So its been awhile again. My apologies as nothing much has been happening. And things that are happening, I can't say anything about it sadly. So I lost my earphone case, quite sad as I'm fond of it but I've bought a replacement from ebay but have yet to receive it. Getting impatient especially since its labeled as being located in Singapore.
I also just bought a 3TB Buffalo hard drive to backup the remaining 2 hard drives that has no external hard drives to backup my data.
Buffalo Disk Station
Quite nicely designed
And just today, I've finished backing up my data. Works pretty well, and next time I buy hard drives, I'll be sure to get something like Mediasonic 8 bay case or something, so I can save my USB ports. I now only have 1 free USB 3.0 port but I still have a few USB 2.0 ports.
On the same day, I went around shooting some night photos and I have 2 to share, also under my tripod head review post.
Lasalle School Of The Arts in HDR
Central Fire Station in HDR
Today, I gave a good cleaning to my Nikon F5. I also been recently looking for some good deals and I found an amazing deal for a Elinchrom BX 500 Ri (if I remembered correctly) which was like 142 USD when I wanted to bid. It was tested to power on and the settings can changed. And being Swiss made, I expect it to be working, so I bid, but it went up to like 300USD and I lost the auction cause I didn't want to pay for more. So I decided to look at SU800 for Nikon cameras which I then decided not to get since my SB900 and future SB910 won't work on the F5, I decided to get the SB 800 to work as full time commander for my D3 and future D600 and as a flash for the F5. And should I need to utilize all my flash, I can use the SB800 as a manual strobe.
And since I have no space for studio, neither do I have a studio and since I hardly shoot photos that require studio flash, I've decided not to get them (after searching high and low for good deals and suitable ones as well but I still prefer Elinchrom) unless I shoot a lot of photos that will require monolights like corporate photos and such. In my office, I will get the boss to buy studio flashes if we shoot more in the studio rather than depend on hotshoe flashes. But for my own personal work, I'll stick with hotshoe flashes.
Although fact that my complete setup which consists of:
SB 900 x 3 = About 500 per unit
SB 910 x 1 = Not sure, keep at 600?
SB 800 x 1 = Hopefully can get around 350
The total costs more than a studio lighting kit. In fact, I could get 2 sets of D-lite 4s and probably a BX 500 Ri kit. But fact remains that its more mobile and auto which will help me a lot in most of the shots I do. So if I ever do more flash that requires the power and recycling speed of monolights, I'll stick with my portable units. Since if I do work as a full time photographer, I can use the office monolights so I don't need to buy my own anytime soon (probably in my older age if I do go into my own photography business or full time freelance).
Though thinking about it, I should get studio lights now instead but the fact remains that they'll require an outlet (I know battery units exists) but studio lights are hard to resell and like I said, I need to be mobile.
As Joe McNally has proven many times over, TTL flash with hotshoe units can get the job done but a little bit more hassle as compared to studio flash units. So did David Hobby and the other great photographers who shoot with hotshoe units! I'm sold! To each his own and to each job its own!
That's all for now, have a good weekend everyone!
