A couple of months ago I read an article on the Phottix Odin TTL Flash Trigger system for Canon. The article was followed by some very glowing personal reviews from photographers already using this system. But before I start talking about the Odins, I need to let off some steam; let me rant…

On the Dark Side

Prior to this, I had spent several years wrestling on and off with the PocketWizard MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 wireless system for Canon, trying to make them work (yes, several years. I know I’m crazy). I say “on and off” because when I found the time and energy, I set up several strobes on stands (580EX or EX II’s) to try to make the PocketWizard radios work consistently so that I could trust them on a job. What was consistent was the large number of misfires from these radios. Even with the radio interference sock (AC5 RF Soft Shield) covering each Speedlite, which is supposed to minimize the rf interference created by Canon’s flash, they hardly ever worked properly. By the way, stuffing your flash into a sock is a messy kluge and a total pain in the neck.

After an hour or so of fiddling, and making adjustments with the very confusing PocketWizard Utility, I gave up and with great disappointment and disgust tossed the radios in a drawer. From time to time when PocketWizard released a new firmware upgrade, I would get excited hoping that maybe, just maybe, they had fixed something and that these things would finally work. Again, I set up a couple of strobes and went through the same frustrating process all over again, only to throw the PocketWizards back in the drawer. I went through this process three or four times over a couple of years and never once used them on a job. I just couldn’t understand how a company like LPA Designs with such a great track record could release a product that simply doesn’t work. I invested a considerable amount of money and time into a piece of technology that I could not trust. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have bad feelings for LPA – I’ve used their other products for years, but now they have lost my trust. – OK, now that I have gotten that off my chest…

Let the Sun Shine In

With all the frustration after my experiences with PocketWizard, it was with great enthusiasm that I began reading everything I could about the Phottix Odin radios for Canon (the Nikon version is in testing phase). The consistent “thumbs-up” given by every user who posted a review encouraged me to plunk down a couple of hundred bucks to try them out. I’m so glad that I did! Not only do the Odins work as you would expect, the system has some unexpected features and a high level of ease of use that simply kicks ass.

The Phottix system is made up of two primary components, a transmitter/control unit that connects to the hot-shoe on your Canon and a receiver that is attached to the hot-shoe of your flash (surprise, surprise). An unlimited number of receivers can be configured and controlled to create whatever kind of lighting set-up you want. The transmitter provides numerous settings for controlling ETTL flash compensation and Manual flash power.

Phottix Odin Receiver

Phottix Odin Transmitter

The Odin transmitter on top of my camera. The illuminated LCD and buttons make working in low light conditions easy.

Setting this system up is very straight forward and easy. Attach the transmitter to your camera – it’s slightly larger than a PocketWizard Plus transceiver. Pressing the “SEL” button multiple times cycles through the major settings. Stopping on the Channel setting while it is blinking and pressing the “+” or “-” button makes it easy to select one of four transmission channels. Setting the corresponding Channel button on the receiver to the same channel will ensure that the receiver will catch the transmitted flash signal.

On/Off switch and Group setting switch on the Odin Receiver

Channel setting switch, USB port for upgrading firmware, and a DC port for a power adapter.

The Odin system supports three Groups, A, B, and C, for segmenting flash power. These can be set as TTL or Manual, or turned off altogether. Groups can also be set as a mix of TTL and Manual. The TTL flash compensation can be set to +/- 3 stops in ⅓ stop increments. This is accomplished by selecting a group with the “SEL” button and while it is flashing pressing the “+” or “-” button – which is really simple and fast. In Manual mode, power can be set from 1/1 down to 1/128. Unfortunately, the manual settings are in full stop increments. (It is my hope that this will change with a future firmware upgrade.) The Odin transmitter can also be set to control power in A:B ratio mode with +/- EV of 3 stops. If you like working with High Speed Sync, the Odin supports shutter speeds up to 1/8000 sec. There is also a setting for Second Curtain Sync.

One of the unique settings that I was surprised to discover is control of the flash zoom right from the transmitter. This can be set at Auto or Manual from 24mm to 105mm just as if you were making the setting directly on your Speedlite. If set on Auto, the flash will zoom right along with your lens exactly the way it would if the flash was attached directly to the camera. Zoom settings are applied to a group so if you have several flashes in a group they will all be set to the same zoom.

Aside from having all of the settings you would expect and then some, this system is really easy to use. There is no hassling with complicated  settings or syncing the transmitter to the receiver. When the system first arrived, I put the transmitter on my camera and a receiver on one of my 580EX IIs, fooled around with the buttons on the transmitter for a couple of minutes until I had it figured out, and then started shooting. Right from the start, this system was doing what it was supposed to do. If ever there was a misfire, it was because I was not giving my flash time to recycle. I made numerous tests using multiple Speedlites, running the TTL exposure compensation up and down, changing the flash zoom, putting the A Group in TTL and the B in Manual, running my shutter speed up to 1/8000 sec, and firing a flash outside my house from inside. All this just works. Since then I have taken my “small strobe” kit out on a number of jobs, and have gotten to the point now that I feel very confident that the Odins will perform reliably. Having complete control of your lights without ever having to touch a strobe provides tremendous flexibility. Fine tuning light output quickly on the fly is a wonderful thing.

Sync cables included in the box with the receiver.

The port for attaching the 3.5mm end of a sync cable.

Included with the receiver is a 3.5mm to 3.5mm sync cable with a 6.3mm adapter (looks like a phono jack). The Odin receiver has a 3.5mm output jack for connecting to different light systems. With the 6.3mm adapter on one end of the cable, I plugged the Odin receiver into one of my Profoto monolights and another into a Profoto pack. I was able to trigger these studio lights without a problem. Of course I couldn’t control the output from the transmitter, but the lights fired as expected. This is advantageous for anyone who likes to work in a mixed lighting environment. The receiver also comes with 3.5mm to PC cable for wiring from the receiver to the PC input jack on a 580EX II Speedlite or other strobe.

Testing the system from 250 meters - the flash fired as expected.

To get a real world feel for the Odin’s distance capabilities, my buddy, Jake, and I took a camera and a flash outside for some tests. I started at about 75 meters down the street from Jake, who was holding the Speedlite, and adjusted the zoom and took a shot. I repeated this process several times until I was about 250 meters away. At this point I could barely see Jake down the street, but I had no problem seeing the flash fire when I took a picture. I could have gone further, but figured why bother. This was quite far enough. Also, I love it that Phottix humbly lists the distance in their specs at 100 meters +. They aren’t trying to impress anyone with a trumped up spec since every environment is different and results will vary. One thing is for certain, the system has no problem responding at a considerable distance.

The little pin-prick of light in the middle of the frame is Jake holding a 580EX II connected to an Odin receiver 250 meters away.

I have stuffed a Speedlite attached to an Odin receiver into a Photek Softlighter where the receiver is completely out of view. You can’t do this if you are shooting with Canon’s line-of-site master/slave controls, at least you can’t do it reliably. Clearly this is one of the advantages of working with a radio system. You can put your flash on the other side of a wall or behind you and still fire the Speedlite.

Flash with Odin receiver stuffed into a Photek Softlighter

The flash is hidden in the Softlighter and would not fire using Canon's remote flash system which requires line-of-site with the master transmitter. Radios don't require line-of-sight.

All told, Phottix has delivered a product that is reliable and easy to use. For anyone who relies on TTL in their work and wants to get the flash off of their camera (who doesn’t?), this is a great solution that provides enough control options to make it very flexible. And, did I mention that both transmitter and receiver run on two standard AA batteries – no need to purchase a set of funky backup batteries. Just use your AAs.

Specs

• Wireless 2.4GHz. TTL and Manual Flash Triggering
• Remote power control of groups in TTL with +/- EV adjustments (3 stops in 1/3 stop increments  – 18 different levels.)
• Mix TTL and Manual flash – fire some groups in TTL, others as manual
• Remote power control in A:B ratio modes with +/- EV adjustments
• High speed sync – shutter speeds up to 1/8000 sec.
• Second curtain sync functions
• Remote manual mode flash power control
• Remote flash head zoom adjustments – auto or manual
• Compatible with Phottix Strato 4-in-1 and Phottix Strato II Multi 5-in-1 Wireless Triggers
• Upgradeable via built-in USB ports.

Pricing

The Odin transmitter and one receiver are available as a package for about $350. An additional receiver runs about $140. They can be purchased directly from Phottix or from a major camera retailer like Adorama.

Conclusion

The Phottix Odin for Canon is a well thought out and highly recommended solution for any small flash photographer who wants to reliably control wireless TTL or manual flash transmission from his/her camera. The Nikon versions will be coming soon.

I couldn’t help sharing this flow diagram from Jessica Hische. If you have ever been confronted by anyone who would like some photographs for free, and what photographer hasn’t, then you will appreciate this. Even if you are not a photographer, you will find this amusing.

Thanks to Ron and Tina Rosenfeld and all the many event coordinators. Congratulations on a great event! And, as I understand it, the new outdoor exercise facility in Waveny Park will be going up soon.

For all you photographers out there, check out X-Rite’s Photo Contest Series, Color Perfectionists Unite! This is a great opportunity to show off your work and win some great X-Rite prizes! The contest has monthly themes that last until the end of 2011.

Check it out! Win some cool prizes: ColorChecker Passport, ColorMunki Display, i1Display Pro

Well, maybe. If you are taking a lot of photographs, and you don’t have a logical way to store them and back them up–if your desktop is a mess of folders and documents, you are heading for disaster. If you are a photographer, and you have been having trouble coming up with a well-thought-out way to organize your photo library, this document will help you. If you already use Lightroom and have been losing images and have numerous catalogs scattered around your computer, Mastering Image Organization with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will help you overcome these problems.

I love having an organized photo library, and you will too.

This 28 page pdf on setting up your Lightroom catalog is free for you to download. In it I explain how to set up your filing system for optimum organization, allowing you to overcome issues with lost photographs and too many unorganized folders. You will learn how to pull your images into a logical storage hierarchy that is really easy to understand, makes finding photographs very straight forward, and is built to support a growing library of thousands of images.

The contents include:

Part I
Setting Up Lightroom and Your Computer’s File System 
Six Steps to Achieving Image Organization Nirvana
Some Fundamentals: The Difference Between Browsing and Cataloging
Organization – Setting Up Lightroom
Storing Images on Your Computer

Part II
Organizing Folders, Creating a Naming Convention, and Tagging Images 
Organizing Folders
Naming Conventions
Creating a File Naming Preset
Saving a File Naming Preset
Other Data That Can be Applied During Import

Part III
Creating Collections, Adding Attributes, and More on Metadata 
Collections
Rating, Flagging and Labeling
Keywording and Metadata
More on Maintaining Image Organization
Spawning Additional Versions from Your Original Master Photographs

Part IV
Storage, Backup and Archiving 
One Catalog or Many?
Traveling with Lightroom on a Laptop
Backup and Archive
Spanning Multiple Drives
Conclusion

Even if you already use Lightroom and have a strong understanding of the application, you may still be struggling to find a logical methodology for storing, organizing and archiving your images. If that is the case, I hope that you find this document helpful. Let me know if you do. If you don’t, I don’t want to hear from you – just kidding! I definitely want to hear from you. Especially if you have your own organizational methods or if you have thoughts on improving this one.

If you have questions or thoughts on alternate ways to organize your library, let me know.

Thanks to the following photographers on Google+ for their great comments…

Jim Austin  -  ”Phil Nelson should get a gold medal for Mastering Image Organization. Read it, do it, and then celebrate finding your images faster and easier. Phil’s article was so valuable I immediately referred all my LR students to it.”

Charlie O’Brien  -  ”I’m giving myself a B+ for being fairly well Lightroom organised after reading your good article. Went back and renamed my entire catalog adding yy/mm/dd format to each photo title. Good idea having LR stack all permutations of the original nearby.”

Antony Northcutt  -  ”Can you hear that sigh of relief?… I cannot thank you enough. This document has saved my photo life, and probably my marriage !! I wish you would write another one for the whole of Photoshop !! You are the only writer I can understand !”

Scott Merrill  -  ”You explained it very well. I spent a couple hours today organizing my existing database of photos the way that you described and am already sooo much happier! Finally I can find what I want when I want. Thanks again for the excellent tutorial.”

Ron Zack  -  ”Thank you for making this document available, you provide some excellent advice for file organization.”

• “The way we communicate visually is evolving rapidly, and people’s expectations are changing in lockstep. Light field cameras offer astonishing capabilities. They allow both the picture taker and the viewer to focus pictures after they’re snapped, shift their perspective of the scene, and even switch seamlessly between 2D and 3D views. With these amazing capabilities, pictures become immersive, interactive visual stories that were never before possible – they become living pictures.”
• “The team at Lytro is completing the job of a century’s worth of theory and exploration about light fields. Lytro’s engineers and scientists have taken light fields out of the lab – miniaturizing a roomful of cameras tethered to a supercomputer and making it fit in your pocket.”
• “The light field is a core concept in imaging science, representing fundamentally more powerful data than in regular photographs. The light field fully defines how a scene appears. It is the amount of light traveling in every direction through every point in space – it’s all the light rays in a scene. Conventional cameras cannot record the light field.”
• “Recording light fields requires an innovative, entirely new kind of sensor called a light field sensor. The light field sensor captures the color, intensity and vector direction of the rays of light. This directional information is completely lost with traditional camera sensors, which simply add up all the light rays and record them as a single amount of light.”
• “By substituting powerful software for many of the internal parts of regular cameras, light field processing introduces new capabilities that were never before possible. Sophisticated algorithms use the full light field to unleash new ways to make and view pictures.
• Relying on software rather than components can improve performance, from increased speed of picture taking to the potential for capturing better pictures in low light. It also creates new opportunities to innovate on camera lenses, controls and design.”

To get a real sense of what Lytro is doing you have to look at their gallery of sample images.

It doesn’t take much thought to believe that the potential of this technology is huge. Even though the initial product Lytro will offer is aimed at the consumer market, it’s easy to see that light field technology could be used in so many products and markets. As with many new high-potential technologies, it congers up a million questions…

• How will light field technology impact the future of traditional camera manufacturing? Will Lytro license their technology?
• How will the major camera manufacturers embrace light field technology? Will they take a “not invented here” stance? Will they create their own versions of light field sensors?
• Does a light field sensor require a special lens?
• Do Lytro images require a special viewer application/plug-in/whatever? Could I simply define the focus in post and then output the file as a jpeg for print?
• What about light field sensors for video capture? (My puny brain turns to spaghetti just imagining the possibilities for video.)
• What kind of software is needed to post process a Lytro image? Can a light field sensor record and save Raw image data like a standard CMOS chip?
• What’s the bit-depth of a Lytro image? For that matter, what’s the resolution of a Lytro image? Can a Lytro sensor be made large enough for a medium format camera back?
• Will the major image editors, (Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One Pro, etc.) be able to open and manipulate a Lytro image.
• Could I build an HDR from images shot with a light field sensor?

OK, I’m going to stop here. My head is going to explode!

It will be very interesting to watch how this rolls out, to see whether Lytro will be able to drive their technology to a point that it can actually shift the entire imaging industry as we know it today. Or, will this become another gimmick like 3D that is fun for a while and gets boring quickly? Only time will tell.

I’m hoping Lytro has great success because the potential is mind-boggling and the impact on digital imaging could be tremendously valuable to everyone in this field.

Lytro: http://www.lytro.com/

Image diagram property of Lytro

Red Epic from Red Digital Cinema

If my dog could hold a camera and press the shutter-release, she would still have a hard time shooting as well as Henri, but when you take a close look at some of the photography innovations headed our way, you have to wonder…

I was reading in the New York Times on Tuesday about the Lytro camera that is under development by a small Silicon Valley start-up created by 31 year old Ren Ng. If you haven’t heard about the Lytro yet, it is a camera that captures enough light data from different angles to let the user adjust the focus in software to any point in the captured image after it is taken. Put more simply, it means that the photographer doesn’t have to worry about focus, since the focus can be adjusted later. Not only does this alleviate the stress of capturing sharp images, it opens up a world of creative possibilities that the photographer can control in post production. Consider matching this technology with a video camera like the Red Epic.

If you are not familiar with the Red, it’s a modular camera designed for shooting digital cinema. The Red can shoot at very high frame rates for super slow motion, at a resolution that is about five times that of 1080p HD video, and at shutter speeds that are fast enough to freeze the motion in every frame captured. With these capabilities the video camera can capture incredibly sharp images for every frame of video. Heck, who needs a Red, the first video capable DSLR, the Canon 5D Mark II, can capture High Definition video at 1080p at a shutter speed that is fast enough so that any frame pulled from the video will make a sharp still image.

Now forget about all this technology for a minute. Let’s think about one of the critical aspects of capturing still photographs, and that’s timing, or in the words of the great photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, capturing “The Decisive Moment”. Knowing when to press the shutter release on a camera to capture the “decisive moment” can take years of practice. If you look at the work of Cartier-Bresson, you would swear that he could see into the future, because of his uncanny skill of knowing exactly when to press the shutter release.

Now imagine owning a Lytro/Red camera of the future. You have a client who wants you to shoot both video and stills of her wedding. Do you worry about capturing the “decisive moment”? No, but maybe that your camera is pointed in the right direction. Do you worry about focus? Not really, because you know you can fix it later. So you just shoot video of the entire event and then pull from the thousands of frames those shots that capture the “decisive moments” of the wedding. If a frame is out of focus, no problem, you fix it in post. You want to add a follow focus to a segment of video? No problem – you do it in post.

Convergence, the combination of still and video, is here. The Red Epic is here. Soon there will be a more affordable Red Scarlet. As with most tech, these types of technology will be pushed down to the consumer level. Add some of the incredible technologies that may be coming like Lytro’s focus capabilities, and you have to wonder how this will impact today’s still photographers.

If you have thoughts on this, leave a comment…

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he points out that innate talent can only take an individual so far and that to gain true expertise requires many, many hours of dedicated practice. “The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researches have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”

Photo by Richard Freeda, ©2011 Richard Freeda Photography

A good camera does not make a great photographer! My friend, Rich Freeda (who happens to have put in his ten thousand hours and is a very talented photographer), likes to point out that even though he owns a hammer, he is not a carpenter, and to think that he could frame a house is absurd. He also told me a story about his mother showing off some of his photographs of his kids at a dinner party, and the hostess admiring them said, “These are great pictures! What kind of camera does Rich use?”, as if the camera took the pictures and Rich had nothing to do with them. Annoyed by this, Rich’s mom at dinner remarked to the hostess, “This is a delicious meal! What kind of pots and pans do you use?”

To develop an expertise in photography like any field takes a lot of practice, dedication, and hard work. Unfortunately, because anyone with a camera can take a picture, everyone is a photographer, and often the truly good photograph gets lost in the morass of mediocre work. If anyone with a DSLR can take a picture, it is difficult for those people hiring a truly experienced photographer to understand why a single professional photograph costs what is does. To gain his/her ability to consistently take an exceptional photograph, one that rises above the mediocre, the experienced photographer has to have put in his/her ten thousand hours. That is time spent learning not just the mechanics of photography (which is difficult enough), but developing a critical eye, exceptional timing, and a rapport with one’s subject.

About a year ago, I was asked to photograph some products for a catalogue. The client was counting on me to make the products stand out. I discovered when planning the shoot that the client had already attempted and failed to shoot the products himself. He had a good digital SLR and thought that he could save some money. The results were pretty bad, and he quickly realized that he did not have the ability to make acceptable photographs for the job.

In APhotoEditor’s recent interview with photographer/videographer, Vincent Laforet, formerly of the New York Times, Vincent states, “The one thing that’s going to make me miss or succeed as a photographer is capturing “the” moment, because that involves anticipation and predicting the future. It involves a lot of skill, a lot of guess-work, and experience. And I think ultimately knowing when to press that shutter is one of the greatest skills you can develop as a still photographer.”

For any photographer who has put in his time and made a career of photography, these days of the digital photo boom can be very frustrating. Too often his knowledge, experience, and quality of work is undervalued by the thought that good photographs are easy to make and that anyone with a DSLR can take a great picture.

If you are ever hiring a pro photographer and wonder why their price is higher than you expected, chances are it is because the photographer has put in his ten thousand hours, and he knows the amount of hard work that has gone into achieving his level of expertise. He knows he can count on his experience to deliver work that rises above the mediocre and for that, he should be paid accordingly.

As a follow on to my post about how important it is to regularly calibrate and profile your display, here are two new great solutions from X-Rite. Check it out.