2008 has definitely been "The Year of Strobist" for the photography community. Many of us, and hopefully you too, were regular readers of the
Strobist blog before the beginning of 2008, but this year David Hobby's blog has definitely taken off. The blog was mentioned in USA Today a few months back, and if that wasn't enough photography blog after photography blog
pointed out the fact that Strobist was in USA Today. Giving him even more traffic! And deservedly so.
This year David Hobby launched the Strobist Lighting Seminar set of tutorial DVDs. The first batch of 1,000 (low because David funded it out of his own pocket so I've heard) sold out very quick. I thought my order was in that first batch, but I barely missed it and had to wait a few weeks for the second batch to come in. (My boss here at Terry Smith Images (myself) doesn't like me to waste training-budget money on rush shipping.)
The Strobist Lighting Seminar is 8 DVDs for $139.00. I paid $143.80 which included the cheapest, US Postal Service mailing option.
Is it worth it?
YES
These DVDs are worth every single penny. If you are serious about learning more about lighting you really need to buy these DVDs. There is an amazing amount of material here.
I've read and watched a lot of photography training material over 10+ years of seriously studying the art and craft and in these DVDs David is sharing a TON of information and "first-hand, real-world secrets" that I have never seen anywhere else.
I'm not going to do an extremely in-depth review here. I'm sure other bloggers have done that already. I will summarize the set by saying the first DVD is about Lighting Gear for Beginners, the next four DVDs are recordings of one of this lecture workshops (two for the morning session and two for the afternoon session), and the next three are all live photo shoots.
The decision factor is this: You are not going to get better value anywhere for the amount of instruction versus cost as contained in this DVD set. Any class, workshop, and conference given by someone with his level of expertise would cost much, much more.
Click here for more info on purchasing the DVDs:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/05/now-available-strobist-lighting-dvds.html
Here's a executive portrait I shot "strobist-style" recently using wireless off-camera flash. In this case an SB-600 was in the back to light the copper wall and an SB-800 with a CTO gel was to camera-right shot through a white shoot-through umbrella. Some window daylight was let in as well to warm the scene up a bit more. I was working very quickly, and in hind-sight this definitely could be improved. Some front-fill from just a large white card or reflector to camera-left would have added some needed fill to the face.
UPDATE 04/21/2009 - As a complement to these DVDs, I HIGHLY recommended The Hot Shoe Diaries by Joe McNally. Click here for my review.
