Jack Neubart

The JTL Product Table; Shoot Tabletops Like A Pro—Anywhere
Jack Neubart  |  Apr 01, 2008

Collapsible light tents of various sizes and configurations have been all the rage of late. The precursor to many of these designs is the sweep table. Now, JTL has brought back this stalwart still life/small product shooting table in high style, adding portability and fairly easy setup.

Conventional sweep tables are usually set up and left in a corner of your studio...

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Pro Techniques
Pro's Choice; Chris Collins, Problem Solver; Bringing Still Life To Life Takes Ingenuity, And The Right Tools
Jack Neubart  |  Mar 01, 2008

How do you photograph a duck pumping gas? When Aflac came to New York advertising photographer Chris Collins with just such a dilemma, this problem solver had the answer and years of experience to back him up. One duck was a given: they'd use a very sophisticated puppet designed (and finessed over the years) by noted Hollywood model-maker Stan Winston. But they'd also...

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Canon’s Speedlite 580EX II & Metz’s Mecablitz 58 AF-1C Digital;
Jack Neubart  |  Feb 01, 2008

I've been a long-time proponent of Canon Speedlites, and also an avid follower of Metz flashes. I always liked the Metz for its sturdy quality and reliability--I'd owned a Metz potato masher (handlemount, in the old vernacular). But when I switched to the Canon EOS system, I became a devout Canon shoe-mount advocate, finding these flashes dependable and robust. I...

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Pro Techniques
Pro's Choice; Museum Photography: Diverse Tools For Diverse Needs; The Complex World Of Photography At New York’s American Museum Of Natural History
Jack Neubart  |  Jan 01, 2008

"The Great Swamp was a treat," observed one of the photographers from the American Museum of Natural History's photo studio after returning from a trip to photograph this New Jersey marshland. "Nothing like slogging around in chest waders and dodging mosquitoes (unsuccessfully, I might add) for four hours in really nice smelling swamp water," he...

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Printer NewsPrinter Reviews
Epson’s PictureMate Zoom (PM 290); A Handy, Portable 4x6 Inkjet Printer
Jack Neubart  |  Jan 01, 2008

I always find it a nice icebreaker to show my pictures to people I meet on my travels. I also make it a habit of giving a small print to people I befriend. And the small print costs me pennies. Plus, 4x6 prints are so much easier to tote around than 8x10s. The problem is producing these minilab-size prints. I've wasted numerous 4x6 sheets because of a wrong setting in my...

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ZigView S2; Add Live View, Intervalometer, And Motion Sensing To Your D-SLR With This Compact Device
Jack Neubart  |  Jan 01, 2008

Granted, when hand holding my Canon EOS 5D D-SLR, I prefer to use the optical viewfinder for the utmost stability. But there are many times when I'd be just as happy to view the subject on the LCD--except, of course, that this camera, unlike newer models, lacks a live view display.

Well, I've found just the device that gives my 5D that capability...

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Digital Storage Solutions On The Road; Options Galore For The Traveling Photographer
Jack Neubart  |  Jan 01, 2008

How can you make the most use out of that limited quantity of memory cards when on the road, especially on a long trip? The answer: a portable drive. When connected to a host computer via USB 2.0, all these devices are recognized as an external drive--but not immediately in some cases: it may require activation of a USB function on the device. Adding to the utility of many of...

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Pro Techniques
Moving Images; The Photography Of Lois Greenfield
Jack Neubart  |  Dec 01, 2007

Just when I thought I'd seen her at her best, Lois Greenfield steps it up a notch and amazes me once again with her sharp eye for the body in motion. "Sharp" is the operative word here. Many photographers, myself among them, may accept a little blur in a fast-moving subject. Not Greenfield. She learned long ago that if sharpness and crisp detail are important to...

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PhotoVision’s One Shot Digital Calibration Targets; White Balance And Exposure, Right In The Camera
Jack Neubart  |  Nov 01, 2007

Remember the old Kodak 18 percent Gray Card that we used as a neutral target to determine exposure, without undue influence from bright and dark tones? I still have a bunch of those lying around. There were several problems with the card; holding it the wrong way might cause a glaring hot spot. Second, it was cardboard, not built to last. Third, it didn't travel...

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A Tabletop Lighting System Sampler; We Work With The Lowel Ego, Interfit Pop-Up Light Tent, Sharpics D-Flector, Samigon Internet Photo Studio Pro, And Sunpak eBox
Jack Neubart  |  Oct 01, 2007

Selling collectibles, used cameras, confections, and a myriad of other items online is an exploding phenomenon, but to sell effectively you have to show the product off to advantage. Of course, tabletop photography extends beyond the world of eBay. You may want to document small valuables for insurance purposes or have loftier goals in the still life world. Any way you look at it...

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