Hasta La Gadget!

For the last couple of weeks I have been testing out the low-cost LP160 camera-flash. The successor to the LP120, the flash is designed for full manual control, and can be triggered pretty much any way you like. The strobe is aimed at Strobists, photographers who use small, off camera flashes in manual mode to get amazing, creative results.

For a full spec list, check out the preview from last month. The short form is this: The flash-head spins almost 360-degrees and tilts up 90-degrees (and down by seven-degrees). There’s a slave sensor on the front, and – in addition to on/off and test buttons – zoom, slave and power-output buttons on the back.

The quad-sync part of the name comes from the triggering methods: hot-shoe, PC-sync cable, 3.5mm jack cable and slave. The hard-wired methods all work as expected (although you’ll want to use the 3.5mm jack as the cables are cheaper and the plugs don’t fall out – a design problem with all PC-sync cords).

The real power is in that slave mode. The front-mounted slave unit watches for another flash and fires its own lamp. This can be hit or miss but in regular daylight (not full, midday sun) the LP160 hits it pretty much every time. The shot above, for instance, is taken with a Panasonic GF1. The built-in flash is the trigger, but to keep it from adding light to the photograph, I blocked it with a white card. Enough light bounced around the room to trigger the LumoPro for every exposure.

The slave has two modes. One is what you’d expect – it sees a flash and fires. The second, reached by sliding the switch across one more notch, is called Si. This is for use with compact cameras, and will ignore any pre-flashes. I tried it with the red-eye setting switched on on the GF1 and it worked great.

The other buttons control the zoom motor (24-105mm), which lets you change the concentration of the beam, and the power output. This goes from full power, or 1/1, down to 1/64. This, aside from all the other functions, is what you need to do manual photography. You just hit the button to cycle through the levels, and a red LED shows you what is selected.

Build quality is ok. The plastic is lightweight but flexible, so although it isn’t as solid as a Nikon speedlight, it shouldn’t shatter on impact. Would I buy one? Sure. At $160, it is in range of most photographers, and it works as it should. There are no frills, but a lot of thought has gone into what features have been added. And at the price, you can buy a clutch of LumoPros for the price of one Nikon SB900.

LP160 Quad-sync Manual Flash [LumoPro. Thanks, Moishe!]

LumoPro LP160: Quad Sync v.2.0 [Strobist]

See Also:

• Quad-Sync LumoPro Strobist Flash Pops Four Ways
• Universal Translator: Marry Any Flash to Any Camera
• Cheap, Manual Flashgun: Built by Strobists, for Strobists
• First Look: Strobist 'Open Source' Flashgun

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Photographer Claus Thiim has come up with a virtually free way to scan hundreds of old negatives and slides. Best of all, it is easy and fast to make and use.

Even if you never touched a film camera, you probably have a few paper pouches of old negatives lying around, inherited from somebody like me, who has boxes and boxes full of the things. Apart from the odd drunken nostalgic night where I may go through a few boxes, they’re destined to remain unseen.

Thiim’s method eschews slow, bulky scanners and doesn’t even think about mail-in scanning services. He uses the fastest scanner he has: his DSLR. Onto the front are mounted an old manual focus (90mm) lens, an extension tube (which moves the lens forward and allows closer macro focusing). Then things get creative, with a couple of toilet-paper tubes taped to an old filter with the glass removed, along with a plastic 35mm slide-mount on the end. The mount is opened at the sides to let the film slide through.

To scan, you just move the film through and snap a frame. If your camera has live-view, you can even check framing and focus from the comfort of the rear screen.

What I like most is the speed and convenience (and of course the price). It may be a huge pain to go through tens of thousands of frames, but for smaller project this is ideal. And for people who still like to shoot film from time to time, this DIY project is made for you: shooting and developing your own B&W film is easy and requires no darkroom. Combined with this and you can shoot pricey film at almost no cost.

Thiim’s Flicker set shows the details of the setup, but it’s so flexible you can probably bend any kit you have to work. Check it out:

DIY 35mm negative duplicator [Claus Thiim / Flickr via DIY Photography]

See Also:

• No-Sweat Way to Copy Slides, Negatives
• First Look: VuPoint Slide/Film Scanner

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

The Likea camera is like a Leica camera. Specifically, the Likea MPH is a stripped down version of Leica’s already frill-less MP rangefinder. How stripped down? Try these anti-specs:

No battery, no light meter, no mechanical shutter, no embellishment – just your eye, a lightproof box and the emulsion.

It is also $20, and made from cardboard. The MPH is in fact just a pinhole camera, although so sparsely equipped is the kit that it doesn’t even include the pinhole: you will have to cut your own from a soda-can. One thing it does share with every real Leica ever made is the sensor: it uses the exact-same 35mm film as the legendary German rangefinders have always used.

Loading this film isn’t quite as easy as it might seem. There is no mechanism, so you’ll need an old, empty film canister and a paper clip. Into these you will wind the exposed film one inaccurate frame at a time.

This kit looks like great fun, although you could just as easily make your own. There’s one other trick that you might like to play. A small digicam would slide inside this “replica” pretty easily, giving you a digital fake-Leica for just a few dollars.

Likea product page [Likea Camera via Leica Rumors]

See Also:

• The Cheap Russian Camera That Could: Lomo Turns 25
• Five Reasons Film Cameras Are Still Better Than Digital

Taking 3D photographs, or at least viewing 3D photographs, was ironically somewhat easier in the days of film: Load a camera with slide film, take two shots of the same subject, moving the camera sideways by the distance between your eyes, and send the film to the lab.

Later, just hold a slide before each eye, preferably using a purpose-made holder, and you have lovely, hi-res 3D.

The Loreo 3D-Lens-in-a-Cap brings this ease-of-use to your digicam. Pop the accessory onto the front of your SLR and it will split the incoming light into two images, setting them just the right distance apart. To view, you hold up the cardboard Parallel Format Print & Monitor Viewer to your monitor and enjoy the stereoscopic view.

There are drawbacks, which are mitigated somewhat by the advantages of digital capture. The biggest problem is that the maximum aperture is ƒ11, so you’ll be shooting in sunlight or using a tripod. You can take advantage of the modern SLR’s high-ISO capabilities to combat this, and as you are taking both shots simultaneously rather than snapping two pictures “cha-cha style” (as the product page charmingly puts it), you can take pictures of fast moving subjects like flowing water, even allowing motion blur into the photos.

The Loreo 3D-Lens-in-a-Cap is $150, and the viewer is just $1.70. For the frugal, “cha-cha style” shooting is currently free.

3D Snapshots with a Canon D30 Digital SLR [Loreo via Engadget]

I’m riding shotgun in a surprisingly roomy helicopter cockpit with Vincent Laforet, one of the foremost practitioners of DSLR video, over New York City. I’ve never ridden in a helicopter. The asphalt below fades from black to grey. More »