Hartsord's Random Stabs in the Dark

As I mentioned in my previous post , I have received a batch of photography-related stuff to review, courtesy of Camtrade . At the heart of the package given to me is a new flash coming from LumoPro: the LP120 flash. I first heard of the LP120 from one of my favorite blogs: Strobist.com A little backgrounder on this flash: according to David Hobby, MidWest Photo Exchange (MPEX) approached him to help design a flash to cater to Strobist fans. Based on David's inputs, MPEX designed the LP120 and had LumoPro manufacture it. In the article, David Hobby described the LP120 as a step in the direction of the perfect strobist flash: lots of power; simple, manual controls; lots of flexibility; and lots of ways to trigger it. That article really tweaked my curiosity, so finally getting my hands on a couple of units to try out feels really cool to me. A little backgrounder on this flash: according to David Hobby, MidWest Photo Exchange (MPEX) approached him to help design a flash to ca...

Last week, I received a message from Jason Quibilan, also known as Camtrader on PiPho . He asked me if I was interested in meeting with him regarding a proposition of his. Personally, the idea really intrigued and excited me, so a couple of days later we met, and I came home with this: (Click on any of the pics to see it larger) Camtrader is a new company that is offering innovative new products to the Philippine photography scene. From facilitating trade of second-hand photography items to offering lens rentals, Camtrade is sending waves of G.A.S. through many a photographer's heart. They have a trading section set up on PiPho, and their introductory thread can be found here . Aside from the services I mentioned before, they also supply hard-to-find photography items to the local market. During our meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Camtrade wanted me to review their products. They said that they were impressed with the review and endorsement that I gave t...

090628_Agent_8_18 , originally uploaded by Hartsord . Figurines are some of my favorite subjects for photography, since I can bring them out anytime, with little fuss or set-up. This figurine is Agent 8, from The Adventures of Spawn. She's about 8 inches tall, and comes with a base (although I didn't use it for this photo.) The set-up for this shot is similar to my set-up for the Hitman shot: the background is the same sheet of black felt paper, to absorb the stray light. I laid it on top of the bed, and stuck the back part to the wall with a small piece of blu-tack. The figurine wouldn't stand properly on the bed, so I slipped my macbook pro under the feltpaper to serve as a stand for the figure. I also had to adjust the position of her gun a bit to get her to balance correctly. I also took the opportunity to replace the battery of my Sekonic lightmeter. I set my Vivitar 285HV to 1/16 (the lowest setting), and took a reading of the light on her face, getting f/16 at ...

Last issue , I blogged that I had just gotten my new Cactus V4 triggers from Gadget Infinity . If you're interested in seeing what it looks like, you can check out that entry. For this entry however, I'll be writing about my initial review of its performance. As I've previously mentioned, I was previously using the Cactus V2s triggers (also from GI) to fire my flashes off-camera, but their performance was short of spectacular. I had to mod the antenna on the transmitter (to increase the range and reliability), and mod a 1/8" jack to the receiver (again, to improve reliability). Don't get me wrong, I've had a lot of success using them, but I had to put in quite an amount of work to get to that level. So now, with the new V4 triggers, I was hoping that their performance would be much better than that of the V2s transmitters. After setting up the V4 triggers (pretty straightforward, did not even have to read the manual), first thing I did is to attach my Sigm...

Cactus V4 Packaging , originally uploaded by Hartsord . I have long been a fan of Strobist mindset of lighting in my photography. I have built up my strobist set-up around a set of modded V2s triggers and receivers, but I must admit that I have not been completely satisfied with their performance. In particular, the V2s triggers are quite temperamental, especially with the hotshoes. My most reliable set-up is a modded set that links my Vivitar directly via PC to the receiver. It really works well, but does not really promote confidence with its looks. A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing around the Gadget Infinity website, looking for a possible additional flash to add to my set-up. My Vivitar 285HV has pretty much been discontinued, but I heard that Gadget Infinity (which supplies the Cactus V2s triggers) are coming up with a 285HV clone (warts and all). And so, I was browsing around their lighting stuff, when lo and behold, I find that they were now offering a new trigger set-...

Ash Wednesday , originally uploaded by Hartsord . I posted some of my Pics from this year's Lenten celebration over at my Flickr site here . Unfortunately I wasn't able to take much pictures because I joined our Parish's grand choir. Whenever there was a photo opportunity, I was most likely singing. Oh well. Hope you like my pics. Lent 2009