Previous | Next :: Self-portrait with lights : Brooklyn : NYC | February 5, 2007, 12:41 am

Here am I fiddling with some brand new lights I just bought ...... I had them all out to test.. so I just shot this picture of me and them....... some of these corporate jobs and big portraits require lighting...... I have Elinchrom and Lumidyne flash systems with soft boxes ....... the Elin' system is AC (powered by wall sockets) the Lumi system is powered by DC (seriously big old batteries) so Lumi is for outside or places like beaches and forests or factories / manufacturing spaces and what have you, where there is no conventional power sockets. Elinchrom is for all other situations cos it's miles better....... anyway this results in me having to lug at least four heads two of each system and batteries etc.....it's killing me....... so I've been looking into lighting systems that can be both AC and DC... there are only a few..... any system that draws on AC wall power is much better cos of re-cycle time and power consequently we normally run cables (or even use a generater) for outside lighting rather than use lumi if we can avoid it....... but sometimes it just cannot be avoided....... lumi's are useful in small situations needing a slight pop of light..... but anything big needs Elinchrom. So anyway Ive bought this AC/DC Dyna-Lite system which uses US 110volt AC and its own tiny Jack rabbit batteries ........ its primarily an AC system but it has capacity to do a bit of battery powered work in a tight situation 6 second recycling time on full-power not so great.... but on the plus side the batteries are only really tiny....... its generally all fine except I just discovered you cannot turn off the flash ready ready beep sound.......er... whats that about? ..... it's a bit of a drag lets face it..... in say an interview situation ....... "So Mr President" BEEP......."what would you" ........BEEP......."say is the".....BEEP........"priority"......BEEP....... "for US troops in" ...... BEEP BEEP BEEP....... "er....... get that photographer out of here!"......

Cheers Jez XX

PS Im finished shooting in Maryland today...... tomorrow early off to Atlanta....... then off to Greenville in South/North? Carolina I think...er....I need to consult the Matt oracle....... then Wisconsin I believe....etc etc...... all looks a little tight..... again might be wise to expect some lite to intermittent blogging.