HAHAHA I LAUGH at your 4 speed lights!

[Robin Usagani]

I prefer using the surfer dudes cars parked at the pier. Use the headlights.. hahaha.

 

[Village Idiot]

Didn't think much to the shots with flash i'd rather shoot in daylight

Sorry, I don't understand. The guy is shooting in daylight.

IMO, if he have the money to spend, good for him, its not a bad setup for someone who wants TTL. i can see someone buying 3 units but 8 !?!?!!?

I just watched the videos the other day, I'll have to actually go back and watch them with sound to find out more about his setup. Any mention of whether or not he did start with a smaller amount to find out that they didnt' work for him?

 

[gsgary]

Didn't think much to the shots with flash i'd rather shoot in daylight

Sorry, I don't understand. The guy is shooting in daylight.

IMO, if he have the money to spend, good for him, its not a bad setup for someone who wants TTL. i can see someone buying 3 units but 8 !?!?!!?

I just watched the videos the other day, I'll have to actually go back and watch them with sound to find out more about his setup. Any mention of whether or not he did start with a smaller amount to find out that they didnt' work for him?

Surf shots look better without flash

 

[Derrel]

Beer hat - Google Search

Here's another really nice idea. Fan-tastic. Maybe a guy could last eight of them together and have a really awrsome, lightweight, economical,portable way to carry around the same amount of beer that comes in a 1.5 liter mini-key from Heiniken and others...

I mean if one is good, then eight must be more better-er by a factor of eight. Right?

 

[kkamin]

Didn't think much to the shots with flash i'd rather shoot in daylight

Surf shots look better without flash

Light is light. It doesn't matter if it comes from the sun, a desk lamp or a flash. What matters is its size in relation to the subject and if its focused or not. Most photographers don't shoot people with tiny bare flashes because it looks unnatural and unflattering.

Think about film crews who need to deal with a variety of light situations constantly. They are doing everything in the book to control ambient light and artificial light. Giant bounce cards, giant diffusion panels, armies of 10,000 watt lights, lights with lenses, large banks of kino flos, etc.

Photography isn't all about gear, but rather about controlling and shaping light to meet your vision. This could be during the shoot with light sources and modifiers and it can to an extent be in post with how you control your tonal values.

------------------

Back to the topic at hand. If you have 8 compact flashes rubber banded together in pairs, and a crew of light stands and soft boxes, you might as well get a battery powered strobe pack as a work horse and have a few compact flashes as fills or accents. I think compact flashes are neat, but if you are getting that involved with lighting I think strobes are not that much more hassle to use, or arguably less hassle, since you don't need to potentially trouble shoot 8 separate autonomous machines and deal with a sack of AA batteries.

Professional photographers can use anything for lighting and make it work. McNally or Hobby could use Home Depot shop lights and umbrellas made out of taped together diapers if they wanted to, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea for a developing photographer. I think there is a time and place for a Strobist approach, but I don't think it is a one size fits all solution. Sometimes you need a ton of power, sometimes you need to shoot fast and should be running cords, sometimes you can't use flash and need to set up continuous lighting.

Adamant Strobist advocaters are just like die hard sports fans...my team is best no matter what.

 

[Village Idiot]

Beer hat - Google Search

Here's another really nice idea. Fan-tastic. Maybe a guy could last eight of them together and have a really awrsome, lightweight, economical,portable way to carry around the same amount of beer that comes in a 1.5 liter mini-key from Heiniken and others...

I mean if one is good, then eight must be more better-er by a factor of eight. Right?

Or course Derrel, of course...

Oh...and are you talking about the Einsteins that are currently being sold with a rubber band as a fix. The ones that would probably take several months to get to you after ordering? Vagabond is on back order as well, due to a bad batch of inverters. Go PCB!

Didn't think much to the shots with flash i'd rather shoot in daylight

Surf shots look better without flash

Light is light. It doesn't matter if it comes from the sun, a desk lamp or a flash. What matters is its size in relation to the subject and if its focused or not. Most photographers don't shoot people with tiny bare flashes because it looks unnatural and unflattering.

Think about film crews who need to deal with a variety of light situations constantly. They are doing everything in the book to control ambient light and artificial light. Giant bounce cards, giant diffusion panels, armies of 10,000 watt lights, lights with lenses, large banks of kino flos, etc.

Photography isn't all about gear, but rather about controlling and shaping light to meet your vision. This could be during the shoot with light sources and modifiers and it can to an extent be in post with how you control your tonal values.

------------------

Back to the topic at hand. If you have 8 compact flashes rubber banded together in pairs, and a crew of light stands and soft boxes, you might as well get a battery powered strobe pack as a work horse and have a few compact flashes as fills or accents. I think compact flashes are neat, but if you are getting that involved with lighting I think strobes are not that much more hassle to use, or arguably less hassle, since you don't need to potentially trouble shoot 8 separate autonomous machines and deal with a sack of AA batteries.

Professional photographers can use anything for lighting and make it work. McNally or Hobby could use Home Depot shop lights and umbrellas made out of taped together diapers if they wanted to, but it doesn't mean it's a good idea for a developing photographer. I think there is a time and place for a Strobist approach, but I don't think it is a one size fits all solution. Sometimes you need a ton of power, sometimes you need to shoot fast and should be running cords, sometimes you can't use flash and need to set up continuous lighting.

Adamant Strobist advocaters are just like die hard sports fans...my team is best no matter what.

Did you even look at the video? It's 8 strobes on one stand with no softboxes. None of what you're describing applies to how this guy is shooting.

I own a couple packs, several heads, and some speedlights. Each type of light has it's time and purpose. Now, short of purchasing a Elinchrom Quadra system (which still has to have the strobe connected to a battery, so it's a head that's still tethered to another object that's separate from a pole his assistant would be holding and moving with) give me one other system that would operate as a substitute for a light that could be placed on the end of a pole with no additional wires hanging off of it and that could be easily relocated?

8 SB900's with batteries looks to be about 9.38lbs. An Einstein is 4.5lbs and a Vagabond II is 18.6lbs, making a total carrying weight of 23lbs.

 

[Village Idiot]

Strobist: In Which a Commenter Gets His Soapbox

 

[supraman215]

It looks kinda like this:

 

[KmH]

8 - SB-900's (14.6 oz each) with 32 AA batteries (27 g each) comes to about 10 lbs if you add the triggers he used.

The Einstein is listed at 4 lbs 5 oz, and the Vagabond II at 18.6 lbs.

 

[Village Idiot]

8 - SB-900's (14.6 oz each) with 32 AA batteries (27 g each) comes to about 10 lbs if you add the triggers he used.

The Einstein is listed at 4 lbs 5 oz, and the Vagabond II at 18.6 lbs.

Yeah...that's what I posted...

 

[rbraden]

For those dissin' what the man is using for lighting, you might want to look into who he is, what some of the other equipment he uses in other situations is, the SI covers, etc. he's shot, and, uh, I dunno, maybe look at some of the stuff he's actually shot with all that gear. It's Dave Black for cryin' out loud. It works for him just like McNally's works for him, Hobby's works for him, and I guess like Derrell's works for him? Well, maybe not so much :er: