Prague

Looking for something different in your lighting arsenal? Have you been burned by using hot video lights in the past? Perhaps it is time to look at LED lighting.

Lets face it, flash when used appropriately is beautiful, but when you are trying to capture something a bit more intimate the last thing you want is for the couple to be aware of the flash firing as it can dampen the mood.

With the latest changes in technology I decided to try out the new generation of LED lights. I have used tungsten lighting in the past but never felt comfortable lugging them around as they were not practical in my fast paced shooting style.

Though there are several models on the market the light I chose is the Comer CM_LBPS1800 from L.A. Color Shop. 

The set up for us was quite easy, as I do all of my portrait work using off camera flash it was no problem for us to mount it on a monopod to get started. The build is quite sturdy and attached quite nicely to the monopod.

With a built in flash diffuser, barn doors and a switchable color temperature filter (4500K or 3200K) I was really looking forward to trying it out with Andrea & Ryan who traveled from Canada to have an Engagement Portrait Session here in Prague.

So how did the Comer do? The following images are straight out of camera (some levels adjustments were made). As you can see the quality of the light is quite nice and the battery life was excellent.

With this image I really wanted to use the warm colors eminating from the windows and by setting the Comer to 3200 the light was a nice balance. The exposure was set to 1/50 @ 1.6 and 500 ISO using a Canon EOS 5D. 

They are huge but gentle, lumbering beasts and there are only eight left on the entire planet. Scientists believe the magnificent Northern White rhinos are nearly extinct. There are rumors of some, a few at best, in Southern Sudan but none have been seen for many years now. These eight, two in the San Diego Zoo and six in the Dvur Kralove Zoo in cold, snowy Czech Republic are all we know of the second largest land animal on earth.

Professor Miloslav Druckmuller from the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic took some fantastic pictures of the sun's corona,  a plasma gas atmosphere around the sun where temperatures reach two million degrees - visible only during a total eclipse. The pictures were taken during an eclipse over the isolated Marshall Islands, near Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean. Ten times as dense as the centre of the sun, the corona only produces about one-millionth as much light - meaning that it can only be seen when 'lit up' during an eclipse. The main radiation from the sun's surface during a total solar eclipse is blocked by the passage of the moon enabling rare viewings of the corona. Below is the most beautiful of the pictures, but if you have a look at Druckmuller's site, you'll see some more fantastic pictures.

I wanted to share this and would love some feedback how to do it better next time. It was my first time doing a video story and I just really want to improve so all criticism welcomed! The last of a rhino species on the edge of extinction taken from a zoo in Europe back to Africa! Thanks so much.

Yesterday I was going through the pages to find something for my wife and realized there are a lot of really interesting links and articles on these pages. If you have the time and are interested in photography then it's worthwhile to go back a few pages and have a look at some of the photo galleries which we've linked to and read some of the camera reviews as well. Perhaps we'll change the format of the community pages a little bit so it's easier to read through all the older articles.

We have moved the Wedding workshop out of the main wedding season and into the autumn. That way if you are working in the summer, you don't have to take a week out of your schedule to come to the workshop. The new tentative dates are Oct. 18-22, 2010. Please make a note of this in your calendar if you are thinking of coming to Prague for the Workshop. 

Prague was largely untouched during the second World War which is why it remains one of the most attractive places to visit. However, the US did screw up once when a flight of 65 bombers flew overhead and deposited their payloads right onto the center of town resulting in some pretty serious devastation (not as devastating as Dresden though) and deaths. When the all-clear was sounded, Red Cross photographer Stanislav Maršál rushed out into the streets to document the destruction. He was so traumatized by what he saw he hid his photographs for 60 years and now, five years after his death, they are on display for the first time at an exhibition in Prague's New Town Hall. 

If you are in Prague, it is definitely worth a visit to the New Town Hall (which is not on Old Town Square, but rather up Vodickova Street) to have a look at the exhibition. There's also an excellent article in English from Czech Radio.

We've posted some new stuff on the site today, a FAQs page which hopefully will pre-empt some questions people may have. If there are questions about the Workshops which aren't answered, of course you can use the contact us form to send a query or you can post in the PW Community and we'll get to it pretty quickly. 

Another new thing is the PW Photo Tours. It's on the top bar and it should be complete by the end of the week. If you come to Prague but don't have time to take a photo workshop but you are interested in taking better pictures, you can take a photo tour. I've arranged for three prize-winning professional photographers who live in Prague to take people interested in getting off the beaten path on a tour of one of the major areas of town for some hands-on training and some off-beat photography of Prague. 

The pages should be up by the end of the week and they'll have photos of Prague and bios of the guides. You can choose which guide you want to go with, agree on a tour, arrange a time to meet and pay, all through the site. Prices for a three hour tour are 150 Euros per person and the groups are limited to six people.