camera gear or photo gear?

B

BB Gun

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2004
Messages
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ECS P55 socket 1156 in the sig is failing with hard blue screens calling IRQ conflicts and BIOS wierdness on reboots. (hah! what a surprise, an ECS motherboard is failing! - mobo/ram/processor was gift from my son two or three years ago, its my only excuse)

I can buy the last in-production socket 1156 motherboard, a BIOSTAR for around 150 or get a modern Z77 + i7-3770 + case (for USB3) for just about 500 with all the "modern" bells and whistles (i.e. USB3, UEFI BIOS, etc).

The money of the bigger upgrade was GOING to go to a Canon 600EX-RT flash...

Also keep in mind, LR4 was feeling a tad slow on the i7-860.

What would you do?

BB
 
You could always buy both.
That is to say, perhaps purchase a used flash and/or a less expensive one. The 600EX-RT doesn't offer anything over the 580EX II other than the ability to be radio trigged via another Canon accessory. However I'll also be quick to point out, that most people don't need that much power or features in their flashes anyway. A 480EX might be plenty, or even some other flash.
 
I would buy glass. With good glass you don't even need flashes.

A flash like that is good for weddings only, for everything else it's totally unnecessary.
 
staticlag said:
I would buy glass. With good glass you don't even need flashes.

A flash like that is good for weddings only, for everything else it's totally unnecessary.
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You don't need flash for some things... Many others things you 100% need a flash.
 
staticlag said:
I would buy glass. With good glass you don't even need flashes.

A flash like that is good for weddings only, for everything else it's totally unnecessary.
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It depends on what you're trying to do. If you're a nature and outdoor architecture than lighting may not be a serious purchase.

However if you do portraiture, models/fashion, macro, and some other various types of photography than having an excellent flash, and knowledge of that flash are essential.

If you're interested in learning more about this, I would suggest Joe McNally's "One Light" series in which he shows how much can be done even with a single artificial light source (this series is mostly to show that a lot of high end lights isn't necessary to get a high end result... he does have other work showing multi-light, super expensive setups as well). Another person I watch to see the way he lights is Zack Arias, whom focuses on portrait photography. Zack is definitely someone to watch as he's extremely practical and believes never going into debt to get gear. As such he talks a lot about starting with little and moving up as you can all with cash.

Also, I might note as well, that a flash may not be necessary for wedding work, but it can be enhanced by it. There has been a journalistic wedding style that has grown that more or less relies on fast glass and available light. However, the high end people still use flashes on stands and have the luxury of assistants to get the flashes to go where they need to be.
 
The One Light series is Zack Arias's work, not Joe McNally's.

Any photographer who calls themselves an "available light" shooter probably is just scared or incapable of actually learning proper lighting techniques. Good light is good light, whether it's natural or artificial, whether it's just there or it's being controlled by the person with the camera.
 
Good lighting and diffusal setup can make a HUGE difference for lots of photography applications. Found-light is good enough a lot of the time, and with good glass you can make it look decent, but for top-notch pro-grade results, most of the time you need to manipulate the scene to make sure the lighting is just perfect. If you don't have a few flashes and some light-boxes or umbrella's etc, I'd recommend picking those up when you can. You don't really have to go with the big name brand Canon stuff though. There are kits you can get now that include the stands, diffusal-boxes, and lights for less than I paid for just my Nikon strobes a few years ago. If I had it to do over now, I'd probably look into something like that.

That being said, if your computer is dead in the water, and/or won't run your post-processing software correctly, I think I'd make that a priority at the moment. All the great photo gear in the world isn't going to do you much good if you can't do anything with the photos once you get the files off the camera...
 
DyNamiC. said:
Based on your title I would go with camera gear ;)
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ROFLMAO.... Damn. :)

Prime95 doesn't crash it.
Furmark doesn't crash it.
Memtest86+ passes the memory test.

First two times it happened while playing or immediately after playing league of legends, so thought it might be heat related, but its happend twice since then, once while in the steam screen and once just sitting there.

As I'm getting more into flash photography, and the RT is only slightly more expensive than the 580EX. I've just been frustrated with the limitations of the old 420EX I bought used last year and figure if I'm gonna move up, then I'll move up all the way. Opportunity cost isn't that much, relatively speaking.

There are other options, of course, but whatever gear it would be, that cost is still traded against the PC. I guess it comes down to which habit is more important to me, eh?

Thanks everyone for the thoughts so far.

BB
 
BB Gun said:
ROFLMAO.... Damn. :)

Prime95 doesn't crash it.
Furmark doesn't crash it.
Memtest86+ passes the memory test.

First two times it happened while playing or immediately after playing league of legends, so thought it might be heat related, but its happend twice since then, once while in the steam screen and once just sitting there.

As I'm getting more into flash photography, and the RT is only slightly more expensive than the 580EX. I've just been frustrated with the limitations of the old 420EX I bought used last year and figure if I'm gonna move up, then I'll move up all the way. Opportunity cost isn't that much, relatively speaking.

There are other options, of course, but whatever gear it would be, that cost is still traded against the PC. I guess it comes down to which habit is more important to me, eh?

Thanks everyone for the thoughts so far.

BB
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You're right about the 580ex II, I thought the price had dropped on it more. It may be due to the fact that it is technically discontinued (as in, it's no longer listed on Canon's site) and is therefore getting over-priced on the remaining stock. I'd say that's probably what is likely happening. As a result, I would recommend doing what is always best practice buying camera gear... go used!
 
Yep, look for a used 580 EXII. The 600 EX-RT doesn't really give you much more than a 580 will unless you want to drop some money on a 2nd 600 or the transmitter to get you off camera.

Also, what kind of limitations were you finding with the 420 EX?
 
UnknownSouljer said:
It depends on what you're trying to do. If you're a nature and outdoor architecture than lighting may not be a serious purchase.

However if you do portraiture, models/fashion, macro, and some other various types of photography than having an excellent flash, and knowledge of that flash are essential.
Click to expand...

Yeah for portraiture, models/fashion a small camera mounted flash like that is pretty insufficient. Anyone worth their beans is going to be using a massive softbox.

For macro that won't even aim at a subject that is 1:1, you need the ring setup.

As I said, that specific flash is for wedding and event photog's only. It's overkill for anything else (around the house family pics?, thanksgiving, xmas pics?). That thing is for when you need to throw light at f/8 40ft away at action.
 
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Daggah said:
The One Light series is Zack Arias's work, not Joe McNally's.

Any photographer who calls themselves an "available light" shooter probably is just scared or incapable of actually learning proper lighting techniques. Good light is good light, whether it's natural or artificial, whether it's just there or it's being controlled by the person with the camera.
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Lulz, hardly.

I've been shooting available and flash back when film was better than digital and you really HAD to know proper exposure b/c you couldn't hit replay on a shot and get an instant read.

I would call myself an available light shooter only b/c my 85 1.2 is my go to lens.
 
staticlag said:
Yeah for portraiture, models/fashion a small camera mounted flash like that is pretty insufficient. Anyone worth their beans is going to be using a massive softbox.
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Still disagree. I would highly look into both Zack Arias as well as Joe McNally like I mentioned earlier. The key is simply to have the flash be off your camera. A speedlight is more than capable of this. A lot of Zack's earlier work, even now if he has to travel light, is all done with speedlights. In fact he has used a fleet of Nikon SB-80dx's (because they're cheap) along with Pocket Wizards to do a lot of his work. Sometimes with Honl cheapie plastic grids, sometimes without, sometimes with softboxes, sometimes without.

Would you like to see a video demonstrating this? Check this video out by Zack Arias that he shoots with JUST speedlights, NO SOFTBOXES, and later some cheapie (as in $30) Honl Speedlight grids. It's amazing what he does with just speedlights, stands, and radio triggers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc0vyC9Uy5c
He shoots it all in around 5-10 minutes or so. All very impressive from someone that knows what they're doing.

He also has an entire series called "One Light" showing that even with one light you can do amazing portrait work. I realize in that Jared vid that he used more than one, and you might object to that, but a minimalist or inexpensive approach can still net great stuff as he demonstrates. I would link that but it's a paid for series. There are snippets on youtube from the workshop like this intro here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz0_ReAMmWE
But nothing complete. Worth spending money on if you're trying to advance your portrait career and you need help figuring this stuff out.


staticlag said:
For macro that won't even aim at a subject that is 1:1, you need the ring setup.
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For macro once again you don't necessarily need a ring setup. I would highly recommend looking into Alex Koloskov. He is known for his product and liquid photography (as well as specializing in shooting reflective objects like glass and jewelery that are commonly knows as being difficult subjects), most of which (I'd say at least 90%) is macro based work. He has done work for high end commercial advertisers and organizations (including Godiva, Sony, Motorolla, Dior, Chanel, Versace, high end jewellery, etc.) no where in his setup is a ringflash.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+AlexKoloskov/albums/posts/5846682437638441794
To show you his long line of impressive work, check out this album he has below. Some of it is just random whatever pics, but he also shows a lot of the results from his commercial work. Really really brilliant stuff. If you're on Google+, I highly recommend you follow him. He posts a lot, talks about the nature of commercial photography a lot, and he shares a ton of his 'secrets' on how he gets those amazing shots.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/102865263115020893218/albums/posts


staticlag said:
As I said, that specific flash is for wedding and event photog's only. It's overkill for anything else (around the house family pics?, thanksgiving, xmas pics?). That thing is for when you need to throw light at f/8 40ft away at action.
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You don't need an Elinchromes or Alien Bees to do off camera flash or use a softbox, or grids, or to get an excellent portrait setup. This is a common misnomer, the world of flash need not be expensive to get into. A simple speedlight and (in the case of Canon) OC-E3 (off camera flash cable) is technically all you need to get started. Everything past that is convenience or to get a different technical effect (softboxes as an example to wrap and soften lights, radio triggers to get it further away from your camera, etc).

If you want to learn more, I HIGHLY recommend this strobist article. It has been passed around on the fredmiranda forums religiously as a good entryway into understanding light and flashes in particular and how they fit into photography. I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm trying to show you that you're viewing speedlights, and flash/strobes in general, in a very narrow way.
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html


staticlag said:
Lulz, hardly.

I've been shooting available and flash back when film was better than digital and you really HAD to know proper exposure b/c you couldn't hit replay on a shot and get an instant read.

I would call myself an available light shooter only b/c my 85 1.2 is my go to lens.
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Never to late to learn or add more stuff to your repertoire.
 
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patric said:
Yep, look for a used 580 EXII. The 600 EX-RT doesn't really give you much more than a 580 will unless you want to drop some money on a 2nd 600 or the transmitter to get you off camera.

Also, what kind of limitations were you finding with the 420 EX?
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No manual mode at all. Been reading some Strobist recently and want to try my hand to see how I like playing with light. Not taking him as "gospel" but he's definitely got a lot of info that I'd like to try out and learn more about lighting and metering instead of just looking at the test shot. Also looking to possibly eventually do more portraiture with multiple lights. The built in RT helps, though is definitely not required. Just thought the price premium wasn't too bad. I could go used 580EXII for sure.

Lots of ways to do stuff - there is no one way. But I do need a better off-camera capable flash. And want, eventually, two.

BB
 
BB Gun said:
No manual mode at all. Been reading some Strobist recently and want to try my hand to see how I like playing with light. Not taking him as "gospel" but he's definitely got a lot of info that I'd like to try out and learn more about lighting and metering instead of just looking at the test shot. Also looking to possibly eventually do more portraiture with multiple lights. The built in RT helps, though is definitely not required. Just thought the price premium wasn't too bad. I could go used 580EXII for sure.

Lots of ways to do stuff - there is no one way. But I do need a better off-camera capable flash. And want, eventually, two.

BB
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Well if you just want off camera capable flashes, Zack Arias recommends the Nikon SB-80DX lol. Not manufactured anymore, but you can easily find them used for sub $150 each, especially on FredMiranda. Cheap enough to buy several. Of course you have to stack the cost of radio triggers (like the pocket wizard), but that is to be expected, and after you've made the investment, they don't have to be bought again (if for instance in the future you want to upgrade to those nice Alien Bees or Elinchromes).


(I should also note it that using a Nikon flash on Canon while it's off camera doesn't matter. The pocket wizards are what sync them. Zack Arias shoots Canon, and uses Nikon flashes due to cost.)
 
BB Gun said:
No manual mode at all. Been reading some Strobist recently and want to try my hand to see how I like playing with light. Not taking him as "gospel" but he's definitely got a lot of info that I'd like to try out and learn more about lighting and metering instead of just looking at the test shot. Also looking to possibly eventually do more portraiture with multiple lights. The built in RT helps, though is definitely not required. Just thought the price premium wasn't too bad. I could go used 580EXII for sure.

Lots of ways to do stuff - there is no one way. But I do need a better off-camera capable flash. And want, eventually, two.

BB
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The radio transmitters in the 600 series only work with other 600 series flashes right now, so that's an extremely expensive system to buy into at $600 a flash.

If you're wanting manual mode you shoud look at some off brand flashes like the Yongnuo EN560 II's from Amazon. They're a durable, purely manual flash and cost $75 each. You can also hold onto your 420 and use it for on camera ETTL flash if it's ever needed. For radio triggers I use four YN-622c's which work with manual and ETTL flashes and support 3 separate groups of flashes, high speed and 2nd curtain sync and have a 100 meter range. They sell for $80-90 a pair and have worked flawlessly for my needs. If you want to mess with metering for manual flashes you'll also need to buy a meter that takes incident readings. Those usually cost between $250-300 for a Sekonic meter.
 
Well....

Good news. My symptoms were eerily similar to an acquaintance's from another board. He swapped out his memory and was good to go.

Since memory is cheap, I gave it a go, and the 4x2GB Gskill F3-10666CL8D-4GBHK is gone and a 2x4GB Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX is in. I have been running for 5 hours straight without a crash - I think I'm cured.

Living in PacNW makes Amazon delivery amazing - same price as newegg, ordered it 9:00 Monday night and it showed up at my house at about 2 this Tuesday afternoon. Prime+4 bucks and total cost was same as Newegg - even with tax. :)

Phew! Now back to the camera gear dilemma.... :)

BB
 
staticlag said:
Lulz, hardly.

I've been shooting available and flash back when film was better than digital and you really HAD to know proper exposure b/c you couldn't hit replay on a shot and get an instant read.

I would call myself an available light shooter only b/c my 85 1.2 is my go to lens.
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No, you call yourself an available light shooter because you don't seem to be willing to learn something new. It's never too late to pick up new skills, so maybe you should be less set in your ways.

And no, you don't need a "massive" softbox. It depends on what look you're going for. A simple shoot through umbrella can soften light plenty well enough for portraits. Or look for a wall or ceiling to bounce off of. Or use a reflector. Or a strip box. Or a small softbox. Or a brolly box. Or even bare flash. There's so many different options and they all have their purpose. Knowledge of light and how it works is the key.
 
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