MamaMonkey

It worked great!!  Thanks, Damien!!! 

The prices change on these things all the time!!!  lol  Basically go with the 3rd xps tower from the left when you click the dell link, second from the left is eh, okay too...As for a monitor, I just got the one I'm using 2 years ago, so I have to wait a bit before getting a new one of those ? Thanks for all your  help!!!!

go ahead and give me both ends of the spectrum...the upgrade at 3 years and the no need to upgrade until 5+ years...

Is the $700 XPS tower a good buy for a new tower or should I look for something else?  I'd like to buy something that will last me more than 5 years   I believe you have said previously that I should be looking for something that has windows pro vs home?  I have a dell u2412m monitor if that helps.

Thanks!!!

Yes, but I can't leave the resolution field or the height field blank.  They default to 1...

Hi, I just upgraded to CC and clearly have no idea how to apply the crop tool to your wall guide tutorial (https://www.damiensymonds.net/2012/05/create-your-own-wall-guides.html)...Help, please!!  

12 hours ago, Brian said:

Didn't see that. So it can be dimmed. But it still doesn't have a diffuser and you really can't control the direction of the light. Of course, you can point the thing at something, it's just the level of control. It's like shooting with an umbrella, where you need a strip softbox with a grid on it. Or vise-versa.

Basically, it all depends on whanit you are shooting. If you are just looking for a light to play with, I'd say either is fine. If you are looking for softly-lit fuzzy-wuzzy sleeping baby photos, a ice light is NOT what you are after.

To answer your original question, which one out of the two? The Yongnuo 360. Just be sure to get a couple of battery packs and the AC charger, which are purchased separately.

It's just lifestyle shots in my own home that I'm after, long after the sun has gone down or long before it has come up...

Maybe I just need to buy a few regular old lamps.  Haha!!  I also have a speedlight that I could just leave mounted on a light stand.  It usually takes me a few minutes of figuring out what my power on the speedlight should be, thus I miss the shots...I have a nissin di866 professional and a canon 6d.  TTL on the flash does not work with my 6d and i hate the look of leaving the flash on my hotshoe.

thanks for your time!

2 hours ago, Brian said:

Will you be working with an assistant or will your camera be mounted on a tripod and you would trigger it remotely? What are you actually going to be photographing and where?

What I like about the YN360, it has a screw mount so you can mount it to a tripod, mono-pod, etc. What I don't like about the YN360, is you have pure LED light, there isn't a diffuser for it. That will make for some contrasty shadows. 

The Polaroid Brightsaber Pro has a built in Diffuser as well as a Tungsten Filter. What I don't like is no tripod mount and the batteries don't seem to last that long, so if you do go the Polaroid Route, actually BOTH routes, get the "complete package / buy all three" so you get the charger and extra batteries.

What I don't like for both is you can't control the light, it's all or nothing and it spills everywhere. It's also FULL POWER or nothing, it doesn't have a dimmer bulb. In addition, there isn't an option for a Barn Door Modifier, like for the actual Westcott IceLight, you'll have to rig something up yourself, which will involve Gaffers Tape at some point. LOL! 

Have you seen this video?

It says here http://yongnuousa.net/products/360-light-wand that the Luminance can be controlled, so doesn't that mean it can be dimmed?

so it's probably not going to be as slick as I was thinking   I was more looking for something I could whip out in a jiffy when the kids are playing or even as a soft light to use when they are sleeping...so no assistant and I will be holding the camera.  I love photographs of babies/toddlers sleeping in their cribs with light filtering in through the crib rails.  

Hello! I'm leaning towards buying some sort of ice light.  I'm wondering which one to buy?  I'm leaning towards the Polaroid Brightsaber or the Yongnuo YN360...there is also the DIY option, I guess ;P or others on amazon.  I'm wanting it for personal use, just photographing my kids.  Seems like a very portable/easy to use option...thoughts?  Thanks!!  

Excellent!!!!  Thank you so much!!!!!

Amazing!!!  Could the left hand side be lightened a tad?

Sounds good!  Thank you!!

Yes it looks good.  I think the print looks more vibrant but it's very close.  You made me paranoid, so I asked my husband how he felt about the test match too.  Do you feel I should up the exposure on this photo?

Just calibrated on Monday with a colormunki display.  It did have me turn my monitor brightness down to 20 to get the luminance in the zone (white luminance set to 100).  I followed your instructions, but it's possible I botched it.  I have a dell inspirion laptop tethered to a dell u2412m.  I chose white LED for technology type...

Hello!  I  have been trying to fix my backdrop with gradients by watching your tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqAl2NxoBc4) but I keep fudging it up.  Here is my SOOR, and what my image looks like with my gradient...Help please!!  

I checked the box.  I like having all my icons on my monitor rather than on the laptop monitor.  Thanks for the help!

Thanks!  Should I check the box next to "make this my main display" for the U22412M?

Hello, I have my dell inspiron laptop connected to my dell u2412m monitor.  Should I choose extend or duplicate in the control panel?  They are connected via 15-Pin Blue VGA cable.  Thanks!! 

Well...this is the only light fixture in the room... 

Hi Damien, we are moving soon and the only room I will have available to edit in has 2 windows.  One faces east and the other faces south.  Do you recommend I get some sort of black out curtains for the windows so I can calibrate and edit properly, even during daylight hours?

thanks!!

well...here is the owners manual off of dell http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/inspiron-17r-se-7720_owner's manual_en-us.pdf and I can't seem to find anything about the hdmi port in it   It more talks about how to remove stuff and put it back together.  I believe this is the graphics update, but since I use windows 7, do I even need it?  or should I be looking for some other update? http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=F0TMC&fileId=3126813903&osCode=W764&productCode=inspiron-17r-5720&languageCode=en&categoryId=VI

I'm working on finding something I can use to test the cord I bought off amazon, in case they sent me a bad one.  Thanks for all your help thus far!!!  

The blue vga works fine with the monitor and the laptop.  It's just a little fuzzy, which is why I ordered the hdmi to displayport cable from amazon.  For whatever reason I can't get that hdmi cable to work.  Definitely buying a tower for an upgrade, just can't do it for several months, so I'm trying to make the best with what I've got.

Yes, from the laptop.  The monitor tells me there is no signal coming from the laptop. How do I convince it there is?

On 5/16/2016 at 6:09 PM, Brian said:

You need to buy one of these cables:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004C9P9TM/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1463439844&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=hdmi+to+displayport

Remove the VGA cable, plug one end into the HDMI port (photo above) and the other end into the Display Port on the Dell U2412m.

On the bottom of the U2412m: Blue VGA - White DVI-D - DisplayPort.

After you get things hooked up, you need to adjust your resolution in Windows tall.  I tried changingt ao 1920 X 1200. Hopefully your laptop can go that high. If not, you'll need a new laptop.  

 

I went ahead and ordered the cable you recommended and my screen isn't detected at all.  It just goes to power saving mode.  I changed the setting to display port on the monitor and rebooted.  Suggestions?