Equipment

With today’s planned shoot postponed by the rain, at least the postie battled throught the deluge to deliver a new toy. PocketWizard’s – long overdue – AC3 Zone Controller. This isn’t a proper review, no technical jargon, charts, data but a first impression as to will it do what I bought it for? Most of my lighting setups are using either Profoto 7b’s and AcuteB’s. Big, powerful, impressive lights, but in the case of the 7b, heavy ( the new lighter battery costs £550+vat ). The AcuteB is a great, small but powerful light but it is one battery, one head. Another AcuteB costs £2000+ and that is still only one light ( although I know it is only a matter of time before I order one ). So for those jobs that don’t have the need masses of light – I was once photographing some executives on a rooftop overlooking the Bank of England in the heart of the City of London with the 7b’s, when a message came from an office across the street to please stop, as the flash was upsetting them – we didn’t! – why not follow the increasing trend and use small strobes or speedlites/speedlights.

The internet is awash with websites extolling the virtues of using small speedlites rather than larger flash systems. Most notable is Strobist, who I believe favours using speedlites on manual output. On the other side of the fence, as it were, is Joe McNally, who favours the TTL system. Both achieve great results ( both use Nikon ). I recently attended Joe’s lighting presentation in London, which was not only entertaining and funny but inspiring as Joe demonstrated a masterful touch in diffusing and modifing the small light sources for impressive results. As a Canon user I could only look on in ( maybe misplaced ) envy at the Nikon TTL system, which seems so much better than Canon’s. In effort to ‘improve’ my Canon flash system, I invested last year in Pocketwizard’s wireless TTL triggers, the MiniTT1 and the FlexTT5, in response to a shoot in a radio studio in which the infra red trigger could not find all my strategically placed strobes placed in two rooms. I couldn’t get the shot I wanted. Having used Pocketwizard’s Transreceiver Plus triggers on my Profotos for years and always found them very reliable, so the promise of radio triggered TTL on my Canon’s – finally!!

Well, in truth I haven’t used them in many shoots since. The flashes trigger well, they integrate with my AcuteB or 7B on the same shoot. The MiniTTL works with the transreceivers also, which frees one up to be attached to a light rather than acting as a trigger on my camera hotshoe. But even with battery packs attached, the strobes can be significantly slower than the Profotos to recharge and ready to fire and they eat through AA batteries at an alarming rate. But the single biggest handicap is being able to tweak the flash output mid-shoot. On the Profotos you can adjust flash output on a dial on the battery pack with the head high on a lightstand buried in a softbox and out of reach. But with the speedlites, you have to crank the stand down, adjust the flash and crank it up – all this is slow, you may have to tweak it several times, and interrupts the flow of the shoot of the impatient executive, celebrity or bored subject. It also doesn’t look very professional, ” not only is he using these tiny lights but he keeps having to get them down and adjust them…” So when Pocketwizard announced the AC3 ZoneController, allowing you to control three sets of speedlites, dialling their power up or down from three small dials on your camera hotshoe, without having to constantly adjust the lights by hand themselves.. gotta have!

So this morning, rip the packet open, crank up three lights on FlexTT5′s, set flashes to manual, pop the AC3 on top of the MiniTT1, set three zones, set to ‘M’ and fire!  Adjust two zones, fire, chimp – looks the same?  Adjust again, fire, chimp..still looks the same?  Homer Simpson with a camera! Finally read the manual, DOH!

Set speedlites to TTL, AC3 to manual…eureka!  AC3 to TTL..again, it works. Dial up….dial down,…integrate with AcuteB….it works! All from a small addition to the camera hotshoe, see how it piggybacks the MiniTT1! As I said, just a first impression – just when you get one, read the manual first! Tomorrow’s shoot will see how it works for real…corporate boardroom, five executives with no time for a scruffy snapper constantly adjusting the lights!

Update 12-8-10: So did it work on yesterday’s shoot? It did, but not a true test really. I shot with an AcuteB head in very large Chimera softbox triggered by a Plus II transreceiver and three 580EX II speedlite’s being controlled via the FlexTT5 & the Ac3. It was great to be able to adjust the speedlites without getting down from the stepladder I was shooting on. However, every so often, the MiniTT1 failed to trigger any of the flashes. Now this may be a duff battery but apart from leaving the lens cap on, the flash failing to go off but your shutter does, always is embarassing. Can’t blame the AC3, could just be the battery, but I’ve a shoot next week which I’m planning to shoot with the speedlites only – signs are good though.

I don’t think I’m that unusual as a photographer to find that over the years I collected more and more equipment. Aside from the allure of the “shiny & new”, as your photography develops , the markets you work in and the clients you work for evolve and change, so do your photographic equipment needs. Digital has added fuel to the fire to this accumulation, as kit is out-of-date and loses monetary value faster than driving a brand new car off a garage forecourt. This need to upgrade doesn’t just apply to the big ticket items – the latest Digital Medium format back, the latest Canon/Nikon/Zeiss lens that you “must” have, but also more humbler items. In days past there would have been a cupboard in my office holding blocks of Neopan, Tri-X and Reala complemented with a fridge holding boxes of Ektachrome and Velvia ( with some in the freezer ). Now for the digital equivalent of film, CompactFlash cards (CF),  there are three Pixel Pocket Rocket wallets and a forgotten drawer that I discovered this morning.

The cards range from a paltry 160MB to a whooping 32GB but are all identical in size. Four of them are the IBM Microdrives, a system that lost out to the CompactFlash card as the latter’s capacity increased. They show a progression using digital since I jumped onboard in 2001 ( the horrible days of digital with magenta skin tones ). My latest addition, the 32GB cards cost me £130 each and looking at an old invoice from 2004 for a 2GB card, I paid……£172!!! Using cameras such as the Canon 1DS MKIII and the 5D MKII has prompted this progression. Shooting both RAW and large jpeg files in the 5D MKII, gives me a capacity of over 900 images on that one card – and all the ‘perils’ of having so many files on one card – but after a long shoot recently in which changing cards was not easy, these cards will give me options – it’s not as if I haven’t got lots of smaller cards to use if the doubt sets in. All seems a long way from the days when my Domke bag pockets were stuffed full of Fuji rolls each with a ‘large’ capacity of 36 images!

A portrait shoot from last month for Virgin Green Fund, photographing the London team for their website and literature. Shooting in a small meeting room, I was looking for a bright, clean look, mixing natural daylight and the ‘poor man’s’ HMI, the Interfit Monstar 3 light ( about £375 with an octobox, lightstand and case ). A continous source, daylight balanced ( about 5000 K ) powered by three massive 150 watt lightbulbs – see the photos below of the light with the bulbs attached next to my 1DS MKIII camera for scale. Output from these is said to be the equivalent of 1800 watts of tungsten lighting!

Shooting with the octobox reflector that comes with the light, without the front diffuser panel, it does give enough output to lift the light levels with a nice bright, flat light, even when shooting against the light. Combined with the high ISO capabilties of camera such as the Canon 5D MKII or the Nikon D3S, allows you to light a room and shoot with, seemingly, more freedom than a strobe system. Letting the background bleach out a bit helps give that “high-key-Ikea -catalogue-lifestyle-bright-aired-look”. A more modern, contemporary business look away from the wood panelled boardroom shots of yesteryear. The only downside of this light is the sheer size of the bulbs, with need to be handled carefully as they would be easy to smash. The upside, pulling a roller along the street with this kit in it is considerably easier on your back than a Profoto 7b pack! It doesn’t replace the Profotos, useless outdoors, but in the right situation it is a great light to work with – but then if the budget stretches to real HMI’s!

Some shots can be see on a slideshow by clicking on the image below.