The highlight of the day (for me anyway) was the creative lighting session done by Zack Arias. But I missed it. I was out, and didn’t get back until just after his part was over, and someone else was talking about lighting toys/models creatively. It was interesting, but I had wanted to hear Zack.

Lucky for me, Zack has posted his presentation in PDF form, and has a Q&A thing going on¬†at his blog. At the end of the second presenter, they also said they would put the presentations online, but I haven’t seen them yet.

I got my starving student kit (SX2) from Midwest Photo Exchange. This is a pretty neat kit. If you check out the link you will see all the stuff that is included. The highlights are the stand (fairly compact), a shoot through umbrella, a swivel that connects the stand, the umbrella, the flash, and allows the flash/umbrella to tilt. The umbrella is really compact when folded.

I decided to get the kit to get all the pieces to try it out. They are supportive of the strobist community, and the kit gets a discount. There is some other stuff in the kit that will be fun to play with too. Gells, tape, straws and cinefoil to use to make DIY light shaping tools.

Mpex also has a new all manual flash, the LumoPro LP120  for only $129 that I might look at later.

Well, I decided that the umbrella wasn’t enough, I needed to spring for a softbox. We had been using them in the studio lighting class exclusively, and this small LightDome that works on my SB800 was on sale. I head of this gem from Matt Brandon. He¬†posted about¬†using one here and then PhotoFlex was highlighting him.

What makes this kind of funny is that tomorrow I am going to go take pictures of a newborn with this very contraption. Just so happens that friends down the street just had their second baby, and I just happened to get a light box. Coincidence?

This is not the same item, but I will try the same ideas as this strobist post too soon.

I am also finally going to get to use my new light toy. Well, those other things are really my newest light toys, but at one time this was, and I haven’t used it yet. I need to make sure it is changed up. Heading out with some friends to hit a barn with 2 million¬†watts of light. Actually, 8 million watts of light if we all hit the barn with the lights. Might even be too much light! Anyway, that should be fun.

So, lots of new toys, and I am going to try to use them all this weekend. Everyone always says you shouldn’t buy new shoes the day before the big race, and I probably shouldn’t head to take portraits with¬†new equipment¬†I have never tried before, but hey, what the heck. Pictures to follow.

This was just good timing, as I started the studio lighting class yesterday. It is great to see how others have set up their lights, and the effect on the pictures. Even better how he shows how he created the entire look, from the lights to the post processing. I like his use of the “high contrast” look. (Even better that he knows that this is not a look for every pictures.)

I learned a great photoshop tip from this post too. One way to “dodge and burn” is to create a new layer an fill it with 50% grey.¬†Then¬†set the blending mode to Softlight. Now, with a¬†brush opacity¬†of 5% and¬†hardness of¬†0%¬†, you can paint with either white or black. This will accent the highlights or darken the shadows just by switching the brush color on the same layer. Neat.

I don’t know how I would manage it, but I have been reading about using reflectors and diffusers recently. I have been rereading Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography 2. It is all about lighting. A lot about studio lighting, but there are many things to learn/remember that could be useful. I would just have to buy more gear. There is always something.

Today, David du Chemin talked about just those kinds of things. There are the very expensive studio kind, and the just a little expensive, portable, they work pretty well kind, that maybe I could consider.

Now I just have to figure out how to get Kate to walk around and be my assistant.

Update: Here is another blog entry on using the diffusers.