----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Pearson"
Subject: Re: Help buying my first studio lighting equipment?
I like your idea about the reflector. What size & color would you recommend? Also, is there some kind of self-standing reflector these days? I would like to be able to set this up on my own, and not have somebody else to hold the reflector, iF that's possible?
Check out: http://users.accesscomm.ca/wrobb/PDMLtemp/IMGP5434.jpg Caution, partially clothed girl in sensual pose alert. Sorry, it's all I have at hand at the moment.
If you look to the right of the picture, you will see edge on the reflector/gobo that I made.
It's just a stand made of copper plumbing pipe with gold lamé stretched across it.
I use the gold side as a warm reflector, and the black side to harden shadows a bit.
The thing stands somewhat over 6 feet tall, and is 39" wide. I decided the size after buying a couple of meters of fabric and letting my wife (who is much nicer than I am, just ask Tom) tell me what she needed to make it work for me.
I built it in such a way that it can be broken down into a few 1 meter lengths of copper tube, and I wrap the tube in the lamé for travel.
If I am using it outside, I stake the legs to the ground to keep it from travelling.
It has served me well for over a decade.
Total cost was about 30 dollars, most of which was the copper, which I recall was quite expensive at the time.
That shot, BTW, was done with a single 400WS light and an umbrella.
Also, I assume there are no voltage issues when using the PC terminal with the istD?
Not that I have found so far, I've used a relatively old (more than 20 years) Norman 2000P power pack, my somewhat newer, but still 10 year old Photo Genies, and a 20 year old Metz 60CT2 plugged into the PC socket, and have taken a thousand or more pictures triggering an external flash, and a couple of thousand at least trying unsuccessfully to make the TTL behave itself.
Personally, I think the concerns about trigger voltage aren't warranted.
Thanks for the suggestions!
It's why I'm here... really.
William Robb