Andrew Macpherson

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)

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Retweeting is of course a great compliment to those whose messages you forward, as it shows you have read their contribution, and think it worth sharing with your friends.

So yes Emily, you may retweet if you think your friends would be interested in what you have just read or seen, but there are things to remember:

If you simply retweet the message unchanged it will go to those of your friends who have not already seen it directly.  These friends will be able to see that they have received it because you forwarded it, yet the original attribution will remain unchanged.  This is a very good way to pass on the original snippet.

Should you wish to comment to your friends and there is enough space in the combined message, then you can prefix the original Tweet with your comment, the abbreviation ‘RT,’ and the original poster’s @tag.  Do remember that the originator will also see your comment so be nice.

It would be really bad form to simply prefix the tweet with RT and the original @tag, as this means that all of your friends will receive the tweet again, even if they have already seen it, and you will be associated intrusively with it, but without having added any value. This would reflect a lack of understanding and consideration on your part, and should therefore be avoided.

Don’t get me wrong, the guys who do seminars are almost without exception extremely dedicated, skilful instructors who make the most of the teaching oportunity the format affords their students.  Such was the case with Scott Kelby’s “Light it, Shoot it, Retouch it” tour to Amsterdam.  I really enjoyed it and it also gave me a great chance to revisit a wonderful city.

iPad view from the 7th row

I did enjoy and learn, it was good value for money, but from the 7^th row the screens were fairly poor contrast and one wonders what one missed.  I’m delighted for Scott that there were around 250 attendees paying rapt attention to his training, but I don’t think one gets as much  out of a class as one might from a workshop where one follows along, and emphasises the learning experience by doing. (continue reading…)

David Hobby (Strobist) is running a “Boot Camp” to take people out of their comfort zone in using small flashes to make photos of local significance.  The exercise is as much about interacting with your community as the technicalities of the photographs produced, though to win the associated round prizes, the technicalities have to be good too.

Locally prominent person, Jonathan Forgham

The first exercise was to pick a locally prominent person and take their portrait.  Fortunately Jono Forgham had just been elected chair of the Little Hadham Parish Council, and was in need of one…  2 off camera strobes — one in a softbox to camera right, and a warming low power fill from the left.  The hat needed photoshopped to trim the broken straws round the edge , and a little attention was needed for reflections in his spectacles obscuring his right eye.  Of course the exercise is really about getting things right in camera, but this is balanced by the sitter’s available time…  You can see the Round 1 results HERE some pretty impressive s / dramatic shots.

Round 2 has been a bit more challenging:

 For this assignment, you will be required to photograph a local object — something of significance to your community. As with the first, the most difficult part of the job will be deciding exactly what to shoot — and why

The problem is the plethora of things in the area, going right back yo Roman Empire times:

• Hadhamware Roman Pottery
• The sculptor Henry Moore lived and worked here, and the Henry Moor foundation is a major attraction.
• The local shared Roman/Anglican Church with it’s Henry Moore Stained Glass window
• The Forge Museum with Elizabethan Wall Paintings
• William Morris’ Cottage (Arts and Crafts Movement)
• Nettswell House birthplace of Cecil Rhodes and now the Cecil Rhodes Arts Centre
• United Distillers in Harlow, birthplace of “Bailey’s Irish Creme”
• Local Tomato producers, pioneers in the use of Bio-gas
• Smit-Klein-Beecham pharmaceuticals
• Standard Telephone Laboratories — birthplace of Optical Fibre Communications

(continue reading…)

Three weekends ago, just before I went off for an op, we had a stand at Hatfield Heath Festival to try to raise awareness of the club, and raise some cash for the projector fund.  I havn’t quite got round to writing about it, having been slightly distracted, so it’s time to make amends

Hatfield Heath Public Photoshoot, © 2011 Paul Lambert

Photo given to sitter as 6x4 print

The Saturday session was in direct competition with Bishop’s Stortford Carnival, where we also had a stand, so each event had one of the two print stands, usually used for print competitions

We had a selection of member’s prints for sale, both ones that had been in competition, and some framed or mounted specially for this event.  Mainly though the exercise was to engage potential members, and enthuse them to come along for a trial club evening, and I think we were moderately successful in that.

We were also offering free “Hollywood Look” 4×6 portrait, retouched with “Portrait Professional”  (continue reading…)

Lightroom is great, don’t get me wrong. This is about what’s missing or could be better.

Lightroom is slooow. Let’s be honest, Lr is a huge memory hog, and would benefit massively from being able to use a real database.

Lightroom does not know the difference between orientation and aspect ratio, it thinks that landscape, portrait and square are aspect ratios; ever tried to find your panoramas in Lightroom if you havn’t tagged them? As managing and sorting images is a major part of Lr’s remit this is a major failing.

If you use multiple machines it’s essential to write the metadata to the file or an xmp sidecar.

It’s nearly impossible to run Lr & Ps on a 4G MacBoook Pro at the same time