Cincy Strobist Meet-up a Huge Success!

This Saturday we hosted the first Cincinnati-region "Strobist Fan" meet-up at the Camera Club of Cincinnati studios. The event was a great success - we had about 30 photographers and 3 models - folks made the journey from Louisville, Indianapolis, Dayton, Columbus... You can see most of us in the group shot above, though we took it at the very end of the day and a few folks had to take off a bit early.

I didn't end up shooting very much, since I was keeping myself busy running around to the various set ups and making sure everyone had what they needed. That was fine by me - we all had a great time (though I'll have to make sure I shoot a bit more next time!).

You can check out a few of my selects here and be sure to check out all of the other photos that people have posted by browsing the Flickr tag: cincystrobistmeet0308.

THANKS!!
A huge thanks goes to Lon (of FlashZebra fame) for coming up with the idea of hosting a Strobist Meet at the CCofC. Also, thanks to Ethan, Fred, Frank, Peter and Bob (all members of the CCofC) who assisted before, during and after to make this a success.

Bob was especially helpful on the first floor - he has a ton of studio experience and was really a great resource to everyone shooting up there.

Our models: Simmi, Amelia, and Terrance were troopers & stuck around for the whole day. Also should give a quick thanks to Maurlena, EJ and others who didn't expect to end up in front of the camera but did anyway! They also put up with a lot of crazy ideas from the photogs - and went along with all of them... even when that meant Simmi would find himself up in the rafters wearing a wedding dress.

The Shooters! It was great to meet everyone and really cool to check out all of the DIY flash gear that they've created. Looking forward to doing it again!

And of course, David Hobby & his Strobist Blog for starting such a great community & providing us with some awesome lighting ideas...

Funny Anecdote:
The best story of the day had to be when Jeremy Kolonay took some (really slick) photos of The Great Canon v Nikon Duel. He was really putting together some cool poses & getting some neat angles.

After we had been shooting this for a while (and were pretty much done with this idea), I asked to see a couple of them on his LCD to see how it came out. Jeremy pressed Play and the screen proudly displays...

No CF Card.

HA! Fortunately, since we were all still around Jeremy was able to walk us back through his poses and get some shots. Still, it was a hilarious moment and served as a great reminder to ALWAYS disable "Allow shooting with no CF card loaded"!

Ghetto Strip Lights are a Big Hit...
I brought along some Ghetto DIY Fluorescent Strip Lights. They're really ghetto, but awesome. Bulbs are Sylvania "Full Spectrum Sunstick 5000k" (CRI of 90 & pretty affordable!). Includes built-in ball bungies that are used to hang it from a light stand.

I'll go into more detail on this in a future post. For now I'll just say that they were a big hit in the basement setups; a lot of the photos in the pool were shot with them. This is probably for two reasons: 1) Everyone can use them since they don't need to be triggered, and 2) They look so ridiculous that photographers are drawn to them. :)

Planning Tips...
I'll post soon on some of my tips, etc. around planning an event like this. There are definitely a few easy things that you can do which make the day go by smoothly. Also, stay tuned for some video that Steve is putting together which should be a riot!