First, just a quick word of thanks to Corey Barker for his incredibly creative blog post and bonus video yesterday. That video really turned a lot of people on (if you didn’t see it, scroll down to yesterday and check it out. It will get your creative juices flowing), and it got a lot of folks thinking about using Photoshop in new ways, which I think is cool. Now, onto the news:
- One of my readers, Bill Mitchell, dropped me a very helpful article about the new Nikon SB-900 Flashes and the challenge of fitting them in Justin Clamps, and some other off-camera hot shoe mounts. Here’s what he wrote:
“I just purchased some SB900’s and after a couple days shooting I thought you might like to know this. The Nikon SB900 does not fit many cold shoes like the Justin Clamp or Crane cold shoe. It does fit the Really Right Stuff cold shoe perfectly. And of course it fits the camera hot shoes.
After looking at it and trying on several shoes I thought it was because the body of the flash was lower to the flash shoe and most of the shoes it would not fit were plastic and had a thicker top lip than is on a camera hot shoe or the RRS cold shoe. Others on the web seem to think the shoe is bigger. I don’t think so; or if it is, it doesn’t affect the fit in a Nikon hot shoe.
So I took a Crane cold shoe (from B&H) for Nikon flashes and sanded down the top. And now the SB900 fits the shoe. Same for the Justin Clamp shoe. I started with coarse sand paper then to medium then to very fine and it worked great. If you do it just keep the shoe level (I lay the sand paper on a flat surface and work with the shoe) and only do enough to get the shoe to fit. Too much and you will weaken a plastic shoe. Be sure to finish with the very fine so the flash will slide on easy.
While I can’t guarantee this is the only solution, it worked for me. I’m sure that Bogen and other companies will modify their cold shoes to work in the future. I have been working to get the word out about this because it’s a problem for lots of photographers.”
Thanks for your research, and for sharing this with us, Bill. It’s much appreciated!
- Jeff Revell over at PhotoWalkPro.com did a really nice follow-up post to my tethered shooting follow-up post, where he showcases two new products for shooting tethered outdoors. Well, there goes another $110, cause now I’ve gotta get ’em both (please don’t tell my wife). Here’s the link.
- Landscape Legend Stephen Johnson is offering NAPP members 10% off on his upcoming 3-day Zion National Park workshop, coming up the week before Photoshop World. Zion is breathtaking, Stephen is one of the best in the business, and this is an incredible opportunity to shoot and learn in one of the most beautiful places in the country. Here’s the link for more info, and/or to sign up.
- If you’re going to Photoshop World; do yourself a favor—go and download Dave Cross’ free “Photoshop World Planner 2.0,” which is a very clever PDF that helps you choose which classes to attend on each day (Here’s the link). I used it last year to make sure I got to some classes myself, and it was absolutely invaluable. I highly recommend it for anyone coming to the show. And if you’re not coming—it’s not too late; here’s the link to Photoshop World.
- Worldwide PhotoWalk Update: Although we’ve closed the submission of new cities (because the walk is just nine days away), in the last few days we have released four new cities, so take a look at the city list to see if your city was added). By the way; we have over 5,600 photographers signed up for walks. Whoo Hooo! :)
- Here are the blogs that, if you haven’t been there in a few weeks, you definitely should drop by for a refresher:
- Also, I plan on doing a field report tomorrow on the Nikon D700 DSLR (I say I ‘plan’ on it, because I can’t swear that I’ll be able to get to it, but at least, it’s my plan).
Have a great Thursday everybody! See you tomorrow. :)
