IKEA has a very low cost optical focusing theatre-style spotlight which can be used, or adapted, for studio work. It comes complete with an adjustable iris diaphragm unit, a four-blade square aperture adjustable unit, a gobo/filter holder, a set of stainless steel cut gobos and a set of coloured glass filters. The focusing lens is not sealed against light leaks but open to allow heat to dissipate, however if this unit was adapted to hold a flash light source in place of its halogen bulb, you could also make a tube to seal off the light leaks from the optical assembly.

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CANON may get some stick from their own users who reckon Live View is not much use, and Sony’s decision not to put it in the A700 may well be defended on the same basis. How wrong that is. Here’s one (plus another two) good reasons why Live View is your best friend in the studio. Read the rest of this entry »

David Kilpatrick explains why controlled conditions are important and shows an example of a ring-around chart - something to keep pinned on your darkroom wall, made from your own test negatives or slides. This article was first published in 1996, and the principles if not the identical corrections can be applied to making inkjet tests from digital images. It is still most relevant to darkroom colour printing, for those who want to keep this art alive.

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Dean Collins invented ‘cromazones’ - predictable, variable studio backdrop color from a gel-filtered background light. David Kilpatrick sets out to show how two low-cost strobes switchable down to quarter power give all the control you need. Read the rest of this entry »