GF1 self portrait

A self portrait I took a few minutes ago:

Michael Willems, photo by Michael Willems

I shot this with the Panasonic GF1:

• Camera on manual, f/4.0, 1/60th second, 200 ISO
• Using multiple-point autofocus
• Pocketwizard on the camera
• Pocketwizard on a 430EX flash, connected with Flashzebra cable
• Flash set to manual, 1/32nd power
• Honl Photo Traveller 8 softbox on the (handheld) flash

To lower the noise (“increase the signal to noise ratio”, for engineers) I exposed to the right (i.e. I exposed high, but without actually overexposing anything) and then pulled back a stop in Lightroom.

The 20mm lens (yes you can use 40mm, for that is what it is, for portraits) gives me that wonderful sharpness. Click and view full size to see how sharp it is.

The Honl softbox gives it that nice soft look and the unique round catchlights.

And I have said it before: for creative photography, lighting a subject is as much about what you do not light than about what you do light.

Postscript: And here’s one more: son Jason just now (similarly lit, also shot with the GF1)

Jason, shot with GF1/430EX

That portable studio

So when I pack by bags to do a location shoot, like today’s executive headshots shoot, you saw in a recent post that I bring rather a lot.

And what do I use? How does it look when it’s all set up?

That setup process, which takes about 45-60 minutes including carrying it all from the car in stages, results in this:

This setup consists of:

1. A grey backdrop. I like grey because you can make it any colour, from black to white.
2. The main (“key”) light: a light stand with Bowens 400 Ws monolight in a softbox. This is fired by a Pocketwizard (just visible, top left)
3. The fill light: a light stand with a Bowens 400 Ws monolight into an umbrella. This is fired by the slave cell.
4. The background light: a mini  light stand with a 430EX Speedlite, with a  Honl speed strap and a Honl 1/2 CTB gel. This light is fired by a Pocketwizard, using a Flashzebra cable.
5. The hair light: another a light stand with a 430EX Speedlite, with a  Honl speed strap and Honl snoot. This light is fired by a Pocketwizard, using a Flashzebra cable.
6. A stool.
7. The camera set to 1/100th sec, f/9, 100 ISO, and equipped with a PocketWizard to fire the other flashes.

It doesn’t look like all that much, but when you write it out, and then add the power cables, connection cables, bags, and so on, it’s quite a lot.

Tidyness is godliness.

Flashzebra offers many handy strobe accessories. Together with my Honl accessories (such as the speedstraps, gels, snoot, grids and bounce cards) I have an outfit that is at the same time more professional, more convenient, and more portable.

I talked about the speedlite cables recently. My latest addition is these: small holders for Pocketwizards that allow you to tie them onto a light stand.

This means that your outfit looks more professional, and the antenna points up, but it also means that I no longer need to hang the PWs by the cable. This has always been annoying to me. Problem solved!

Detail view:

Easy: they screw onto the PW at the back and you tie them onto the light stand with a durable elastic. Much recommended.

More reliable PW connection

In my post earlier today I noted that Pocketwizards aren’t always reliable when they have a wire plugged into them. That, and you need to keep them away from 430EX flashes, and point the antenna on the receiving side the same way as that on the sender, ideally.

The “a cable plugged in makes the receiver unreliable” phenomenon is presumably due to some of the RF going into that wire. So a possible solution should have been obvious to a radio amateur/electrical engineer like me:

Yes, that’s is: the little RF choke I put on the cable. And indeed, my testing shows that this type of choke seems to keep the receiver significantly more sensitive. Problem solved (or at least, problem alleviated: the other recommendations still stand).

Pocketwoes

Nah, I exaggerate. Pocketwizards (specifically, the non-TTL model, namely the Pocketwizard II Plus, of which I own five) are great. But I do want to draw attention to two issues to watch out for.

First: what am I doing. I am firing a Pocketwizard, as in my post a few days ago. Meaning I have this setup:

The camera contains a TTL flash, plus from the PC-contact (the X-contact) I am firing an additional flash, set to manual at low power.

I even have three brand-new Pocketwizard-to-hotshoe cables [link] from Flashzebra – recommended, both the equipment and the company. My order arrived promptly via US mail (as did the mounting brackets that you see under the PW – these allow neatly mounting the PWs onto lightstands). No UPS ripoff.

The Gel on the flash above is a Honl Photo blue gel, to add a splash of colour to a photo I was working on.

To my surprise, I have found this Pocketwizard setup to not always be reliable.

When I mount the PW onto the top of the camera hotshoe, no problem. But when I use the PC connector on the side of the camera, and a cable supplied with the Pocketwizard, no go sometimes. I can fire the camera or even press the local PW’s button, and I get intermittent remote flash firing.

I have so far narrowed the issue to the following three causes:

1. Bad X-sync contact. I needed to use contact cleaner and squeeze the connector a bit to ensure good contact.
2. Antennas need to be polarized equally (if the sender is vertical, ideally the receiver needs to be vertical as well).
3. Maintaining the distance from the speedlite is a good idea: Speedlites can interfere.
4. Radio signal: when I continuously press the sender’s test button, the receiver’s LED should stay on. Normally this happens. Even when I hold my hand by the sender’s antenna, the receiver normally stays solid. But when I attach a cable to the PW, even when it is dangling in mid air and not connected to the camera, it is much less reliable.

I mean this:

With that cable, whether connected to the camera or not, the sender seems to send out less power than without. This is not surprising: the wire probably affects radiated power and pattern. But it is good to be reminded this is a radio transmitter and radio is black magic (and I am a licensed radio ham, VA3MVW, so I have some appreciation of this).

The moral of this story: Watch out, the rock solid reliability of Pocketwizards, which I had always taken for granted, is not guaranteed. Especially when not using the hotshoe.

But by watching all factors above, I think I have it down to a reliable setup -and when I have issues at least I know what they are and how I can address them.

Update: see the post I wrote a few hours later about RF chokes