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How to use gridded strip softboxes as your main light source

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When it comes to setting up flash for a portrait, one might usually grab a big octabox or beauty dish. Normally, we wouldn’t consider something like a strip softbox. Strip softboxes are typically relegated to rim light duties. But they can also be extremely effective as a main light source.

In this Profoto Tiny Talk, photographer Neil van Niekerk talks us through how he uses his gridded strip softboxes for lighting portraits. He describes it as the most powerful tool he has both on location and in the studio. And, indeed, it is an extremely versatile modifier.

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Watch: a small octa acts as a sail in extremely harsh wind

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By now, you probably know that you should sandbag your gear. I mean, who would want their gear flying on their face when they talk about sand bags?

But sometimes the wind is just too fierce. Not only for a light stand but for any sort of modifier. In the movie below, German photographers Flash bros set out to shoot a portrait. Only the wind was a bit too strong even to hold a Profoto B1 500 TTL strobe with a small Profoto 2′ Octa. You can actually see how the wind drags both gear and assistant away.

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Profoto’s new D2 TTL monolight leaves other “Fast” strobes in the dust

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We posted a review on this just earlier today, but here’s the full specs and info on the new Profoto D2 Monolight. Here’s the short version, though. Up to 20 flashes per second, action freezing flash durations as fast as 1/63,000ofh of a second and high speed sync with all shutter speeds all the way up to 1/8000th of a second. Oh, and it also does TTL, if you’re into that kind of thing.

With competition from companies like Godox hitting some flash manufacturers pretty hard lately, Profoto isn’t running scared. The new D2 flash basically stomps all over them. Of course, with great power come great big price tags, and these certainly aren’t cheap.

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Hands-on with the Profoto D2 AirTTL, the “World’s Fastest Monolight”

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When Profoto added TTL, High Speed Sync, and studio-level power to the Profoto B1 battery-powered monolight, it was revolutionary. But the newest flash, which the company describes as the “World’s Fastest Monolight,” is built to take the Profoto AirTTL system to the next level with even faster and more powerful lights. The Profoto D2 500/1000 AirTTL monolight may set the new standard for power and speed in studio lighting from everyone’s favorite Light Shaping Company.

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Watch as this photographer shoots female bodybuilders in the middle of the street

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I’ve been following the work of Texas based portrait photographer Keydrin Franklin for a while now, but a recent Facebook Live stream of this particular shoot got me very interested.  It’s certainly not every day you see a group of people walking out into the middle of the road to have photos made.

As well as resulting in fantastic photographs, Keydrin’s live stream for this session illustrates the kind of effort and care required on a location shoot in unpredictable surroundings while ensuring the safety of all those involved.

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Profoto unveils collapsable beauty dish that won’t hog up space in your camera bag

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36 years ago, Profoto released a lighting accessory they called the Softlight Reflector. Today, we call this creation a beauty dish, thanks to its unique design that softens light in the perfect manner for portraits.

Today, Profoto has announced a new and improved version, the OCF Beauty Dish. And this time, it’s collapsable, making it far more portable and lightweight than ever before.[Read More…]

2015 DIYP Gift Guide – Lighting

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So far, we’ve shared our Gift Guides for cameras and lenses. Now, we’re on to the next tool any photographer needs in his/her arsenal – lighting.

Of course, light is available all around us in the form of the sun, but sometimes you need to slightly alter that light or entirely provide your own. Below we’ve gathered some of our favorite lighting products that you can pick up this holiday season.[Read More…]

Brush Up On Your Skills With 20 Free Wedding Photography Video Tutorials From Profoto

Wedding season is just around the corner, so there’s no time like now to learn some new tricks and brush up on your existing skills. In this series produced by Profoto, wedding photographer veterans, Justin and Mary Marantz, take you on a walk through of 20 different weddings, explaining lighting setups, must-have shots, and walk through of showing you exactly how they photograph in different settings and locations. The videos were made over the course of year, so you get a wide range of scenarios to learn from.

Here’s a sampling of the videos from the collection along with a playlist at the bottom so you can watch all the episodes. [Read More…]

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