LumoPro LP120 - The Flash I Helped Design

OK, so it was me and a few thousand fellow memebers of the Strobist group on Flickr, but the features LumoPro built into the just-released LP120 are what everyone in the group was asking for. This new strobe is aimed squarely at followers of the small flash movement (aka the Strobist movement..the result of David Hobby's evangelical efforts, and his great legs).

The specs break down thusly (taken from MPEX.com...the only retailer I could find carrying the LP120 at the moment):

GN: 80 (True value, no EV compensation inflation, equivalent to Vivitar 285HV)
Swivel: 270 degrees
Tilt: 180 degrees
Zoom: 28mm, 50mm, 85mm
Wide Angle adapter: Yes
Sync ports: Miniphone and PC
Shoe: Standard ISO size, center pin contact, locking ring
Optical Slave: Yes, Switchable On/Off
Power Variable: 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32
Power: 4 AA (Alkaline or NiMh recommended)
Warranty: 2 years - International

I won't go through these line by line, but there are a few LumoPro included that really show they were listening.

First: There's no AUTO Thyristor feature on this flash. You don't need it. These things are all manual. You're in control of the amount of light coming out it, just like a studio strobe. Cool.

Second: The sync ports they built into the LP120 are exactly what needs to be included on this type of flash. Curse you Sunpak and Vivitar with your proprietary sync jacks. The PC connection has been the standard for the photo industry for how long, now? Well played LumoPro for including a PC sync. And, the inclusion of a 1/8" miniphone sync means if you're near a RadioShack, Target, WalMart, K-Mart, Fry's, CVS, Rite Aid or Walgreens and one of your sync cords dies (along with all your spares) all hope is not lost. 1/8" miniphone to miniphone cables are commonly available, commonly inexpensive and commonly the sync socket of choice on all types of wireless triggers on the market today. This means you don't have to drop thirty dollars on a proprietary sync cable that will only work with one specific kind of flash. Thirty dollars for a cable you're going to ball up and stuff into your camera bag at the end of the shoot. Thirty dollars for a cable that is going to break, eventually, no matter how good you treat it. Instead, in some dark corner of the www, you can probably find an electronic components retailer that will sell you a bag of twelve for ten bucks**.

At $130, I'm thinking the LP120 will quickly find its way into the Strobist gear bag of many a shooter seeking the zen of the small flash.

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**Disclaimer: I haven't actually contacted Ametron and asked if they sell miniphone cords in bulk, but I have been inside the place and wouldn't be at all surprised to learn they do. Cool store.

Holga - The serious toy camera I was reluctant to take seriously.

I bought a Holga about eight years ago. A good friend had just started working at a now defunct dot com here in LA where he was exposed to the world of toy cameras by one of the site's designers (an incredible photographer in his own right). A pool of money was collected, many Holgas were purchased and that's how I was introduced to the Holga 120S. I quickly bought my own at Freestyle Photo a few days later but I never ran a complete roll of film through the thing.

Flash forward to February of 2009 and I finally completed a roll! I even processed the film in my sink. It had been sitting in my Holga for about three years before I finished off the last four frames a couple weeks ago.

There were some gems on there I have no recollection of taking. At some point I stuck a flash in the hotshoe and took the thing with me to a rehearsal with my band, Weed Patch. The negs were scanned using the transparency adapter on an Epson Perfection 1200U Photo.

I promised myself I'd shoot with my Holga a bit more now.

Updated site and exciting film news.

Wow, it's been over a year since I posted something here. What a shame! I've actually still been shooting and working...some of which is featured on my updated website. I went with a clean, uncluttered approach with a brighter overall feel than I had previously. I'm happy with its simplicity. It lets my work speak for itself...for better or worse.

Oh yeah...photography. Right. I've been shooting a lot of film lately, forsaking my digital cameras for all but those situations where a check is waiting for me at the end. I'll spare you the digital-vs-analogue discussion because for anyone who uses both, it should be obvious where both shine and where they don't.

Early on, my biggest reason for shooting more film was simply that I never really got to know it. I've taken pictures most of my life–working to achieve more professional results over the past four years—and I didn't want to take my new-found enthusiasm to the digital world without getting to fully know what film has to offer. I'm glad I did this because I've really grown to love film, specifically color negative film. The tonal range you can squeeze onto a frame of color neg film is a beautiful thing. I know you can get into the HDR (High Dynamic Range) thing with a digital camera and build images that cover an incredible tonal spectrum, so my argument isn't that it's impossible to do this with a digital camera, but I will argue that it's impossible to do it in a single frame on a digi cam. HDR images are combination of as many as three or four images, taken at different exposure values, then combined with computer software to produce an image with a spectrum of tones from highlight to shadows that digital cameras are incapable of capturing with a single click of the shutter. Print neg film isn't capable of producing this range of tones, either, but when you hit that sweet spot with your exposure settings, it gets close and it's quite lovely.

Kodak seems to think there's still some life left in the old film horse; they've recently released a new color neg emulsion called Ektar 100. The comparisons immediately being made are that it produces images comparable to those produced by a digital camera at ISO 100...virtually grain-free with great saturation and sharpness. Very cool. A great example of how digital cameras have changed what photographers expect in terms of image quality. I haven't shot any of this stuff yet but I'm planning on picking some up any day now. I'll post the results here.