What made you feel good today

[CML-1591]

Ordering CS5 for £160 odd

Is that the school version then. What checks / requirements do they do / have?

Nope, not the educational package/deal one.

Wmmfgt? Walked into a trade exhibition and saw lots of my pics printed BIG and a movie of the shoot running. Lots of people said nice things

Great stuff! Though i'm not really surprised tbh...

[jinky]

Last night actually. Joined my fellow Leeds Strobists from Flickr Leeds group an a free Flash Centre event featuring James Madelin and his Orbis ring flash. Around 25 of us with one model and a bit of a scrum so no great posed shots but interesting to see how the Ornbis works on and off camera. Must say I was much more impressed with the Orbis than I thought I`d be. Not sure if I`ll be spending the £185 on it any time soon but was capable of good results on and off camera if a bit cumbersome to handle. Of course you can buy a bracket for another £49 to put it on camera 
A few examples - 2 head on with the lens trhrough the orbis riung  and th other with bac up rim lighting.






Was a nice bloke James Madelin and is touring at the moment - from New Zealand I think. Appearing in Birmingham and London too in next 2 days if you get the chance.See here:
http://snapperstuff.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/orbis%E2%84%A2-uk-photowalks-with-inventor-james-madelin-leeds-14910/

Free but might well be fully subscribed. Leeds Flash Centre was offering £10 off last night but only got 2 takers.

[Oldboy]

Cracking shots Jinky but may need to touch-up her blemishes. 

[Jonathan]

I'm sorry.  But these show me the weakness of things like the Orbis.  Not enough power to give a real ringflash look.  It just makes for flattish, dullish lighting.

Last one's by far the nicest.  But that's the back lighting.

[jinky]

Considering we were on a conveyor belt with hastily guessed settings I thought they were not too bad. I`ve not done much with them other than straight conversion to jpeg through NX2 to show what happens in a quick grab with orbis and didn`t get much chance to use with other lights but they were certainly better with the orbis than bounced flash so made me think. A couple of guys there actually usd them a lot at weddings when it was impractical to use / lack of time for soft boxes and were happy.

[Jonathan]

Considering we were on a conveyor belt with hastily guessed settings I thought they were not too bad. I`ve not done much with them other than straight conversion to jpeg through NX2 to show what happens in a quick grab with orbis

That's kind of my point.  They are sold as a go to quick fix lighting solution to give "cool fashiony" results.  But they don't really.

They are handy in a tight spot and with care can produce some pretty nice results but I don't think they are the one stop cool button that the makers claim.  If you look in their Flickr group most of the best shots are multi light setups or off camera ring flash.

[anglefire]

I have something similar - Ray flash copy - and its ok - and definately wasn't £180. I forget exactly, but well under a ton.

Good for macro actually - nice and close so the lack of power isn't normally an issue. But does need +2FEC most of the time. But thats probably Canon's flash system!

[jinky]

There`s a couple of guys in Leeds Flickr group got ray flash copies of ebay that had them with them but they lost a lot more light than the orbis and others complained they just did not work as well as the orbis. Saw some good results with the orbis used at arms lemgth right up close to the models face like a beauty dish but seemd cumbersome to hold and shoot at same time. Would obviously not compete with a proper lighting system or even decents strobist stuff with flashes / softboxes but I must admit if they have been £100 less I might have been tempted for the soft diffusion they gave.
What do you reckon works better as a lgiht modifier then Jonathan - lightsphere or something else?

[Jonathan]

>> There`s a couple of guys in Leeds Flickr group got ray flash copies of ebay that had them with them but they lost a lot more light than the orbis and others complained they just did not work as well as the orbis.

What?  A cheap eBay copy doesn't work as well as the real thing?  Well I never........

>> What do you reckon works better as a lgiht modifier then Jonathan - lightsphere or something else?

Depends a lot on the circumstances and the look you are after.  Ringflash is kind of cool in small doses but gets overworked.  To see it and other mods in a master's hands check out Ambrel (http://www.ambrel.net/) - you'd have to work at a pretty liberal place for that to be classed as SFW.

Shall we split this into another thread?

-----

WMMFGT?

Off to London to shoot 4 scientists in wedding gowns for some sort of press stunt.  Every day my life gets more rock and roll.

[jinky]

Oops sorry - got a little carried away there
No , thanks for the link - Ill have a look at that one.

[anglefire]

Jonathan, a friend of mine has a proper Ray Flash. Taking the label off you wouldn't know which is which! And thet performa exactly the same. Tried it to see if the extra money was worth it.

It wasn't!

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, a friend of mine has a proper Ray Flash. Taking the label off you wouldn't know which is which! And thet performa exactly the same. Tried it to see if the extra money was worth it.

It wasn't!

Um yeah, I have a real Rayflash.....  It's quite nice.

They are pretty complicated inside.

[anglefire]

Are we talking the same thing? The one I'm thinking of is basically a series of clear plastic ducts that spread the light around a ring. http://www.simplyringflash.com/?gclid=CLfRt4P6jaQCFY1k4wodYEfwIA

Not particularly complicated. Principle of fibre optics.

[Jonathan]

Are we talking the same thing? The one I'm thinking of is basically a series of clear plastic ducts that spread the light around a ring. http://www.simplyringflash.com/?gclid=CLfRt4P6jaQCFY1k4wodYEfwIA

Not particularly complicated. Principle of fibre optics.

Give me £151 and we can find out   I assume the diameter, bendiness and makeup of the ducts matters.  Maybe the real one is more expensive just because they had to do the R&D.

Anyway....WMMFGT?

Yesterday actually.  I was shooting a press call for Brides At Work (with luck the pics will be in the Standard etc). 5 scientists in wedding dresses plus some professor or other.  I stuck the tallest scientist at the end and it looked OK.  Then I noticed she had a nice headpiece on one side so I swapped her to the other end of the row.  Dropped a couple of frames before I spotted her watch.

Got her to take her watch off and shot "the" frame.

Popped it up on the laptop 5 mins later.  We had about 3 mins until print deadline.  And the frames with her watch off had blink from other people on them......

So....open in CS5....circle with lasso tool...hit delete "content aware".

And heard both the PR agents on either side of me GASP as it deleted the watch and left her wrist in place.  "Oh yeah, I do that all the time....".  Well our regular guy can't do that.  "oh, right, did you want to check diaries for the next few weeks.....?"

[Oldboy]

So....open in CS5....circle with lasso tool...hit delete "content aware".

And heard both the PR agents on either side of me GASP as it deleted the watch and left her wrist in place.  "Oh yeah, I do that all the time....".  Well our regular guy can't do that.  "oh, right, did you want to check diaries for the next few weeks.....?"

Should have added, "I'm a Pro". 

Well done, and hope something good comes out of that.