1.800€ vs 300€ "Compact" Flash

It was a long decision process whether we should buy one of those Quantum Qflash units or not. Why did we even think about it? Among other reasons, one was that we have never been satisfied with Canons TTL results (Through The Lens - the camera measures the flashlight hitting the subject and the flash stops emmitting light as soon as there is enough - theoretically because a lot of conditions have to be met). In our earlier times we shot with Minolta and the flash exposure was almost always spot on, even though the devices have a technological disadvantage of about 10-15 years. That also kept us from upgrading our Canon 550EX to the newer versions 580EX and 580EX II that provided similar TTL results in our experience. With manual flash settings we had quite OK results with both.

Well, now how does the Canon 550EX compete with the much more expensive Qflash?

We made our first impression at our dealer Slach, where we could try one of these units before we purchased it. Some shots (especially one against strong sunlight) conviced us and after we evaluated the shot in our office, we went out again with the money in our pockets and brought the baby to its new home.

In the first part of this hopefully continued test (as freelance photographers we have to deal with our time as you might imagine), we just compared the sheer power of these two units...

 

Right on Time - vacation season has just started

And for us it´s time to start with phototipps. In time we are going to give you some (hopefully interesting) tipps on how to tap your full photographic potential. We are going to talk about how to use your equipment (oh yes, there is more to most cameras than the automode), about composition and creative possibilities how you can make your imges stand out of the crowd.

Being a photographer you have the great luck that almost everybody wants to show you their vacation shots (oh well - I hate the late summerevenings ;-)). No doubt, some of them are great, but with others it starts to get boring after 10-12 images. The reson: hundreds of images of people you already know - most of the time it´s the ones sitting right in front of you - no sign of a landscape, architecture - no sign of anything that could wake you up again. It would have been interesting to see some locals on the shot, but no - only the couple (family) you have seen on the same hundreds of images last year.

By the way, here is a short interjection: when shooting foreigners, it´s necessary that you ask the people, no matter where you are. Many people think that would ruin the natural character of an image - and yeah, it might, but you have to take that risk. If the person doesn´t behave natural in front of the camera it´s usually the fault of the photographer ;-). If not - well, bad luck - seems like you have to choose somebody else.

Back to the subject. A slideshow about Greece soon becomes anguish to the viewer, if you don´t see anything from the country itself, but instead you find 2-3 "models" (most of the time fellow travellers or holiday buddies) on every single image - eating, laughing, lying on the beach, sitting in the water,... You don´t get a glimplse of the landscape, architecture, culture, whatever.
The other extreme - talking about greece - how interesting do you think is a slideshow about beaches only (shot with only one single focal length), or a slideshow of hundreds of greek doors. I must admit - in our beginnings we have also been the beachtype. Nowadays if I look at the slides from those days, I myself start yawning, which is a clear indication that something is not quite right with the image sequence, so try to get a different approach next time.

Especially for friends and family some really crazy shots are always good for a laugh. The sky is the limit, so get creative. But please keep in mind - it should still look natural - not embarrassing. If you want to give it a go, try to make some posing in the mirror while brushing your teeth in the morning - that gives you a feel how it does look like

Unfortunately not!

Because we continuously face problems with the physical mass of our handluggage during flights, we thought: cool, let´s just buy one of these mininotebooks (Netbooks). It should be sufficient for having a first look at the images - usually we don´t have enough time for retouching on our journeys, so... It was bought even faster than it was written on the list.

HP Compaq Mini 701 EG

First of all it had to play the role of a photomodel. Such a beautiful Netbook without any dust or scratches - we will definitely need it some day. But the Screen had to be evenly lit, no reflections of anything but a white area. So we had to bild a tent of light - well in fact it became a lighthouse. But I guess it was worth it.

OK, after the shootout we installed photoshop and have been surprised how well it worked - great, let´s use it on our trip to the Seychelles. Hmmmm - being there we found out that Adobe Lightroom almost crashes the Netbook. So it won´t see Egypt and has to stay at home next time.