professional photography | PrairieFire Productions

Cool Tools: onOne’s DSLR Remote Pro

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Sep 6, 2009 in Quick Focus | 2 comments

A “marriage made in heaven”? Absolutely? Brangelina? No, I can’t get into that stuff. To me, the new SuperCouple of the Day was formed when my iPhone 3GS bonded with my Nikon D3. Two of my favorite tools joined in the pursuit of happiness and perfection. The matchmaker? onOne...

Q: I’m confused. What are the differences between “hot lights” and “strobes”?

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Sep 1, 2009 in Featured Articles | 5 comments

Some form of this question has come up in almost every lighting seminar we’ve taught. With the convergence of still and motion photography — with the morphing of DSLR’s into de facto video cameras, this question is quite timely. As I’ve mentioned before, I learned my lighting on film...

Review:The Hot Shoe Diaries by Joe McNally

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Aug 18, 2009 in Quick Focus | 4 comments

Ostensibly, The Hot Shoe Diaries, is a “how to” book that teaches us to get “big light from small flashes” — a primer on the use of all things “speedlight”. And, it is. But, it is a lot more. This book is a travel guide that takes us down the path of the creation and...

Review: 3 Dimensional Contrast: Principles of Lighting for the Digital Age

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Aug 7, 2009 in Quick Focus | 0 comments

To many of us, “contrast” is an afterthought — a slider in Photoshop or a setting in our cameras that has something to do with the relationship between the dark and light areas in our images. We use the slider without vision or purpose. To Dean Collins, controlling and manipulating contrast...

Commentary: Photography in a Funky Economy

Posted by Steve Herzberg on Apr 19, 2009 in Quick Focus | 11 comments

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, “These are the best of times, these are the worst of times.” It’s all a matter of perspective. Looking at the bright side, the tools we have available for use as professional photographers have never been better or more competitively priced. Looking at the dark side, as...