Video information about Nikon CLS

Since it took me a bit to understand how the Nikon CLS system worked, I think it could be of some use for those willing to master this powerful tool to watch these videos

The "Commander" use is for me the #1 choice both when I'm indoor and outdoor, especially when using the SB600 or the SB800, very reliable and powerful units. You can trigger your flashes either with the pop up flash of your Nikon or using the SU800 commander. The important thing is that the receiver, which normally is on the lower right end of your flash, can actually see the light from the pop up or receive the infrared signal from the SU800.

These videos are not new, they've been out for a while, as well as the CLS, but they are still of much use.

Vision Mongers by David duChemin, a truly good reading

There's an intersting book I recently red and that I feel like reccomending to anyone either simply interested in photography or seriously determined into turning it into his business.

This is not a know-how book. Nothing to do with exposure, composition or alike. Is a book that helps you putting together a plan to make a living in this business. Is about motivations, dedication, strenght, marketing and general ideas that will sure help the reader desing his own path (or giving up)

I enjoyed the reading, duChemin is a goor writer and is quite fun too, but most of all, even though the subject could be boring, it never gets to that point, is always alive, sparkling and uttely interesting.

Vision Mongers by David duChemin

Jig colors? Do you really care?

Lately, I have developed an idea about colours, shape and size of the jigs that is pretty close to the one a Neanderthal could have thought of. Yet, again and again, there are examples that keep me thinking that maybe, we should stop for a second and weight our established theories. Should we eventually put in rewind and get rid of some truths that maybe, are not so truthful?

During my latest trip to the Tropics, the Andamans to be precise, everybody spent a lot of time jigging. Different places, different species, depths and tides. Every one worked with his favourite jig, included myself, and I picked a few. The reason for every lure I choose was different, yet most of them were simple, rusted, or paintless pieces of lead with zero appeal whatsoever. My main goal was to test, once again, what would make the difference and what would not.

I thought about my crappy jigs as soulless particles of metal, puppets maybe, and that I was their Mangiafuoco, the puppeteer. Without me, they had no chance to come back to life and draw the attention of any kind of predator. I worked hard for the money, fishing was quite good on day one to three but after that the tide changed and the action slowed down big time. So it was the moment to show all the tricks and turn a dead situation into some lively action.

Well, it was a tough deal, those animals don’t like very much any kind of slow retrieve (apart from GTs), and hence keeping a faster pace kind of tired me down. Thus, my crippled jigs, with no eyes, no paint and no sex appeal made some serious damage, even when the other guys, with good looking stuff would see no action.

I sell lures, have an internet shop and stock many different kind of lures with several different colours. None of them catch MORE fish, not a single one is miraculous yet there’s a jig that will catch more fish that any other: is the one that we will drop most of the time and that suits our style better.

Jigging the Andaman

I have just come back from the Andaman and I must say that it has been a very surprising trip. I knew that Akshay and Darran had been working hard on the jigging side, but until I could figure out myself I didn’t know what to really expect.

I must admit that the results have been quite spectacular, not only in term of fish landed or size, but in the map that these two guys have been able to design in the last two years. During our week we fished areas that are probably untouched as far as jigging is concerned, and the long trip to Invisible Bank, once the Mecca for the vertical style, is no longer necessary.


In fact we visited the Bank on a beautiful day, blessed with a flat calm sea and fast run, and we landed a massive amount of fish. Thus, the majority was GT and apart from one decent animal, most of them were medium to small size. It was also more difficult to find the right places, the area is indeed very big and scouting the places is not something that can be done on a daily basis, and we hopped on the biggest school of fish by chance, moving from one place to another.

So the right places are not too far away from the dock, well at least as far as Andaman is concerned, and the marks on the plotter are growing by the day. We landed a very interesting variety of fish, from GT to Doggies, Snappers, Ajs, you name it. And the funny thing is that in certain areas you can have two guys tossing poppers and one jigging and they all will catch fish.

I have to say bravo to my Indian friends, they worked hard to develop a brand new fishery, and it will sure payback in then future giving more opportunities to their costumers. Check their web at: Game Fishing India

Haven't been around for a while. My apologies

Sorry guys, this has been quite a long winter and I found myself working on various and different projects. For example I have changed the look of www.caranx.net my fishing web page. Had to learn how to work with WordPress and suit the design to my needs. I also changed the www.nicolazingarelli.com site, and turned it into a photography only blog, in spanish.

This blog will be the sole english "speaking" I will take care of, and it will include both my photografic efforts and fishing stuff. Still have quite some things to bring forward but once I'm kind of settled down I will re-activate my writings here.
Thanks for your patience, I hope this break is for good and we'll catch up here again soon
ciao

Nicola

Back to the Tropics

Off I go my friends, back to the tropics. It is going to be a humid and sweaty week, sounds awful yet is great, I missed it big time.

4 guys plus myself, fishing unknown waters, with not a single clue about what we can expect even though, expectations, as usual, are pretty high. Fishbase made us droll with all the sport fish available, and if only 50% of what they say is true and those species are available in decent numbers we're set.

This is an exploratory trip, probably will be mostly dedicated to jigging but we will carry popping gear too, just in case. We have 5 days to scout the waters around the island, not much time, yet enough to get an idea.

I hope I will come back with some good pictures and a decent story for the blog, keep posted !

Lightroom 2.6.

Since my Photoshop copy doesn't want to work properly, yesterday I downloaded the trial version of Lightroom 2.6. My friend Jorge, the director of the photo magazine I write for,  always insist on how good this program is for my kind of editing so I decided to give it a better try. This is my second attempt to use this software, I have already tried a couple of years ago but couldn't get used to the interface, hence I skipped it.

Yesterday I shoot some product images in the studio so I had quite some editing to do, and eventually, I found Lightroom quite improved, easier to use and probably, because it was my second try anyway, everything went smoother. I have also received some instructions from my friend so haven't had those difficult times in exporting the images, and handling them properly.

Funny enough, the biggest problem I had came when I had to resize the image you will see here. I have moved the original folder from the desk to my main disk and Lightroom couldn't find its way to it. Once I put the folder back to where it was before everything worked again.

I do have to put a lot of hours on the software to understand all its tricks and potential, but so far so good...

Good Intentions

We are very close to the end of this dreadful year, and full of hopes for the forthcoming 2010. For some funny reasons when a year ends we expect the new one to be much more favourable, like there was a net separation between December 31^st and January 1^st. A borderline. An abyss with no links whatsoever.

Amazing how the human being is. This is like believing in superstitions (I’m Italian, I do). Is like thinking that a politician is different from another. A democrat is better than a republican or vice versa. We’re like little kids, that’s what we are.

Anyway, after such philosophical introduction, and among us, absolutely out of context in a fishing, travel and photography blog, I’d like to spit my good intentions for the so much awaited 2010, and these are fishing, travelling and photography related.

Good intention for fishing: run away from the tackle fashion. Become a better fisherman, not a tackle expert. Use what I have and concentrate on the technique, not the latest lure. Develop my instinct and make good use of my experience.

Good intention for travelling: Travel less, travel better. Discover new places, take time for fishing, photography and actually know the place better. The people. The culture. Become a better traveller.

Good intention for photography: Know my camera better. Is what I got and I have to get the best out of it. Study the lights and improve my lighting, again with the tools I have. Think out of the box and vice versa, you never know. Work out “new” compositions. Move a step forward.

It IS going to be an amazing year.

Ciao

Nicola

Drew Gardner - An "Epic" photographer

I admire photographers who are good with lights. I also admire photographers who are creative. Hence, I guess, I have at least a couple of very good reasons to admire this guy, who not only knows how to light a scene, but is also able to create such an amazing image with this incredible atmosphere. His name is Drew Gardner. He's got a DVD available, check is web site www.thedarkart.com to find where is available. This video is a trailer of the above mentioned DVD, Epic Location Photography

The Dark Session

The use of artificial light is, as the followers of this blog know, very high on my list. I got absolutely hooked by the use of strobes, speed lights and studio light, especially after becoming a follower of the Strobist community myself.

The problem is to find models, I mean, patient people who don’t mind being around with an obsessed guy who take strange pictures of them. Randomly, a member of the family gets involved in the task. Poor soul, he knows when we start but never knows when it all finish. This time it was my nephew’s time. 18 years old, rock music lover and with a light beard showing in his chin, perfectly matched with a dark hooded sweater.

We did the session inside a house in construction. We started close to sunset and finished when it was dark and I had to work my way through things with a portable lamp. Three lights: two Metz and one Nikon SB800. Elinchrom Skyport triggers. Manfrotto Nano Stands, translucent umbrella and a Honlphoto grid. These are my tools, together with the Nikon D90 and the 18-200VR lens.

We worked around different kind of situations, mostly based around the idea of the dark warrior or something alike. One light was taking care of the background, both from a bare Metz 48 or through a translucent umbrella. The kicker light, that for me somehow is the main light, or at least the one that takes care of giving the image “that feeling”, is on camera left coming from a SB800 gelled blue or red with a Honlphoto grid. On camera right we have a Metz 58 through a translucent umbrella.

The result is mixed. There’s so much to learn about lights and their fine tuning that I can’t expect major improvement overnight, yet a couple of these images make me happy and proud. The most disappointing is probably the third one, where the light coming from the umbrella is too strong and kills a bit of the atmosphere.

If you need any info about the setup don’t hesitate to contact me.