You all probably saw my review from the new Elinchrom Skyport and HS heads by now I hope, an amazing system and I can’t wait for the Sony version to be released. But…. if you’re like me and don’t want to wait for the Sony version and want to play with the creative options right now there is another solution that does almost the same. I have to say it’s not as versatile as the skyport and it will only trigger your strobe but it does it all the way up to 1/8000 of a second.
The Odin system from Phottix
For my small flash system I use the Phottix Odin system, and because I also owned it before the Mitros+ I also had some older receivers from Phottix. Now these 2 is all you need actually.
Just connect the Odin to your Sony camera and select HSS (High Speed Sync).
Now you can adjust the shutter speed on your Sony all the way up to 1/8000, if you don’t you’ll be stuck at 1/250.
Now just connect the Odin receiver to your strobe (it works for any strobe but we used a D-lite4 to test) and you’re all set. You can now shoot up to app 1/400 without any light loss on the D-Lite4 and up to 1/8000 with considerable light loss (which is normal because….well it’s how the system works, cutting the strobe and using the TTL pre-flash so it will never be full power), this is the same with the Skyport and it’s something you will have to get used to, using a light meter for example will be impossible for the simple reason that every strobe will react differently and even the power output will have some impact on the results.
Let’s fine tune it
At first you will loose a lot of light and this is due to the standard timing which we have to adjust (same as on the Skyports). To do this press the MODE and + Key for about 5 seconds and raise the ODS setting to 5. You’re image will be all black, now slowly start lowering that number until the black bars disappear.
We ended up with 1/8000 on F2.8 ISO400 which was very similar to what we achieved with the new skyport on the D-Lite4.
Now don’t think this is a better solution than the skyport because it’s not. The Skyport is better trigger because you can control your strobes, read the output, work very easily with the Elinchrom system etc. but if you already own an Odin or if you don’t use Elinchrom or Profoto strobes and you still want to break that 1/128 barrier, this is actually a pretty cool way.
Now waiting for the new skyport is not that hard anymore 😀
This is actually an option that was already inside the Odin transmitters and receivers but I never looked into it until someone on my blog gave me the idea and I tested it and much to my surprise and joy it works like a charm.
Now there are a few things you have to take into account
This will not work with most high-end strobes, the faster the flash duration the less the light output will be, the slower the strobe the better the results, this is also why Elinchrom released special HS heads that accommodate this perfectly. But if you have strobes that are in the budget range you will have a blast and actually do stuff that the more expensive strobes can’t…..
Again if you’re using the Elinchrom system it’s wise to wait for the Skyport to be released for Sony, or buy the present Canon/Nikon versions, in the end you will be saving money (the odin and receivers are more expensive than the Skyport and you need more receivers (one for every strobe)) but if you’re on another system this is actually a very solid and incredibly cool addition, plus the Odin system is a real good performer so maybe it’s time to change your current triggers for the Odin and double them for your small flash system.
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ODIN_ODS_00_b600.jpg600600Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2015-11-20 08:00:272015-11-21 10:01:42Break the 1/125 rule with Sony now….
Seeing the amount of responses we get on our iPad pro overviews I thought it would be nice to dedicate todays blogpost to the iPad pro in my way. So don’t expect to see a list of accessories, specs etc. you can find in many locations online (calling it reviews) but expect a real honest, in the field way of review where I tell you what I PERSONALLY think about the iPad pro, it’s bad and good things.
Let me start off by telling you I’m not an Apple fanboy, somehow I always feel the need to post this because (and I don’t know why) there is a certain group of people that will always try to bash Apple products on price or limitations they feel are important, so let’s start with those points.
Price
As far as I know most photographers and videographers are not sponsored by Apple, meaning we all pay full price for the products (if not please let me know, I would love to save money). So let’s look at pricing. Yes Apple is not cheap, but in all honesty in most cases I always get great resale value and the speed in which I sell my old gear is always impressive, although I have to say that selling my iPhone 6 plus took almost a week (compared to the 2 days of my other iPhones was a shock and almost had me worried). On the other hand what you get is pretty impressive, the products are beautifully designed and let’s be honest the OS is just very good, iOS is 100% touch and works like a charm and OSx is stable and also works pretty well (although the last few years first releases can be buggy in some departments).
The iPad pro is expensive without a doubt, but not that much more than a fully spec’d iPad Air2 with WiFi/LTD and 128GB and do remember it’s not just a bigger iPad…..
It’s just a bigger iPad
Well if you see it like this, than the iPad pro is without a doubt not for you, actually you should stay clear from it. The iPad air for surfing, mail, games, entertainment etc. has the perfect size, both Annewiek and me have travelled with iPads for years and they literally changed long flights from boring as hell to manageable and entertaining.
A lot of reviews state the obvious, “Candycrush will look great”, “Email is even better” yeah sure…. why do you need a bigger tablet if you only do that? I don’t see the profit in that, the iPad pro is bigger to carry around, it doesn’t fit most bags where the iPads fit in nice and snuggly, it will fit in the airplane seat nets, but not as easy as the Air, let’s be clear… the iPad air is the perfect travel companion and nobody would ever NEED anything more.
So we have the consumers that want to shine and show off with Candy crush and bigger E-mail and sacrifice in portability for this, and we have that other group, and that’s the group I belong to.
It’s an iPad pro
As a photographer and instructor I’m always busy, heck I’m happy if I have a day off to be honest, most people know me to be online a lot (answering your questions, posting updates etc) and most of this I do with my iPhone 6s Plus, love the bigger screen and better camera and I always use the iPhone actually instead of my iPad Air2 because it’s just easier, faster and smaller and it fits my pocket. Plus a lot of social media apps run on my iPhone and not on my iPad plus when I shoot an image and edit it in Snapseed or Lr mobile etc. it’s easier to upload and edit is straight from my phone than first “beam” it to my iPad to edit, “beam” back to send, it just doesn’t make any sense. In fact one could say that I use my iPad air2 for remote controlling our Home Theater with iRule, watching movies while traveling, watching TV via a dream box in the RV and do some other stuff when I don’t want to drag my laptop with me but will be surfing for a longer time. In fact I never ever typed a document on it. So when the iPad pro was released I was not willing to spend money on it, but things change.
When we shoot in the studio or on location with models I have a certain workflow that is almost routine, RAW developing in Capture One, open in Photoshop do the skin and tinting, save, sync into Lightroom (where my images life). But on the road my workflow is dramatically different. We shoot during the day and at night I download everything into Lightroom, do the edits in Lightroom or DxO optics and do my tinting in Lr or DxO and… well done.
So I’ve been experimenting a lot with Lr mobile and was very happy with the workflow because it saves me a lot of work when I arrive back home, now all my images are done, but most of all I like the fact I could now do it in bed (hotel desks are often not really comfy) or on the plane or while Annewiek is driving the RV, but on the iPad air2 Lr mobile already works pretty well, so no real reason to switch to the iPad pro.
We also film a lot during travels, Annewiek shoots 4K material and that is edited in FCPx on her laptop and I shoot some material on my iPhone which…. well is never edited, although the material is sometimes rather interesting, funny or just cool but when we arrive home I just don’t have the energy or need to go through this material and editing on the iPhone is ok but not a pleasant experience, on the iPad air2 it works a lot better but somehow I never really took the effort to do it. So where am I going with this….because as it looks now I never really used my iPad for serious work.
The Apple pencil
When I saw the iPad pro my first response was (as many of you) a bigger iPad but without MacOsX, that’s a shame….
BUT when I saw the Apple pencil my mind went into overdrive… this is it.
But it took some time before I was convinced, actually to be honest it took me till a few days ago before I knew 100% sure I was going to buy the iPad pro, so what changed my opinion.
Why don’t I use video editing on my iPad air?
Well it works fine, but the screen is a bit small and crowded, plus the whole finger thing to change clips… well it’s not very pleasant and fast, so enter the Apple pencil with 1 pixel resolution… that would be a lot better. For a while I used a Microsoft Surface pro and I was very impressed at how easy a well designed stylus (sorry pencil) worked in certain software, the reason I don’t use the Surface pro anymore was purely that we experienced some serious issues with shooting tethered during trade shows, USB ports were failing on me and sometimes a reboot helped sometimes not and my MBP always worked so I sacrificed the tablet experience (which I LOVED) for my MBP again, you saw that little line…. “the tablet experience I loved” because let’s make one thing clear working with the Surface pro was AWESOME, shooting tethered on location into a tablet instead of a laptop is great, and walking up stage with just a tablet to connect… awesome… but there were just too many problems, everyone has a mac so if you had the bad luck a projector wouldn’t sync with Apple there was always someone who knew, but with the Surface… well people just said “Yeah it’s windows, a Mac works” (thank you not very much), also as an OSx user I couldn’t really get used to the way the touch but not 100% touch OS worked, because although it’s a touch tablet the experience is not 100% touch, I know it sounds weird but in many instances I really wanted a keyboard or mouse under windows 8. But anyway I’m rambling let’s get back on track.
Sometimes there is this moment when everything just falls together, the moment it clicks (sorry Joe).
What if…..
I could get wireless tethered working and shoot wireless into the iPad Pro during workshops.
What if I use a lighting to HDMI convertor to connect the iPad pro to the big screen TV.
What if I use keynote on the iPad pro and control this with my iPhone.
What if I can transfer large files from iPhone to iPad or MBP to iPad without using the always flaky Airdrop (for me it never really works).
What if… and the list was pretty long and I started to work.
First shooting tethered, after a lot of experiments we solved this. Of course if you’re using Canon or Nikon you’re in luck with CamRanger and if you’re using ANY Sony A-E mount camera with wifi you’re in luck with Smart remote… unless you’re using their flagship the A7RII (the EVF stays black) until they fix this I solved the problem with a loop on my LCD, and to my surprise it works like a charm, although the EVF is sharper but it works. I’m using play memories and QDSLR dashboard as receiver software.
Connecting to a big screen is no problem at all, Apple sells these convertors, and you can even charge at the same time because it has a lighting adaptor inside the convertor.
Keynote can indeed be running on the iPad pro and controlled by my iPhone (love this), so now I can draw on the screen, see what I’m doing, using a laser pointer and walk around on stage and see the next slide and notes (which I never use but hey that’s me :D).
Transferring large files was possible with some sticks on the market with both USB and Lighting but these were very slow, so that was out. Until I found a new product online that promises to give MUCH more speed and works flawless with both iPhones and iPads (pros) and MBP, USB3 speed and lighting adaptor inside. See https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ishowfast-world-s-fastest-iphone-ipad-flash-drive#/ I’m waiting for delivery so I can’t tell you anything about it, but according to some “pre-release” reviews it’s indeed very fast.
So most of the problems and wishes I had were solved, and I was more and more looking towards buying the iPad pro and I was lucky to able to just walk into a store on the day of the release and get the 128GB space gray LTD version, so how do I like it?
Is it a notebook?
This is the first thing my parents asked when I showed them my brand new iPad in it’s Logitech create cover with keyboard.
“No… well a little bit” was my answer (obviously in Dutch).
If you don’t know about the logitech Create cover make sure to check it out, it really is one marvelous piece of kit. In essence it’s a backlit keyboard stand that also has some cool features like controlling the sound, light on the iPad pro and keyboard itself, audio, short cuts, home, some double tap things and more, it does however makes the beautiful iPad Pro into a bulky almost MBP look a like. But to get some serious work done where you need to type it’s great.
With Pages, numbers and keynote you really have the idea you’re working on a notebook, although you have to switch a lot between the keyboard and the screen, this sounds like a “no deal” but bare with me… I was working this way for an hour and Annewiek asked me something and it struck me as surprising I was trying to use her screen as a touch display……. yeah weird right. So I think that a lot of people who are screaming their lungs out that it will NEVER be a laptop replacement are dead wrong…. but not yet.
At the moment the experience is weird, not because it’s not working as advertised, but maybe because it’s working as advertised. Let’s take for example mail. When you are in Mail you can of course type, copy/paste with shortcuts, you can even delete mails by pressing delete on the keyboard…. but…. you can move up and down with the cursor keys, you need your finger for this. Now this could be my age of course or my long time use of mouse/trackpad and keyboard but it just doesn’t feel right, IF they would have added the cursor use I think I would have said that for mail this is a FULL laptop replacement.
I also hear some people about why Apple didn’t include a trackpad in the keyboards, and I’m glad they didn’t.
I love my MBP but on the plane I can’t use it because… well it’s too tight and we fly Economy or Economy comfort, however the iPad pro with the much less deep keyboard will be no problem at all, and I would have rather have the space than some form of “ok trackpad”.
In all honesty I think it’s a matter of getting used to the interface, we are now used to doing 100% on a keyboard and trackpad/mouse and nothing on the screen of our desktops and when we look back it was also very weird to start using a mouse and a lot of people were actually still using the cursor keys in a lot of early “windows like” software and sometimes grabbed the mouse, I think we are at the start of another revolution in which we have to get used to doing 90% on the screen with gestures and touch and only grab the keyboard when we need to type something, talking about this by the way… the new software keyboard of the iPad Pro is awesome and saves a lot of time switching between modes so for smaller things like emails this will do just fine.
If you take this into account I think that for 99% of the people the iPad pro indeed can be a full laptop replacement, because let’s be honest what do you really do on your laptop? You work with Excell, word, powerpoint, mail, surf and watch a movie right? I don’t see a lot of people running autocad or full blown photoshop with a wacom tablet on airports or in busses, most work is the more “basic” stuff. This week we switched from using Office to iWorks in our studio and I must say that’s its a delight, the interfaces are less cluttered, having all the documents in iCloud is handy and keynote just works better than Powerpoint for me, and being able to control it with your iPhone is a big added bonus for me.
Get to the point Frank
Yes I’m getting there, and exactly to the point actually.
The Apple Pencil.
I tried some styluses on the iPad Air and never really liked them, of course I didn’t try them all but it just didn’t feel right. The Surface pro actually changed this for me, I loved the way the Wacom pen reacted but as mentioned before I didn’t like the OS and felt it was too much of a mix to be comfortable for me personally.
Adding the Apple pencil in the mix made me wanting to run out and get the iPad pro.
I always loved to draw but haven’t done it anymore since childhood, I hope the iPad pro can trigger this again in me because when I played with the Apple pencil it really felt so much better than anything I tried before (including the Wacom series), but that’s not all. In the app store you can find an app called Astropad which in essence promises to replace the wacom you use now for a much better experience, now I’ve looked at the Wacom cintiq but never bought one, same with the companion. It all looked awesome but…. it didn’t fit my workflow or the battery time was too limited, seeing the iPad pro with the Apple pencil being used as an alternative Wacom really was the drop I needed.
For me the iPad pro buy decision was made based solely on the Apple pencil, IF they would have not sold this I would have NEVER switched from my Air2 to the Pro for the simple reason…. it’s just a bigger iPad. Now that I did I’m seeing other options. So after this long introduction a very short overview of my first experiences with.
Working as a laptop
When traveling I’m always switching like crazy between things I like to do, my attention span on airplanes is 45 minutes max so watching a movie is not really an option, I don’t know why but I just can’t concentrate much longer than 45 minutes. So with the iPad pro I can of course watch a movie but also work on a new blogpost in Pages, fine tune my presentations in Keynote etc. etc. I’ve worked with the Create and Pages and have to say that it’s a great experience and I really see me using this over my MPB, unless I have them both with me, the MBP is just a bit easier and faster for longer texts, but… this can change when I’m used to the touch screen and maybe I will even prefer working on the iPad pro, but remember this is HIGHLY depending on the keyboard you use and the create from Logitech I can HIGHLY recommend.
Surfing
What can I say. It’s cool, it’s better than on my Mac at home and MPB.
In portrait mode it’s like reading a magazine, bright and RAZOR sharp with popping colors (but still pretty natural) and the touch interface in safari is refined as can be and a really good experience, again I prefer this above any other way of surfing.
Video editing
I still have to wait for the Apple pencil but what I’ve done so far with iMovie and Adobe clip has been delightful. Here are two of the videos I created with iMovie and Clip (about the software itself).
Someone commented that I must be crazy to prefer this edit method and it was nothing like real editing, well my answer was very simple. “what do you want more?” both iMovie and Clip do all the basic edits, you can create looks for your video (actually it’s faster than on my MacPro which has to render the looks and don’t ask me how the iPad pro does but it’s almost instant), you can change audio, add tracks, change clips etc. etc. and even use titles, picture in picture etc. Of course FCPx and Premiere has WAY more options, but…. both iMovie and Adobe clip have the option to transfer your work to their host programs and finish it off there…. what more DO you want? This saves so much work, on the road you edit the clips in your spare time (heck even on the restroom, depending on time of course) and you can share straight to YouTube or Vimeo if you’re satisfied, or you can save it and finish the “ground work” at home in less time that before.
Lightroom mobile
As with the iPad air2 it works great, I just wish Adobe would make an extra option possible, transferring smart previews via USB, let’s be honest even with a fairly normal internet connection transferring files takes “forever” add to this the “great/not” speed in hotels or databundels via roaming and Adobe actually shoots itself in the foot with forcing a cloud sync, don’t get me wrong I LOVE Adobe and consider many of them as personal friends, but I never understood why with a program that is meant to be used on the road they rely so heavily on internet which in reality is almost non existent in most hotels, Email will do, facebook will do but syncing a gig of data…. yeah.
Till they solve this (if ever) I’m just leaving my MBP in the hotel and uploading the files while we are out, and hope that it’s done when we are back in and connect the iPad pro to download for offline editing during the nighttime, if I keep this up every day I’m sure I have all shots with me to select and edit while traveling back, and this would be a blessing because I wouldn’t feel the need to edit everything at night on my laptop because I know when I’m home I don’t have the time.
Magazines
I love magazines on the iPad but it was always a bit too small for me, reading was ok but I found myself often just zooming in a little bit, with the Pro… gorgeous and I mean WOW
Sound
Don’t ask me why it’s important because I don’t have a clue but the sound is LOUD and I really mean LOUD, and it’s pretty good too. For watching a movie in the hotelroom or RV this will rock but I honestly think some people give too much credit to this point, mostly I use my iPad with headphones or silent. Speed
Good grieves this thing is blazingly fast.
Editing, rendering and even switching between apps is amazing, and candy crush… don’t even start.
Without kidding it’s indeed VERY snappy and rendering 4K video, scrubbing and zooming is smooth as can be.
Portfolio shows
Can I be short…. awesome.
I use the smugmug app with offline images and it’s an experience, clients love it and the responses are nothing short of “breathtaking” and I hope they also mean the shots.
Apple Pencil
Only played with it briefly in the store, I think it’s ridiculous they don’t have enough in stock, I have to wait 7 days and I see now they are actually pushing this forwards if you order now to almost a month, as mentioned before for me the iPad pro IS the Apple Pencil and if it would have worked on the iPad air2 there would have been even a slight chance I would have just bought the Pencil. Apple should have made sure that the supply is at least 1:1 because besides the consumer that wants a bigger candy crush experience I don’t see why you should invest in a bigger iPad without making use of the pencil.
Some bad things (because we have to have those too)
Design is gorgeous with Apple and I love my MacPro but…. I never am able to use an iPhone without a case for the simple reason I’m afraid it will slip out of my hands, same with the iPad pro, it’s slippery as can be, you can’t balance this nicely on your lap without it moving/sliding around. I really do get that design is important, but I feel that with devices you handheld it’s more important to have a surface that’s sticky than something that looks sleek and is ALWAYS covered with a case so you never see it anyway.
As mentioned before the keyboard integration is awesome BUT misses some small things like cursor keys that would be nice to be functional in for example mail.
Price we can argue about for ages but I think everything is worth what you use it for and how much it speeds up your workflow and gives you new creative options and I feel the iPad pro does everything I want, and yeah I know I have to finish off some projects when I’m home and I will not use it for my model photography YET, but I can live with that, in fact it will save me so much backpains and time that I’m more than willing to shelve over the dough to get it.
A double edged 4G sword
We opted for the 4G version and I didn’t talk about that yet because I feel it’s awesome but I also feel I’m being ripped off.
The Apple sim is an awesome idea, travel, arrive, internet. The 4G network in most countries is blazingly fast and vaporizes most hotel internet connections.
For years we have been traveling with a MiFi where we simply visit a store, get a pre-paid card, put it in the MiFi and we have fast internet wherever we go, we actually have 2 (one for the USA with Verizon and one for Europe). But… sometimes it’s easy to get a sim like in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Germany etc. but sometimes you also have to look REALLY hard, we found out that especially in the states it’s a disaster, we tried to activate our Verzizon device and were send away from every store, we had to find a main office store from Verizon and… well they were not close by so we ended up with just hopping hotspots that week, also the price for 1GB of internet was ridiculously expensive.
Enter the Apple sim, you land, you connect to a provider of your choice and no more looking for simcards or getting a card that doesn’t work or where you have the first call with your phone to activate the card (try to get a normal sim in an iPhone). Sound awesome, but it’s not all happy internet camping.
The pricing of the Apple sim provider GigSky is not cheap, on average you pay $50.00 for 1-3GB of data, compared to what we pay in Denmark or the UK for data this is PRETTY steep, I believe the last time we had 6GB of data for EU60.00 in the UK. Also when you check online you can use the Sim in the Netherlands (they even rate pricing) but when checking on the iPad pro it states I can’t use it in the Netherlands, but Belgium and Germany do work, maybe a bug. However we still opted for this option for the simple reason that we are loosing a lot of valuable time by looking for a simcard in some cases, so we decided to check on arrival when doing groceries and if we don’t find anything we pay the premium and just forget about it, because in all honestly loosing half a day of time is also very expensive when traveling so that 25.00 euro more you pay might actually be worth it.
Conclusion
If you’re still reading I must be doing something right because I think this is the longest blogpost I ever wrote.
In conclusion I love my iPad Pro for the following reasons
I do feel it’s not worth it’s money without the Apple Pencil
with a keyboard it’s a perfect alternative for a laptop unless you do hardcore video editing and you need full blown photoshop on the road (again who does), the interface will be something you have to get used to.
The iOS apps are already worthy work tools and it can only get better
for creatives this is a dream come true
Working on full blown photoshop is possible with astropad, see it as remote controlling your mac (have to test this when the pen is in)
screen is gorgous
it’s very fast
Shooting tethered to the iPad gives the students a bigger screen to watch and me less cables and carrying around stuff
it just saves a LOT of work because the groundwork can be done on the road
Thanks so very much for reading and one final remark.
If you’re planning on posting that the surface pro book is a better alternative because it runs full windows I have two remarks for you.
Yes it does, but I (and most people) don’t need a full blown windows for the simple reasons what you have to do in the field can be done with the iOS apps as soon as you realize it’s ground work, and to be honest it’s about the same thing I do with my MBP most of the times I also finish my work as soon as I’m home and use my MBP to “start” the work.
It’s not an Apple product… in other words I’m used to certain apps which I use and my while workflow is Apple based, when I used the surface pro I loved the product but the integration with Apple was ok but not stunning, when you use office it’s workable but with iWorks the experience is of a totally different level, plus we use a lot of notes and other small things that are inside the Apple workflow.
In the end there is always something better and especially something better is coming next year, for now I think working with the iPad pro is a revolution in terms of getting used to the touch screen as main device and keyboard just when you really need it, when you get over this it can be a 100% replacement of 99% of the laptops out there, and overall…. did I already tell you how amazing candy crush looks?
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/overview_social.jpg315600Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2015-11-13 11:00:102015-11-16 11:31:49First few days with the iPad Pro
You probably already read some things about it, but Elinchrom recently released their new Skyport and that introduces a whole new way of shooting images outside (and inside). In case you didn’t let’s quickly tell you “all about it”
Skyport
The skyport is the system for triggering Elinchrom strobes (and they also have an universal version of course), main advantage of the system is that you can also change the output of your strobes and turn on/off the modeling lights, use groups and channels etc. A pretty cool system in a remarkable small package. Well you can skip the small in the new incarnation of the skyport, you could say it’s matured now.
But as you can see it’s a good thing, because one of the first things you notice is the big LCD display, and that is awesome. You can now see which strobes are active, you can select the strobes and change settings, and of course you can still change the output of the strobes, switch between groups and much more.
In short the new system has the following new features.
1. Much stronger, so longer distances (something that was needed in my opinion)
2. ODS control, later more but very important for HS use
3. Focus assist beam (very handy in darker studios)
4. HS
5. USB for updates
6. Uses normal AA batteries (yeah)
But the biggest thing is of course: HS
What is this HS?
Well it’s actually quite easy to explain… it makes it possible to sync at higher shutter speeds.
Normally studio and location strobes (except small flash and some other brands) are limited to the so called X-sync which often means that you can shoot up to 1/125 or 1/160 without any problem but above that it’s hit and miss to let say 1/200 and after that you will start to see black bars (second shutter curtain).
Now when you’re used to this it’s not a real problem, but it does limit your creativity, you can’t fight the sun and shoot wide open, simply because the shutter speed would be way too high, you can of course use ND filters but then the camera has problems with focussing so perfect…. well far from.
The HS system from Elinchrom breaks this barrier and makes it possible (in certain configurations) to shoot all the way up to 1/8000 of a second. Which is pretty cool and something that was not possible yet on the Elinchrom system. They achieve this by very clever timing with the TL pre-flash and making sure everything is syncing as good as possible, and this way it “seems” like you have strobe power over the total range of shutter speed, and this is true but… there are some things you have to realize and that you probably don’t read in other reviews, so that’s why I wanted to give some attention to it.
What you need to know
In theory (and real life) the system works awesome, it doesn’t eat your battery (which a strobed system would do where the flash is repeated constantly, like speed lights) and the Quadra for example recycles very fast, just like you’re using it normally.
What happens is that the timing is so accurate that it seems the whole sensor is lit even with 1/8000 of second as shutter speed, but… this works only with SLOW strobes, for example the D-lite series (believe it or not) are perfect for this, but an ELC on the middle setting (clocking in at 1/5600 of a second) is not very good for this system (it actually cuts off at app 1/500 on a Canon 5Ds without fine tuning I have to add), but the BrX, D-Lite etc. all work surprisingly well, and this is very cool because this means you don’t need to buy new strobes. Then why did Elinchrom release new heads (the Quadra HS head for example), well that’s easy to explain, the HS head is a VERY slow head and this means it’s perfect to reach that 1/8000 of a second shutter speed without any problem. So in short, shorter duration strobe heads will not work that well, long duration heads will work perfectly.
The other thing you have to realize that (and it hurts to say this) you can forget about the light meter.
The reason for this is simple to explain but sometimes hard to understand (yeah it sounds funky I know).
To achieve the higher shutter speeds the camera cuts the strobe off earlier, with ODS you can tune this but, the effect is that the higher the shutter speed the LESS of the strobe duration is used.
If for example a strobe has F16 on 1/125 it’s not also F16 on 1/4000. In fact it could very well be F2.8 by that time. And no that’s not a bad thing, it’s simply how these systems work, and the same happens with speed lights, you loose light output the higher you set the shutter speed, ANY system on the market has this “problem”, but thanks to the digital polaroid on the back of the camera we can check.
We did some tests very quickly with the Elinchrom Quadra and the HS head in combination with a Canon 5Ds and it was easy to reach shutter speeds of 1/8000 f2.8 and get some stunning results that were not possible before during day time. It’s a bit getting used to for me to constantly check my digital polaroid, but within a few minutes it becomes second nature, and because the skyport is very easy to operate and give more and less light to the strobe it’s actually something you get used to very fast… and if you never used a meter before… you will probably don’t even notice this.
In practice
It’s incredibly handy to be able to control your DOF on location, but most of all to control the ambient with the shutter speed over a MUCH greater range than from 1/125 to the minimum you can hand held. You do (again) have to take notice that if you change the shutter speed to let in more ambient light you have to adjust the strobe, but already after one hour of use I found myself doing it almost automatically and nailing the exposure almost spot on every shot I took. And let’s be honest I rather be able to break the barrier of 1/125 and not being able to meter than to meter and be stuck on 1/125. For your creativity this is a HUGE step forward. Plus you can now do almost everything with just the Quadra, add a maxi light and you’re in lighting heaven so the say 😀
Canon and Nikon
At the moment the system only works on Canon and Nikon, Sony will follow soon (I hope very soon), you can of course use the new skyport already on Sony, Fuji, MF etc. but it will do actually everything EXCEPT the HS option.
One could say that Elinchrom is late in the game with their HS system, but I have to be honest the product I see now (and worked with) is superieur to what I’ve used before (note : I don’t really care for ETTL on these systems) and I rather wait a bit longer and have something that works like this than cut corners.
I’m very excited about the system and can’t wait for the Sony version.
We filmed two small videos for the HS system, and today I share some images from the video with Nadine, videos will follow later.
Let’s start with just natural light, everything else is strobed.
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ELI19366.jpg500444Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2015-11-10 05:00:052015-11-10 14:45:31Elinchrom HS system first tests
I’ve been doubting if I should write this blogpost, but I decided to do it anyway.
Let me make one thing 100% clear, I don’t work for Sony. I use their cameras and that’s about it, at the moment I’m not even in their ambassadors program, so there is no “getting paid” to write reviews or what I’m doing today. However I think the following post can be of major importance for a lot of people to link to, so I decided to write it.
When I switched from Canon to Sony a lot of people said I was mad, and I agree it was a bold move going from a trusted and great working system to a new system with only one real professional camera, the A99, but I just loved something about that camera and I knew Sony would be coming up with something new in the coming years (they told me to just wait and be amazed), I also said at that time that it would not surprise me that in app. 10 years Sony would be the new number one leaving Nikon and Canon behind (and yeah I know I said this already a few times in my previous blogs but it has a reason I’m saying it now).
Photographers are loyal beings, heck you know the term “Apple fanboy”, well the same goes for some photographers, DON’T TOUCH MY BRAND OR I’LL KILL YOU, well sometimes a bit more relaxed but there is a certain “pride” and maybe even slight “Snobbism” with certain brands, and don’t get me the wrong way, I’m not labeling you, just something I experience, and in my blog I always post my personal opinion. So what happens in a normal market… well you have let’s say 2-3 brands that are steady in the top, and SLOWLY another brand comes up, people can adjust, slowly upgrade (or not) and get used to that new brand. Now what happens with Sony is not normal progress to be honest, in a market that was pretty stable for, well ever since I picked up digital, there is this brand that has a name in consumer electronics, and had some pretty nice digital cameras for consumers and tried something with pros that did not really took off, that wants to become the new number 1 and FAST. And they do it by releasing a lot of new cameras covering almost every part of the market from consumer to prosumer to pro with cutting edge technology that is leaps ahead of the competition, and the fun thing is they actually nailed it with their MarkII cameras (although the MarkI’s are also not bad at all). And in between they also “silently” take over the complete Medium format sensor market and work together with other brands to deliver sensors.
Seeing this happen can frustrate some people, and when people are frustrated… well sometimes things are said that make no sense at all, which other people read and take for the truth, and thus….. actually “destroying” the reputation of a brand without reason, actually by spreading misinformation. Now let me make one thing very very clear… a camera is just a camera, buying a new camera doesn’t make you a better photographer, if you have a complete pro setup from Nikon or Canon you won’t make better pictures with another brand, so there is actually no reason at all to be frustrated, your gear still works exactly the same as before. What’s interesting however is to see where the market is going and what Sony is introducing with new technology that was not really on the market before. But again I’m not telling anyone to sell all their gear and go and buy Sony, although… 😀
So when I did my review of the new A7RII we got a lot of cool responses, but also some “hate-mails” and when I read some of the other reviews I saw the same happening, even from some “big” names that actually started to “talk sense into people”….. now I love it when people are down to earth and tell people not “You have to buy this camera, if you use something else ….. you suck” but more “If you are in the market for something new, definitely check out Sony because… well they rock at the moment”. And that’s also how I try to do my reviews. So when you get certain remarks I always try to figure out what’s the reasoning behind this, and often I will go into the discussion with them (although you actually know it’s useless), most of the times the remarks concentrate on a few “key” things which I want to address in this blog post, and I will do them point by point.
It’s not a real camera brand
Ok it’s a Sony, and it doesn’t has the brand Canon or Nikon, but do remember that in fact it’s the old Minolta name that has been bought by Sony, and yeah I know it’s a TOTALLY different camera now but in fact it’s still Minolta, or should I say it fits the Minolta lenses? (later more on that), maybe it would have been different if Sony kept the name Minolta? I don’t know, but because it’s labeled Sony some people claim it can never be a pro camera. And then again.. what is a camera brand? isn’t it just a matter of delivering good cameras?
2. It’s not a real camera
Oh I’ve heard that many times, “it’s too small”, “it looks like a ugly child of …..” etc. etc.
One could say the same from the Fuji line of cameras, they are small and they look very vintage, but somehow people love those cameras (me included, and silently I still hope Sony will one day release a silver top), any way back on the subject of “it’s not a real camera”.
When we look at the form factor of a Canon/Nikon body you are right, but…… aren’t those incredibly big and bulky? when we look back at the old cameras like the Leica R, Minolta, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Praktica etc. they were all slightly smaller than the new modern day DSLRs, the Sony A7RII is indeed not a huge camera, but does that make it a “Not real camera?” for me a real camera is the one that does everything I need, shoot RAW, have all the settings I need and delivers me professional performance….. well it does all that and in a smaller body and when traveling…. well that’s a win situation.
I do remember that a lot of people raved about the Fuji and Olympus bodies, “oh it saves so much on size”, “Oh it so much lighter, awesome” and people were willing to make some sacrifices on image quality, lens choice etc because…. “it was such a nice and handy body”. Then again those cameras didn’t threaten the big ones 😀
3. There is no lens choice
Well you must be living under a rock when you say that, or (and this is probably the case) you didn’t read the stuff you should have read. The selection for Sony is HUGE, and I mean HUGE, in fact I think there is no brand out there that has so many lenses. They do however have one trick up their sleeve that some people see as a “deal breaker” but I see as very positive. For almost all lenses ever build you can get so called convertors which make these lenses work with the Sony bodies. Because the distance between the mount and the sensor is so short with the E mount this actually is pretty easy for manufacturers and also makes this possible. Now the lenses like M42, Leica M, Leica R etc. will all be manual focus of course and manual aperture (just as they worked on their native bodies), but Sony also delivers two convertors called the LA-EA3 and LA-EA4 which will make it possible to mount ANY A-mount Sony lens to the E-mount body WITHOUT any loss of functionality or speed (in fact with both convertors these lenses work faster and better on the A7RII than on my A99).
According to some the use of convertors is not a real solution…… this I can only explain as “you have to have a negative opinion” I find it absolutely genius that I don’t have to re-buy my lenses because I switched system, like for example Canon has with their cropped lenses and full frame lenses.
Now let’s look at native lenses:
Sony has a pretty impressive line up with Sony-Zeiss lenses (in fact it was the only system where Zeiss actually had autofocus), most of these lenses are indeed in the A-mount but E-mount lenses are appearing VERY rapidly now, I don’t see a problem however with just buying A mount lenses, I don’t own E-mount lenses and just always leave an LA-EA3 connected to the body where I mount my lenses on, and when I need my contrast detection (for the older lenses like Minolta) I will just mount the LA-EA4 convertor, very easy and no trouble at all.
Realize also that most of the Minolta AF lenses work on the A and E mount bodies and have full control over Aperture and Focus we could call them native lenses (Sony is in fact Minolta). There are a few lenses (2 of which I know) that don’t work and those are the lenses with motorzoom (who ever thought of that should be punished), and don’t say that those lenses are inferior, in fact I own quite some Minolta glass and can tell you that some of them outperform the Canon L glass I replaced.
Of course we also have Samyang, Sigma and Tamron who for most of their lenses (especially the newer ones) have Sony lens mount versions.
And look at old the old glass like M42, Leica R, Leica M etc. etc. they all have 19.00-39.00 US convertors that make the lenses work like a charm, which makes the Sony actually a platform that works better with Leica R/M glass than the Leica itself because it has Image stabilization build in and and EVF which makes Manual Focus a breeze (next topic).
Oh and one cool detail…. if you use Canon glass you will be “delighted” to hear that metabones sells an adaptor that makes it possible for a lot of Canon lenses (I believe later than 2006 but they are fine tuning the adaptor) to use the lens on the Sony bodies, and the first results are actually impressive with focus speeds slightly faster than on the 5D series, yep you read this correctly… it’s faster than on Canon itself, isn’t that cool.
Oh and one more thing I like to add…. how many lenses do you really need?
If I look at myself I use :
Sigma 12-24 / Sony 24-70 f2.8 / Sony 70-200 f2.8 / Sony 70-400
Primes : Minolta 50 1.4 / Minolta 85 1.4 / Minolta 135 f2.8
And a fine collection of M42 and Leica R glass plus some lens babies
And there is a lot more to choose from but as I can see it every corner is covered, although I’m still hunting for a cool full frame fish eye in the 8mm range.
4. Stupid EVF
Also a much heard remark. The fun thing is that this is often from people who never worked with a GOOD EVF, yeah the EVFs from the past were not perfect, some were even VERY bad and lagged like crazy sometimes, but times change, the new A7RII for example has the biggest viewfinder on the market (beating all DSLRs with OVFs), and it’s BRIGHT and SHARP and it’s fast, I can without any problem track a bird in flight or a soccer player, there will of course always be someone who will ask if I can track a speeding bullet…. yeah well….. if you need to do that good luck with any camera.
So why am I over the moon with an EVF?
Trust me the first few weeks I wanted to rip it out and replace it with an OVF (at that point I was using the A99 which doesn’t have an EVF nearly as good as the A7RII) but very quickly I realized something.
The most important thing is getting the shot right?
Of course with an OVF I see the world as it is, and with an EVF I see a digital “projection” which isn’t as “good” or “Dynamic” as the OVF, but do I walk around all day with the camera glued to my eyes? do I experience my holiday with the camera in front of my eyes 24/7? no of course not, when you want to take a picture you pick up the camera and you compose and shoot and you take it away.
Maybe the OVF shows me the world better, but with the EVF I can see a lot more information, video guys already have been using this for years, ask them if they would prefer shooting with an OVF, I think most of them will tell you that they need their Zebras and Peaking information, they are used to this information and they love shooting with that information. We as photographers are not “yet” used to this but I can tell you in all honesty, If you work with an EVF for a week you will probably never wanna go back, the instant feedback of the scene is priceless, if something is not correct just quickly correct it with the exposure compensation and you’re all set for the perfect exposure, want to add strobes to a darker sky, also no problem, just mix the ambient light in the viewfinder to your liking and use your strobe to fill in the rest, you already know the aperture (you don’t have to meter and calculate the background any more with reflective metering because you can literally see what you’re doing).
And don’t even start for our manual focus guys… shooting manual focus on f2.8 with a normal OVF is almost impossible, you will need another focus glass and those are not perfect when you switch back to AF, with an EVF you just use focus peaking and you can even zoom in to 100% and a REAL closeup to really fine tune the focus.
And what about shooting in the dark and focussing?
With an OVF you see the world as it is… so if you’re in a dark area everything will be dark, with an EVF you can actually see shadow detail and you can really pinpoint the focus, yeah it’s different than real life…. but I do get the shots much much quicker and easier, when I want real life I take the camera away from my eyes 😀
5. It EATS batteries
Yep, can’t argue with that.
But I’ve also read remarks like “it’s like a countdown”, “In the middle of a wedding you’re out of power, so frustrating” etc. etc.
Well let me put it this way, if you EVER on ANY camera run out of power in a moment you don’t want to…. it’s your own fault, every system has a perfect countdown now a days, so if you see your batteries hit that 10% mark just switch batteries when you have a spare minute, and when you are like me and you use a grip just run down battery 1, and while battery 2 is being used switch out battery 1 whenever you have time, so that second remark is just plain user fault.
Now the countdown, is it really that bad.
Well yes and no.
Yes, it runs down batteries much faster than the modern Canons (I can only speak of Canon) but those were like magic, I once did almost an entire trip with only using 2 batteries, that’s like magic.
And No,
During our trip in San Francisco I managed to get app 650 shots out of my grip this was with everything on and chimping and using wifi and NFC enabled (always fun to beam images to your iPhone for sharing) If you are shooting a wedding calculate between 1000-1200 shots on two batteries if you turn the camera off in between series. We always travel with 3 batteries, two in the grip and one on spare and I never ever ran out of juice, in New York I once ended up with 2 empty batteries and the third one on 50% but this was a full day walking the streets and ending at night in the hotel and well New York…. I shoot way more there than anywhere so I think that whole battery thing is not as bad, but indeed it’s a different system and that takes more batteries, it’s just something you have to get used to….. remember that your iPhone/Android also only last one day on it’s battery and older telephones could keep up for a week or 2-3, but the iPhones/Androids are used totally different.
If you want to save a lot of power.. just turn the airplane mode on and it will disconnect wifi and NFC and save a lot of power.
6. It’s useless in the studio
Oh I’ve heard this one A LOT, and I can only say one thing…. RTFM
There is a setting in the camera that controls the EVF to a “See What You Get” and what I call “the OVF emulator plus” where it will always show you the “balanced” image of your scene. That last one is of course the one you use in the studio and you will not see a black screen 😀
7. There is no small flash system
True and not True.
True, Sony has a great set of small flashes but if you want to use them off camera… well it’s not perfect.
Not True, just switch to Phottix and you have a great controller (called the Odin) and you have a display on your camera where you can control your strobes via the triggers via radio and if you buy the Phottix Mitros+ strobes you don’t even need a receiver (it’s build in the strobes).
With Canon I used pocket wizard which I liked but when I switched to the RT series I was hooked on the display and the ease of setup, so when I found the Phottix Odin for Sony I ordered it straight away and never looked back. It just works flawless in both ETTL/HSS and Manual and zoom. So absolutely a non issue.
8. It doesn’t tether like Canon/Nikon
Well this is also not true.
Capture One has a free solution especially for Sony that works like a charm, and for Lightroom you can buy several third party plugins that make tethering into Lightroom feel like it’s natively supported.
9. Raw files are not supported as quickly as Canon or Nikon
Absolutely not true anymore, the A7RII was actually already supported in Lightroom and Capture One before the camera was officially released.
10. Quality of the lenses is not as good
Absolutely not true.
Remember that Sony and Zeiss work together and Zeiss is well known for their awesome quality. In fact if you look at the DxO lens list at the moment there are 3 Sony lenses in the top 10 of best lenses ever and at the moment the 90mm is actually the best lens ever tested even beating the Zeiss alternative. Also the Minolta lenses that can be bought very cheap are incredibly good.
11. Price
When nothing else works we can always nitpick on price…….
Yep, absolutely true, I won’t argue with you on this one.
The new lenses are not cheap, the new bodies are not cheap…. but hey…. it outperforms cameras that are in the same league pricewise, and the lenses outperform also all the other lenses in that price range. I think you just have to realize that this is not a hobby camera anymore (A7RII) but a real professional full frame camera with high-end specs and the price to match, same goes for lenses. And indeed those lenses are pricy. But you can always buy the awesome Minolta AF lenses for anything between 200-900 US online and score some glass that is just as good as the Zeiss counterparts at first glance but will save you 1000.00, so it’s a great start.
12. Support
Yep you got me there, without a doubt. Sony has an awesome system but their support… sorry Sony it just simply sucks. Try to get pro support, it’s…. well non excitant, and I know they are working on it, but it really has to start working now because this is the only thing to be honest that really hurts the brand at the moment and that COULD stick for years to come.
On and I almost forgot:
13. Sony doesn’t use a normal hotshoe?
Well let me first ask.. “what is a normal hotshoe?”
NO brand uses a “normal” hotshoe. They all add something of their own, and so does Sony. However this is not what is meant. In the past Sony used the Minolta hotshoe where the other brands used the standardized hotshoe, but that’s in the past (there were convertors), now a days (actually ever since I’ve been shooting Sony) Sony uses a normal hotshoe and all your triggers that are not brand related will fit, so skyports etc. will work just fine.
14. Sony RAWs are not RAW?
excuse me?
Oh you mean that the Sony files are not REAL 14 bit files?
Yep that’s true, and you know how they found out?
Not because the images look bad… no because they simply looked at the files, and the people that saw this… well they had another point 😀
Now don’t get me wrong, I love to have every bit as clean as a file as I can get, and if I can get a 16bits files instead of an 14 bits file I would take it, but…. do you see the difference? do you really?
The files I get from the A7R and A7RII are incredibly dynamic (they even outperform my medium format in dynamic range), they are smooth as butter and I can push them in Photoshop from here to infinity (and beyond).
Taking this last point (14) as start for my conclusion.
People should not read online about things that they don’t check for themselves, or that they experience themselves. Always remember that every reviewer has an angle (me too, although with me it’s never financial) and that all reviewers (including me) are people, and people when they love a brand will always be VERY critical to another brand.
You didn’t see me going into the ease of use, like the menus (this is something that is much better now but still is different from Nikon or Canon, but hey those are also different from each other, and I find Canon the easiest, then Sony and Nikon I always have to search and look), the colors etc.
You also didn’t hear me say anything about frames per second… yeah it doesn’t do 15fps but I don’t need that, if you need that you have to get a camera with less megapixels.
You also didn’t hear me say anything about autofocus speed, for me it’s blazingly fast especially with the LA-EA3 convertor it BLEW me away, but maybe if you use a machine that can really check the time the Canon 1Dx is 0.004 ms faster, I don’t know and I don’t care, if I aim on something it needs to lock as soon as I’m ready to press the shutter, and it does, the A7r sometimes hunted, but the A7RII is just very very snappy. And to continue on AF also realize that with the Phase Detection AF Sony now covers almost the whole sensor with 399 focus points so if you have your subject in focus you will not loose it anymore, plus with Phase Detection AF the issue of front and back focus is history (you’re now focussing on the image). Also with video this is a big plus (the Phase detection points), you really can “lock” on your subject and use object tracking to keep it in focus.
I also skipped on video, I recorded some 4K material and for me it looks awesome, but I’m not a video guy. If I can record 4K on the card I’m more than happy so I can add it to Annewieks material that is all filmed on real 4K cameras, and I don’t need a separate external HDD so I’m happy.
These last topics are all topics that are open for discussion, for some people the AF is so important they would skip on Sony and buy a 1Dx and they are probably right, in this blogpost however I wanted to take away some of the “misinformation” that is now spread about the system in general. And I hope that you liked it and value it, not as a Sony fanboy story but purely as the information as it was meant, because I might be shooting Sony I’m far from a fanboy…. now get that Pro support up and running and have a good ambassador program and I might become a real fan boy 😀
You must be logged in to post a comment.