Cleaning your DSLR Sensor

Cleaning your DSLR Sensor: Tips and Advice

by Bob Atkins

Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and photographers used totally mechanical cameras, it was common to have a camera serviced every few years. The springs in the shutter assembly had to be adjusted to keep shutter speeds accurate and various parts of the camera and lens could need lubrication. A CLA (clean, lubricate and adjust) was something that kept a camera in top condition.

Current cameras (and indeed most cameras made in the last few decades) really don’t need a regular CLA. The shutters are electronically timed and in general no lubrication is required. Wiping off external dirt is about all the servicing that most film cameras ever needed. With digital SLRs the situation is slightly different since and dust or dirt on the sensor will be recorded in the same place on every image and despite automatic cleaning systems, you will eventually find dirt stuck to the sensor that shows up in your images.

When (and what) not to clean

Bob Atkins

If you see dark spots on your digital image which you suspect come from dust and dirt, remember the following. It’s 99% certain that they are due to particles sitting on the front of the filters which cover the digital sensor. Dust elsewhere in the camera or in the optical path generally won’t show up in the image as dark spots. Even though most current sensors have systems in place to minimize the amount of dust which is attracted to the sensor (by using an anti-static coating) and to displace it (by vibrating the sensor) if it does land there, these systems aren’t perfect and it’s very likely that sooner or later a physical cleaning of the sensor will be required.

So, for example, if you see dark dust spots when you look through the viewfinder, they will be on the viewfinder screen, not the sensor. Since the viewfinder screen isn’t in the optical path of the light when an image is recorded, dust on the screen doesn’t affect the image in any way. These dust spots may be annoying, but they won’t cause spots in your images.

If you remove the lens and look at the reflex mirror inside the camera, you may see some dust on the surface. Again, these won’t appear in the image. When an image is recorded, the reflex mirror is safely out of the optical path, so no amount of dirt on the mirror will show up in the image.

If you look though your lens and see dust spots on the elements (which you will), again they won’t record on the image. Though in this case they are in the optical path while an image is being recorded, they will be so far out of focus that they will not be visible in the image. About the only exception to this would be dust on the front element of a circular fisheye lens when shooting stopped down at minimum focus distance. In that case the DOF of the lens might just get the front element in focus!

The upshot of all this is that cleaning the viewfinder, mirror and lens surfaces won’t help in removing spots from your image, and in fact may actually cause harm if you aren’t careful. TheSLR mirror, for example, is fairly delicate. It’s a front surface mirror and can easily be scratched. The viewfinder screen has a fine, rough texture and if you try to clean it by rubbing it with any type of cloth of lens tissue, you’ll get fibers all over it.

If you must clean the mirror or viewfinder screen, the safest way to do it is with a blower bulb. With luck this will blow any dust particles off the surface. Pretty much the same applies to lens cleaning. You can only clean the front and rear elements anyway. A blower bulb and a brush should remove any surface particles. It’s also safe to use a lens cleaning cloth and lens cleaning fluid on lens (and filter) surfaces as long as you use items intended for cleaning photographic lenses. The tissue and fluids used for eyeglasses may contain unwanted ingredients such as anti-fogging agents.

How do you know if it’s dust on the sensor?

Bob Atkins

The defining characteristic of dust on the sensor is that the smaller the aperture you shoot at, the more visible it becomes. At large apertures dust spots blur out and often are very hard to see. At f/29 they will show up as definite and well defined dark spots. The way to see just how much junk there is on the sensor is to take an image of a uniform target with the lens defocused and set to its minimum aperture. You can use the blue sky or a sheet of white paper or a wall as your target. You don’t need to hold the camera still so long exposures don’t matter. You’re simply trying to uniformly illuminate the sensor.

Bob Atkins

To really see all the debris on the sensor you can enhance the image contrast by stretching the histogram. If you do this be prepared to see all sorts of junk on the sensor, as well as image vignetting and even possibly some sensor non-uniformity, so don’t worry if the image looks reallybad. The important thing to remember in this case is that if you don’t see it in an actual image, then it doesn’t really matter if it’s there. You don’t do extreme histogram stretches or contrast enhancements with actual images. This is just as well, since it’s virtually impossible to remove all detectable marks when cleaning a sensor, and even if you did, after a few days (or maybe even minutes) of use, you’d start to see a new set of minute dust spots.

Bob Atkins

When cleaning a sensor your goal is to get an image which doesn’t show anything objectionable when shooting your uniform target at the minimum aperture you actually use and with no more contrast enhancement than you would be likely to use on real world images. Attempts at repeated and excessive cleaning to remove every last speck of dust seen in a histogram stretched image are far more likely to do more harm than good.

There’s an alternative way to detect dust on the sensor and that’s to use a loupe (magnifying glass) to directly see the dust particles. Magnification from 5x to 10x is enough to visualize the dust. There are loupes with built in illumination which makes this process easier (e.g. the VisibleDust Sensor Loupes). Of course the ultimate test is to make sure the actual image has no dust spots on it, but using a loupe can certainly be faster than taking images during the cleaning process to see if that last stubborn dust spot is still there!

So if you have spots on your images that you have confirmed are due to dust on the sensor, how do you clean it?

DSLR Sensor Cleaning Mode

Pretty much every DSLR has a mode for sensor cleaning in which the mirror is flipped up and the shutter held open. This then allows direct physical access to the sensor (or rather the filter which is over the sensor). The only thing to remember here is that it’s wise to have a fully charged battery when you do this. The last thing you want is for the battery to drain, the mirror to return and the shutter to close while you have something stuck inside the camera!

Blowing dust off the sensor

The first thing to try is blowing the dust off the sensor with a blower bulb. Don’t use compressed air or any of the “canned air” products. Too much air pressure can cause damage and the various forms of “canned air” can sometimes spit out liquid. A small blower bulb which you squeeze to get a puff of air is sufficient. Most of the time you’ll find it really doesn’t do a lot of good, but since it’s cheap and has essentially zero possibility of doing harm, it’s a good first step to try. You can find Inexpensive blower bulbs (e.g. the Giottos “Rocket Air Blaster”) or you can pay more for a high-tech version with filters and antistatic properties (e.g. the VisibleDust “zeeion”).

Brushing dust off the sensor

When you find that you still have dust on the sensor after trying the blower bulb, the next step is to try one of the various commercial brush systems which are designed for use on digital camera sensors. A brush can dislodge particles resistant to be air and it can also trap the dust particles and remove them from the camera. Of course you need a very clean brush (or it will deposit more on the sensor than it removes) and, if you believe the advertising, it doesn’t hurt to have a super high-technology brush using special materials and specially shaped brush fibers.

Visible Dust (www.visibledust.com) specializes in such high-tech cleaning appliances. Most use static charge and ionization in the cleaning process since dust is most easily moved around using electrostatic charges. The Visible Dust brush spins under battery power and this is said to both remove dust from the brush by centrifugal force and create a small static charge on the brush to attract now dust from the sensor. You can read the technical details on their website if you are interested in the science behind the products. As a scientist, I’d say their explanations make some sense, though I’m somewhat sceptical about how much better the high-tech devices are then “low-tech” blowers and brushes. Personally I still use “low-tech” products because (a) I’m cheap and (b) I have quite a bit of experience in cleaning of delicate optical systems. The advantage of the “high-tech” route is that you’re buying products designed for delicate cleaning work and from a manufacturer who can give technical support and who guarantees their product. The dedicated products may cost more than “generic” versions, but they are less likely to cause damage and may do a better job.

Wiping dust off the sensor

If the specs on the sensor are still there after a high tech brush cleaning of the sensor, the final “nuclear option” is to clean the sensor with tissue and a solvent. Again there are companies who specialize in providing materials designed for this task. One such company is PhotoSol (www.photosol.com) who have a line of solvents and tissues (Sensor Swabs) marketed under the “Eclipse” name. Again the advantage of dealing with a company which produces products designated for digital sensor cleaning is that you can get technical support from them and their products are guaranteed to cause no harm when used as specified. Cleanliness is paramount when using swabs and cleaning fluids. Use the swabs only once and use the minimum amount of solvent required to dampen the swab. Pressure is generally not needed (and may be counterproductive), so a gentle wipe across the sensor is the way to go. After one wipe check the sensor and only repeat if necessary. As I said earlier, there’s no point in trying to remove every last minute speck of dust. If nothing shows up in real images, the sensor is clean enough.

Personally, I use conventional lens tissue and methanol to clean my sensors, but again I have experience and I’m willing to take the risk. So far I’ve had no problems, but I’d recommend going the commercial product route to anyone who is at all nervous about sensor damage.

What’s the worst that can happen

The worst that can happen is that you scratch the sensor while attempting to clean it. If you are careful and you use professional cleaning tools this is highly unlikely. Scratching can occur if you get a small piece of grit on the tissue you use to wipe the sensor. Commercial products for sensor cleaning are made in clean rooms and are very unlikely to be contaminated. A typical book of lens tissues is certainly more likely to be contaminated. They are cheaper, but the risk of damage is higher. The sensor covering filters isn’t especially delicate, in fact it’s similar to the coated filters you’d use on a lens, but even so it can be scratched.

If you do scratch the sensor (or more accurately the front of the filter stack that covers the sensor), you’ll get a black line on every image and the filter over the sensor (or in some cases the whole sensor assembly) will have to be replaced. This is a job for the factory service center and will cost several hundred dollars for most cameras. This is clearly not desirable and for older digital SLRs it may not even make economic sense.

The commercial solution

If you’re really worried about damaging the sensor you can find service centers that will do it for you. Some camera manufacturers will do it for free (at least for a new camera), though of course for most users that means shipping the camera off and waiting a week or more for it to be returned (plus you’ll pay shipping costs). A number of camera stores and independent repair centers will also clean sensors with a cost somewhere in the $30-$50 range being typical. Some may do a good job, others not so good. In general, I’d recommend doing it yourself because it’s much faster, more convenient and in most cases cheaper. However, if you decide not to then commercial cleaning is available.

The software solution

Quite a few cameras have a software based “dust deletion” feature. These generally work by first taking a blank frame which the camera uses to record the position of any dust particles on the sensor. This information can then be used (normally during RAW processing) to automatically clone out dust spots on the image. If you’re stuck in the field without the chance to do a sensor cleaning and you know you have a problem, then using this software solution can save you a lot of work later manually cloning out each dust spot on each image.

Minimizing the need for sensor cleaning

The best way to clean the sensor is, of course, not to get it dirty in the first place! While it’s not really possible to totally eliminate sensor dust, there are some things you can do to minimize it.

Dust gets into the camera when you change lenses, so it’s wise to be cautious when changing lenses, especially in dusty conditions. You can change lenses quickly, with the camera pointing downwards for example. If you must change lenses in very dusty conditions, you can do so in a protected environment, such as inside your car rather than outside, or even inside a protective plastic bag. Another alternative if you know the conditions are going to be bad is to choose a wide to telephoto zoom, which may minimize the number of lens changes that you need.

Conclusion

I’d give two pieces of advice about sensor cleaning. First, don’t do it unless you really need to and if you do, apply the minimum amount of cleaning that’s required to get the results you want on real world images. Second, use products designed for use on digital sensors, even if they are more expensive than “generic” cleaning products. Cleaning a digital sensor really isn’t difficult and it’s something pretty much anyone can do. Eventually all DSLR sensors will need cleaning and it’s much more convenient (and cheaper in the long run) to do it yourself than having your camera cleaned by a repair shop. You may even do a better job too!

Beginner's Guide to Lighting Kits

by Gary Miller

One of the goals of working under artificial light is to empower ourselves to harness our knowledge and creativity to produce predetermined results. It could be working with one or two small speedlights or a few inexpensive fluorescents. It could also be lighting a complex fashion set with thousands of watt-seconds of strobes, softboxes, reflectors and spots. Once we start to understand that the beauty of artificial light is that it can be carefully controlled, our results will soon match our vision. And a lighting setup can be a simple three light setup or dozens of strobes, with different kinds of light modifiers. The key is learning how to control light—any kind. If some of these terms or concepts are unknown to you at this point, don’t worry. We’ll soon sort them out.

What Are Your Needs and Budget?

In order to begin using controlled lighting, we have to decide what kind of lights we need. The number of photographic lighting choices today is mind-boggling. Tungsten. Small flashes. Big power packs. Monolights. HMI’s. Fluorescent. The number of offerings is enough to confuse even the most levelheaded photographer. So how do we make sense of all this?

The first question you should ask yourself is for what purpose are you going to use the lights? Still photography only, or video and stills? Portraits only? Large scenes like the inside of buildings or factories? Do you want to be completely mobile, away from electrical power (in which case you will need battery-powered strobes) or is it okay to be tied to the wall outlets?

If you are going to be doing both video and stills, you will need some kind of steady lighting. This can be simple tungsten lighting, or the more modern quartz variety or the latest fluorescent or LED technology. Obviously you can’t use flash for video but of course you can use constant lighting for stills. So the choice is easy and there are lots of individual lights as well as kits from which to choose.

Creative Light Softbox

A portrait setup is much simpler than a setup capable of interiors, industrial or more advanced needs. With portraits you can get by with one or two lights if necessary. Three or four are ideal. For interiors or location work it’s not uncommon for pros to use upwards of a dozen strobes.

Another consideration is cost. Very few photographers just starting with artificial light know what the future portends enough to plop down $10,000 or more for a professional photo lighting setup. A lot of this equipment is costly, so thinking ahead and planning carefully will prevent a lot of grief in the long run. Ideally, you should be able to add equipment over the coming years and not render anything useless. To wit, I have Norman 200b portable strobes that are 25 years old and work as well as they did leaving the factory. Talk about workhorses!

This guide is for beginners getting started with studio lighting. I go over various lighting kits on the market for photographers who want to start experimenting with studio lighting but don’t want to drop a lot of money on a kit. Future articles will go over more advanced and pro lighting kits.

On-Camera Flash versus Off-Camera Flash

So let’s take a look at some possible scenarios and then examine the most popular and well-proven photographic lighting equipment available. More than likely, you are at the stage where you feel limited by the camera’s built in flash. When subjects are near the camera, the background is pitch black. Things that are too close are wildly overexposed. People’s features, like high cheekbones, seem flat and lifeless. You wish you could just grab the flash and re-position it.

Creative Light Umbrella

Well, you have the right idea but, as you know, the only way to do that is to buy a separate, shoe-mount flash. The ones made by your camera manufacturer are the best choice, especially when you’re looking for all the bells and whistles available today like TTL flash metering, remote power adjusting, extra battery options, etc. Most of them are in the $300-$500 range such as the Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash, $415 (review), or Nikon SB-900 AF Speedlight, $460 (review). If your budget is tight, however, there are a number of low-cost substitutes that will work just fine. The Vivitar 285HV is an excellent low-cost solution ($110), for example. So is the Sunpack PZ42XC. Make sure you get a photo “eye” (a remote sync device that triggers the second or more flashes) or radio sync system. We’ll discuss all this and more in detail further down in this article.

Video or Stills? Or both?

First question: stills, video or both? If your answer is both (lucky you, probably the proud owner of one of the new HDSLR’s) you need steady lighting, often called hot lighting. It’s traditionally been called hot lighting because the bulbs were, well, hot. Think about a 1,000-watt tungsten halogen bulb. Or a 2,000-watt floodlight. Even putting your hand near a 100-watt household bulb gives you an idea of how light equals heat with conventional tungsten lighting. This is okay if you have a big, air-conditioned studio in which to work but most of us can’t afford that luxury. Our studio is often a corner of the dining room or maybe an extra room off the garage. In a little space, the heat given off by tungsten light can be unbearable. However, thanks to fluorescent and LED technology, lights have been developed that achieve the same level of light output without cooking you and your subjects.

Additionally, today’s DSLR’s are also much better performers with less light. This means instead of 1,000 watts of light you can do nicely with 300. It also means you can spend proportionately more money on accessories like light modifiers, stands, clamps, backgrounds, etc., etc.

lowel_dv44_kit

Basic Lighting Kits: Hot Lights

My first choice would be a small lighting kit from Lowel Light Mfg. They have an extraordinary number of choices, from small camera-mounted LED lights to multiple large fluorescents as well as their well-known tungsten kits. Lowel has always been an innovator in hot lighting, and now they have continued that tradition in cold lighting as well. Prices start at $100-$300 for individual lights and $500 and above for complete kits. A three-light kit is minimum (main light, fill and hair, plus optional background light) for those interesting in making the best-looking imagery (or footage). The Lowel Rifa is a great general purpose light system, and their Tota is probably the best-known workhorse along with the DP Omni. My favorite is the DV Creator 44 Kit, which runs about $1100.00 but has everything you need—a very extensive list of heads, stands, frames, gels, etc. all packed into a handy case.

Other manufacturers with a good reputation for hot lights are Arri, Chimera, Cool-Lux, Dedolight, Elinchrome, Hensel, JTL, Norman, Interfit, Photoflex, Smith-Victor and Wescott. All are available from our partner Adorama. Many of them offer kits similar to Lowel, with a wide variety of models and power to choose from.

An excellent low-cost cool fluorescent light kit is available from Adorama for about $160. It comes complete with light stands, two kinds of umbrellas (shoot-through and silver reflective), standard reflector, bulbs and case. This is really a great choice for the beginner in terms of cost and value.

Smith Victor, a manufacturer known for high-quality but moderately priced gear, offers a great three-softbox kit including both tungsten as well as fluorescent bulbs, light stands, case and an excellent guide to lighting. About $600.

An important note for safety’s sake: Hot lights are, indeed, hot. Be careful! Don’t let flammable fabrics or other items get close to the lights. When you use diffusion material makes sure it’s of sufficient distance from the bulb so there is no smoke or burning smell. Wear gloves when handling accessories like barn doors than can get really hot during a shooting session. And always use sand bags or other weights to securely anchor light stands if there is at all the possibility of them tipping over.

Usually the heat alone is enough to encourage you to practice safe handling, but it’s a serious concern, so please take heed. Better safe than sorry. It’s also an excellent idea to have a fire extinguisher nearby. In fact, it’s mandatory in a commercial studio so do as the pros do.

How Many Lights? What Accessories?

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Whether it’s constant or strobe lighting, the basic kit should include one broad source of light, with an umbrella or softbox, a fill light (can be a shoot-through umbrella), a hair light with snoot or grid, and a general-purpose light for the background. You can start with one light (the main) and add to your collection over time as your budget allows.

The umbrella or soft box spreads the light over a wider source, giving softer shadows and a “wrap around” effect that is flattering and very elegant looking. The fill light can be used with another umbrella or can simply be reflected off a simple piece of white Foamcore™ at a 45-degree angle to the subject. The hair light and background light can be smaller units; the only requirement is that the hair light should have a snoot (cone that keeps stray light from hitting other areas) or grid (waffle-like device that does the same thing). The background light might have a filter frame so you can experiment with different colored filters or gels.

Remember that tungsten light, typically quartz, is 3200 degrees Kelvin. So if you are shooting a scene with daylight pouring in a window, you either have to cover the window with an orange gel, called a CTO, or cover the lights with a blue gel, called CTB. Which solution you use is usually a factor of which light is stronger. A large living room with half a dozen light fixtures is easier to match by gelling the window, for example. A good source for a lot of hot light accessories is The SetShop or MarkerTek).

Before leaving hot lights, we should note that there are two really inexpensive solutions to hot lights. One is at your local hardware store: aluminum reflectors with a 500-watt household tungsten bulb, $15 to $20. The other is through dealers like Adorama that now offer inexpensive fluorescent lighting fixtures and kits with the Flashpoint brand, starting at $35 for one light to $100 for a fixture that holds four bulbs. Cool! (Literally.)

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So our beginner’s tungsten or fluorescent lighting kit consists of:

• One main light
• One silver reflector umbrella
• One fill light (can be used reflecting into a white card)
• A hair light (a small light with a snoot or grid)
• A background light (any small fixture light will do)
• Four light stands
• Extension cords (hardware store)
• Gaffers tape
• Seamless paper background
• Extra bulbs (depends on fixture)
• Cloth work gloves if you are using hot tungsten lights (hardware store)
• An assortment of colored gels and diffusion material
• Clothespins for holding the gels

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Small Speedlight Set

If you are only shooting stills, you can build your electronic flash system the same way. Start with one small extra speedlight, get some experience with it, then add a larger umbrella or softbox unit. Then add another small speedlight with grid for the hair light and finally a fourth light for background. You may find that you don’t need the hair and background lights for your particular style of photography. The four-light system is the traditional setup for studio or executive portraits, but you may find your interest lies in shooting babies or little children, where a two-light umbrella or softbox setup is enough.

A good small speedlight set includes:

• Three (3) small speedlights (see On-Camera Flash vs. Off-Camera Flash)
• Three (3) lightweight stands
• Two small accessory shoe adapters (to hold umbrellas)
• One small (30-40 inch) silver reflector umbrella
• One small (20-30 inch) shoot-through umbrella
• Two small clamps
• Assorted filters
• Two (2) photo eye triggers
• One roll Gaffers tape

Note: Instead of umbrellas you can use some of the products that HonlPhoto offers. They have an amazing number of innovative small speedlight accessories that are inexpensive and very effective, such as small reflectors, gobos (to shield the light), filters and grids (to focus the light).

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Monolights & Monolight Kits

Up one step from the shoe-mounted flash is a monolight, sometimes called a monobloc. This is a small AC-powered strobe that is completely self-contained. Reflector, power supply, umbrella and light stand holder and AC power cord are all built into one unit. They range in size from the proverbial loaf of bread to ones that are about the size of a toaster oven. The advantages are (in most cases): built-in modeling light, no need for a separate power generator, built-in photo eye or in some cases radio sync slave, adjustable power output, and ease of using light modifiers like umbrellas. They also provide some degree of redundancy for backup, that is if you have three or four of them and one fails, you’re usually not completely out of luck. If you’re using a generator-based system and the unit goes south, you need to have at least one for backup or be able to rent one nearby.

One of my favorites in the monobloc category is the compact Bowens Gemini 200. These are very well-made, reasonably priced ($375.00) professional quality units that have withstood the test of time over the years. Today, they can also be powered by a battery unit (about $600) which is essential for location solution. For the budding photographer who will eventually add to his or her kit when moving up, these are an excellent investment.

For budget-minded beginners, Adorama has a line of inexpensive monolites, starting at less than $100 for the Flashpoint-II. For $300 plus the cost of accessories like umbrellas and light stands, you have yourself a very inexpensive studio setup. You can even use them on location with the addition of their $125 battery pack.

Wescott offers a value-driven three monolight setup for less than $600, including three 150 watt-second monolights, stands, umbrellas, sync cord and floor positioning mat (a great learning tool) plus a complete lighting course on DVD

So, here’s our monolight kit:

• Three monolights, at least 150 watt-seconds each
• Three light stands
• Two smalll clamps
• One roll Gaffers tape
• One barn door
• One reflector kit
• One snoot
• Extension cords (hardware store)

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The other alternative for low-cost beginner outfits is used equipment. If you check the classified section of Photo.net, you will often see an old Norman 200b or Bowens monolite or similar strobes for a very reasonable price. If they have been used continuously or at least from time to time, you’re more assured of getting a working unit. Older units that have been sitting around for many years often have dried up capacitors. Still, if the price is right, having them repaired can be a relatively inexpensive investment.

Radio Slaves

We mentioned the challenge of synchronizing all your lights. That is, they all have to go off at the same time. There are four ways of doing this. First is hard wiring, that is, all the flash units are plugged together by sync cords and extensions. This is the least desirable because it is prone to failure due to broken wires or other seemingly invisible factors. Even a slight bit of humidity and one or more of the strobes will undoubtedly fail to fire—and that will be the best expression on your subject’s face, of course. You also have the problem of running cables around doors and walls. So let’s look at the other, wireless, options.

The least expensive way is with small light-sensitive triggers that plug into the sync cord connection of your speedlight. Wein was a pioneer in this field and continue to dominate it with new and improved products every day. They range in price from $15 for the basic 100-foot range model to $100 for a super-sensitive 1000-foot model. There are a number of other manufacturers making light-sensitive triggers, including Adorama, Morris, Metz, Nikon, Norman, Photogenic, Sunpack and Speedotron. All work pretty well indoors, but outdoors in bright sunlight is another matter. Some of them will tolerate a certain amount of sunlight; others will not tolerate any at all.

The same problem is with infrared triggers. They work fine as long as you have indoor line-of-sight conditions but outdoors they can be problematic. The most popular and reliable device is the radio slave. These range in price from very cheap ones you find on eBay to the professional’s favorite—the PocketWizard. In addition to triggering the strobes, PW’s can trigger the camera as well. At the Kentucky Derby or Olympics it’s not uncommon to see 20 or 30 cameras set up for remote firing, all dressed up with PocketWizards.

A couple of companies—PocketWizard, Radiopopper, Cactus, Quantum—are now making radio slaves that work in the TTL mode. That is, you set your camera and strobe to TTL (through-the-lens) and the flash units puts out only enough light based on what you have set the camera’s ISO. As an example, I took my Canon DSLR out in the sunlight, put two Canon 430EX II’s on light stands, put a PW MiniTT1 on the camera and a PW FlexTT5 on each strobe, and started shooting. Perfectly exposed images right off the bat! Totally amazing, foolproof and flexible. You can also shoot in what’s called the high-speed sync mode, enabling f/2.8 shots outdoors in bright sunlight to put the background beautifully out of focus. What’s nice about the PocketWizard system is that any upgrades are easily incorporated via downloaded firmware.

Conclusion

There are lights and kits for every budget and purpose. Don’t let the myth that lighting is expensive keep you from enjoying this critical aspect of photography. Start small and expand as you get the feel of it. However you acquire your lights, the most important advice is to use them. Practice setting up one, two or more lights. Bounce them off umbrellas, foam core reflector boards, or the walls and ceilings. Practice using hair and background lights, or mixing artificial light with daylight. You’ll soon find that even the simplest lighting setups can produce dramatic images.

Look at photographs made with artificial light and analyze how they were lit. What are the qualities of the light (soft, hard, edge, etc.)? How does the lighting convey the mood and intent of the photograph? In a portrait, what does lighting contribute to the viewer’s perception of the subject?

Don’t just put up your lights one way and then after your session take them down and put them away. Experiment. Use a slow shutter speed to let the background burn in. Use motion to add intrigue. Put the lights up high, down low, to the right and to the left. The only way you will maximize your investment in lighting gear is to practice using it.