Speedlight Grid
06 January 2009
Last night I set about to make a few light modifiers
for my Canon 580 EX II speedlight. These included a
Grid, a Snoot and a Beauty Dish. The first and second
are done, the third is still stinking up the pantry
with its spray paint odors.
Tutorials here:
The Grid sat to dry over night (glued things together) so I just gave it a whirl when my son walked in from school.
Tutorials here:
- Grid
- Snoot
- Beauty Dish (had to modify this a bit to fit my 580EX II)
The Grid sat to dry over night (glued things together) so I just gave it a whirl when my son walked in from school.
This is almost 100% from
camera (5d, 24-105 L, 580 EX II, Cybersyncs). Just a
touch to the brightness and saturation in LR and that
was it. Pretty cool.
The snoot was easiest to make, but I like the look of
the grid much more.
The beauty dish looks really cool, so once I get it
dry, I’ll put it thru its paces.
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Lightroom Tuesday!
06 January 2009
Greetings all. Welcome to Lightroom Tuesday.
I had a great week and luckily spent a fair amount of it in Lightroom working on a variety of projects and after some debate, I’ve decided to start splitting up my Lightroom Catalogs.
Previously, I was using a catalog per year, but about November my 2008 catalog became a bit unwieldy - slowing down and giving me the beach ball o’ hell.
It was at about 60,000 Raw images at that time. So I decided to start doing quarterly catalogs. This has good and bad sides. Its good because Lightroom runs a bit more snappy on a smaller catalog. But its bad because one has to remember where things are to get at them. What was once a year-based organizational structure became a quarterly one - now I have to remember where things are and switch back and forth a bit.
Unlike event photographers who spend a bunch of hours on a job and walk away, I tend to go back months at a time for images. Stock, fine art, family, past jobs all come up and so going with a quarterly catalog I end up with stuff split up. This mostly affects collections.
If I were still working on Lightroom, I’d start seriously considering how to solve this problem for the user. Be it a stand alone catalog server, a search tool that knew how to look across catalogs or even something new, it has to be done. As people mature with these catalog-based tools, they’ll need support in tasks that span weeks, months, quarters, years.
That is it. Have a great day!
I had a great week and luckily spent a fair amount of it in Lightroom working on a variety of projects and after some debate, I’ve decided to start splitting up my Lightroom Catalogs.
Previously, I was using a catalog per year, but about November my 2008 catalog became a bit unwieldy - slowing down and giving me the beach ball o’ hell.
It was at about 60,000 Raw images at that time. So I decided to start doing quarterly catalogs. This has good and bad sides. Its good because Lightroom runs a bit more snappy on a smaller catalog. But its bad because one has to remember where things are to get at them. What was once a year-based organizational structure became a quarterly one - now I have to remember where things are and switch back and forth a bit.
Unlike event photographers who spend a bunch of hours on a job and walk away, I tend to go back months at a time for images. Stock, fine art, family, past jobs all come up and so going with a quarterly catalog I end up with stuff split up. This mostly affects collections.
If I were still working on Lightroom, I’d start seriously considering how to solve this problem for the user. Be it a stand alone catalog server, a search tool that knew how to look across catalogs or even something new, it has to be done. As people mature with these catalog-based tools, they’ll need support in tasks that span weeks, months, quarters, years.
That said, onto the
Lightroom happenings for the past week:
- Epic Edits is looking back over 2008 - one article they highlighted is one that talks about user issues with the product.
- Matt K just updated his Auto Enhance presets - use when importing to get a head start on your processing. These now have two sets, one for Canon, one for Nikon, which makes some sense, n’est-ce pas?
- Not sure how to install presets? Video here. I had this question from my sister in the past week or so.
- The Lights Out feature rocks. I use it daily. Here is a nice short article on why you should.
- The Lightroom 2 Live tour (with Matt K among others) is underway. Need some hands on training? This might be your chance.
- Lightroom galleries for your iPhone? Sure. LRG has you covered.
- Over 600+ Presets of unknown quality available here. YMMV.
- Stuart Forsyth covers his DNG Archival Strategy in an interesting article on his blog. Lightroom can convert to DNG on import, which means you should do it. Takes a bit of time, but its worth it.
- Finally, Timothy Armes covers Raw vs SRaw. Timothy is the author of LR/Mogrify, which you should know and own. Fascinating.
That is it. Have a great day!
Two final EBT Nutcracker Galleries
01 January 2009
Welcome 2009!
01 January 2009
Welcome to 2009!
I celebrated the turn of the new year with my son and a small group of his friends. It was a night of video games, crappy food, snowball fights and finalized by the group singing the traditional birthday anthem.
My oldest son’s birthday is on New Years Eve, and as part of his present from his parents, we ran to the mall to let him pick out some clothes. Yes, my oldest finally wants clothes for presents - I guess turning 12 and being a year away from official teenagedom caught up with him.
And thank goodness for the skinny jean thing (ahem, a recycled fashion from my generation of punk rock and Dr. Marten’s boots) as they were the only thing that fit him. I’m glad he isn’t into that baggy, let your underwear hang out thing. He got a few shirts, a few pairs of jeans, a hoody and a new wallet. He was super excited and wore them to his party.
We also went out to eat tonight, and it was one of those many, lets plan out your year things, where we talked about getting older, what we expect of him and how proud we are of who he is becoming. It was an awesome night.
I love that boy.
I celebrated the turn of the new year with my son and a small group of his friends. It was a night of video games, crappy food, snowball fights and finalized by the group singing the traditional birthday anthem.
My oldest son’s birthday is on New Years Eve, and as part of his present from his parents, we ran to the mall to let him pick out some clothes. Yes, my oldest finally wants clothes for presents - I guess turning 12 and being a year away from official teenagedom caught up with him.
And thank goodness for the skinny jean thing (ahem, a recycled fashion from my generation of punk rock and Dr. Marten’s boots) as they were the only thing that fit him. I’m glad he isn’t into that baggy, let your underwear hang out thing. He got a few shirts, a few pairs of jeans, a hoody and a new wallet. He was super excited and wore them to his party.
We also went out to eat tonight, and it was one of those many, lets plan out your year things, where we talked about getting older, what we expect of him and how proud we are of who he is becoming. It was an awesome night.
I love that boy.