Olympus Four-Thirds: FL-50 TTL Flash, FP-1 Battery Grip 4-C Cells to recharge FL-50 Flash within 2 seconds, E-1 with Battery Grip, 14-54 mm f2.8-3.5 lens, 50-200 mm f2.8-3.5 len, 7-14 mm f4 lens, 14-150 mm lens, Olympus E-500 with 14-45mm lens, down front: Olympus OM Adapter to use OM 35mm Lenses, Olympus 1.4 Teleconverter with a 1 stop aperture factor. Click on photo for a larger version of this photo.

NORMAN LIGHT MODIFIERS

I'm a big fan of Normal Lighting equipment! Although many photographers brag about their skills of capturing light in nature and such, we all realize much of it is simply luck. That is why studio lighting is a rush to me - because all the lighting is totally under the photographer's control. I am bent on shaping light and the different specular or diffused fall of the light depending on the reflector surface or the difussion of the softbox. I am fascinated with very small light modifiers rather than relying on softboxes to get the results I desire. Using a snoot or a grid on a reflector or a barn door give so much more control in limiting and shaping the light. Above is a slidshow of my light modifiers - yeah I buy a lot of those and pretty much collect and experiement with all the various modifiers available.

Photographed below are the ML-600R & TWO ML-400R. These monolights include built-in pocket wizard receivers. The softboxes collapse in an umbrella like fashion and don't require any assembly to collapse and setup. The light stands are 13' bogen stackers that collapse and latch together for portability.

I shoot cover and fitness models in my studio. I use the E-1 Camera with the Firewire connector, a 33' cable (maximum firewire spec length) connected to a 20" iMac computer with a second monitor. As each photograph is shot with the camera, it immediately appears in the Olympus Studio software. It displays on the iMac with all the technical data that I need such as histogram and all camera settings visible to me. At the same tim e, the image is rotated on the second display which faces the model giving them an immediate feedback of the image that was just photographed. I shoot RAW files with all model photography and later indivdually process the RAW files using Olympus Studio and final retouching in Adobe Photoshop. This workflow with the immediate feedback to the models helps me achieve my goals in posture, expression and artistry with them making the best use of their time and mine.

In my x-sport photography, I use the E-500 with it's huge 2.5" hypercrystal display with the 7-14mm UltraWide Lens. As much of this is shot in bright sunlight I require the use of a fill flash to diminish harsh shadows or backlighting on the performers and the FL-50 flash is great for this. The limitation to such a flash is that it recharges far too slow taking as long as 6 to 7 seconds to fully recover from a complete discharge. The FP-1 flash grip contains 4 C-Cell batteries which make that FL-50 Flash recouperate it's full charge in an instant allowing me to fire away at will to capture the instant of the finest sport tricks.

I love Olympus' color and see it as very different from other camera makers. In addition to my personal likes of the results is the incredible design of four-thirds. This is a four x three aspect to the sensor and also is a specific sensor size optimally designed for digital photography. This is hoped to be a new standard for digital interchangeable lenses and bodies as now Panasonic, Leica, Sigma and Olympus have all released products that adhere to this new standard. I never liked the 35mm based body and lens just cropped to use a digital sensor at a 1.5 ratio or something like that. I realize that the current market trends may not agree with my high hopes for four thirds, but time will tell and I hope that it becomes the next professional digital format standard.