Cara Memilih Lampu Flash/blitz Studio Photo

*. Pilihlah lampu baik merk dan tipe nya berdasarkan KEPERLUAN pemotretan yang sering anda lakukan. Karena biasanya yang telah menjadi pertimbangan utama adalah biaya, menurut saya pribadi adalah kurang tepat.

Artinya begini, memiliki seperangkat lampu studio tentunya adalah hasil dari sebuah pemikiran dan skala prioritas. Kenapa kok anda harus beli lampu? Ini jawabannya harus anda temukan yang paling tepat agar investasi terhadap lampu juga tidak sia-sia. Misalkan begini : anda adalah fotografer yang lebih sering memotret di studio yang kecil, dan untuk pemotretan yang sederhana (pas foto, foto keluarga sederhana, dll). Untuk keperluan itu anda mungkin cukup membeli studio flash 2 unit dengan power 250ws, dan asesoris standar (payung atau softbox), karena apabila anda membeli power yang lebih besar (500 atau bahkan 1000) mungkin tidak akan terpakai maksimal jika tidak di tempat luas dll.    

Lain halnya bila anda memerlukan space yang lebih jauh/lebar antara lampu dan subyek foto. Power flash perlu yang lebih besar, dan asesoris pun juga perlu yang berbeda. Jangan sampai anda sudah terlanjur membeli lampu paket murah yang ternyata ber-power kecil yang notabene kemampuannya kurang untuk keperluan yang ini. Dan terus berlanjut ke lampu-lampu yang bisa mengakomodir berbagai keperluan pemotretan yang lebih ekstrem, di mana anda akan memerlukan lampu yang telah mempunyai daya tahan tinggi, tahan panas, tahan banting dan berkemampuan tinggi. Di sini lah letaknya perbedaan mencolok antara lampu kelas 1, kelas 2 dan kelas 3. Bukan berarti lampu kelas 1 selalu bagus dan lampu kelas 3 selalu underdog, tidak.

Kembali lagi tinggal bagaimana anda akan menggunakannya dalam kegiatan anda berfotografi. Untuk pemakaian biasa, lampu kelas 3, asalkan anda tidak menuntut yang ini-itu, sudah cukup untuk bisa berkreasi dalam menghasilkan foto yang bagus. Tapi sebaliknya, bila anda memaksanya untuk bekerja secara forsir maka pada satu saat bukan tidak mungkin akan rusak lebih cepat. Lampu kelas 1 pun bukan merupakan investasi yang tepat apabila keperluan dan gaya anda memotret biasa-biasa saja, atau pangsa pasar yang anda tuju bukan yang terlalu menuntut. Biaya besar pembelian lampu kelas 1 bisa dialihkan untuk membeli peralatan yang lain.

*. Setelah anda menentukan lampu flash yang cocok untuk keperluan Foto Portrait seperti apa yang ingin anda miliki, maka pertimbangan selanjutnya adalah BERAPA dana yang anda sediakan. Urusan uang memang krusial, tapi cobalah untuk menempatkan faktor ini di urutan kedua setelah menentukan jenis lampu yang akan anda miliki. Karena jika kita tempatkan di urutan pertama, biasanya pertimbangannya hanya berdasarkan nilai ekonomis, faktor teknisnya (seperti saya sebut di atas) jadi terabaikan.

Setelah anda pilih tipe lampu seperti apa yang anda perlukan, anda sesuaikan dengan budget yang anda miliki, setelah itu baru anda pilih merk apa yang sesuai budget tersebut. Tentunya pemilihan merk mana yang dipilih sudah melalui pertimbangan yang mana yang layanan purna jualnya (servis, replacement, dll) meyakinkan.

From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.

In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.

The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.

The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.

The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.

It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.

Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.

That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.

Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.

The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.

THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”

The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.

Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.

That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.

Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.