Yeah! My PixelStick arrived today!!! And of course I had to test it out tonight. Here are my first impressions. WOW – this is going to be FUN. A whole lot of FUN!. BUT (and there always seems to be a but), it is going to take me a few days/weeks to master. Here are some quick lessons learned. Lesson 1) After receiving the shipping notice and before actually receiving my PixelStick, I had downloaded the sample images and tried to create a few of my own. A quick tip: You want the background of your image to be black (not the default white), since black does not fire the LEDs and the background will show through. A white background will cover up the background with white. Lesson 2) Study the images supplied by PixelStick. Pay attention to the orientation of the file. The first few images I created came out sideways. Not hard to fix AFTER you go back to your computer and redo the images. But while shooting, especially the first time, this was a problem. Lesson 3) Start moving the PixelStick before you fire off the image. My first few images had a truncated edge. I quickly figured out I needed to start moving before hitting the fire button. Lesson 4) You are going to have to figure out your speed and play with the speed settings on the PixelStick to get the image you want. Lesson 5) There are a lot of insects out at night – I wish I had worn long pants and a long sleeve shirt (or had some insect spray). I was going to use the word bug, but I realized as I was proofing this, you might mistake a computer bug and an insect bug, so let me be clear, I am talking about insect bugs in this lesson. I am posting my best first nights attempt. If you look at it and say, that image sucks, I quite agree. As I stated at the start of this post, PixelStick is going to be a lot of FUN. But it will take me a while to master and get the setting and my technique to match. I am posting this image not to impress you, but to encourage you as you realize that it will take some time and practice to get good at using the PixelStick. But I can tell already, that the time and practice I put in will be well worth the effort. I hope your first attempts are better, but if not, remember all photography is a learning experience -- and getting great images with PixelStick will also be a learning experience. Not back to Photoshop to fix my first images (which were sideways) and create some new ones. And then try again tomorrow night!
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 01:40:27 +0000
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