I am a huge fan of my Westcott Spiderlite TD-5 studio lights with their nice soft output, low energy use, and cool operation. While they have always been great for product photography I never really liked using them for portraits because they just didn’t put out enough light. Westcott has released some new high wattage bulbs for the TD-5’s to address the needs of these types of situations.

We have looked at different types and styles of camera bags but the Vanguard 53 isn’t your normal camera bag. The Supreme 53 is a hard-sided case more at home in the cargo compartment of an airplane than it is being used as a daily equipment hauler. While other companies selling hard cases have been around for many years, Vanguard has a lot to live up to. Let’s take a look at at the Supreme 53 and see if Vanguard has succeeded in building a better mouse trap.

Studio strobes are expensive and when you need lots of light but when you want to use them on location somewhere you have to find electrical outlets and possibly use long unwieldy extensions cords. But what happens when there is no power available at all? Using a generator is not recommended unless you can find one with a true sine wave inverter and even then, the peak times of the strobes when recycling can put an excessive strain on the generator. Innovatronix has a solution with their Explorer XT portable power source.

Yup, even more highlights from WPPI 2009. In this installment we take a look at the masking tools and virtual backgrounds available from Studio Taxi (http://studiotaxi.com) then we focus on the engraved focusing screens from Crop Lines (http://croplines.com). We then headed over to talk with Kevin Kubota about his Kubota Imaging Tools (http://www.kubotaimagetools.com) and finally wrap up with a talk with our good friend Max from BorrowLenses.com (http://borrowlenses.com).

Watsonville, CA (PRWEB) January 26, 2009 — ExpoImaging Inc. (www.ExpoImaging.net), developer and marketer of innovative camera accessories, including the Ray Flash Ring Light Adapter, ExpoDisc Digital White Balance Filter and the ExpoAperture2 Depth-of-Field Guide, today announced that it is now the exclusive U.S. distributor of Honl Photo Professional Products.

While many of us have been waiting for the originally announced products from last year, we were a little surprised that what we were expecting was killed off, however, Kevin and the guys have created a completely new ground-up redesign that now creates the most scalable feature-rich wireless remote system ever designed.

David Hobby (http://strobist.com) has posted a thought provoking article today about whether or not you should consider doing work for free. This isn’t to say you should go on Craigslist and post that you will perform wedding photography worth thousands of dollars to everyone that emails you.

MELVILLE, N.Y. (Nov. 30, 2008) – Nikon Inc. today announced the D3X, an FX-format digital SLR featuring extreme 24.5-megapixel resolution and superb low-noise capabilities, which provides professional photographers with commercial-quality image performance in a familiar and extraordinarily versatile D-SLR form factor. In conjunction with the groundbreaking Nikon FX-format D3, the D3X tops off a collection of flagship level, rugged, professional caliber digital single lens reflex cameras engineered to excel in all types of professional photographic disciplines from photojournalism and sideline sports, to commercial in-studio applications.

We have done a number of articles with different flash heads but we have never gone into the detail of how to set them up and make them work, this results in emails that we sit and explain all the details to people. So today I am going to go through how to setup these studio flashes and connect them to your camera to get the results you want.

What’s better than a Photo Basics StrobeLite? A StrobeLite Plus of course! With more and more companies trying to attract the beginner to semi-pro market Westcott is pushing hard with the Photo Basics line to get good quality components into the marketplace. The difference with the Photo Basics line is that they are complete educational packages complete with floor mats to help with placement and instructional DVD’s.