I was reading the Strobist today. They are a "buzzword" in the photo community now and I thought that I would like to see what it was all about. Has anyone adopted their "principles"? Or, do you read their website and gain new knowledge that may be helpful to you in the future?

The Strobist site contains some good information. I like to visit to see what folks are doing with speedlights, there's some interesting photography going on.

I prefer to shoot with available light, so I can't say I've adopted their principles. I have shot with multiple speedlights since the late '70's. I shot weddings with two strobes, one on a bracket on the camera and the other on a monopod held by an assistant. There were no radios back then, so the monopod light was triggered by a flash slave (Wein peanut). This setup was a leg up on the other wedding shooters using a single on camera flash. The lighting was much nicer.

I have four or five Vivitar 283's, but I rarely use them.

I love using strobist principles for portraits to either enhance or overpower the available light

Hey Bill, david hobby, AKA strobist is a super cool dude. He demystified flash for the masses to easily understand. I used to read his blog pretty regularly. thanks to the strobist.com I have a fairly commanding knowledge of how flash generally works and how I can get my intended shot without setting up expensive lighting/location gear and measurbating with a spotmeter for hours. I dont think there has ever been an everyday guy, who set out to share his entire working knowledge of his profession for free; and asking nothing in return. In the strobist 101 he goes into great detail in each setup shot to show the reader exactly what he did to get that "look", again for free.

best,
justin

Some of the stuff is interesting to read. I like umbrellas. I used to use a bounce flat Reflectasol on a light stand on one side with a single powerful strobe in a round umbrella on a light stand with wheels for the key light. Now, I can use a shoot through umbrella with a portable strobe in it instead of the flat Reflectasol bounce flat. I still need the modeling light most of the time. That is why I like the White Lightening 3200 model. Lots of the wedding shooters are using powerful battery pak strobes so they have power outdoors too. Then, they don't need a place to plug in.

I think the more you read it the more it will suggest "less is more" and The inverse square law, as it applies to light, is best left for the classroom.

williamkazak wrote:
I was reading the Strobist today. They are a "buzzword" in the photo community now and I thought that I would like to see what it was all about. Has anyone adopted their "principles"? Or, do you read their website and gain new knowledge that may be helpful to you in the future?

I'm a moderator of the Flickr group. It's changed how I look at light and totally changed how I shoot.

I certainly like the Pocket Wizards of which I have three. The Nikon speedligh line of sight did not work for me very well oudoors. The powerful studio strobe is really what I like with a bounce flat or a portable strobe and a shoot through umbrella. Dave, getting this lighting info out to the masses is good karma. Lighting really is a key ingredient. Getting "studio quality" on location in a portable and repeatable fashion is very nice.

Justin Huffman wrote:
I think the more you read it the more it will suggest "less is more" and The inverse square law, as it applies to light, is best left for the classroom.

Interestingly, he's switched to studio strobes (Profoto)...prior to that, "strobist" meant "manually controlled speedlights".
It's got good lessons on lighting that apply to both though...and that's where I got most of my knowledge (decided to skip Pentax's P-TTL system and get a few old Nikon SB28's w/ Radiopopper JrX Studios and haven't looked back)...

Justin Huffman wrote:
Hey Bill, david hobby, AKA strobist is a super cool dude. He demystified flash for the masses to easily understand. I used to read his blog pretty regularly. thanks to the strobist.com I have a fairly commanding knowledge of how flash generally works and how I can get my intended shot without setting up expensive lighting/location gear and measurbating with a spotmeter for hours. I dont think there has ever been an everyday guy, who set out to share his entire working knowledge of his profession for free; and asking nothing in return. In the strobist 101 he goes into great detail in each setup shot to show the reader exactly what he did to get that "look", again for free.

best,
justin

He doesn't do it for free. A good portion of his income is from the blog. Yes, he freely gives out info, but he also sells tutorial DVDs, workshops, advertising space, product alliances, etc.

I think the best information you can get from David is not lighting, but his marketing skills. He created a niche market by giving away information and then finding ways to make money from that. It's similar to Apple giving away iTunes as a free app and making it easy to purchase music and then selling iPods to carry that newly purchased music with you. David freely admits to studying Apple, Google, and other companies to see what online strategies worked for them and then used those strategies to augment the money he makes from shooting. Brilliant really.

We use a lot of the strobist principles in wedding and portrait photography. We use the Radio Popper PX system and we have 4 580EX II's and a 430EX II. We have a variety of different soft boxes and a beauty dish. We use the cheap, but versatile, Cheetah Stands. We're still learning and perfecting things, but It's fun to control light:

http://500px.com/photo/3274001
http://500px.com/photo/3257269
http://500px.com/photo/2522040
http://500px.com/photo/2205868

This is some good portable lighting info also;
http://super.nova.org/DPR/OutdoorLighting/
By Charles E. Gardner

Charles's tutorial is great!

I agree. A lot is talked about on his site.

Has anyone adopted their "principles"? Or, do you read their website and gain new knowledge that may be helpful to you in the future?



Is "strobism" a new religion or what? I don't see him doing anything different from what PJs were doing with Vivitar 283 flashes 40 years ago...except marketing it.

RDKirk wrote:
Is "strobism" a new religion or what? I don't see him doing anything different from what PJs were doing with Vivitar 283 flashes 40 years ago...except marketing it.

PJ's didn't teach me how to use those vivitar flashes 40 years ago, strobist did that couple of years ago.

RDKirk wrote:
Is "strobism" a new religion or what? I don't see him doing anything different from what PJs were doing with Vivitar 283 flashes 40 years ago...except marketing it.

Totally agree

I myself have been using Metz 45 and 60 flash units in the 'strobist' way since the early eighties, not for the sake of 'alternative' technique, but simply because I couldn't afford studio flashes and generators, let alone use of that kind of stuf on location like eg Annie Leibovitz did

And manufacturers offered enough accesories to do do in the form of eg Wein Peanuts, Metz Mecamat etc., while portable lightstands and umbrellas have always been around.

Sure, nowadays the technique has become more sophisticated with eg PW TT1/TT5 and Radiopoppers, higher flash synch speeds on DSLR's etc., but the principles for location lighting haven't changed.

The 'strobist' way IMHO fills an online void for questions on portable lighting where before people would find out by doing rather then searching the net for 'answers', great marketing but nothing new

tedwca wrote:


He doesn't do it for free. A good portion of his income is from the blog. Yes, he freely gives out info, but he also sells tutorial DVDs, workshops, advertising space, product alliances, etc.



Your splitting hairs here. Ive learned a TON from strobist.com and I havent spent one dime. Nobody from the site asked me for money, and I didnt have to enter an email address or "register" to get to the meat and potatoes of the content.... so for the purposes of this discussion, yea its free. Lets not get into counting david hobbys' money.

Paul_K wrote:
Sure, nowadays the technique has become more sophisticated with eg PW TT1/TT5 and Radiopoppers, higher flash synch speeds on DSLR's etc., but the principles for location lighting haven't changed.


Actually, the original strobist technique was *NOT* to use p/i/e-TTL (i.e., not use the PW TT nor the RP PX). It was the simple technique of full manual control of your flashes and learning to modify them and control where light went.
Nowadays, the strobist forum seems more like a gear junkie site unfortunately...(some of the old-timers have said the same thing, so it's not just me)...

"Strobist" is purely a name created for his blog. Not a technique of any kind.

Though I read David Hobby's blog and have for years, none of the information he offers is new. It's just that the internet and dslr cameras have allowed common folks to pickup and learn this stuff without going to a classroom and adding a darkroom to their home.

David is a pretty good teacher and explains these things well. Anyone that is reading his blog and getting information/education from it could have done these same exact things by picking up a book decades ago.