If you’re craving the short recycle time of a flash powered by a Quantum Turbo Battery, but don’t have $400+ to spend, you’re in luck. SP Systems, a budget studio lighting manufacturer has a high-voltage battery pack for their AC/DC “Lancerlight” line. The SP Studio Systems Battery Pack with Charger is only around $125 and is compatible with Quantum Turbo cables. That means for $125, you can have 300 volts of light-generating power jacked directly into your Nikon SB, Vivitar 285, or any other flash with a high voltage port (most higher-end flashes have one and an associated Turbo cable).

The SP pack is larger than a Turbo 2×2, but it has the added advantage of using a Panasonic-style sealed lead acid battery pack (you know, the big camcorder batteries from the 80s)… they’re both cheap and easily available. It’s very easy to swap a new one in, even in the field.

Disclosure: If you click the link above, I get a small referral fee from Amazon.

Verdict: Looks nice. Made like crap.

I’ll admit it, I was trying to do Arca-QR on a budget. What a waste of time. I ordered two of these from B&H because they were significantly cheaper than the alternatives and they came with plates (not totally useful plates, but plates nonetheless). Well, the first time I was tightening down the clamp after mounting it to my monopod, the knob snapped off. Prolly a fluke, but the knob is designed very very badly, it has a thin tubular section that basically takes all the stress from the knob. DUMB. In any case, I’m sending this and the one that’s not defective back to B&H (if they’ll take the defective one back) because I can’t really tolerate this knob snapping off when I need it most (like when trying to RELEASE my camera).

I’ve since ordered two Really Right Stuff B2 Pro clamps…

I’ve had my hands on the Photoshop CS3 Beta for about 48 hours now and I have to say I’m impressed. First off, the app is VERY fast on my MacBook Pro. It’s worlds better than CS2 running Rosetta (obviously), and it’s amazing how much I adapted to the slower speed since making the Intel plunge.

The other thing I really like is the feature that will probably be having long-time Photochoppers bitching and moaning about until CS4 is the new interface. Because, Sally, it is different.

Most obvious thing… the tool palette is now one row by default. You can easily switch this back tho.

Docks are the biggest change though. All of the palettes are now held inside of Macromedia-esque docks. You can have as many of these docks as you want, but the real power of the interface is when you keep related palettes (Layers, History, etc.) in on dock. Then you can hide and show the docks easily when you need access to the items inside of them. By default, there are two docks visible in the CS3 interface, one open and one collapsed. The default-open dock holds the old defaultly-shown palettes like Layers, History, Navigator, etc. The other one is collapsed to a row of representative icons and contains Character, Brushes and a bunch of other stuff. In my short use of the beta, I’ve found this makes a MUCH cleaner use of my 17″ MacBook’s screen with less palette litter and easier access to the tools I need. And I can create a different dock layout for when I have the MacBook docked to my 30″ screen.

Like I said, some will hate it… but if you roll with the punches and actually use the new interface, I think most will find it just as much of an improvement as I did. I can’t wait for Illustrator and InDesign CS3 now.

I put a large number of additional pics of our trip to Italy up on Flickr in no particular order.

Enjoy.

So, a guy I do some backup photog work for just called and asked me to play second-shooter for a wedding this weekend. Being generally quite greedy and loving to beef up the ol’ portfolio I accepted. Hey, it’s several hundred bucks for a few hours of my time. Basement project be damned.

I’m also shooting our CEO’s family Tuesday (if the weather isn’t as crizzappy as it seems to look like it’s gonna be).

Clients are good.

Ya know, I think sometimes I need to just delve into the photography thing full time. Not sure if I’m ready for the “own your own business” world though. We’ll see.

I just threw a whole metric asston of older photos up on Flickr.

Check it out.

Well, I’m back to Nikon again after being away since 2000 or so… and it feels GOOOOOD.

I’ve just finished my first month with the Nikon D2x 12.4-megapixel professional body and I must say, Nikon’s got a winner here.

It’s noisier than my 20Ds at higher ISOs, but the level of detail from the sensor is just astounding. Noise can be corrected.

So far, I’m learning it’s really demanding on CompactFlash cards (each RAW file is around 20MB) and lenses (it really shows the flaws on crappy glass). Thankfully, I took the opportunity to rebuild as a Nikon shooter to get the best glass I could afford. I ended up with the 17-55/2.8 AF-S, 70-200/2.8 AF-S VR, 10.5mm Fisheye, 50mm… all from Nikon. I also picked up my first piece of big glass, a Sigma 300mm f/2.8 APO that I snagged off of eBay for a song.

Here’s an updated list of my current camera and imaging gear .

Well, after a bunch of drama and an amazingly cool wedding, I’m back in Denver.

For those of you who didn’t know, I flew out to Hartford, CT to attend and photograph a friend’s wedding in Guilford, VT.

Who would’ve guessed that United could get our bags stuck behind the door they jammed on the rear of the airplane. Doesn’t anyone design a second door into the baggage compartments? These are the questions you ask as you’re told you’re going to Philly and your luggage is sticking around Denver for a few more hours.

So, I got there at about 11pm that night (should have been about 5pm). My luggage arrived about 5:30pm the next night.

But all-in-all it was a great trip and a very cool wedding.

Oh, and I hate United.