Ernie's lighting Emporium & photo Diary

Do-It-Yourself 4 bulb Spiderlight

2011-04-19T11:02:00.005-05:00

For a while I've been looking for a continuous lighting setup I could use on children that wouldn't generate a lot of heat and wasn't as expensive as the Spiderlight that Westcott sells.

And I found it indirectly....

A good place to look for cheap stuff is Amazon.com now because eBay has gotten to where it's hard to find good deals on stuff. Doing a search for a brolly box (which is a softbox built on an umbrella frame, they are usually fairly cheap and very quick and easy to use.) brought me to a page for a place called Cowboy studio. They were selling 2 33inch brolly boxes for $26.. pretty good deal if you ask me.

And down lower on the page in the Customers who bought this also bought area I saw an adapter for Edison screw in bulbs.... You screw the adapter into one light socket and it has 4 more attached to it... and right beside it Anzo daylight balanced CFT bulbs and then one of those little flash slave holders with an umbrella mount!

Instant 4 bulb Spiderlight.... for $60.... cool and I got a pair of the brolly boxes as well. :)

You can get the bulbs at Home Depot or Lowes cheaper, but they aren't quite as powerful as the ones I got, but judging by the test I've done, the color of them is about the same.

The CFT's or Compact Florescent Tubes 5500K daylight balanced bulbs are a little blueish green. But otherwise, pretty close to white light.. have a look below.

I also checked the power output for grins and giggles at 10 foot from the source my sekonic L358 measured the exposure at ISO 200 and 1/60th of a second at...

f:1.4 and 0 tenths without the brolly box.

f:1.4 and 3 tenths with the brolly box.... the silver reflective surface on the back of the brolly gives you about 1/3rd a stop more light out the front.

If you will notice the shots with the brolly box are slightly brighter, about 1/3rd a stop than without. The silver lining of the box reflects back light that would otherwise be wasted.

2010.10.16

2010-10-16T20:22:00.002-05:00

Location work with Lacey around Paragould today. She's great, I love spending time with her.

2010.09.25

2010-09-25T21:08:00.003-05:00

Some photos from Lacey's senior session today. :)

2010.09.11

2010-09-11T22:16:00.004-05:00

I did an belly dancing shoot down in Little Rock today at an old school and then at Alibaba Hookahcafe. Lots of fun. :)

I asked Mitzi to join us at the school, where I thought it would be cool to do some fashion sets. :)

2010.07.27

2010-07-27T23:25:00.001-05:00

Kort with The Wall.....

2010.07.25

2010-07-25T12:39:00.003-05:00

I was shown and extremely cool place to shoot photos today, the only problem is that you pretty much need a 4 wheeler to get to it.

2010.06.07

2010-07-06T23:06:00.003-05:00

Jessica and I spent some time in the studio tonight playing around tonight. :)

2010.07.05

2010-07-05T23:24:00.003-05:00

Where I parked my truck while shooting with Nikki today... On our way back I thought it looked cool so I shot a photo of it with my infrared camera. :)

2010.06.13

2010-06-13T19:11:00.004-05:00

I shot these about a month ago, but I misplaced the pocket camera that I used to shoot them, but I just found it a little while ago... so here they are. :)

Some shots of Hannah getting ready for our last shoot. I thought they were kinda fun. :)

2010.06.12

2010-06-12T23:22:00.001-05:00

The blondetourage... Mallory, Chasity and Tracy.. :)

2010.06.10

2010-06-10T18:53:00.001-05:00

I got a new car today. :) A 2009 CR-V

2010.05.29

2010-05-29T22:35:00.003-05:00

Fried some chicken for lunch today... then went to the range to break in my new gun. It's a .22 that feels a lot like my 9mm. That's the reason I got it, it's cheaper to shoot than my 9mm but the handling and trigger are very close. :)

2010.05.27

2010-05-27T21:48:00.002-05:00

I had a nice little photoshoot with Erica and Lacie tonight... but jeez am I tired now. :)

2010.05.09

2010-05-10T19:15:00.003-05:00

This is my cousin's husband Scott, they taught me and my dad how to play a dominoes game called train dominoes. I have no idea what the train has to do with it.... :) But it is fun.

2010.04.29

2010-04-29T16:45:00.004-05:00

OK, I didn't shoot this one... and it wasn't shot today. :) But this is Anna and I at the Communications Honors Banquet a couple weeks ago. She's graduating and thankfully she'll be back next year as a grad student, I hate this time of year so many friends graduate and I never see them again except through facebook photos..
This is Wendy Monday afternoon sneaking a nap in the Herald editors office...

I shot these today, my boss Dr. Gambill at work and then at play. ;)

2010.04.22

2010-04-22T19:44:00.002-05:00

Shot a group photo today.....
And this is Molly, Wendy and Anna... the troublemakers from the Herald.... ;)

2010.04.21

2010-04-21T17:20:00.003-05:00

These are Sara Krimm's feet....

And this is Sara Krimm. :)

Just something I saw while walking down the hall and thought was funny. :)

2010.04.19

2010-04-19T23:37:00.004-05:00

Here are some photos from Preston's senior session. It was a very good session and I think we got some great photos. So Rachel, we were messing with you about it not going well. :)

2010.03.24

2010-03-24T23:30:00.003-05:00

Hannah and I went to the Goodwill store today and found some cool things to shoot in. One is this dress, which I have named the river monster dress.... It needed a bit of altering so I took care of it tonight. :)

2010.03.23

2010-03-23T21:57:00.006-05:00

I went to the Dixon Museum and then the Botanical Gardens in Memphis today with Sarah and had a great time. :)

2010.03.21

2010-03-21T19:25:00.000-05:00

Kaylee and Nate... :)

2010.03.19

2010-03-19T22:18:00.003-05:00

OK, I've been ignoring you... I know, bad blogger right.... Oh well. Anyway, I'm going to try and be somewhat more regular...

Tyrone, the very cool UPS guy delivered a box today with the promo cards I ordered from overnight prints. They had a great sale, so I stocked up. 12 different cards, 100 each, with a different photo on each side. So I don't think I'll be running out anytime soon. :)

2009.12.26

2009-12-26T19:22:00.002-06:00

There's not much I hate more than working on brakes.... It's a total pain in the ass.

2009.12.24

2009-12-24T22:36:00.003-06:00

It's been raining a lot here... and I was rather disturbed to see water squirting up out of sewer covers...... How much longer before it starts shooting up out of toilets? :(

And this is a very deep and fairly fast moving storm drain ditch, the water is at least 16 feet above where it normally should be. 1 cubic foot of water is a little over 7 gallons........ lots of water down there.

2009.12.12

2009-12-12T23:29:00.002-06:00

I shot some basketball tonight.... We lost to Missouri State 75-64. It was kind of a boring game too.

2009.12.06

2009-12-07T00:13:00.004-06:00

Alli came to visit this weekend, we shot a lot of different stuff and had some fun. :)

2009.12.04

2009-12-04T23:54:00.002-06:00

Final projects were due in my News Editing class today. I shot some photos for grins and giggles. This is Calvin, working on his, he said he hadn't slept in 36 hours.... I believe it, he had a very zombie look about him. :) I'm not altogether sure he was awake when he was standing with his eyes open...

2009.11.07

2009-11-10T19:13:00.002-06:00

Photos from ASU's 21-18 loss to Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday.

2009-11-06

2009-11-07T12:15:00.003-06:00

I hung out with some friends last night for a little cookout. It was very relaxing. :)

2009.11.02

2009-11-03T22:14:00.001-06:00

The food of the gods...... :)

2009.10.30

2009-11-03T22:13:00.002-06:00

Paige Hannahs Montana. :)

2009.10.13

2009-10-13T16:21:00.003-05:00

Here's a shot from the job I shot for a local school district this morning.

I realize I'm not putting much up here, but I just don't have the time to deal with this blog on anything but an occasional basis right now. I'll try to do better but I don't think it will help much. :)

2009.09.26

2009-09-26T23:39:00.003-05:00

I shot portraits this morning and football this evening... it's been a long day. :)

2009.09.25

2009-09-25T22:51:00.002-05:00

mmmmmmmm yummy. :)

2009.09.16

2009-09-25T22:46:00.004-05:00

These are a week or so old, but I forgot to upload them.

Kandi and Anna decided to use Lysol wipes on my office window to stop the spread of Swine Flu in my office.

2009.09.23

2009-09-23T23:54:00.002-05:00

I had a senior shoot tonight that didn't happen the way I wanted it too. I was really hopeing the sky would clear enough for a sunset. So we rescheduled for Saturday morning.

2009.08.30

2009-08-30T19:05:00.003-05:00

ASU soccer lost today to LaTech by one goal. I didn't shoot terribly well today, but it was a great day for shooting sports outside. :)

2009.08.29

2009-08-29T17:19:00.003-05:00

My dad and I went to the range Friday evening (yesterday) to shoot the gun I had just gotten him. It's a Ruger .22/45 Mark III. It's a very nice gun, and we got a pretty good deal on it.

lighting 29

2009-08-29T12:47:00.002-05:00

Lighting 28

2009-08-23T23:18:00.002-05:00

Lighting 27

2009-08-21T12:54:00.001-05:00

Jeez, I'm having to learn video

2009-08-21T12:38:00.003-05:00

So this is the first video I've ever shot and edited together.... the page seems to be cutting it off, so you may have to view it on youtube to see the right hand side of it.

2009.08.19

2009-08-19T16:02:00.002-05:00

I shot photos for the A Team today. I don't think this is the location that they are going to use for their poster so I thought I'd share it here. :)

2009.08.13

2009-08-13T23:15:00.004-05:00

This is Jess, I did some portfolio work for her today. :)

2009.08.08

2009-08-09T00:32:00.004-05:00

I had a shoot tonight with Alli... and I think we had an excellent session. Since I haven't been putting much up here I thought I'd put a bunch in. :)

2009.07.27

2009-07-27T15:24:00.003-05:00

Trying to get back into doing some random photos for fun. I haven't been feeling great lately and not been in a particularly creative frame of mind.... Maybe this will help. :)

:) The floor was cold.....

Lighting 26

2009-07-23T22:48:00.004-05:00

I realize it's been a while since I added anything, but I just haven't been in the mood. :)

2009.07.11

2009-07-11T22:18:00.003-05:00

I had a cool session with Meredith today. it was lots of fun... :)

Lighting 25

2009-07-09T22:33:00.003-05:00

2009.07.07

2009-07-07T23:34:00.003-05:00

This is Lindsay, she's a good friend of mine. She came by tonight to do some photos.

2009.07.05

2009-07-05T22:53:00.004-05:00

A guest asked me today about my bathroom reading material. I guess this makes me a photo nerd. The how-to's are just about the right length to read one or two of them.... :)

Lighting 24

2009-07-05T00:41:00.001-05:00

2009.06.29

2009-06-29T23:45:00.003-05:00

hmmmm, one of my external hard drives quit working on me tonight. It's backed up... but I don't really want to mess with rebuilding it all though.

2009.06.28

2009-06-29T00:11:00.005-05:00

So I had a shoot with Misty today. It was a lot of fun and I couldn't make up my mind which ones to post, so here are a butt load. :)

2009.06.26

2009-06-26T22:54:00.003-05:00

I went to get a haircut today and ran into Kandy, who is one of my students. She was getting her hair dyed red. :)

And I know I haven't been putting much up here.... I've been spending most of my time dealing with the class I'm taking. Hopefully I'll be able to spend more time on this after I get out of the class.

2009.06.19

2009-06-20T00:15:00.004-05:00

I had a shoot with Hannah tonight, it was lots of fun. :)

Lighting 23

2009-06-19T12:40:00.003-05:00

2009.06.18

2009-06-19T00:24:00.003-05:00

I shot photos for Kendy's family today at Craighead park. Kendy is a former student, friend and a very good photographer. We horsed around a little while the kid wranglers hustled up the correct kid.

2009.06.17

2009-06-18T00:12:00.003-05:00

These guys were in a engineering class studying materials. That thing they are looking at was a solid rod of steel until they pulled it apart with a cool machine.

2009.06.13

2009-06-13T20:34:00.003-05:00

This is my dad... I shot this for my sock suspenders competition with Jon Cooper.... who told me today that he needs an extension because his model was homely. I hope she looks better than my dad. :)

So what do you people think? Should I accept his late assignment? I mean that's what deadlines are for right?

I lit it with 3 SB-800's bounced out of a silver umbrellas triggered with pocket wizards. :)

this is very cool styling and fashion wise..

2009-06-13T17:10:00.001-05:00

and the music isn't bad either.

2009.06.11

2009-06-11T22:20:00.003-05:00

It's been an good and interesting day. I went to lunch with Leah today to talk about logos and branding, and so I could pay her for her work on the logo she made for me. We ended up talking about creativity, inspiration and art and time passed much faster than I expected it too.

Then once I got back to my office I found a message from Paige complaining about being stuck in her style. Which started a nice long discussion about style. Any day spent talking that much about photography is a good day to me. :) BTW, here is Paige's blog and her rant about style. :)

2009.06.09

2009-06-09T23:44:00.003-05:00

Welcome to my desk.... :)

I went to a seminar for Search Engine Optimization this afternoon. I didn't learn enough about what I wanted to know, but that's not really their fault I guess.

hahahaha

2009-06-09T17:13:00.001-05:00

This is a riot.... And so true....

2009.06.07

2009-06-07T22:55:00.002-05:00

I had a shoot with Dani today, got some cool photos. I got to play around a bit and experiment which is something I haven't had the opportunity to do in a while. :)

BTW, I saw this website grading thing so I ran this blog through it. It tells me that there are AT LEAST 1,200 people subscribed to this blog by RSS. That's got to be bull. Anyway, I would hazard a guess that no more than 30 different people have commented here.

Lighting 22

2009-06-05T17:47:00.002-05:00

2009.06.03

2009-06-03T20:09:00.003-05:00

ASU Journalism student Sara Hulett hops a cow pie after the press conference with Mike Rowe at the ASU farm today. :)

2009.06.02

2009-06-02T16:41:00.002-05:00

I can't believe how much of a pain in the butt AP Style is........

2009.06.01

2009-06-01T22:53:00.003-05:00

I shot a photo of Dr. Gambill today for our fist day of class. I need to come up with a news tip for Thursday.... :)

2009.05.31

2009-05-31T23:28:00.001-05:00

Working on Kortney's photos didn't drive me to drinking, but I had one anyway. :)

2009.05.29

2009-05-29T23:35:00.004-05:00

This is Jess, she contacted me about doing photos for her, but she needed to do them in central Arkansas since she is visiting from out of state and flew in. I was able to accommodate her this afternoon because I was coming to Conway already to do photos of Kortney. :)

2009.05.27

2009-05-28T09:42:00.003-05:00

I forgot to upload this last night, I guess I'm getting out of the habit.

I went looking for photos yesterday, did some long exposure on a tripod using available light.

2009.05.24

2009-05-24T23:27:00.003-05:00

It's been raining today, but I went to the range anyway. I guess the light rain kept the others away, because I had the place to myself. Which was nice. :) Unfortunately I didn't shoot that well, there's my target below. :(

2009.05.23

2009-05-23T23:59:00.002-05:00

What's left of those ribs.....

Lighting 21

2009-05-23T12:56:00.001-05:00

2009.05.22

2009-05-22T21:55:00.003-05:00

I cut up a couple sides of ribs tonight so they can marinade over night. Smells good. :)

2009.05.18

2009-05-18T23:47:00.003-05:00

looks like the sunlight we've had for the last couple days is starting to kill the fungus growing on the stump behind my house... I'm just glad the sun has been out... :)

2009.05.17

2009-05-17T22:13:00.003-05:00

I had a maternity session with Mandy at her body shop today. When she gets really big we are going to do some more traditional shots.

Lighting 20

2009-05-16T10:05:00.002-05:00

2009.05.15

2009-05-16T09:55:00.003-05:00

I forgot to upload this last night... but this is Dave, assistant director of printing services at ASU chowing down at the ASU Staff Picnic Friday afternoon. The food was pretty good but I didn't win any of the stuff I bid on in the silent auction. ;)

2009.05.12

2009-05-12T16:08:00.003-05:00

You know the sinus headache is bad when you skip the Ibuprofen and go strait for the BC powders. One of these days I'm going to get enough balls to try snorting this stuff and see if that doesn't make the headache go away quicker.

If you can stand it, the quickest way I've found is to pour it under your tongue a let it hit the blood from there. But you have a horrible taste in your mouth the rest of the day. :)

Lighting 19

2009-05-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

Simple fill light with off camera flash.

2009.05.10

2009-05-10T22:51:00.001-05:00

Some shots from my session with Alli today. :)

2009.05.09

2009-05-09T23:21:00.005-05:00

I shot some fashion sets with Hannah today. I was so hoping that it would rain, but it didn't.... I've wanted to do photos of a model in the rain for years.... If I can shoot sports in the rain, I'm pretty sure I can shoot a model in the rain without killing a camera. ;)

Some of these I really intended to be B&W when I shot them, but I like them in color also.... :)

It was an excellent day... And I'm shooting with Alli tomorrow. :)

2009.05.07

2009-05-07T23:22:00.004-05:00

So I went to the Paragould Art Walk this evening and it was fairly interesting. I ran into several friends... this is Brooksie, we went to high school together so I know how old she is..... but I'd better not say cause she might find this. :) She's a real estate agent, she's a partner with someone else in Image Realty.

This is Graycen's table in the Art Walk, she's one of my students and if you've been reading here a while you've seen other photos of her. She's graduating Saturday, so you probably won't see many more photos of her. BTW, that's her mom there on the right. It was very nice meeting her. :)

I think these ladies are the red hat society, I did a walk by shooting on them as they were posing for some other lady.

2009.05.05

2009-05-06T09:32:00.003-05:00

Opps, I forgot to upload this last night. This is a setup/test shot of Anna for an ad shoot.

2009.05.02

2009-05-02T23:59:00.002-05:00

The Get Grubby Ultimate Frisbee Tournament was today... I wrote about it on my Photosafari Blog if you want to see more photos and read some more about it. :) Anyway, these are photos of some of my friends who participated. That's Bill up above. He's the owner of BA Burritos in Jonesboro.

This is Eric, he owns NowCreative in Fayetteville.

And this is Wendy, Eric's wife and co-conspirator. I don't see any of them enough.

2009.05.01

2009-05-02T00:00:00.002-05:00

My shredder has about had it. It's getting to the point where the right side of it doesn't chew so well. Maybe it needs to go to the dentist or something.

I watched "The Spirit" tonight. It had lots of promise, but it fell apart in the end..... bummer.

Lighting 18

2009-05-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

2009.04.28

2009-04-28T23:14:00.002-05:00

I did photos for Dr. Gloria Gibson's farewell reception today. She's great, I'll miss her around campus.

2009.04.27

2009-04-28T23:13:00.002-05:00

A lonely kiss.... I forgot to upload it last night.... :)

Lighting 17

2009-04-27T15:20:00.002-05:00

2009.04.26

2009-04-26T22:27:00.003-05:00

Samantha and Carson at Craighead Forrest Park today. It was a good session and it relaxed me a lot.

2009.04.25

2009-04-25T22:49:00.004-05:00

This is Kara, she and her husband Byron got married in Jamaica a little while ago, but they had a reception here for friends and family. :)

2009.04.24

2009-04-24T23:27:00.003-05:00

Remember a while back when I told you I got a free battery for my Ranger when I got it back from repair? Well, there was something rattling around in it so I sent it back and I decided to send their battery back with it. Well, my Ranger arrived back from repair again today, with a different, newer battery in it.... at least it doesn't say REPAIR on the side of it.

I thought it was new at first look at it, but then I noticed a few small scratches and it looked like the screws that hold it together have been used and slightly stripped out. So I guess it's a refurb. In other words they ignored the note I attached about it being their battery and then when it came time to ship it back they couldn't fine mine.... just the ones marked repair.... :)

I did the christian thing... I returned it, they gave it back I guess. So I guess I have 3 batteries again. :)

2009.04.23

2009-04-23T21:27:00.004-05:00

OK, so here's the group photo from today's CommLaw class. Our teacher Holly asked me to do a group photo which was absolutely no problem because for our skit about Street View in our presentation I set my camera on a tripod and used pocket wizards to shoot photos while the "driver" was interviewed. Anyway, the presentation went very well. I'm very happy with it.

If you'd like to see a video slide show I made from the photos I made during the skit go here.

I tried uploading this video to blogger, but it was taking forever so I uploaded it to Facebook. :)

2009.04.21

2009-04-21T22:29:00.002-05:00

The freedom chorus performed for us this morning in Comm Law class. They sang their presentation. It was pretty good. :)

2009.04.20

2009-04-20T20:14:00.004-05:00

I shot this going across campus today... I kinda like it. :)

I haven't really had the time to do much here lately... and I need to put up a couple new lighting diagrams I guess. Oh well.

2009.04.16

2009-04-16T23:58:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I played dominoes, looked like fun to.

2009.04.14

2009-04-16T23:56:00.001-05:00

Paige telling us it good. :)

I know, it's a couple days late... I forgot it though.... :)