Question:

I’ve read your Gear List and found the California Sunbounce item to be very interesting/useful. I’m pretty certain I will purchase it, but first I had a few questions. I noticed that you almost always use two SB-600s speedlites attached to it and you also always use it outdoors.

My questions are:
Do I need to use two speedlites? At the moment I only own one SB-600 and would prefer to not have to purchase another one any time soon. If I went on a 2 hour long shoot (with one to two clients) and brought backup batteries for my speedlite, would you say that is efficient? Also, is the canvas large enough to light full body shots?

Second question is, I know it’s called a “sunbounce” but can I use it indoors similar to an umbrella? It looks as though I can definitely try, but would you recommend it? I prefer to shoot in natural light outdoors as well, but everyone now and then I get requests from clients who wants a few indoor headshots.

I just threw a bunch of questions at you but I hope you can help answer as many of my questions as you can.
Any thoughts would help. Thank you!

Answer:

The sunbounce is a great reflector, especially outdoors… you will love how rigid it is. If you’ve tried, you’ll know that an umbrella outdoors is like a sail in the wind. With even the slightest breeze it can topple over and ruin your gear. That’s why a rigid reflector like the CA Sunbounce works so well.

With regards to your questions, you don’t have to use two speedlights. Actually, with two speedlights it gets quite heavy and tilts down the speedlight bracket a little bit. The main reason we use two is to 1) provide more power under daylight and 2) get faster recycle time and 3) we have them handy so why not.

Here is a little more explanation:

1. More power: When you shoot with a shallow depth of field outdoors (f/1.4 to f/2.8) your shutterspeed will be around 2000 to 4000. This puts the flash into HighSpeedSync mode which in reality is multiple pulses of lower powered light vs a typical one strong burst of light. So when you have two speedlights it provides you twice the amount of power (most of the time you may not need the power, but sometimes in harsh daylight it will come in handy).
2. Faster recyle time: With two speedlights you can cut the power needed by each light in half. So essentially, if you needed 1 light at full power… you can now use 2 lights at half power, which results in faster recycle time and longer lasting batteries for the session.

You will be fine with just one speedlight, but in certain situations you may find you want the faster recycle time or more power. Since we have multiple speedlights handy, we mount them on just in case.

Can the sunbounce light up full body shots? They come in different sizes. The one we have (Micro-mini) is 2′x3′ and lights half body shots well. You will notice a little fall-off below if you try to use it for a full body. The full sized (Mini) is 3′x4′ and will be able to light full body shots much more evenly.

Can you use the sunbounce indoors like an umbrella? Yes, certainly. Both work off the same bounced light principle. By bouncing your light off the sunbounce reflector or umbrella, you are increasing the size of the light from your speedlight. With larger light, you get softer shadows. The only difference you will see is that umbrellas give round catchlights, while your sunbounce will give rectangular catch lights in the eyes of your subjects.

Hope this clears things up in regards to the CA Sunbounce reflector vs an umbrella.

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What is FAQ Fridays?

FAQ Fridays is an ongoing weekly feature on this site where WE answer questions submitted by you. We hope this new segment will help with many of your photography challenges. As always, you can ask questions in the comments section if it relates to that certain post.

Here is a list of: all previous FAQ Fridays posts

If you have specific questions that do not relate directly… then feel free to submit your questions by using the FAQ Fridays Submission Form page.

Alternatively, you can email your questions to: faq -at- prettygeeky.com (note: email broken up to prevent spam bots).

This year, if you are looking for a special gift for each other… why not a Valentine’s Portrait session. You’ll both enjoy the afternoon and have beautiful photos to remember it by. Contact us for our very affordable rates. =)

Update: This was a sneak peek to our Valentine’s portrait.. take a look at another version of our “floating hearts” theme.

BTS:

A while back we had bought the Bokeh Masters kit ($25). It’s been sitting in our photography drawer for quite some time… until this shoot. The hearts you see are actual bokeh hearts straight out of the camera, not photoshopped hearts. With the Bokeh Masters kit, you can change the shape of the usually round defocused background lights into whatever you want; all you need then are pretty lights (we used Christmas lights), a little bit of creativity and a tripod if no one is willing to take a photo of you. ;p

Click through for the list.. a lot of them are very affordable.

• updated: older TS2 model is discontinuted. TS10 is the newer model. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS10 ~$192: Waterproof point and shoot digital camera. This camera is compact and looks great, but its best feature is being extra durable. It’s drop resistant (from 6ft), waterproof (up to 30feet), freeze proof (14°f)… but most importantly, it’s practically kid proof! So your little one loves snapping photos, but you cringe every time he runs around with it? This Panasonic Lumix camera is what you’ve been looking for. Let them develop their creativity w/o you having a heart attack. Take it to the beach, take it fishing, take it swimming, take it camping… take it everywhere. And it comes in all sorts of lifestyle colors: orange, blue, silver, and yellow. This camera also has video features, the quality is quite good.. just not great for high framerate, extreme sports stuff (if you care more about video quality, look at the next item). In terms of quality, design and durability, this is probably the best overall P&S cameras out there (wish I had it when I ruined my old P&S camera while white-water rafting down a river). Here are a few test videos: Regular video and underwater video samples.
• GoPro HD HERO ~$260: Extreme sports video camera. For those who care more about video quality than picture quality… this is the HD video camera to get for that extreme sportster you know. Strap it to your chest, a skateboard, mountain bike, helmet, snow skis, RC car, motorcycle, auto, surf board.. basically strap it onto anything for video footage you’ve never been able to produce before. The high frame rate quality of this video camera will allow you to easily take slow motion footage. It also doubles as a 5Megapixel digital camera. Of course, this video camera is also waterproof (180feet). This video camera actually comes in several kits. All the kits have the same HD Hero camera… only the mounts will differ (helmet,auto, surf). Take a look at this extreme sports footage taken with the HD Hero video camera.
• Microsoft Lifecam Studio Webcam ~$99 (currently exclusive to BestBuy): So your friend loves uploading make-up tutorial videos to youtube? But her videos are super grainy… and you just don’t have the heart to tell her? Get her this HD webcam so her videos can finally look “professional”. Wide angle, auto focusing, close-up focusing… it’s pretty much the best USB webcam you can get right now. Here’s a quick review I found on youtube. Another one, but more of a makeup tutorial type video using the actual camera.
• Yeti USB Microphone ~$97: This is the perfect gift for the youtube musician / podcaster who you may know. The Yeti is a professional grade USB microphone at still an affordable price made by Blue Microphones, a respected high quality brand (not your crappy $10 walmart logitech microphone). It has multiple recording modes and is totally plug and play (no need to install extra PC drivers). I’m thinking about getting one of these myself for upcoming PrettyGeeky video reviews =). Here’s a video review of the mic. Here’s an actual clip:sample song recorded with the mic.
• Black Rapid RS-W1 strap ~$65: customized DSLR camera strap for women. Your wife is always the one taking photos of the kids. You see the heavy camera strapped around her neck all day long and then complain about her raw, sore neck after dinner. Get her this shoulder strap and you’ll never hear about it again. The strap evenly distributes the weight of the camera across your body. It also puts the camera into a more accessible position so you can quickly grab and shoot. They make a strap for guys too.
• Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Boxed Set, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 ~$44: The best way to improve your photography skillset is to actually go out and shoot! Practice makes perfect. The second best way? Read, read, read. As with anything else, a little guidance will go along way. This set of 3 books by Scott Kelby will definitely point your new photography enthusiast of a friend in the right direction. Scott explains technical things in plain English… he shows you instead of drowning you in technical jargon.
• Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S lens ~$192: Ever wonder why your photos never “pop” like those of the pros? If it’s not operator error =p, it could be the technical limitation of the kit lens that came with your camera. Set aside the kit lens that came with your camera and get creative with “real” lenses. Ever wonder why your indoor photos are always blurry? The lens is one of the major reasons why. Lenses with larger apertures (f/2.8 to f/1.4) will allow you to take better, sharper images in dim light conditions. Get this lens and you’ll never touch your kit lens again.
• Lensbaby Composer ~$270: Allow your photographer friends to really explore their creativity through this “tilt-shift” type creative lens system. Focus on your subject and watch everything else blur away (like this). It’s a manual focus system which forces you to develop your basic skills of creative framing. They make separate kits for different brands: Lensbaby for Canon and Lensbaby for Nikon.

Well, that’s it for now everyone. Hopefully the short list of items and reviews will ease your holiday shopping woes. As Christmas approaches, I will try to update this list with more gadgets… check back often for updates.

Do you have cool gift ideas that should go up alongside these? Share your gift idea in the comment section below…

Click through to read what I thought (good and bad points) of the iPad… from the point of view of a gadget junky geek head (yours truly).

The iPad is a really, really, really cool device. You may not think much of it as you read this, but that’s because you’re not holding one at this exact moment! Because once you have it in your hands.. wow, the cool factor shoots through the roof. Remember how fun it was in kindergarten when Miss Johnson first showed you how to finger paint? Can’t remember back that far? lol. Remember the last time you handed your baby nephews a bucket of paint and just told them to have at it? OMG, the look on their faces… it’s heaven on earth right? THAT’s how much fun the iPad is. Computers reach a whole new level of entertainment when navigated through your finger tips. So primitive, but so engaging and fun.

You know how in every sci-fi movie you see gadgets that make you think “wow, that’s cool”? Well, I honestly think that Apple is the company that will take us there. The company just oozes creativity; every mobile device they make have been ground breaking technological achievements. To tell you the truth, Apple’s profit margin on these mobile devices are so huge I wouldn’t be surprised if they called it quits on everything else (hardware, software) and just focused on mobile devices.

Before you people think I’ve gone mad… let me at least say that the iPad is NOT a laptop replacement (at least not yet). Laptops have more processing power in them; they wont be going anywhere just yet. So what place does the iPad take? It takes the podium as the coolest media consumption device ever.

The iPad will bring kids back out of their bedrooms and back into the living room. Why are kids stuck in the bedroom nowadays? TOP reason… that’s where their computers are. What do they do on the computer most of the time? Surf the web, update their myspace / facebook and chat with friends. The iPad allows you to do all this… while still enjoying TV or a movie in the living room. It is so lightweight and powerful, there’s been nothing like it before. It has a beautiful screen that makes it perfect for showing off your photos with friends, social networking on the web, casual music (iPod’s small size still makes it better), reading e-books, and watching videos/TV online. Because it is an actual thin lightweight tablet… you’ll be more inclined to use it in bed, on the couch, in the car, at the park… basically everywhere you wanted to take your laptop to but didn’t because it was too troublesome.

Anyways, enough ranting and raving. Here are the highlights that I personally like.

• Showing off photos: Wow. Hands down the greatest device ever to do this with. Flip, flip, flip.. grab, twist zoom… flip the iPad over to show your friends and the screen automatically orients itself. Just amazing. You can use it as an uber expensive digital picture frame if you want.
• Surfing the web: Update twitter, myspace, facebook easily. Surfing the web hasn’t been this fun in a long while.. it’s fast and responsive too. It’s amazing how interactive the web can be when driven by your finger tips. No longer will you have to sit at your desk or have your laptop cook your thighs (not healthy for us guys, you know what I mean right fellas?! lol)
• Watching videos: Watch TV shows and movies anywhere. Amazing quality too! If you’re at the electronics store fooling around with the iPad… make sure you check out the free iPad app “ABC Player”. It should be pre-installed already. See the quality of the streaming videos and you’ll fall in love with the possibilities. It’s only a matter of time before HULU and the other broadcast stations turn their iPad apps on!

  What’s another reason I like this feature so much? I’m a Netflix user… and with the Netflix iPad app, I can stream movies straight to the iPad. Sometimes I just want to sit in bed and watch a movie w/o having to turn on the whole TV / Stereo system thingy. Plug in your headset and now you wont have to annoy anyone else not watching your movie. I am going to love this TV-movies feature a lot.

• Reading e-books: Amazon and Sony readers just took a big punch in the gut. Ouch. Those screens are black and white. The iPad is rich high-res color. Wanna turn the page? Just flip it.. so primitive huh? Apple’s iBookstore uses a different format than Amazon’s Kindle, so thus, their book library will be small at first… but it’s only a matter of time until the momentum swings in favor of the iPad. Wow, Apple is positioning themselves well as an e-commerce gateway to the mobile devices huh? Remember when everyone said there is no way in hell people would ever pay for music again after what Napster opened up? Hello iPod, hello iTunes… good bye Napster. Like I said, Apple will be that company that takes mobile devices “there”.
• 10hr long battery life: Battery performance is a must have if you want to be a true mobile device. I’m glad they took care of this.

Now that I’ve mentioned the GOOD things… it wouldn’t be fair for me to write this without mentioning some of the BAD things that many have been complaining about.

• No on-board webcam: Wow, you would think this would’ve been a no brainer. A 9″ screen tablet with webcam would be perfect. But how else will they get you to buy the iPad version 2 right? lol
• No USB ports: Can’t easily plug in an external HD or other accessories.
• Web surfing doesn’t support “Flash” videos. The “Flash” video platform.. even though it is everywhere, is old, and it’s a CPU hog. That’s my guess for why they chose not to support it. Apple decided to use a different “more HTML standardized” approach (ahh the irony) to display videos.This doesn’t mean you can’t watch youtube. You can still enjoy all of youtube’s splendor via the Youtube iPad app. You youtubers can breathe normally now.
• Cant install any of your own apps: As I mentioned earlier, the iPad isn’t a laptop. You will not be able to install any application you want. Only applications from the Apple app store will work. (almost all the iPhone apps should work)
• Still using slow 3G: I’m sure once Apple’s contract with AT&T ends, they will explore the other faster networks like Sprint’s 4G (10x faster than 3G). Rumor has it AT&T has been slow to build it’s 4G network and Apple’s not happy. I’m sure the future versions of iPads will adapt to what’s available at that time. You can technically take advantage of the 4G networks today, but that’s a whole other topic.
• it’s not an OLED display: the LED backlit LCD display is beautiful.. don’t get me wrong. But have you ever seen an OLED display? As the song goes… “Gizz in my pants!”

Well, that’s it. This is what I thought of the iPad while fooling around with it for 3 hours. Did I buy one? No I resisted lol… I’m waiting for the 3G version coming out in a few weeks; this way I can truly go mobile with it. I can’t wait to see what all the app developers out there come up with for the iPad though (especially photography related apps). They will definitely flex the capabilities of the iPad. The future looks fun with devices like the iPad. Imagine the next versions of the iPad, beefier CPU, camera, more storage… I can’t wait… Beam me up Scottie!

What do you think of the iPad? Have you seen it in person yet? Let me know below. Check out other reviews of the iPad if you’d like to read more. (another: Engadget iPad review)

“Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won’t make a long-term mark on the industry.”

Can you say big booboo in judgement? Today, Apple is the worlds largest (revenue) mobile devices company. Larger than mobile divisions of Sony, Samsung, and even Nokia. Apple is a $50 billion revenue churning company… with the bulk of its momentum starting after the release of the iPhone.

Why am I bringing up all this Apple talk? Well just a few days ago, they unveiled their latest mobile device… the iPad. It will be the bridge between phone and laptop… something that I think will instantly demolish netbooks. I’m not even kidding, netbooks are so annoyingly slow they’re pretty much just a slower, weaker laptop.

First off a disclaimer, I’m not an Apple fan-boy… I don’t have an iPhone, iPod touch.. not even a plain old iPod. So why am I so excited? I will openly admit, I am a geek and being a guy.. most definitely a gadget head. If I’m driving by a Bestbuy, I watch as it fades away in my rear view mirror :tears:… if I walk by an Apple store, I HAVE to go inside just because they have all the toys out for you to play with. Then of course, if I walk by a Brookstone… I have to sit down on their massage chairs lol. I just love gadgets. Period.

So back to the iPad, why am I all geeked up? I think it will be an awesome photography presentation device. I think showcasing photos alone to clients with an iPad will get you some business. First off, they will not be able to resist holding and playing with the iPad… then as they are mesmerized by the screen.. you show them how awesome the photos you just took of them look. Flip flip flip through the pictures will equal = Chaa… chiiiing! Print orders, print orders and more print orders. Because, Apple makes an optional camera connection accessory kit, you know the engineers had photographers in mind while developing the iPad. Oh, Epson and their mobile multimedia photo viewers will absolutely hate the iPad too.

Anyways, I can’t wait to play with the iPad at the Apple stores. If you’re geeked out and must have more info, check out the following… especially the iPad release video.

• Apple iPad release video
• Apple iPad specs
• Steve Job’s keynote release video
• Scott Kelby’s getting 2 iPads.
• Terry White’s initial thoughts of the iPad.

What do you think about the iPad, are you going to buy one?

Another reason I prefer these batteries over other rechargeables is how they retain their charges when not in use. Typical NiMH rechargeable batteries will quickly discharge over time if they are not used. What’s this mean to you? Have you ever picked up your rechargeable batteries expecting them to be fully charged, only to have them crap out on you? These Sanyo Eneloops will not do that. They retain their charge better and longer than typical AA batteries (still 80% full after 6 months). This was the reason (before the Sanyos) I would always fully charge my batteries the night before a photo shoot.

Don’t just take my word for it, Jeff Lynch an avid photographer wrote up his own review on these Sanyo Eneloop batteries. He loves them too.

Anyways, I thought I’d just pass this little bit of information to you, just in case you were curious. They work equally well for TV remotes and such too. You can buy these for $13/ pack of 4 AA from the same trusty place I buy mine. They offer them in all the usual sizes too: AAA, AA, C, D.

Links:
Sanyo Eneloop AA 4-pack: $13     Sanyo Eneloop AA 4-pack w/ Charger: $18

Click here for more information on the Sanyo Eneloop technology.

When it finally arrived, I was like a kid at a candy store. I couldn’t wait for the weekend to test it out. After I bribed asked my favorite test subject to come pose for a “few” frames…. we were off to the newly discovered streetside patch. The following shots were some of my very first trial shots using this new lens.

I learned a lot that afternoon… most notably the difference from a consumer grade lens to a pro grade lens. With this new 85mm the photos just POP… I saw the difference instantly. Most of the shots were taken to see how this lens would perform at a wide open aperture (f/1.4). I know now why they call this lens the “cream machine”. Everything in the background just turns to cream cheese… the bokeh is simply dreamy. So after all this, the short answer is, yes I think I’ll keep this lens =) If any of you have questions or comments, just ask below.

Gear used:

• Nikon D700
• Nikon 85mm/f1.4 lens
• SB-600 speedlight x 2
• Nikon SU-800 speedlight commander
• Photoflex Lightdome Q39 medium softbox