Pretty much since I first laid eyes on the Pocket Wizard radio triggers, I’ve wanted to get the camera trigger so that I could take pictures without standing behind the camera or using the timer.

Then I had a baby. Any idea how hard it is to get a decent family photo with a bobble head kid and a ten second timer? I need something where I can be in the photo, and snap the shutter with the same response time as if I were looking through the viewfinder. As an owner of a Canon D30 and a Canon 20D, there is no included wireless trigger like some of the cheaper models such as the Digital Rebels.

Then I moved to Colorado, and realized I wanted to get some family photos while high up in the mountains on the trails, with no one in sight to take a photo for me. To complicate matters, I hike with my 30 pound son on my back, in snowshoes. Trying to hit the shutter button and quickly get in position in deep snow while weighed down is an interesting maneuver to say the least. I’m sure I resemble a water buffalo on roller skates.

So I bought the pre-trigger. It was delivered a couple of days ago and I have done some very limited testing on it. Soon I’ll take it for a real spin. So far I love it, but have learned a couple of things that I can tell you if you buy one to help you out.

So keep your eyes peeled for the review if you have any interest in this product. And if you don’t but own Pocket Wizards, I just might convince you to get one.

I got an email a few weeks back from Ken Kobre, the inventor of the Lightscoop. It would seem that the good professor stumbled across my article on making your own off camera lighting using an index card. The Lightscoop was mentioned in the comments, and Ken wanted to chime in, but didn’t want to make any shameless plugs. I can appreciate that Ken.

Instead, he emailed me and offered to send me a Lightscoop to play with and give an honest review right here on Sublime Light. I accepted and he shipped one off right away. Ordinarily I’d be on something like that like white on rice, but with my move to Colorado, I had to put the playtime on the back burner. As soon as things calm down and we get settled in to our new home in the Rocky Mountains, you’ll see what I think of the Lightscoop.

I plan to see what this thing can do out of the box. Then I’ll go Tim “The Toolman” Taylor on it and see what kind of photos we can really get out of it. And of course, I’ll compare it to direct popup flash and to the index card trick.

So keep your eyes peeled in January if you have any interest in buying a Lightscoop. Happy New Year everyone!

I recently put my house on the market. I’m a photographer. Naturally, one thing immediately popped into my mind when it came time to list the house…taking my own photos of the house. I’ve been toying with the idea of breaking into real estate photography for a little while, and thought that moving to Colorado would make a good starting point for that venture. Since I had to get my own home looking nice for sale, it would make a good guinea pig.

During my research for this new venture, I stumbled across a real estate photography blog, aptly named Photography For Real Estate written by Larry Lohrman. Larry knows his stuff, and I spent hours scouring his blog for useful information that I could use in my own photos. He was even nice enough to provide me a little feedback on the job I’d done, mentioning that the photos were good for a first time, though I needed to ensure that all vertical surfaces remained vertical in the photos. Mental note taken. If you ever need to do any kind of architectural photography, check out Larry’s site before you do.

So here are a couple of the interior shots from my own house. Here’s my living room:

From a recent
portrait session

Wow, it’s been a crazy couple of months, and I’ve decided it’s time to come up for air for a few minutes, just long enough to write up a post. I know many of you regular readers out there have been wondering where I’ve been and why I suddenly stopped posting. One reader even called to make sure everything was ok (thanks for the ring Scott).

You see, right about time I made my last post, things got crazy in the Solley household. As some of the more longtime readers know, I’ve been planning a move to Colorado from Texas for some time now. Well that time has finally come. I’ve been busy for the last two months straight getting my house ready to sell (lots of work there), packing for the move, and of course with Christmas coming up, we’ve been shooting lots of portrait sessions. We’re actually making our move to Colorado this weekend. That’s right, immediately following Christmas we’ll be loading up and heading to the mountains. What this means is that you’ll start seeing portraits taken with the beautiful Rocky Mountains in the background from here on out.

I’ve been getting some questions coming to my inbox, but have just been too busy to answer them. So I thought this would be a good time to do so. Since time is short today, I’ll just answer one that seems especially relevant.

Julius writes:
I’ve been looking at your site.. and love it. For some reason I’ve been getting many requests to photograph parties, and weddings. I’ve been looking at some basic traveling light kits from Photogenic, and noticed the Pocket-Wizard Plus II. How does this work with the Nikon D300, the SB-800 and also light kits for portraits? Or, does it? I’m really wanting to get started and am very interested in any info you can provide to help get me on the right track.

You’ve come to the right place Julius. Pocket Wizard Plus II’s are the cat’s meow. You can use them on any camera with a hot shoe (including that D300) and they definitely work nicely with those Nikon flashes. There are lots of cables to connect them to any flash or studio strobe. For a little more info., check out the Portrait Lighting For Beginners: Camera and Lights article. And for tons more information that’s all over the PW’s, check out Strobist.

That’s it for today folks. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, have a wonderful holiday. For everyone else, take some awesome pictures.

A couple of weeks ago, I told you that I got my hands on a Vivitar 285HV shoe mount flash (click for more on that).

My first impressions of the flash were positive. With it’s uber-manual controls and low price ($89 from Amazon), this is a tough deal to beat.

Then I ran off to Colorado for five days and decided to bring my new flash along for the ride. I has intentions on getting some really great family portraits in Rocky Mountain National Park, but thanks to it being 35 degrees, wind blowing 50 MPH, and it snowing off and on, it didn’t happen. Did I mention I was wearing shorts? Yeah, the portrait setup wasn’t happenin’, no way. The good news for me though is that we’re about to put our house on the market and move there, so many portrait opportunities still remain to be had.

But I digress. My sister in law is pregnant with twins. What a great opportunity to bring some gear and get some nice maternity shots for her and my brother! Armed with two small flashes I had the control to get some great portraits of them in their new home in Colorado.