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 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-...