Making Light
Piet Van den Eynde has just released his 2nd book for Craft and Vision, called Making Light. It's a shift in direction too, going from software to hardware, this time in the form of small flash. The book mixes theory and case studies to cater for the thinkers and the visual learners.The theory part covers the basics. Things like sync speeds, mixing flash with ambient and inverse square law. We get examples of this showing how moving away from a background, but keeping the flash to subject distance the same, makes the background darker. Next we get a buyers guide to flashes. Piet explains the difference between choosing manual and TTL flash, along discussing branded vs 3rd party options. One excellent bit of advice is to buy all the same flashes. All well as flash types, he also covers what you might want in a flash, such as thermal protection, optical triggers, PC sync jack, tilt and swivel, size, high speed sync, and upgradeable firmware. It's a pretty comprehensive list. It also includes accessories such as the StoFen style cap and gels, but to me these are cheaply available and shouldn't influence a purchase. Piet is also in the frame of mind as myself on TTL vs Manual. Use them both, but where appropriate.Next up is the trigger section. We begin with the most basic: the wire. Here we see the Nikon or Canon off shoe cord. These allow TTL and manual control of the flash off camera. I was a little disappointed to see no mention of the humble PC-Sync cord for manual control. Next up is both the Nikon CLS and Canon Wireless Flash System. These are both infrared based, so require line of sight for the most part. From there we get a look at wireless flash in the from of radio triggers. From the basic Cactus Triggers, to the Pocket Wizard. There's no mention of the wonderful for the money Yong Nuo triggers, or even the Elinchrom Skyports, so I'm a little disappointed it didn't cover all the bases here.Next up is flash modifiers. These are the things that take you from a hard small flash up to a larger soft source, and all in between. Like other sections, and like the title, it's basic. Piet covers the Westcott 43" umbrella and the LumiQuest SBIII softbox. There's a whole world of other modifiers for small flash, including striplights, octa's, and beauty dishes. I can't help feeling that we're a little beyond bare bones in this section, especially as Piet covered much more between wireless setups and the upcoming section on setting up your camera for these. Grids, such as the Honl, do get a little mention later, but for now that's it for modifiers. Gels, Light stands and brackets do get covered in this accessories section, along with sandbags. This section concludes with a shot of Piet's bag and his travel setup, with details about the choices.
The following 2 chapters cover how to setup Nikon and Canon cameras for their infrared systems. Chapter 8 gives us a Ten Step list for approaching your shoot. The final chapter is the case studies chapter. Here we get 9 different cases studies, and a bonus shot at the end. Piet includes a variety of ideas where light can be added to a scene to improve it, or get something different from the average. From the boy with the guitar at the temple, to the Java wedding, from the magazine cover to the wall sculpture, Piet manages to include a range of subjects that show both the usefulness of flash and the thought processes as the shots are made. The final shot shows using the sun as a second light, and talks about post processing to further improve the shot. The bonus shot leads us to the next book Piet is writing. One that he's hinted at throughout this book. Here he'll cover more advanced subjects, like overpowering the sun, using multiple flashes etc.So, what's my opinion of this book? First up Piet is not a native English speaker, but you wouldn't guess that from the text. It's well written and keeps you interested. If you're a beginner to flash, run, don't walk to this book. It does a great job of covering the basics of someone coming to flash for the first time. I've mentioned parts where I thought more could have been added, but you know what? It does what it does well. If you've already been following the Strobist methodology, then there's not a lot new to learn, I'm afraid. It does have the benefit of having it all in one place though, and is absolutely current. There's no getting away from making Strobist references either, because the equipment covered is all stuff that's appeared on strobist.com at some stage. I think a few extra paragraphs here and there would've fleshed it out into a reference, rather than a good read.I feel that for more intermediate users, Piet's next book will be the real meat, and I'm looking forward to it.Special Offer:For the first five days only, if you use the promotional code LIGHT4 when you checkout, you can have the PDF version of Making Light for only $4 OR use the code LIGHT20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST August 21st, 2011.