Monthly Archives: November 2006

Remote strobe trigger

Technique

How does $20.39 delivered sound?

When, with the help of that merry boulevardier, Bert the Border Terrier, I wrote about my happy times with studio flash I grumbled about the cost of a wireless connector between camera and power pack. This obsoletes one cord, making for one less thing to trip over, but I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced, so I put the idea out of my mind. Canon makes a unit called the ST-E2, for some $210, which will trigger their Canon flash units only, and that price is for the transmitter only! And that’s an optical transmitter, meaning your receiving flash gun has to be in line of sight of the transmitter. No way, José. B&H also lists many units from other makers. My only interest is in radio transmitters, which do not require line of sight, and the cheapest receiver-transmitter I can find on their site is some $125 and that requires mains power. Ugh! Lose a cord, gain a cord. Too much money, too little gain.

The other night, thinking about that strobe piece, and preparing mentally for the annual Christmas family snap which requires strobes as often as not, I was reminded of a conversation with a nerdy friend. You know, the one who thinks nothing of dismantling his computer to convert it to a faster chip or ripping apart his motorcycle in the quest for two more horsepower. This fellow had bought an el cheapo radio receiver-transmitter from eFraud, excuse me, eBay, and was singing its praises to the high heavens.

Now, truth be told, he was visiting from Crime Central, a.k.a. Baltimore, and the libations were flowing freely, so I dismissed this as so many ramblings of a too active brain. But that strobe piece caused something of a flashback to that discussion so I checked eCheat, sorry, eBay, to see what was out there, dialing in the words “flash remote”. Well, seemingly hundreds of choices presented themselves so I went for the cheapest, smallest, battery powered radio unit, going for the startling sum of $4.95. OK, OK, plus $14.99 postage. So $20.39 all in, counting 41 cents to the serial larcenists and pant droppers in Sacramento, CA for sales tax. My unit of choice goes under the splendid name of “New Wireless Remote Radio Slave Strobe Flash Trigger AA”. No prizes for originality, but five days later my good friend Greg Littell, who doubles as the mail man, dropped off a small package which must have cost the vendor all of $1.99 to mail. Hey, whatever, I was only in for $20.39 all told.

And here it is.

You get the receiver, with a 1/4″ mono plug, which plugs into your strobe’s power pack, a mini-jack adapter, a transmitter-to-camera cable if you have no hot shoe, and the transmitter. The whole things weighs – well, about $1.99 in postage.

The instructions are written in Chinglish. “Trigger flash lamp in long distance and in all around way without barrier”. Let Dr. Pindelski, your Sino-studies expert, translate. “Radio remote strobe transmitter and receiver, not requiring line-of-sight”. They also say you need a 12 volt 23A battery for the transmitter, the bit that goes on the camera, and two “Size No. 7” batteries for the receiver, the part that is plugged into the strobe’s power supply. That’s “AA” to you. I popped the small Phillips screw in the transmitter, and the 23A battery was already there.

By contrast, the receiver was sans AAs, excuse me, No. 7s, so I dropped in a couple rechargeables.

Now, there’s a bit of a snag. My Novatron power pack, being Texan, has little in the way of effete connectors. When Texans decide you need to connect a camera to their power pack, they make the connector a household ‘H’ plug, which is designed to transmit some 15 amps of power. So, off to Radio Shack for a pair (they wouldn’t sell me one) of their 274-340 1/4″ coaxial jacks and to Home Depot for a household H plug. Solder the two together, glue the bodies for a nice look and this is what you have at an additional cost of some $7. The Dr. Pindelski 1/4″ Mono Plug To H Socket Adapter. Available from me at $99.95 + $30 shipping, should you need one. Order early as I expect to be inundated with Christmas and Hannukah orders.

Time to test this little rig. We don’t need the 1/4″-to-mini-jack adapter, so that goes in the cardboard box in the corner of the garage which the black beetles call home, together with the coax cable, as my Canon 5D has a hot shoe. This is how it looks on the 5D:

Let me stress, my 5D can sustain 250 volts, so I’m safe. You should conduct your own test before use if you are unsure.

Finally, here is the receiver plugged into the Novatron power pack, the same one those good Texans use to fry the miscreants on Death Row.

So does it work?

You bet.

As reliable as the Texas Electric Chair. I measured the range at an astonishing 75 feet on my 5D. At 76 feet it fails to trigger the flash.

Not bad for some $28 all told, huh? And one less cable to trip over.

Volkswagen: A Week at the Factory

Book reviews, Photographers

An extraordinary book by Peter Keetman.

What the Leica is to rangefinder cameras and the Nikon F to SLRs, so is the VW Beetle to cars. Each is an icon which transcends time and criticism. Each was the very best that its respective designers and engineers had to offer.

The photography in this book is exceptional. The cover picture is a foretaste of what is to come. Keetman, who spent a week in the VW facory in 1953 without a commission or pay, does not document workers toiling in tough conditions making thousands of cars. Social statements are not his interest. Rather, everywhere he points his camera he sees geometrical forms, shapes repeated, industrial beauty of the highest order.

Hundreds of differential gears look like so many flowers in a meadow. Stacked body panels create beautiful, repetitive designs. Cylinder heads look like nothing so much as immense, expressionist buildings – think of the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles or the BMW headquarters in Munich.

An exceptionally honest essay by Rolf Sachsse pulls no punches as to the provenance of the Beetle and Armin Kley provides a useful technical piece on the development of this cultural icon – the iPod of its day.

You do not need to like cars to love the great photography in this ninety page paperback, first published in the US in 1992. Amazon lists used copies for very little. Rush out and get one before they are gone.

More censorship from Leica

Cameras

Censorhip is simply much tougher than in day’s past.

I wrote of Michael Reichmann’s appalling behavior regarding his review of a faulty camera from Leica (the M8) here.

Now an erudite posting, addressing the M8’s problems that Reichmann struck from his ‘review’, was censored by one of the moderators on the Leica User Forum. Not so fast, Mr. Censor – you can erase the message on the forum, but you cannot remove it from my news reader:

Now I do not know the poster, but the message seems rational and well argued. Why then was it struck soon after posting?

One hundred yards – Part I

Photographs

Some of the best pictures are one hundred yards from your doorstep. Or less..

Given how much time we spend in our homes, it’s surprising that many photographers feel they have to journey to remote, exotic locations in search of picture opportunities. They arrive tired, are in a strange location which they have no time to ‘learn’, and leave frustrated. You must make the return flight and have to make do with whatever weather is around at the time.

By contrast, the circle centered on your home, with a 100 yard radius, provides some of the best photographic opportunities. You know the area, are rested and have no deadlines. There is no return flight. And you can wait for the weather to come to you.

Here are a couple snaps, taken over the years, all within 100 yards or less of where my bed was the previous night. More to come over the next few weekends.


100 yards. San Diego, California. M2, 35mm.


5 yards. Templeton, California. 5D, 24-105mm

For more on this theme, please click here.

Leica’s Watergate

Hall of Shame

Just another case of a lack of journalistic integrity?.

When I trashed the Panasonic L1 I wrote positively about Michael Reichmann’s objectivity when he wrote about this camera on his web site.

I now have no reason to any longer think that Reichmann is an objective writer.

He has admitted (after clicking the link go to the bottom) that, in ‘reviewing’ the Leica M8 he pulled critical comments from his piece as requested by the Leica Company who had loaned him the camera. It is possible that many who based their purchase decision on his purportedly objective review would have refrained from buying the camera had these comments not been censored.

While he has since bought an M8, I assume using his own money, the reality is he allowed his objectivity to be irrevocably compromised, in this writer’s eyes, by the provision of a free loaner, trading it for self aggrandisement that comes from being one of the favored few to be graced with a pre-production M8. “Look how important I am. Leica gave me a free loaner.” Psychic payola, and good value, had it worked for Leica. They didn’t even have to write a check. In the event, collusion between manufacturer and ‘reviewer’ has, in this case, hurt both.

Had Mr. Recihmann published his adverse findings, explaining that Leica told him they had fixed the problem (they have not) that would have been quite different. In that case he could have stated that he would verify such claims in a follow-up to his review.

As long time readers of this journal know, there is no earthly chance that Yours Truly would ever be given anything free by any manufacturer to ‘review’, as a manufacturer’s publicity machine is not intended to spread truth, justice and the American Way. Rather, its sole intent, which is fine with me, is to sell products. Just don’t expect me to write manufacturer-censored reviews under the guise of objectivity.

You may check my ethics policy by clicking ‘Author and ethics’, below.

The closing three sentences of Reichmann’s apologia are breathtaking and I quote – my underscore. I quote, in case they should one day disappear from his site – please read his whole piece to put these in perspective by clicking on the link in the third paragraph above:

“But, in the end I would do what I did again, simply because I felt that potential owners needed to know what I had learned in my testing, without delay. And, I would have held back again on the issues that I was requested to because that’s the proper way to deal with manufacturers, who one assumes will take their responsibilities to journalists seriously. Enough said.”

If you can reconcile the first and second sentences, please educate me by leaving a comment, below.

So now that you understand Mr. Reichmann’s “….proper way of dealing with manufacturers….” you will know better than to believe anything he ever writes again on his Luminous Landscape web site.

Mr. Reichmann, let me put you out of your naïveté. A manufacturer’s goal in a capitalist system is to get journalists to write what is best for the profitability of the manufacturer. A journalist’s goal is to write unconflicted truth as he sees it, pulling no punches with regard to material facts.

And here is what you really meant to write, and do feel free to copy and paste it into your column – no attribution needed:

“Dear Luminous Landscape readers – I made a serious ethical and journalistic error in withholding information regarding product defects in the new Leica M8. I did this at the request of the Leica Company who had given me a free loan of the camera. In doing so, I made a material misrepresentation to you, my readers. I have seriously compromised my journalistic integrity and accept full responsibility to all of you who bought the camera on my recommendation and now find that, had my findings been uncensored, they would have changed your purchase decision.”

Trust, once lost, Mr. Reichmann, is seldom regained. Print a proper retraction on the lines of the above and I will be happy to publish it here.

As for Leica, the company may have knowingly released a faulty product. If that is the case, the class action lawyers will take care of them, assuming there’s enough money left there to make the suit worthwhile. Why, even Mr. Reichmann would collect something in the settlement.