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Pocket Wizards really have an excellent product that many professional photographers all around the world use. Very rugged, low interference, great range, etc… But they are pricey in my opinion. There are other similar wireless trigger systems also available at most of the big photographic equipment suppliers but they are almost all the similarly priced.

On eBay there are many different brands and several different kinds of wireless triggers. Some are very cheaply built, some are 4 channel, some are 8 channel, etc… Even Alien Bees sold a set that was very similar. These are all around 15 times cheaper than Pocket Wizards! So are they any good?

They all have battery-powered transmitters that sit on the hot shoe of the camera. There are some that have AC powered receivers. There are others that have battery-powered receivers, and there others with receivers made for triggering shoe mount flashes.

Personally I love mine. I purchased mine from eBay. They are from a company called Shanghai Jinbei Photo. I have a YS-B Digital Trigger 4 channel system with one shoe-mounted transmitter and 2 of AC powered receivers that I use for my studio lights.

I chose the AC powered receivers so that I will never have to worry about batteries. The battery on the transmitter lasts almost for ever. The battery that it uses is very small. It is the same kind of battery that is used for many car remote pogs, and many garage door openers, so they are easy to find at most electronics places like Radio Shack. Eventually I will start to see that at sync speed, a black edge will start to appear on my photos. That is when I replace the battery on the transmitter.

You will no longer trip on the long sync cord, or yank the sync cord, or have it come loose and not fire the lights, or have the cord get tangled on a fan, or a stool, etc…

The transmitters have a button on top so that you can fire your strobes. This makes it extremely easy to meter your lights because you can trigger your lights from almost anywhere. I once placed my lights up on the top of bleachers and shot a basketball game from around 80ft away with no problems.

I have used mine for over 6 years now with no problems at all. These are so cheap that if one set breaks or stops working, you can get a whole new set at minimal expense anyway.

I have heard that there are other brands of these cheap triggers that are very troublesome and not very reliable. If I had to buy a new one, I would probably just get one of the new Alien Bees CyberSync systems. I would then have that great customer service that they are notorious for. I have heard also that these are very good systems at a great price.

I bought and used several flash brackets and was not happy with any of them. Either too big, heavy, and clumsy; or too flimsy, cheap, and having to re-tighten screws periodically. I finally got a Newton Flash Rotator Bracket and I’m VERY pleased with it. Looks like the design has changed a bit from what I purchased a few years ago, but it basically still works the same.

It’s like a press bracket so it is light and compact but well built and sturdy. The flash does sit very low so it is compact and easy to handle. Flipping the flash for a vertical shot is very quick and effortless.

Because the flash sits so low, red eye can once in a while be a problem. I found out that the only time that I have ever gotten red eye was when I am shooting at distances longer than 30 ft. I realized this while I was shooting at a fashion show. I was standing at the end of a long runway shooting with a long lens (70-200mm). The closer shots were all good, but the long shots that were at the far end of the runway had red eye. Newton sells an adjustable flash extender adapter to raise the flash 2 to 3 inches higher. I purchased and the flash extender and a EZ Accessory release for it. This allows me to remove my flash and add on the extender whenever I need it very quickly.

I can now pop this on when I need to shoot longer shots without having to worry about red eye. I am not a fan of long shadows under the nose and chin that are common with having the flash way up above the lens so I remove the adapter when I don’t need to shoot at long range.

I’ve shot a bunch of events and weddings with the Newton bracket and it has never failed me, and I have never had to make any adjustment. Another nice bonus is that it hardly takes up any room in my camera bag. I am sure that there are other very good flash brackets out there also. I really like my Newton Flash Bracket and I highly recommend it for anyone that is looking to purchase one.

http://www.newtoncamerabrackets.com/

Group multi-tier

Photographing groups of people

For group shots, you really need to pay attention to the way you arrange the people. It is best to have the front row sitting on the ground, the second row kneeling behind them, and the third row standing. This is called a multi-tier arrangement. I addition to this, having the tallest people in the back also helps, or having the people in the front lying down achieves the same thing.

Larger groups of people (10 – 50 people)

You should also arrange them so that they are in an arch. That way the people on the ends do not end up with less light because they are farther away from the light.

Arched group multi-tier

For HUGE groups of people (50 or more)

At this point, the multi-tier arrangement and arch stops being effective because there simply are too many people. This when you have to switch to the bleachers arrangement. You need to find a near bye sports field or arena with bleachers, have everyone sit there, and you get on a tall ladder or high vantage point to achieve the same effect. This can also be done without the bleachers if you have a VERY high vantage point. You will probably have to yell out instructions to arrange the people to properly fill the frame or have assistants to help with that.

Bleachers arrangement

Lighting

With this many people, you are almost better off with lights that are very close to the camera. Otherwise, you will have weird shadows across some of the people’s faces that are farther away from the light.

Make the shot

Make absolutely sure that you really catch their attention and then snap the photos. Snap a minimum of 10 shots. That way you will be sure to get a few good ones were most of the people are looking at the camera. Even then, you might have to do a bit of photo shop to copy/paste on 1 or 2 people with their eyes closed from another photo.

Question> Can I make money selling my photos at a stock photo agency?

I took some seminar courses in NYC on becoming successful with stock photography. Yes, there are many photographers that still do this primarily for a living and make good money at it too. Some of these top earners have way over 400,000 photos in circulation and a studio staff to help them out. They have developed a style and a really good sense of what are the most desirable kind of photos that sell the best.

Two of the speakers at the seminar now even have their own family members that are currently building up their own separate photo collections because it is such a successful business model that they pass it on to their own relatives.

They have developed it into several similar systems that they explained at the seminars. It really works. I only a small number of photos in my libraries (still building them up) and after implementing their system I ended up quadrupling (and still growing) my sales in a few months.

A big part of it boils down to a game of numbers. The more photos you have in the stock library, the more money you make. Once you reach a particular number, then you start replacing the lowest earning photos with photos that will be about subject matter and style that has proven to be more successful. You end up building up the successes and removing the low selling photos from your library. After a while, the photographer can stop and the checks just keep coming in on their own consistently. That is when you start to work on the next stock agency.

Question> I submitted photos to a Photo Stock Agency. I sent 10 photos taken with a 5D & 30D all at ISOs of 100-400, with exposures very close to “as shot”. Why were so many of them rejected?

Several major points when I shoot for any stock agency submission:
1. Try to shoot ISO 100 whenever possible to minimize digital noise (its called grain noise in the film world). If you have to shoot at higher than ISO200 then consider some noise reduction (I’ve had limited success with marginal photos).

2. Always shoot RAW and never sharpen a photo. Shooting RAW gives you extra detail and less digital noise. Sharpening a photo will almost always guarantee a rejection. Sharpening multiple times creates artifacts that can be easily seen. Let the end user do the final sharpening to their own preference as their last step.

3. Make sure that your lens and sensor are always clean before you even take the first shot. I like to use my LensPens because they are so quick to use, handy, and I get good results consistently.

4. Stock agencies looooooove macro shots of non-flower and non-bug subjects. Some of my best sellers are macro close-ups of watch faces, pencil tips, crayons, color paper clips, marbles, etc… The possibilities are endless.

5. Make sure your lighting is lively and contrasty. They will reject almost anything that has flat lighting or where the contrast has a dull grayish look to it. Also make sure that your white balance looks good. This is where RAW really shines because you can easily make adjustments before converting to jpg’s.

Just keep on trying and you will develop an eye for these things before submitting.

Question> I am trying to decide if I should buy a shoot-thru umbrella or what else is available.

Shoot-thru umbrellas are pretty good for providing soft diffused light. However, they tend to throw light all over the place.

For better lighting control, most photographers would use a softbox instead. But softboxes are much more expensive than umbrellas.

As a great alternative, I love my 60″ Photek Softlighter II.

http://www.adorama.com/PTSL60.html

It is basically an umbrella with a diffusion panel on it that tightly fits around the studio strobe. It is very similar to a softbox/octabox for light control, and it is quick to deploy and inexpensive like an umbrella.

I can also remove the diffuser and use it as a regular bounce umbrella, or I can remove the black backing to use it as a shoot thru umbrella.

Another handy feature that it has is that I can remove half of the umbrella shaft. This way I can place the whole setup even closer to my subject for super soft lighting. This also comes in handy when working in tight places.

It is well built and I get fantastic results from it.

Question > I am going to do some shooting this weekend and don’t have a meter. Would you suggest metering with my eyes, then looking at t he histogram and adjusting from there? If so, what is the “ideal” exposure on a histogram. Should the “mountain” be right in the middle, to the right/left etc?

I highly recommend that you pick up an inexpensive digital meter and learn how to use it. You will then end up with the most consistent perfect exposures ever. No more guess-work. There are ways of using a gray card with the histogram but it is time consuming ad if don wrong you will end up with the wrong setting. Using a light meter is much quicker than taking a bunch of exposures and making adjustments after every shot. It lets you focus on other more important things (like poses, background brightness, position of the lights and modifiers, hair strands across face, clothing bunching up, etc…)
I picked up one of these:

(Polaris SPD100 Digital Meter)

Question > Are these “easy” to use?

Yes, extremely easy to use. It is also extremely quick and deadly accurate to set up your lights and ratios with it.

Question > Do you just put the meter where the subject will be, flash the strobes, and then use the reading?

Yes, that is exactly how they work. You can also do it the other way around for studio strobes. For example: dial in iso100, 1/125sec on your meter. Then, if you want f4, you fire the strobes and take a reading with the meter. You then adjust lights up or down to try to get f4. Repeat this again until you get f4. You then set camera to this same setting.

Question > Do you think this meter is better than the Sekonic L-308S?

Many people prefer the Sekonic. They are do pretty much the same thing. This Polaris is just a bit cheaper in price. This particular Polaris model (SPD100) is a basic digital unit. In my opinion all the other options are really unnecessary.

Question> Should I go Strobist or get studio lights?

Shoe mounted strobes are extremely capable and very portable. They are generally getting more robust and more powerful every year. I own several shoe mounted strobes and I use them extensively. You do have to know what their limitations are however.

I originally had 1 Canon 550ex (shoe mounted strobe) mounted on an light stand with an umbrella. I looked into getting a second one. For about the same price, I ended up getting 2 AB400’s (400 watt-second Alien Bees Studio Lights). I also got 2 light stands, a light meter, a 60″ umbrella, and I fire the strobes with an Ebay wireless trigger.

The AB’s are much more powerful and cheaper than the Canon 580EX’s and a Canon ST-E2 (optical trigger). The new Canon 580EX II’s are even more expensive! Don’t get me wrong, 580EX’s are very capable and extremely portable so they do have many good uses.

The 580EX can focus the beam very tight to make it a very concentrated intense bright light, but if I put it through a modifier (like an umbrella) to spread the light out, that is when you quickly find out how much total light it really puts out.

From my experience, my Canon 580EX is about 1/2 as powerful as my AB400’s. I found this out when I put them both in the same umbrella and I took a meter reading of each at full power. That would make my Canon 580Ex around 80 watt-seconds (my best guess of around half of an AB400). When shooting indoors, a 580ex with an umbrella is enough for around iso200 and f4. Anything above that I would need studio strobes.

I also found that they are difficult to fire wirelessly outdoors with an ST-E2. There are other wireless triggering devices are available that would easily get around this problem.

Most of the times I use only 1 AB400 with a 60″ umbrella on a light stand and 1 collapsible reflector (6ftx4ft) mounted on a light stand. This setup is very portable and quick to setup. I now use the second AB400 light mostly for studio work as a rim light. I also picked up a third AB400 to light up the background. I like to sometimes use color gels with these 2 lights to add a little pizazz.

The great thing about the studio strobes is that I don’t have to worry about batteries. In situations where there are no electric outlets near bye and the 580EX is not powerful enough, I use a power pack system similar to the Alien Bees “Vagabond” (riding mower sized battery with a pure sinewave inverter).

I found that with studio style lighting, shooting outdoors is much more difficult that shooting indoors. Wind, temperature, rain, dust, clouds can change the lighting conditions quickly, the sun can sometimes be overpowering, bugs, etc. This is when I usually need a LOT more power than a shoe mounted flash can provide. For many outdoor shoots on bright sunny days even my AB400 monolights are not powerful enough. I sometimes need AB1600’s or even WL3200’s. Instead, to tame a harsh sun, I prefer to use diffusion panels, reflectors, and even circular polarizers in combination. I can then even sometimes get away with using a shoe mounted strobe to fill in some shadows instead of the reflector.

If I am shooting in the shade, or on an overcast day, then the power requirements are MUCH less. That is when I can use a 580EX off camera with an umbrella. I just have to make sure that it does not go flying away with a gust of wind.