Nikon SC-28 TTL Coiled Remote Cord

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: It's an essential part of my kit.

The Long Version: There are only so many things you can do with an off-camera flash cable. Nikon's kind enough to provide two main versions, which adds to the variety: the SC-29 has a red auto-focus assist light, while the simple SC-28 doesn't; the SC-28 can daisy-chain the plain SC-27 cable, while the SC-29 can't. Aside from that the two are identical and pretty basic. The camera connects on one end, the flash connects on the other, and the wires in between just do their thing.

Nikon's published length for the SC28/29 is nine feet, which may be true but certainly isn't practical. The pig-tail coils are essentially springs, and exert increasing pressure as the length extends. Longer stretches are only possible when the flash is secured in place with stands, clamps, sandbags, or similar. Even when the speedlight is secured, the coiled cable exerts pressure on the camera, making long distances unergonomic. Within those constraints, the flash cord is flawless and absolutely reliable.

For a little added challenge, I checked the flexibility of the SC28 after it had been in the freezer for a couple of days. (I have to admit that I forgot it was in there – who keeps a flash sync cord in the fridge?) Plastics often stiffen in low temperatures, but I'm pleased to say that the Nikon cable did just fine. Interestingly the Olympus cable that I put in the freezer also retained its spring, and I suspect that they may have some common ancestry somewhere in their supply chains.

The strength of Nikon's Creative Lighting System and iTTL control means that the SC-28 cable remains something of a specialist product. I'm a huge fan of the system, and continue to use to it make my gaggle of flashes play together, but adding the sync cable gives me another option as well as increasing the versatility of my SB900. I can now put my most powerful light where it can do its best work, effectively giving me an extra light without the expense of another flash, and still control three additional groups remotely. I can't say that the SC-28 improves my photography – that's my job – but it certainly gives me better options that I'm happy to use.

last updated 28 may 2011

Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere Packaging

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 0 out of 5
Yeah, but: Just the wrap, man, just the wrap.


The Long Version: Gary Fong is the Ken Rockwell of lighting modifiers. And that's fine - this review doesn't have anything to do with either one of them, or even the actual product that's in the Gary Fong Lightsphere® Collapsible™ box. It's not even about how the hell someone managed to trademark the word 'Collapsible™'. And for the record, yes, the Gary Fong Lightsphere® Collapsible™ does what it says it does. Two ping-pong balls taped to the top of your flash would also do what the Gary Fong Lightsphere® Collapsible™ does, but that's not the point. This review is just about the package that it comes in.

The box itself is thin black cardboard with a sticker that carries all of the text, graphics, and photos. This is a cost-effective way to create the multi-lingual packaging that's needed for international sales, and the box follows the current trend of keeping it as small as possible. It does fall down a bit by having plastic shrink-wrap around it, but that may add enough integrity to let them use a lighter grade of boxboard. There are also some style points involved by having the actual Lightsphere® Collapsible™ wrapped in coloured tissue paper instead of more unnecessary plastics. But that's hardly enough to motivate a review: the photos are where things start to get interesting.

We see an attractive model in the advertising version of the classic Comedy / Tragedy masks, known as the 'before' and 'after' photo. The one labeled "Without" shows a woman who's rehearsing for her passport photo, while the "With" looks like she's just heard a funny joke from a good friend. Sure, it's a blatant and obvious attempt to manipulate the viewer, but it's so clumsily done that it's impossible to take offense. Besides, given what these things look like when they're stuffed on top of a speedlight, I'm sure that lots of people really do laugh and smile when they see them. But let's look closer, shall we?

(make it bigger)

Here's the "Without / Sans" photo. It's a pretty standard straight-blast flash photo: the hallmark of novice camera users and really abysmal wedding photography. Nothing too remarkable here, so let's move on to the "With / Avec" image.

(make it bigger)

It's a huge improvement, verging on school portrait quality. It's so good, it's almost impossible to believe that a single on-camera flash could possibly create these results. Take a good look at the catchlights in her eyes in this photo, and compare them to the "Without / Sans" image. It really is impossible to believe that this was taken using a single on-camera light source, no matter how artfully it's bounced. In fact, the soft caressing shadows look even better than in the similar images on the Gary Fong Product Page, where our attractive model has only one catchlight reflected in her eyes.


Fancy that.

Corrugated Plastic Sheets

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: Not to be confused with chloroplast.

The Long Version: I have to admit that I love this stuff. True, like most plastics it's a massive environmental problem and the scourge of marine environments everywhere, and its ubiquity for cheap advertising signs makes it an urban - and suburban - blight as well, but it's also extremely handy. 'Coroplast' is the Xeroxed Kleenex of the corrugated polypropylene copolymer world, and since that's what the sign said where I bought mine, that's what I'll call it here. Other companies do make it, and call it different things, but who has that kind of time?

It's lightweight, rigid, and cheap. Right there we know that politicians and advertisers are going to flock to it, so it's a staple for lawn signs and anything else that needs a weatherproof printed surface. It comes in more colours than a CRT-iMac, and can be used for all kinds of interesting things. There's low-cost greenhouses and office dividers, but also for all kinds of DIY projects like model airplanes and small animal cages. Who knew? But by far the most interesting thing is how handy it is for photography.

I have a large sheet of translucent white Coroplast that I'll use as a background or a diffuser, and a smaller sheet of opaque black that I'll cut up for black cards. My most inspired move was to stack and bundle the black plastic to make a grid for my SB600; the initial proof-of-concept hack job has been so effective that I haven't bothered to make any others. (For anyone who's wondering, it's being held together with my favourite adhesive.) The photo above is being lit by three strobes, with one on the camera and another underneath the white plastic to brighten it up a bit. Thanks to the marvel of Nikon's AWS/CLS speedlight integration - similar abilities can be found in many Olympus cameras and a mighty one Canon product - this is an incredibly easy way to create a simple light box. That's how I took all of the product photos for my 20/1.7 review, like this next one that would have illustrated a part about using the lens with a three-stop ND filter.

The biggest problem with Coroplast can be finding it and getting it home. Most craft and art supply stores in Toronto seem to be selling it these days, and if they don't, there's always sign supply places. The real trick is to find it in pieces smaller than thirty square feet, but the good news is that a simple knife can solve some of the transportation problems. After that, it just takes a couple of light wipes to get rid of the ever-present dust and it's ready to go. It's light, rigid, durable, whiter than foamcore and more cleanable than bristol board. It's not the only thing I need for my home studio, but I use it for a huge amount of the photos that I take for these reviews, even if you can't see it.

Joby Gorillatorch

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: I can't wait for the next generation.

The Long Version: As the name suggests, the Joby Gorillatorch is a flashlight that's built onto a lightweight Gorillapod. It's hard not to love that idea, even without knowing that its three little feet are magnetic. It's not the best flashlight I've ever used, with a strong ring in its light at close range, and taking an awkward three AA batteries in a hard-to-open body, but it is the most fun. At its full brightness its LED is quite respectable, and at the lowest setting it has essentially no spill. Like the Gorillapods, it can be wrapped around almost anything and positioned to point almost anywhere. Playing with the Gorillatorch makes me want to take up stop-motion animation, and they even come in different colours.

Each of my camera bags has a flashlight to help out when I'm composing and focusing with a 'live view' LCD, and the Gorillatorch is the one I use when I'm at my home base. It's just a little too bulky to carry with me, which is a pity because it really is a perfect task light. The `Torch is advertised as being able to go anywhere, and to test that out I've kept it stuck to a metal door for over a week. I wouldn't hesitate to hang it off the underside of a car hood, or wrap it around the pipes under the sink to fix that leak. It's not some commando-approved machined metal 'tactical' light, but it's bright, flexible, and reliable.

They've finally invented a viable replacement for a youngest child - it's a flashlight that holds itself.

x-rite Colorchecker Passport

Concept: 5 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: It's not quite foolproof, but it's a big improvement over the stock setup.

The Long Version: Alright, so I'm a joiner - I'm okay with that. Last night when I saw Michael Reichmann's review of the Colorchecker Passport by xrite, nee Macbeth, my eyes went wide and I was bolt upright on the couch. I've had the full-size color checker chart for a while, and had nearly bought the credit-card version a half-dozen times. Its price stopped me - it's a lot of money to pay for something that will take a lot of wear and tear as I'd be subjecting it to use away from the protected confines of studio shooting. Sure, the Passport is actually more expensive, but it's a plastic clamshell design that's strong and self-standing. If the stores hadn't been closed, I would have had one last night.

Instead, I was out of the house before 10am on a Saturday - something that happens only once every couple of months and usually involves a cookie from Starbucks as a bribe. I was actually worried that the local Canadian Tire of camera stores would sell out. (Okay, so it's a very slim chance, but it is possible that there are that many Toronto photographers as skewed as I am.) Happily there was still a half-dozen in stock, and I was on my way back home after a quick detour to the Apple store to pick up a new iPod. It's easy to guess which one I unpacked first - yes, I am that much of a camera geek. I'm also easily distracted and absentminded, so I've added a couple of strips of silver/black reflective tape to help the all-black Passport stand out among the various black cards that I invariably have scattered around when I'm shooting jewellery.

Most photographer's reviews don't mention that the reverse side of the colour chart is a light grey white balance target. It is somewhat redundant, and feels a little like there was some blank space to fill. Perhaps it could be useful when the subject is too far away to use the smaller squares in the two colour targets, but I'm reaching to try to understand this one. It's also interesting that it's a much lighter tone than my various grey cards, so perhaps it's been corrected for the 1/2 stop underexposure that an 18% grey card will cause, but x-rite only calls it a white balance target. Regardless of that mystery, the Passport is a more practical tool than the older Gretag Macbeth card that's also in these photos. The larger charts' size and cardboard 'protective' sleeve makes it excellent for the main studio and not much else.

Taking a brief detour, I've put this photo in black and white to emphasize my favourite Lightroom white balance trick. Using the eyedropper tool is never precise, and I know that my monitor isn't calibrated well enough to judge the hue by eye. Lightroom has a handy "grayscale" button. I hit it, and if the visible colour doesn't change, then I know I'm good regardless of my monitor's accuracy. Easy-peasy.

The Colorchecker Passport is perfectly named - except for the missing U - as it is indeed almost exactly the size of my Canadian passport. Its thickness is half-way between a passport and a Moleskine notebook, which is another classic back-pocked item. It's large enough to be a useful size, but small enough to carry and hold. The design is a clamshell that covers a middle panel with the standard and WB targets on opposite sides, and the way the clasp is done it's simple to just open it to the half that I want to use. With all three panels open it's self-standing, and there are detents in the plastic hinges that let it stand at different angles. Someone put a lot of thought into how this color checker would be used, which is the exact opposite of the traditional and mini charts. I'm very impressed.

But wait, there's more! The Passport also includes a CD with software for building custom Camera Raw profiles. Sure, no big deal - Adobe Labs had a DNG profile generator out in 2008 that does the same thing. At least that's what I thought before I tried it out. I launched the xrite software, fed it the DNG of the (uncorrected) image above, and it automatically recognized the chart and did its thing. All I needed to do was name the profile it was going to create, and it even put it in the right spot for Lightroom to find it the next time it launched. (I'm using the format "yy-mm-dd Lightsource".) But I didn't even need to work that hard; it also includes a Lightroom plugin that creates a new profile without ever needing to see the stand-alone application. For comparison, I tried to use the Adobe Labs software, and gave up on the second step because I couldn't remember how to get it to work. Once again, xrite has just nailed the practical aspects of actually using their product.

After one day, I can't imagine doing any colour-critical photography without using this target. It's more powerful than a grey card and not much more difficult to use. The only problem I can foresee is that I'll be littering my Calibration panel with various presets, but smart naming will help with that. My xrite Colorchecker Passport is about to become indispensable.

Three-Week Update: Now that I've integrated the Passport into my photography, the results have been as good as I hoped. I've been using it for some of my casual photography, where it gives me a white balance reference even if I don't go all the way with a custom profile based on that particular moment of light. For product photography, I'll import all of the images, find the image of the Color Checker that I want to use, create a profile based on it, and then quit and relaunch Lightroom. Once LR reopens, I'll set that image (still open in the develop window) to the new profile and correct the white balance, go back to the library in grid view, select all images, and sync the calibration and WB. Then I'll tell Lightroom to build my 1:1 previews, and go make a sandwich. The sandwich actually takes longer than creating and using the profile.

Before I shifted most of my 'serious' photography to my Nikon, I had all four of my Olympus SLRs profiled using the Adobe Labs software and the full-sized colour chart. This lets me use any body with very similar colour results. There's no reason why I can't also do that with the D700, but now that I have the Passport, it's just as easy to create a profile for each specific lighting setup for even more accurate results. There's still significant value in doing a dual-illuminant profile - not least of which is that it can be included in a Lightroom preset - but ironically that will be more useful for my general photography than the really colour-critical work.

Compared to my stock profile that I'd created through the Adobe Labs software, the xrite profile (left) is significantly more saturated, and I'll also say that it's the more accurate of the two. That's not a huge surprise, since my Labs profile was created years ago and under different light; both are more accurate than the default Adobe profile. I will eventually get around to creating a 'generic' profile for my Nikon, but that won't stop me from taking and using reference shots for profiles and reality-check comparison.

One other nice design feature that's worth mentioning is the little identifiers on the creative white balance target. The neutral squares are square with a little protrusion in the middle of one side; the warm/cool squares have one corner notched out, with + or - signs in varying size to indicate the amount of shift. This makes it easier to quickly tell what adjustment is being applied, even if it's a little out of focus. It's such a useful indicator that it took me three weeks to spot it. You know what they say about photographers: we have a gifted eye for detail.


Incidentally, Michael Reichmann's Luminous-Landscape.com website has always been a favourite of mine, even when I haven't agreed with him. (Can we say Olympus E-1?) He's certainly one of my top three influences for the writing, format, and approach of the camera portion of thewsreviews. I was working in the camera store when he bought the viewfinder for his GF1, and while I recognized him immediately, I didn't say hello. Maybe next time.

LumoPro 606 Light Stand & 633 Umbrella Swivel

Concept: 2 out of 5 (Nothing original about light stands)
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Affordable Quality is rare but it DOES exist

The Long Version: Less than a year ago my lighting accessories consisted of a rain umbrella modified with a can of white Krylon spray paint and a bunch of microphone stand and boom parts cobbed together.
It worked, but using it was a pain and letting other photographers see my rig was embarrassing.
The stand was too short, didn't collapse into an easily-transported size, and liked to tip over if someone breathed heavily.

For yours truly's birthday my girlfriend dug out her credit card and told me to call up the pertinent web pages for what I wanted.
I clicked twice on the Midwest Photo Exchange (MPEX) banner atop The Strobist blog and within a few minutes my new toys were on the way.

My choice of light stand was the LP606, an economy model 8' air-cushioned 4-section stand that retails for around $30.
Impact also makes an 8' stand in the same price range, but the air-cushioned feature of the LumoPro appealed to me.
I even asked about both in a discussion thread at the Strobist Flickr Group, and while Impact took an early lead the LP soon prevailed.
Interestingly, Moishe (the head guy at MPEX) even left his thoughts, which tipped the scales both for brand and supplier.
When you go the extra mile to help educate your potential customers (and those of your competition!) I notice and appreciate the great service.
MPEX didn't disappoint--it was a painless order with full tracking of the shipment and sturdy packaging.

I like the wide spread of the legs for stability, and the reversed middle locking collar (2nd photo) is a nice touch that keeps everything from being jammed together in finger-confusion, so setup is easier.
The air-cushioned feature is great--if you forget to tighten a segment, your flash won't come sliding down to end with a jolt. In fact, it takes a few seconds to fully collapse the stand as you fight the air pressure.

The LP622 umbrella swivel/flash mount is better than many I have seen, and is also worth the $18 charged.
Very solid construction.
There are a few on the market that are more compact, to get the flash head an extra half-inch closer to the centerline of the umbrella, but they are hard to find.
I like how the cold-shoe has a big groove under the flash's foot, which eliminates the chance of a short-circuit or the need for tape as an insulator.
It holds my flash tightly.
The big swivel knob has both a spring and large detents on the mating surfaces, so it only takes half a turn to loosen it enough to adjust the angle, yet if you forget to tighten the knob again it will usually hold position.
Nice touch!

I haven't owned or even played with any other brands of light stand or umbrella swivel, but I have read many complaints about some of them and their various features as well as looked at pictures of them from all possible angles.
As someone who understands form and function and construction in mechanical devices I feel like I got exceptional equipment for the price.

My photographic style dictates travelling light and compact on the rare occasions that I take flash equipment out of the house, and both of these LumoPro products fit my needs perfectly.
On the other hand, a busy professional's preferences might lean towards extreme durability and size. There are certainly stands that fit their needs but at prices I'll never be able to justify.

This stuff does the job for little money, and I have really enjoyed using them.
Thumbs-Up! to LumoPro and Midwest Photo Exchange.