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Photography, or Gear you never knew existed and now need
5 years ago
So, my adventure in photography continues. After the leaves came down finally, I've been waiting for a trip, or snow, something special I can go shoot. It's been a long wait, radio silence from my photos recently. In the past few months I had a video card explode, so I took the opportunity to dismantle all the radio gear from the my PC, and move into a full photography workstation. It wasn't easy [or cheap, holy crap] along with expanding my working photography gear.
So, it all started with me wanting a new tripod to replace the Neewer 66 inch that I have. One of the legs stick, the center column doesn't always cooperate, the ball head sticks and grinds. That tells me the tripod as well as it served during the last year, is failing. So I bought a FLM tripod, I looked at Really Right Stuff, Pro Photo Gear, Benro, Manfroto, Gitzo... I came to a conclusion. tripod companies really like photographers. Not so much the person behind the lens, but the wallet in the pocket of the person behind the lens. Of course buying just the legs of a tripod isn't enough. I needed a new ball head to fit on this thing. And good ball heads? Yeah, pricey. I wanted something form the Colorado tripod company, but because of the pandemic they're radio silence and not producing anything. I hope their business survives this monster of a year. I looked and looked... finally, I began watching some photographers on YouTube, checking out their gear... I discovered Thomas Heaton, and his Long Lens Head, and the big brother the panorama head by arcatech. I liked the idea, not a ball, tilt, and swivel, it's a great head. This created another problem, to get a full range of mobility with this head, the base needed to swivel instead of the head itself, so I bought the bowl head for the tripod. I liked the panoramas I shot this year, so I wanted to do more, the base lets me level it quickly. This of course led to yet another problem I had invented for myself, turns out a nodal rail is handy!
It of course didn't stop with the tripod, I needed studio lights. I will be working a few cons as things re open as a photographer, I wont name them here. Beyond those cons I also have some projects I'm doing with a furry non profit organization. [Again, no names]. Those require backdrops, lights, reflectors, stands... so yeah... After searching through the ecosystems available to us mere mortals I discovered Godox. Not as expensive as some of the other lighting solutions, but still pretty nice! I bought some older SKII 400 Watt lights, a set of 200 Watt pocket lights, plus a head to attach them together to make a third 400 watt light. Plus a bunch of other junk to modify light, or even attach one of those 200 watt lights to my camera and use it as a TTL. [Because screw peoples vision, I'll blind you if I have to!]. Of course I bought a backdrop assembly, and a very basic backdrop to fit it... I have a photography friend giving me four or five other backdrops too!
So, getting into all of this I discovered another fata flaw. If you're using strobes, getting all the lights metered correct and setup for proper exposures... Well it's trick... Enter the light meter. This was a painful process. I spend more time on the trail shooting landscapes than in studio, and if I'm going to have a light meter It needs to be able to spot meter. [I have ruined so many shots by under or overexposing something.] So, back to buying junk that I didn't even know I needed, much less existed... So, Sekonic to the rescue, or more specifically a great buy on ebay. Had everything I needed for fairly cheap. Well, sometimes you get lucky. The woes didn't end there though! Because I realized, getting skin tone correctly was IMPORTANT.... Enter...another...thing.... Yeah, this keeps happening. I discovered this company called Xrite, they made tools to help you with color. There's a hand card called a Color Checker Passport, looked interesting, and I found it on sale! This is the most expensive bit of plastic and paper I have ever bought.... Seriously, who comes up with this junk... I get this thing ordered, and that's where crap gets real...
Enter my editing monitors. I use this 144 hz curved 24 inch side by side monitors. I thought they were PERFECT for editing photos! well, by now, you know where this is going. These grand monitors of mine? They see 86% of the sRGB spectrum, it's not TERRIBLE.... but if you're serious about photography, and I am, you need something with better color reproduction. So, monitor shopping.... I go through a huge list of brands, monitors, resolutions... All of it. Eventually, through the power of observation while watching endless photo youtubers... I keep noticing this one monitor. A BenQ 27 Inch photo editing monitor.. The BenQ SW2700PT 27" IPS QHD Adobe RGB Color Management Photo Editing Monitor [That's a freaking mouthful]... Well, at least it wasn't one of the 8.000 Dollar monitors I had seen. I find a decent deal on ebay, get it in, while I'm waiting I remembered Xrite had a product... To calibrate the monitor exactly... Finally, I'm working with all of this new stuff, getting photo editing worked out, and I come across this thing called a Loupedeck... So, it seemed useful, had a lot of features I have wanted, helps speed up my workflow.
Finally after all this endless annoyance.. I have a bunch of stuff. Yup. That's what it boils down to, stuff. Granted all of this is very useful to me, it's all niche market items. Pretty much all of this is pretty well for photographers, and wouldn't be useful in most areas. I'm glad I have all these tools at my disposal now, really I am. I have learned a massive amount about photography, tools and tricks. The one thing I wish I had right now, was a good snow storm, or a trip to some far off area where I could just wander and find new places and stuff to photograph. Of course, right now I'm having the underside of my house rebuilt and can't actually leave.... [Seriously.... Having your entire floor rebuilt is no joke.] Sooner or later I'll be back out playing with all these new toys, and reminding people... If you want to keep kids off drugs, get them into photography... They wont be able to afford drugs... rent, cars....girl/boy friends.... I really should of started collecting gold instead...woulda been cheaper...
So, it all started with me wanting a new tripod to replace the Neewer 66 inch that I have. One of the legs stick, the center column doesn't always cooperate, the ball head sticks and grinds. That tells me the tripod as well as it served during the last year, is failing. So I bought a FLM tripod, I looked at Really Right Stuff, Pro Photo Gear, Benro, Manfroto, Gitzo... I came to a conclusion. tripod companies really like photographers. Not so much the person behind the lens, but the wallet in the pocket of the person behind the lens. Of course buying just the legs of a tripod isn't enough. I needed a new ball head to fit on this thing. And good ball heads? Yeah, pricey. I wanted something form the Colorado tripod company, but because of the pandemic they're radio silence and not producing anything. I hope their business survives this monster of a year. I looked and looked... finally, I began watching some photographers on YouTube, checking out their gear... I discovered Thomas Heaton, and his Long Lens Head, and the big brother the panorama head by arcatech. I liked the idea, not a ball, tilt, and swivel, it's a great head. This created another problem, to get a full range of mobility with this head, the base needed to swivel instead of the head itself, so I bought the bowl head for the tripod. I liked the panoramas I shot this year, so I wanted to do more, the base lets me level it quickly. This of course led to yet another problem I had invented for myself, turns out a nodal rail is handy!
It of course didn't stop with the tripod, I needed studio lights. I will be working a few cons as things re open as a photographer, I wont name them here. Beyond those cons I also have some projects I'm doing with a furry non profit organization. [Again, no names]. Those require backdrops, lights, reflectors, stands... so yeah... After searching through the ecosystems available to us mere mortals I discovered Godox. Not as expensive as some of the other lighting solutions, but still pretty nice! I bought some older SKII 400 Watt lights, a set of 200 Watt pocket lights, plus a head to attach them together to make a third 400 watt light. Plus a bunch of other junk to modify light, or even attach one of those 200 watt lights to my camera and use it as a TTL. [Because screw peoples vision, I'll blind you if I have to!]. Of course I bought a backdrop assembly, and a very basic backdrop to fit it... I have a photography friend giving me four or five other backdrops too!
So, getting into all of this I discovered another fata flaw. If you're using strobes, getting all the lights metered correct and setup for proper exposures... Well it's trick... Enter the light meter. This was a painful process. I spend more time on the trail shooting landscapes than in studio, and if I'm going to have a light meter It needs to be able to spot meter. [I have ruined so many shots by under or overexposing something.] So, back to buying junk that I didn't even know I needed, much less existed... So, Sekonic to the rescue, or more specifically a great buy on ebay. Had everything I needed for fairly cheap. Well, sometimes you get lucky. The woes didn't end there though! Because I realized, getting skin tone correctly was IMPORTANT.... Enter...another...thing.... Yeah, this keeps happening. I discovered this company called Xrite, they made tools to help you with color. There's a hand card called a Color Checker Passport, looked interesting, and I found it on sale! This is the most expensive bit of plastic and paper I have ever bought.... Seriously, who comes up with this junk... I get this thing ordered, and that's where crap gets real...
Enter my editing monitors. I use this 144 hz curved 24 inch side by side monitors. I thought they were PERFECT for editing photos! well, by now, you know where this is going. These grand monitors of mine? They see 86% of the sRGB spectrum, it's not TERRIBLE.... but if you're serious about photography, and I am, you need something with better color reproduction. So, monitor shopping.... I go through a huge list of brands, monitors, resolutions... All of it. Eventually, through the power of observation while watching endless photo youtubers... I keep noticing this one monitor. A BenQ 27 Inch photo editing monitor.. The BenQ SW2700PT 27" IPS QHD Adobe RGB Color Management Photo Editing Monitor [That's a freaking mouthful]... Well, at least it wasn't one of the 8.000 Dollar monitors I had seen. I find a decent deal on ebay, get it in, while I'm waiting I remembered Xrite had a product... To calibrate the monitor exactly... Finally, I'm working with all of this new stuff, getting photo editing worked out, and I come across this thing called a Loupedeck... So, it seemed useful, had a lot of features I have wanted, helps speed up my workflow.
Finally after all this endless annoyance.. I have a bunch of stuff. Yup. That's what it boils down to, stuff. Granted all of this is very useful to me, it's all niche market items. Pretty much all of this is pretty well for photographers, and wouldn't be useful in most areas. I'm glad I have all these tools at my disposal now, really I am. I have learned a massive amount about photography, tools and tricks. The one thing I wish I had right now, was a good snow storm, or a trip to some far off area where I could just wander and find new places and stuff to photograph. Of course, right now I'm having the underside of my house rebuilt and can't actually leave.... [Seriously.... Having your entire floor rebuilt is no joke.] Sooner or later I'll be back out playing with all these new toys, and reminding people... If you want to keep kids off drugs, get them into photography... They wont be able to afford drugs... rent, cars....girl/boy friends.... I really should of started collecting gold instead...woulda been cheaper...
