Fujifilm releases new GFX Challenge videos

Fujifilm today have released no less than 7 new GFX Challenge videos. For the GFX Challenge, some 20 photographers worldwide got to work with a prototype of the upcoming GFX medium format camera and the three lenses that are going to ship with it when the camera is released: the 63 mm f/2.8, the 32-64 f/4 zoom and the 120 f/4 stabilised macro. 

The photographers were free to do what they wanted. The only thing is they had to make a three minute video of using the camera. It's really refreshing to see what people do with the camera. Not only the photography is truly breathtaking, but some of the videos are also beautifully made and most of them were filmed in 4K with Fujifilm X-T2 cameras.

Gary Heery (Australia)

Australian photographer Gary Heery uses the GFX and the macro lens to create some really beautiful still lifes (litterally) of objects frozen in time. I cannot wait to see these printed large. And neither can he, apparently!

Roméo Balancourt (France)

French portrait, architecture and food photographer Roméo Balancourt uses the GFX on location to shoot upscale restaurants and their crew. It's interesting to see him set up an entire lighting studio on location. He mixes available (tungsten) lights with flash and fresnel spots. He appreciates the Q menu and the Electronic Viewfinder that shows him exactly what he's going to get. I blogged about the advantages of an EVF a while back in this post. Roméo admits that before using the GFX, he always had to add extra sharpening to his images before delivering them to his clients. With the GFX, he no longer has to, he says. I also loved how the images he made during the video come together in a final composite, at around the 4 minute 5 seconds mark.

Luciano Romano (Italy)

For his GFX Challenge, Italian photographer Luciano Romano wanted to combine his three favorite elements of photography: art, architecture, and theater. He loves the excellent ergonomics of the camera (something I can confirm: if you're used to working with a DSLR or Fujifilm's X-T2, you'll feel right at home).

Victor Liu (Canada)

Perhaps it's slightly over-the-top, but I just love this Canadian landscape's photographer's video. I love the low angles, the fades from the video to shots of the GFX and back. It's like a trailer for a blockbuster movie. Or should I say, a blockbuster camera? Victor shows that the GFX absolutely feels at home in very rugged conditions. Now I want to go to the Rocky Mountains, too...

Ivan Joshua Loh (Singapore)

Medium format and cars. It's a marriage made in heaven. As such, the Mercedes SLS appears to be a hot ticket amongst car photographers: Ivan Joshua Loh from Singapore is the second GFX Challenger to photograph this gull-winged beauty of a car, yet he does so in a completely different way than Satoshi Minakawa.

Per-Anders Jörgensen (Sweden)

Swedish photographer Per-Anders Jörgensen describes his own work as "faked documentary" (a term I have to remember as it kind of reflects some of the stuff I do). Just like Roméo Balancourt, he takes the GFX to a restaurant but he uses it to photograph the preparation of food. It's interesting to see hem use a curtain as a diffuser tent and get under it to get the softest light possible. That's the nice thing about these GFX videos: you always pick up a thing or two that you can insert in your own workflow...

Minoru Kobayashi (Japan)

Japanese Minoru Kobayashi takes the GFX outside to photograph a sports car. I'm no petrolhead, but I think its a Honda NSX. Its 573 bhp sure goes well with the GFX's 51+ megapixel. He loves what he calls the "resolution with density" that only medium format can provide. His favourite film simulation is Velvia back from in the days where he shot Velvia on film, at ASA 50 or 100. He really loves the fact that he can now shoot Velvia digitally, with a previously unthought of ISO of 1600 and above!

With a price point of "well under $10,000" including the standard 63 mm lens, the GFX might very well wind up to be not only a "medium-format-killer" but also a "high-end-dslr-killer". And we've still got a couple of more GFX Challenge videos to come! In the mean time, if you want to see how the GFX behaves on the busy streets of India, have a look at (shameless plug, I I know), my own GFX video:

And in case you still need some more convincing, here's the other GFX videos that have been released thus far:

Testing the GFX was a lot of fun. Actually, it only had one drawback. I want one, now... 

eBook review: 'Portraits' by Damien Lovegrove + 20 percent discount code

Leaving on a jet plane

On Thursday evening, July 17th, 2008, I boarded an airplane. My camera bag was filled with a Nikon D300 and a cheap Sigma zoom lens but my heart and mind were filled with priceless excitement. I was out of a job but not unhappy to be so because I had grown tired of my old job anyway. Even way back then, I was already heavily into digital photography and Photoshop. In fact, I was the kind of guy who faked a shallow depth of field using the lens blur filter instead of simply using a fast lens - rest assured, that has changed! I wanted to brush up on my photography skills and I was following a five year photography evening course in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts where I lived. Although I'm all-digital again, now, I'm glad I still got to work with analog cameras and print in a darkroom.

Secretly, like so many of the enthusiasts I know, I had a hope of turning my hobby into a job, maybe teaching post processing. But for that, I obviously needed some great looking pictures to work on. Evening school is all fine, but sometimes the pace can be a bit slow. So I decided to speed things up a bit by taking a workshop. As the one I had set my eye on, involved flying to the UK, I decided to add an extra day. Having written a book about Lightroom, I already knew a thing or two about postprocessing and I had already played around with off-camera flash. All these cool flash gizmo's and triggers really appealed to the gearhead in me but I knew little to nothing about working with models, posing and so on.

I used one of the pictures from the workshop as the cover of the second edition of my Lightroom 3 book, published by Pearson back in 2011. In the mean time, the Lightroom 6/CC edition is available in Dutch (print and eBook) as well as in English (eBook).

The flight was to Bristol, a UK city close to Nailsea, where Damien Lovegrove has his studio. Back in the day, Damien still shot a lot of weddings and he had a resident picture editor working for him. I had booked a workshop with Damien on the 18th and a second day with Marko Nurminen, the picture editor, on the next day.

I don't use the words 'career defining' easily, but this workshop really was. I already knew Damien's enthusiasm from his videos but to see the man in real life was a treat. Back then, his workshops were 4:1 and he showed us around Bristol all day with a professional model. I had a blast. He taught us how to use virtually any background as a cool portrait background, how to make use of existing light when possible and how to add flash when necessary. My D300 was doing overtime. The next day, I had a one-to-one Lightroom session with Marko. I knew Lightroom by heart but I was still struggling to find a professional workflow. I still remember Marco say:

“Your problem is you know Lightroom too well!”

— Marko Nurminen

Portraits, an eBook by Damien Lovegrove

Fast forward to now. Damien and I run into each other quite often, as we are both Fujifilm X-photographers and Ambassadors and I consider him as a friend. Every once in a while, he comes to Belgium for some fun shoots, which underlines the importance of doing personal shoots and not only client shoots. We recently did an urbex shoot in Belgium with lovely model Cato. Damien was testing the X-T2 at the time. He then told me he was working on what would be his (and maybe even 'the') ultimate book on portrait photography.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 17 mm | 1-160 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200

I know very few professional photographers who manage to photograph at this pace all while still sharing so much of their knowledge through live workshops, lectures and videos. Take a look at Damien's excellent lighting videos, I can recommend all of them, especially his Illumination ones. In fact, I think if you'd go look up the word 'prolific' in a dictionary, chances are that after the description, you'll read 'see also: Damien Lovegrove'. I once jokingly asked Damien which pills he was on because I wanted to see the same pharmacist. 

Shot during a recent urbex shoot with Damien and fellow X-Ambassador Ioannis Tsouloulis in Belgium. FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 17 mm | 1-160 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 200

The master himself in action in this set-up shot: we used two Cactus RF60 speedlights and a Cactus V6 trigger. Modifier was an SMDV 70 Speedbox with a grid. Here's my review of the V6 and the RF60 and that of the V6 Mk II.

“I don’t know what vitamins Damien Lovegrove is on, but I want the same!”

— Me

The eBook is available in two different covers. This is one from Damien's 'Figure in the landscape' series which he shot in the USA.

After being two years in the making, Damien’s Portraits eBook is finally there. As he says himself, everything he knows about portrait photography is in this book.

In Portraits, Damien takes you through his complete portrait making process. He starts at the planning stages and obviously covers capture in great detail, both using natural light and flash, but he also talks about how he delivers files to clients and how he archives them.

Portraits has 356 pages with 384 high-resolution photographs that have all the exposure and lighting details that were used to create them. Because it's so high-res, you actually get two download sizes to choose from: a high-res one (e.g. for on your computer or tablet) and a lower res one (e.g. for on your phone).

“Everything I know about portrait photography is in this book. I hope it helps you to achieve a lifetime of enjoyment from your photography.”

— Damien Lovegrove

Imagine Damien sitting next to you in a bar, giving you 50,000 words worth of lighting and career advice. Believe me, that would cost you a lot more in beers than the 36 € / $40 (+ tax) Portraits is currently selling for. And better still, if you use code GENT€ (if you pay in €) or GENT$ (if you pay in $) upon checkout, you can get 20% extra off. On the eBook, not on beers! But hurry, because that code is only valid through the end of June 2018.

Although Damien is currently using Fuji gear, this book really is useable regardless of your camera brand. For example, it will show you that you can use overexposure to achieve a particular high-key effect, but it won't tell you how to do overexposure on your specific camera (it would have become a very boring book, otherwise!) That's what your manual is for, after all. However, if you'd like to hear Damien's more camera-specific thoughts on the Fujifilm X-system, read on:

A second eBook: The Fujifilm X System Guide

I told you Damien's prolific, didn't I? If you go to checkout, you will see that you can also purchase a second eBook, The Fujifilm X System Guide. This one is obviously of particular interest if you're a Fujifilm user. Think of it as Damien joining you on a trip to a camera store to help you make an informed decision on what to buy, based on your shooting style and interests. I like to think that I know my X cameras pretty well, but I still picked up a couple of valuable gems from the eBook. If you're new to the Fujifilm system, it will really help you in deciding which lenses and body types are the ones you should go for. It's 20 GBP when purchased separately, but if you buy it along with Portraits, it's only 10 GBP extra (actually 8 GBP thanks to the discount). And, thanks to Brexit, a pound sterling is not what it used to be, anyway. So spending 10 GBP might save you a couple of hundred choosing the wrong lens our camera.

So, that's all for this review. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to slaving away at my own upcoming eBook, which will be a more technical and gear guide about on- and off-camera flash (so it will be a perfect complement to Damien's Portraits). More on that later!

The 2016 edition of the 5 Day Deal: What's in it for you?

From now until Wednesday, October 19th, noon PST, it's 5 Day Deal time again! The 5 Day Deal is a unique bundle of photographic training content. If you were to buy every item separately, you'd be looking at a total bill of over $2.500. Now, you're only paying $97, a savings of more than 95 percent! The bundle contains over 60 hours of video training, 15 eBooks and almost 500 Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. In total over 25 gigabyte of training goodness.

From Lightroom presets over video courses on how to shoot wine or photograph models to a complete landscape postprocessing photography course: there's something for everyone in this bundle.

Of course, the real question is: 'What is this bundle worth to you?' Unless you're really into all genres of photography, probably not the full $2.500. But I can guarantee you that even if you're only remotely interested in photography, the 5 Day Deal bundle is certainly worth more than the measly $97 it's selling for. In fact, this bundle will do more for your photography than the umpteenth camera bag or a shiny new UV filter. 

To help you determine if it's worth your dollar (well, 97 of them), I've broken the bundle down into three typical areas of interest: general postprocessing, landscape photography and portrait photography. You'll see that even if you're only really into one of those three areas, the bundle is a steal. Heck, if you're into two or more, you should already be ordering!

1. You're into Lightroom and Photoshop

Postprocessing seems to be the main theme of this year's bundle, so if image editing is your thing, you're in for a treat. The bundle is ideal to hone your editing skills over these cold winter months and get you ready for a great start in 2017. There's hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions, textures and loads of training videos. There's also a lot of HDR training, and I mean photographically interesting HDR, not the headache-inducing variety! The total value of the highlighted items alone is over $1.600. The 5 Day Deal price is less than ten percent of that. If you're a Lightroom or Photoshop user, this bundle really is a no-brainer.

2.  You're mainly interested in nature photography, landscapes, cityscapes and how to postprocess these

The total value of the highlighted items is about $700. From previous 5 Day Deals, I remember the excellent quality of the stuff that people like Jimmy McIntyre, Klaus Herrmann and James Brandon put out, so I'm looking forward to discovering their new courses. Also, note that I've only counted items that have a direct relationship to landscape photography. There are lots of resources, like the many preset packs, that will without a doubt also be useful when you're editing your landscape images.

3. You're mainly interested in portrait photography and portrait retouching

The total value of the highlighted items is also some $700. Again, there are some hidden gems in this line-up. For example, I really enjoyed Serge Ramelli's no-nonsense approach to compositing: he photographs a model and then puts her in front of a different background. This course alone by itself normally costs double the entire 5 Day Deal bundle price.

Other areas of interest

But that's not all. There's also more general, introductory courses such as David duChemin's 26 part email course on the one hand but also some highly specialized ones on the other: how 'bout an in-depth course on Photo Mechanic (I know I can use one since I'm using this app more and more as a front-end to Lightroom). Or what about a course on how to photograph wine? It's all there.

If you're still in doubt, here's 5 final reasons why you should really consider this bundle:

The ever-funny-yet-to-the-point Zack Arias has written an eBook of over 100 pages with business advice for photographers. It's an excellent and at times hilarious read.

1. This way of learning is one of the cheapest to improve your photography skills, at your own pace, when and where you want it. Furthermore, there's always a couple of hidden gems in bundles like this. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Zack Arias' 'Get To Work - Business Primer' eBook. It's not something I'd probably buy (in fact, I didn't know it existed), but it was included in the bundle anyway! 
2. A lot of this bundle's resources are new and if they aren't new, at least they've never been in any other 5 Day Deal bundle, so there's no overlap with previous 5 Day Deal purchases.
3. If you're more interested in the business side of photography, there's a couple of interesting items as well, like the afore-mentioned guide by Zack Arias. Zack's studio is doing great now, but he once was nearly bankrupt. So, he knows what he's talking about.
4. The bundle is gone forever on October 19th, noon PST (that's 9 PM Brussels time).
5. 10 percent of the entire turnover (not the profits, but the turnover, so almost $10 on every sale) goes to charity. Since the start of the 5 Day Deal in 2013, over $650.000 was donated to good causes. For this year, the 5 Day Deal team is hoping to achieve $250.000 of charity donations and they even silently hope to reach $350.000, which would bring their total over one million since 2013. To that effect, upon checkout, you can choose to pay an extra 10% ($9.7) which goes entirely to charity. And, as a token of good karma, you get an extra bonus-download worth $250. Some 50% of people who bought the bundle so far have chosen this option. It's called 'Charity Match', you'll see it on the 5 Day Deal page.

You see, I'm shutting up already. Yes. I'm that easy :-)

5 products that caught my eye at Photokina 2016

I have just returned from a bustling two days at Photokina, the biannual photographic gear lovefest that is held in Cologne, Germany. I was travelling in the exquisite company of fellow Belgian X-photographers Isabel Corthier and Ioannis Tsouloulis. I want to thank the people from Fujifilm Japan and Belgium for inviting us over. Trade shows like Photokina are as much about people as they are about products. So, it was great to reconnect with longtime friends such as Tom, Bert (who used Tom’s bald head as a reflector during his 'Small lights, big results’ demo on the Fujifilm stand), Rob, Damien (energetic as ever), the German ‘rock star’ trio Dieter, Jens & Peter and Marco, Julia, Shusuke and Kunio. I also had the privilige of being introduced to new people such as Patrick La Roque, Jens Krauer, Martin Hülle and their impressive work. Finally, I am happy I got to meet Rico Pfirstinger. He’s the author of the unofficial Fujifilm manuals. If you are struggling to get the most out of your camera, his books and workshops are among the best resources to turn to.

Now of course, apart from the social aspect, Photokina is obviously also about gear. Lots of gear! In fact, it's probably the most GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)-inducing show on the planet. Even during those two days, I was unable to visit each hall, let alone each booth. Yet, there were a couple of products that caught my eye. Because the Internet loves lists, here's five of them, in no particular order. Well, except maybe for the first! 

1. Fujifilm GFX

The GFX looks like a beefed-up X-T2. Image © Fujifilm.

Call me biased (I'm an X-photographer after all) but the Fujifilm GFX was the star of the Fujifilm booth and probably even of the entire Photokina. In case you've just returned from another planet, the GFX 50s is Fujifilm's first digital medium format camera. It has a sensor size roughly 4 times that of the other X series cameras and a pixel count of 51.4 megapixel. The GFX 50s will be available with three lenses at launch, which you should be ‘early 2017’. By end of 2017, another tree lenses should be available.

Literally everybody wanted to get their hands on the camera of which only a couple of prototypes exist. I was lucky enough to get to hold it in my hands for a couple of minutes. I was surprised at how well it focused even in the dark venue where I was and also at how lightweight it was: this beast of a camera weighs less than many a professional DSLR! If you want to read more about the specs (even more than is available on Fujifilm's own website) read this excellent article by Rico Pfirstinger.

The price of the GFX hasn't been set yet, but Fujifilm management did promise it would be 'well under $10.000' with the standard lens. We have yet to see into how many Euro that will translate...

Official press release here.

You'll be able to use two EVF viewfinders with the GFX: a regular one and one that can be tilted and rotated, allowing almost every imaginable capture angle. It will even be possible to use an external monitor.

2. Phottix Spartan beauty dish

As you know, I use a lot of artificial (flash) lighting in my images, so I'm always eager to learn about cool new lighting accessories. One interesting modifier I came across was at the stand of Phottix. The Spartan beauty dish (full specs here) is a modifier that seems to come straight out of a Transformers movie: it's easy to set up and you can remove the disc in the center to turn it into an octabox. I also like the fact that it comes with a grid. More and more, I seem to be using grids in my own lighting. The Spartan comes in two sizes: 50 cm and 70 cm. Price for the latter is about $145. That is very affordable, considering that some companies charge about that much for just a grid!

3. SMDV BRiHT-360

The SMDV BRiHT-360 is a lightweight 360 Ws battery-powered barebulb flash with removable battery that slides into the main unit.

Just as I thought I could finally finish the manuscript of the second edition of my Making Light e-book, I came across the SMDV stand... I could not help but notice their BRiHT-360 portable barebulb flashes (there were about 10 of them placed along the counter). As you may know from previous blog posts, I am a fan of their easy to set up (and even easier to break down) Speedbox series of softboxes. At Photokina, it was the BRiHT-360 that stole the show, though. As its name implies, this is a 360 Ws barebulb flash. What I like about it is that it's super lightweight at only 1.25 kg including the battery. The latter lasts about 300 full power pops. Basically, this thing produces the same amount of light as four Speedlights at the weight and price of only two. What I also like, is that it works well with SMDV's Speedboxes, who happen to be also very lightweight: the combination of the BRiHT and an 85 cm Speedbox only puts 2 kgs on the scale!

The BRiHT does TTL and HSS with Canon and Nikon cameras (using a compatible SMDV Flashwave 5 trigger) but luckily enough it also works in manual mode on my Fujifilm cameras. I am looking forward to testing this unit more in-depth and to see whether I might even be able to get some sort of HSS with my Fuji cameras by using the Cactus V6 Mark II triggers, which I reviewed here.

In the mean time, you can read the full specs of the BRiHT 360 here. In Europe, the BRiHT will be available through www.foto-morgen.de. Price should be somewhere around €700 / $750.

4. Godox

The AD600 exists in a Bowens and a Godox mount and in a TTL and manual version. All versions support HSS with Canon, Nikon and Sony (provided you use the matching Godox X1 trigger). Image © Godox.

Godox, whose Lithium battery-powered Ving V850 speedlight I’ve reviewed here, also had a stand at Photokina. Their AD600B battery powered studio flash has recently been reviewed in Shoot, the Belgian photography magazine I write for (Dutch link here). This unit packs 600 Ws of power in an affordable package with TTL and HSS support for Nikon, Canon and Sony. By default, it comes as an all-in one light with a battery that attaches directly to the body of the flash. The advantage is that you don’t need cables and you don’t have a separate power pack to worry about (or carry around).

The potential disadvantage is that if you put your light on a boom stand, especially with a heavy modifier, the setup can get a bit top-heavy. Also, if you’re using an assistant instead of a light stand, it’s quite a workout to hold a setup like this in the air for any prolonged period of time.

Image © Godox

So I was happy to see the 600 Ws Extension Head. This accessory allows you to separate the pack from the head. Just unplug the flash tube from the AD600, plug it in the Extension Head, connect the power cable to where the flash tube used to be and boom, you've transformed your all-in-one into a pack-and-head system.

Godox also had a 1200 Ws Extension Head on display: this accessory has a special, more powerful flash tube which effectively allows you to turn 2 AD600s into one 1200 Ws pack-and-head system. With so much power, you can overpower the sun even when using larger modifiers. Or, you can benefit from faster recycle times.

Finally, Godox also had an AC adaper on display which allows you to turn the AD600 into a mains-powered flash. The adapter includes a fan as well.

If you live in the US, note that the AD600 is sold by Adorama under the Flashpoint XPLOR 600 brand name.

Image © Adorama

The 600 Ws Extension Head ships without a flash tube because you use the one that comes with the AD600. Price is around $80. Image © Adorama.

The 1200 Ws one has a special flash tube which actually consists of two 600 Ws tubes. Price is around $300. Image © Adorama.

5. 3 Legged Thing Albert Tripod

I have been using the Three Legged Thing Brian tripod during my travels for the last couple of years. The main reason is that it is a lightweight travel tripod that still can be extended really high. For me, it serves a dual purpose: I can use it as a traditional tripod for long exposure photography (in which case I obviously don't extend it all the way up) but I actually use it a lot more as an impromptu light stand. Having this versatility (transformability really seems to be a theme in the products I selected in this blog post) allows me to travel with less weight without compromising on photographic opportunities. Alas, the Brian is no longer available. At Photokina, I was introduced to his successor: Albert. The Albert was improved on a number of points but still shares the Brian’s adventurous and multi-purpose DNA. Price of this carbon-fibre travel tripod system is about GBP 400 (including a ballhead).

Full specs here.

The Brian used as a light stand.

So there you have it, a quick round-up of some of some of the products that caught my attention at Photokina. If you were there, I’d love to hear what caught yours!

Review: The Cononmark i6T EX Leopard portable studio flash

I am currently updating my Making Light and Making Light 2 eBooks on off-camera flash. They will be merged into one completely revised and updated eBook with loads of new case studies and lighting diagrams. I'll keep you posted on when the eBook will be ready. As all my other English titles, it will be published through the fine folks at Craft & Vision. 

One thing that was a lot of work, but also fun to do, was updating the gear section of the book: a lot has changed since the original eBooks were published over four years ago. Luckily, most of that change is for the better: gear has become more powerful and cheaper. Maybe the only downside is that there’s simply too much stuff to choose from, nowadays. In the eBook, I'll offer you some guidelines to help you choose a system that works.

One of the main trends is that we now have a lot more choice in powerful, battery-powered studio strobes that offer TTL (Through-The-Lens) metering and HSS (High Speed Sync which allows sync speeds up to 1/8000th of a second). In this and a couple of future blog posts, I want to introduce you to some of my favorites. In this first installment, I’ll talk about the i6T EX Leopard by Chinese Lighting manufacturer Cononmark, who kindly sent me a review unit to try out. If you live in the US, you can find a rebranded version of this flash at B&H Photo, where it sells as the IMPACT Venture 600 TTL.

600 Ws is good to have when you want to overpower the ambient light and still use a large modifier like I did in this shot. Exposure: 1/800 @ f/7.1 | ISO 100. I used the SMDV Alpha 110 Softbox.

Why a portable studio strobe?

When you start to explore off-camera flash, your first stop will undoubtedly be speedlights: they’re affordable and light-weight. After a while though, chances are that you’ll start using them in ways they weren’t really intended: to overpower the sun on a bright day and/or in big modifiers because you want a softer light.

One thing you can do - and which I personally did a couple of years ago - is combine a couple of speedlights on a multi-speedlight bracket. However, the fun of that wears off quickly!

If you have one speedlight at full power and you want to underexpose the ambient light by one extra stop (or add one extra stop of flash light), all you have to do is add another speedlight. That’s still doable, right? But what if you find that you’re still one stop short with those two speedlights? If you want to double your amount of light again, you now have to add two more, leading to a total of four. Good luck to you and your budget if you happen to be using premium speedlights like the Nikon SB-910 or the Canon EX600-RT! And… if this setup still leaves you needing an extra stop of flash light, you have to add another four. Hello second mortgage!

After a while, charging all those batteries becomes almost a day-job in itself, too... Not to mention you'll want to carry some spares, too!

Battery powered studio flashes

The Cononmark i6T EX Leopard is relatively small and light but it does not feel flimsy.

That's where a more powerful, yet battery operated studio flash like the Cononmark i6T EX Leopard comes in. Portable flashes like these exist in two varieties. The pack-and-head systems have a separate battery pack with a cable that you plug into the head. The advantage is that the head is generally a little lighter, which is handy if you want to angle the light on a boom stand. The disadvantage is that they take a little more time to set up, and that they are also slightly more cumbersome to handle because of that power pack. The Leopard is part of the other variety: battery and head are one unit. The battery is detachable, though, so you can charge it separately or even buy a spare and use one while you charge the other.

Cononmark i6T EX Leopard: what's in the box?

The Leopard comes in a metal case that looks like it comes straight out of a James Bond movie. At first I thought I’d prefer a soft case, but the advantage of this case is that it protects the flash really well and that in a pinch, you could use it as a small step to put yourself or your model on, depending on who’s taller.

The James Bond-style metal case comes with all of these goodies. I especially found the grip to be handy. A trigger is included in the price.

The flash itselfs also packs a couple of features that might have been invented by Q himself. For example, the flash is rated at 600Ws output but by default, it is set up in High-Performance Mode, which offers an impressive 1 second recycle time but only delivers 300Ws. To get the full 600 Ws power, you have to press the Test button for a couple of seconds. The ring around the button will then turn blue, indicating you can now blast away at 600 Ws. Doing this will decrease your recycle time to a 3 seconds, which is still respectable considering that this flash is approximately the power of 6 to 8 speedlights.

For indoor use, the Cononmark also sports a 15W, dimmable LED modeling light.

One of the things that struck me is that the unit is very lightweight yet solidly built: with the default Comet mount, it puts a mere 1.8 kg on the scale, making it one of the lightest portable 600 Ws strobes around. The default swivel adapter that comes in the box has an opening for an umbrella so if you add 200 grams for an umbrella, you can start to produce loads of beautiful soft ligt on location while carrying only 2 kilograms in lighting equipment. I used the Leopard with the optional Bowens adapter though, because I own a lot of lighting modifiers that feature this mount, such as the cheap and easy-to-set-up Phottix Luna Folding Octa or the SMDV Alpha 110. Including the Bowens mount and the battery, the unit weighs 2.2 kilo.

Other specifications

• Power: 600 Ws
• Flash Duration (t0,5): 1/380 - 1/18500 sec
• Wireless remote receiver: built-in, auto-switches to the trigger used
• Sync Mode: wireless trigger, photosensitive receiver, sync cable
• Color temperature: 5500 K +/- 100K
• Modeling lamp: Led, 1500LM, 4200K
• Recycling time (power): 0.2 - 1 sec
• Recycling time (standard): 0.3 - 3 sec
• Full power output flashes (5s for one flash): approximately 400 times
• Overheat Protection: yes
• Dimensions: 210 x 100 mm
• Net weight: 1.4 kg (battery not included), 1.8 kg including battery
• Battery properties: Li-Ion battery, 2000mA (29.6Wh)

Nikon, Canon and Sony HSS and TTL triggers

Although there’s a plug to sync the flash with a cable, if you want to take advantage of the cool features like TTL and HSS, you’ll need Cononmarks wireless ABC Radio Trigger. This trigger exists in a Nikon, Canon and Sony version. The photos in this blog post were made with a Sony Alpha 7 RII. The trigger lets you fire up to three groups of remote (compatible Cononmk) flashes and you can combine manual and TTL settings in those groups. First and Second Curtain Sync and High Speed Sync up to 1/8.000th are available.

And Fujifilm?

As you might know, I'm a Fujifilm user. There currently isn't a dedicated Fujifilm trigger. I don't know of any portable studio flash system that has one, for that matter. My test unit came with a Nikon and Sony trigger and I was able to use the Nikon trigger with my Fujifilm cameras, albeit obviously only in manual mode and without High-Speed Sync. Still, I could remotely change the manual power levels from the trigger, which is convenient. By adding 2 Cactus V6 Mark II triggers to the mix, I could also use the Leopard in Power Sync with my Fujifilm X-Pro 2 (all the way up to 1/8000th). More on that in this blog post.

Cononmark's ABC trigger gets its name from the fact that it can control up to three groups of flashes. You have a choice between manual (with power settings from full power down to 1/128th), TTL (including up to 3 stops EV) or a combination of both. The trigger exists in 4 versions: Canon, Nikon and 2 for Sony. The Brightness of the modeling lamp can also be set from the ABC trigger.

Having never worked with either the Sony or the Leopard, I was expecting all kinds of issues but everything worked straight out of the (Bond-styled) box. I was impressed! The less you have to struggle with your gear, the more you can pay attention to your model.

Pricing and availability

The i6T EX Leopard is available directly from Cononmark for about $1.000 (excluding shipping and taxes). Contact Sue (queok@163.com) for more details. If you live in Europe, I would recommend buying the unit through a reseller such as Mikrosat (this is a link to the Nikon version). At 1.299 € including VAT, the Leopard sits in the mid-range of battery powered studio flashes. Note that the trigger of your choice is included in that price. The Bowens adapter is 35 € extra.

What I liked

• All-in-one concept: battery and flash are integrated
• Easy to set up and works as advertised
• Super fast recycle time of 1 second if you're working at 300 Ws
• Lightweight and compact, even with optional Bowens mount
• Trigger is available in Canon, Nikon and 2 Sony versions. The flash will auto-detect which trigger is used
• Nikon trigger will also work with my Fujifilm cameras (although manual-only and no HSS)

What could be improved

• If you’re into multi-flash setups, the trigger only works with other compatible Cononmark flashes. There currently is no way to include for example a regular speedlight (e.g. as a fill light) in an HSS and TTL setup, although you could obviously still use that flash when you set it up as an optical slave
• Locking mechanism of the optional Bowens mount is perfectible. I added an extra washer under the release lever to facilitate the release

High Speed Sync is essential to get shots like this as it allows you to freeze the movement. Exposure: 1/1000th @ ISO 200 @ f/8. I made this shot in High Speed Sync after having only used my test camera, the Sony Alpha 7 RII and the Leopard together for one hour. 

A big thank you to my model: Matthias, dance instructor at I Believe in Lebbeke, Belgium. You rock!

Tutorial review: The Complete Guide To Portraiture by Sandro Miller

When I first heard about ‘The Complete Guide To Portraiture & Building A Body Of Work For Print & Publication’ I knew this was one I just had to watch. After all, it’s about all the things I love in photography: travel, portraiture, lighting and retouching. So I contacted the guys over at RGG EDU (that's short for Rob and Gary's Great EDUcation), the producers of this video, and they were kind enough to set me up with a review copy and a really cool discount code for readers of this blog. Full details are at the end of this post but basically, it means that as a reader of my blog, you can get RGG EDU's newly released 6 hour Capture One Pro training video as a free bonus when you purchase the Sandro Miller tutorial.

UPDATE: the discount code no longer works, but there is currently (until May 29th, 2017) a 66 percent discount on this tutorial, making this an even much better deal than the one I had for you back when I originally wrote this review...

This tutorial follows internationally acclaimed photographer Sandro Miller from start to finish on a project in which he photographs indigenous tribes in the remote and sometimes downright dangerous parts of Papua New Guinea. Here's the official trailer below.

This day and age, everyone and his dog seem to be producing video tutorials geared towards photographers. As I can tell from my own area of expertise, Lightroom training, there’s a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. Yet, the videos from RGG EDU, a relatively young photography tutorial website, definitely fall in the ‘wheat’ category. Having bought, watched and highly appreciated their ‘The Complete Guide To Composite Photography, Color & Composition with Erik Almås’, I knew I could expect high quality, and I wasn’t disappointed. By the way, here's an in-depth (Dutch-only, unfortunately) review of the Erik Almås tutorial.

Sandro Miller

One of Sandro's most recent books is the result of a seventeen-year collaboration between photographer and subject. I'll try and keep that in mind the next time I make a one-minute portrait of someone :-)

To be really honest, I did not know Sandro Miller. At least not by name. But I did know some of his work, and chances are you do, too: just google his latest book Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, which features photographs that Sandro made during his 17 year friendship with this incredibly versatile actor.

Incidentally, this is just one of the things this tutorial taught me: getting a book published takes time and patience. Sandro visited Cuba 14 times before he did a book on it. But... it is not undoable, especially after watching this tutorial...

What’s in this tutorial?

In this tutorial, we get to follow Sandro while he is preparing a new book project: a series of portraits of tribal people in Papua New Guinea. 

Obviously, the highlight of the tutorial is the actual documentary in which you get to see him set up a makeshift studio, set up his lights and interact with the people he photographs. If this tutorial where a five course dinner: this would be the main course. But the appetizers, served as 'prerequisites' and desserts (the compositing tutorials and final interviews) are just as... mouthwatering.

Gear and Lighting Prerequisite 

First of all, there are a number of so-called prerequisites or series of introductory videos: there's one about the gear that Sandro uses and then another series of videos about lighting where you can see how he puts that gear to use in his studio in Chicago. The contrast between the high-end equipment (Sandro's studio looks like a mix of a Profoto and Broncolor flagship store) and what he used in Papua New Guinea could not be bigger. It’s another proof that it’s the photographer matters more than the gear, or as the publisher of my own eBooks, David duChemin would say: Gear is good, Vision is better!

The idea of the prerequisite videos is to teach you some of the basics so that you can follow along better when the tutorial shifts to a higher gear. To that effect, we see Sandro make 2 portraits: a moody male portrait and a fashion portrait of a woman. During these sessions, Sandro explains why he uses a certain light and how he modifies it with flags. We also get to see that lighting is often a game of inches...

“‘I can create a novel in a man’s face by the way that I light it’”

— Sandro

I found it interesting to see the progression in the images: from ‘I can do that, too’ to ‘Damn, that’s a setup I have to remember’. It was also kind of comforting to see that even a highly respected portrait photographer has to work a scene and a model to get to great results. Success does not come easy. In fact, if there’s one theme that recurred throughout the work of Sandro Miller in general and this tutorial in particular, it’s the importance of practice, perseverance and attention to detail. I really picked up lots of little nuggets from those prerequisites.

Digitech prerequisite

Another thing that I found really interesting was the interview with Shad Wilson. Shad works - amongst others - as a so called Digitech: a digital tech assistant. He even has his own custom truck stacked to the roof with tripods, pelicases and light stands. Sandro being a high-end photographer, he can afford the budget for a Digitech to come along on this project.

'I'll be in the shed...' Shad WIlson talks Gary from RGG EDU through how he turned a regular Pelicase into a sun-shielded laptop case.

But even for mere mortals like you and I, this section has some really interesting advice on backup and workflow that can be helpful when you have to be your own Digitech. I also learned an interesting idea from this section: Sandro already had a specific idea from the start as to how the final images should look. He created that specific style in Photoshop and then gave that file to the Digital Tech. Shad emulated the look in Capture One so that he could apply it to the images while shooting tethered.

Postprocessing and retouching prerequisites.

As this tutorial is as almost as much about postprocessing as it is about photography, there’s also a couple of introductory videos on postprocessing and retouching.

In these videos, we get to know Pratik Naik of Solstice Retouch. Pratik is a world renowned retoucher and another example that RGG EDU will only work with people who really know their stuff.

Pratik has some interesting ideas on how to redefine some of Photoshop's shortcuts so they are grouped together better for retouching. Even though these prerequisite tutorials were primarily aimed at beginners, I picked up a couple of interesting tips, not in the least about Capture One, which I I'm not so familiar with as I am obviously more of a Lightroom user. Yet, the things I learned definitely made me want to check out Capture One more in detail.

Again, the idea is to get you up to speed for the ‘real’ postprocessing sections towards the end of the video, where the Papua New Guinea portraits that were taken on a green screen are composited into the backgrounds which were also photographed on location, but separately.

Sandro shot the backgrounds separately. At first, I had a hard time understanding why but after seeing the whole series come together, it made sense!

I have to admit that at first, I thought it was a strange idea to be shooting people against a green backdrop and then, sometimes as little as 100 feet further, shoot the actual backdrop separately, only to combine them later in Photoshop. I mean, why not just put your subject against the backdrop of your choice and photograph him right there and then, right?

It's what I have been doing so far with all of my travel portraits. It was only after viewing a number of finished images that I understood why this at first sight overly complicated procedure made sense: by having separate control over the background and the foreground and by also being able to exactly control the lighting of the subject in his makeshift studio (much more than under the glaring Papuan sun), the resulting photographs work much better together as a series. This in turn makes the work better suited for a book. It's definitely something I might also try in the future. 

The actual Papua New Guinea documentary

Although ‘only’ slightly over an hour, this is obviously the ‘pièce de résistance’ of this tutorial. Here we get to see Sandro created the raw material (pun intended) that will form the basis of an actual book project. We see Sandro check out locations that can either be suitable to create his makeshift studio or as a so called black plate, a background for compositing.

The setup (left) and the resulting raw file (right). Sandro used a digital Hasselblad on this shoot so he has virtually unlimited postprocessing options in terms of recovery and dynamic range.

To me, the most important take away from this video was that you don't need expensive or complicated lighting setups to create really impactful images. Everything was done within a relatively simple, double diffused soft box. No rim light, no reflectors, nothing.

The video below has some behind-the-scenes footage and it gives you a good idea of what to expect in the full-length tutorial.

For me, the tutorial also re-emphasized the importance of having a good fixer on location. When you spend a lot of money on a location project in an area or a country that you're not familiar with, it really is a good idea to set some money aside and hire someone who can help you, not only logistically but most importantly help you scout interesting locations and faces and interact with them.

In terms of makeshift studios, it does not get much more makeshift than this :-)

On my most recent trip to India, I did exactly that: we hired a really great local guy who helped us find interesting people and locations and who at the same time could translate  as my own Hindi is limited to ‘Hello’ and ‘Look this way’ and ‘Look that way’.

I would rather buy an f/1.8 portrait lens and have some money left for a fixer, than buy the most expensive lens there is and not have any budget left for travel, let alone a fixer. If you're interested, below you can find a short video with some of my own location lighting work. Although it's not in the Hasselblad range, I'm very happy with the dynamic range of my Fujifilm X-Pro 2 and I'm even happier its price isn't in the Hasselblad range, either!

The Compositing videos

As much as I liked the actual on location video in Papua New Guinea, I was even more looking forward to the compositing videos. And again, I was not disappointed. Pratik does a really good job of explaining how to blend these rather complex subjects with all their feathers and beads into the background. I found his explanation on how to get rid of the green fringes that remain (shooting against a green backdrop is no miracle solution) and how to use the blur and smudge brushes to tweak the mask, invaluable.

Before... As you can see from the screenshot, the original mask leaves a lot of problems in terms of green fringing. Pratik shows a couple of really interesting tips that I have never seen before (and Lord knows I've watched my share of compositing videos) on how to get rid of those.

And after... The final image is dark and moody. Yet, by keeping everything nicely organized in layers, adjustment layers and groups, everything can still be changed should the photographer prefer a different blend of foreground and background, or a different white balance. By the way, these quick screen grabs don't do the images much justice...

As a photographer, you have to have your own characteristic style. Part of that style is obviously created during capture, but this tutorial really made clear that an important part is also added in postproduction. The original files were rather dark and flat. Using a bunch of adjustment layers and filters, Pratik turns them into very moody portraits. As a nice extra, the tutorial includes a number of backgrounds and original raw files so you can follow along with the compositing videos. And I really recommend you do because it's the best way to learn anything. 

Two images waiting to be combined into one...

Another advanced technique I picked up was how to use Photoshop's Blend If options to restrict the effect of an Adjustment layer to specific areas.

The printing videos

In these videos, we see Sandro meet up with his longtime friend and printer, Jon Scott of JS Graphics. We get to see Jon prepare the final images for print and if you have ever printed on a large format printer yourself, you'll recognise the mix of anxiety and excitement that you feel when an expensive large-format print comes rolling out of the printer. This section wasn't as in-depth as I wanted it to be but on the other hand, you could probably easily fill another 11 hours with just a printing tutorial.

Sandro and Jon inspecting a large format print. As an interesting side-note, this image, which was shot with available light and was not composited, is one of my favorite images of the entire series.

Final interviews: hug a book!

This tutorial wraps up with two more interviews: the first is with Sandro’s publisher, Martha Hallet from Glitterati. It's an interesting talk about the publishing business and all of the artistic, financial and marketing considerations that go into  publishing a book. I chuckled when I heard Martha say that Sandro wanted to use seven inks for the Malkovich book (compared to the standard of four) and how they finally settled for five.

“I dont’t want to look at a book on an iPad. That’s ridiculous. You want to feel a book. You want to hug a book!”

— Sandro

This section really is an ode to the printed photo book and rightly so. One thing I found missing was some insight as to how to actually layout a book like this. The publisher goes briefly into it but an interview with the graphic designer would really have interested me, too. Well, I guess the RGG EDU guys had to draw the line somewhere!

The final interview not only gives an insight in Sandro's career, which spans four decades, but also in his amazing collection of photo books, which seems to span 40 feet!

That ode continues in the last interview with Sandro about his life and career. Sandro is filmed against a bookshelf that literally contains hundreds of photo books. After all the tech talk of the previous videos, this more inspirational interview is a great way to end a great tutorial.

Conclusion

As you may have guessed by now, ‘The Complete Guide To Portraiture & Building A Body Of Work For Print & Publication’ is an excellent tutorial in my opinion. If you're into location portraiture, postproduction and the entire process of working towards a published book, whether it's self published or with a publisher, this is something you must watch and then... probably watch again.

“Everything is relative”

— Einstein

Update: the discount codes in the next paragraph are no longer valid but as mentioned in the introduction, there is currently (until May 29, 2017) a Memorial Day discount on this tutorial that offers no less than 66 percent off, making the price only $98. And, even better, if your total bill exceeds $99 (in other words, if you buy two tutorials), code REMEMBER gets you an additional 25 percent off your entire bill AND if you spend more than $300, code REMEMBER35 shaves 35 percent off your total bill! Only for two more days!

Two fantastic RGG EDU discount codes for readers of this blog

Now... about the price. At first sight, $299 isn't cheap but as Einstein said: 'Everything is relative'. For the price of a camera bag, you get 11 hours of very well produced, in-depth, concise and above all very motivating training that will probably do more for your photography than any camera bag ever will!

Knowing what it already takes to produce a relatively simple Lightroom or Photoshop tutorial, I can only imagine the planning, effort, time and money it has taken to create the Sandro tutorial. So I would say that although not cheap, the price is more than fair for the length, quality and production value of the tutorial.

“With code MTW25, you basically get RGG EDU’s new 6 hour Capture One Pro tutorial for free!”

And if $299 is too much to pay in one go, you can even finance it in monthly installments of $29.

Better still, I’ve got two very cool discount codes for you, my dear readers: code MTW10 gets you 10 percent off the Sandro tutorial (or any other RGG EDU tutorial, for that matter). Code MTW25 even gets you 25 percent off on any order that's over 375$. That basically means you can get RGG EDU's freshly announced Capture One tutorial (a $79 value) completely free: the trick is to add both tutorials in your shopping cart, enter the code MTW25 and you'll pay less for both than the regular $299 price of the Sandro tutorial alone! But don't wait too long, because these codes expire end of August, 2016.

Before I forget: the RGG EDU contest!

When you buy the tutorial, you also get access to a private Facebook group and you get to enter the Sandro Portrait Photography Contest which RGG EDU specifically set up for this tutorial. The contest has $50.000 in prizes! I told you these RGG EDU guys don’t do half work… Find out more about the contest here.

Subscribe to my newsletter and get my '10 Tips for Better Travel Photographs' for free.

And - shameless plug to end this long review - if this tutorial gets you in a traveling mood, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter: you’ll receive my 10 tips for better travel photographs absolutely free.

Finally, if you want to do more than just read about travel photography, Matt Brandon and I have just announced the 2017 edition of our Location Portraiture and Lighting Masterclass in Delhi and Varanasi, India.

Announcing the second edition of the Location Portraiture and Lighting Masterclass in Varanasi, India

I am pleased to announce that the incomparable travel photographer Matt Brandon and yours truly have teamed up again for the second edition of the Location Portraiture and Lighting Masterclass in Varanasi, India.

You'll learn how to create impactful, cinematic 'environmental portraits' by combining wide angle lenses, shallow depth-of-field and some extra light. At night, there will be plenty of time to discuss the images' catch of the day and suitable postproduction techniques.

Full details will follow in a couple of weeks - UPDATE: full details can be found here - but here's the lowdown: this is not just a travel workshop nor only a portrait workshop. It's not merely a street photography nor just a lighting workshop and it's definitely not only a postprocessing workshop. In fact, it's all five of those elements blended together in an incomparable mix, pretty much like the Indian chai we'll be having when we're discussing images at the end of the day. In short, if you're into any of the above, you should seriously consider coming. If you're into most or all of them, you have no excuse not to come!

We're wrapping up some final details, but the dates are already set and I already wanted to share these with you: this unique workshop will be held from Saturday, February 25th 2017 until Sunday, March 5th. We will meet in New Delhi and after two introductory days of shooting the bustling street life there, we will go to Varanasi. For the rest of the week, this holy city will become the beautiful backdrop for our portrait sessions. In fact, probably the only thing more photogenic than the city itself is its inhabitants. We will photograph sadhus and silversmiths, fishmongers and rickshaw drivers.

We will use available light but we'll help that available light a hand (or two) by bringing our own available lights (in the form of speedlights and portable studio flashes) to the party. 

Best of all, while other workshops often have an 8:1 or even 10:1 guest/workshop leader ratio, we're limiting subscriptions to only 6 participants (so a 3:1 ratio), so you will have ample opportunity to interact with us and with the people we'll be photographing.

In this workshop, you'll learn how to make beautifully lit images even in the harshest of natural light conditions.

This workshop is open to all levels of photographers using mirrorless or DSLR-style cameras who know the basics about operating their cameras. You don't need to be a flash wizard, but we'll help you become one! And if you're already familiar with flash, we'll teach you more than a couple of tricks to take your knowledge and your images up a couple of notches. We've called this 'a Lighting Masterclass' because that's what we want you to be by the time you return back home: a master of lighting, both available light and flash, and any mix in between, for that matter.  Below are some examples of the kinds of pictures we made on the first edition of this workshop last year and previous workshops in Delhi.

If you want to be first to learn when the workshop website goes up and final details and pricing are announced, use the form below. (Note: even if you're already subscribed to the regular MoreThanWords newsletter, I recommend you fill out this form).

UPDATE: No need to fill out the form as the Masterclass' page is now up: you can find it here.

We used a so-called 'Short Lighting' light setup here because it works great with character faces like this sadhu's.

Have your travel juices already started to flow? Subscribe to my regular newsletter and get this free eBook with '10 tips for better travel photographs'!

High Speed Sync for Fujifilm cameras: a review of the Cactus V6 Mk II radio transceiver

The shot above is probably the most important Fujifilm image I have shot in the past 4 years.

I am joking obviously, at least as far as the contents of the image go. This is by all accounts a crappy, ill-composed, flash-lit picture of a toy bulldozer!

Yet, it’s the fact that it was obviously lit by flash that makes this picture so interesting. Because… look at the Exif-info: that 1/8.000th isn’t a typo. No, after 5 years of Fujifilm X-series, it marks the start of a new era where Fujifilm users who are into flash photography, will no longer be limited by their Fuji’s sync speed. On an X-Pro 2, that is 1/250th, on an X-T1, it’s 1/180th of a second. From now on, you’ll be able to use these cameras with flash at up to 1/8.000 of a second. The little wonder of technology that makes this possible is a radio transceiver called the Cactus V6 Mark II. And the opening shot is the first image I shot with it. 

The Cactus V6 Mark II. Affordable High Speed Sync for Fujifilm users.

As I wrote in this review, I was already quite fond of the original Cactus V6 Mark I as a radio trigger for Fujifilm cameras because it lets you control the power of say a Nikon SB900 manually and remotely by connecting it to a V6 switched to Rx (receiver) mode. Pop a second V6 on your camera’s hotshoe in Tx (transmitter) mode, and you’re good to go. You have 4 different groups that you can assign flashes to and each group’s power can be controlled individually. When changing power levels, you can do it all conveniently from the V6-transmitter on your camera and you can do so for one group separately or for all groups proportionally. The V6 Mark II keeps all those cool features and adds what I have been hoping and waiting for ever since I switched to the Fuji X-system: High Speed Sync. Short of TTL, which I rarely use anyway, and High Speed Sync, which is about the only thing I miss from my DSLR days, the original V6 did everything I wanted it to. And now the Mark II adds just that one missing feature.

What is HSS?

Let’s backtrack a little. When you shoot flash, traditionally, you have to take the so-called X-sync speed - typically around 1/200th of a second - of your camera into account: you can only sync a flash at shutter speeds up to the sync speed.

“No longer having a sync speed to worry about, means you can use your expensive fast Fujifilm primes wide open and still use flash!”

Now, did you notice the word ‘traditionally’? I put it in there because, for a couple of years already, most camera and flash manufacturers have found ways around this limitation, effectively letting you use your flash with sync speeds all the way up to 1/8000th of a second.

A flash used on a camera with a sync speed of 1/200th of a second. Left: 1/200th of a second, middle: 1/320th of a second. Right: 1/500th of a second. Failure to respect the X-sync speed of your camera will result in the infamous black bar across your image.

Why is this such a big deal for Fujifilm users?

Working at 1/250th or 1/180th of a second with flash forces me to use very small apertures, resulting in a very busy background.

As I said in the previous paragraph, most camera and flash manufacturers already support HSS, except… Fujifilm… They are working on an HSS enabled flash (the EF-X500), that would even have the advantage of throwing TTL in the mix. By contrast, the V6 Mark II is manual-only, although you can change that manual power level remotely. However, that flash still isn’t available. Latest rumors point at a September release. According to Fujifilm’s press release, the EF-X500 would sport an optical triggering system. The V6 Mk II uses radio, which is more reliable in direct sunlight, is exactly the kind of situation where you would need HSS in the first place. So, the upcoming EF-X500 and the Cactus V6 needn’t be competitors. On the contrary, they might end up working well together…

Now about those HSS advantages: there are two of them, and they’re both super important for flash users. First of all, no longer having a sync speed to worry about, means you can use your expensive fast Fujifilm primes wide open and still use flash, as the example below shows.

Compare this image to the previous one: the background here is nice and blurry. It makes you focus on the subject in the foreground.

Thanks to the Cactus V6 Mark II, I was able to use flash (in this case a Cactus RF60, but I also tried it with a Nikon SB-900) and shoot at f/2.8 at 1/8.000th of a second. With any other trigger, I would have had to shoot at 1/250th of a second on my X-Pro 2 (and even 1/180th of a second on the X-T1). That means I would have to use an aperture of f/16. I don’t know about you, but I did not buy the 56 mm or the 50-140 mm to use it only at f/16! HSS works with Cactus' own RF60 flash and with a large number of third-party flashes (some 60 of them), too. The full list is detailed at the bottom of this page. Apparently, one of the most important criteria that the third party flash has to have is that it has to support HSS.

Now, in all honesty, there’s another way you could solve this problem, at least when your subject is stationary. That’s by putting a neutral density (ND) filter over your lens, in this example a 5 stop one. However, as anyone who’s ever used NDs will testify: using them adds another layer of complexity to your flash photography. Also, as they’re an extra piece of glass, the cheaper ones may have a slight impact on your image quality and the stronger ones will often introduce a colour cast, too.

And finally, ND’s won’t help you if you want to freeze fast moving outdoor action, like dancers jumping, with flash outdoors. That’s because at those slow regular sync speeds, the ambient light that falls on your subject will cause some blur around it in the final image. For that blur to disappear, you need to use faster shutter speeds.

Without High Speed Sync, the only way to use flash, e.g. as fill light when the light is really bright and contrasty outside, is to use a truckload of neutral density. In this image, I had to use over 10 stops to get the aperture down to F/1.8 to get the cinematic shallow depth of field that I wanted. 

This image was shot with a Sony camera and a 600 Ws CononMk i6 EX Leopard using High Speed Sync. Up until now, you simply could not make this kind of action-freezing, flash-lit shot with a Fujifilm X-series camera other than the X100 series. Thanks to the Cactus V6 Mark II, now you can.

Normal HSS

This is where High Speed Sync comes in. I won’t copy the V6 user manual - in fact, it’s 100 pages long and you can download it here if you want to - but the procedure is rather straightforward. It took me 5 minutes to get my X-Pro 2, one cactus V6 Mark II trigger and one Cactus RF60 flash shooting in High Speed Sync. Honestly, I was surprised at how smooth it all went.

The Cactus RF60 is a manual flash that has a built-in radio receiver that allows HSS with the V6 Mk II trigger. In the case of non-Cactus flashes, you have to attach them to a Cactus V6 receiver. Although the trigger on your Fujifilm camera needs to be a V6 Mk II, Cactus are working on a firmware update that will support Power Sync if you use the V6 as a receiver with a non-Cactus flash. For Normal HSS support with those non-Cactus flashes, you'll always need to use a V6 Mk II as a receiver.

The Cactus V6 Mark II will not only enable HSS with Cactus’ own RF60 flash, but with just about any speedlight, like the Nikon SB-900 or the cheap Godox V850 flashes. The advantage of Cactus’ own RF60 is that it has a built-in receiver. In the case of non-Cactus flashes, you have to attach them to a Cactus V6 receiver. Although the trigger on your Fujifilm camera needs to be a V6 Mark II, Cactus are working on a firmware update that will enable users to use the V6 Mark I as an HSS-enabled receiver.

The only thing you have to do - once - is ‘train’ your trigger to get to know your specific Fujifilm camera: for that, you need to go into the trigger’s menu and it will ask you to fire one shot at 1/1000th of a second. That’s all. Once that’s done, you simply set the trigger to ‘Normal HSS’ mode. Specifically for Fujifilm cameras, as they don’t officially support High Speed Sync yet, you also have to set ‘Forced HSS’ to ‘On’ when you want to shoot at speeds higher than your sync speed. Luckily, you don’t have to dive into any menus here: You simply push the rotary wheel on the back of the V6. When you’re back to using shutter speeds below the sync speed, don’t forget to push the rotary wheel again. I found myself sometimes inadvertently switching between those two modes simply because the wheel had bumped into something. Cactus have already replied they would fix this in the next firmware update.

I put a flash outside, behind the door. Without the flash, either Serge would have been completely dark or the outside world would have been completely blown out. Thanks to HSS, I could use the 16 mm at f/1.4 and 1/8000th of a second. Without HSS, I would have had to shoot this at f/8 to stay within the X-Pro 2’s 1/250th of a second sync speed.

Without getting too technical, what happens in Normal HSS mode is that the flash fires almost stroboscopically during the shutter speed of say 1/2000th of a second. Yes, it’s hard to believe but in that short period of time, the flash fires more than once but that’s what happens! The downside is that a lot of flash power gets wasted, but that’s the case for all HSS systems that work like this, also Nikon’s and Canon’s!

Power Sync

That’s why Cactus has also included a second way of letting you work beyond the sync speed of your camera, and that’s called Power Sync. This technology works differently: it uses a slice of the flash curve’s tail and matches that up with your shutter speed. So in a way, your flash acts as a continuous light source, if only for that very short shutter speed. For this technology to work, the flash duration needs to be as long (slow) as possible. That’s why it will only work at full power. The advantage is that less light is lost, so when there’s a lot of ambient light you need to tame, or you want to use very big, light-sucking modifiers, Power Sync might give you some more mileage. The downside compared to Normal HSS is that you cannot dial your flash power down from full power. In the V6’s menu, you can adjust which part of the flash curve is used, simply by turning a dial from 0 to 32. For example, for the RF60, I found a setting of 28 to be ideal. Back in the day, the Pocketwizard TT1 and TT5 system offered a similar option of adjusting the sync timing but you needed to program the units via your computer. Compared to this, Cactus’ implementation is incredibly simple and straightforward.

I’d recommend starting out in Normal HSS and using Power Sync when you really need to squeeze every last photon out of your flashes. Power Sync is also the option to choose when you want to work with studio flashes beyond the sync speed.

Two shots, both with the flash at full power. The darkest one (left) was shot in Normal HSS mode. The slightly brighter one (right) was shot in Power Sync mode. In both shots, the subject was standing at the same distance to the flash. So the difference you see is the extra power that Power Sync gives you over Normal HSS.

Power Sync is also the way to go if you want to use studio flashes. This shot was taken with the 600 Ws Godox AD600B, attached to a Cactus V6 Mark II receiver and triggered by a Cactus V6 Mark II transmitter on my Fujifilm camera. At first, I could not get this to work, but after contacting Cactus' support, they told me that for the moment, when working with these kinds of powerful strobes in Power Sync, you have to to set the receiver in Nikon mode. 

So does this this mean you can sell your ND filters?

Not quite: if you really like to work with flash and use your precious primes wide open, there will still be instances where even at 1/8000th of a second, you’ll have too much ambient light at f/1.4 or f/1.2 and ISO 200. And your Fuji’s electronic shutter is not an option, as it does not work with flash at all. Although in a pinch you could drop your ISO to 100, I don’t recommend you do because it effectively decreases your dynamic range. In those cases, you might still want to use a two or three stop ND filter. Also, although HSS is certainly more user-friendly than using ND filters, it wastes flash power. So, an ND filter can still come in handy on those occasions where you really need to squeeze every last photon of light out of your flash.

Also, Normal HSS and Power Sync do not work on all Fujifilm cameras: I have personally tried it on the X-Pro 1, X-Pro 2, X-T1 and X100T. According to Cactus, it does not work on the X-E2. I don't know about the X-E1, X-A1, X-M1 or X-E2s or older versions of the X100. 

Finally, if you want to work with bigger flashes that don’t play ball with Cactus’ Power Sync technology, you will still need ND filters to keep shutter speeds under your sync speed when working with wide open apertures.

Ergonomics and handling

The V6II is compatible in Normal HSS and Power Sync mode with Cactus’ own RF60 flash (obviously) but also with a lot of flashes that you might have lying around from your pre-Fujifilm days. For example, I tried it with an SB900 and it also worked. Oddly enough, the few flashes HSS does not work with, are the current Fujifilm flashes like the EF-42. For optimal compatibility and performance, you can choose the flash model (e.g. Nikon SB-900) in the menu of the V6.

“The V6 Mark II should be in the bag of every Fujifilm photographer who’s even halfway interested in using flash on location. ”

Putting my old Nikon SB900 back to life - and not just ordinary life but life in the fast lane! By putting it on a V6 Mark II, I can use it in HSS mode with my X-Pro 2.

Putting my old Nikon SB900 back to life - and not just ordinary life but life in the fast lane! By putting it on a V6 Mark II, I can use it in HSS mode with my X-Pro 2.

The Cactus V6 has an easy-to use interface with 4 direct-access buttons, a control wheel and a pass-through TTL hotshoe, but as a result of that, it’s also quite wide. In fact, on some cameras, especially the X-T10, it makes it hard to adjust the shutter speed dial. The easiest workaround is to set your shutter speed dial to the T-position and then adjust your shutter speed with the front dial anywhere between your fastest shutter speed and 30 seconds. You did know that trick, didn’t you?

On the X-Pro 2, there’s another thing to watch out for: don’t turn the lever that secures the trigger to the hotshoe too far to the right, or you will not be able to change your ISO anymore because it would refrain you from lifting the ISO dial.

Because of the design of the X-T1 and the newly announced X-T2, there is more clearance between the bottom of the trigger and the dials on the top of these cameras and I don’t expect any issues there.

Finally, make sure you slide the V6 all the way in the hotshoe. If necessary, push it a little. I’ve had a couple of instances where my flashes did not fire because I had not pushed it all the way in.

Conclusion

The V6 Mark II should be in the bag of every Fujifilm photographer who’s even halfway interested in using flash on location. It dramatically extends your creative options in terms of working wide open and/or freezing action and it does so in a way that is relatively easy to understand and set up, especially considering that Fujifilm does not have native HSS support at the moment. On top of that, it lets you put those old Canon or Nikon flashes that you might still lingering about in the cupboard to good use. Considering it’s currently the only trigger that currently does that, the price (under $200 for a pair) is a bargain, too. I know more than one Fujifilm photographer whose leather wrist wrap costs more than a V6!

In Belgium, the units can be bought through www.grobet.be, amongst other dealers. In the rest of Europe, the V6 Mark II and the RF60 are available for pre-order through the website of X-Photographer Damien Lovegrove via this link. Damien's even got a cool bonus: if you buy at least two units or a kit consisting of at least one trigger and one flash, you get one of his - excellent - training videos on off camera flash for free! More details over here.

For this image, I exceptionally dropped the ISO to 100 so I could shoot at f/1.8 and still keep the background dark enough.

Interested in more news and reviews?

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The Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers

Over $2.400 of resources for only $87

Every once in a while, I blog about a bundle that I think is interesting for photographers. Now, I nearly missed this one, because I thought it was a bundle for web designers. Turns out it is really much more a bundle with web and marketing tools for professional and semi-professional photographers and bloggers. The Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers bundles a bunch of eBooks, video tutorials, software and templates that, when purchased separately, would set you back over $2.400. Now you can get them for only $87. I was actually planning on buying two courses when I got word that they were included in the bundle and those alone would have cost me around $200. So getting the bundle was a no-brainer.

My personal top-10 of what's included

I'll just give you my personal top-10, but there are many more resources. For example, there's a tonne of Wordpress-based content (photography themes, shopping cart plug-ins, ...) but as I use Squarespace for this website, that content has little value to me. If you're running a Wordpress-based website, chances are that you might want to get the bundle for the Wordpress-based content alone. Check out the full list of resources here!

1. Making your Mark Online: Digital Marketing eCourse for Photographers

This is a marketing for photographers course by Corwin Hiebert, manager to one of the most successful photographers I know: David duChemin. So, I figure, if there's one guy a photographer can learn digital marketing from, it's Corwin! As photographers, we are generally too busy being creative to bother about the marketing. In fact, some of us consider ourselves to be artists and find that 'marketing' is a dirty word. Yet, simply making art does not pay the rent or feed the children or the cat... And even when you don't need the money, wouldn't your rather have thousands of people seeing what you created rather than hundreds? That's what this  course is all about.

Normally, this resource is $79, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

2. The Creative Composites Bundle

In this course by Photoshop wizard Serge Ramelli, you'll learn all about compositing: putting a model you photographed in a studio into a different background. 

Normally, this resource is $135, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

3. Affiliate Marketing - Monetizing Your Website with Value-Based Content

This is a brand new course by Dave Seeram, of which I've previously watched and enjoyed 24/7 Photo Pro on how to make your website make money for you. 

Normally, this resource is $97, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

4. SEO Cookbook for Photographers

This eBook teaches you the basics of Search Engine Optimization. We all know how much time and effort it takes to keep a photography website and blog alive with fresh content. This eBook shows you how investing a little more effort can attract a lot more visitors to your website.

Normally, this resource is $99, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

5. Designer Sets of Social Media Templates

This is a set of drag-and-drop templates that let you easily create Facebook banners and the like.

Normally, this resource is $89, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

6. Photographer Logo & Overlay Templates

If you're looking for a professionally designed logo for your business cards, this set by Brad Wayland has a couple of great-looking options.

Normally, this resource is $48, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

7. Photo Collage Templates for Social Media

A sample of the templates that are included in the bundle.

Another set of customisable drag-and-drop templates.

Normally, this resource is $98, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

8. Original Designer Fonts Bundle

76 script-based fonts that work really well with senior portrait, wedding or other announcement cards.

Normally, this resource is $39.99, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

9. Illustrator Quickstart Video Course

As a photographer, you sometimes need Adobe Illustrator, but if you're anything like me, you haven't got a clue how it works. That's where this Quickstart course comes in. It teaches you the basics!

Normally, this resource is $20, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

10. Power of Planning. A Guide for Creating Your Editorial Calendar.

This is one that interests me a lot: as many photographers and bloggers, I consider myself to be more creative than organised - and that's an understatement. The result is I don't blog as much as I should - and could. This training resource promises to help me get a grip on planning my blogging better. I look forward to trying it out!

Normally, this resource is $79, now it's included in the 5 Day Deal Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers.

Adding it all up

I've done the math, and this top-10 alone would cost me $783,99. Now I've purchased it (and I did actually purchase it - I did not receive it for free) at a fraction of that cost.

I suggest you head over to the 5 Day Deal website to check what other resources are included that might interest you even more than this top-10. There's a big chance you'll come to the same conclusion as I did: this bundle is a steal!

The only thing to bear in mind - as the name 5 Day Deal implies - is that this bundle isn't around forever: in fact, you can only buy it until July 19th. Then it's gone forever. And in the case of the 5 Day Deal, that is to be taken litterally, as they never promote the same content twice. Final thing, if you're living in the EU, there's 21% VAT that gets added to your bill, unless you have a valid VAT number!

A nice extra touch is that 10 percent of the sales go directly to charity: you can even choose your own charity from the list during the checkout procedure.

Disclosure: if you purchase the Web Essentials Bundle for Photographers, MoreThanWords.be will make a small commission (at no extra cost to you). This helps to support the free content, reviews and tips on this website and its maintenance. However, rest assured that I will only recommend products or bundles that I find interesting enough.

What's the big deal about The Big Deal?

If you're reading this blog, chances are that you are into photography, postprocessing or probably even both. Well, I've got some interesting news for you! There's a new photography bundle out, The Big Deal. I'll immediately cut to the chase: this bundle, which is only available until July 4th, contains photography software, video tutorials, eBooks, Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions. The combined value of all the goodies in the bundle is over $3.000, yet it's priced at $99... and that's really a steal! 

Generally, there's a lot of 'filler' content in these bundles: stuff that you even would not want to get for free, let alone pay for it. But the Big Deal is much more about 'killer content' than it is about 'filler content'.

Let's have a look at what's inside. I won't list everything - there's a full list available over here - just my personal highlights.

Software

Although there's a lot more software in The Big Deal, I've limited myself to my personal top-3:

1. Photo Mechanic 5

More and more high-volume photographers who are using Lightroom, are starting to use Photo Mechanic as a front-end to Lightroom. Instead of waiting forever for Lightroom to build 1:1 previews, they use Photo Mechanic for the culling (selection) of the best images and then import only the selected ones into Lightroom. Ratings and Color Labels applied in Photo Mechanic can be read by Lightroom.

If you're a high-volume shooter, Photo Mechanic is an ideal 'front end' to Lightroom: do your culling in Photo Mechanic and your developing in Lightroom.

If you want to speed up your Lightroom workflow, Photo Mechanic is the way to go. In fact, Photo Mechanic only has one disadvantage: at $150, it's more expensive than Lightroom itself. If you get The Big Deal, it's included in the $99 bundle. For some of you, this should be enough to go for the 'Buy Now' button, so I've included one below, just for your convenience :-) By the way, if you want to see a video on how I use Lightroom and Photo Mechanic together and how it could speed up your workflow, check out this recent blog post of mine.

2. Tonality by Macphun

After Silver Efex Pro, Tonality by Macphun is probably the best Black & White software out there. It's got tonnes of presets and what I especially like is that it has built-in layer capabilities: this allows you for example to blend what one preset does to the sky and what another preset does to the foreground

Tonality (Mac-only) has the ability to work with layers inside the application. This lets you combine presets or easily fade their effect.

Normally, it's about $60, now it's included in The Big Deal.

3. Clarity by Topaz Labs

If you like the Clarity slider in Lightroom, you'll love Clarity by Topaz Labs: it's like a whole plug-in dedicated to creative sharpening effects. It's one of the favorite plug-ins of master retoucher and compositer Glyn Dewis, whose videos are also included in the bundle!

Clarity is normally around $50, now it's included in The Big Deal.

Video Tutorials

There is a plethora of video tutorials included in The Big Deal. Below is my personal top-3. Just as with the software, some of these tutorials cost more if you buy them separately than if you get them in the bundle.

1. Language of Light, Volume 1 by Joe McNally

If you want to learn about off-camera flash, no better source than Joe McNally. I've bought this tutorial myself a couple of years ago and it's worth every penny of its $120 price tag. So this is another example of a tutorial that by itself costs more than the whole bundle itself!

2. Retouching and Compositing Video Bundle by Glyn Dewis

If you're into compositing, British guru Glyn Dewis is your man. I own his book on compositing and it's excellent. I've also seen him live on a couple of occasions and the man knows his Photoshop stuff and he's witty to boot. This bundle contains several of training and again, when purchased separately, would cost more than the whole Big Deal Bundle.

3. Photoshop Training with Dave Cross

Dave Cross is another one of those Photoshop giants. He's got three courses in The Big Deal: one on working non-destructively, one on selections, channels and masks and one on automating Photoshop. 

This is just my personal top-3, but there's also Lightroom training by RC Concepcion, a video tutorial on how to use Photoshop for video editing and lots more. Again, you can see the whole list here.

Presets and actions

Finally, there's a bunch of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions in the bundle as well, like Lighroom guru Jared Platt's comprehensive preset pack, by itself a $115 value.

Conclusion. Is it worth it?

There's lots more interesting stuff than what I've listed in this post but ultimately, you're the only one who can decide on whether this bundle is worth it or not. What I generally do in cases like this, is have a look at the entire list (scroll down a bit in this link), and check what stuff is in there that I'm really interested in. In this particular case, that would be well over $1.000. So the way I look at it is I get a 90 percent discount on the stuff that really interests me, and I get all the other stuff thrown in for free, in which there will probably be some hidden gems, too!

But that's just me and my rational approach. You could just go and say '$3.000 worth of photo stuff for $99?' That's a no-brainer :-)

Disclaimer:
In the interest of full disclosure: the above links are affiliate links. If you purchase the Big Deal through the links in this blog post, MoreThanWords receives a commission that is paid for by the seller. In other words, it does not cost you anything extra and it helps me pay the bills of running this site and all the free content and videos that are on it. Rest assured that I don't simply advise this bundle because I'm an affiliate. In fact, I have the opportunity to promote bundles like this one quite regularly, but there's a lot of chaff amongst the wheat. So, I only promote the ones that I think are interesting, like this one. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Flash and the Fujifilm X-system: dramatic lighting in India

After my blog post about my first six months with the X-Pro 2 went online, a number of people asked me how I lit my Varanasi portraits. So I thought this would make an excellent subject for a blog post.

One flash, big or small

In 90 percent of my shots, I use only one artificial light. Depending on how much power I need, this can be a powerful portable, battery powered studio strobe like the Jinbei HD600 (reviewed here) or a simple speedlight. With my X-Pro 2, the latter will generally be a Godox Ving V850 (reviewed here) or a Cactus RF60, triggered by a Cactus V6 transmitter (reviewed here). 

However, as the opening image shows, this does not mean I only have one light source in my shot. On sunny days, I'll generally pose my subject with his back towards the sun. Then, I'll underexpose the ambient. This kills two birds in one stone. First of all, the sun makes for a nice rim light, separating my subject from the background.

Obviously, if you'd do this without flash light, your subject would be in the shade. But that's where the flash comes in! I generally work in manual mode, both on my ambient exposure as on my flash exposure. After having set the background exposure the way I like it, I'll start adjusting the flash power until it looks right to me.

That's one of the reasons why I love Electronic Viewfinders so much: they can give me a preview of the ambient exposure and they also give me a glare-free, reflection-free review of the image in the viewfinder, immediately after I've taken the shot. Ever tried reviewing the image you just made on a DSLR screen in the blazing sun? I rest my case.

Positioning the flash

I love me some drama in my shots. So I'll rarely put the flash behind me. Most of the time, my flash will come from a 45 degree angle or even more, because that lets me create some drama in the face of my subject and it gives a nice triangle of light under the eye on the shadow-side of the face, the famous 'Rembrandt-look'.

Sometimes, I'll have my subjects look straight into the camera, but whenever possible, I prefer to have them look slightly off-camera. When you position your subject that way, you have two ways of lighting them: you can either light the side of the face that's directed towards the camera, or you can light the side of the face that's turned away from the camera. The first is called broad lighting and the second is called short lighting. 

FUJIFILMX-Pro2 | XF16mmF1.4 R WR | 1/250 sec. @ f/1.8 | ISO 200
In the opening image, the flash and softbox were just outside of the frame, to the left. In this image, the flash is to my right, lighting the side of the face that's turned towards the camera. The result is a much flatter looking image.

The latter makes for a much more dramatic look. Compare the opening image of the rickshaw driver (which used the short lighting technique) to this one here, which was lit with broad lighting.

When I shoot against the sun, I'll also try to put my flash diagonally opposite to the sun, and have my subject stand in between them. This diagonal lighting technique is called cross lighting. If this means I have to move my subject, so be it. Of course, in the mean time, I take the background into consideration, too. This makes that sometimes, I'll revisit a certain scene later that day or earlier the following day to assure the best possible combination of sun and background. If there's no sun, I'll recreate the cross-lighting scheme using two flashes 

The 'short'-cross-lighting technique in action. The light falling on this sadhu's shoulder is the sun.

Modifiers

My two SMDV speedboxes in action. The small one on the right is the SMDV Speedbox 70, equipped with a grid. The big one on the left is the SMDV Alpha 110.

Recently, I have discovered the fantastic line-up of modifiers by a company called SMDV. In Varanasi, I used both their SMDV Speedbox 70 and their SMDV Alpha Speedbox 110. The first is aimed at speedlight, the second has a Bowens mount and is aimed at bigger studio lights. They are strong, reliable and can be set-up in under 30 seconds. This means a lot if you're constantly moving around. And, better still, breaking them up is done in literally two seconds. You just press a couple of buttons and off you go.

FUJIFILMX-Pro2 | XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR | 1/250 sec. @ f/5.0 | ISO 400
This image only has one light in it: the Jinbei HD 600 fired through the SMDV Alpha 110 softbox.
Postprocessing was done with one of my Colorific Color Grading Presets for Lightroom.

But maybe the best thing about the SMDV Speedboxes is that both of them can be gridded. Especially in the narrow Varanasi alleyways, this can make for a huge difference and lets you control your light much more. In fact, they only have one disadvantage: they're not cheap but you really get what you pay for in this case. In Europe, they can be bought through the fine folks of Foto Morgen. Outside of Europe, I'd recommend the equally helpful staff of 1212world.com. If you want to know more about the SMDV 70, check out fellow X-photographer Matt Brandon's blog post about it.

Another image in which I used short lighting. The softbox is just outisde of the frame. This results in a soft yet contrasty light with a dramatic light falloff (because of the inverse square law). By the time the light that correctly lights his forehead, has reached his ears, it has already lost a lot of power.
Image processed with my new Lightroom preset pack: Piet's Power Preset Pack, Vol 01.

I'll generally put the softboxes as close to my subject as possible, generally just outside of the frame,  for three reasons. First of all, the closer they are, the softer the light will be. Yet, the light falloff will be more dramatic which is what I'm after in the first place, remember? Finally, by putting them close to my subject, I make it easier on my flash because it has to work less hard. If you're familiar with the infamous inverse square law, this says that if you double the distance between your flash and your subject, you'll need four times the light output.

This inverse square law can also work in your favour: if you halve the distance between your light and your subject, you need four times less light!  

ND filters

Finally, there's one other piece of kit in my camera bag that comes in really handy when using flash with the Fujifilm X-system. Unlike most other brands, Fujifilm cameras still aren't capable of performing High Speed Sync. Unless you're shooting the fantastic X100 series cameras, you're limited to a sync speed of 1/250th on the X-Pro 2 and 1/180th on all the other X-series cameras. If there's a lot of sun (and I can assure you that in Varanasi, there is!) this means that you'll have to resort to apertures of f/16 or smaller. In other words, no way of using shallow depth of field to isolate your subject from the background. Unless... you use an ND filter. I generally use a combination of a fixed (by Formatt-Hitech) and a variable one (by B+W) and I'll explain the reason for that in an upcoming blog post.

If you want to know more about working with flash in general and off-camera flash in particular, you might want to check out my Making Light and Making Light II ebooks, available over at Craft & Vision. If you already know your way around the technical sides of off-camera flash and if you're looking for a more inspirational book, make sure to check out the slightly fantastic Joey L's Photographing Shadow and Light.

Review: Cactus V6 Transceiver and the Fujifilm X system

Earlier, I reviewed the excellent Godox Ving V850 manual flash. It still is one of my favorite flashes for off-camera flash photography in general and on my Fuji system in particular. However, recently, I’ve also been working a lot with another manual system: the Cactus RF-60 flash and the Cactus V6 transceiver. As this is a manual system, it isn't exclusive to Fuji users: almost any camera with a central firing pin on the hotshoe can use it. That's the beauty of manual flashes: they work on every camera. In this blog post, I'll focus on the V6 transceiver.

The V6 Transceiver

I still remember using the Cactus V4 on my X-Pro 1 a couple of years ago. It was a small and cheap, no frills triggering system. It got the job done, but that was about it. Two iterations later - I've never used the V5 - the V6 is quite a different beast: first of all, it's a transceiver: the same unit can function as a transmitter or as a receiver. You just slide a switch on the side to set it up. The unit has grown quite a lot in size, but also in specifications: in fact, it seems like remote TTL and High Speed Sync are about the only two things you cannot do with it. And one of those is about to change, as you'll read further down the road! (Images © Cactus)

• Control of up to 4 groups of remote flashes
  The V6 can control 4 groups of remote flashes: either RF60 flashes, or other compatible flashes. In that last case, those flashes have to be attached to a V6 acting as a receiver. The RF60 has its own compatible receiver which obviously makes it a compelling candidate to use in concert with the V6, if you don't already own a flash. To turn a group on or off, you simply press the buttons A through D on the left hand side of the transceiver.
• Change power levels remotely
  You can remotely change the power level of compatible flashes, such as Cactus' own RF60, from the easy to use rotary dial. But, as I'll talk about in the section 'Recycling your old Canon and Nikon flashes', you can even control the (manual) power of those flashes remotely!
• Change power levels independently or in unison
  This one's a biggie if you use multiple groups a lot. Say you're working at f/8 and you've set group A to quarter power, group B to one sixteenth power and group C to one eight power to get the shot looking the way you want it. Now suppose you want to close your aperture down from f/8 to f/11. With many systems, you'd have to increase each individual group's power output by one stop. With the Cactus V6, you can choose: you can change the power individually but you can also change the power of all groups together! A big time-saver.
• TTL passthrough hotshoe
  Although the V6 does not support off-camera TTL flash, it has a hotshoe on top of it. When used as a receiver, this hotshoe obviously lets you slide the remote flash in it, like most recent receivers do. But, when used as a transmitter on your camera, the V6 passes the TTL information from your camera on to a TTL flash you put on it. In other words, you can use the V6 to combine a TTL on-camera flash with manual remote flashes. This is something wedding and event photographers will appreciate. The passthrough hotshoe has another advantage, which I'll talk about later in the section 'Using two trigges simultaneously'.
• A lock system for the selection rotary dial
  Here's another cool thing: because the rotary dial is facing towards you, it's not uncommon on smaller camera bodies, such as the X-series, to have your nose or your forehead inadvertently change settings when your working. In one of the firmware updates, Cactus installed the option of locking the rotary dial. In that case, you have to depress it first to make changes. An ideal setting for people with big noses, such as myself! Here's the how-to straight from the manual:
  • On the TX main screen, pressing and holding the selection dial or the OK button for 2 seconds will lock the selection dial from adjusting all group or single group power level. (Note: The short-cut to adjust a single group power level by pressing a group button and turning the dial simultaneously will be unaffected.
  • To temporarily unlock the selection dial, press the selection dial or OK button once. Alternatively, press and hold any group button to select a group for power level adjustment. The dial will be locked again when no button or dial is pressed or turned for 2 seconds.
  • To permanently unlock the selection dial, press and hold the selection dial or the OK button for 2 seconds.
• Advanced features
  The V6 also has another nifty feature up its sleeve: you can set up a delay in milliseconds. I haven't actually tried this yet, but it looks like you could use this feature as a workaround to do something resembling off-camera second-curtain sync. If you're reading this and you can confirm this, please let me know in the comments. Another nice feature is that you can choose the increments between 1/10th of a stop to half a stop. 

Recycling your old Canon and Nikon flashes

A really nice feature about the V6 trigger is that you can recycle your old Canon and Nikon flashes. After all, if whether you’re only adding Fujifilm camera to your existing Nikon or Canon gear or you’re making the switch entirely, you’ve probably already spent a lot of money on bodies and lenses so anything that you can reuse is welcome. Well, the good thing is that most Nikon and Canon flashes can be used in combination with a V6 transceiver. Although you obviously lose any TTL and high speed sync functionality, you can still set up the system so that you can remotely change the manual power level of your Nikon flash. That’s right: by attaching a V6 transceiver to your Fuji camera and by putting your old SB900 on another V6 transceiver, you’ll be able to manually change the power of that flash! What’s even better is that if you use two different flashes (e.g. an SB-700 and an SB-900) you can set the system up that they have the same absolute maximum output (dictated by the lowest output of both). In other words, when you set them both in separate groups to fire at 1:1, they will both fire at the power of the SB-700. This is handy in situations where you want symmetry in your lighting (think of two lights left and right behind your subject to be used as rim lights) but you don’t have two identical flashes.

Using two triggers simultaneously

This Sadhu was lit by an SMDV Alpha 110 Softbox with a Bowens mount (available in Europe through this reseller), attached to my Jinbei HD 600. The rim light was created by a Cactus RF60, fired through a gridded SMDV 70 Speedbox.

FUJIFILM X-Pro2 | XF50-140mmF2.8 R LM OIS WR @ 129.2 mm | 1-250 sec at f - 8,0 | ISO 400

Let's stack some triggers! Thanks to the hotshoe on the V6, I can stick my Jinbei trigger on top of it and fire both the 600 Ws Jinbei and a smaller flash like the Cactus RF60 together, while still maintaining separate (and remote!) control over their respective power levels.

As I've explained in an earlier blog post, if I want to use a more powerful flash, I often pick up my Jinbei HD 600 II, a review of which you can find here. The problem is that the Jinbei has its own - relatively simple - trigger which lets me change the power of the flash remotely. And this is where the hotshoe on the V6 comes in really handy. If I want to use 2 flashes, one powerful one and a smaller one (e.g. as an accent light), I can slide the Jinbei trigger in the Cactus V6 hotshoe. This makes both flashes trigger simultaneously, and I can still power them up or down remotely (and separately) by adjusting the respective trigger.

Next up: High Speed Sync for Fuji cameras?

This is fairly recent news which got me very excited: Cactus apparently are not resting on their laurels. In fact, they've announced that they are working on a V6 Mk II update that would - through some sort of ingenious hack - allow High Speed Sync with any camera, including Fujifilm cameras. Yes, you've read that right! High Speed Sync on a Fujifilm camera. I'll report back as soon as I've been able to test this out myself. Originally, it was rumored that this HSS hack would also be made available on the current V6 triggers through a firmware update but apparently that's not necessarily the case. Those of you who want to buy a set of V6 triggers now and want HSS, might want to wait a while until things are clearer.

Conclusion

I have to say I really like the V6 transceiver. It's a bit bulky on my X-T1, but on the other hand, unlike some other flash triggers, it is very ergonomical with lots of direct-access buttons and it still gives enough clearance so that I can turn the dials on the top of my camera easily. It just takes some getting used to the fact you can't see the value you set from the top of the camera anymore because the trigger partly obscures it. Obviously, you still see your settings through the viewfinder!

Because the X-Pro 2's hotshoe sits slightly lower (more level with the speed selector dial), there's less clearance and people with very big fingers might find it a more difficult to adjust shutter speed - mine are still ok. However, on both the X-Pro 2 as on the X-T1, you can always turn your shutter speed dial in the T position and then change the shutter speed all the way from 1/4.000th (1/8.000th on an X-Pro 2) to 30 seconds, simply by turning the front command dial. DSLR-style. But you knew that, didn't you?

Availability

• In Belgium, the Cactus V6 Transceiver can be purchased through Grobet.be
• In the UK, Fujifilm X-Photographer Damien Lovegrove is the importer and also sells them through his online shop. Damien is also an avid user of these flashes and triggers.
• International orders can also be made directly through Cactus' own online store.

UPDATE: Contrary to what I said in the original post, it appears that the HSS trick might not be available as a firmwire update after all, but rather only on the soon to be released V6 Mk II triggers. I'll report back on this as soon as I have more info. In the mean time, those of you who are looking at buying a set and want/need HSS, might want to hold off until the V6 Mk II is released. I have updated the blog post.

2 months with the X-Pro 2: my 10 favourite features (part 2)

(Read about features 1 to 5 in this post)

In a month, I’ll be off to India again to teach a travel photography workshop together with fellow X-Photographer Matt Brandon and I hope to take the X-Pro 2 with me. I’m really looking forward to the trip. When I’m traveling, I always hope that nothing bad will happen to my gear because it’s often difficult to replace or repair. That’s why I’m extremely happy with the next item in my top-10 of new features:

6) Weather Sealing

Contrary to the X-Pro 1, the X-Pro 2 is now weather sealed. Now, truth be told I’ve never had any issues with my non-weather sealed Fujifilm cameras and they’ve eaten quite a lot of dust, too, but it’s still a reassuring feature to have.

When you're playing with flour, it's good to have a weather sealed body and lens to keep the stuff on your model and not in your camera. 

Of course, ideally, you then have to pair the camera with a weather proofed lens as well, such as the beautiful XF-16 mm 1.4. I love that lens because, thanks to its wide aperture, it still allows me to play with shallow depth of field although it’s relatively wide-angle.

Belgium's probably got he ugliest coast line in the world (40 miles of ugly concrete skyscrapers) but there are a couple of noteworthy exceptions, such as this the Blankenberge Pier. Working this close to sea and sand, I was happy to be using a weather-sealed combo. Processed with my Colorific Colour Grading presets, but you probably know that by now :-)

One of my resolutions for the new year is to use the 16 mm prime a little more. I used a Formatt Hitech ND filter to get the exposure within reach of the new 1/250th sync speed.

7) Flash improvements

This one is pretty big, at least for me: the sync speed has been increased to 1/250th of a second. That means that when you’re working at the sync speed of your camera, your flashes effectively become one third of a stop more powerful than they were on an X-Pro 1 or an X-T1.

Sofie shot with the X-Pro 2 and the Jinbei HD-600 II flash. To date, still my favourite 'big gun'. I'm very happy that I can now use flash also in Continuous shooting mode. This lets me fire a burst of shots (until the flash has to recharge) rather than one at a time so I dramatically increase my options of having the right expression or composition when using flash). Image postprocessed with my Black & White Lightroom presets.

But even better, you can now also use a flash when the camera is set to continuous shooting. To be fair, it’s something almost every other camera has but it’s great to see that my X-Pro 2 now does it, too. Especially with more powerful flashes like this Jinbei, this means that you can keep on shooting with flash at lower power settings for quite a while until the flash has to recharge. This is the same feature by the way that got introduced for the X-T1 in the latest firmware update that subsequently got pulled because of a bug. So X-T1 users, this one is coming your way, too!

Finally, Fujifilm have announced a new speedlight, the EF-X500, that is capable of doing High Speed Sync. I can't wait to get my hands on that one!

8) Improved Bracketing

I’ve never understood why the bracketing functionality of all Fujifilm cameras was limited to 3 shots with +/-  1 EV. If you want to create HDR images, that range is often too limited.

Maybe it has something to do with the new maximum shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second, but you can now bracket 3 shots with +/- 2 EV. I would still love some more options, like shooting 5 or 7 frames but it's already a big step up. If you want to go beyond what's currently possible, I recommend you do as I do: put the camera on a tripod and use the Exposure Compensation function on the Camera Remote App: this lets you make up to 7 bracketed shots, 1 stop apart, without touching the camera.

9) An improved menu

Image © Fujifilm Corporation

I already like Fujifilm’s menus more than most of the other brands out there, but they have made the menu even better: it’s more legible and there’s also a MyMenu, which lets you assign up to 16 items for quick acess. So between this MyMenu, the (customizable) Quick Menu and the function buttons, there really is no shortage of options of having this camera do what you want it to do, as fast as possible. On thing that did not improve is formatting the card. It takes way too many button presses. Luckily, there appears to be a shortcut which I learned about over at Kevin Mullins' excellent review. If you're thinking about using the X-Pro 2 as a wedding camera, read his review (and then start saving). Oh, the shortcut you ask? Press the delete key for a couple of seconds and then click on the back command dial.

10) 3 Power Management Modes

Let’s be honest. Battery life isn’t the best feature of the Fujifilm cameras. But let’s also be honest in that the batteries (the X-Pro 2 uses the same as the X-T1, X-Pro 1 and X-T10) are very lightweight and compact so adding a couple to your bag won’t break your back. I think Fuji did well in maintaining the same battery. However, what they did is offer three power management modes: Economy, Standard and High Performance. As you might guess, autofocus speed and EVF refresh rates increase as you switch from the first to the latter, but battery life decreases, from 330 shots over 250 to 220. I just use High Performance and I pack a couple of spare batteries. I guess I’ll only use Economy when I see I’m popping in my last spare! Oh, and even in Economy the camera is still a Ferrari compared to the original X-Pro 1. So, as greater minds have already said: ‘Everyting is relative’.

So, that’s it for this highly subjective top 10. As some of these are firmware-related, there's some hope that they might trickle down to other cameras too.

This is what the new interface looks like. Again, evolution, not revolution but it looks and reads better than before. There are loads of smaller refinements, such as this one: you might know there's a digital depth-of-field scale that you can overlay in the EVF and OVF. Only, it did not match up with the one found on lenses like the 14, 16 and 23. Because the lenses' DOF scale was film-based (with a larger Circle of Confusion, in other words, larger tolerance) whereas the digital scale was pixel-based. You can now set the digital scale to film-based as well. If I were a street photographer, I'd love this feature!

There are other features, such as the new black and white ACROS film simulation and the new grain engine, which look nice. But as I explained in this blog post, as long as there is no Raw conversion software that can actually read the raw files of this camera, I set my film simulation to something very neutral as the JPEGs are currently the only thing I can work with. Setting a black and white film simulation would mean I currently cannot work on the image in colour and I want to keep my options open.

If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try and address them in the comments.

Don't forget to switch off the light.

What about the Tilt Screen?

Yeah, what about it? There isn't one, as you probably know by now. For me, it's not a deal breaker. Sure enough, if the X-Pro 2 had one, I would welcome it, but not if it came at the expense of a bigger, bulkier body. Between the dual card slot and a tilt screen, I'll take the dual card slot any time. Also, don't forget that you'll be able to wirelessly control the camera with the smartphone App. That's even better than a tilt screen, in some cases!

What could be improved?

Some testers have reported the Exposure Compensation wheel is too loose. It did not feel loose on my sample. What I would like is that Fujifilm offer the option of saving 16 bit TIFF files to card. I feel that Lightroom still isn't squeezing everything out of the RAW files and this would be a nice addition, especially for people who shoot rather slow and deliberate, like me. Alternatively, I wish that Fujifilm would release a simple RAW to 16 bit TIFF conversion software. Basically, a desktop-version of the in-camera RAW converter that would allow batch-processing. And no, I don't mean Silkypix, that awfully complex raw converter that ships with the camera. 

Another thing I would like is to see on the accessory list is a 'Long Eyecup' like the X-T1. This helps to block the sunlight and gives more contrast in the viewfinder which is especially helpful on sunny days.

Finally, I would really love to have some more highlight clipping information in the EVF and OVF: we can already program a gazillion warnings in the viewfinder, but the one I would like to see is a Lightroom-style highlight / shadow clipping warning, showing the actual areas that are clipped. Sure, there's the live histogram but that only says there's clipping. It does not say where that clipping occurs. 

As you can see, minor quibbles that are mostly software- or firmware related. Other than that, I really can't think of much. So now, I'm off to shoot some more! Where did I put my spare batteries?

Two months with the X-Pro 2: my 10 favourite features (part 1)

So, I’ve had the privilige of using a pre-production sample of one of this year’s most eagerly anticipated cameras for a couple of weeks. You could already read about that in this blog post. By now, your RSS feed and Facebook status page is probably overloaded with features, comparisons, opinions and what not. The following thoughts are not solely based on specs, but on actual usage of the camera. Given the four year gap between the X-Pro 2 and its predecessor, there’s bound to be a lot of change. In this and the following blog post, I’ll try to outline my personal top-10 improvements of this camera, taking into account the way I use it: as my everday camera, with a focus on travel- and flash photography.

Two of my favourite models: Brecht & Frannie. Shot in an abandoned carpet factory. On urbex (urban exploring) shoots like this, I appreciate the fact that all my camera gear fits in my F-Stop Loka UL, a small and lightweight camera backpack (US link, EU link)

Evolution on the outside...

When I got the camera, it felt like reconnecting with an old friend: it looks almost identical to the X-Pro 1 (which I consider a good thing), especially from the front. In fact, I could probably have taken this camera to a Fuji workshop and people would have thought I was shooting my old trusted X-Pro 1. Outside, there are only a couple of changes, and they're all for the better.

Seen from the front, not a lot has changed: the EVF/OVF lever now not only lets you switch from OVF to EVF, but also between the two OVF modes that we now know from the X100T. Another barely visible - but interesting - new feature is the addition of a front command dial. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

... revolution within

But on closer inspection, a lot has actually changed for the better. Which brings me to the first point.

1) Improved ergonomics

This one’s so important that I’ve actually put it before the ‘obvious’ advantage (the higher megapixel count, more about that later). The first thing you’ll notice is the joystick on the camera’s back: it has a number of uses but its main use is changing the AF point. The advantage is that this frees up the four buttons surrounding the Menu/OK button. You can now actually program three of them to a custom function. If you like to change your focus points as I do, the joystick works really well, it just takes some getting used to and retraining your muscle memory not to go to the old position. On top of that, there’s 2 more function buttons, bringing the total to 5. There is no dedicated WIFI function button, but WIFI is obviously included, and another big difference with the original X-Pro 1.

Apparently small changes but ergonomically big ones: all buttons are now on the right hand side, enabling true single-handed operation. There's a new joystick-like control that - amongst other things - lets you select your focus point. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

• One thing I did not like about the X-Pro 1 was that there were some buttons on the left of the LCD. All buttons are now at the right, meaning you can control this camera with just one hand. For you, it might be sipping cocktails, but in my case it leaves the other hand free to hold a flash and an umbrella, for example.
• The grip is slightly bigger and more pronounced. As a result, the camera feels better in your hand. And as mentioned, this is now a camera that you can completely control with one hand! Great news for photographers who like to smoke on a shoot. No more cigarette breaks needed: smoke and shoot as you go!
• There’s also a new Front Command Dial which in playback mode lets you browse flick back and forth through your images (the rear one zooms in and out). While shooting, the FCD lets you adjust the shutter speed to the intermediary settings between the full stops that are marked on the dial. It probably does some other things too, but I haven’t discovered those yet. The manual was even more preproduction than the camera (in other words, non-existent!)

Those clever Fujifilm engineers incorporated the ISO dial into the Shutter Speed dial. To change your ISO, pull up the outside of the dial and rotate it. The EV-compensiation wheel now has a -3 to +3 range and by setting it to the C-position, you can even go from -5 to +5 by turning the new Front Command Dial. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

• Speaking of dials. Probably the coolest feature is how Fujifilm managed to integrate the ISO dial on the top of the camera. It’s literally on the shutter speed dial: you have to pull the outer ring of the shutter speed dial up and then rotate it to set the ISO. The first couple of times, you’ll probably inadvertently change the shutter speed itself, too, but once you get used to it, it works very well. While turning the wheel, you can see the value adjust in the viewfinder. So no need to take your eye off the viewfinder. Now, in honesty, I liked the old system with the top function button, too but this system has the advantage that you can also see at a glance what ISO the camera is set to. And I do like this implementation more than that of the X-T1. While we’re still talking about dials: the Exposure Compensation dial now has a -3 to +3 range and even a Custom setting that allows you to go from -5 to +5, another use for the new Front Command Dial.
• And finally, another big one in the ergonomics department: a built-in diopter adjustment with the same range as the X-T1. That’s right, no more messing around with little screw-in adjustment lenses that you’re bound to loose sooner or later.

2) 24 Megapixel X-Trans CMOS III Sensor

Same APS-C sensor size but 50 percent more pixels. Image © Fujifilm Corporation.

Although I’ve printed images from my 16 MP X-T1 as large as 30 x 60 cm (12 x 24 inch) and I could easily print even larger, I welcome more pixels any time, provided they offer me the same or even higher image quality. The X-Pro 2 has got 50 percent more of them. So, you can either print prints that are 50 percent larger (in terms of surface, i.e. 22 percent longer and 22 percent taller) or you can crop 1/3 of your image away and still keep the same amount of pixels as the X-Pro 1 or the X-T1. Another nice advantage is that you can experiment some more with alternative crops, like 16:9, or square, while still retaining enough pixels to print relatively big. Especially with the best quality lenses like the 16-55 and the 50-140, the increased resolution actually shows in the image. Those two lenses really are perfect companions for the new sensor.

I have really come to appreciate the 16-55. Sure, it's a bit big and heavier than its prime siblings but boy, what a sharp and versatile lens! If you're an event or press photographer, it's hard not to be impressed by its sharpness. Model: Stéphanie. Image processed with my Lightroom Colorific Colour Grading presets.

3) Faster AF, more focus points and more phase detection pixels

As you might know, cameras use two techniques to achieve autofocus: phase detection and contrast detection. The first is faster, the latter is more accurate. As of the X-T1, Fujifilm has started to combine these two techniques by incorporating phase detection pixels in the sensor. The X-Pro 2 increases both the total number of focus points available and the number of phase detection pixels. By default, there’s 77 points including 49 phase detection pixels, but you can increase this to a whopping 273 points, including 169 phase detection pixels. Just be prepared to use that new joystick controller a lot. Regardless of the number of focus points, what I really appreciate on mirrorless cameras in general and those by Fuji in particular, is that you have focus points all over the frame. If you like to frame your subject off-center, that’s a very handy feature to have. With a DSLR, you’ll be forced to focus and recompose, but if you’re shooting with a shallow depth of field, that can lead to images that are out of focus.

"And how many focus points would you like today, Sir?" I don't think I'll be using the 273 focus points layout a lot...

... but I do like the fact that there are more phase detection pixels (you can recognise them by their slightly larger size in the grid...

I really cannot count the times I have sworn at my DSLR for not giving me a focus point where I needed it. With 273 points to choose from, that’s no longer necessary! Of course, the same AF enhancements that were introduced with the X-T1’s 4.0 firmware upgrade, such as wide tracking AF and zone AF are also present. I just haven’t used them much as most of my subjects are pretty stationary and if they aren’t, like the dancers I shoot, I prefer to pre-focus manually. It’s a matter of habit and preference.

4) Improved viewfinder

Take the hybrid viewfinder of the X-100T, add the resolution of the viewfinder of the X-T1, and turbocharge the framerate to 85 frames per second and you have the recipe for the X-Pro 2’s viewfinder. It’s really as state of the art as it gets. The front lever lets you switch between EVF and OVF and also between OVF modes themselves: simple OVF or OVF with the little EVF screen in the bottom right corner that was introduced with the X100T. This little screen-in-the-screen can be set to three possible zoom levels when you’re in manual focus.

The Hybrid Viewfinder combines the best of both worlds...

... especially since you can overlay a little LCD panel that for accurate framing...

... or manual focus checking options: choose from 100%, 2.5 x en 6 x.

The first is 100 percent view (which basically gives you a mini view of the entire scene in your OVF, ideal for combining the precision of the EVF with the bright viewfinder of the OVF. The second is 2.5 times enlarged and the third is 6 times enlarged. Pressing the rear command dial (you knew that the rear command dial can be depressed, also on the X-T1, didn’t you?) cycles through these magnification levels. Combine those features with manual focus aids such as digital split-level or – what I prefer to use – focus peaking and you have noone to blame but yourself if your pictures aren’t sharp using manual focus on the X-Pro 2! 

5) Dual Card Slot

I haven’t verified this, but according to Fujifilm, this is a first on a mirrorless camera. I know a lot of wedding photographers and generally everyone that shoots unique events that will utter sighs of relief. The card slot can be set to any of the following three options: sequential (when the first card is full, the camera starts writing to the second), backup (anything written to the first card is also written to the second) and RAW/JPEG, where RAW files are written to one card and JPEG files are written to the other.

Needless to say, the write speed to card has also dramatically improved. I remember that on the X-Pro 1, when I accidentally shot a bracketed series of photos, I swore because the camera would freeze up, literally for seconds. None of that on the X-Pro 2. I do recommend that you use fast cards. My sample unit had two Toshiba 16 GB Exceria Pro SD cards installed (the ones with the double row of contacts) and that worked perfectly.

That's it for the first 5 features. In this blog post, I'll cover 6 to 10. But let me leave you with one last image of Stéphanie. After all, it's all about the image, not about the camera, isn't it?

Honoured, humbled, frightened and excited: 2 months with the X-Pro 2

When a while back, Fujifilm offered me the opportunity to test a pre-production sample of the upcoming X-Pro 2, I felt honoured, humbled, frightened and excited all at the same time.

Honoured, because I was one of a limited number of photographers worldwide to receive an early sample. Humbled, because the list of the others included big name photographers that I regard very highly, such as Damien Lovegrove, David Hobby and Zack Arias, to name but a few. Compared to these guys, I'm just a grown-up kid with too many cameras, too many lenses and waaaay to many flashes. I felt like taking a shower with the highschool football team. When I had just been out in the freezing cold...

“You know the old joke ‘How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb?”

Frightened because I had a tight deadline to give Fujifilm four images, preferably from different shoots. Four images that would be looked at, pixel-peeped, scrutinized by the whole world. Four images of which Fujifilm would choose one to display during the Fujifilm X Series Five Year Anniversary Exhibition in Tokyo. You know how photographers can be ruthless for each other’s work. I couldn’t help but think of the old joke: "How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is: "Eleven: one to actually fix the bulb and ten to comment afterwards about how that one guy could have done it better."

Charleroi, one of Belgium's old industrial cities. I scouted this cool location without ever leaving my house, thanks to Google Maps and Google Street View. The actual hike up the hill made me appreciate a lightweight camera system like the X-Series even more. Hills definitely look lower from Google Earth than they do when you're standing in front of them! My original plan was to do a Long Exposure here, but the wind was so strong I could not keep the camera steady enough.

Excited

But I also felt excited: I had been slaving away at my new Lightroom book for months (the Dutch version is available now and the English version is in layout) and I hadn’t really been photographing a lot. This opportunity and the deadline it included gave me a much needed kick in the butt. So I rustled up some models, fired up Google Maps and Google Street View to scout some cool locations, charged the battery of my Jinbei flash, dusted off my Formatt Hitech ND’s and my B+W Vari ND's (Dutch link, English link) and planned a couple of shoots.

Shooting JPEG (and actually liking it)

It was freezing cold but model Stéphanie was a real champ. Shot with one of my favourite lenses: the 10-24 mm. I used the Jinbei HD600 II and the Phottix Luna Folding Softbox. In very contrasty, backlit situations like these, it's good to have an Optical Viewfinder, too. Especially the X100T-like one, where you can still have a small EVF inserted in the bottom right corner to help you with your composition. The X-Pro 2 also has a 1/3rd stop faster sync speed than the X-T1, which comes in very handy when you're trying to overpower the sun in bright daylight.

The camera being a pre-production sample, the camera’s firmware was also still beta, so there were a couple of limitations. First of all, the ‘Preview Exposure and White Balance in Manual Mode’ feature was not working on my sample. It’s a feature I rely on heavily when using flash, because it lets me easily set the desired ambient exposure. However, my model will generally be too dark in this mode, so once I’ve determined how dark or bright I want the background to be, I will switch this mode off.

“I use the ‘Preview Exposure and White Balance in Manual Mode’ so much that I’ve assigned a function button to it.”

I’ve even dedicated one of the function buttons to it. To assign a function to a function button, press and hold it for a couple of seconds and then choose the desired function from the list that appears. When off, the EVF goes to a normal brightness level so you can choose your composition and your focus point more easily. Being able to switch between both views and having a live histogram is one of the key advantages of mirrorless cameras. Needless to say, the feature will work as expected on shipping X-Pro 2’s.

Another thing that slightly worried me was the fact that there was no RAW support yet. In fact, there still isn’t (as is always the case with new cameras). As a Lightroom user, author and trainer, I eat RAW files for breakfast. Although I love the quality of Fuji’s out-of-camera JPEG files (they’re probably the best in the whole camera industry), I prefer to shoot at least RAW + JPEG for the added postprocessing leeway that RAW files give me. Partly, that’s for creative reasons, as I like to edit my images quite elaborately but partly it’s also to cover up for the underexposure mistakes I sometimes make while shooting. When you know your way around Lightroom, you run the risk of becoming a sloppy photographer because you know the tricks to cover your ass after the shoot.  

Just like David DuChemin, I firmly believe in Vision-Driven Postprocessing. I always try to maximise the mood in my images to make them convey what I felt at capture time. As you can see from the behind-the-scenes shot, this image was actually taken during the day, but I thought the loneliness I felt from shooting from the top level of a parking lot, would be better expressed by a "dusky" postprocessing. I used one of my Colorific Colour Grading presets.

Old X-Pro 1 shoots new X-Pro 2 :-) This is what the scene really looked like. The dusky atmosphere was added in post. I was surprised to see that even a JPEG could survive this much postproduction, so that's very promising for the RAW files!

For that reason, I chose to shoot with the Standard Profile, rather than with Classic Chrome which I normally prefer: that film simulation blocks the shadows and without the fallback option of a raw file, I preferred to keep my options open. The X-Pro 2 also has a new Black & White film simulation and a new grain feature, but I did not test that for the same reason.

In this blog post, I will list my top 10 favourite features of this incredible new camera. To conclude this post, I was amazed with the quality of the JPEG files and the flexibility they still offered in terms of further processing. It almost made me wish Fuji would offer an option to save images as 16 bit TIFFs: you would get the benefit of near-raw like editing options along with the beautiful out-of-camera film simulations.

So, these were the four images I submitted to Fujifilm. I’m as curious as you to know which one they picked for the 5 Year X anniversary exhibition. I hope they picked at least one. And even if they haven't, I still had a hell of a time shooting! For me, the X-Pro 2 is already a fantastic camera: it made me get up from my couch and go shoot. Isn't that what all good cameras should do?

This location, an abandoned cooling tower, had been on my to-do list for quite some time. But writing books, magazine articles, creating Lightroom presets and changing the occasional diaper kept coming in the way. The X-Pro 2 deadline was the necessary kick in the butt to finally load up my F-Stop Loka UL backpack and go explore. And that's probably what I like most about Fujifilm cameras: they inspire me to just go out and shoot, experiment, learn from my mistakes and shoot some more.

My trusted F-Stop Loka UL backpack and me at the foot of the hill overlooking Charleroi.

My favourite new camera with my favourite old lens: the 10-24. I think I make about half of my shots with that lens. In fact, three of the four images on this page were shot with it.

All images in this blog post are JPEG images coming from a pre-production X-Pro 2. They were processed in Adobe Lightroom with my Colorific Lightroom presets. A big thanks to Serge from www.fotografieblog.be for the behind-the-scenes shots (made with an X-Pro 1).

5 Reasons the RoboSHOOT X flash triggers for Fuji are a game changer

In a week or so, Fujifilm will be celebrating their fifth anniversary of the X-system. I know very few camera companies that have created such a fantastic camera eco-system in such a short time. My switch from a fullframe DSLR was a gradual one: I started with the X-Pro 1 in 2012. It was the appeal of having a lightweight, unobtrusive camera for my travels that won me over. Or, as my colleague and Fujifilm X-Photographer Matt Brandon says, 'I came for the size, i stayed for the quality'.

Yet, it took some adjusting: I love two things: flash and wide angle and neither were very developed at the start of the X-series: the widest lens was an 18 mm (27 mm in fullframe terms) and being used to 16 or even 14 mm on my fullframe DSLRs, 27 mm felt like I was looking through a telescope. However, in four years, Fujifilm have developed a lens line-up that is very complete, at least for my needs. If I were a Nikon or Canon crop DSLR shooter, I guess I'd be very jealous of the available lenses. There's everything from super wide angle over fast zooms and primes to telephoto. And rumour has it that the long-awaited 100-400 mm super telephoto will also be announced in the coming weeks. My favorite lenses currently are the 10-24 f/4 and the 56 f/1.2, although recently I've been very impressed with the sharpness of the 16-55, too! In fact so much that I only use the already excellent 10-24 in the 10-16 range and then I switch it out for the 16-55. 

“I came for the Size, I stayed for the Quality”

— Matt Brandon

Flash photography on the X-system

But I digress. I wanted to talk about flash: it's no secret that flash is the probably the least developed part of the Fujifilm X-series. That's not completely by lack of want from Fujifilm's part. Apparently, Fujifilm were going to develop a wireless TTL system in collaboration with German manufacturer Metz but that plan either got tanked or at least postponed due to the latter's bad financial situation. Luckily, things are improving. For example, the X-Pro 2 is rumoured to have a sync speed of 1/250th instead of 1/180th of a second on the X-T1. That makes any flash about 30 percent more powerful (at least when working at the sync speed). 

Fujifilm and TTL flash

So, it's not like you can't do flash with a Fuji. There are just less TTL whistles and HSS bells :-) All of the X-series cameras have a hotshoe and there are a couple of TTL flashes available, such as the EF-42 or my personal favourite: the Nissin i40, a review of which will follow shortly. The EF-42 might be the most powerful one, the i40 is the most fun to use and also the most balanced in terms of size and weight, at least when you want to use it on-camera. These flashes will work both in manual and in TTL, but the latter only on-camera.

If you want to use off-camera flash, up to now you are limited to using manual flashes and triggers. For manual use, I recommend the Godox V850 and the FT16s trigger, reviewed here or the Cactus RF60 and V6 trigger. If I need more power, for example when I want to overpower the sun in sunny India in the middle of the day, I turn to my big bazooka: the Jinbei HD600 II, a review of which you can read here.

A holiday snapshot: with kids never sitting still, TTL is a handy feature to have. In this case, I used the Lastolite Trifold collapsible umbrella. It folds down so small you have no excuse not to have one in your camera bag.

All these off-camera flash options work well but they are manual-only. Although I have no problem working in manual (and sometimes even prefer it), there are times when having TTL remote control of my flash would be great. Especially for those instances where you have to work fast and/or when your subject is moving around in the frame, like my 2.5 year old son likes to do. Manual flash is a pain when the flash-to-subject distance changes a lot, because of that damn inverse square law. I can safely say that my toddler is responsible for my renewed interest in off-camera TTL flash photography!  When I'm on holidays and I want to take a family snap (I always have the Nissin i40 with me), TTL is great to have because my mind does not have to think as hard. After all, it's on holidays, too!

TTL with a cable

Up to now, there was only one workaround to do off-camera TTL flash with a Fuji camera and that was to use - oddly enough - a Canon flash sync cable. Yes, a cable! How very hipster retro :-) For example in this shoot of Dutch supermodel Rosalinde Kirkstra, I used a 10 meter Phottix OC-E3 flash cable. The downside of this is that it's not exactly practical, but it works. If the prospect of cloning out 10 meter of flash cable from some of your shots does not particularly entice you, please read on!

At 1/1000th of a second, the tiny Nissin i40 becomes as powerful as a couple of regular speedlights. In this case I used a 10 meter Phottix OC-E3 TTL cable, but wireless triggering is so much handier. The modifier I used for this shoot is the fantastic SMDV 70 cm Speedbox. 

RoboSHOOT to the rescue

Then I heard about a new company, Serene Automation, that were developing TTL flash triggers for Fujifilm cameras. I contacted them and they were kind enough to send me a (pre-production) review sample of their top-of-the-line triggers: the RX-20 receiver and the MX-20 trigger. And they work like a charm. Below I've listed five reasons why, if you're even remotely interested in using flash on your Fujifilm X-cameras, you should seriously consider these triggers.

The MX-20 Trigger Unit

The RX-20 Receiver Unit

1 RoboSHOOT triggers allow TTL flash off camera, straight out of the box

This shot of Frannie and Brecht was made with the tiny but very capable Nissin i40 for Fujifilm and the SMDV 70 cm Speedbox. And of course the RoboSHOOT RX-20 and MX-20. I set one of the custom function buttons on the X100T to Flash Exposure Compensation. I also used Fuji's wide angle converter.

For many people, this reason alone should be enough to order a set. You attach the receiver to a Fujifilm compatible flash like the EF-42 or the i40 and put the trigger on your camera, enable the flash on the camera and you're good to go. If it does not work, it's generally because you've either set your camera to Silent Mode, or you're in one of the settings that disables the flash hotshoe. This happens for example when you're in Continuous shooting mode. Fujifilm has already said they would come out with a firmware that allows flashes (and therefore also triggers) on the hotshoe to fire while shooting in Continuous mode. In fact, the recent 4.20 X-T1 firmware update was supposed to install that but it got withdrawn because of a bug. I also recommend that when 'installing' the trigger, you make sure the little safety pin on the trigger aligns nicely with the corresponding hole in the hotshoe, before you tighten the wheel on the trigger.

The SMDV Speedbox 70 is one of my favourite modifiers for use with small flashes. It has a nice quality of light and it sets up and folds down in seconds. I got mine from the friendly people at www.foto-morgen.de. It's a German website but they sprechen English too :-)

Contrary to the cable solution I described above, which limits you to only using one off-camera flash, the RoboSHOOT X-system lets you work with multiple flashes off-camera. There's four different groups you can assing flashes to, you just need an equal number of receivers. A smartphone App (iOS and Android), then lets you set TTL flash compensation (more on that later).

Most of the time, I only use one remote flash, though. In those instances, I find it easier and faster to change the flash exposure compensation on the camera. Here's a quick tip: you can either set the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) as one of the items in your Quick menu or, faster still, you can assign a function button to FEC: to do so, simply press and hold the function button of your choice for a couple of seconds and then choose FEC from the list of available options. It works like a charm.

2 The MX-20/RX-20 combo does TTL with Nikon compatible flashes

Let me say that again: this system allows you to use (specific) Nikon flashes with your Fujifilm cameras. Off camera. In TTL! I don't know how John (founder of Serene Automation) pulled this one off, but he did! This is great news for 2 reasons: first of all, quite a number of Fujifilm users either have switched from Nikon or they use Fuji gear in addition to their Nikon cameras. In both cases, chances are that they have already lying an SB-900 around.

This shot of lovely Stéphanie was lit at 1/2000th of a second at f/7.1 with a single Nikon SB-900 speedlight! I again used the SMDV 70 cm Speedbox, which I not only love for its lighting characteristics but also because it's a breeze to set up and take down.

Below is the current compatibility table. As more people will use these triggers with different kinds of third-party flashes, the list will probably grow. For example, I have successfully tried the triggers with Phottix' excellent Mitros+ for Nikon. Others have reported them to work with the Metz 52 AF-1 and the Yongnuo 568 EX.

Compatibility table of Fujifilm and Nikon flashes. I've personally tested the Nissin i40 and the Nikon SB-900.

But there's a second reason why this is such a big deal. Even when you don't have Nikon flashes lying around, you might actually consider picking one up or buying a used one because, as great as the Nissin i40 is, it's nowhere near as powerful as an SB-900 or an SB-910. Especially when you're working outside or with a diffuser, you'll quickly reach the limits of the i40. Unless... you're using it on the X100T, which brings me seamlessly to the next advantage:

3 The triggers support the high sync speed of the X100T

One current disadvantage of the Fujifilm flash system is that there is no High Speed Sync (HSS): you're stuck, both on- and off-camera, to whatever sync speed your camera has. In the case of the X-T1, that's only 1/180th of a second. As HSS support is a combination of camera, flash and trigger, I currently cannot say whether the Roboshoot triggers will support High Speed Sync if/when it comes out. But having gotten to know the CEO a little, I would not be surprised. However, Fujifilm have a bit of an odd one out with the X100T: this camera uses a leaf shutter which allows for a 'regular' sync speed of up to 1/2000th of a second. In fact, this sync speed is so fast that you can freeze motion or overpower the sun with a simple speedlight. At those sync speeds, the trigger sometimes becomes the limiting factor as some triggers' electronics simply aren't fast enough to take advantage of that high sync speed. The Roboshoot triggers are: I have succesfully used them on my X100T with shutter speeds of up to 1/2000th of a second. At these shutter speeds, the tiny i40 can almost overpower daylight and a Nikon SB900 becomes as powerful as the four times heavier Jinbei. The RoboSHOOT triggers are designed to work with all Fujfilm X cameras. They have been tested with the X-T1, X-Pro 1 and X100T. Personally, I use them the most with my X100T as you can see from the EXIF info in the images. I'm also looking forward to trying them out with a more powerful TTL flash like the Godox Witstro II. I'll report back on that as soon as I can.

4 Manual and TTL multi-flash control from a dedicated App

Using a free Android and iOS App, you have full control over up to four groups. You can set Flash Exposure Compensation and mix and match manual and TTL groups.

As you can see from the pictures, the MX-20 does not have power controls on the unit itself. Instead, when you want to use a flash in Manual mode or want to work with more than one flash in TTL and change relative FEC, you can use the free RoboSHOOT X App. This App lets you do the following:

• turn groups on or off without having to use the actual buttons on the receivers
• mix and match TTL and Manual control
• set relative FEC compensation (e.g. Group 1 +1 FEC, Group 2 -2 FEC)
• set FEC lock
• set manual power levels, from 1/1 all the way down to 1/512!

The App can do a lot more that I haven't tested, but it's really complete without being complex. Still, while having smartphone control over your flashes is great in a studio, for outdoor work, I would still prefer to be able to control power levels, FEC and groups from the transmitter itself. I would really like to see Serene Automation develop a clip-on group controller much like Pocketwizard did with the AC-3 zone controller, so the phone can stay in my pocket during the shoot. In fact, I already pitched the idea.

This image of Stéphanie was shot at 1/2000th of a second, a feature made possible by the X100T's leaf shutter and the RoboSHOOT triggers. Not all radio triggers support these high sync speeds. If you have an X100T and you like flash, the RoboSHOOT triggers are a no-brainer! I used a Nikon SB-900 and a Nissin i40. Main light was shot through the SMDV 70 Speedbox.

5 Other advanced features

If these features alone weren't enough to startle your interest, there's a couple of advanced features that I did not even use or try because I simply did not need them: you can use TTL lock, create up to four profiles that you can call up by pushing a button on the transmitter, specify delays and so on. The profiles can store advanced things like flash zoom setting, allowing you some extra pop from your flash by zooming it remotely. Wedding photographers will also appreciate the fact that there's a TTL passthrough hotshoe on the MX-20 trigger unit so you can put an on-camera fill flash on top of the trigger. It's actually even more than a simple passthrough, as it is also part of the group system that can be controlled from the App. Like I said... advanced features :-)

Conclusion

Although Serene Automation also produce a more basic trigger-receiver combo (the MX-15 / RX-15) I would recommend getting the more powerful and versatile MX-20 / RX-20 combo. The product page on the website gives you more info on the differences and specifications of the units. If you're only interested in manual off-camera flash, the MX-20 and RX-20 flash triggers are probably overcomplete and there are simpler and cheaper options available like the ones mentioned above. However, if you want to be able to use TTL off camera and/or if you have an X100T and/or if you still have some Nikon SB-900's or SB910's lying around, then these triggers are almost a must-buy.

At $380 for a set, they aren't cheap, but bear in mind that flash photography on Fujifilm is somewhat of a niche market and most importantly, they're currently your only option anyway. So considering the fact that Serene Automation basically has a monopoly right now on this kind of trigger and considering the relatively small market, the R&D that must have gone into it and the advanced features, I think they're actually reasonably priced.

You can order them directly from Serene Automation. If you live in Belgium or Holland (or elesewhere in Europe) and want to avoid potential hassle with customs and VAT, you'll be pleased to know there's an importer for the Benelux, VDH Photo. They will be able to tell you which camera shops will retail these units.

What I liked

• They're the first (and only) TTL off-camera flash triggers that currently exist for Fujifilm cameras
• Let you use selected Nikon and Nikon-compatible flashes in TTL with your Fujifilm camera
• Advanced feature set (MX-20/RX-20)
• Free iOS and Android App
• Super fast sync speed (ideal for X100T users)
• Support for rear/second curtain sync (haven't tried it myself but I know a lot of people want this)
• Continuous shooting (introduced in the faulty and now revoked 4.20 X-T1 update) will be supported once Fuji re-releases the updated firmware.

What could be improved

• Manual power control of individual flashes or groups of flashes and FEC of groups of flashes only via App. A hardware option would be great
• Price (but in fairness, these are Serene Automation's top of the line triggers. The RX-15/MX-15 bundle is about 30 percent cheaper). The RX-15 does not let you use Nikon speedlights in TTL and the MX-15 does not work with the App.

---

Like the look of these images? Flash is a (big) part of it, but there's also the toning and styling that is done in postproduction: all images were postprocessed using my Lightroom Colorific Presets pack. You can learn more about these presets here.

If you're new to off-camera flash, my Making Light and Making Light 2 eBooks might come in handy. 

The 5 Day Deal: Save over 95 percent on top-notch photography training!

Chances are that by the end of this week, your inbox will be overflowing with emails about the 5 Day Deal. Even more, I'll put in my own two cents through my mailing list, Facebook and Twitter. The reason is that if you're reading this blog, you're interested in photography education in general and in postprocessing in particular. And that's what the 5 Day Deal has to offer. In spades. It's an unmissable opportunity to learn a lot about photography and image editing for relatively little money. Oh, and in the mean time, you get to do some charity as well. Where's the catch? There isn't. Other than you'll be needing a good internet connection to download all the stuff!

What is the 5 Day Deal?

The 5 Day Deal is a bundle of photography-related training videos, eBooks, Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions and the like. These are offered at a bundle-price of $127 (+ VAT for Europeans, if you have a valid VAT-number, you can order VAT-free). So far the 'Deal'-part. The '5 Day' part means the Deal is only valid for five days: from now until September 15th.

All the instructors are big names in their field so this bundle really is 'All Killer, No Filler'. To name but a few of the 20 photographers and retouchers: Lindsay Adler and Jeremy Cowart (portrait photography), Zack Arias (flash photography) and Serge Ramelli (French Lightroom-instructor, who's worth checking out if only for his super-enthusiast French accent. It's like being taught Lightroom by 'Inspector Clouseau'!) And let's not forget Joel Grimes (flash photography and compositing in Photoshop). Even yours truly is featured in the list!

Lindsay Adler's excellent course is but one of over 40 training resources in this bundle.

When purchased separately, the total bill of these resources would amount to over $3300. Now, they can be yours for less than 5 percent of that price. Or a discount of over 95 percent! Even if you're only interested in half of this bundle's content, the 5 Day Deal is a great deal to fill your iPad with training and reading material for the coming winter. Some of the over 40 training titles separately cost more than the entire bundle.

And, as the proverbial cherry on the pie, a part of the sale goes to charity! More on that later.

Yes but is there also something interesting for me?

Of course, I cannot decide for you, but I've already had a sneek peak and below is my personal, highly subjective top-10.

1. Zack Arias - On Assignment - The Art of the Editorial
   Flash expert, Fujifilm user and all-round nice guy Zack Arias takes you behind the scenes of a couple of commercial editorial shoots. You can see how Zack tackles challenges and makes the best of a situation and an environment and turns these into really nice portraits. On top of that, this tutorial is brand new! What can I say? I love Zack! 
2. Joel Grimes - Start To Finish Tutorials
   Joel Grimes is a US commercial photographer with a signature (and oft-copied) style. He's also known for his compositing work. The 5 Day Deal brings you two of his training videos. 
3. Jimmy McIntyre - Art of Digital Blending
   This Photoshop training teaches you all about advanced Photoshop selections and masks and introduces you to the concept of Luminosity Masking. Recommended!
4. Lindsay Adler - 5 Creative Studio Lighting Setups
   Famous New York portrait photographer Lindsay Adler shows us 5 easy yet powerful lighting setups.
5. Klaus Hermann Lightroom Preset Power Pack
   The previous 5 Day Deal had Klaus Hermann's Mask it like a Pro video training which I really liked. Now, Klaus is back with a Lightroom preset pack and a 100+ page eBook that covers all you could possibly want to know about Lightroom presets. He not only covers Develop presets (the most popular category) but also metadata presets, tool presets and so on. German thoroughness or 'Deutsche Gründlichkeit', as they say in Germany.
6. Lightroom for Landscapes
   We stay in Lightroom-territory (litterally) with this Lightroom training designed specifically for landscape photographers. It covers everything from import over editing to exporting your images. Another training that by itself costs more than the entire bundle.
7. James Brandon: POST Video Tutorial
   Photoshop wizard and acclaimed landscape photographer James Brandon shows us how he processes his images with Photoshop and he throws in a bunch of Lightroom presets just for fun!
8. The Art of Sculpting Splashes by Alex Koloskov
   This is the beauty of the 5 Day Deal: the subject of this video training interests me, but I would have a hard time paying the normal $250 price tag. Now, I don't have to: I can get this training for almost half of its suggested retail price and get dozens of other books, presets and training videos in the process!
9. Serge Ramelli - Lightroom CC Complete Training
   If you think I'm sometimes overdoing it in my Lightroom edits, wait until you see what 'PhotoSerge' does with his raw files! Personally, I find his training to be very entertaining, if only for the funny Franglais.
10. The Created Image Series Volume 2
    Last but not least this one: the video recording of last year's Created Image Seminar in Vancouver, Canada. Great motivational keynotes by David duChemin and three super-interesting lectures by Steve Simon, known for his 'The Passionate Photographer' book. 

The total value of this top-ten alone is over $1.100. And there's more, depending on your interests: a newborn photography video tutorial, Photoshop skin softening actions, a Wedding Photography Planner Guide, it just goes on and on. In fact, you can find the full list of all included resources here.

Oh, and lest I forget, you also get Clarity by Topaz Labs, a fully functional Lightroom and Photoshop plugin that is like Lightroom's Clarity slider on steroids.

The full list of all the 5 Day Deal goodies.

I am proud to be featured in The Created Image video series, which is just one of the over 40 training resources. I talk about speeding up your Lightroom workflow, Dodging and Burning and Black and White conversion. The entire 5 Day Deal bundle contains 70+ hours of video, 10+ eBooks and hundreds of Photoshop Actions and Lightroom presets.

The funny thing is that even yours truly is - indirectly - represented in the 5 Day Deal: in the Created Image Video Tutorial I mentioned earlier, you'll find three sessions in which I talk about Lightroom efficiency, Black and White and Dodging & Burning.

Did you mention something about charity?

If you need an extra push, you can always ease your conscience (or your partner) with the knowledge that 10 percent (i.e. almost $13) of every bundle sold goes to the four charities the 5 Day Deal team picked. Even more, you can opt to double that amount upon checkout and you get to choose the charity of your liking, too.

You can choose to which of these 4 charities your 10 percent goes. By default, they all get 2.5 percent. Or, if you think the 5 Day Deal's actually too cheap, you can double the amount that goes to charity, too!

Last year's 5 Day Deal gathered a whopping $200.000+ for these charities and this time they're aiming at breaking the $300.000 mark. 

All 4 charities look great, but I have a soft spot for the BOMA project, if only because my good friend David duChemin already did some pro bono work for them: if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me! Boma helps very poor women in rural African areas to the financial means to start small projects. 

I rest my case!

Disclaimer: if you purchase the 5 Day Deal bundle through the links on this page, MoreThanWords receives an affiliate commission (which cost you nothing extra, by the way). However, this does not influence my opinion about this bundle: on my blog, I only recommend things I find worthwhile. For instance, a while back, there was another bundle which I decided not to recommend because I knew this one was coming and I liked it better.

Review: The Jinbei HD 600 II: Portable Flash Power for my Fuji X cameras

There seems to be a consistent pattern among people who start to discover the wonders of off-camera flash: you start out with one speedlight, such as the excellent Godox Ving V850 which I reviewed here, and take that through its paces. Sooner or later, though, you'll encounter situations where that one speedlight just isn't powerful enough, for example on sunny days or when you want to use big diffusers. Diffusers eat flash power for breakfast! So, if you want to photograph people in sunny locations with a diffuser such as an umbrella or a softbox, like I do on my India trips, one speedlight just won't cut it. So you add a second. And a third... and possibly a fourth. 

That's where things start to become complicated and heavy and not to mention: expensive: to use all those flashes, you need special adapters such as Lastolite's Triflash or Quad Bracket or the Foursquare. Also, unless you're working with a flash like the Godox with its custom li-ion battery, working with multiple hotshoe flashes means charging a hell of a lot of batteries before you go out on a shoot, especially if those flashes require separate, battery powered triggers, too. All of a sudden, you're more like a magician juggling up to 24 rechargeable batteries (that's without counting spares) than a photographer.

That's where the more powerful, battery powered studio lights come in. When I started my research, I noticed there were quite a lot of options availble. They break down into two broad categories: the ones where the battery pack and head are separate and the ones where battery and head are integrated. Both systems have their pros and cons, but for my use (I often work alone), I wanted something integrated. It's just less fuss to set up and most of the shooting I do is rather run-and-gun (or at least as run-and-gun as using a flash allows). 

The HD-600 II and its trigger. The battery slides into the back of the flash and can be taken out by the handle. If you think 500 full power flashes won't help you through the day, separate batteries are available.

I had noticed the Profoto B1 - with that marketing campaign, who hasn't - and although it looks like a nice enough unit, both the price and the specs were a little too much for me. As I was planning on using the flash in conjunction with my Fuji X cameras, I could not use (so I did not want to pay for) features such as High Speed Sync or TTL control. So after careful deliberation I opted for a Chinese brand: the Jinbei HD 600 II. 

What's in the box?

Well, quite a lot for the price, actually: 

• the Jinbei flash head itself, obviously
• the battery
• a battery charger
• a plastic protection cap to protect the flash tube when you're transporting the flash and don't have the reflector attached to it
• a standard reflector
• two handles: one that is meant as a hand grip to handhold the flash and another that is meant to attach the flash to a light stand or tripod: I generally don't take a light stand with me when I travel but I use my 3 Legged Thing Brian tripod as a makeshift light stand - it extends to over 2 meters!
• a nice soft padded carrying case that is actually useful in the field (I'm looking at you, Elinchrom!)
• a custom trigger which also lets you remotely set the power

What are the specs?

I won't bore you too much with the technical details but suffice to say that the Jinbei is rated at a whopping 600 Wattseconds of power and that the battery lasts for about 500 full power pops before needing a recharge (separate batteries are available for purchase). The flash has a user-selectable slow or fast recycle mechanism (with the latter being not as good for the battery life) and the power can be changed (remotely or on the flash itself) from full power down to 1/128th. 

The flash takes between 0.3 to 4.5 seconds (depending on the power level) to recycle in Slow mode and between 0.3 and 3.5 seconds in Fast recycle mode. That's not blazing fast, but remember this is a battery operated flash we're talking about. Also, that four second wait is only at full power... And with 600 Ws under the hood, you won't always be working this flash at its maximum power anyway! This flash at one eight power is about as powerful as a speedlight at full power.

The Jinbei weighs a little under 2.5 kg and measures 124 x 124 x 268 mm.

It has a 5 W LED modeling light but frankly I never use it because I always use the flash outside in bright and sunny conditions anyway where any modeling light would simply be too weak.

How does it handle?

At 2.48 kgs, the Jinbei is of course a lot heavier than a traditional speedlight, although it's still a bit lighter than a Profoto B1. In fact, one of the (many) advantages of the Fuifilm X-system for me is that, since my camera system itself weighs considerably less than before, I can 'reinvest' some of those weight savings back into useful accessories. And the Jinbei sure does qualify as useful! 

Also, when you look at the power to weight ratio, it isn't so heavy anymore: depending on how you calculate, a 600 Ws flash has about the same power output as 6 to 10 regular speedlights! Try schlepping those around, let alone handholding them in the air or putting them on a light stand!

One technique I like to use is to put my subject between the sun and an umbrella'd Jinbei: the sun then acts as a rim-light, adding a nice glow around my subject while the flash provides a soft fill light. It's basically a 'two lights for the price of one' setup.

FUJIFILMX-T1 | XF56mmF1.2 R | 1-180 sec at f - 2.8 | ISO 200

For short sessions, I have no problem handholding the Jinbei. It does help though that in my other hand, I'm generally holding a relatively lightweight X-T1 with a prime lens or even an X100-T... I really love the fact that the EVF lets me previsualize the amount of ambient light I allow in my pictures but that's food for another blogpost entirely! 

The way the umbrella adapter attaches to the flash's base plate is proprietary and a little clunky, but not a deal breaker. On the plus side, this design lets you exchange the umbrella adapter with the supplied handle.

So far, so good...

If there's one gripe I have with the Jinbei, it's the fact that the proprietary mechanism of attaching any of the two supplied handles is a bit fiddly. Not that it will break or the flash will come loose, but the flash just sits a bit wobbly on the umbrella adapter. I haven't had any serious issues with it and my buddy Matt Brandon who bought the same flash after seeing me use it in Rajasthan, solved the issue by changing the screw. I just hate DIY stores!

Oh, and while I'm venting, I might as well say that the trigger is rather basic. I really wish it had an LCD so I could see the power settings but on the upside, it at least lets you change the power remotely. And it's small so it does not get in the way of my Fuji's control wheels... so maybe I should be careful what I wish for!

The Jinbei uses the popular Bowens mount which gives you loads of downright cheap to affordable modifier options. I like to use it with the Phottix Luna Folding Softbox, for example, which I can set up in under a minute. In India though, I generally use it with an umbrella: in fact, as nice as it is, I don't use the supplied carrying case but rather put the flash with a Lastolite Trifold umbrella (closed, obviously) attached to the supplied umbrella adapter in a Vanguard Heralder 38 shoulder bag. I've refitted the velcro dividers in this bag so that there's still room for my second camera body. A nice extra of this bag is that it can also hold my 3 Legged Thing Brian which I use more as a light stand than as an actual tripod! I must say that the flash and the tripod start to weigh after a day of lugging them around so I'm considering putting them in an F-Stop Loka UL backpack om my next trip. I'll let you know how that goes!

When used with an X-100T or any other camera that has a fast sync speed, the power of the Jinbei allows for extreme control over your ambient light while photographing at action-freezing speeds.

FUJIFILMX100T |  1-500 sec at f - 2.8 | ISO 400

Apparently, if you use a different trigger that Jinbei are currently working at, the HD600 II will also do high-speed sync with Nikon and Canon cameras, but not with Fuji cameras. I can't tell you much more about it as I use the Phottix Indra with my Nikon D800 whenever I want to use High Speed Sync. The Phottix, which I'll review later, is also a very powerful portable, battery operated studio flash and does TTL, too with Nikon and Canon. As such, I feel like it's more of an alternative (and a really good one!) for the Profoto B1 than for the Jinbei. 

How much does it cost?

Well, that's probably the best part of this whole review and it's also that part that will make you forgive the flash any of its few shortcomings: the whole lot (flash, reflector, charger, battery, trigger, handles and carrying case) will set you back... a little under 600 €, including 20% VAT! Which, in photography terms is cheap. Really cheap!

With 600 Ws of light at your disposal, you can turn a day scene into a night scene: this photo was shot in the early afternoon. I was able to almost completely kill the ambient light and replace it with flash light.

FUJIFILMX-T1 | XF10-24mmF4 R OIS | 1-180 sec at f - 5.0 | ISO 200

The verdict

For the money, this flash is hard to beat. It packs a lot of power in a relatively lightweight package and is easy to handle. The trigger allows you to conveniently set the power remotely and the Bowens mount is handy because there's a really wide range of affordable modifiers available for it. 

Whenever I use this flash during one of my flash workshops, people are amazed about the price/performance ratio of the Jinbei. Add to that a 2 year warranty and even if it totally falls apart on the 731st day, I'd still consider it a great bargain. 

Highly recommended!

What could be improved

• An LCD on the trigger with a power-readout would be nice
• The way the handle attaches to the flash (a bit wobbly now)

What I like

• High power: 600 Ws
• All-in-one design, no cables or separate power pack!
• At 2.5 kgs, relatively lightweight for the power
• Battery lasts some 500 full power pops
• Bowens mount means lots of affordable modifiers
• Complete package with reflector, handles and trigger
• Very competitively priced

Where can you get one?

Oddly enough, distribution of this flash is very limited here in Europe. I only found one store that carries this HD 600 II: I bought my unit at the ever so friendly guys of Fotomorgen.de, a German online reseller that has great service. They speak English (click on the Online Chat icon at the top left of their website) and if you have a VAT number, they will ship VAT-free outside of Germany. I can really recommend them. They are very knowledgeable and also carry a great range of lighting accessories.

If you're in the US, Adorama sells a rebadged version of this flash called the Flashpoint Rovelight RL-600. I believe the attachment of the handle is a little different - which can only be an improvement - but otherwise it has the same specs. It exists in two versions: one with Adorama's own mount and one with a Bowens mount just like the actual Jinbei.

FUJIFILMX-T1 | XF56mmF1.2 R | 1-180 sec at f - 1.2 | ISO 200. Without the use of a flash, the light coming in through the back wall would have been disturbingly bright.

If you want to practice your off-camera flash skills in one of the most photogenic places on earth, join Fujifilm X-photographer Matt Bandon and me on the North India Photo Tour (Feb. 14 to 24, 2016). You can learn more about this fantastic photo workshop here.

If you want to learn more about off-camera flash, then my Making Light 1 and Making Light 2 eBooks might be of interest to you.

Review: Godox V850 manual Li-ion flash: a perfect manual flash for my Fujifilm X-cameras

As mentioned in my Lighting Gear page, I currently use three types of hotshoe flashes with my Fuji X series cameras: for on-camera work where I like to have TTL support, I use Fuji's own EF-42 flash. It's relatively powerful, and especially when bouncing my flash I appreciate the fact that the TTL system automatically calculates the required output setting. However, when I use my flash off-camera, things change: there currently isn't a wireless TTL off-camera solution for Fujifilm flashes and as a result, I have been working with (and grown quite fond of) manual flashes.

Now admittedly, I never really missed TTL for off-camera work: even with my Nikon Speedlights and cameras that supported off-camera TTL, I would almost always work in manual. I like the consistency, control and repeatability that manual offers. What I do appreciate, though, is to be able to remotely change the (manual) power on my flash. The two manual flashes that I use, do exactly that, and then some.

The Godox Ving V850

In this blog post, I want to talk about the first option: the Godox Ving V850. I actually have four of them, which should already be a testament to how much I like and use them. The V850 has the following features:

• High power output (comparable to a Nikon SB-900 or a top of the line Canon speedlight): guide number of 58 at ISO 100
• 1.5 seconds recycle time in full power!
• Manual power is remotely controllable from 1:1 to 1:128 power
• The flash zoom can be changed from wide-angle to 105 mm (although not remotely)
• Support for plenty of channels via the FT-16s trigger
• Clip-on receiver takes its power from the flash
• With an optional trigger like Godox's Cells II, the V850 can do high-speed-sync with selected Nikon and Canon cameras (but not with Fuji cameras)
• Recheargeable, removeable Li-ion battery

A removable, rechargeable lithium ion battery in a flash. Canon and Nikon, why didn't you come up with this?

Lithium power, convenience and endurance in a hotshoe flash!

It's that last bullet point that made me pick up my first V850. I don't know about you, but charging or buying all those AA batteries for a regular flash soon becomes tiresome. On top of that, I will often use two or even three flashes on a shoot. If you add the batteries for the radio receivers, that means I sometimes have to charge up to 18 batteries for a shoot. That is if you're working without battery packs for your hotshoe flashes. As these typically require another 8 (eight!) AA batteries (per battery pack), the total battery count could reach fifty for a two to three flash shoot. And then of course there's the need to carry some spares. Because if one battery wears out prematurely, the entire flash or trigger becomes unreliable. 

 

The lithium ion battery in the V850 lasts over 500 full power pops. Try doing that with AA's! It's simply amazing and it's strange that no other hotshoe flash manufacturer is currently offering this.

What's in the box?

The V850 comes with a stand, a carrying pouch (which unfortunately lacks some straps), one battery and a charger. This is the 'Kit' version. There's also a version without the charger (e.g. if you want to buy a second flash and don't need an extra charger).

The FT-16s Trigger and Receiver combo

If you want to control the flash remotely, I suggest you get an FT 16s trigger receiver combo. Especially if you only use one flash off camera (or two flashes in the same group), then this trigger is adequate enough. If you want to work with multiple flashes in different groups, setting and changing power on those flashes becomes a little more convoluted but it can still be done. I found that the buttons and wheels (especially the one where you set the channel) are quite prone to being inadvertently changed, e.g. when you take your camera or flash out of your camera bag. So it's good to double-check your settings. Or, use gaffer tape to nail down settings you don't want to change. And while you're using the gaff tape, set some aside to attach the receiver to the flash because it comes of really easy. These are minor inconveniences but you just have to be aware of them. Other than that, the V850 and the trigger are super easy to operate.

Pricing and availability

In Europe, the V850 costs around 169 €. Theres's also a kit version with an FT 16s trigger and a receiver that offers substantial savings over buying the flash and the trigger separately. It's available from online retailers such as cameratools.nl in the Netherlands and artencraft.be in Belgium. Prices can vary by as much as 20 percent so check around! Outside of Europe, the V850 is even cheaper. Again, it pays to check around.

The verdict

All in all, for the money this flash is hard to beat and I highly recommend it for anyone who does not need TTL in an off-camera flash. If you are a Nikon or Canon user, this flash is also available with TTL (as the Godox V860N or V860C, respectively).

Pros

• Great value for money
• Power can be set remotely
• Incredible autonomy: up to 600 full power flashes on a single charge
• No more lugging AA batteries around
• Receiver takes its power from the flash: one less set of batteries to worry about!
• Li-ion Battery is removable, so you can swap it out for a spare fresh one
• Supports high-speed sync on Nikons and Canons with a dedicated trigger

Cons:

• Triggering options could be a little more sophisticated, especially when using multiple flashes (but it works)
• Clip-on receiver is easy to get lost and/or inadvertently change the settings (so use velcro or gaffer tape to attach it firmly, as I do)
• there is a sync port but it's a 2.5 mm one instead of the more convenient 3.5 mm one (which lets you use simple audio cables without a 3.5 to 2.5 mm adapter).

Some images

After all, gear is only a tool to create images, right? So, to finish this blog post, I want to show you some of my India images that I made using one or two of my Godox flashes in combination with my Fuji cameras. Most of these images were shot through a Lastolite Trifold collapsible umbrella and when I combined two flashes for power, I used a Lastolite double bracket.

Tea Stall in Rajasthan

Nomad life, Ladakh

Snake Charmers. Jaipur

Rickshaw drivers, Jaipur

Nomad life, Ladakh

Voice activated light stand Alou with two Godox flashes, a Lastolite dual flash bracket and a Trifold umbrella

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If you want to practice your off-camera flash skills in one of the most photogenic places on earth, join Fujifilm X-photographer Matt Bandon and me on the North India Photo Tour (Feb. 14 to 24, 2016). You can learn more about this fantastic photo workshop here.

If you want to learn more about off-camera flash, my Making Light 1 and Making Light 2 eBooks can be of help. Priced at only $ 6 each, they're very affordable and will teach you all you need to know to get up and running with off-camera flash!