Flashpoint 24” Softbox to see how I liked it, so I decided to do a very quick (like 20 minute) test to check it out. You know, this is the kind of thing you typically do when you get something new where you rip open the box and just try it out right away (while UPS is still on your block!). I was already a big fan of my Lastolite Joe McNally 24" Ezybox (which is just a branded version of this), so I thought I’d try it out really quick before watching a movie with my wife last night.

Ezyboxes collapse faster, but are huge. The Flashpoint is easier to travel stuff in your luggage

I couldn’t rope my wife into being a model, and my kids were getting the popcorn ready so please bear with my quick and dirty review here (and lame pics of yours truly with laying on the sofa hair <g>).

Physical Comparison

Before I discuss how each unit performs as a softbox, it’s important to discuss how practical they are as portable softboxes. This is where the Ezybox has set the golden standard (in my opinion) for great performance and easy of use.

Sure Westcott has the Apollo in a variety of sizes, but I never liked it because the flash is inside means that you either need something like Pocket Wizards or a sync cord because there is no line of sight with your trigger. I preferred to use my old 580EX II’s (or NikonSB-910’s) with line of sight rather than Pocket Wizards so the Apollo was out of the question for me.

Of course Westcott offers the outrageously priced $229+ magic slipper and softbox kits to match the Ezybox, but even that didn’t perform as well as the Ezybox and it wasn’t very portable. As a result, the Ezybox, trigrip (for shooting through) or an umbrella has always been my portable soft light solution.

As you can see from the photos above, the Ezybox collapses quickly into a nice flat triangle and comes with a storage bag, but it’s so large you can’t fit it in typical luggage bags. This means if you want to travel with this gadget then you need to carry it on the plan which is a bit of a hassle. The first thing I noticed about the Flashpoint was how compact it was because I knew I could toss that into any of my existing luggage bags.

Ezybox includes everything you need like a plastic slipper that holds your flash

Setting up the Ezybox is equally easy but over time it gets a little wonky shaped (see above) unless you wrestle with it a bit. It’s okay though because light doesn’t care much if the box is a bit off kilter – it just works. It features a plastic slipper for your flash that just pops in the back and it also has proven to be durable and just work.

Inside the Ezybox there is a inner baffle and it comes with white or silver inside

The Ezybox works like a proper softbox and even features an inner baffle. My McNally version has a white interior, but it’s also available in silver as well. What’s more, the Velcro on the recessed lip on the inside and around the outside can be used to mount accessories like an eggcrate grid.

Ezybox vs Flashpoint side view

When you put the Ezybox next to the Flashpoint, you quickly see the quality advantage of the Ezybox which drives up the price, but you also see that the Flashpoint offers the same size box for a fraction of the cost.

Ezybox vs Flashpoint head on view

Head on you quickly see one big difference – the Ezybox has a smaller surface area thanks to its very nice recessed design. However, both offer roughly the same amount of soft light for your subject, so the biggest difference here is the control you get from the recessed design.

If you look inside of the Flashpoint you see a very “Apollo-like” interior with no inner baffle or obvious support for accessories:

The No-Frills Flashpoint Interior

It’s Spartan, but it works. From behind it’s much like the Ezybox, but it uses a much taller tower of brackets:

Flashpoint Rear View

Setting up the Flashpoint is much more challenging thanks to its very annoying tent-like poles (shown in the first picture in this article) that are common to pro softboxes. While nicely designed Velcro straps help make inserting and removing the last two very easy, its still a pain and not as quick as the all-in-one design for the Ezybox by Lastolite.

Softbox Performance Comparison

Flashpoint behind the scenes setup

Since I was alone and in a hurry, I tried to do this quick test on the cheap. Instead of using my reflector (which I’d get out later), I just grabbed a piece of foil and tossed it on a tripod for a quick mild fill light on the opposite side of the Flashpoint box. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. On the white seamless I just tossed a purple Rogue Gel on a flash to get a little color in the background.

Flashpoint test #1 (f/2.8 for 1/60 sec @ ISO 400)

Initially I used my 600EX-RT flash with the ST-E3 in radio mode to trigger them, but I’d switch to a 580EX II’s triggered by optical instead radio just to give them a real workout. They performed well, so I got started with my testing. As you can see from my setup and the shot above, this simple one light configuration turned out okay. Sure, I could have dialed it in better but what I saw was that I got nice soft light from the Flashpoint, so I was happy.

Ezybox test #1 (foil shown off my arm, but it was on my arm for the close up)

Ezybox test #1

I got less light spill and a slightly softer light with the Ezybox, but overall the two performed equally well. There’s lots of tests I could do here, but I just wanted to see if I could get this basic shot – it did it with no problem. I had more shots than you see here, but the performance was similar so I just grabbed one randomly to demonstrate that it doesn’t suck for you.

Over and under "Clamshell" setup with reflector

Just in case anyone might complain that neither of these boxes gives much light, I thought I’d have fun with a clamshell setup to show that bright light is no problem.

Flashpoint test #2 (f/13 for 1/60sec @ ISO 100)

You’ll notice here that I was able to do f/13 at ISO 100 with no problem (at 0EV and ETTL). I also elected to use a 580EX II only with a 600EX-RT as a optical trigger (but a ST-E2 or another 580 would have worked just as well) to show that you can use older flashes (and whatever you need to trigger them) and get good results.

Conclusion

While I hated the complexity of setting the Flashpoint up, the reality is that you get used to it really quick and it only takes a few minutes longer than the super easy Ezybox. Lightwise they both performed well, but I did prefer the Ezybox recessed design which helps prevent as much light spillage and also the interior baffle to soften the light even more. Both of these issues could be addressed by the do-it-yourselfer, so for those on a budget the Flashpoint 24” Softbox offers a great value. It’s also can’t be emphasized enough how easy it is to air travel with the Flashpoint vs the Ezybox, so some may find it worth picking up a Flashpoint for that reason alone.

Where to order

Click here to order the Flashpoint 24” Softbox or you can click here to order the Lastolite Joe McNally 24" Ezybox on the Adorama web site.

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Home Studio on a Budget
• Lens / Camera Gear Rental Series (includes discounts)
• Canon 600EX-RT Flash First Look (ST-E3 RT)
• Olympus OM-D E-M5 (with 2 lenses) Review
• Getting Started in Boudoir Photography
• Discount Coupon Code Page
• How do I get my kid to look at the darn camera?
• What’s Hot in Photography and Photo Editing Books

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this. While I paid for my Ezybox, I was given a Flashpoint soft box – at my request – by Adorama for testing for this review.

First Look: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT Flash

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Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT Box Contents

Today my Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT flash arrived from B&H, so I thought I’d share a few quick thoughts about it.

Big Honkin’ Manual

The first thing you notice when you open the box is that the new manual looks like the car navigation system manual – it’s huge! Of course it’s three manuals in one because it’s localized in English, French and Spanish so the truth is that it’s only 1/3rd of the visual size. Inside it looks more like a camera manual than the cryptic flash manuals of the past, but it’s still just about the facts so don’t expect to learn how to use the flash from this book.

Built-in Gel System

Something new for this flash is the addition of the built-in gel filter holder that has been the mainstay of the SB-900 and SB-910 Speedlights from Nikon. It’s a nice design that features a carrying pouch, but the truth is that this too little to late for me as I’ve already moved on to the Rogue Gels which I like a lot more for their variety of colors, organization, more compact pouch and flexible use with any flash. I applaud Canon for playing catch up, but it’s a token effort as you only get two gels with the flash and with the $29.95 SCF-E1 replacement kit. What the heck? What a checkbox only feature! Despite its solid construction, I’ll stick with my Rogue gels.

Improved Case Design

You can see in the photo at the top of this article that the case design has changed, and while I’d call it a minor change it’s significant. Now thanks to the Velcro strap in the back you can easily attach your flash to your camera strap or backpack if you were so inclined. I’m not sure I’d do it, but I can see how in a pinch that could be useful.

580EX II Comparison

While I didn’t have time for a full review, the burning question on my mind as well as many others is “how does the 600EX-RT compare to the 580EX II”? Physically it looks a little larger but for oddly enough feels a tad lighter. In practice it feels a lot more like using a SB-910 from Nikon than a Canon flash, but Canon users will feel right at home. When controlling via the 5D Mark III’s menu it’s a snap to use, as is the 580EX II, but the difference is that it’s also super easy to program the 600EX-RT off the camera using the back of the flash controls (shown above) versus the Morse code required by the 580EX II. I love the new design and it’s a snap to use without even opening the manual (which is impossible with its predecessors). It’s also a heck of a lot easier to use than Nikon flashes too.

Simple Flash Power Test

I just wanted to see what sort of power I had with zoom min and max as well as how each flash would handle ETTL, so I took some sample shots. If you are using an iOS device you’ll have to tap the photo to see the “mouse over” shot and then tap on another photo to see the “mouse out” in that previous spot. With that said, all of these shots were taken for 1/60 sec at f/16, ISO 100, 16mm (16-35mm II) using a Canon 5D Mark III. Here’s how things worked out:

200mm Max Zoom on 600EX (mouse out)vs 105 Max Zoom on 580 EX II (mouse over)

The 600EX-RT has a 200mm zoom to match Nikon’s SB-900, so this is a big improvement over the 105mm on the 580EX-II. Hopefully Canon learned from Nikon and we won’t have any overheating issues. In my limited testing the flash performed well with no signs of overheating. Clearly you get more focused light with the 600EX which also features a lightly longer barrel than its predecessor.

20mm Min Zoom on 600EX (mouse out)
vs 24 Min Zoom on 580 EX II (mouse over)

The 600 had a little more spread (even at 24mm) so the extra power was obvious.

Full ETTL on 600EX (mouse out)
vs Full ETTL on 580 EX II (mouse over)

Again, on ETTL the 600EX showed off its better zoom and had a little more even light without as much vignetting as the 580EXII.

Overall for this test it was no surprise that the 600EX-RT showed off its strengths, but honestly in practice this is going to be less of an issue in most normal scenarios. Sure if you are Joe McNally this might make a difference, but for mere mortals you’ll rarely take advantage of the extra oomph offered by the 600. It’s also likely (although I didn’t test) that the 600 will drain batteries faster, so there’s a downside too.

Real World Shots

I didn’t have much time, but I thought I’d take a quick crack at seeing if the new flash made any difference on a real world shot. With that in mind I threw my 100mm macro on the 5D Mark III and dialed it in for 1/60 sec at f/22, ISO 1600 to see how the two flashes compared in ETTL mode. I also boosted the flash exposure compensation by +2 on both and bounced on the ceiling / wall behind me. Here’s the results:

600EX-RT

580EX II

The net result was that they both performed equally well with the 600EX-RT having a slightly softer and diffused light (a good thing) than the 580EX II.

What about the radio wireless?

Check out these articles for more info:

• Pocket Wizard Mini TT1, Flex TT5 and AC7 (I do recommend these, but they don’t work with the 5D Mark III yet)
• Canon 600EX-RT Wireless Real World Test
• Ask Ron: Canon 600EX-RT Radio Wireless and High Speed Sync on Sunny Days
• REVIEW: Canon ST-E3 RT Speedlite Transmitter
• PocketWizard Plus III Review

Conclusion

So far what I’m seeing is a flash that catches up with Nikon’s SB-910 and performs better in every way than its predecessor. However, I can buy a 580EX II for $469 (with the current rebate that expires on 3/31/12) and the new 600EX-RT costs a whopping $629! That’s $160 difference and the new Pocket Wizard III (which doesn’t have ETTL) only costs $139. So, if you can forego the ETTL radio wireless support, you can buy a 580EX II AND a wireless transmitter for about the same price (without the rebate). Now having wireless ETTL does have its benefits and being able to control it from your camera (or computer with EOS Utility) is an added plus as well. However, for those of you with two or three flashes you can invest in a wireless ETTL system for your existing flashes (see here for a price comparison) for a little more than the cost of one of these flashes. Throw in a superior Rogue Gel system and you are good to go.

My advice is that if you are buying your first Canon flash then go for the new flash. It’s a good flash that will serve you well both now and as you grow into the system in the future. However, if you already own one or more flashes and aren’t prepared to toss them out to buy two or more of these (to take advantage of the radio wireless), then I see no point in buying them.

I’m still on the fence about keeping the one I’ve ordered or sending it back. It’ll take the radio wireless test to convince if I should keep them or not, but then I have to buy at least two so that’s a pretty significant investment for the owner of three 580EX II’s and a ST-E2 transmitter.

Order Now

Click here to order yours now and support this blog (it doesn’t cost you an extra).

Disclosure

I purchased this flash at full price for my personal use. If you make a purchase using links found in this blog I may get a commission.

High Speed Drop Photography–Getting Started by Joseph Calev

There are many things in photography that if given enough time and financial resources, I’d probably try out. However the reality of my life is that I don’t have enough time or money to do cool things like High Speed Drop Photography. As a result, my friend Joseph Calev is here to guest blog again to tell you about his experience getting into this cool new world.

NOTE: The content that follows is Joe’s opinion. I have not made edits beyond fixing typos or sizing.

Ron

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Introduction

For quite some time I have been interested in high speed photography.  Last week I finally bit the bullet and picked up some gear to make this a lot easier.  In the following article I will discuss my setup and some of the decisions I have made thus far.  Keep in mind when reading this that I have been doing high speed photography (so far just drops) for only a week and I am still figuring a lot of things out.  Below is one of the first shots I took with my setup.

Water Drop by Joseph Calev

The basics of high speed photography

Some time ago I spent a great deal of effort photographing drops from melted ice.  I spent several hours outside with my camera in the exact position I needed it and continuously pressed the shutter at the right moment.  More often than not I missed my goal and out of every 100 shots I would wind up with about four or five in focus.  Of course, of the photos in focus many of them were quite uninteresting.  As you can imagine, it took quite a few shots and a lot of time to get something decent.

The real problem in high speed photography is improving the odds by making sure you have something in focus in the viewfinder with each shot.  This allows you to spend more of your time working on the most crucial part - making a photo that is actually interesting.  The key here is firing your camera and flash at the exact moment you need to.  There are really four parts to high speed photography.

The trigger - This is the thing that has to happen for some action to start.  For all of my water drops thus far this has been the act of pushing a button.  There are many types of triggers though.  You have infrared and laser triggers, microphones, and special triggers for ballistics.  The idea is something needs to happen to start the events in motion that will lead to your photo.

The flash - This is one case where it is better to have a small speedlight rather than a larger powered light.  You need your flash to freeze your subject as most cameras only go down to 1/8000 second - too slow for a lot of high speed work.  What many do not know about lights is that a 'more powerful' flash creates this by holding the light for a longer period.  Therefore for high speed photography you need to set your flash at the lowest setting.  I currently use two 580EX flashes set to 1/128 - which gives a duration of around 1/40,000 second.  At some point I hope to pick up the Microflash Pro.  This flash gives the same power as two 580EX flashes at full power at a speed of 1/28,000 second.  Alternatively it can go down to speeds of 35 microseconds.  However, at a price of £1800 it was too much to include in my initial setup.

The camera - As I previously mentioned it is the flash that illuminates the subject.  The camera doesn't do much in the equation except cause problems. :) The main issue is there exists a lag between when the camera is triggered and when it actually fires.  On Canon cameras, this lag actually varies unless you use mirror lock.  With mirror lock, I measures my 5D Mark II to have a shutter lag of 83.7 milliseconds.  For drops this is not much of an issue.  You simply need to factor your shutter lag into the equation.  However when photographing things that move invariably and quickly - such as insects - this will not work at all.  For this type of photography you need a special solenoid shutter that typically fits in front of your lens.  You then place your camera in bulb mode and trigger your solenoid.  A good solenoid shutter will have a lag of less than 5 milliseconds.  I currently do not have such a shutter but I anticipate having one by the summer.

The orchestrator - The most crucial piece of equipment you need is something that reacts to the trigger by firing the flash and the camera.  There are several triggers available on the market today.

• Hiviz - These are very simply hobbyist triggers that depend on the camera being placed in bulb mode in a dark room.  Given a particular trigger it then fires a flash.  Images from these triggers typically have dark backgrounds.  The triggers themselves are not very sophisticated compared to the other options.
• Mumford Time Machine - This is one of the first high speed devices I heard of and I almost purchased this model.  It is close to the Stopshot in functionality, but I found the specs of the Stopshot to be more flexible.  Stopshot offers more outputs and a lighted screen (add ons to the Time Machine) and it is possible to connect two Stopshots together.  The user interface of the Stopshot also appears to be better.
• Cognisys Stopshot - This is what I ended up purchasing.  I had a lot of questions about this device before I purchased it and they were very prompt and helpful in answering them.  They are also continuously innovating - unlike the other triggers which seem more like static products.
• Phototrap - While I am sure this trigger works just fine, from looking at the specs it appears to do less than the Stopshot.  I have the feeling this trigger is more geared towards wildlife photographers in the field, but they do seem to heavily push their system through wildlife photography classes.  Basically you take a wildlife photography class where a photographer shows you some of the great things you can do with the trigger and you wind up buying it before you are done.  From what I can tell though the Stopshot and Time Machine will do more for less money.

My setup

Below is a shot of my current setup.  As I have already stated, keep in mind that I have only had this gear for a week and am still working on things.

One aspect in which I have deviated significantly from many drop photographers is I prefer to use store bought components rather than building things myself.  A quick search on the web will reveal a number of different ways to create a drop setup from wood.  However I wanted something that offered more flexibility.  I am also quite limited in time.  Therefore the following is what I put together.

• On the sides you can see two light stands.  It doesn't really matter which ones they are.  I tend to prefer taller air cushioned ones but I currently own four different light stands - none of them the same.
• At the top of the light stand I have a Bogen Clamp on either side.  Between the two light stands I then have a Bogen Arm.  Originally my plan was to attach a background stand holder to each clamp and then rest the arm on the holders.  However this allowed the arm to spin - which is very bad for precision scenarios.  Therefore I have the arm actually held by each clamp and the clamps screwed in to the top of the stands.  This is one great advantage of buying flexible parts as it allows me to improvise when necessary.  This setup allows me to easily vary the height of the siphon.
• On the top you can see the water siphon from Cognisys.  This comes as part of their water drop kit.  Here is a close-up.

The siphon is attached to Cognisys's tripod holder for the siphon.  I am not crazy about this holder but it works.  The most annoying thing is I have to unscrew it to take the siphon out.  I would have preferred some type of clamp and someday I may look into whether there is some type of bracket the will attach to a Bogen Clamp that will do a better job.  The tripod holder is screwed into another Bogen Clamp (can you tell I really like Bogen Clamps?!)  Immediately below the siphon is the water valve (with the red wires attached).  This connects to the Stopshot and releases the water.  Below the water valve is a small infrared trigger.  I am actually not using this right now as the trigger is a button push but this will factor in when I begin using multiple liquids.  To the left of the siphon I have another Bogen Clamp with a heavy duty Bogen Flexible Arm holding another tripod bracket.  In the future this will hold another siphon - which I already have.  This will allow me to work with multiple liquids at the same time.  On the far right of the shot is yet another Flexible Arm + Bogen Clamp for a third siphon.  The blue inside the siphon is from food coloring.  The upside down Sub-Zero box behind the setup is a fort my kids made (most expensive fort yet).

Here is a close-up of the bottom setup.

I am currently targeting the drops to a setup of brightly colored bowls I bought at a local store.  In the future I plan to also buy some straight pans and put a white background behind it.  I can then change the color of the background by modifying the flash illuminating it.  I am still playing with lighting setups but for now I have one 580EX on a small Gorillapod.  The other is held up by another Bogen Flexible Arm attached to another Bogen Clamp.  I have no preference for one way or the other but I only own one Gorillapod.  In this shot I have both flashes gelled with Rosco modifiers from the Color Effects kit (which comes in sheets that I cut to 3" x 5" gels).  In this particular shot IMHO I would have been better off without the gels.

In the corner of the table you can see the Stopshot.  The Stopshot is connected to the water valve above.  A special cable connects the Stopshot to my camera and I have both flashes connected to the same output via an RCA Y cable.  The camera itself is on my tripod that I previously discussed on Ron's blog [see Ron’s tripod & head recommendations].  It is a Gitzo 2541EX with an Acratech GP ball head and two Really Right Stuff macro rails.  It is the same tripod I typically use for macro photography.  On the camera itself is the 100mm 2.8 IS Macro.

Other miscellaneous items on the table are a ruler to measure the height of the water valve (to do calculations for the timing), a pencil I use for focusing, and a measuring glass I use for pouring liquids (don't tell my wife though - she still wonders where it went to...)

Below are some of my results so far.

Drop Monster by Joseph Calev

Water Man by Joseph Calev

Overall I am very pleased with the Stopshot thus far.  Once you figure it out it works quite well - though this is definitely one piece of equipment where you need to read the manual.  It also provides a good lesson in cable organization as I counted exactly 30 cables in the box with my kit.  I now have a rack in my garage just for cables.  I still have a lot of things to learn.  For example I have not dealt with the following yet.

• Different liquids provide different types of drops.  I have yet to work with milk are additives to water other than food coloring (rinse aid, guar gum).
• As previously stated I want to try setting the background color via a white background and a gelled flash.
• I currently own three siphons, but am only working with one thus far.  In the future I want to use multiple drops of different liquids.  With a single siphon multiple drops are supported but are obviously of the same liquid.
• I also own the cross laser trigger.  In the future I will use this for insects but it has other uses I haven't had time to investigate yet.
• I also own a microphone trigger, but haven't played with that yet either.

Disclosure

Joe approached me about his excitement getting these products, so I extended an offer for him to blog about his experience. Neither Joe nor I have any known direct affiliation with most of the companies mentioned on this blog. In the limited cases where I do (i.e., Amazon, Adorama, & B&H), I may make a commission if you make a purchase from their site.

REVIEW: Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites by Syl Arena

Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites (also on Kindle) is a very long book that has been my reading companion for the last several months. The good news is that it’s also a very good book that is long overdue – especially for those Canon shooters who read Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks and Hot Shoe Diaries books. Canon shooters are lead to believe that their flashes are so inferior to the Nikon system (which is admittedly pretty good), but the bigger obstacle for Canon shooters was the lack of decent information on Canon flashes.

Prior to this book I found the flash section of Charles Gradner’s Holistic Approach to Lighting and Digital Photography as one of my first resources on the Canon flash system and NK Guy’s Canon EOS Beginners Guide – Part IV – Flash (which later was published as Mastering Canon EOS Flash Photography) as one of the best. However, both of these online documents were a bit on the boring side without enough great images to make me excited about what I was reading.

When I first saw the Speedlighter’s Handbook with a smashing pumpkin on the front I was skeptical, but I did a little look inside on Amazon and from the Table of Contents I quickly realized this book had the potential to be the long lost Canon Flash System manual. I say this because I’ve yet to see any Canon flash ship with a manual that was super useful if you don’t know how to use the flash you just purchased already. 

I delayed reading this book for a while because there was so much content, but once I started I couldn’t stop. However, it’s hard for me to find time to read a book of this size so it’s taken me forever to get through it which is honestly one of its flaws. I would have much rather seen a Scott Kelby style like he did with The Digital Photography Book Series where the author just gets to the point and tells me what to do rather than how things work. However, there will come a day young grasshopper when you’ve mastered the basics where you’ll want to know more – in fact you’ll need to know more, and when that day arrives this is the book you would have wanted. It’s for this reason that I did actually enjoy this book quite a bit, despite its massive amount of data (which even in this format should have been 3 separate books).

Normally I would do a chapter by chapter walkthrough, but with 25 chapters packed with tons of info I just couldn’t get myself to do it. You can skim the TOC on Amazon, but suffice it to say that you’ll find any answers you seek about using Canon flashes when you read this book. It’s in there – you might have a little time finding it, but the answer is in this book. It’s for this reason that I have to say – EVERY Canon shooter should own this book – you’ll finally learn how to master your flash and realize that the system is much more capable than the Nikon faithful would have you believe.

The Best of the Book

You will learn a lot from this book as it is jammed full of a tremendous amount of info. The good thing is that after you’ve finished reading it (which is the same feeling you had when you finally finished reading the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy), you with find the handy Appendix 4: Six-Point Checklist for Speedlighting to be very helpful. There’s lots of pictures and things are spelled out very well. It’s modern, relevant and quite honestly will cover more topics than most will ever use in their lifetime. From batteries to accessories, to flash 101, to gels and so much more – it’s in there. It really should have been called Speedlighter’s Kitchen Sink book!

The Worst of the Book

Syl (rhymes with hill) states up front that he’s an in-camera guy and that he doesn’t do Photoshop on his images. The sad reality in today’s world that means the images don’t have the wow and pop you’d see in a McNally book. This really turned me off as I kept thinking, these images aren’t very good so how can this guy really teach me anything. As I ignored the images and used them as tools to describe a given technique, I got along much better. 

Attention Peachpit Press – I despised the way the images were labeled in this book. A great example is page 243 where 6 images appear on this page and the captions appear on page 242. I found this to be super confusing and would have been much happier with the figure numbers appearing directly on the images if necessary. Please don’t do books like this in the future!

Conclusion

Must Buy for intermediate to advanced Canon photographers – this book literally has everything you need to know PLUS everything you could ever possibly want to know. Your head will explode if you try to read it all at once, so plan on having this book handy for a long-term read (i.e., read a chapter every week or two – then apply what you learned).

The recommended audience for this book should just read the chapters in order (don’t skip) and plan to be reading for a long time. You’ll be rewarded for your time investment by learning the things that build on each other.

Beginners should just read chapters 0, 6 & 7 and then put the book away. Go make sure you know all the info from Chapter 6 by heart and apply what you know. After that you’ll be ready for the book.

Once you’ve finished this bible, I mean book, you should read (or re-read) read Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks and Hot Shoe Diaries books because they’ll mean more to you now. You’ll be a master of your flash so you can apply what you learn from Joe and immediately use your Canon gear to make the shot happen.

For those Nikon shooters who are wondering, yes there are plenty of chapters with info that applies to your system as well. However, you might feel like Canon shooters with McNally’s books where you are miffed that your platform is left out of the book.

Ordering Paperback or Kindle Version

Click here to purchase the paperback book version from Amazon, or here to get the Kindle version.

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you make purchases using the links in this article. Thanks for supporting the blog by using my links!

ExpoImaging Rogue Grid – The “Must Have” On-Camera Flash Modifier

Save 15% using the coupon code ronmart09 (see details below)

Trust me when I say you read it here first – the hottest flash modifier this year will be ExpoImaging’s new Rogue Grid. This brilliant design fits nicely on the end of your speedlite (i.e., 580EX II, SB-900, etc…) using the brilliant built-in speed strap found on the mega-hot Rogue Flashbenders (i.e., the things that replaced the Honl’s and their stupid expensive stand-alone speed strap), and features 3 grids that can be combined or used alone to give you a 16, 25 or 45 degree grid as shown here: 

From what I’m seeing in the early test images shown here:

these things look awesome. I’m hoping that they work a lot better than the more costly and rectangular Honl Grids. They are good value too because they only cost about $43 with my discount (as of 3/22/2011) and come with 3 grids versus $70 for two Honl grids and a speed strap.

The second I heard about these I got in the queue to get the first batch of these. I can’t wait to try them out, so expect a review later this year. I wanted you to be the first to know about this cool new product but I know it won’t be the last time you hear about it.

Special Offer

My blog already has a discount coupon code in place for existing ExpoImaging products like the Rogue Flashbenders (review coming soon), ExpoDisc, and RayFlash, but I’m pleased to announce now that you can also save 15% when you use the coupon code ronmart09 to order your Rogue Grid.

Codes change so check the discount coupon code page for the latest code if this code doesn’t work.

Other Interesting Articles

If you liked this article, you may also like:

• Two GREAT Camera Flash Books
• REVIEW- Joe McNally & David Hobby’s Flash Bus Take Seattle By Storm
• Quantum QFlash & Custom Brackets Rotating Flash Bracket
• ExpoImaging ExpoDisc (Color Balancing Tool)
• On-Camera Flash Techniques

See the right panel and read me first tab for more great articles!

Disclosure

I’m a big fan of ExpoImaging products so I am doing this press release to promote this product that I think will be a big hit this year. I may get a commission if you purchase using the links in this article, so please support this blog by using the links!

Two GREAT Camera Flash Books

My reviews are coming, but these are too cool not to share right away.

The first book, Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites is the Canon Speedlite owners (i.e., 580EX II) dream come true – it’s EVERYTHING you wanted to know about the Canon flash system,accessories and more! This thing is as big as an algebra book with gobs of pictures so this is likely to find a long-term home on my Which Books Should I Read list.

The second book Off-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Photographers is the sequel to a book that’s already on my must read list – On-Camera Flash Techniques which I love. While I think I learned more from the first one, this is still a great book for those who are ready to take those flashes off the hot shoe and do more with them.

Flash Bus Tour Fans

I know a lot of readers right now are coming from Joe McNally’s blog to see my Flash Bus Tour review, so welcome! Stay a while and check out my Discount Coupon Code page and world famous Printing Series for lots of great reasons to hang around here more often!

If you are a Nikon shooter then Joe’s books like Hot Shoe Diaries and The Moment It Clicks are probably already on your shelf (at least they should be). However, Neil’s Off-Camera flash book (a Canon shooter who switched to Nikon) is going to be a good resource for you to reinforce what Joe and David are teaching you on the tour.

If you are a Canon shooter (like me), then you’ve been frustrated by all of the great info from Joe and David that never seems to apply to our Canon flashes. Well our day has come as I am not aware of any Nikon flash book that is as comprehensive as the Speedliter’s Handbook. I’m a long way from finishing it, but so far I’m so jazzed that I feel like I just found a buried treasure!

No matter what camp you are in Joe & David’s tour is worth the price of admission, but this is good stuff for afterwards when you forgot everything they said (and sadly there’s no comprehensive handouts like a Kelby Training event).

Reviews Coming Later…

I will be reviewing both of these books (that I love) so stay tuned. In the meantime scroll down the right side of this blog and check out all of the other popular articles I’ve written. More good stuff is definitely on the way!

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you purchase using my links. Thanks for supporting this blog by using my links! It doesn’t cost you a penny extra and it helps me to bring you more great content!

Review: Bower SFD926C Digital Shoe Mount Flash for Canon SLR

Bower SFD926C Digital Shoe Mount Flash for Canon SLR

When I got my hands on the Bower SFD926C Digital Shoe Mount Flash for Canon SLR’s I was pretty jazzed when I looked at the specs and saw that this $104 flash (as of the time of this article) was able to support ETTL and act as a off-camera slave. I thought it might be a good flash to recommend to beginners and one I could add to my off-collection collection as you can never have enough off-camera flashes (as Joe McNally proves quite well in his book Hot Shoe Diaries).

Operation

Rear View

This is no high tech device here. You simply mount it to your camera (which can be tricky using the wheel lock it has – careful to get it tight to prevent falling), and turn the switch to on. At that point you’ll get the feeling that you are on a jet as you’ll hear this high pitched whirling sound you haven’t heard from a flash since you were a child (or in the case of many of my younger readers – never in your life).

Using identical batteries between my Canon 580 EX II flash and this one I observed that the flash recycle time for the Canon was under a second and about 4 seconds for this flash. Again, that’s using the same batteries back and forth – with two test iterations.

In the real world this long flash delay during startup and between flashes results in missed shots like the one below (mouse over) versus the nice shot when it actually fires as it should.

Shot A – 0 Flash Exposure Compensation Flash Fired as Intended (Mouse Out)
Shot B – Same Settings but fired too soon after turning on the flash (Mouse Over)
Both are bounce flash off the ceiling to my rear

During this same session I decide to do a straight on flash to see what would happen and the results were rather shocking. The shots below are at -1 2/3 and –3 flash exposure compensation with TTL turned on, so it is clear to me that in this mode the TTL doesn’t do its job every well – at least not in these conditions:

Head On Flash
-1 2/3 Flash Exposure Compensation Shown (Mouse Out)
-3 Flash Exposure Compensation Shown (Mouse Over)

That clearly didn’t work, but here’s how the 580 EX II handled it – same head on flash with no flash exposure compensation and using the same batteries:

Canon 580 EX II fired head on with no exposure compensation
just as I had done with the Bowers in the shots above this one

Moving out into the hall way at a far away subject that was in the dark I tried the same test again. The first is test was done with the Bower flash set at –3 flash exposure compensation (FEV):

Bower Flash – Head On
Even at –3 FEV the LCD blinkies came on as this is a pretty high key shot

The shots below were done with the 580 EX II at 0 flash exposure compensation (Mouse Out) and and –3 (Mouse Over):

Canon 580 EX II – Head On
At 0 FEV (Mouse Out) the results were about what I expected
but I would have added some FEV for a real shot

At –3 FEV after the Bower test the Canon did exactly what it should
it produced a very dark shot

Advantage Canon and spending more money – no doubt! Having more light is good – when you can control it, but this is clearly a flash that is out of control with head on shooting. The TTL just doesn’t get it done.

580 EX II Off Camera (Mouse Out)
vs
SFD926C Off Camera (Mouse Over)

The slave mode switch works in the sense that it does fire a flash, but I failed to ever get it to emit enough light to actually do anything with my shoot through umbrella that was facing down. Hover over the photo above to compare the 580 EX II results (shown) and the 926C’s results (mouse over) – yes, that’s a pure black image – it fired (check the EXIF), but it didn’t emit enough light. I did 10 tests – all the same results. All conditions were equal between the two flashes and they used the same batteries, but the 926C just wasn’t up to the task.

Bounce Flash Card

The bounce card comes up and works fine and the head rotates for bouncing the flash of the walls. I took a series of shots using both techniques and the results were identical. Here’s an unmodified example of bouncing the flash off the ceiling behind me (head rotated the exact opposite of what’s shown in the picture above):

Bounce Flash produces the best results
-1 2/3 Flash Exposure Compensation

This is by far the best way to use this flash and it emits a ton of light so you’ll definitely need some flash exposure compensation. I found –1 2/3 to –3 to be the best during my indoor testing. Doing this results in usable shots, but this photo doesn’t tell the whole story. What it doesn’t show is the 4 seconds between each shot that I needed to wait in order to shoot again which for a child is eternity. The Canon 580 EX II recharged near instantly using the same batteries from the Bower after I tested it.

A Word about the Sample Photos

A picture is worth a thousand words so I’ve included a series of shots taken during my testing (which consisted of about 40 shots before I had all of the data I needed).. All of these shots were taken with a Canon 1D Mark IV in manual mode set to 1/200 sec @ f/4 using ISO 100 or 200 with the Flash white balance preset and the external flash fired. I was using my 24-105mm lens with IS on at a variety of focal lengths. ALL photos are in-camera jpeg’s that have been totally untouched and simply exported from Lightroom at a lower resolution for faster web loading. Even white balance and cropping are unmodified.

Conclusion

If you are doing bounce flashes and you crank the exposure compensation down this flash can produce results that can be tamed with in-camera settings making it obviously better than no flash at all. However, when pointing it directly at your subject or putting it off camera to shoot through an umbrella it simply doesn’t work.

As a business owner for many years I try hard to be respectful of other business owners, so if a product does extremely poorly in a review I usually give that company a call to explain to them why I seriously dislike their product and work with them to offer product improvements. In those situations I may elect to limit my honest opinion about those products to personal conversations, but I don’t review them on the blog as I don’t feel it is appropriate to totally bash a product in an article. This means that if you see a product reviewed on my blog, you can trust that I either liked the product or I gave my honest and unfiltered feedback.

For this product my feedback is very simple – I wouldn’t personally buy or recommend this flash to anyone. Unless my unit was defective, I found the results I experienced to be horrible and completely unacceptable. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I wouldn’t even give this flash away to a friend for fear of ruining a relationship!

My advice to Bower is to take this product off the market and fix the TTL or market the existing unit as a hot shoe mountable flash light as that how this unit that I evaluated behaved.

Disclaimer

A blog partner provided me with an evaluation unit for the purpose of this review. If you make purchases using the links in this article then I may get a commission. Thanks for supporting this blog!

REVIEW: On-Camera Flash – Techniques for Digital Wedding & Portrait Photography

Let me just cut to this chase – this book by Neil van Niekerk is simply fantastic! This is the book you’ve been waiting for, and it should be considered an instant classic! Why? Because everyone knows how hard it is to get good results out of their on-camera flash, so we spend hundreds of dollars on light modifiers to try to get Joe McNally caliber results, yet no matter how hard we try our flash shots still end up sucking! Well my friends, the solution to your problems are here and no rocket science degree or expensive gear is required to get top caliber results. Read on to understand why I like this book so much!

Chapter by Chapter Walkthrough

When writing books the publisher frequently works with the author on an outline first, and they have ideas on what content you should have in your book. However, authors generally have the stuff that they are excited about and then the other stuff they must write about. In this book, it is clear to me that Neil enjoyed writing Sections 2 & 3, and the information in them is FANTASTIC! However, Sections 1 & 4 are “buns” of someone’s “must haves”, but Neil kinda glosses them over with no real depth. It’s a knock on this book, but you can safely ignore it (as well as those sections) because the “meat” of the book (Sections 2 & 3) make it worth every penny!

SECTION 1 – WHERE DO WE START

This is a really short 4 page section that just goes over some basic material. The chapter titles give you some insight as to what this section is about, but there’s not much depth here to worry about.

• Chapter 1 – What We Want To Achieve
• Chapter 2 – Looking At The Available Light
• Chapter 3 - A Few Essential Concepts
• Chapter 4 – Choosing Equipment

SECTION 2 – THE TECHNICAL STUFF

This is the good section that provides just enough of the “how’s” and “why’s” behind what comes later. It will give you some basic understanding on what you need to know so that Section 3 becomes more meaningful.

Chapter 5 – Exposure Metering

This is a great chapter for those who want something more technical than what Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson offered in his book. It provides a very brief mention of the Zone System and does a more in-depth discussion of the histogram for both Nikon and Canon systems. It also includes a good discussion of the different in-camera metering modes as well as exposure compensation. Overall it’s a great chapter for the beginner, and useful to the more advanced for a more in-depth understand of the “why'” behind the results that we get from our in-camera exposure meters.

Chapter 6 – Flash Modes and Exposure

This is a quick discussion of flash exposure compensation, which is something most people seem to fail to understand when they get a flash. There’s also some interesting points about how the Canon and Nikon systems behave differently and their own little quirks.

Chapter 7 – Flash-Sync Speed

When I first took the picture above in May 2007 (shortly after getting my first Digital SLR), it puzzled me as to why the bottom of the frame was black. I had this problem on several frames, and couldn’t understand what was going on. However, the answer was very simple – my shutter speed (1/320 sec) was too fast for my rented studio strobes so the shutter blocked some of the light from the sensor.

In this Chapter Neil does a great job of explaining this issue as well as the pros and cons of Second Curtain Sync (which many in the Scott Kelby circle of friends are advising). He also has the best visual description of high speed sync that I’ve ever seen. Overall I loved this chapter and it was the first chapter that made really appreciate Neil’s style of educating his reader.

Chapter 8 – Adding Flash to Ambient Light

This is a short chapter, but he uses a bunch of images to get the point across quickly. A picture is worth a thousand words, and Neil uses plenty to get his points across quickly and concisely!

SECTION 3 – THE TECHNIQUES

This is where the rubber meets the road and Neil starts teaching you about the tricks he’s learned in his many years as a wedding photographer. I loved this section along with Section 2. If you only read two sections, these are the ones!

Chapter 9 – Using Simple Flash Modifiers

Most of us suck at using the flash so like golfers purchasing putters to improve their short game, we spend a fortune on flash modifiers to try to make our images not suck. The problem is that most of us are missing so many fundamentals that no flash modifier in the world can save us – until now. The best part here is that Neil show’s off his fancy flash modifier that allows him to get some fantastic shots, and it’s no more than a thick sheet of black paper with a rubber-band for what amounts to a half-snoot system. He also discusses a few of his gels and the way he (occasionally) uses a Sto-Fen Omnibounce. This is low-tech tips to create high-tech results – woohoo!

Chapter 10 – Bounce Flash

Before reading this chapter, do your best to take the best shot you can with your bounce flash given what you know today. I did, and the result was the image above on the left. Now, read the chapter and apply what you know. The result, the image on the right. Notice a difference? All I did was turn my flash head from the tried and true “bounce off the ceiling” method we all use (shown left above and below) to turning my flash head to get a sideways indirect bounce (shown right above and below). Using this very simple technique, I was able to create dramatically better results without having to spend a penny on yet another light modifier. How cool is that?!!!! This chapter is filled with that kind of goodness, which is why I love it so much.

Chapter 11 – Flash With Tungsten Ambient Lights

I like to call this chapter, “How to not get those ugly yellow flash pictures” as that’s pretty much what he’s teaching you. Most of us struggle with this one, but Neil breaks this problem down into simple concepts along with pictures to demonstrate the words to come up with a great chapter that demystifies this common problem.

Chapter 12 – Using Flash to Control Contrast

This is a good chapter to help you deal with backlighting problems (i.e., bright background and dark subject) you may be facing with your photography today. It’s short, but useful.

Chapter 13 – Controlling Light Falloff

See that crappy shot above? That’s light falloff – the subject is bright, but the background goes to dark (in this case pretty rapidly). These are the kind of flash shots that a lot of us get when we first get our cameras and it is both maddening and embarrassing (as in this case where an important moment wasn’t captured properly). If this is something you’ve dealt with, then this is the chapter you’ll want to read.

Chapter 14 – Flash Techniques Outdoors

In photography there’s a lot of “rules” that people insist are true, but seasoned photographers will tell you that the rules are a guide – not an absolute. Outdoors is one of those cases where you forget the indoor rule of never pointing your flash directly at your subject. Here he explains how you can get away with a lot more outside because TTL does a much better job with fewer surfaces for the light to bounce off. In fact the shot above was a case where I had nothing to bounce off of, but was using a 200mm lens so I just pointed the flash directly at the model and the lighting was bang on. Hover over to see what the same results were without a fill flash. Big difference, right? Well Neil uses this chapter to show you some good examples of how to be very subtle and make great improvements to your outdoors shots using a fill flash.

SECTION 4 – TAKING IT BEYOND ON CAMERA FLASH

I think this section was one where Neil either ran out of steam or he just didn’t have the time / page count left to go in-depth. These are very shallow chapters on a topic that Strobist covers very well. You can basically skip this section as there’s little value in its two chapters below:

• Chapter 15 – Off-Camera Wireless TTL Flash
• Chapter 16 – Off-Camera Manual Flash

Conclusion

This is my #1 pick so far for Photography Book of the Year in 2009 and it earns a spot on my must own photography books in my Which books should I read? article. Thank you Neil van Niekerk for sharing your pearls of wisdom in a way that is easy to understand, without using 47 speedlights or $1000+ in light modifiers! Thank you for not going into geeky theory in an attempt to make yourself look smart. Thank you for showing us the HOW but also providing the WHY for those who need that. I look forward to seeing more books from you in the future.

Skill Level: All
Value: Priceless (especially for people with expensive flashes they don’t know how to operate properly)
Recommendation: Buy it, read it, apply it, and then read it again. Fantastic stuff that is sure to help your photography more than a new lens or camera body!

Neil ( & Amherst Media), if you are reading this I’d LOVE to see you write books on How to Master the Canon Flash System and How to Master the Nikon Flash System (although McNally already did that). If you do, I’m sure the demand would be huge as I’ve found no books to date that adequately cover the subject

After reading this book, you can continue to learn more by following Neil on his blog at Planet Neil where he has more tutorials and other great information from recent photo shoots.