Couple simple things and they make all the difference! First, a Sony USB 3.0 card reader.
Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s just a card reader. But it’s well built, and maxes out current UHS-ii class cards, including Sony’s 300MB/s monsters. I have paltry Lexar 1000x UHS-ii cards with a max read of about 150MB/s, but even then, offloading images to Lightroom is considerably quicker than connecting directly to camera. It’s well worth the few dollars spent for a good reader!
Secondly, the Seksonic L358 light meter.
This is amazing for nailing your flash exposure without messing around with settings. Set your flash output, put your ISO and shutter speed into the reader, and pop a test flash with it under your subject’s chin, or close to the main focal point on whatever static object you’re shooting. Instant aperture reading, instant perfect exposure. It does a whole host of other things too like ambient exposure reading in both aperture and shutter priority and integration with pocket wizard wireless to wirelessly trigger flashes to test. I grabbed mine from a friend at a pretty steep discount, and it’s been immediately useful in these blog photos. Check out that exposure, perfect, and that was first shot! I’m excited to try to get the averaging function to work – The meter will store up to 9 exposures in memory, and can average them to give you a good exposure when working with multiple flashes!
Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s just a card reader. But it’s well built, and maxes out current UHS-ii class cards, including Sony’s 300MB/s monsters. I have paltry Lexar 1000x UHS-ii cards with a max read of about 150MB/s, but even then, offloading images to Lightroom is considerably quicker than connecting directly to camera. It’s well worth the few dollars spent for a good reader!
Secondly, the Seksonic L358 light meter.
This is amazing for nailing your flash exposure without messing around with settings. Set your flash output, put your ISO and shutter speed into the reader, and pop a test flash with it under your subject’s chin, or close to the main focal point on whatever static object you’re shooting. Instant aperture reading, instant perfect exposure. It does a whole host of other things too like ambient exposure reading in both aperture and shutter priority and integration with pocket wizard wireless to wirelessly trigger flashes to test. I grabbed mine from a friend at a pretty steep discount, and it’s been immediately useful in these blog photos. Check out that exposure, perfect, and that was first shot! I’m excited to try to get the averaging function to work – The meter will store up to 9 exposures in memory, and can average them to give you a good exposure when working with multiple flashes!