Andrew Macpherson

I very much like to GeoTag my photos, particularly Landscape and Street photography.  I’ve been a great fan of both GeoTagger and GPS Photolinker on the Mac.  The first links to a Google Earth plugin to find where you have placed location crosshairs, the second works with GPX track logs to work out where you were when you took a photo.  In both cases one has to get Lightroom to re-read the metadata for it to notice the location.

Lightroom 4 Beta has all this functionality built in to the Maps module, which is a big win, but ideally one should still carry a GPS device, such as a Garmin eTrex and download the tracks to synchronise with the photo timestamps.  Of course there is also the track data held inside one’s iPhone, but Apple have gone out of their way to make that difficult to access.

Enter GPX Master+ which uses your Dropbox account to synchronise track files to your computer from your iOS device, ready for import into Lightroom 4 (or GPSPhotoLinker) and just makes life that little bit easier.  Usual caveats about Battery drain apply, but if like me you have a car charger this is unlikely to be an issue.

Pixel VM-801 and 3 x VS-801

Rear switch on the VM-801

I’m becoming quite a fan of Pixel’s after-market accessories. Today I’ld like to tell you about the PF-801 hotshoe extender (1xVM-801 and 1xVS-801). The VM-801 camera end sits in the hotshoe, and has 3 RJ-45 ports. RJ-45 is the standard cable for connecting up computer networks, available in many pre-formed lengths, or those with the tools can make up whatever length they need. For this application one wants “straight” network cables as opposed to cross-overs.

Checking the extender

The 3 ports are labeled A, B & C– these labels have nothing to do with the Canon Wireless Flash groups, but simply give you a reference as to which port is which, and relates to the rear switch.

On my unit the first thing I did was get out a continuity tester to check what was going on. The central spot on all the remotes is connected through to the hotshoe, via a switch for each port, which acts to enable or isolate the corresponding flash. The rear switch directs the other 4 hotshoe contacts through either the A or C ports, thus allowing the flash on that port to be controlled by the camera, when set to B I get a screen saying the flash is incompatible with the Camera.

Effectively we have 3 ports that we can trigger simultaneously. Port A can be used to provide full featured extension of the Hot shoe, including driving a Flash in “Master“ mode to control wireless remotes over Infra Red and use full E-TTL functionality, you can also use it in High-Speed Sync mode. Port B is simply a trigger, such as you might use an optical slave for. Port C has the same functionality as port A, but one can only use one of the 2 at a time in full camera controlled mode, and the other port will just act as a trigger.

Full control of EX-II capable flash

An alternative way of working is to switch between the A&C ports to adjust the power setting of the flashes in manual mode without needing to leave the camera position and have a very short cable and Skyport radio transmitter letting one mix Speedlights and Studio Strobes attached through port B.

This kit came in under £40, to which one has to add a few RJ-45 cables, which I had to hand anyway.

It’s very useful having a wish list somewhere that your friends and family can consult before the holidays or your birthday.  Luckily for me some did just that, so now I am the proud owner of Pixel TD-381 external 8 cell battery packs for 2 of my speedlights, that reduce the recycle time down to well under 2 seconds, from the unenhanced 7 seconds, a Wex 5-in-1 diffuser/reflector (which will not need explanation), and a Powerex 8 cell Ni-Mh charger/conditioner

The battery packs each have 2 banks of 4 cells, so you can use 4 or 8 cells in each pack, and when attached to the speedlight, these are what powers the flash high voltage / power section, while the internal batteries only run the logic and control circuitry.  Pixel suggests that they can run your speedlight for over 500 full flashes before needing recharged, (possibly more with the newer 2900 mAh cells) and another big advantage is that being flat they also have better heat loss properties than the bundle inside the speedlight, (and also a thermal cut-out) so reducing your chance of melting that expensive flash unit.

The plug fits both Canon 580, 580 MkII and Nissin Di866 Mk II.  There is a different model number for the Nikon and Sony compatible versions.

As for Games, I’m going to try to keep up with the LensProToGo 52 week challenge on Flickr, come and join in — as the adage goes “It’s not about winning, it’s about taking part” and maybe we’ll all be stretched along the way.

Think Tank Photo who make rather good camera bags, are doing an advent accumulator with their “In a Bag” promotion.

It’s free to enter, so probably worth following this link and filling in the entry form to get a chance to win. I quite fancy the bag itself, but there are already a whole lot of really worthwhile goodies added, and a daily chance at one of their superior shoulder bags

Good luck!

New Nissin Flash

After the problems with the YN565 I was a little more circumspect when looking for an affordable slave flash, and checked with the vendor that the unit I was considering would indeed work with my Canon ST-E2.  With a positive response I went for the NISSIN Digital Di866 Mk II this unit operates both in the hotshoe, and as an IR triggered Slave.  Missing features would seem to be

• High Speed sync Button — only available from the Camera menu
• Second Curtain Sync, also only on menu.

As is usual with high end flashes, there will be various sets of things that don’t get used by individual photographers — at the moment I don’t see myself using Multi for instance, but so far I’m pleased with a unit that’s half the price of the Canon equivalent, it “just works”

A note for Mac users: be prepared to go online to download the manual, as it is delivered on a mini-CD incompatible with the mechanised media slots on Macs.

At £102, tax paid,this looks like a real bargain, and for some people it may be.

The Speedlite works in hotshoe mode perfectly, has no flash master mode, but makes up for that with 3 Slave modes. ETTL (Canon and Nikon), plus S1 and S2 (S2 is supposed to ignore pre-flash).

It’s billed as working with the ST-E2 which is what Canon call their Speedlite trigger.  It turns out that Yongnuo make their own ST-E2, and any attempt to use it with my Canon transmitter results in a premature flash (it does recognise which channel is in use though) It also ignores the test firing signal from the ST-E2, but does operate with DoF preview (button to the left below the lens on Canon).

My Speedlite 580 is out of commission (with Canon for £104 fixed price repair) so I did not test it using that as Master, but as the whole point was to have 2 powerful speedlites for off camera use, it would be unsatisfactory even if that worked.

The EBay trader who sold it to me  accepted the return, but was unable to furnish me with a unit that would work with the Canon transmitter, so refunded my payment.  I’m left £3.50 lighter (return postage), so I hope this will help anyone else looking to use this unit who might also be misled by the description.

Anyone got any other suggestions for a lower cost unit? (Already got EX430)