When Technical Proficiency in Photography Doesn't Involve Photography

For a combo #technicaltuesday #wednesdaywisdom post, I figured I'd talk about technical proficiency outside of photography itself...at least not in the traditional sense.?

The internet is full of information on the technical aspects of photography such as the exposure triangle, camera settings, resolution, flash duration, etc. IMO they're important to know despite technological advancements that render them seemingly less important (Smart modes on camera, RAW files that can handle +/- 2 stops of exposure recovery, Ai tech that can supposedly "fix everything," etc). Unfortunately, there's not enough information on the physics or mechanics of things that may involve photography but are important nonetheless.

Example 1: Master-Slave

I photographed Mitsuki Hara - a record-holder spearfisher last year. My assistant and I set up the strobes and finished testing them individually. When we did the test for all the strobe units to see how well they worked together, only one flashed - the other two did not. We knew that they were working because we just tested them minutes earlier, but they weren't working all together. I realized that the only strobe that was firing was the one that had a radio trigger attached (master unit). No surprise there. The other two strobes were set to operate with their optical slaves and were supposed to flash when they "see" the flash from the master unit. This has worked practically 99% of the time which is why I only carry two (one for the camera and one for the master strobe unit)...but not today.?

To maintain the black background, we used grids on all the strobes to limit the spread of the light and prevent it from hitting and illuminating the background.

Unfortunately, these narrow beam angles also prevented the light from hitting the optical slaves (the part indicated by the blue dots above that allows the strobe to "see" the light from the other strobes) thus preventing them from flashing as well. The fact that the entire studio was painted with non-reflective black paint did not help with this matter because there was no lighting bouncing around.

I asked the studio manager if they had extra PocketWizards (radio trigger brand) but they didn't - they only had CyberSyncs and they were not compatible with each other. This was a Sunday so most of the equipment rental houses were closed. I carry flash sync cables as a backup to the radio triggers, but I didn't have a splitter to connect to all three. What to do?

A trick from an old NatGeo photographer came to mind. I pulled out the speedlites (tiny strobes normally used on top of cameras) that live in my camera bag, set them to slave mode meaning they flash when they see another strobe go off, set the power to a low setting so they wouldn't affect the photo, and positioned them so they would relay the signal from the master unit to all the other strobes.

Boom. Done. We're in business.

Example 2: Blown Fuse

I was photographing jewelry two weeks ago when one of the strobes suddenly stopped working.?

Pressed the power button but nothing.?

Checked plug connections. Nothing.?

Switched to a different power outlet. Nothing.

I saw the fuse cover and wondered if the fuse may be blown. I grabbed the spare fuse from the supply drawer, replaced the old one, and pressed the power button - bingo. Works again. The whole process probably took less than a minute without needing to look anything up.

Example 3: Transmitter, Receiver, Transceiver

I was photographing a pre-spring collection several months ago and the strobes wouldn't flash. I did the usual checks:

Verified that the strobe was on

Verified that there was an actual lamp installed (believe it or not, we've been rented one without)

Verified that the radio trigger was on

Verified that the radio trigger was set to the right channels

Verified that the cables were connected properly

Nothing

The trigger on the strobe was not even getting the signal from the trigger on the camera because the indicator light was not illuminating. Then I saw this:

Except it said "Tx Only" and not "TxRx" or "Rx Only." I changed it to "Rx Only" and it worked. I changed it to "TxRx" and it also worked. Done.

All of these were first-time incidents that I had never encountered before but were easily resolved because of technical knowledge that is outside of photography itself.

Example 1 was about how optical signals work. Yes, it had something to do with photographic equipment but it's essentially the same concept as light beacons. Remember this scene from LOTR: The Return of the King?

Samesies.

Example 2 was about knowing how electricity flows and how different devices such as switches and fuses come into play. I've never replaced a fuse on a strobe before but I have with other things since I've had my share of "playing with electricity" in my younger years.

Example 3 was about knowing how radio communication works. I worked as a project manager for a smart irrigation controller company when I was in photo school and part of the job involved establishing radio communication between servers and the radios installed on the sprinkler controllers. I had to learn the differences between transmitters, receivers, and transceivers and that gave me the inkling that the "Tx" on the radio trigger on the strobe meant transmitter. When I pressed a button and saw "Rx," it made me think that it meant receiver. "TxRx" probably meant transmitter-receiver or transceiver. I looked at the manual (I actually didn't look it up until yesterday afternoon) and that's exactly was each of the symbols meant.

Knowing how cameras work, what settings to use, how to set up lights, etc are all good. However, do note that having a general knowledge of "background processes" is also important, especially in commercial photography when you're dealing with production-level work instead of simply "taking nice pictures."