A Walk Around the Monobloc, Pt. 1

Speedlights are great, and I use them about 90% of the time. But that does not mean they are always the most appropriate tool for the job. Nor does it mean they might be the best choice for your style of lighting.

If you have learned to use your speedlights in manual, you should not at all be intimidated by the idea of using "studio strobes." In fact, you'll probably find the typical monobloc to be very familiar territory by now.
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Lose the Dogma

First of all, any time I shoot something with a monobloc, someone comments about it "not being Strobist," as if we had some kind of kosher standard going on around here. For Pete's sake, Strobist is the name of a website. I know, because I made it up in 2006. And there was no burning bush or stone tablets involved at all.

I used speedlights most of the time as a PJ, because they are the flashes I always had with me. And I created L101 and L102 around speedlights. But that is because speedlights are small, portable and the most accessible way for people to learn about lighting.

Most people learn to shoot with a little .22-calibre rifle, and save the .50 cal until a little later when they need to pierce an engine block at 700 yards.

IMO, to extend the speedlight ethic into a frame of mind where monoblocs (or pack and head systems) are somehow not to be considered is just silly. I am an available light photographer. Meaning, if a light is available I will consider using it.

Speedlight, monobloc, car headlight, iPhone -- I have used them all. If I think an ignited fart will improve a photo, then please pass the beans and matches. Speedlights are wonderful little lighting machines. But they are not the end-all, and they are not always necessarily the best tool for any given job.

There. Just wanted to be clear on that.

And I am kidding about the beans. Don't try that for a light source. At least, we don't to that in my family anymore. Not since that emergency room visit for my uncle Morris. (And I am not kidding about that, either.)


Been There, Done That

For lighting large objects (or overpowering sun at a reasonable working distance) bigger flashes simply make more sense than speedlights. My "big" flashes are two old White Lightning Ultra 600's. They are very similar to the current WL models and to today's AlienBees, except my 600's have had the crap beaten out of them.

I am currently re-evaluating my monoblocs and deciding which direction I want to go with them in the future. But I wanted to use the opportunity to take a moment and do a walk-thru for those of you who are unfamiliar with bigger flashes.

Today, we will walk through a typical control panel, much of which will be familiar to manual speedlight users.
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(Click the pic for bigger in a new window.)

Here is the control end of a WL Ultra 600, which is a 300 watt-second (WS) monobloc. It is typical in layout to most other mono's, and this one is about five times more powerful than your average speedlight.

Up top, you'll see the power level adjustment. This is exactly like dialing down your manual power level in a speedlight, except in this case you are not limited to full- (or half-, or third-) stop increments. This is a continuously variable, minus 5-stop power control, and one of the reasons I love the White Lightnings and AlienBees.

Actually, power level is an area where many speedlights and monoblocs intersect, too. For example, this a 300WS monoblock. If I dial it down a stop, it is now at 150WS. Down two stops is 75WS, which is getting into the neighborhood of an 60WS SB-800. So, they cross over in power output for the range of -3, -4 and -5 stops on the monobloc.

The efficiency of the reflector in the WL gives a little more light output per watt-second. But you will still find an area of crossover between the two. This is convenient, as it means you can use both types of flashes in conjunction if you only have one monobloc and a few SB's.

On the left is the modeling light switch, which will be of less importance to you if you have grown up using speedlights. They are nice to have, but also introduce some significant limitations when you try to power the mono's with batteries. More on that later.

Across the middle you'll see buttons, jacks and lights. The red "test" button is exactly the same thing as the test button on your speedlight. You push it and the flash pops.

Just above the test button is a "dump" light. This is an indication that the flash is storing too much power because you charged it up and then lowered the power level without popping the flash to bleed the unneeded juice. Most new mono's dump this power automatically. (They call it "auto dump.") But if yours does not this, is a good thing to know. If that light glows, pop the flash, Simple as that.

That round hole is the sync jack. What is a coveted but much-missing feature on many speedlights is standard equipment on a monobloc. Which is good, as you cannot very well mount a mono on your hot shoe. Pay attention to the type of connection for this jack, when shopping for a big flash. It can either lock you into proprietary connectors or free you to use standard, cheaper cords. My preference is 1/8" or 1/4" audio-jack-type connectors.

The white "model" button at center right actually helps you to know your flash is ready by turning off the modeling lamp until the flash is fully recycled. Some flashes can be set to emit beeps when recharged. A model-off-when-charging setting just gives you a visual confirmation.

The white dome further right is the optical slave receptor. Slaves on mono's are typically pretty sensitive, but you cannot aim them well because they are always gonna point away from the direction that particular mono is firing.

Speedlight slaves typically can be rotated to different directions from the flash head, which helps a lot. This is partially offset be the fact that the mono's will typically be firing more powerful light, so slaves can usually see the pulse better.

At far right you have the power switch -- simple enough. Just below that is a proportional model switch, which can get you an apples-to-apples modeling light comparison with WL monoblocs of different power settings.

Round that out with a circuit breaker (bottom left) and a remote control jack (far left). The latter allows the power and sync of a flash to be controlled by a wired remote.

If it looks complicated, it is not. At it's heart, it is a big, manual flash with a slider power control, a sync jack and a built-in slave. You already understand all of the important stuff.

And that's really all you need to know to handle most monoblocs just fine. They mount to your stands and light mods just like speedlights, as they have built-in umbrella swivels. And all of the theory and practice is the same -- you just have more power to play with.

You'd think the fancy control panels would be where the most important differences lie. But really, it is the lighting flexibility (and power) at the business end that mostly separates these guys from the little flashes.

More on that, in part two.

Nick Turpin: Back on the Street

London-based speed-lighter Nick Turpin has brought a videographer along on another one of his snooted SB-800 street shoots.

For the shoot (done for MensHealth magazine) he simply approached appropriately dressed strangers on the street and created an instant studio around them.

Video, links and more pix after the jump.



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(If you are reading on RSS or via email, click on the post title to be able to view the movie.)

I love this look, as much for the low-impact gear aspect as for the results themselves. Just underexpose the ambient, then go in and carve in some highlights with the strobes to add depth and dimension to the scene.

In terms of needing permits for commercial shoots, the fact that Nick can work without light stands or tripods usually eliminates the need for any sort of street shooting permit.

Well, any place but London, maybe. Just carrying a camera in that city can get you in trouble.


Recent laws enacted in the UK pretty much equate just having a camera with being a terrorist. Literally, if you are taking pictures on the street in London you can be searched and/or arrested if an officer "reasonably suspects" you of, well anything.

How's that for a first-world free and open society?

Actually, Nick had a few words to say about that for iN-PUBLiC, an organization that advocates for street photographers.




I suppose they could rewrite the laws to allow only people with dinky little cell phone cameras to shoot on the street. But then, Nick just finished a worldwide ad campaign using only a cell phone camera, too.

They will probably outlaw people with photographic memories next.

Related Links:

:: Nick Turpin ::
:: iN-PUBLiC ::

That's Not a Light Stand. This is a Light Stand.

UPDATE: As usual, alternate suggestions for humongous light stands coming in via the comments. Check 'em out if you are so inclined.
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Do you ever find yourself in need of more height and stability than your, say, 5-section compact speedlight stand can offer?

Do you sometimes need area-flooding back/separation lighting?

Are you strong enough to carry something around that is ominously described as "man portable?"

Then you, my friend, may be interested in a Luksa HI-VIEW 40-foot light stand.

Full extension pic (no jokes, please) and video link, inside.
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Make Mine a Tallboy, Please

After reading about the truck-mounted, 70-foot tall remote camera mast that Luksa makes, I clicked around in the site a little to find the "normal" light stands. They call them tripods, but they are designed just like light stands.

Only way bigger.

Here are some of the specs. The two models hit 30 and 40 feet tall, respectively. The 30-foot stand collapses to 6 feet.

There are two 40-foot models -- a normal one that collapses to 8.5 feet, and a "compact" version that closes down to 6.5 feet.

These bad boys extend with a winch (or 12v motor) so all of the sections extend at an equal rate, for maximum stability. And they will hold a 30- or 35-lb payload, respectively.

Price? Oh, yeah, that.

The bad news is that they will set you back $9,200.00 or $9,450.00, respectively.


Wait -- come back!


They are working on an upcoming lighter duty model that will go up to 48 feet, which will go in the $2,000.00 range. It is planned to have a 10-pound capability, which would make is perfect for a studio-sized head.

You may laugh, but just think what you could do with a 48-foot (as in 5-fricken'-story) light stand, as far as flooding a large scene with back/top light. Seriously, you could create a whole look with a stand like this.

Why just light a basketball court when you could light a night high school football game? Two AB1600's with sport reflectors feathered up back in the opposite corners would do it. (But only in Texas...)

I'm probably gonna be sticking to my Bogen/Manfrotto super compacts for the time being. But I figure this post has now gone on long enough to where Chase Jarvis is probably on Luksa.com ordering his right now. Especially after he sees this video.

As I always say, it is better to have a friend with a pool than to have a pool...


(Via the PW Blog)

LP120, YN460 Feedback Coming In

If you are considering one of the new manual flashes on offer, make sure to see the original post on the trio of strobes. It has been updated with early user feedback -- and a scary video.

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Speedlinks: March 22, 2009

In this edition: Remote nuptials, utter normality, voyeurism, Malaysian mods, a portable office and free CLS videos -- after the jump.
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• "No, worries, ma'am. It's standard procedure to mount a G9 into any excess cleavage space in the wedding gown..." -- Forget the Final Four. Hassel Weems is using multiple remote PW'd cameras at weddings. (Via PW blog)

• 50 Sense: Photographer Kirk Tuck makes the case that normal is underrated.

• Get your voyeur on with Andrew "WTJ" Hetherington's silent, first-person POV video made during a visit to a cramped-but-cool NYC studio.

• Mod Squad: Don Giannatti has a pretty detailed open box post on the Speedlight Pro kit we mentioned a ways back.

• Top Shelf: Way OT, but something I wish I would have thought of when I was working as a PJ: This Gizmodo post slamming Brian Lam for his dress code (with which I personally have no problem, heh) also shows off a nifty mobile computing hack. Brilliant.

• Last but not least: For Nikon CLS newbs, Scott Kelby just started a three-part CLS series on his new weekly web video, DTownTV. It is unabashedly Nikon, but if you are new to CLS (i.e., if you have a pop-up camera and an SB and do not know how to marry them wirelessly) you'll wanna see this. And you can't beat the price -- it's free.
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NOTE: And to Canon (or other) users, I know I am banging the Nikon drum this week. If you see good quality venues for Canon E-TTL stuff (or other brands) give me a heads-up in the comments.

And no, that does not mean if you start a site on how to use flash with a 1972 Practika LTL-3, it is automatically gonna get featured here. Just trying to shake the trees for stuff at this level going on for other brands.

Always Remember, Clients Can Smell Fear

UPDATE #2: Someone asked in the comments about Bert's "gunslinger"-type strap. It's a R-Strap.
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UPDATE #1: Bert detailed his post-production process on the shot here.
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What is your reaction when one of your best clients asks you to do a huge group shot in a dark, 800-seat auditorium? As Bill Cosby once said, "First you say it, then you do it."

Then you take a moment to calm down and pray that the ceiling in the cavern is white.

Belgian photographer Bert Sephani stepped out of his comfort zone and made it happen recently. And it goes without saying that speedlights need not apply on this one. But to Bert's credit, he accomplished it with two battery-powered Elinchroms, which were expertly aimed for even lighting across the auditorium.

Which is kind of interesting, really, because in all of Belgium there is only one Elinchrom Ranger available for rent. So he had to buy the other one.

Luckily for us, he produced a video for his excellent photo website/podcast, Squeeze the LIME, which should definitely be on your RSS list if it is not already.
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Related: More Bert on Strobist

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Two more Notes on the LP120 Flash

I failed to mention one of the better features on the LP120:  a two-year warranty. Big ups to MPEX on that as a way to make sure any inevitable 1st-generation bugs are not ultimately borne by the consumer.

Also, WIRED's Gadget Lab blog is doing a user-directed review of sorts. Post your ideas for writer Charlie Sorrel here.

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Plug Into McNally's Brain with The Hot Shoe Diaries

Last year, Joe McNally lit a fire under the photo community's collective butt with The Moment it Clicks.

To him, it was basically a memoir. But to us, it was a glimpse of what it was like to be Joe. It was full of lighting info, too. But organizationally, it was more a conversation over beers than lighting compendium. Disguised as a photography book, it was really a coffee-table-ready blog, full of double-truck anecdotes and delivering more solid info than any photo text I had ever seen to date. Until now.

Ever wonder what it would be like if you got the whole, 50-cent tour of Joe's brain on just small-flash lighting? Hot Shoe Diaries is what it would be like...
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Warning: Contents Under Pressure

Okay, so I am thinking an editor, say, some guy named Ted Waitt, maybe, says to Joe,"Why don't you just write down everything you know about small flash?"

Seems simple enough, right? How hard could that be?

Except for Joe went for a full 320 pages before his mind pooped out and turned to mush. Then he handed the finished book to Ted and spent the next two months in a Hopi sweat lodge, chugging Ensure/Red Bull cocktails until he had recovered enough to speak coherently.


Where Moment was anecdotal, HSD is soup-to-nuts, and all on small flashes. He begins by walking you through his entire gear bag, explaining his stuff (what and why) right down to the clamps and minor doodads. He names names, and is not bound with any corporate restrictions on what he can or can't say.

Gear-wise, he has everything but the kitchen sink. And that is not an exaggeration. In fact, I am pretty sure I saw an SB-800 going off from inside the body cavity of a raw chicken in one photo. And if you think I am kidding, you have not spent much time with Joe.

Did I say you get the full tour? Yeah, except sometimes the "full tour" seems like a solitary, late-night walk through that old amusement park on the edge of town at about 1:30 a.m. with the occasional strange noise happening in the background and did I just see that clown statue move a little bit?

Just the way you'd want it. I'll give it this: It ain't cliché.


This is My Rifle. There are Many Like it, But This One is Mine.

All of that wouldn't gear talk mean squat if he didn't teach you how to use it. Which is what he does for the next 270 or so more pages.

Granted, he's nuts. But he somehow escaped the straightjacket long enough to walk you through setup after setup, technique after technique for small flash lighting. It's a cookbook, really. Kinda like one of those 500-page Julia Child books jobs. You know the type -- where every recipe starts with two full sticks of butter.

I will warn the Canon shooters straight out: You're gonna be pissed.

The book is Nikon-specific, in that it embraces all of the capabilities of the Nikon flash system. And I mean all. I am thinking there will be engineers reading translated versions of the book in Japan, going, "He did what with an SB-800?"

You Canon guys be even more pissed because the book is good enough to where you will have to get it and read it anyway. Then one night you'll find yourself drunk-dialing Chuck Westfall at 3 a.m. yelling, "Why doesn't Canon have a book like this for me, Chuck? Canya tell me that, Chuck? Huh?"

Well, they don't have one of these because they don't have a McNally. And they won't have a McNally, either. Because if he ever even mentioned switching to Canon there would be a quiet visit in the night involving a loaded syringe or something like that. I'm told Nikon has people very close inside the McNally camp.

It goes without saying that if you are a Nikon shooter, this book is a no-brainer.


And while Joe may have everything Nikon has ever made at his disposal, he understands that you may not be so lucky. Which is why he spends over a hundred pages in Part One on single-flash solutions. Yep -- a hundred pages of one-light.

Which bumps this book up in the pecking order to something I would buy before I even bought my second flash. And if you already have two flashes -- no worries. He spends the next 125 pages tutoring you on multi-flash solutions, too.


A Textbook Solution

If you are a photo teacher in college -- yeah, I am talking to you, corduroy jacket with the arm patches guy -- do your class a favor and make this one required reading. It is informative, comprehensive and totally relevant to how people are shooting at the highest levels.

If you don't use this one as a textbook, check the locker of the kid that is shooting circles around everyone else in the class. This book probably will be inside. They even crunched the dimensions of the book down a little to make it camera-bag portable. It's about 8x9 inches, which means camera-bag portable. Great thinking on the publisher's part, IMO.

Lastly, I am both honored and psyched to have been referenced in the book. Very cool, really, because the book will be around long after I am on the wrong side of the grass. I won't mention where or how I got slipped in there. But I will say on a "completely unrelated" note there is an instance of a very buff body double being craftily Photoshopped underneath someone else's head. But mind you, this is "completely unrelated."


The Reader's Digest Version:

My advice: Get it.

Read it, and keep it in your camera bag as a combination reference and inspiration source.

The bad news they are just popping into Amazon's system and you can totally expect this one to sell out of the first printing just like Moment did. If you went pre-order, like I did, you'll be on the first run. And even if you do not make the first shipment, Amazon should be re-upping pretty quickly. Especially after the supply chain issues they had with his last book.

My copy has not arrived from Amazon yet, but I got to read an advance in PDF form on my computer on a cross-country flight earlier this month. Being a long-suffering user of battery-powered Macbooks, I dropped the monitor down to where it only gave me a mild headache and made it all the way through in one sitting.

Fortunately, the SWA flight crew was pouring heavily enough that night to offset the monitor brightness levels -- and enough so that I will get to read HSD again, for the first time...
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LINKS:

• Joe McNally: The Hot Shoe Diaries (List, $39.99. Amazon, $26.39, w/free shipping with Super Saver and Prime)
• PDF Excerpt -- a BIG one -- from Hot Shoe Diaries
• Joe's upcoming Paso Robles, CA workshop (if there are any seats left)

Building a Better Mousetrap

Anyone who has ever been tormented by a mouse will enjoy this semi-OT field trip today. And besides, there was some pretty spiffy hi-speed remote TTL flash involved in photographing the capture.
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Imagine that you are a mouse -- an "outdoor" mouse. Specifically, you are the mouse pictured in mid-air, at left.

You live in chilly northeast of the US, and it is winter time. So, naturally, you might try your luck at becoming an indoor mouse for the winter. Except that you happen to live next to the wrong house.

Specifically, you live just outside of the nice, warm house of Jim Clark, the inventor of the PocketWizard remotes. And Jim is hunkered down in "no sleep" mode, working round the clock to finalize the design and launch of the new Flex and Mini units.

Long story short: Pick a different house to invade next time, Mickey.
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You Don't Tug On Superman's Cape...

Those of you of a certain age will know exactly the song that was running through my head as I was listening to Jim's mouse-catching story. Jim Croce is famous for the original, but the link is to an excellent cover by Fretkillr.

To be fair, the little guy was just trying to stay warm. Only he had no idea that his nocturnal habits coincided pretty closely with those of a night-owl engineer. Especially one that already was consumed by the technical challenges of intertwining the new breed of remotes into the communication between camera and flashes.

Were it me, I probably would have just used a typical mouse trap. Or maybe a .410 guage. High nine for effectiveness, but low sixes on the PETA approval scale.

Jim, being an engineer, is driven to far more elegant solutions. Which is also why you don't see me designing cutting edge radio remotes, either.


First, Define the Problem



(All photos ©2009 Jim Clark, LPA Design.)

Using a light beam (correction: sound) trigger and a set of motor-driven wireless TTL flashes with PW Flexes, Jim set the bait and waited. Time after time, the mouse pulled off the heist before finally recording himself onto film (or, pixels.)

Editor's Note: The device was a WaveSensor, made by LPA.



Note the typical engineer's approach to bait -- just throw in some of everything and see what happens.

Remember, one of the cool things about the Flex/Mini is that it can crank wireless TTL at full speed -- up to 8 FPS. The pre-exposure communication burtsts do not have to happen, as the PW's hijack the communication between the camera and flashes.



Which is exactly made the above, 6-shot sequence possible. Jim just composited it into one frame for reference.


Then Design the Solution

Next, Jim set out to actually catch the mouse, "rather than just feed it," as he told me. And may I say that I love the walk-the-plank design of Jim's trap. It is humane (more so than mine woulda been) simple and it is darn-near foolproof.



And now that Jim had established the beam-tripper / wireless TTL sequence, he knew he could catch the little guy and catch him in a photo, too.



Here's the Wind-up...


• Mouse smells peanut butter. (Forget cheese -- they have a serious jones for peanut butter.)

• Mouse sees peanut butter out on nice, wide, safe ledge.

• Nice, wide ledge is in fact balanced to support only the peanut butter.

• Mouse heads for peanut butter, tips ledge.

• Ledge has conductive tape that starts the camera-firing sequence when it begins to tip. (Sorta like a low-tech version of the light beam device.)

• Mouse (hopefully) drops into large, kitchen trash can -- with wireless TTL flashes going off the entire time at full continuous speed. Schwing.


... And the Pitch:



My favorite part: The little guy's toes, stretching out to grab something -- anything -- on the way down. (Click the pic for bigger version.) And yes, the peanut butter did fall down into the trash can with him. Coulda been worse, right?



Five minutes later, cue the bone-crunching sound of a garbage disposal. Problem solved.

Kidding!



Actually, in addition to being a crack engineer Jim's pretty much of a softy, too. Which is why his worthy adversary is spending the remainder of the winter in this brand new condo, before being let out into the wild come spring.

Come to think of it, the mouse got cheese, raisins, cashews, peanuts and peanut butter, Not to mention a warm house with three squares a day through winter. Not such a bad deal, considering...

Trade Secret Taps You for First Project

Trade Secret Cards, a new company based in California, approached me last fall with a pretty cool idea. They wanted to create a series of cards (think high-end baseball cards -- thick, glossy, etc.) but with an added twist.

That twist is where you come in. Hit the jump for the deets.
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It's Not Me, It's You

They at first wanted to do a series of cards featuring my work, with a photo on front and some On-Assignment-style info and diagrams on the back.

"Boring, Sidney."

Anyone who reads the site sees my stuff all of the time. What can we do to add a little more cowbell?

What about the readers' stuff, we thought. The Strobist Reader Gallery boasts some of the coolest ALT_Lighting_Flash_Off-camera stuff around. That's who you'd wanna showcase.

So that's exactly what they did. Their very first series of cards comprises 24 images chosen from the reader gallery. They licensed the photos and interviewed the photogs about how the photos were made.

In the deck you'll find shots from people like auto-wunderkind Ken Brown, Danny Ngan, Joshua Targownik and others. In all, 24 flashes of inspiration from the coolest group of open-source lighting guys on the net -- you guys.

The stock is thick, the finish is glossy and the repro is art book quality. They used the Strobist name, and I wrote the forward. But beyond that the spotlight is on you.

FWIW, I am not tied to them financially. Didn't think it was appropriate, seeing as you guys did all of the work. (I knew I shoulda gotten that MBA.)

What's next for them? Maybe a deck on reading body language at a singles bar. Or a field guide to identifying zombies. Who knows. I just know we were first.

If you are interested, give 'em a look, here.

Manual Flashes: Two Debuts and an Adoption

UPDATED March 22, 2009, to add latest user feedback on LP120 and YN460. See below.
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At long last, there are finally a few lower-priced alternatives to cruising eBay for a used Nikon speedlight or forking over a few hundred bucks for a new flagship off-camera flash.

Hit the jump for all the deets on the new LumoPro 120, the Yong Nuo YN460 and the Cactus KF36.
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Totally In Sync: The LumoPro LP120

So, what if someone came to us and asked what we should include -- and exclude -- on a hot-shoe flash designed for photographers who light?

That's exactly what happened with the new LumoPro LP120, which was commissioned by Midwest Photo in response to the vintage speedlight availability (or lack thereof) and recent Vivitar quality issues.

The LumoPro LP120 was designed specifically for off-camera lighting in the manual mode. The idea was for it to have everything you want -- and nothing you do not want to needlessly pay for.

Major props to Moishe at MPEX for taking on this project. None of the big manufacturers were willing to step up to the plate, so he did it himself.


Features:

• Standard bounce and 180/90 swivel.

• Manual zoom head (non-motorized -- similar in function to the 285.)

• Full manual adjustment down to 1/32 power, with no "missing" levels like the 285.

• Important: There is no auto or TTL capability on this flash.

• Power is said to be equivalent to a 285 -- GN 80 in the normal zoom position. (I have not tested this first hand yet.) It's juiced in the tele position, of course, at the expense of beam width. This number can be greatly affected by the flash's zoom setting and is an easy way to fudge the number. Always go apples to apples.

• Shoe is strong plastic and it is able to be replaced if it breaks.

• Two-year warranty.

• Now, the biggie: Four-way sync. It has a hot shoe, an external PC jack, a 1/8" jack and a built-in optical slave. I did get to test the slave and it rocks. A little directional, but that is good as it gives it added sensitivity. The flash head rotates independently of the slave, so you can aim to your best advantage.
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The combination of slave and 2-way external sync jack make this one darn near universal. You only have to hard-sync one flash in a multi-flash setting (within reasonable distances) and that one flash can be synched with a hot-shoe based remote, a PC cord or a 1/8" cord. The slave worked just fine around corners indoors in my testing.

This is how I work almost all of the time with my SB-800's, now that I am usually the only photographer in the area when I am shooting. (In multi-photographer settings, you would still want to hardwire or PW everything.)

Price is $129.95, thanks to leaving off the auto and the TTL stuff. The first batch is shipping now from MPEX. Note that the various MPEX kits will henceforth include LP120's instead of Vivitar 285s. (You may be able to swap into a 285 -- I dunno. Don't know why anyone would want to, tho..)

Still unknown: Flash duration at various settings. Factory specs do not list it, and MPEX is looking for someone who can test it. If you are that person, check in on the discussion thread linked below.

UPDATE: Exactly as you would expect, full power flash duration is 1/1000th of a sec and goes down to 1/20,000th of a sec at 1/32nd power.

QnA, discussion and results from early adopters are already being thrown around on this dedicated Flickr thread.


(UPDATE) LP120 Feedback Coming In

The Lumopro LP120s seem to be generaly well-received but there are some reports coming back about switches and WA panels not lining up properly.

The flashes themselves are working fine, but the fit and finish reports are enough to where MPEX is inspecting every flash before it is shipped in a bid to spot any quality issues before they go out.

It's worth noting that MPEX is eating their own cooking on this one, as the flash does come with a 2-year warranty. And any feedback from users is appreciated and will be passed along to the manufacturers for the next run. It is worth the effort to get a standard flash that is both reliable and available.

The discussion thread is here. Please post your questions and/or observations, good or bad. The information is valuable in both cases.
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The Cheap Date: Yong Nuo YN460

Second, and looking for all the world like an generic SB-800, is the Yong Nuo YN460. It is just coming into the retail pipeline and I got a chance to play with one last week at PMA.

It is small, and has a very slick-looking manual adjustment on the back -- just tap the button to add or subtract a stop of power, down to 1/64th power. It also has a built-in optical slave, which seems to be housed in the flash tube area. This is pretty dumb, IMO, as you cannot orient the slave in a different direction from the head.

The LP120, above, has the slave in the front so you can swivel the flash to catch another flash better -- independent of the direction the head is pointing.

But the YN460 is popping up for under $50 in some of the direct-to-retail Hong Kong shops, too, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Other things that irk me a little:

It looks like an SB-800 or maybe an SB-600 (and appears to take identical head-mounted accessories) but it is two stops less powerful than the SB-800, at least according to some early testing. Also a bummer -- no zoom for the head and no external sync. But if you use hot-shoe-based remotes, that last one is no biggie.

And I could live with that package if I were looking for a rock bottom manual flash. But more worrisome is the reported inconsistency in the output at the low ranges. Not my findings -- that was from an early adopter on the thread linked below. But at less than $50, you'll have to make that call for yourself.

Lotsa pix here, and a discussion thread (with retail sources) here.


(UPDATE) YN460 Feedback

The Yong Nuo YN460 seems to be experiencing rather more variability in build quality. Some people are getting good copies, and some people, like Dan Wang, are getting copies that they have dubbed, "The Demon Flash from Hell":





The YN460 thread is here. Please sound off with your experiences, good or bad. We wanna know.
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Déjà vu All Over Again: The Cactus KF36

Waitaminnit. This one looks a little familar...

The Vivitar 285HV, once the go-to flash for off-camera manual enthusiasts, died a slow and painful death in the quality-control department. And in the end, Vivitar was bought by Sakar, leaving the (once) venerable flash's future in limbo. It has been revived by the same people who make the Cactus remotes, and rebranded as the Cactus KF36.

Same specs as the old Vivitar, but anybody's guess as to the build quality. Main specs: Bounce/zoom head (non-rotating) partial manual control (1/1, 1/2, 1/4 and 1/16 power -- no 1/8 for some insane reason. GN is 120, but that's in the 85mm zoom mode. (See above.)

It has an "auto" mode which can actually be very useful when hi-speed synching with a G9, etc. In the mixed-blessing dept., it has a proprietary (arrrrrrrrgh) sync jack.

For Pete's sake, people, put a PC or 1/8" mono jack in there. Seriously, the world is not going to come to you on this one. Sony Betamax -- white courtesy phone, please...

Again, quality is yet to be determined. Is it the old (really good) build quality from way back? It is the recent (bad) build quality from more recent times? Is it worse?

We will not know until real-world reports start to come in. If you decide to take one for the team, please report back in here, on the Flickr discussion thread.

The biggest thing going for the Cactus KF36 is the anywhere-friendly slippery-customs shipping policy of Gadget Infinity straight out of Hong Kong.

I'll give them this: They can get anything anywhere in the world pretty quickly, for way cheap.

My favorite "feature" listed on the KF36 product page, and I swear I am not making this up:

"Brand new, never used."

CERN Pt. 2: "Just What do You Think You are Doing, Dave?"

After visiting the four major LHC experiments at CERN (and a fun Saturday teaching) all that was left was to head to the Computer Center to make some photos.

You think you have archiving issues? You have no idea. More after the jump.






46,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes Can't Be Wrong

Forty six petabytes.

That's the current combined HD and tape storage attached to the large roomful of computers at the CERN Computer Center. Suffice to say, shooting everything in 16-bit RAW would not be a problem for them.

That storage (12PB of spinning hard disc space and another 34PB of robotically accessible tape storage) is what is needed to store and process the insane amounts of data that the LHC will throw off when it is up and running.

Basically, they first have to look at everything to see what is statistically likely to be able to be thrown away. At each of several computer screening processes down the line, the data is further culled in sort of a needle-in-a-haystack-to-the-Nth-degree process.

If they do it right, when they are done they will be left with strong evidence of the Higgs boson -- the Holy Grail of particle physics.

My hosts, Peter and Andras, said that they could use some new photos of the Computer Center. And since I happen to know a liiiittle bit about tape-drive mass storage back from my days as a proud owner of a Commodore 1530 Datasette tape drive, you gotta think I'm pretty well-suited for the job.

The robotic IBM tape drive seen at top was completely encased in a cabinet. There was a window at each end, and some small windows up top. There was some cool ambient (literally -- it was blue) floating around in there so I decided to go with it and gel the strobe with a CTB.

The CTB (tungsten-to-daylight conversion) gel is my favorite of the blues. It is natural looking, unlike some of the freaky blues that populate the sample books. It is also pretty efficient, not sucking up too much of the flash's light output. And last, it is easy to contrast with the corresponding CTO gels I keep with me all of the time.

We were not able to get inside the machines, which were running all of the time. That robotic head swoops around constantly at very high speed -- and high torque. As in deadly high torque if it catches you inside when it wants to do some tape hunting.

So, we could shoot through one of the end windows. But that would leave us with few options for lighting. We stuck an SB-800 with a CTB gel at the other end and originally aimed it away, at a nearby wall for a nice, clean light source. But Aaron suggested we try turning it around and firing it right into the innards of the machine. We tried it, and it looked better.



So, how do you expose for the inside of the machine? What power flash setting do you use?

It always comes down to solving your most important problem first. And my most important problem was to get some depth of field going, so more of those tapes would be in focus. The backlight would throw cool speculars off of them, so you want as many of them to read as possible. More power equals more depth of field.

Thus, first step is get some decent power into the flash. I set the SB-800 on 1/2 power, manual pop, and chimped the various apertures until it looked best. This is not rocket science here, right?

Next step: Balance the ambient. I have two sources to consider -- the inside lighting of the machine and the LED status light of the robotic head.

My flash power is set. My aperture is set. All that is left is to walk the shutter speed down -- 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4 -- until the LED and blue ambient start to look good.

A flash meter would be of little help to me in this shot. As soon as I get my arm in there with a Minolta Meter IVF, that thing would come to life, swoop in and lop it off, prolly.

But that's okay -- I have not used a flashmeter in years and still have two arms to prove it. You don't need a flashmeter. As long as you identify your primary problem to solve, that solution leads you to all of your other settings, one at a time, as described above.

Frankly, our biggest problem turned out to be the unpredictability of the positioning of the robotic head. It was about as uncooperative as your average three-year-old hyped up on a bowl of Frosted Flakes.

I wanted to light the head from the top with an amber-gelled second flash coming in from a top window. But the thing just would not cooperate, and we had to get upstairs to do the hard drives pretty soon. So we nixed the top light and went with a mix of backlit strobe and ambient interior lights.


Another Floor, Another Tunnel

Finished with the tape jukebox, we went upstairs to shoot the main computer room. The CERN guys are pretty good at assembling some serious processing power straight off of the rack, and this room is basically a ton of Linux boxes and hard drives strung together for massive processing and storage capabilities.

It was pretty awesome to spend time there -- rows and rows of racks and racks of computers and hard drives. With almost no place to hide a light.



Okay, so take a look at the top view of the shooting alley, which is essentially two enclosed rooms. There are glass doors at each end (which we opened) and a glass roof. And we do not have enough light to nuke the whole room, so we will have to use the ambient.

So, first problem is to tame the ambient. It is a (thankfully) consistent fluorescent environment. For our purposes, this ambient light will come in from the top.

Set the camera to FL balance. Move the WB adjustments around until it looks best. Then underexpose the room by about two stops. This is because we will use the ambient as fill lighting to carry the whole room.

Since we are shifting the white balance, we will have to gel the strobes to compensate. No problem there -- just green 'em up.


So, where to put the strobes?

The subject would be Andras, who actually wrote the drive burn-in program that was causing all of the blue lights to blink on and off. It was like being on the bridge of the Enterprise. Or maybe in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I love technology, but I could see myself at night being a tad creeped out by all of these computers, HDs and tape drives going nonstop all around me.

(Not that it bothered Peter, our co-host and CERN computer whiz, who had promptly fallen asleep on one of the tables when we were shooting the tape drive monster.)

So the juncture between the rooms was a logical place to hide the key light, which was greened and fired through an umbrella. That would do two things: Light Andras from camera back right, and paint a nice specular on the left rack as it reflected back to me.

I put it on 1/8 power and adjusted my aperture until it looked best. Each time I moved my aperture, I would also have to compensate with my shutter speed to keep that minus two stop ambient exposure dialed in.

So that was easy enough. Now wold come the hard part -- how to fill Andras and pick up some of the spiffy hardware with light at the same time?

Position-wise, we had few choices. The most obvious being right next to the shooting position.

I stuck a second, greened SB-800 right at my left side. Just a foot or so away. This would fill Andras and throw some speculars off of the cables and Linux boxes. But it would also nuke everything in the foreground.



That's easy enough to fix with a grid spot on the flash. Everything along the edges that is close is also at the wide part of the flash beam. So knocking that out with a grid allows us to push the light down the tunnel and keep it from nuking the near sides at the same time.

How did we choose our power setting? Easy -- we already had the aperture chosen by the key light. The shutter was chosen to set the ambient exposure at a couple of stops under. Since those do not change, we simply adjust the power of the nearby "fill" strobe until we get the look we want.

No rocket science, no flash meter. Just good 'ol chimping.

Now all that was left was to make sure to catch some of the blinking hard drive lights. No big secret there, either. Shoot lots of frames and go for the law of averages. Worked like a charm.

Five-Day Workshop: Paso Robles, CA, 4/27 - 5/1

Two of the most common feedback items I have gotten at the one-day lighting seminars over the last few years has been the lack of a student shooting component, and a desire for a longer format.

So this year, I am teaching two, five-day shooting workshops being hosted by two separate organizations. The first will be for Paso Robles Workshops (4/27 - 5/1) in Paso Robles, CA. The second will be for Santa Fe Workshops (10/18 - 10/25) at their San Miguel d"Allende campus in Mexico.

Registration for Paso Robles (almost exactly between LA and SF) is now open. Hit the jump for more info.
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Wait, How Much?

Normally, I teach in a single-day, larger class format, the tuition for which is $159. But for Paso Robles, with the smaller class size (15 max) longer format (five-day) and overhead (models, food, location, logistical support, etc.) the tuition basically gets a zero added to it.

This is the hardest thing to rationalize for me, as my goal is always to make the process as economically efficient as possible. I will admit to being a little conflicted about it, too. But some people value a more intense, low class-size environment -- and the ability to immediately be working through new techniques. So, I am going to give it a spin (two spins, actually) and see how it goes. Paso Robles and SFW are the only 5-day lighting workshops I have planned for as far as I can see. So if you are interested in that format, those are the options.

Not that I am going all high end from here on out, 'cause I'm not. At the other end of the scale I am working on a project for next year that will take the current seminar costs down an order of magnitude, too. More on that later.

In a nutshell here is my most important thought on this workshop with respect to the price, and I am dead serious about this: If this workshop is a real stretch for you, money-wise, you shouldn't do it. Keep your powder dry for other things, and make use of all that the internet has to offer in terms of free info. Do meetups with other local lighting folks and leverage the peer-to-peer thing for all you can.

But even if that kind of money is no big thing for you, you still have a right to know what to expect.


No, This Doesn't Mean Long Pants

I was lucky enough to be a participant in the second Eddie Adams Workshop way back in the late '80s. So I understand how valuable an intense week of learning and shooting can be.

Not that I will compare this week to an EAW, 'cause I can't. That's basically like being plugged into the Photo Borg Collective. They say that if your head doesn't explode, it'll take five years of mistakes off of your career. My head didn't explode (came close) and that week has paid be benefits ever since.

So I am going to rationalize the price this way. First, we are going to go hard. Don't show up here looking for a nice, easy week.

Two, when we shoot we will work in small teams, and there will be a little competing involved. This is straight EAW influence, as it balances the shared learning concept with the little kick in the pants that competition can bring. Even more than the memory of being an EAW '89 member is my memory of being a Team Purple EAW '89 member. Those of you who are alums know exactly what I am talking about.

Three, as an offshoot of the above, this will not be a 1:15 teacher-to-student ratio. This will be a 16x16 network. Every person there will bring a different perspective, and I expect to learn things from each one of you just as I hope you will each learn things from me and each other. No one holds back.

The flash workshop will be taught in manual mode. If you are a TTL shooter, that's just fine. But working in manual gets us away from the specifics of brand and makes things far more universal. If you are a Nikon CLS guy, you will most definitely want to go with Joe McNally's workshop the week before at the same location. Joe will be going full-bore CLS, and there is no one better to learn that method of lighting from anywhere on the planet.

We will at first be looking at photos, talking and demo'ing light. Next, you will be shooting each other. Granted, some the subjects will be butt ugly (one of you will likely get the short straw and have to shoot me) but we will get some quick experience on both sides of the lens. Nothing helps your bedside manner as a photographer WRT subject interaction better than having the gun pointed at you occasionally. It's no coincidence that many photographers are uncomfy in front of a lens. Being in the hot seat will make you better behind the camera.

Next we'll be photographing models on location. You'll be rotating through roles as shooter, grip and assistant for each assignment. That way you'll not only be picking up tips on how other people are working, but be able to work with a support staff typical of a normal assignment. To the extent possible, your shooting level and your brand of gear will be taken into account so that you can learn from and/or pool gear with each other.

After shoots we will be editing, critiquing and working through some minor post processing, although the latter will not be stressed too much.

Lunches will be provided, and we will have a dinner together at the end of the week. I'm thinking there will probably be a visit or two to a local watering hole, too.


Couple Final Things

First, the "novice+ to intermediate" skill level.

We will hit some basic principles early in the week to make sure someone does not go through the whole process feeling like they are behind the eight ball. We won't be leaving anyone behind because we have the time and small class size to do it right. But if you are a been-there, done-that pro at this stuff, you'll probably resent the other 15 of us by the end of day two. And I really do not want anyone feeling short-changed on the week.

Second, we are going to leave it all on the field. So don't come here looking for a vacation. We'll have fun but you will work hard.
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Registration Link: Paso Robles Workshops

Speedlinks: 03/06/2009

In this edition: Umbrella lighting, car wrecks, epic journeys, imperfection, self-promotion and reinvention.

(After the jump.)
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• Quick eye candy: Steven Haulenbeek's beautiful lighting installations -- using photographers' shoot-through umbrellas.

(Thanks to Brad, via Toxel.)


• Remember Blair Bunting? (Rembrandt Lighting: NOT.) While it is always a good idea to let Blair photograph your hot ride, think twice about ever letting him drive it. (Scroll down.)


• Joey Lawrence, fresh back from Africa, had a great (if a bit NSFW-ish) post on Scott Kelby's blog. If you want to read more, Joey has several epic, travelog-style posts on his blog. (Scroll down.) Very much worth a read. It has me wondering what in the world he will do next.


• From the Cobblers-Kids-Have-No-Shoes-Department: Photographer Eddie Roman filmed his own commercial. What a great idea. Here we are, visual peeps, with tons of free video distribution platforms, and how many people have thought to do this?


• So, what do you do after you have nailed your post production skills to the point of perfections? Scott (Chase Jarvis' go-to post guy) has an idea: Embrace imperfection.


* And finally -- two absolute, "must-sees" for photographers:

Tim Mantoani on loving what you do, and Zack Arias on reinventing yourself.

CERN, Pt. 1: It's the Little Things that Matter

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I was remiss in not including the following link as a public service. If you are concerned about the safety of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, you can always check this site for the latest status on any catastrophic, earth-engulfing side effects.
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The folks at CERN like to say that the smaller the object, the bigger the detector you need to see it.

If you want to study a bug, you use a loupe. If you want to study bacteria, you use a microscope. If you want study subatomic particles, you use a proton accelerator that is 27 kilometers around and has detectors that are as much as eight stories tall.

Fortunately, that's exactly what they have hanging around at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. And that's where I was last week, to shoot some photos and teach a workshop.

Reader's Digest version: Best. Trip. Ever.

And suffice to say that, for a while at least, it is gonna be pretty hard to impress me with your run-of-the-mill photographic background.


Would You Like to Come to CERN?

"What would it take to get you to come to CERN to teach?" asked the email. It was from reader Peter Kelemen, who manages computer storage at the research consortium.

He only had to ask. The LHC is perhaps assuredly the most interesting place on (or rather, in) the planet when it comes to tech.

I was traveling with my friend Aaron D'Souza, which was a good thing. He actually understands this particle physics stuff. And he can very effectively translate it into the monosyllabic grunts that comprise my vocabulary on the subject, too.

It worked like this: I would ask him a question, he would know exactly what I was asking, and then take a moment to see just how far down into layman's terms he needed to dip to where I could understand him.

If I did understand it, or even a small part of it, that was considered a significant linguistic victory for both of us.

So, after blasting through our jet lag with the help of a little Five-Hour Energy, we arrived at CERN ready to see how the secrets of the universe would be unlocked. I would get to some of the people there, using the experiments as a backdrop.

Our guide on the first experiment, ATLAS, was Doris, who is a computer whiz specializing in data acquisition. Doris is to data acquisition as to Bill Gates is to wealth acquisition. Except for Bill is a few orders of magnitude behind her.

ATLAS is ginormous. Humongous. Frickin' BIG. You ride an elevator 100 meters down into the planet. The detector itself is 25 meters tall and 46 meters long. It weighs as much as a hundred 747 jets and will create nearly ten terabytes of data a day when up and running.

That last part is where Doris comes in. (And you think you have information overload.)

ATLAS is a beautifully symmetrical behemoth that would look right at home on the set of Stargate, except that it is quite real. It has huge, toroid magnets and muon detectors and, well, let's just say that a flux capacitor would not even raise an eyebrow in this joint.

And it is all covered in dark metal now, with only one half being visible at one time. On top of that, our access to the cavernous room is limited to a series of narrow walkways around the sides. So after a few minutes of cursing the photo gods under my breath (en francais, of course) I finally reached the conclusion that the only way to shoot from our vantage point would be in tight, with a wideangle lens.


I am sorry, but one simply cannot do justice to Doris' s classic cheekbones with a close-in wideangle lens. So we changed lanes and brought Xavier, a security officer, into service as a subject. Xavier has a smiling exterior but inside he is all business. You will remain safe under his watch.

He even carries an iPod-sized cumulative radiation sensor, to make sure none of those subatomic particles are doing bad things to him -- or you. I am telling you, CERN peeps get all the cool toys.

In any case, an in-your-face wideangle portrait with a little attitude of Xavier makes a lot more sense.


As you can see in this setup shot by Peter Kelemen, we had about zero vertical space in which to light and shoot. For clarification, I define vertical space as the depth of a photo. Which is to say, how much space do I have between my main light and subject, subject to background, etc.

Oh sure, we had literal vertical space out the wazoo here in the ATLAS cavern (they actually call it a cavern) but my shooting environment was composed entirely of the narrow walkway you see here. That's about three feet of front-to-back for Xavier, the lighting, and my lard butt.



Key is an umbrella at camera left in real tight in this setup shot by Aaron. It is being held by possibly the most overqualified voice-activated lightstand in the history of the planet. Fons plays a computer the way Yo-Yo Ma plays a cello. Except for Fons uses way, way more notes.

BTW, you tinfoil hats types will appreciate the info I got from Fons regarding the theory that CERN will produce a black hole that will destroy us all. Short answer is, um, yeah, the LHC actually will produce rather a lot of black holes. But they are tiny and not sustainable. So don't go maxing those credit cards out just yet, as Fons assures me that the LHC will not get you out of your obligation to pay them off.

Fons also introduced me to some new gastronomic delights on our trip, the first being jellyfish. (Verdict: Like eating thick rubber bands, only it eventually snaps in two after a good bit of chewing.)

Dish number two was horse steak.

Yeah, I know. But Fons is very allergic to horses, and in the CERN cafeteria he goes by the motto, "Don't get mad -- get even."

He was kind enough to let me try a piece, as I would never have taken the whole plunge on my own. (Verdict: Surprisingly delicious.)

Sorry, Emily. I know you love to ride them and pet them, and I promise to stay away from your trusty Nirvana with my knife and fork. But suffice to say that you and daddy both share a love for horses. Sort of.

Back to the setup shot. In addition to the key light above, you can see our background light. It is crammed into the same railing about 15 feet away and aimed at the ATLAS shrouding. We are not lighting the dark metal cover so much as bouncing some reflections off of it. There is a CTB gel on the flash, too, for a cool color key.

Unseen in the other direction was our fill light for Xavier coming from about 30 feet away (and one story up) at camera right (that's your left as you are looking into the camera). This gets me light on both sides of Xavier's face within our tight space constraints.

We decided to flip on Xavier's head lamp to add a little pop to the photo, too. If there are interesting ambient lights inside the frame, I will always turn them on if only to check to see how they look. In this case, we went with it.

The photo was lit mostly by flash, with the ambient dial down about three stops.


The "Compact" Muon Solenoid

Later that day we got to visit the CMS, which I suspect is the biggest "compact" anything on the entire planet. Michael, seen in the pic at the top of the post, is a damn good photographer in his own right and was our guide for the visit.

He had some stunning photos on the wall that were there to help to educate the King of Belgium, who came through the CMS shortly before we did. Michael showed us a cool little trick by firing his pop-up flash into the mouth of the giant sensor and illuminating the reflective stickers used to measure if the machine shifts during operation.

I liked the effect, and also noticed that if you fired a direct light into the cavity it tended to bounce around on the metal surfaces and come out looking as if it had come from several angles at once. Given we could not get into there to light it, that would help us out a lot.

We set the camera to underexpose the environment by a couple of stops to use the ambient as fill. (You can't easily light something that big and complex with a couple of small speedlights, so you let the ambient help you out.)

In each of the experiments, that was our strategy -- let the ambient do the heavy lifting, suppress it a little, and highlight areas and people with flash.



As you can see in this setup shot by Aaron, we did it all with an umbrella and two small flashes. And a very sexy subject, too. (Easy there, Michael -- I am talking about the CMS.)

The umbrella lights Michael from a second walkway, and also lights the railing for some context. If you look carefully (or click through) you can see a Justin-clamped flash on the walkway behind Michael's feet which fires into the mouth of the CMS.

The power levels were surprisingly economical -- 1/16th on the key and either 1/4 or 1/8 (can't remember) on the CMS light. Huge areas, but dark. Don't try to nuke them. Expose for them (a little under) and finesse the ambient.
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The next day we toured The LHCb experiment, shooting Niko in a nightmarishly sodium vapor cavern. That is a long post unto itself, so I won't stretch you out any more here today. Did a little french cursing under my breath there, too. Big room full of sodium vapors to fix. But the LHCb looked like a big, beautiful view camera.

Also, Fons took us to see ALICE, the fourth Experiment on our tour. We threw every light we had at here and she still remained dark and moody.

The very best vantage points for the detectors are pretty much gone now, as the beam pipe (which contains the protons and lead particles used for the various experiments) has been installed. But when they were building the detectors it was possible to see them from a proton's eye view. And some amazing images were made from that concentric viewpoint.

Some of the most beautiful ones were made by CERN's own Max Bryce, and for a tech geek it is practically a religious experience to view them.

At one point on the tour Max muttered some kind of half apology about making some of the shots with just an old Nikon D1X.

Yeah, well, I shot for quite a while with a D1X, too, and I never made a photo anywhere near as cool as some of the ones Max made. The machines are awesome now, but to totally appreciate their beauty you have to see them without their clothes on. You can see many of the early construction shots in a beautiful page done by The Big Picture, here.
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Rapping it Up

Last but not least, if you have five minutes I recommend the video embedded below. It totally passes muster with the CERN folks for accuracy -- and does it with style. And for a more thorough tour (with lotsa cool links) of the experiments we visited, check out Aaron's post.


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Next week: Inside the CERN Computer Center