Jesus Is My Friend

You GOTTA love the full on “ska” beat!

As Jenny The Bloggess points out, at about 1:40 Jesus starts to sound like someone who needs to be maced….

Apparently there is some controversy about whether this video is truly a relic of an odd past or a recent creation by dougsploitation.

All I can say is that if it’s real, it’s brilliant. If it’s fake, HE’S brilliant.

Speaking of Jesus, the Fafblog had me rolling with the latest post Sarah Palin Sarah Palin Sarah Palin!

As a Jesus-fearing moose-hunting hockey-mom mother of five who hunts moose for Jesus, Sarah Palin is kin to the wild outdoors and appreciates its bountiful splendor as she is gunning it down from her airplane. Sarah Palin understands that America is dangerously addicted to oil, and that the only cure is more oil. She also understands that nature is our natural enemy, created by a malevolent Satan to come between us and our God-given oil deposits with its hateful, clean water and its foul, pristine air. But Sarah Palin also also knows that we’ve got to leave this earth behind for our children, at least until we can find a way to drill for oil in our children. Sarah Palin is committed to exploring Baby Trig’s vast and abundant petroleum reserves.

Sarah Palin may not know if global warming is man-made. She may not know if global warming is real. She may not know what global warming is. But if global warming is caused by abortions, Sarah Palin will fight it – by banning abortion, just in case the first couple times didn’t take.

Be sure and read the whole thing.

Flash Fun

Last May I wrote about The PRESSlite VerteXâ„¢ over on the Technology Bytes web site. At the time I wrote the article the actual device was not available, but I was very interested and was anxious to get my hands on one.

The VerteX is unique light modifier that has the ability to give you a greater level of control over the light flow from your swivel-head flash.

Well, today I have an actual sample of the device in hand thanks to the generosity of the folks at Presslite. And what amazing timing? What with the new flash and all….

It’s pretty slick. It basically fits on the end of a swivel flash and by adjusting two versatile little panels you can easily and quickly diffuse or redirect light in a variety of ways.

These are some sample shots that my co-worker Luis was kind enough to let me take.

This is full flash

As expected, the subject is brightly illuminated, perhaps even harshly so. But check out what happens when I move the VereX into place and use the white panels to diffuse and bounce the light onto the subject

Far less harsh but maybe no bright enough. One quick flip and I diffuse 50% of the flash and project the other 50 using the mirror side

You start to see the possibilities. The VerteX lets you use your flash in a number of ways that can really let you fine tune how you light your subject. By taking the above and just fine tuning the angles a bit more this was the final result

I don’t claim to be a skilled user of flash in my photography, but I like the results.

Check out the Presslite Web site for 3D demos of all of the devices capabilities. They offer some really interesting demos and some real life applications for the VerteX.

Mistah Jay

This guy is VERY skittish and he doesn’t tend to hang around for very long.

Fortunately his call is loud and quite distinctive so when he is in the yard, you know it. I just happned to have the camera ready when I heard him this evening and was able to fire off a few shots before he dashed off.

Through the kitchen window with the SAL-135F18Z. Not too shabby.

Illuminati


The HVL-F58AM arrived today in the mail. Normally, I don’t like shooting with a flash but if I am to progress to the next level in my photography I need to explore it as an option.

My biggest pet peeve about flash photography is that images shot straight on with the built in flash or even an add-on flash unit tend to look terrible. Obviously, if you know what you are doing, you can get good results but I am not in danger of actually knowing what I am doing.

Satyr, who was instrumental in my development of available light photography, recently gave me the heads up on the new flash unit from Sony to compliment their line of dSLR cameras. I checked out the early press releases and determined that this might be the flash unit for me.

What struck me the most was the versatility of how this flash can be shaped to allow for bounce as well as proper illumination even when shooting in portrait mode. Check out this video

The flash unit just came out this month and due to a promotion from the Sony Style web site I was able to purchase one at a significant discount.

This thing is AMAZING! Out of the box and mounted on my camera, full on automatic and this is the result:

Great color, smart white balance. SWEEEEET!

Even better, with the Sony Alpha 700 it can be used right out of the box as a wireless flash. This shot was taken with the flash unit sitting to the left of the subject (Luis):

Again, full auto. Good color, nice contrast due to the light coming in from the side.

Of course the wireless aspect opens up a whole new dimension for shooting with a flash. A dimension of dramatic possibilities…

I have a lot to learn, but I am encouraged by such good and fun results minutes out of the box.