THE TOOLBOX
Welcome to the PREP TO POST Toolbox where you’ll find all sorts of useful gadgets and apps that make our lives as photographers easier and more enjoyable. We are always looking for new products to feature, so please drop as a line and let us know what’s in your Toolbox.
PHOTO GEAR: TetherTools Strapmoore
It’s not that hard these days to find all types of photography gear. A simple Google search yields hundreds of companies worldwide that offer great products for all your photography needs. It’s pretty rare nowadays to come across a company that offers truly unique products that you find yourself unable to live without. Tether Tools is one of those companies.
I was approached by Tether Tools a couple of years ago via email. One look at their website and I was immediately impressed. Here was a company offering a product line specifically for tethered shooting, which is something I have been an advocate of ever since I first saw it when I was working as an assistant. Their personable approach and willingness to listen to their customers was what made me want to establish a great relationship with them. Their customer service is bar none and they’re just a wonderful group of people. (more…)
MUST HAVE APP: PHOTO TRANSFER APP
If you’re like me, then you like to have everything synced. I want to be able to see what I took on my iPhone on my Macbook Pro or on my Mac Pro and vice versa. I figure we spend enough money on technology, it should work the way we need it to. I guess I enjoy having everything consolidated so I don’t have to take so many steps to access my data, whether it be documents or photos or movies. This is why Apple is so successful. iCloud consolidates your data from your iOS devices to your desktop devices and all the Apple devices work seamlessly together for the most part. (more…)
PHOTO GEAR: YONGNUO 565EX
I am a firm believer in using what works regardless of brand. At least until Broncolor, Elinchrom or Profoto decide they want to sponsor me and make me their spokesperson that is.
Seriously though, the lighting equipment I have used to produce my work has been pretty varied. I think I have pretty much used all the popular and not so popular brands out there, from Briteks to Broncolor, Alien Bees to Speedotrons, Photogenics to Elinchroms, and Hensels to Profotos and a whole lot in between. If it’s available to me, I’ll use it, or at least find some way to make it work. There have been some shoots where I’ve used three different brands together. One of the things I have shied away from over the years are the use of speedlights, or on-camera flash units. Perhaps I have never really found the need to use them, and up until recently nobody really made anything cool to modify them with. Now we have the “Strobist” movement that really pushed the use of speedlights and a whole lot of DIY lighting modifiers for them. Throughout my career, however, I have just gotten used to using either moonlights or pack-and-head setups. Go big or go home I guess. (more…)
MUST HAVE APP: SUPER DUPER
Data backup strategies are as varied as they are numerous. There are several dedicated backup programs that automate the process for you, and even OS X has their own built in data backup solution called Time Machine. How you perform your backups isn’t quite as important as long as you ARE doing backups.
The strategy I use for backups is actually quite simple. (more…)
MUST HAVE APP: DISKSOMNIA
I’m very impatient when it comes to computers. I think it’s because we pay such a high premium for digital content creating workstations, and we just want to get what we pay for. We drop thousands of dollars on RAM, the fastest processors we can afford, and the fastest and most reliable storage possible. One of the most important factors in workstation performance is disk speed. As of right now, I am still using 100% magnetic hard drives as opposed to the newer, much faster solid state drives (SSD). I plan on switching over once I am comfortable with their reliability and lifespan. Here’s how I have my Mac Pro set up – a 10K RPM system drive, a 10K RPM work drive, 2 striped 10K RPM scratch drives, and a 2TB striped array of 1TB 7200 RPM drives for online temporary backup storage. In addition, I also have two external 4-disk drive eSATA arrays that serve as additional backup that can be easily switched from online to offline. The rest of my data gets copied onto bare drives that I store offline for archiving. Boxes of film have now been replaced with cases upon cases of hard drives. (more…)
MUST HAVE GEAR: JERKSTOPPERS
I have been shooting with a tethered workflow for about 6 years now on Capture One. I started using Capture One when it was version 3.4.
One of the very few cons of shooting tethered is that you are physically tethered by a cable. This means a couple of things. First, you can accidentally (more…)
MUST HAVE APP: FOREVERSAVE
If I had a dollar for every time Photoshop crashed on me when I had forgotten to save, oh, an hour’s worth of work, I would be a rich man. All you have to do is take a look at my past Facebook and Twitter updates cursing the very existence of Adobe to understand how devastating it is to lose work. I always thought, of all the programs out there that needed to have an autosave feature, Photoshop should be at the top of the list.
Well, that day has come. I discovered Foreversave by Tool Force Software a few months ago (more…)
SMUDGEGUARD
A few workshops ago, one attendee, Bashir Gavriel, showed up wearing an odd looking glove to the post production day. That’s how I was introduced to a great product called SmudgeGuard.
Created by Jeannie Lit, the SmudgeGuard glove was originally developed for sketchers other artists who suffered from the carbon or graphite residue you get on the blade of your hand when drawing. In addition, (more…)
REMOTE TRIGGERING FOR UNDER $30
I have always wanted to trigger my camera wirelessly, but I was under the impression that I needed a PocketWizard Multimax in order to do so. I recently discovered Flash Zebra, a site that specializes in small flash accessories. They sell a cable with a miniphone on one end and an N3 on the other, to plug into the Canon body’s remote input, so you can use your existing Pocketwizard Transceivers to wirelessly trigger your camera. In addition, (more…)
MUST HAVE APP: YOUSENDIT
I remember when I used to have to burn CD’s and DVD’s to send files off to clients. It was costly to say the least. There were FTP solutions as well, but you had to login and use an FTP client and it always felt so cumbersome for me. That was until I discovered Yousendit 5-6 years ago.
With my Yousendit account, I can send files up to 2GB each, and honestly the transfer rate is quite fast. They offer different priced plans for your needs in a monthly subscription format, or you can pay (more…)
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