I recently did a shoot where I was shooting macro shots of precious gems. Each shot needed to be reviewed for focus, clarity, dust spots, etc before moving on to the next gem. The preview screen at the back of my Canon EOS 5D Mark II is normally a great screen, but just didnt cut it in this situation, when more than one person needs to look at an image to approve it or bin it. I needed to be able to get the images onto a full screen device quickly for preview. So, I looked into various forms of previewing images on a full screen device (PC, laptop) as they are being taken, from card swapping to usb tethering, to wireless tethering. Here’s the list, followed by a description of each method with the pros and cons of each. Continue reading “Real-Time Photo Reviewing (Tethered Shooting)”
Month: March 2011
Evening Drive to the Clare Coast
Well, the evenings are getting longer, and sun is setting around 6:25 these days. With this in mind, I had a quick drive up to the Clare coast to see what kind of time I’d have on the coast to grab a few shots before going home for my dinner. I left work at 5:25, and by 6:15 I was parking at the beach near Quilty. The sun was just about to go down behind a bank of clouds, but I managed to grab this shot before it disappeared completely. Continue reading “Evening Drive to the Clare Coast”
DIY Double Flash Clamp (under €5)
I was browsing around Woodies DIY today, and spotted the following clamps for sale in the bargain basement bin at €2.99 each. The spring was strong, and the plastic seemed like the good quality, hard wearing type. So I purchased a couple with some DIY strobist work in mind…
I noticed that the plastic jaws did not have a lot of grip:
so I super-glued some bits of bicycle inner tube to them:
Next, onto the real reason for the purchase, the double flash mount. This consisted of a simple tube bolted onto one of the handles of the clamp.
The copper tube has a bit of timber jammed into it so the tube would not collapse when brolly/strobe holders are screwed onto it. A simple drill hole in the clamp handle, and a drill hole throuhg the copper pipe, with a 30mm bolt and wingnut to hold them together. All done. The Result:
They’re probably not as strong as the Manfrotto clamps, and would struggle to hold a flash out horizontally, but the have no problem holding two strobes in the position of the image above, and would have no problem hanging from something. Not bad for under a fiver….