The Gary Fong Lightsphere Universal Clear

I have photographed 175 weddings with the Gary Fong Lightspheres, since 2002. Most where with the Lightsphere-2 Cloud and Clear. I loved them - still do. Last year, the Whaletail Reporter and Studio appeared. They are very versatile diffusers. I shot about a dozen weddings and many other types of jobs with them. However, recently I have been experimenting with the Lightshpere-Universal. I have also received lots of user feedback.

On the weekend of May 2-4, 2008, I had to go to El Paso. The main reason was to cover a Quienceañera. If you are familiar, this is a coming of age event tied to the 15th birthday, in the Hispanic community. Living in Southern California, and traveling to Texas, most of my experience is among Mexicans. These are beautiful events, much like a wedding: A religious ceremony, photos in a park, dinner, and an evening dance/reception.

In this case, we went early to spend a day shooing the birthday girl, then some evening photos with family. On Saturday, there was the service at a church, followed by the other events, mentioned above. The result was an album, at link to which I'll provide at the end of this article.

Since I was flying, I had to pack everything into a hard-sided carry-on case. That meant, I couldn't just run out to the car to get another piece of equipment. I decided to take the LSU-Clear and the Chromedome insert (I had my wife pack as LS2 Cloud and Clear, just to be safe, but I didn't use them).

Here is a little video, where I talk about the Universal.



This is the link to the album -- all images with LSU-Clear.

Albums #4

The 4th in a series - scroll down for the previous episodes, and watch in sequence.

Albums #3

This is the third in a series. If you haven't watched the first two episodes, scroll down and watch them in sequence.

Creating Albums #2

This is the second in a series. If you haven't read the first one, it will make more sense if you move down the page to Creating Albums #1, and start there.

From Crackle: Albums2

Creating Albums #1

This is the first in a series of videos where I talk about albums - primarily wedding albums. I cover things like the first interview with a potential client and the 'value' of the album. Learn the difference between a photographer and a storyteller. See what album pre-design entails.

From Crackle: Albums1

Flash using Nikon

OK, as promised, here is the Gary Fong video, explaining how to get optimal results with a Nikon camera/flash. Go down to the next post for Gary's video on Canon.



Optimizing Flash Results for Nikon Cameras from GARY FONG on Vimeo.

Using the Canon Flash System

I know -- I always talk about Nikon, but this is important. Gary Fong posted this on his blog, and I 'stole' it :-)


Canon Flash System from GARY FONG on Vimeo.

Soon, we'll have one on Nikon flashes.