Studio Lighting Equipment - For Sale

We're in the process of upgrading all of our studio lighting gear, so we have some great, near perfect condition, equipment available for sale. We'll be putting this up for sale on EBAY and craigslist in about a week, but wanted to give our readers and friends of Towner Jones, "first dibs." As an incentive to find it a good home with someone who follows the blog, if it's purchased by one of our blog readers, TJP will pay the shipping. (A big deal, some of this stuff is pretty heavy)

What we're selling is a perfect intermediate studio starter kit. All of the products are from Paul C. Buff's "Alien Bees" line of studio lights. These are well built, and if taken care of (these have been babied as the photo shows), they will last long time.

(Sound good so far? More details are a click away...)

Camera Strap Worthy of a Contest

OK, here's the deal. 

A couple month's back I came across a piece of equipment that has completely changed my wedding photography experience, and for around 60 bucks it has a awesomeness to value ratio that can't be beat. I'm talking about Black Rapid's RS-5 camera strap. Yes, you read that right... Camera Strap.

Black Rapid's RS-5 is a replacement for your out of the box strap and incorporates a number of features that have made me buy one for both Rose and I. Most importantly, it allows you to stow your camera at your hip between shots, distributing the weight to your shoulders instead of your neck. That alone is enough to dramatically change an 8+ hour wedding shoot, but when you add in storage for memory, business cards, and your cell phone - without obnoxiously loud Velcro (it uses magnets as closures) - you have a near perfect strap for a long day of shooting.

Here's Black Rapid's video, take a minute to check it out. I will warn you, you're gonna want one. (But I might be able to help with that as well...so make sure you keep reading)

 

Let me say now, this is completely on my own (Black Rapid did not endorse this review or this contest) but I've decided I want to share one of these with one of my lucky readers. Since we haven't had a photo contest yet this year - I've decided that I'm going to give a brand spanking new RS-5 to the winner of TJP's first photo contest of 2011.

Here's the details:

No theme - just submit the photo or photos of your choice. Simple enough!

Prize: Black Rapid's RS-5

Who Can Participate: Everyone, our contests are open to pros and amateurs alike

Deadline: Monday, February 28th @ Midnight (Eastern)

How and What to Submit: Submit JPEG photos to contest@townerjones.com- make sure to include your name and contact information (in case you win). JPEGs should be at least 800x600 pixels in size, and may be resized for display.

The winner and other selected entries will be displayed on this blog.

For additional information on our contest policy, click here.

 

The Joy of Family (and 10-Stop ND Filters)

Hello all. If you're here in the States, hope that you had a wonderful 4th of July. We headed down to my folks house outside of Richmond, VA along with all the extended family on my mother's side. It's a tradition which stands as a testament to the love we share as 18 of us packed into their house for three days. We all had an absolute blast.

Just before I left our place on Thursday, the UPS truck dropped off that oh-so-joyous delivery... a B&H box! Inside, a brand-new B+W 10-Stop Neutral Density filter to play with on vacation. (thanks for the recommendation, Chris)

I'll save a future post for a detailed review of this filter (in summary, it's fantastic) but for now, I have a fun family photo to share which required the help of two of my cousins (thank you, Taylor and Stephen). 

What is the benefit of a 10-stop filter? It reduces the amount of light coming into the camera by a factor of 1000. This means in full sunshine I was able to set my aperture to a shallow f/3.2 and still meter an exposure of 0.6 seconds. Very cool. 

Hoses just seem more fun when the water is blurry...

Nikon D3, 70-200 (at 90mm)  f/3.2, 0.6s, ISO 100, Post: Photoshop CS5

World War II Model Shoot - Part 1

A few months ago, we started scheming with our hair-stylist/make-up artist buddy, Allison Phillips, about what we could do with our good friend and neighbor, Sarah. You see, after having done family portrait shoot with Sarah, we immediately recognized how well she did in front of the camera and knew that we had to photograph her in some special project.

Fast forward a little bit. While getting my haircut (one of the fantastic benefits of having a friend who's a talented hairstylist!) Allison and I decided that Sarah had the perfect look to be costumed as a 1940's bombshell and serve as the model for a World War II themed shoot.

We called Sarah over and informed her of our decision - she gratiously accepted our offer.

The original plan was to shoot her in the studio, and then using post processing add in some background consistent with the era. We were thinking that our final product would be a photo along the lines of the old "Buy War Bonds!" or "Let's Do It For the Boys" shots we've all seen in the history books.

However, for those of you that know me, I'm never ok with leaving well enough alone. Since it's not often enough that we get to do photo shoots purely for fun, I decided that I'd start making some phone calls and see if we could take this to the next level.

A phone call to David Hunt, Director of the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, VA supplied us with everything we could have dreamed to take the shoot to the "next level" - namely a fully restored P-51 Mustang fighter plane. Mr. Hunt not only agreed to let us take pictures with her, but gratiously agreed to have his staff move the plane out to the center of the museum's runway for our shoot. Things were now really starting to come together.

Moving outdoors away from the comfort and control of the studio, and realizing that the complexity of the shoot was growing quickly, I shot off an email to my buddy and fellow photographer, Chris Breedlove. Chris and his wive, Kristen, agreed to meet us in Virginia Beach and serve as assistants.

We're going to spend a few days this week on the blog taking about all the details of this shoot - I hope you'll come back to visit to hear the rest of the story but as for the shot...

Without further ado, after hours of prep, costume selection, hair and makeup design, lighting design, set management and setup, here's our shot of the day. Nice work and thank you, team Towner Jones Photography!

Nikon D3, 24-70mm (at 32mm)  f/9.0, 1/320s, ISO 100, Post: Photoshop CS5, onOne Plug-In Suite 5

And here's one of the crew, thanks Kristen for taking the shot!

Nikon D3, 24-70mm (at 35mm)  f/7.1, 1/500s, ISO 100, Post: Photoshop CS5

How-To: Remove a Subject from Chroma-Key using Mask Pro 4.1

Want to snag a copy of the above video? You can download it by right clicking, here.

Another demo of the cool stuff from my buddies over at onOne... This time I demo how quick and easy it is to remove a subject from a chroma-key green background using Mask Pro 4.1. It really is amazing to see how this can be accomplished in minutes when I think back to the eternity it use to take me when I was doing it manually. Hope you enjoy. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Just a reminder! Interested in buying something from onOne? They've given us a coupon code to share - TJP10 - to save 20% off everything in their online store.