More About Photo Stuff

Yesterday, I talked about blocking out that pesky daylight, so that you can get consistent results. Here's a little more information about the rest of my photo "stuff."

I could use softboxes, but I actually kind of prefer umbrellas for strobes. They're a little more portable, for if you are ever going to leave your house and work on location. I bought this set from Cowboy Studio and it's working really well for me.

The little squarish thing you see in the second photo is an optical flash trigger. This is not a fancy one. It's a cheap one ($12). In a darkened room, it works very, very well. In a bright room or outdoors - it may not. 

You can  buy really nice radio triggers, which will work every. single. time. I love them. They cost about $250 for a set and you need at least two, one for the camera and one for each flash you want to use. If you're in the market for those, I used PocketWizards for my entire photojournalism career and they were always wonderful. But, I'm not doing that sort of work anymore or trying to light up entire stadiums, so the price tag is keeping me away. 

Some flash units have triggers built in. These can be either radio or optical and they are usually pretty good. My newest flash has radio capability, but my camera's too told to use it! So, I'm totally fine with my $12 fix to keep everything working together. 

Keeping It Together

I really do need a boxcutter at book signings. I keep the boxes sealed until I get there, because balancing a tower of book boxes isn't easy - and making a tower of open book boxes isn't possible!

When I just threw my box cutter into my teaching box, I always wasted a lot of time hunting around for it. So, I made a little holster for it out of two old file folders. :) Hopefully I remember to put it in there when I'm finished, and I don't just lose it, again. 

Another Reason to Own A Good Circular Needle

I knit socks on dpns. I like them. I find them fast and I can really crank down on them for a tight gauge. But, I always have a good circular needle in my bag. Why? I have lots of reasons, but one is that it's the ideal stitch holder. Whenever I put stitches on hold, even for the instep on a sock, I use my circular needle. That way, when I'm working back and forth for the heel flap, I don't encounter the ends of my dpns, ready to stab me like a stainless steel porcupine. It also seems to stretch the stitches out less, so I have less of a giant gap where my instep meets my heel flap. 

I can work faster and happier. What more do you want from your knitting tools?

Fast Friday Review: Creative Options Tapered Tote

The nice people at Creative Options sent me a few things to try - one is the tapered tote.

I, generally, love tiny project bags that I can stuff into other bags and take with me, but this one is also a nice size. The sides are stiff, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but I sometimes "lose" small tools like row counters and stitch markers in floppy bags. The included zippered pouch is see-through, which is nice for if you're hunting around for things. It's velcroed into the bag, so if you take it out, you might want to cover the velcro there with something else - otherwise it could snag your knitting!

I love sticking my dpn sets into the side elastics. When casting on/off, I know exactly where they are. (If I don't have something like that, I sometimes resort to sticking needles in my hair, which is awesome until I forget that I have done it and am convinced that I have lost yet another pair of needles.)

It's definitely large enough for a sock project or two and seems fine for hats, cowls, and maybe even a scarf if you're tidy about it. A baby sweater would also fit nicely. The little handles are cute and are just the right size for hanging the project off of your arm if you need to carry it that way. 

Overall: A. I recommend it! The only way it could be even better is if the velcro were switched so that the "sticky" side of the velcro were on the pouch. That way, when you took the pouch out, you would only have the soft side of the velcro there and a much lower chance of snags.

Why You Want A Kitchen Scale

I have a small kitchen scale at home. I use it to measure yarn, fiber, and (now that we're gluten free at home) ingredients for baking.

I feel it's important to have one, as a designer, because I use it to see how much of that 100-gram skein of sock yarn I REALLY used. I can then do some math and see how many sizes are possible with one skein.

Now that I have one, I can't see how I went without it. It's even better if you use it to help manage your stash on Ravelry. If you check out my stash page for the yarn above, you'll see that I have about 360 yards left of this particular yarn. In Ravelry, you can plug in the percentage you have of a skein of yarn (in this case, 80%), and it figures out the leftover yardage for you.

Why does this matter? 360 yards isn't a lot of sock yarn. But, I can use the Pattern Browser and Advanced Search for patterns on Ravelry to see that over 6,000 patterns use less than 300 yards of this type of yarn. So, instead of stash diving, I can "pattern dive" for my next project.

Incidentally, if someone out there searches stashes for this particular yarn and discovers that I have just enough to save their bacon and let them finish a project, then I can be their personal hero. That is always a good thing, and wouldn't be possible without a precise way to measure my leftover yarn.

The Light Went Out

I went to use my trusty Nikon SB-28 for some photos and...nothing. Turns out that the Keys to the Castle shoot was its last hurrah.

Bad lighting, courtesy of not having the right setup.

I've seen flashes stop working, and this one is definitely kaput. It served me well for over ten years, which impressed me until I realized I'm still using a Vivitar flash that my mom bought when she was in college.

I ordered a new one, an SB-700. Let's hope it lasts half as long!