Fake It ‘Til You Make It
Posted on 12 March 2007, at 2:40 pm, by Judie Lipsett
I’ve said for far longer than I care to admit that I am a reviewer but not a professional photographer; what a cop-out! Not only were some of my review pictures sub-par, some were downright embarrassing. It’s not like I have an in-house photographer here to take all of the pictures for me, which means I need to do it - and I need to do it right.
So enough excuses! With the guidance of Jerry & G-A, I decided to get a Canon Rebel XTi / 400D, which I unboxed a little while ago. Today I am going to show my new light kit which I’ve just unboxed and set up. Will it make my photos better? I certainly hope so. Anything has got to be an improvement over my breakfast nook’s spotty lighting. 
The photos you are about to see are hopefully some of the last that will ever be posted on this site from my little point and shoot…
The box that the Smith Victor KLB-2, Two Light 1000 Total watt Photoflood Light Box Kit with 28″ Shooting Tent arrived in is huge! It took a while to unpack the two inner boxes, and then to remove all of the included parts and pieces.
I knew it would have the two lights and the shooting tent, but somehow I missed that the shooting tent would be so humongous and that the kit would also include…
…a tripod! My first!
So here is my camera and the new Canon Speedlite 580EX Flash that I also bought. Holy cow…I almost look like I might know what I am doing. Okay…maybe not quite yet. Ha!
You’ll notice that yes, I have also attached the neck strap to my camera (which I said I wouldn’t do) because I decided it would be better to look like a dork than to drop my baby.
Okay…now all I have to do is figure out how everything works so I can take the XTi out of “Green Box” mode. My new camera is one of the coolest gadgets I have, and I am really looking forward to getting out with it and taking pictures - in addition to the hopefully vastly improved indoor shots I’ll be doing for my reviews. 
If you have any beginner photography tips, be sure to share!
4 Comments For This Post
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Girls Gone Mobile » Judie’s new photography kit Says:
March 12th, 2007 at 8:15 pm[...] Judie from Gear Diary has recently acquired a Canon EOS 400D - the exact same model that I bought a few months ago. Only she’s done it the right way by buying an external flash and light kit to take good product photos with. Colour me green with jealousy! (But dang that SpeedLite is expensive!) [...]
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Girls Gone Mobile » Finally took the plunge Says:
March 21st, 2007 at 4:04 pm[...] After admiring some of Judie’s photos using her new kit, I went ahead and ordered myself a softbox/lighting set off eBay (I must keep up with the Joneses, after all! ;P). Nothing too extravagant - I thought I’d get my feet wet with an el cheapo unit from China. Once I outgrow that, I’ll get a ‘proper’ (read: expensive) set. I’m assuming that, as with other tech, you get what you pay for? [...]
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March 12th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Congrats Judie on the new rig. Good choice in going with Canon
I’ve got a few brief photography and Photoshop tutorials on my site you might want to check out:
http://www.leggnet.com/labels/tutorial.html
Your first step away from the “GREEN BOX” mode would be to go to PROGRAM (the P setting) mode. This will still be fully automatic but give you some more control.
Cheers, Rich
March 12th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Rich, I just got done looking at your site and I am blown away! I’ve been admiring your pictures on Flickr for ages…but your site’s tutorials are FAB! Thanks for sharing; I’ve added you to Gear Diary’s links.
“P” setting soon…must master the green box, first.
haha
March 16th, 2007 at 6:52 am
That’s one helluva kit, can’t wait to see the amazing results it’ll produce.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Nice Job! Now all you need is a rotating turntable!
I tried a pop up kit like that once, but my camera picked up all the wrinkles in the tent and created shadows bumps,etc that table shots do a good enough job. Setting up a tent takes a bit of time.
If you want really good shots a huge roll of white paper or black paper from a craft store mounted on a back drop setting stand or homebrew PVC pipe setup with the paper suspended from 90 degrees to a flat surface gives great results with no creases. Most people use the same process for keyframing green/blue screen work. With the proper lighting it looks great.
Remember light is your friend in photography and it looks like you have more than enough now! Just be careful those lights get really hot. Let them cool before handling.
Also I use quick release straps on my camera from Tamarac. It allows me to switch to wrist support, backpack clips, to neoprene boomerang neck straps quickly and take them off for tripod use without getting in the way. Makes for better portability as well as reducing the “camera dork” factor.
My wife loves using the N-15 wrist support one.
More info here:
http://www.tamrac.com/g_camerastraps.htm
Happy shooting, can’t wait to see the new pics!!!