When taking macro photos, you need plenty of light on the subject, to allow a reasonably large DOF (depth of field), yet keeping a reasonably fast shutter speed, and a low ISO. As a result, ambient light is typically insufficient, requiring the use of a flash.

However, using a bare flash will result in harsh lighting with harsh shadows, so it's important to diffuse and reflect the light to create a more pleasing photo.

This post provides details of the very cheap homemade reflector that I use for macro photography.

Last month, I described how you can make a cheap flash clamp for holding a remote flash, using cheap clamps and a 1/4" bolt, available from your local hardware for a few dollars (as per the photo on the right).

However, with the full weight of a flash attached to the end of the clamp handle, particularly if the flash is mounted on top of a wireless trigger, the clamp and flash isn't particularly stable.

To improve the stability of the flash clamp, another 1/4" bolt can be added to the clamp, much closer to the jaws of the clamp.

Mounting a flash on this bolt closer to the clamp jaws provides a more stable solution, as the majority of the weight is now attached to the clamp much closer to the jaws.

If using wireless triggers to trigger the flash, the flash can be attached to the trigger's hot-shoe, and the trigger then attached to this new bolt on the clamp.

Alternatively, the wireless trigger could be attached to the bolt on the end of the clamp handle, and a PC sync cable can then be used to connect the trigger to the flash, as shown in the photo below.

improved version of the cheap flash clamp for holding a remote flash,
with a Canon 580EX II being triggered by a Phottix Tetra wireless flash trigger

After a few months of rumours about the Canon 7D, specifications have been confirmed, and details are now available on on Canon's website. dpreview.com have already published a review of the Canon 7D.

Note that it's not a replacement for the 5D, but the 7D fits into the Canon lineup between the Canon 50D and the 5D.

The 7D is not a full-frame body like the 5D, but has an 18 megapixel APS-C sensor (1.6x crop factor), larger viewfinder, a new AF system with dedicated processor, can shoot at 8 fps, and supports 1080p HD video recording.
Interestingly, it also has an integrated Speedlite transmitter, allowing the 7D's built-in flash to control multiple groups of multiple flashes.

Here's a brief summary of the specifications of the 7D:

• 18 megapixel CMOS sensor (APS-C size)
• dual DIGIC 4 image processors
• ISO 100-6400 (expandable to 12,800)
• 8 fps continuous shooting
• full HD (1920x1080) movie mode with manual exposure control
• large viewfinder with 100% field of view
• new 19 point auto-focus system
• magnesium body
• built-in Speedlite transmitter
• 3 inch rear LCD

It looks like the retail price for the Canon 7D body is going to be around USD$1699 (AUD$2020), and amazon.com have it available for pre-order.

Have a look at dpreview.com's review for more information on the Canon 7D, or the Canon Australia website for full specifications.


Update (September 2009): QualityCamera Sales Australia anticipate that the Canon 7D body price will be around AUD$2399, and they are taking pre-orders.

The Phottix Tetra wireless flash triggers are yet another low-cost photography accessory from the Asian Phottix, and are designed for triggering one or more off-camera flash units. The Tetra can also be used to trigger studio lights with the included PC sync cable.

Thanks to HK Supplies for providing a Phottix Tetra with two receivers for review purposes.



A wireless flash trigger is designed to trigger one or more flash units that are located away from the camera, without requiring a wired connection between the camera and the flash units.

Off-camera flash allows a photographer to get much more creative with lighting, and the Strobist website has served to educate many more photographers in the use of off-camera flash lighting.

Earlier this year, I reviewed the Phottix Cleon II. It's a wireless shutter release that operates on 433MHz, with a range of upto 100m, and uses a smart-code system with 16,000,000 combinations instead of DIP switches to set the channel.

Instead of the camera cable being hard-wired into the receiver, Phottix use a 3.5mm stereo socket on the receiver, and Phottix make cables to suit various cameras. This allows a Phottix Cleon II to be used with different types of cameras, providing you have cables available to suit the different cameras.

Refer to my review of the Cleon II for more details on functionality and features.

I was interested in taking a closer look at the circuitry inside the Cleon II, and after noticing something rattling inside the receiver, I decided to open up the Cleon II.

Here are the Cleon II transmitter and receiver before disassembly:

Cleon II transmitter

Cleon II receiver

A large clamp provides a very flexible method for mounting a flash, and certainly won't break the bank! Using a large plastic clamp from my local hardware store, along with a 1/4" bolt, a nut, and a wing nut, I made this flash clamp in just a few minutes, and it only cost me a few dollars.

The built-in flash on most cameras is quite limiting, and a dedicated flash can provide a lot more flexibility and control of the lighting. However, moving the dedicated flash off the camera hot-shoe, and having it remote from the camera provides a whole new range of lighting options. The popularity of David Hobby's Strobist blog, where he provides lots of useful information about flash photography, particularly off-camera flash photography, confirms that lots of people are getting interested in it.

Assuming you already have a flash unit, you need some way to trigger the flash remotely from your camera. I have a set of the cheap Cactus wireless flash triggers (from Gadget Infinity), as well as a set of Phottix Tetra wireless flash triggers.
Instead of using wireless flash triggers, I can also use the built-in infrared communications capabilities in Canon flashes, and mount a Canon 580EX flash on my camera, and use it to remotely trigger a Canon 430EX or 580EX flash.

As you won't always have the luxury of a voice-activated light stand (ie, a person to hold the flash), you'll often need some way of mounting the remote flash, and you may not (yet) have purpose-built light stands in your camera bag.

I came across these plastic clamps at my local hardware, and they were less than AUD$2 each.
The handles of the clamp already had a small hole, which I drilled out to fit the 1/4" bolt. After inserting the bolt from the inside of the handle, the nut was firmly tightened to hold the bolt in place.

As far as Canon lenses go, the 50mm f/1.8 is probably the cheapest, smallest and lightest (130gr) lens in the Canon range. However, that doesn't mean it's not worth looking at!

It's a prime lens (ie, fixed focal length lens), with a maximum aperture of f/1.8. This makes it a great lens for low light situations, due to the large amount of light it'll let in at its maximum aperture.

This large aperture also provides a very short depth-of-field, which is great for portraits, allowing you to have the subject in focus, but the background blurred.



Here's some photos of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens.

side view

front view

I thought this video was a great piece of marketing for the Olympus Pen E-P1 camera:

(If you're viewing this post through an RSS reader, you may not see the embedded video, but will probably need to click the post header to view the article in a browser.)

The Olympus Pen E-P1 camera is generating quite a bit of interest, and I'm very interested in it due to its compact size.

Olympus Australia is giving twenty people the opportunity test drive the new Olympus Pen E-P1 camera for 4 weeks. Three of those twenty people will have a chance to win a brand-new Olympus Pen E-P1 camera and two lenses.
Read on for more details.

Olympus Pen E-P1 camera

with 17mm lens mounted on body, and 14-42mm lens on left

photo provided by Olympus, used with permission

The recently-announced Olympus Pen E-P1 camera has generated a lot of interest recently, with various photography-related blogs I subscribe to mentioning it recently, including Chase Jarvis, norbs (and again), Alex Wise, engadget and DPS.

It's an interesting camera, and uses the micro four thirds lens system. This allows Olympus to pack an interchangeable lens system into a camera that is much smaller than a regular DSLR.
For existing Olympus DSLR shooters, there's an MF-1 Four Thirds System Lens Adaptor available, which allows the body to accept many of the other Four Thirds format lenses.

The Phottix Plato is another wireless shutter release for digital SLR cameras, and was released in October 2008 at Photokina. The Plato has some interesting new features, including bi-directional 2.4GHz communication, and uses commonly-available AAA batteries.

If you're not interested in reading the details of this review, you can jump straight to my conclusions.

Thanks to HK Supplies for providing a Plato C8 for review purposes.



As with other wireless shutter releases, the Plato has two primary components, namely the receiver and the transmitter. As with the other Phottix accessories I've reviewed, the actual model name (ie, "Plato") does not appear on either the transmitter or receiver, but only the company name "Phottix" appears on the front of both, and the model number "WXD-188" appears on the back of both.

The receiver needs to be connected to the camera's remote shutter release connector via a cable supplied with the Plato. Rather than having a cable hard-wired into the receiver, the receiver has a 3.5mm stereo socket, and different Plato models come with cables to suit different cameras.

Plato receiver

The base of the receiver has a plastic shoe, which allows the receiver to be mounted on the hot-shoe of a camera body. Note that this is purely for convenience - there are no electrical contacts in the plastic shoe on the receiver.

The Plato transmitter is a little larger than the Cleon and Cleon II transmitters, and is much more rectangular. The larger size is primarily due to the fact that the Plato transmitter uses two AAA batteries rather than the small 23A battery used in the Cleon and Cleon II transmitters. However, it's still a compact unit, and fits easily into my camera bag.

The Plato receiver is marginally larger than the Cleon and Cleon II receivers, and this is again due to the use of larger batteries, ie, 2 AAA batteries rather than the much smaller 23A battery.