The Digital Negative

Favorite Series: Hensel Porty Premium

The Hensel Porty Premium is a portable studio lighting power pack. This baby supplies a whopping 1200 watt/second of asymmetric power in a compact, water resistant pack. Add to that a built-in wireless receiver and quick change battery cartridge and you are set to bring high quality studio lights anywhere you can imagine. Want to do a photo shoot on the beach, or in the middle of the desert? This is the answer. No more worrying about if there will be power available at your location or having to lug around a generator.

A portable power pack has always been one of my objects-of-desire and I just recently had an opportunity to finally pick one up at a great deal (and I mean a really great deal). You wouldn't think a battery pack would be all that expensive. But these things retail for an amazing $2,600 without any lights OR A CHARGER! That's right, it doesn't come with a charger. That will set you back another $350 plus $500-1000 for each light. Definitely not for the faint of heart. But when your photography requires powerful studio lights in remote locations, the porty is the answer. There are other cheaper solutions out there like pure sine-wave inverters strapped to car batteries, but I prefer a unit that won't blow up when something goes wrong. Never a good thing to burn down a clients home or melt the fur off their dog. And who wants to carry around a car battery?

Favorite Series: Nikon D3

Since the day my high school photography teacher showed me his Nikon F4, I knew I was going to own a bunch of Nikons. Even before high school, my dad had a Nikon FG. He wouldn't let me touch it, but I still would admire it from afar and dream about the day I could spin the dials and click the buttons. How ironic that the FG ended up on my desk as a paperweight. I never got to use it because it sat so long in my dad's closest that the shutter froze shut. I never got to take a single picture with it.

Even today, I am not only a Nikon shooter, but I am totally addicted with killer gear. I like buttons, dials, switches, lights, metal alloy bodies and let's not forget little LCD screens. What gadget is complete without a cool LCD screen?

Enter the Nikon D3. Hands down the most incredible digital camera ever produced. A 12.1 megapixel, 9 frames a second, ultra low noise picture taking machine that must have come from the mythical god of light capture. Take one look at the 3", high resolution VGA display on the back of the camera and you are hooked. This is one of those gadgets that dreams are made of.

I'm not going to go off on some crazy review about the camera. Reviews on the D3 are a dime a dozen on the web. I'm just going to say that this camera produces the most incredible RAW images I have ever processed. They have a quality to them that I have never seen before, and I've seen a lot of image files. If you are in the market for a professional level camera and you have a lot of money to spend (the body with no lens is $5K), this is the camera to get.

The Nikon D3 if my favorite camera ever. Period. Well done Nikon.

Canon Prograf iPF5000

I've been keeping an eye on the inkjet industry looking for something to replace my Epson 7600. While I love the prints from my Epson, I find myself rarely needing the full 24" width that the 7600 can handle and I really would rather have the ability to load a stack of cut paper instead of using a roll (or manually feeding a single sheet at a time). Canon just recently released the new Prograf iPF5000 but finding any useful reviews has been difficult. Finally today I came across a new review of the printer from Red River Paper and I think I may be staying with Epson. Before I make my decision I will need to see some side-by-side results with own images and some more reviews.

I'm sure Michael at The Luminous Landscape will have a review of the Canon iPF5000 sometime in the future. That is one review that will hold a lot of merit for me. Hurry up Michael!!