Category : The Learning Center

 

 

For a long time I have not been able to talk about some of my favorite products.  When you work for any company in the photography industry, they do not desire for you to openly talk about or endorse any products from other companies.  Retired, I’m no longer so restricted, and I’m glad because a number of great companies have provided us with products that I have both bought and used for years.  I’m glad to be able to openly share about them now!

 

My dear brother Bob Singh at Singh Ray  has been producing some of the very finest filters for years and years.  His handmade, polarizers, split Neutral Density, Variable Neutral Density and many other specialty filters are among the highest quality available anywhere.  His polarizers are among the most neutral and his warming polarizers a re the perfect touch for those that like a little extra kick up warmth.  His Light is proud to be sponsored by Singh Ray.   Check them out at:   http://singh-ray.com/grndgrads.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes to camera bags no single manufacturer makes everything I need,but three make everything I’ve needed so far!!!!   Think Tank, Lowepro, and Domke each make wonderful products and each maker has some special products that are , in my opinion the best int he market place!  First Think Tank makes the most rugged, serviceable bags, rolling bags, and belt systems out there today!  I use the modular belt system, the small backpack (Street Walker), the Airport Security 2.0 rolling bag, and they have served me very well indeed.  they also make a tonk of great smaller products like battery holders, card wallets, and on and on.    Lowepro is one of the most inovative of the camera bag companies offering a lot of wonderful bags, and packs that are lighter, and very well engineered!  I love the Flip Side Sport packs that are perfect for smaller mirror-less systems as well as the larger  sizes for DSLRs.  Domke is the classic bag company that has offered the tried and true photojournalists shoulder bags trusted by globe trotting shooter for generations!  I use them less than when I was younger as a fully loaded shoulder bag can get up close to 20 pounds or more, but it is a great, easy to work out of system and perfect for those that prefer a shoulder bag!  Why three favorites?, because they all are great and deserve a big shout out from me, they’ve been great friends, shooting side by side with me for many nears!    http://www.thinktankphoto.com/           http://www.lowepro.com/          http://www.tiffen.com/products.htm

 

 

    Ever since I met Martin Wood some years ago, I’ve been a Delkin fan!  I have used their cards for yearts and have never had a failure!  How many other shooters can say that           about their cards???!!!   Delkin also makes a number of other photographic products that I’ve relied on for some years, including; Replacement batteries, camera mounts, cleaning   supplies and archival CDs and DVDs.   You can view their products at:     http://delkin.com/

 

                      I have used and loved support products from these two great companies for many years.  I first got started with the late Mike Kirk when John Shaw and Larry west introduced us many years ago, and continued my friendship with Jeff Kirk, Mike’s son and now President of Kirk Enterprises.    Later I met Bryan Geyer who eventually sold Really Right Stuff to Joe and Joan Johnson, great folks!  Both of these firms make wonderful products for photographers and as is often the case, even though they make many products that serve the same purpose, they also have certain areas of expertise and that’s why I use and recommend both lines.  I can say without qualification that the Really Right Stuff ball heads are the best I’ve ever used, period!  I own all three models for different uses (BH-55 LR, BH-40 LR and the BH-30 LR).  I also love their L Brackets and tripods.  Kirk makes some very unique Items I can’t work without, including:  The Action Grip, Low Pod, Kirk support grips, the OmniPod, the Super Grip Handle, and the King Cobra articulated swivel head!  Two great companies run by super people.  they may be fierce competitors but they have both won my undying respect and business!       http://reallyrightstuff.com                           http://www.kirkphoto.com/                    

   

Jim and I both use and really love the NIK Software and the TOPAZ Software, each        has unique properties and we enjoy using both!  As I always say a day without Nik’s      Color EFEX 4.0 -= Glamour Glow is a wasted day!!!!

      http://www.niksoftware.com/nikcollection/usa/intro.html                 http://www.topazlabs.com/

 

 

Land’s End is the official team wear provider for His Light Workshops.          http://www.landsend.com

 

Other products I love and can’t work without!

 

Though not sponsors of His Light Workshops, I really like my lighter weight tripods from Induro and Vanguard.  

I own and like Hoodman magnifiers.  Wow, that felt good, I’ve wanted thank these great folks for a long time, so now I’ve had the chance!

 

Friends in the industry have been such an important part of my career, I can’t tell you how many times one phone call has pulled me out of real jam,, it’s that kind of industry,  filled with people just like you, and I that love photography and photographers!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

 

 

Bare with  me, I really do have a point to all this!  One of my great interests in the past was motorcycles.  In my 20’s and 30’s I raced dirt bikes in 100 mile cross country races.  We road up steep hills, forded rivers, road up creek beds, and through sand.  It was a blast, and some of my friends from the past know how much I enjoyed cycling, and occasionally someone will call and say “I want to buy a motorcycle, what kind would you buy?”  Wow, that is a question that takes a lot of study, and research.  The first and most important question is what are you going to do with it????  Let’s have a very quick lesson in the kinds of motorcycles, maybe very simplified, but none-the-less pretty complete.  Illustrated above; Upper left corner, The Street Long Distance Cruiser, made for long distance travel, with comfort, smoothness and every conceivable creature comfort.  Upper right, the Street/Crotch Rocket, for the thrill seeker, fast and nimble, the closest thing a civilian can get to and all out race track bred,  motorcycle.  Lower left, the Street/ Trail is a combination of a trail machine and a street machine, a compromise, not great at either but usable on or off the pavement.  Lower right, the Street Cruiser, very popular for the short trips and cruising mountain roads, in a  relaxed state, you see a lot Harley’s in this category. Center bottom, The Dirt Bike, a no holes barred, designed to go in the dirt, machine.

 

Now what you need to know is that each of these kinds of motorcycles excels at one thing, the street/trail doesn’t excel at either but does have dual purpose.  The point is that if you do long trips and want to do it in real comfort the Street/LD Cruiser is the absolutely best ticket!  If flying around mountain curves with extremely high speed, really leaning into the turns is your passion, the Crotch Rocket is  “the” ticket!  The Dirt Bike will do just about anything you have the skill to try in the dirt, sand, and water!  The Street/Trail will get you off road and do an o.k. job there, it will also ride on the street, but don’t try taking sharp curves leaned to far over!!!

 

So what on earth is this all about???  Let’s talk cameras and lenses.  Over the next few months I will be describing the retirement decisions I’ve made about what gear to use from this date forward.  The same kind of logic you would use to choose a motorcycle is how we will determine what gear will do the best job at what we plan to do.  I’m doing this, not only to share some very hard decisions I’ve made, but to help you when you need to work through the same kinds of choices.  Stay tuned, this will be a lot more fun for you than it has been for me!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

I read a great article from a photographer nameed Patrick La Rogue and he made some very valid points about single focal length and zoom lenses.  Here is part of his article wheich I found very interesting!!

 

“I’ll put my cards on the table right away: I’ve developed a slightly tumultuous relationship with zooms. They’re very useful tools but I’ve come to realize they also tend to drive me into what I’d call visual laziness. When I decided to jump to the X system as my one and only kit, I also embraced the fact that I’d be shooting with nothing but primes. In fact much of that decision was coloured by my experience with the X100’s fixed focal length and the way it affected my shooting reflexes. Not that this was anything new: I used Nikon primes as well. But committing to a single focal length for extended periods of time wasn’t something I’d really done before. When I shoot a prime I need to move — Obviously; I need to walk in order to alter my distance to the subject; and while I walk my brain works, and when my brain works it notices its surroundings and finds details or angles I often would’ve overlooked otherwise. But with a zoom… No matter how much I try, it’s always much too easy to fall back to those old reflexes. Twist in, twist out. Maybe if we stopped calling them zooms in the first place. That word doesn’t do justice to what’s going on optically. Maybe instead we could describe them as multi-focal lenses. There’s definitely something pretty fantastic about having the equivalent of 8 primes on a single lens… IF you use it as such. IF you understand how to use each individual focal length in the right context, and how each one changes the entire aspect of an image way beyond making things look nearer or closer. Compression, distortion, spatial perception. Of course you can also use it to get a closer shot of that mountain way out there; but perhaps if you actually GO to the mountain, something amazing will happen along the way. Right, so where was I? Ah yes: no zooms for me. Huh…”  He goes on to talk about a zoom he really likes but still plans to use  it  as a series of single focal length lenses!

 

His point is dead on.  We can in fact get “visual laziness”!  I think making ourselves use either single focal length lenses or at least pick just one focal length on our zooms,  and move to try and make it work will improve our photographs and our vision as well!  Another thing we need to be very careful about is think that the effect of cropping factors making lenses something they are not.  Example a 6omm lens is a 60mm lens, but when used on a 1.5 crop factor sensor it “crops” to the size of an image made with a 90mm (60 X 1.5 = 90), However it is still a 60mm lens!!!  The reason I say this is that traditionally 85mm to 105 mm are considered the best portrait lenses, because of the perspective with which they show the human face.  So even thought a 60mm lens on a 1.5 crop sensor crops like a 90, it does not have the perspective of a 90!  This is why to be an effective photographer you need to learn what the perspective is at various focal lengths even if you use zooms!

 

Food for thought!  And thanks Patrick, for a good point we all need to think about!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

I just came from Stephen Hart’s lab and have just seen the two images above printed better than I could have ever imagined possible!!! Stephen Hart has been making prints for a long time.  I had never see his work until I saw some of Jim Begley’s work printed by Stephen. Jim is one of America’s best HDR shooters, and I’m proud to say, my partner in His Light Workshops, and my brother in Christ.  For that matter so is Stephen!  But back to my story…..  When I saw how drop dead gorgeous Stephen’s new print process was, it’s called Acrylic Face Mount prints, I was stunned.  Now take just a minute to realize that I have been exposed to virtually all the high end print makers across our country.   Until this morning the most beautiful thing I had ever seen done from one of my files was an Image Wizards, Metal print by Roger Laudy.  Roger is still the man when it comes to metal prints and I love his work, and still highly recommend him, but for more conventional prints, Jasper Imaging is just sick!!  (I’m 67 so I hope I used that in a good way, his stuff is so good it’s hard to believe you’re looking at your own images!!!)  Stephen’s Acrylic Mount Prints are made with UV Museum Grade Acrylic and are finished out perfectly, and to boot he offers conventional framing for those that do not want stand off mounts.  Stephen does all the “High End” print types, Archival Quality Gallery Wraps with the highest end materials, Ink Jet prints in virtually all the best paper choices, and the Acrylic Face Mount prints.

 

The best thing about Stephen’s work is it reminds me of the great craftsman of the past, they didn’t do it for the client, they did it to satisfy their own desire to do it as good as it can be done.  Stephen has realized that goal!  The best part for me is that I can drive a few miles from my office to see how the prints are looking.  I can say this right now, I’ve never had better prints made of my work in 43 years of seeking the perfect printer, I’m not looking any longer, I’ve found him, thanks Stephen!!

 

But what about the tale of two prints???  Sorry about that, got kinda wound up over the spectacular prints I saw this morning.  So the two image above were blown up to 32×46 inches in super high gloss Acrylic Mounts.  If you viewed them at normal viewing distance both are simply stunning, sorry it is two nice images, but when you put your nose right in the print, it is hard to tell which print was made with which camera!!!  One was made with a D800 and the Micro Nikkor 105mm Micro, the other with a D2x and 200mm Micro Nikkor.  The D800 is a whopping FX sensor with 36 mega pixels, the D2x was a DX sensor with 12 mega pixels.  Care to guess which is which. trust me even in the huge prints it’s hard!  The top is D2x bottom D800.

 

If you would like to learn more about Stephen’s company, Jasper Imaging (named after his young son, Jasper), give him a another week or two and then his website  www.jasperimaging.com will be live.  I will alert you when it is up and will add it to my blog roll!

 

If you need large, presentation grade prints of any kind, you owe it to yourself to check his work out….  One thing is for sure, you’ll never see your print until Stephen is happy with it!!!!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim