This new Flexible Variable mode FV is available on the later Canon cameras like the Canon EOS M6 mk2 and the EOS R cameras

It offers tremendous flexibility in image shooting and can quickly be the only mode that you will ever use.

You are probably familiar with the usual set of exposure modes your camera offers. Many advanced amateurs and professionals use the Aperture Priority (Av), Shutter Priority (Tv), and Manual (M) modes as these offer the greatest degree of control depending on the situation at hand.

Program Auto (P), is preferred by some users as it allows them to concentrate only on exposure compensation, and let the camera choose the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. 

The mode that you choose, in any given situation, will depend on what things you want to control, and what things you want the camera to control.

For example, if aperture is the most important to you to select your depth of field, you might choose Aperture Priority (Av) and pick then your aperture, letting the camera choose the shutter speed for the correct exposure. You may choose Shutter priority (TV) if you want to set the amount of subject motion blur in your image and allow the camera to set the aperture for the correct exposure.

Optionally, you can also enable Auto ISO for any of the modes, or pick an ISO value yourself. 

When you first enter the Fv mode, as shown on the image above, all the values for the 4 controls are set in the AUTO mode. This is denoted also by the fact that they are underlined.

As soon as you depress the shutter button the values will change as shown below.

The values shown underlined are those selected by the camera. The orange wheel denotes that the EV control is able to adjusted by using the front control wheel. 

So in effect the camera is using the Program auto mode (P) with the shutter speed, aperture and ISO all in the AUTO mode.

Now if you wanted to set the aperture to create a specific depth of field look then you can move the orange icon until it is at the AV position and then adjust the aperture value as shown below.

The front control wheel now adjust the aperture value.

With a value of F8 selected you can now see that the underline has gone from that control. This indicates that the control is manually set.

When you enable the metering by half depressing the shutter button the other values will reflect the settings chosen by the camera.

It is possible to set all the controls to manual by selecting the control with the orange icon and then adjusting that value as shown below.

At any time all the controls can be returned to the AUTO value by pressing the down button (trash can icon) (up button on the R series).

The values are retained when switching modes and also when the camera is powered off and on again.

The usual 45 degree lighting versus axial lighting

To achieve the axial lighting it is usual to use some form of LED ring light. These attach to the lens thread using an adaptor flange.

The output of the light can normally controlled in steps from 1/128 power to full power.

To create the cross lighting I used a strip of led lights normally used for under counter lights, accent lights etc. Normally available on 5V and 12V versions. I used 5v for the convenience of using with USB power bank

Using the led light strip gives the desired cross lighting effect and the degree of contrast can be altered by using a black cardboard cylinder supported above the coins.

The final stage would be to import the image into your image editor and selecting the subject (using a suitable masking tool such as lasso, magnetic lasso, polygon mask or select subject etc) and then inverting the selection fill the background with black or any other suitable colour.

The effect is then complete.

Cross Polarisation Photography

This type of photography is useful for capturing studio images where specular reflections from the source lighting might appear on the subject being captured. It can also be used when copying canvas mounted paintings or photographs - particularly those behind glass frames.

Using easy to construct polarised light sources you can quickly try this technique out for your own studio shots.

The foam board is cut into two 7cms x 7 cms squares

In the centre of one board place the led light and draw around it. Using the craft knife then cut out the shape formed by the led light.

Set the circle cutter to 65mm and carefully cut the first circle which will be outer ring.

Set the cutter to give a 53mm diameter hole and using the same centre cut out the second block. It might be easier to cut halfway through and then turn over the board and cut the other side through.

Check the fits of the led light and the filter in the ring. Sandpaper can be used to relieve small amounts from the holes if necessary.

Glue the circular ring onto the square mount using a suitable glue (pva)

Mount the 52mm circular polariser filter into the mount.

The images on the left are the ones taken without the polarised light source. The ones on the right are taken with the polarised light sources and the CPL filter on the camera lens.

External Electret Microphone Plug-in Power module

Quite a few external audio recorders do not provide power for electret condensor microphones (often labelled "plug-in power")

This little unit provides the necessary bias to enable the microphones to be used with these devices.

Monitoring Audio During Recording on Panasonic Cameras Without Headphone Port

Recording good audio is critical when shooting video. With the top end cameras like the FZ2000/2500 G9 etc you have a headphone port which allows you to check the sound levels are right and that there are no obvious outside noises which would be a distraction.

But what if you camera doesn't have a monitoring port?

Well this article is for you. I will explain some of the ways that you can verify the audio quality before it goes into the mic input port of your camera.

It doesn't give you 100% assurance that the camera will not have a perfect audio track (there could be mic plug connection issues, camera pre-amp induced noise etc) but does give you the addition of a backup audio rack if you use a separate audio recorder or your smartphone.

Lets' look at some of these options.

(Note) Some of the recorders don't have an option for applying mic bias power for electret condenser mics and you may have to use self powered mics. The Tascam DR-40 doesn't have this option (that I have found anyway) and I use either a XLR mic or a self-powered electret condenser mic when using this device.

So if you use this system either just to monitor the audio or provide a redundancy audio track as well there are a few things that you need to consider.

I have seen people use this idea on YouTube and use a headphone splitter cable on the earphone output. One lead goes to the headphone and the other is taken to the camera mic input. Whilst it can be argued that this works the level of distortion will be very high.

The headphones typically require about 500mV to provide enough drive for comfortable listening levels. This same voltage would also be present at the mic input port. This is where the problem lies - the mic input level needs to be around 5mV for 0dB level. Thus we are overloading the input by a factor of 100. Adjusting the input gain to the lowest value doesn't reduce this to a safe level.

You need an external passive mic attenuator or a passive mic mixer to be able to drop this to the correct level.

In the illustration above you can see the setup using a passive mic mixer to be able to reduce the 500mV to 5mV. The camera is set to manual record levels and adjusted to give the correct level with the audio record level set to the right level and the headphone volume set to give comfortable listening levels.

Instead of using the mic mixer (which typically would only be using one channel anyway) I designed a small unit which provides the right level of attenuation for the mic input signal and allowed the full 500mV to be used by the headphones. The unit is shown in use below.

Again the audio recorder is adjusted to the right recording level and the earphone volume set for comfortable listening. The camera level control is then adjusted to give the correct -3dB level.

The schematic is shown below.

If you didn't want to use an audio recorder then there are mic pre-amps which also support monitoring. Some require the use of a smartphone to allow the audio "pass through" to take place.

A good option is the SmartRig which provides this functionality. It supports XLR inputs (which require 40v phantom power) or powered electret mics if you use an XLT to 3.5mm TRS adaptor or 1/4 inc to TRS adaptor on the input.

Saramonic also manufacture the SmartRig+ unit which does not need a smartphone/app to monitor the audio.

It has its own headphone amplifier/port which you could use the mixer or attenuator to provide a feed to the camera mic input.

A note here about in-line attenuators: There are a number of these available on Amazon which provide either -25dB or -35dB attenuation from line to mic level. Some also provide the headphone output as well. These are ready to go units but the cost is around £25. The 35dB is probably too much attenuation for Panasonic cameras

in the USA https://amzn.to/3iw9IYV

in the UK https://amzn.to/3bZXdU0

(both are affiliate links)

The next option is looking at wireless transmission systems that include a headphone monitoring port on the receiver.

Such a device is the Pixel Vocal air system

The final option uses a dedicated mixer from Saramonic - the CaMixer.

This unit supports either a mini-XLR input or two separate 3.5mm (1/8) inputs.

It has a dedicated 3.5mm headphone output port.

The unit also supports an input that can be taken from the headphone port of your camera if it has one.

It is quite an expensive option £100 in the UK but it is provided with two high grade condensor microphones as well as a mini- XLR to XLR adaptor cable.

A Voltmeter Based Lithium Ion Battery Charger and Tester

This project was conceived after I inadvertently went out on a shoot for a video tutorial with three batteries which were almost fully discharged (should have been recharged and put back in the storage bin). I know that this is due to my poor organisation but the finished project does help to ensure that I always use fully charged batteries when I go out. 

Adding an Audio Guard Track for in camera recordings

When recording audio sounds which have peaked are like the highlights in photography - the details are gone and cannot be recovered.

With audio this is classic distortion and no amount of processing can get back the true sound.

By adding a "guard track" you can insure against these loud excursions. The guard track is typically recorded some 10 15 dB lower than the main audio track.

Modifying the Panasonic DMW-DCC8 Dummy Battery Box to Display The Battery Status of Externally Connected Batteries.

The original Panasonic battery box does not provide the onscreen indication of the battery voltage of any power supply connected to it.

I have previously modified third party battery boxes to provide this feature but I recently acquired quite a few of the Panasonic ones as they were being sold fairly cheaply on Ebay.

The modification is as straight forward as the third party ones due to the way that Panasonic have created the PCB but with patience it can be done.

Now you can reassemble the PCB into the half of the case and then superglue the two halves of the unit back together.

Shutter Speed, Wireless Trigger Propagation Delay and Flash Pulse Length - How These Affect Your Flash Exposures

Flash can be a challenging light source to work with and there are a number of factors which can trip you up if you don't understand the flash process and how the various components affect the exposure.

In this article I will attempt to unravel some of the factors which you may not have considered when shooting flash exposures and why sometimes the exposures are incorrect.

What might not be obvious is the fact that the flash output power from your flash gun is achieved by varying the "burn-time" of the flash light itself. The longer the burn-time the more the flash light contributes to the image exposure. So at full power the flash burn-time or duration might be as long as 1/200 second in some high power flash units.

The table above shows the output power and flash duration for the Godox TT685O flash unit. The T0.1 is the 90% total flash duration and is the measurement that is usually used in comparing units.

For the table you can see that when set at full power the flash tube burns for 1/406 seconds. If the camera shutter speed is faster than this then part of the flash burn-time is cut off before the full 90% of the light has been emitted!

The result is that the exposure will be slightly underexposed.

Here's an example.

From the images above you can see that the flash duration is 1/220sec. When the shutter speed is longer than this, the exposure is unaffected by the actual shutter speed. When the shutter speed is faster than the flash duration the image becomes underexposed due to the fact that some light is being cut off by the faster shutter speed. 

If the flash is mounted on the hot shoe of the camera then the delay between the flash firing signal through the hot shoe to the flash unit is very small. However if we use wireless or optical triggers between the camera and the flash unit we introduce another variable called the "Propagation delay". This propagation delay effectively delays the flash from firing by a small time value (nanoseconds to micro seconds). If this value subtracted from the shutter speed results in an exposure time faster than the flash duration again the image will be under exposed.

Let's look at some typical wireless triggers and how much they introduce delays into the system which maya affect the very short flash durations needed for high speed photography.

First I will describe my test set up. A small interfacing PCB uses a small PNP transistor to allow the 5v pulses from the signal generator to act as the firing signal by bringing the trigger electrode of the flash unit to ground (the transistor conducts collector to emitter thus shorting the electrode to ground). This fires the flash in the same way as the camera hot shoe contacts do. To pick up the time at which the flash fires a loop of wire made into a small coil and placed in proximity to the flash tube picks up the current as the flash fires. The time difference between when the trigger signal goes high on the base of the transistor causing the emitter collector to pull down the trigger electrode of the flash gun (or flash trigger) to the point of the pulse coil picking up the current pulse is the propagation delay of the system. I used a digital storage 'scope to trigger on the falling edge of the triggering pulse so that I could capture the rising edge of the trigger pulse more clearly. By using the 'scope cursor I was able to measure the delay from firing to the flash pulse.

Why is Flash Duration So Important and Why it is Often Never Quoted?

When it comes to measuring flash output power we would normally use a flashmeter.

Now electronic flash units have evolved considerably over the older units and will normally include an IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) in the output from the flash capacitor to the xenon flash tube.

This transistor can cut off the power going to the tube in microseconds by the flash controller. In this way, the power can be controlled going into the tube to create the light output.

Older units would “dump” the whole of the charge on the capacitor into the flash tube. Some units would also “squelch” the output by dumping the charge into a dummy load thus effectively stopping the light output. Both methods we disadvantageous as the charge built up was always fully depleted and required the flash power circuits to charge it back up to the “ready” voltage before the flash could be used again. So even if you only needed a brief output you had to wait many seconds whilst the unit recharged. The modern units only discharge what is needed for the output power level. So, if the exposure required a brief pulse the unit could quickly recharge the partially depleted capacitor back to the full charge very quickly.

We naturally assume that flash output is indeed very short duration as we have probably seen examples of water drops splashing into water or darts bursting a balloon. In the real world, this can be far from the truth and some flash exposures can be as long as the highest sync of your DSLR or CSC – in the order or 1/200 second.

When the FULL output flash power is required (the one by which the manufacturer quotes the guide number) the flash tube needs to output light for a longer duration than when it is required to output say 1/128 of its power.

In modern flash units, the flash pulse intensity is always the same but the duration of the pulse shortens as we require lower power.

However due to the nature of the discharge of the current through the Xenon gas in the flash tube the intensity/time graph is not linear. In the very first ignition of the gas the light output is very fast to rise to its peak but then there is a longer tailing off in the intensity as the charge on the capacitor falls.

The t0.1 time is the time of the flash output pulse when the output illumination is above 10% of its peak output. That is to say it is most of the “usable” light output.

Using the new Sekonic L-858D flash meter, which can record and graph the flash duration, I have recorded the t0.1 and t0.5 flash times for all my main flash units.

Here is the Godox TT350o which is my current recommendation for Panasonic cameras.

As you can see from these results at full power the Godox TT350o does have a fast exposure pulse of 1/704 seconds. This is typical of a flash unit with this guide number. You can also see how the IGBT cut off the pulse to create this much shorter duration slash pulse.   

If you compare that to the much larger TT685o you can see that the full power exposure pulse is much longer as the flash capacitor is much larger and takes longer to totally discharge into the flash tube.

So, what can we take from these results? Well if were we using the TT685 flash unit on a Panasonic CSC like the G series camera the flash synch speed is 1/250 sec so this is longer than the full power flash pulse – so there is no problem. 

However, if we used this unit on a bridge camera which can synchronise flash at all the available shutter speeds if we set a shutter speed of 1/500 second (to reduce the ambient light portion of an outdoor flash shoot) then the shutter would cut of the flash duration as well as this is longer than the shutter speed. 

This means that you will not have used all the light available from the flash during the exposure.

If you were shooting water droplets splashing into water the setting the flash unit to 1/32 power would give a very brief 1/12000 sec flash pulse.

Electronic Clapperboard.

When using an external audio recorder and capturing video clips it is necessary to synchronise the two components in the post-production edit.

The mechanical clapperboard is traditionally used but I wanted a very portable device. So I thought about a simple Red LED and piezo buzzer in a small enclosure with a 3v button cell and a push button to connect the battery to the LED & piezo buzzer.

The case has a small hole to allow the sound the emanate from the transducer. On the right the simple schematic of the unit.

Synch Speeds with Panasonic Bridge and CSC Cameras

You are probably aware of the expression used to enable cameras to record flash images when the shutter speed is higher than the fastest synchronisation speed of the camera (normally 1/250 -1/320 sec)and this is HSS or High Speed Synchronisation.

Now this ONLY applies to those cameras which have "curtain shutter: such as in the CSC (compact system camera) or DSLR.

With these cameras the way that the exposure works is as follows:

Basically, at high shutter speeds the rear curtain starts to close before the front curtain fully opens. This way only a slight gap between the two blades as the exposure moves across the image sensor. It is within this moving gap of exposure that the flash fires in a series of reduced power light bursts. It requires a specially purposed flash gun that can do this. Even so the flash cannot be used at full power.

Typically the flash may be reduced to 1/4 power to enble the flash to fully recharge for each consecutive flash burst

The flash does fire longer than in standard flash mode to illuminate the whole of the image formed on the sensor. In standard flash mode, the flash duration is much shorter than the time it takes for the shutter to move across the image sensor, and the partially opened shutter will cover part of the frame. This would leave large sections of black in your image.

What it does is it emulates a constant light source...and just like any other constant light source, but it does not stop motion.

As far as how long the flash duration actually is, it's very fast, but it strobes on and off rapidly during the entire travel of the shutter...so that as far as your camera's sensor was concerned it was one constant light source on the whole time.

In contrast the "Bridge Camera" doesn't have a first and second curtain shutter. Instead it has a "Leaf" shutter which is actually in the lens.

As this leaf shutter has a smaller mass than the two curtains it can open and close extremely fast (up to 1/4000 second)

With this type of shutter there is no "synchronisation" issues as the camera can take flash pictures all the way to this maximum value.

When using the pop up flash or a flash unit mounted on the hot shoe this is true, however if you use an optical or wireless slave to fire an "off-camera" flash unit then you will find the the "propagation" delay will affect the maximum speed that the camera came take the images without the image being affected.

This propagation delay is caused by the camera having to trigger the master unit through the hot shoe generating the radio firing signal which is then received by the salve unit when then converts this to the firing pulse to fire the slaved flash.

The slave flash now has to ignite the xenon tube. This delay causes the flash to fire midway bring the exposure and thus the light from the flash is being clipped.

In my tests with different types of radio transceivers I found that I was only able to shoot up to shutter speeds of 1/1000 second. Faster than this and the image became progressively darker as the speed increased.

The solution to this is to connect the remote flashgun via an extension TTL cable or using a PC flash cable with a hot shoe adaptor on the camera and the base of the remote flash unit. This way there is no delay and the maximum shutter speed can be used.

Battery Eliminator for Olympus OMD Cameras using the BLN-1 Lithium Ion Battery

There doesn't appear to be a commercial dummy battery box for the BLN-1 battery used in Olympus cameras like the OMD-EM5 II so I made my own by de-constructing a third party (DTSE) battery and using a USB to DC-DC converter set to give an output of 7.6V

Adding Battery Level Indication to Panasonic Dummy Battery Boxes DCC8 and DCC12

For GH3/4/5 using the BLF19 battery andFZ200/300/330/1000/2000/2500 GX series and some G series cameras using the BLC12 battery.
Most of the generic dummy battery boxes are supplies with AC wall adaptors outputting 8.4v. This voltage is sufficient for the camera to operate however it does not give an on-screen indication of the voltage and moreover it limits the use of the battery box to power solutions like USB to 9v converters etc. If standard lithium ion batteries are connected at a full charge status of 8.4v then the camera will shutdown at about 7.2/7.3volts thus you are not getting the full charge potential of the cell. In this video I show you how to modify the DCC8 and the DCC12 battery boxes used in the FZ/GX and GH3/3/5 series of cameras.
I show how a standard 2S lithium ion battery can then be used to provide full capacity to the camera. Additionally if you use a SB power bank and a DC-DC converter solution you can drop its output to 6.5volts. This means that the power input to boost the 5v to 6.5v is far less than if the converter had to boost it to 8.4v. The converter is more efficient, runs cooler and you will get more run time from the power bank.

For the DCC8 box the soldering is a little more delicate but achievable with care and a small tipped soldering iron. 

USB POWER BANK POWERED CAMERAS AND THEIR FAILURES

I've been spending a lot of time investigating and building my own USB power bank dc-dc converter to power Panasonic cameras.

I have found that most of the commercial units are good for 1Amp intermittent operation and are thus suited to video recording or continuous shooting with the electronic shutter selected. If you select the manual shutter and burst mode the power bank & converter cannot keep up with the demands made upon them and the camera often resets or freezes - the only way out is to remove the USB power lead at this point.

This then begs the question whether there is such a solution to this current demand. The FZ1000 seems to be OK but the FZ2000/2500 suffers this problem.

If you are running your Panasonic camera (or any other DSLR/Mirror-less camera) which was designed for using the 7.2volt lithium ion battery and using a dummy battery box with a 9v power supply then you may be overstressing the camera and may cause premature failure of the camera power supply.

Some 9v power supplies have a tolerance in the specification of 1 volt so you could in fact have a power supply which is nearer 10volts than 9volts thus stressing the camera even more so. There is likely to be a slight voltage drop to the camera by the very nature of the connecting cable and connectors and this may be in the order or 0.5 volts depending upon the load taken by the camera. When the camera is idle the current drawn is only about 300mA so the volt drop on the cable is low so the higher voltage will appear at the camera dummy battery terminals.

A safer way is to use the forward voltage drop of a silicon diode to drop the voltage by about 0.6volts without any current compromise.

USB Power bank 8.4v convertor for Panasonic Cameras.
After a lot of testing different dc-dc boost converters that are commercially available I have now chose the board that will be used in this project.
These boost modules typically can change the input voltage by a factor of up to 10 times. In theory that sounds fantastic, in practice however, the story is a little less so and here's why!
These units work by the same principal that the ignition coil in your car works. If you "break" an inductive circuit you get a very high voltage appearing across it. This is harnessed in these converters by using a high efficiency diode to charge a small capacitor. As this switching occurs at a frequency of about 400KHz the output appears almost as thought it was DC voltage as the diode/capacitor smooth this out.
The "efficiency" of these units in converting the low voltage to a higher one varies considerably from make to make depending upon the components used in the design. Some are more efficient when providing lower voltage step ups such as 3.2v to 5 volts as used in lithium ion battery power banks than at higher voltages.
Typically the Panasonic cameras have a quiescent current of about 250-350mA just powering the OIS and the LCD screen and when the camera is set to a zoom operation it can rise to 850 mA. Typical power on surge when the camera is first turned on can be in the order of 1.25A.
So my little converter has to be able to cope with these power demands and have a high enough efficiency in converting the power bank USB output of 5v to 8.4v.
The first converter that I thought was going to be ideal (based upon the spec sheets for it) turned out to be very inefficient at these low voltages. Typical modules ( I tested a batch of 5 of each type) gave a conversion rate of 1.3A drawn from the  USB to provide 500mA at 8.4V.
So that is 6.5Watts input for 4.1Watts output which is just 63% efficient. The module ran quite warm.
I did test a unit which ran at 93% efficient however it was five times the price so in a cost/benefit calculation I decided against this unit.
The one I chose for the final design gave 4.9Watts input for the same 4.1Watt load which is 84% efficient and the module was a lot cooler when tested over a 24hour soak test.
In reality either module could have been used however the higher efficiency one would give longer run times from the USB power bank.
I have built the unit into a small battery case and added some extra over voltage protection to the output. The actual "chip" on this particular unit provides a soft start to prevent overshoot of output voltage, over current and thermal protection I added the "belt and braces" over voltage to prevent the unit delivering too high a voltage to the camera that it is attached to.
This unit will connect to the DMW-DCC8 for the FGZ200/300/330/1000/2000/2500/G series and all other cameras which use the BLC12e lithium ion battery. With other dummy battery boxes it can power other cameras such as the DMW-DCC7 for the GH3 or Canon/Olympus cameras with the right dummy battery. You can of course also use a wall outlet USB charger providing it has a rating of 2A so you don't need to take the larger, heavier mains power supply with you an a trip.

These dummy batteries are readily available with AC power adaptors from Amazon for as little as £12 in the UK
http://amzn.to/2uUn6Qz

or $18 on Amazon USA
http://amzn.to/2tAPqqP
no need to buy the Panasonic DMW-ACC8 box at three times the price!
(this adaptor  #3892A300 I have disassembled  three units now to verify compliance to good design principals such as track separation between input and output, component choice, protection devices and general soldering technique and then carried out a 24 hour full 2A load reliability test).
So with the mains power unit you have the benefit of continuous power in the home/studio and can then use the DMW-ACC8 battery box along with my USB to 8.4 v adaptor and a power bank, outdoors.

Studio Flash Equipment for Amateurs

whilst not everybody needs to invest in studio grade flash equipment  I thought that I would share my experience in trying to put together a simple, cost effective system that I could use for general photography in my small studio space. For most purposes I can use speedlites with a guide number of 50 metres or more at ISO 100 and trigger then either optically, or increasingly these days using wireless triggers. Larger, more powerful flash heads give more creative possibilities but I didn't want to have to spend lots of money on something that doesn't get a lot of use.

I settled for the Godox systems using the AD200 (200 watt second) and the AD600 (600 watt second units).

The AD200 is quite a remarkable, dual flash head, system. It has a conventional xenon fresnel lens speedlite head with a guide number of 52 and it also has a bare bulb flash head with a guide number of 62. The bare bulb head can be modified with any number of reflectors and, if mounted in the Bowens type adaptor plate (as seen in the top illustration) can be used with an even more extensive range of flash modifiers.

The AD200, at a push, can be hand help and triggered by an on-camera Godox "X" series transmitter (Canon,Nikon or Sony) however it is quite a heavy (0.5Kg)unit despite being only the size of a regular speedlite. It is lithium-ion powered and recycles in just 2 seconds from a full power discharge

The AD600 is just a bare bulb unit with LED modelling light. again lithium-ion powered and recycles in just 2.5 seconds from a full power flash discharge. It is too heavy to hand hold and is supplied with a handle which can be fitted to a conventional lighting stand.

Both units have a 3.5mm sync port so they can be used with any remote cable triggering device and support the S1 and S2 optical trigger modes for instantaneous and pre-flash suppression modes.

Wireless Flash Trigger Systems

wireless trigger systems have evolved to quite an advanced level now. It is possible to get systems which will transmit the TTL data from the camera to the flash enabling full TTL control without the need for extension cables from the hot shoe to the flash unit. The Godox "X" system is such an example of this implementation. It is currently only available for Canon, Nikon and Sony flash systems to enable full TTL control. It can however be used to trigger manual flash guns and also act as a remote shutter release as well.

Wireless triggers have a superior performance over optical (line of sight) devices. They have a range of up to 80 metres or so outdoors and can pass through solid walls and floors making them ideal for situations where the camera and flash are in different locations or out of line of sight.

With the Godox "X" system normally a dedicated transmitter and receiver pair are used to link the host camera and the flash unit. It can, however be used to provide centre pin firing on nearly all flash units which have the capability of being able to be set up in a manual power mode. In the example above the Canon system transmitter pair are firing the Nikon flash unit. The camera can be any camera capable of triggering via the centre electrode.

Audio Equipment For Videographers

Getting good audio quality for your video productions is almost, if not equal to, getting the right lighting and exposure!

Viewers may be tolerant of out of focus or badly lit shots but poor audio quality is likely to be a big turn off.

It needn't cost a fortune to improve the audio quality of your productions and in this section I will introduce you to a few ideas that might help you do this.

Above is one of my recording setups for use with the FZ2000 but it could be used on any camera system.

A BM-800 studio mic, the ATR 3350 lavaliere mic, the Saramonic smart rig+ for the phantom power and mic pre-amp and a pair of headphones for audio monitoring.

An alternative system utilising the Boya BY-PVM1000 rifle mic and the Saramonic SR-AX100 power supply/pre-amp unit.

• Two-channel active audio mixer with pre-amplifier and phantom power
• Accepts signals from a wide variety of mic or line level sources such as balanced xlr microphones, 3.5mm microphones, wireless microphones and external audio mixers.
• Attaches to the base of the camera and there is a threaded socket on the mixer base that allows for mounting on a tripod or case