I’m very curious about the basics of photographic studio lighting. Strobist is God, as we all know. But, when he dropped the post a few weeks ago “A Walk Around the Monobloc, Pt. 1” I felt like he was holding back some of the fruit of knowledge. He told us about a monobloc, but I wanted to take a step back. What’s a monobloc? Are there different types of that sort of strobe? What about the “heads” I see on Craigslist all the time? How do they fit? I had a ton of questions I tried to get across in a comment on his blog, but I suffered a communication failure. I struggled to ask a good question.

Since then, I’ve wanted to research studio lights more, but I am really lazy didn’t know where to start. Happily, I just came across a post on Photo.net that hit the spot. It filled in all the starter gaps that I was missing from Strobie’s post.

Photo.net: An intro to studio lighting equipment

There’s a lot of great info here, but this is the bit I needed to know:

There are 2 basic types of studio flash -
Generator (England) also known as Pack & Head (USA) flash basically consists of a box that sits on the floor (or, with professional units too heavy to lift, sits on wheels) and
Monoblock (England) or Monolight (USA). Generator/Pack and head lights contain all their ‘works’ in the box, and a high-voltage cable connects the box to the actual flash head.

Got that? It’s easy, when you know the answer.

And, now please enjoy Metallica – “Hit the Lights”

Your humble photographer got some love from LAist.com writer Jeremy Oberstein when in his review of Wilco he referred to me as “the inimitable Michael Orlosky.” Clearly this was just an example if the publication’s ebullient tone run amok, but it’s nice to see.

Jeremy’s review of the show at the Wiltern even tied in the imagery with some colorful copy:

Visually, the show was gorgeous. Deep red lights bathed the aggressive Bull Black Nova, from the new album and during the beautiful Reservations, from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, elegant blues showered Tweedy and Co. with great effect.

I like that.

Here’s a shot that didn’t make LAist, because I was late in processing it.

Even though I live in Los Angeles, I’m not very Hollywood. But, even I knew that down on Hollywood Boulevard, there’d be happenings and spectacle around Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After some prodding, I grabbed some cameras and jumped on the bus towards the heart of Hollywood, towards The Star.

This was a special occasion, so I brought the mysterious Polaroid Holga with one of my last expired irreplaceable packs of peel-apart film. I brought a digital SLR with a flash and a fisheye lens. Part of me felt guilty, bringing the digital. I don’t know why.

An hour later, I exited the Metro in the midst of a throng of humanity on Hollywood Boulevard, besieged, set-upon, mobbed by street-sellers hawking bootleg Michael Jackson tee-shirts. There was not five or six, there was not a dozen. I’m not exaggerating when I say there were over a hundred people selling shirts, or ribbons, or buttons. Gotta get them dollars. There were people everywhere, all absorbed in private zombie-drama.

I felt agitated, panicky. I felt like a vulture myself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work the Polaroid in the middle of the crowd, so I broke out the digital. I was good, I brought an spare camera battery. I brought extra flash batteries, too.

Then, Beck walked past me. Yeah, Beck. Looking childlike, making his way anonymously and unrecognized with the throng. I started walking with him. I wanted to get in front of him. I wanted to get the photo of him paying his respects when he made it down the line to Michael’s star. Strange world.

I flicked on the camera.

“No CF Card.”

I froze. Goodbye, Beck. Goodbye, everyone. I pulled off down a side alley. I started pacing like a tiger. I was furious with myself. I didn’t know what to do. I walked in circles. I muttered obscenities.

I gave up.

I walked against the grain back to the Metro stop, against more desperate people trying to get to The Star. “Just get me the fuck out of here,” I thought.

But, I pulled myself together. I found my inner calm. I just needed to walk for a while. I decide to head off towards the other Michael Jackson star. Yeah, there’s two stars for Michael Jackson. I had no idea what was there, but I headed down the Boulevard anyway.

I started to fiddle with the Polaroid. It’s a very temperamental piece. I saw Vin Scully’s star and thought I’d take a pic to get a sense of what the Holga’s flash would do bounced off the sidewalk.

Click.

I carefully pulled the tab, but the film wouldn’t go through the rollers. This was bad. I tried again to get it going. No, I was just pulling slimy shreds of emulsion. I tried my very best to get it going, but the whole pack was ruined.

I blinked.

But, I was in Hollywood. Surely, I could find a compact flash card for sale here in tourist hell. And, there was a camera shop, right across the street! Eureka. But, it looked awfully busy. “Why is there a raucous crowd outside?” I wondered. I crossed the street, and discovered that the tourist camera trap was playing some Michael Jackson concert on a nineteen-inch television in the window, and it had attracted a throng of fans. Clever, except I couldn’t even make it to the entrance of the store. Well, I hadn’t come this far to stop, so I pushed on through and made it inside, brightly lit and devoid of people.

The shopkeep had been watching the concert, but now followed me inside. “I just need a compact flash card,” I tell him.

Him. I recognize the face. I had taken a photograph of this exact man on the street months earlier. Strange fucking world.

He only has one card in the whole place, a sad one gigabyte. I pay him the tourist rate of twenty-five dollars, and thank him for his time, but he was back watching Michael on the small screen.

But, I was back in business with a photographic weapon.

The other Michael Jackson star was down near Hollywood and Vine. Much less crowded, but a lot clubbier. I passed through racks of minidresses and gallons of cologne.

I turned down Vine and saw a scene much smaller in stature. Some candles around the star, hand-written declarations of love and a small Hispanic family keeping vigil. No crowds.

As I took a photograph, passersby taunted that this was the wrong star. A dapper Englishman paused to tell me that this Michael Jackson was a local radio personality. (In fact, the “other” Michael Jackson is English — was that him walking by?) Another man stopped with the randomness of inebriation to discuss of Michael Jackson’s legacy. We spent ten minutes on the subject actually, going back and forth. This man’s name was Frenchie and he said he was a fashion designer. He didn’t want me to take his picture, but I got a card. He told me to call him, and we’d “do some business.”

Strange world, yeah.

So I left the Hispanic family to keep vigil over the wrong Michael Jackson and walked back towards Hollywood and Highland.

As I walked back through the sporadic clubgoers, some LAPD officers on foot stopped a kid who was right next to me. They told him to put his hands behind his back so they could search him. I turned back to look as I passed, and saw one of the officers staring right at me, with my camera. Chilling effects. I left my fellow man to be harassed, as I turned face front and walked away. Damnit.

In minutes, I rejoined the fray. I was back in the throng of cattle. There were security forces deployed to keep the line moving. Slowly, inexorably, we moved like a tar spill. Slowly towards what I didn’t even know. I saw piles of flowers and cards piled like garbage against crowd control barriers. I saw a tribute poster. People were snapping away with their cellphones.

And, then I was right over it: Michael Jackson’s star, in the midst of tribute trash, somehow kept visible. The steel barrier went right over it. This is what thousands of people were happy to endure pushing and shoving to get a one-point-three megapixel image of.

“Take your picture and keep moving,” a security professional shouted at me. I wonder who hired these guys.

I made my way to the end and noticed a couple photographer-photographers on the other side of the barrier, so I went back around with them. I was quickly checked by two uniformed on-duty LAPD officers. “Where’s your pass?” they demanded, before shooing me away. I wondered who I was supposed to get a pass from for something like this? What corporation’s profit were they protecting? I didn’t really care. Photographs were a waste. If there was anything compelling here, I didn’t sense it. I’m not a photographer.

I was done, I took the metro back to North Hollywood. The not-glamorous other Hollywood. I just missed the bus down Chandler. The next one wasn’t for half an hour, so I walked. And, I walked. My feet got sore. It took forever, with every step I recapped the night in my head. Was that really Beck?

It felt like one more thing should happen. I should find something on the walk home that I wouldn’t have seen from the bus. Surely there would be one talisman I’d find that would make the whole night worthwhile. Something to make this story seem like a parable for seizing life. To show me the larger view.

But, there was nothing at all. And, I reached my apartment. Dark and alone. I unlocked the door, fell inside and stumbled straight to the shower. I stood there in the warm water and wept.

In a blog tabbed as “Getting Smart About Personal Technology” the writer Sonia Zjawinski offers:

I sift through Flickr on a regular basis for images to use as visuals for my blog posts. As with most things related to the Web, it’s easy to get sidetracked with not-so-work-related search terms like, “kittens” and “vintage bicycles”. Through these bouts of procrastination I’ve often found stunning photographs, so much so I’ve gotten in the habit of printing faves out and framing them. If a user offers the original resolution for download don’t let that go to waste. Download, print, frame!

Oh, and if you’re wondering about copyright issues (after all, these aren’t my photos), the photos are being used by me for my own, private, non-commercial use. I’m not selling these things and not charging admission to my apartment, so I think I’m in the clear. (Any lawyers out there who want to weigh in on this?)

Luckily, most of the commenters point out that this is absurd, especially from the New York Freakin’ Times. She got paid for that clueless blog. My own sarcastic take went like this:

I sift through the NYT for articles to repost in my blog. As with a lot of things on the Web it’s easy to get lost in all the searches for “Krugmans” and “Dowds” I’ve found that it’s awesome to just print out these articles for visitors to my house to read. Of course, I don’t include any credits along with the articles. And people who come to my house never have to visit NYT.com or buy a newspaper. And if you’re worried about copyright, don’t worry! I’m not charging admission to my house or anything, so it’s totally cool. Just ask Sonia Zjawinski.

Some people would be cool with you making posters for your house. Some wouldn’t. The thing is, Flickr makes it so easy to engage with photographers whose work you enjoy. Maybe they’d be thrilled to let you use a photo. The truly interesting part about the internet, social media, and “getting smart about personal technology” is that it’s easy to start that conversation with the content creators. That’s the revolution, and a point that this paid blogger for the New York Times completely fails to understand about technology.

(Hat tip to Chaparral[Kendra] for pointing out that blog to me)

If you’re like me you have five or six BP-511 style batteries for your SLR. And, going out on shoots, coming back from shoots and during shoots, it can be a challenge keeping track of which ones are charged. Some of the batteries came with weak plastic trays that never stay on when tossed in your bag. Other times these batteries (or their knockoffs) come with a cap that can help protect the battery, but I always seem to lose those.

So I use this method to protect my batteries and keep track if they’re charged or spent. And my solution uses the miracle of gaffer’s tape: An Informative Battery Case

One of the beauties of gaffer’s tape is that when you stick it to itself, it makes a flexible, strong, grippy material not entirely unlike leather. I guess you could also do this with duct tape or some packing tape. That is, if you’re a punk!

My roll of tape is 1 and 7/8 inches, or about 47mm. Tear off a strip about 28cm long. Wrap it around the battery sticky side out. Make it as tight as you can, the more snug the better.

When the battery is wrapped, double back around being careful to line up the tape. This gives you a basic tube. Then I tear off two shorter strips for the bottom.Stick a short strip to a slightly longer strip, and curl that around the bottom end of the battery. You can then layer another strip around the tube overlapping your bottom cup.

Now when I have a newly charged battery, I slide it in with the contacts down and protected. When I swap it out for a spent battery, I slide the empty in with the contacts up and visible.

Of course, I can have this same issue with rechargeable batteries for my speedlights. In this case, the clamshell cases for them are usually exceedingly solid. So on the edge of a small strip of paper, I write “GOOD” and “BAD” side by side. I snip out the strip, fold it in half, and tape it into inside of the batteries’ clamshell case with a ‘T’ of transparent tape. This makes a flap that can go either way and is visible when there are batteries in the case.

I originally tried determining a “top” and “bottom” to the clamshell case and deciding that if the positive pointed up, then the batteries were good. However, I could never remember what I had decided was “up”. So, that’s why I went with this no-thinking method.

With Compact Flash cards, determining a top is much easier because their makers are eager to use a flashy logo on one side of the card. So in the clamshell case that holds CF cards, I put in a piece of colored tape or the sticky part of a Post-It note. Then I have little trouble remembering that if I can see the logo, the card is empty and ready for use. If the logo is covered, then it’s full of wonderful photos just waiting to be processed.

This is what works for me. Do you have your own methods to solve these problems?

Photo by UnclescarMT

Gosh, I thought it was already dead. I have some expired rolls I’ve yet to shoot. I better get on that.

Kodak kills Kodachrome film after 74 years | Technology | Reuters.

The street was dark, I wasn’t sure if I had the right house as I rolled up and killed the lights. I got out and crept up the driveway. No lights on, or wait maybe a flicker of television behind the drapes. Was this this place? My sneakers crunching the gravel sounded louder than popcorn. Or gunshots.

A dog barked loudly from behind the gate ten feet in front of me. I froze. Sounded mean. Sounded like it didn’t like strangers. I decided to call.

“Hey I think I’m outside, not sure if it’s the right house.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll be right out.”

Some rustling inside the house. Someone coming up from a basement, maybe. The front door opened. The man came out and I went up to him. He had the merchandise wrapped in foil inside a Ziploc bag.

“All ten for twenty-five right?”

“Yes, you can count them.”

He passed over the packet. I counted them and they were all there. I handed over the cash.

“You know, if you need any other…” he started.

“I’ll get back to you,” I cut him off. “Have a good night, man.”

“You too.”

I crunched back down the driveway. If the dog barked again, I didn’t hear it. Must be the adrenalin. I tensed, certain floodlights were about to be flipped on. Pointing at me. Red and blue lights. Any second now.

But, nothing. Smooth as silk. I made it back to my car, tossed in the packet and vacated the area.

I can’t believe I just scored some Rollei 120 B&W film off Craigslist. Sweet!

In my quest to develop a craft, I went to the Bootleg Theater in Silver Lake on Friday to photograph the band LoveLikeFire. It was yet another venue I’d never been to and didn’t know what to expect for lights. What I saw when I got there were just some dim overhead bulbs. So indie rock!

This time I brought the 50mm f/1.4 and the 70-200 f/2.8L with some image-stabilizing action. I knew no matter what happened with the “fitty”, I’d get something with the “moneymaker.”

Also on the bill was a local band called All Wrong and the Plans Change, featuring a real stunner on lead vox. The color on those shots was so bad, but they converted to monochrome fairly nicely. Cheat! (See below)

When LoveLikeFire came on, I really tried to pay attention to technical detail and get some sharp shots, which I did. The above shot was with the 50mm at f/1.8 and 1/160 sec. Whats interesting is that most of my sharp shots came after I switched back linking auto-focus to the shutter instead of the back button. (You can read about the benefits of back-button focus here.) The literature even suggests back-button focus is better for moving subjects. So, my success in switching to shutter seems counter intuitive to me, but perhaps using the shutter button brings the moment of shutter-release closer chronologically to the moment of focus, by a few milliseconds at least. I much prefer back-button focus, but it might actually be too slow for subjects moving front-to-back? I will keep experimenting.

I was getting sharp shots, but nothing very dramatic. The dull overhead bulbs added nothing. A week after complaining about the static red and blue lights at Spaceland, I would have killed for something so interesting.

Then with two songs left in LoveLikeFire’s set, I broke out a speedlight, put it on a bracket and slapped a Lumiquest Softbox III on it. I know it looked ridiculous, but I wanted to see what sort of results it brought. I had some trouble getting the flash to fire. Maybe the TTL cord I used (off-brand) is dodgy? When it did fire, the light was enough to illuminate the subject, but again pretty boring for a rock concert.

This shot is with the softboxed speedlight. The bracket pushed the strobe away from the axis enough that there is nice definition on her chin. But there’s not a lot of drama.

I’ll continue to practice. Having an accomplice to stand off to the side with a gelled flash to light the background would be rad, but likely impractical. Asking the band if I could place a light in back might work. Would I ever get the balls to do that?

Oh yeah, and here the gorgeous singer from All Wrong:

Back before I was into photography, my Mom gave me a camera as a present: An ImageTech 3DFX. It’s a plastic fixed-focus no controls camera that had three lenses. It recorded three vertical frames per click on standard 35mm film. Despite my best intentions over a decade ago, I never used it. Back then, they had a deal with Walgreens and other major photo labs to send film back to Imagetech to process. In a few weeks you’d have some 3D prints.

In the modern day, ImageTech is long gone. You can only get those prints at one lab in the world, and it takes months and a lot of money.

Or you can have fun digitizing the negatives yourself and using Photoshop to create any number of spiffy effects. The animated gif above is probably the coolest. I tried doing anaglyphs — the type of image you need 3D glasses for. The results are not spectacular with this image. I think extreme closeups don’t work so well for this technique. I’ll try again with more landscapular subjects sometime.

Also, I see I get some light leak in many of my middle frames from this old plastic cam. Hmmm.

Local hipsters Castledoor met Brooklyn rockers Hopewell at Spaceland on June 8th. I was there shooting for LAist.com. Jeremy Oberstein was there to write about it. See the feature just posted over at LAist.com.

Hopewell, Castledoor @ Spaceland, 6/07/09 on LAist.com

I had major troubles with the lighting. I’m not at all happy with the lack of truly sharp frames from this show. I carried with me the 50mm f/1.4, the 85mm f/1.8 and the 15mm fisheye. I left the 24-105 f/4L at home. I learned more lessons — but I’ve also found more confusions. I tried to use the ST-E2 IR transmitter without a flash, trying to get help from the auto-focus assist beam it has. Results were mixed. I got things close to being in focus, but it was very slow. There is a beat pause after you press the focus button to when the beam goes out. This is not great when people are moving around. Still, I took plenty of frames when the singer was at the mic, and still I found a lack of sharpness. Was it the extreme aperture of my lenses? I tend to think so, but I have good examples of sharp focus from at least f/1.6 with that 50mm before. So what was the issue? When Hopewell was on the stage, they asked to turn the lights down. Damn them! So there was one white light off to the side that I had to work with. I should have gotten some sharply focused frames, but it feels like I didn’t. Was it camera shake? I used to think 1/160th of a second was the slowest I could go. Now I think 1/200 is the absolute slowest I should go. When Castledoor was on the stage, the lights were just red and blue the whole time. I am sure the red makes it hard for a red autofocus beam to operate.

Should I go with my own flash? Probably. I try to avoid it, but maybe I could try it for a few shots. We’ll see. If I shoot Spaceland again, I will definitely bring a flash on a bracket or something.

And, I’ll buy a 16-35 f/2.8L. Maybe.

Hopewell on Myspace
Castledoor on Myspace

P.s. I was extra disappointed with my photographic results, when I discovered that Castledoor’s keyboardist is a stunning photographer in her own right. I should at least take better pictures than the band!