jmf

I've seen them on fleabay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Standard-Vivitar-12-PC-Flash-Cord-283-285_W0QQitemZ7532306740QQcategoryZ64354QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This sounds just like the setup on my Norman 2400. I went to home depot and found an end that would fit and stuck it on one of those pre made up power tool cables with the molded plug end.

Does ditto still work?

Here's my take. 100%RH aka steam and nearly anything photography based (thats not meant to go underwater) is a bad idea. The top of the line pro cams may be suitably sealed, but your strobes/continuous lighting is probably not. Be carefull of stage "smoke" machines since some of them will create oil vapor which has it's own dangers, particularly in a wet location. There are some that use their own non-oil based "juice" which is supposed to be residue free. There are different mixes for ground hugging and rising fog/smoke. Check DJ and theatrical supply houses and see what you can rent. It's probably a two person gig with you and somebody blowing smoke in the right direction.

 

There's also Tengrove Studios that produces a lot of tabletop/food/product special effect items.

I've heard you need to go a bit bigger on generators because of the type of electrical load that strobes put on the system. For example, if you had a pack the draws 15A@120vac, it should (in theory) be good with a gen. that puts out 1800w peak power. Supposedly you need to actually plan on something closer to 2400w/2000w continuous.

 

Anyone know details?

The 4 channel units seem to have less problems than the single channel. Mine works fine, BUT...

 

It only seems to want to sync bewteen my 20D and my Norman Pack units at 1/60 of a second. hardwired, I can sync up to 1/250 without a problem.

 

Ya get what you pay for.

the AB's can be triggered optically by either cam. If by wireless, you mean something like pocket wizard (an RF trigger), neither camera has that as a factory feature. Neither cam will "control" the AB's other than to just trigger them (either by wire or PW or optically).

Interesting. St. Ansel had little good to say about condenser heads and seemed to prefer cold cathode heads (but he wasn't a big fan of PC/VC papers either) I couldn't afford one and was stuck with a Besseler 23c with the standard focusing condenser. I'd try and find the 23C-XL for the longer frame.

Just to clear things up, the RB67 ProS and ProSD have all the interlocks you could want. They also have automatic cropping marks that tell you which orientation the film back is in. You can get the motorized film back for the RB and not have to worry about winding either, but for studio use, it never bothered me all that much.

 

I would say the biggest things are the electronic shutter, which is probably more accurate, and the potential for using a digital back.

 

That being said, Mamiya assumed the RZ would kill off the RB (the RB tooling was actually starting to wear out). It not only survived, but continues to be produced over a decade later. The newer ProS and ProSD's are a steal in the used market. Both are made to be USED and periodicly serviced. Assume you'll need to send off to a CLA, any used model you buy. I would probably stick to a ProSD model for parts availability, although there are tons of ProS's floating around to be parts donors if need be.

bad idea unless the grouping is very close, and you're sticking to head and shoulders and the reflector is closer

 

Metallic sides: 10' is too far away. The light will be very specular, like the sun bouncing off water, plus they will squint from the reflection.

 

White: see above with less squint. might work much closer as in 2-3 ft. from their faces

 

Diffusion: would need to be fairly close with a tight shot.

 

You don't need big power packs. Stay away from midday. Let the Sun highlight their heads and shoulders (assuming no bald shiny types), but faces are in open shadow. Just use an on camera flash set to whatever is the normal setting for the distance with f/stop and shutter speed set correctly for ambient. Remember whatever your max sync speed is and don't go higher. If you're having trouble, shoot in open shade. Another tack is to use the sun as a key light (about 45deg) off of the lens axis, and let your on camera flash be set to about 1 stop less than normal so that it acts as fill. You can get a bit more squinting this way

 

 

 

I've successfully done this with a vivitar 285, so you don't need a 4800J pack to pull this off.

than they usually are. $699 for a 20D body? In the US, these people bait you with the low price and then sell you a bunch of add on stuff at inflated prices. If you don't buy, they're suddenly out of stock.

The Ridata 80x cards on newegg.com also work well. Another vote for 1 gig cards.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, you've tried fresh batts? No lights, no whistle?

Those contacts for all practical purposes do not oxidize (which is why they go though the expense of plating them with gold) and so there's absolutley no reason to ever use an abrasive. Whats more, the plating is incredibly thin, highly polished and if you scratch through you WILL have oxidation problems, and whats worse, eraser bits floating around in an area you absolutly don't want foreign matter in.

 

Back to the OP: Assuming you tried the battery tricks, your camera is broken and you need to send it to service.

any gunk or corrosion where the lens to body contacts are? Don't use anything abrasive to clean, ignore any suggestion to use an eraser. If it does look gunked up, you can use kimwipes and a residue-less contact cleaner. Any chance the lens mount got seriously torqued on?

 

If the contacts look good, and you've pulled all the batteries let the camera sit a few minutes, and re-installed them, then it's time to send it off to Canon.

I wish calumet's website let you cut and paste URL's. If you go to www.calumetphoto.com and on the left hand side, drill down through

lighting -> light control -> panels and frames, you'll see all kinds of options where you have a foldable square of rectangular frame and all kinds of panels that can be stretched over them.

 

Or go to the h/w store, buy 2" pvc, and get some ripstop white nylon from a frabic store

Actually if you read the articles (both canon and lexar) and little between the lines, it's basically any "in production" Canon DSLR. I would assume the 5D would also have this issue with the Lexars since it seemed to be a problem that Lexar was fixing and not Canon.

5 gal pickle/paint buckets are 40lbs each when filled with water, which you don't typically have to haul back. You see people use them at craft shows to hold down their 10x10 booths (one at each corner). We can get some stiff winds here, and I've seen people double up on occasion.

Radio remote controls for flash and camera

Actually Canon has an add on that create a digital signature when the image is created in the camera. It's primary use is law enforcement/forensic evidence. Canon DVK-E2

A long shot, but are you reformating the card in the camera or just accepting the card out of the box? If it's the latter, try letting the camera reformat (not just erase) the card.

 

Just as data points, The SansDisk Ultra II's and the Ridata 80x cards have been very relieable for me. Bought through NewEgg.

You could try a little residue-less electronics cleaner. Whats the chance this was liquid gunk (like a soda/coffee splash) vs. dirt? How do you unstick the button?

Actually, the workshops I've been to are hands on, and you get to actually play with real studio lights and modifiers. I know this may not seem intuitive, but even a weekend workshop would probably help you a lot.

 

Think of it this way. Would you buy tools and then learn woodworking, or would you learn and then acquire what you need?

 

They do sell kits, but you're buying what someone else thought was a good thing to have, not necessarily what you need. You also have to be careful since retailers will often stick cheap components in kits to meet a certain pricepoint.

 

Pick up a full featured wig "head" and put it on a stand. It's a great tool to learn light modeling

They should include a set of welding gloves with those lights.

Well, you could return it, but sooner or later you WILL have to deal with dust on the sensor. I swap lenses between zoom and primes all the time. I have 2 dogs, a cat, and I live in a very dry climate. I bought a cleaning kit the same time as I bought the camera because dust will be a problem for me.

 

Here's my suggested "acid test". Try the "cleaning mode" first with a rocket blower and a fully topped off battery. Point the body face down and keep the nozzle away from the sensor. If that works, you're done, zero risk, happy camper. If the stuff is "glued" down where you need to use contact cleaning of the sensor assembly, think about trading it back to the dealer.

 

Having said that, do start to read up on sensor cleaning. It borders on religion to some people, but it's mostly just being carefull and thinking about what you're doing.