PhotographyBanzai.com

A group of people I know from the convention scene went back to an abandoned church in Gary, Indiana recently. This was a great opportunity to try out some off-camera flash, so I went all the way and bought another Cactus V5 and a middle-weight tripod for a setup I was planning. Here are some highlight photos from the excursion:  Here is the lighting setup: The strobist lighting setup consists of: 2x Yongnuo YN460-II flash units Custom Brackets CB-Mini flash bracket 1x Cactus V5 trigger A flash extension wire (has a hotshoe on both ends) A Manfrotto MKC3-H01 tripod The flash extension takes place of a second trigger or using the optical slave method. Both of which would have either a downfall in expense or usability.  The optical slave method could cause issues with orientating the flash heads away from each other and, of course, having two triggers would mean more cost and more batteries to deal with. I used this setup most of the time and it worked quite well. With cosp...

Today I’ll be talking about promotion and using my camera gear as a tool to create such videos. A friend and I just finished our first Application targeted for the Android marketplace. The application basically allows the user to monitor the level of rivers in the United States thanks to publicly available data that is updated frequently. This is useful to anyone who does boating among other various activities that have some relation to rivers, gage height, and stream flow. I’ve since made a second promo style video, but with the K-7 camera instead. The great thing about current DSLRs is that they are amazing multi-function tools. This time I used my Pentax K-5 and shot in 1080p HD 25fps as well as with an external microphone. Why use an external mic? No mechanical sounds from the camera, no sounds from me touching the camera, and overall better sound quality even with a cheap microphone. Here is the setup for my video: Pentax K-5 with a microphone. Pentax K-5 in video mode with a DA 4...