off-camera lighting
When I was in Germany recently to visit my parents, I was devouring two books on photography I’d brought with me: The Digital Photography Book, and The Digital Photography Book Vol. 2, both by Scott Kelby. I had just purchased my first real flash (i.e. a hot-shoe flash to replace the silly little built-in flash that camera manufacturers still bother to include on dSLRs, presumably more as a check-box item on their spec sheet than to provide something that’s actually useful), a Canon 430EX Speedlite. (Crap, when I jumped to Canon’s website just now I learned that they have announced the Canon 430EX II Speedlite to replace the one I purchased just a few short months ago.)
Aaaaanyway… The books really got me into the notion that I wanted to take better photographs with my flash & pointed me to the incomparable Strobist blog, whereupon I decided that hard light is da bomb. See Tim Tadder’s site to understand what I mean. That boy knows how to rock a flash. (Wow, the beer is really kicking in. I don’t usually use expressions like “da bomb” and “knows how to rock” in my standard, cookie cutter repertoire of the English language’s vocabulary, nor do I make so much use of parentheses that the bulk of my writing reflects random thoughts and observations rather than following the main thread of what I’m trying to say.) Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I started to assemble my own little list to buiild an off-camera lighting kit. I looked through the pre-grouped Strobist kits that Midwest Photo Exchange has available but decided that I wanted a bit more control, so I assembled my own:
- Bogen / Manfrotto 001B Light Stand
- Hakuba PSTC 100 Medium Pro Series Tripod Case (thanks for the recommendation, but definitely not for the price hike and out-of-stock condition your post introduced, Scott!)
- Westcott 43″ White Satin Collapsible Umbrella
- Impact Umbrella Bracket w/Swivel Mount & Hot Shoe
- Hama Universal Flash Adapter
- 15′ Male to Male Sync Cord (I got one from Interfit, although I have to imagine that any (equipment-appropriate) sync cords B&H sells would pretty much do the job)
Excluding taxes (I live in NYC, so B&H charges me tax) and shipping, this came out to US$ 177.45. More expensive than the Strobist kits, to be sure, but it’s what I wanted.
Because of the Hakuba case, the whole order was on hold for over a month. Unlike Amazon.com, B&H has a nasty habit of charging your credit card immediately upon placing the order, even if just one item is out of stock / on back order (as in my case). Today, I finally got an e-mail saying that my order had shipped and is expected to arrive tomorrow. W00t! Just in time for the weekend, and hopefully I’ll be able to put together some decent test shots from which I can move on to the Strobist assignments & get my game on!
Thank you for your order. We hope you enjoy this equipment. I am sorry you feel our practice of charging your card when you placed your order is “nasty.” We do so because it speeds out-the-door time for the majority of orders. Stores which don’t charge when an order is placed usually place a lien on the customer’s credit card for more than the transaction total and do so with no notice to the customer at all. B&H is entirely upfront and transparent about what we do and how we conduct our business. We’d have been happy to ship the in-stock items immediately had you asked, BTW.
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Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video
Comment by Henry Posner — 12 September, 2008 @ 8:23 am
[...] to the present: In my first attempt to do something neat with my recently acquired off-camera flash kit, I obtained fairly dismal results. This is one of the better [...]
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