Budget Camera Flash: Neweer Speedlite 750II Review

For the longest time (about 4 years), I never used any form of external flash equipment. It was either adjusting my settings to work with the natural lighting or using my internal flash, which in reality was never an option. I was always hesitant because of the cost of Nikon Flashes. However, I began researching cheaper options and decide that the Neewer Speedlite 750II i-TTL seemed like the best low cost flash ($55 at Amazon) for my Nikon. This flash should work on most DSLRs.

Even indoors, I would be shooting skateboarding with not much light which would result in me adjusting my settings trying to get the highest shutter speed possible without turning my iso to far up. The photo would turn out, but I would generally edit it to B/W because it helped hide the noise.

No Flash, 24mm, f/4.0, 1/125, ISO 1600             "Photo of Tyler Blackert - FS flip"

There is a cheaper Neewer option for about $35 but I opted for the $55 one because it has i-TTL. i-TTl is basically Nikon's why of having the flash communicate with the camera. It allows the flash to adjust to the correct exposure and can sense the lens zoom. Its basically an auto mode for your flash. The flash will send a quick pulse of light, quickly get a measurement and then send the full flash. This happens so quickly your eyes can't catch it.

Bounced Flash off of Wall, 18mm, f/5.0, 1/100, ISO 800       "Photo of Isaiah Jones - BS Crook"

Even with the high ceilings I was able to bounce the flash off of them for some other shots, though it didn't come out as well as when I had it bounce off a wall. The head of the flash does rotate into almost any angle you choose.

 

Slave

You can turn the Neewer Speedlite 750II into a slave. Slave is an off camera flash generally triggered by your on camera flash. This will give you the possibility of having a multiple light setup at a very low cost. Most you would need to spend is $160 to get three of these flashes. It does come with a component that will allow you to attach the flash to a tripod, just like you would your camera. In general though it is advised to use something more reliable like a Pocket Wizard to trigger your other flashes. However, if you are buying this flash you either don't have much money or will be able to buy Pocket Wizards with the money you just saved. (which should work with this flash because it has i-TTL)

Editing Process

First major difference I noticed when beginning the editing process of the photo that I used flash with was that I hardly had to increase the brightness to the photo. It seemed like the in-camera auto white balance was more accurate too.

The Shell

The body of the flash seems to be pretty solid. It is made out of plastic and has a good weight to it. You will definitely notice the weight when shooting in vertically. I've seen multiple SB flashes that had their hotshot broken, however I don't think this will easily happen on this flash. Although I'm not sure if you can easily find replacements for it.

The Flash head rotates to just about any angle that you would need it too. There is no button to squeeze to allow the head to rotate. Simply just move it without hesitation. 

The Neewer version seems to have all the same options as you would on a Nikon SB flash. I have had no problems with reading the display. Allowing you to easily change settings on the fly.

Comparison too the Nikon SB-800 by Thanks Review

Final Verdict

I would definitely recommend this flash to those of you on a budget. There might be some small downsides to it that in the future if you are making good money from photography would be worth the investment in a more expensive model. For $55 you won't have to worry about breaking it as much as a $300 flash. I will most likely buy two more of these in the near future to give me two off camera slaves.

5 Ways My iPhone Ruined My Life

1. Maps

This is actually one of my favorite features on the iPhone. It is extremely convenient. I can add locations to my calendar and simply click on it, showing me how long it will take to get there. It makes it so easy to keep up with my schedule and the places I have to be. I love it for road trips and going to places I've never been before.

However, it has destroyed me! I now am so depended on my smart phones map program that I don't know how to get to areas that are only 15-20mins away from where I live. This is sad. I can easily compare my two lives with and without a phone because I lived in Taiwan for two years without a smart phone then moved back to America for two years with one.

In Taiwan I could easily get across town, on a bus or scooter with no problems. I could take a train to a city that was two hours away and know how to get around in the city fairly well. Keep in mind this is in another country, making in 10x harder to know street names and to describe to people where you are going etc.

Now fastforward to living in America for the past 2 years. I know use my smart phone to get me to locations I've been 2-3 times already. I use it to get to other cities that are only 45 min away. I never needed this before. I use to just look at a google map print it off, within the first day of using it I was fine without a map the next time I went to that location.

2. Money

This is a pretty obvious one. When I used to be satisfied with my sad little flip phone. I paid about $10 a month and put more minutes on it when I needed it. I mostly only used it for emergencies. Made a call like once a week only. Now I can get into contact with people a lot easier and don't have to worry about my minutes running out, but I am paying $60 for unlimited voice and text then $10 for data. That $70 a month, $60 then my previous phone! Add those months over a year or two and I am short a ton money! I got my iPhone when I had a better paying job, but not being locked into a contract has me trapped. Even if I pay early termination fee's I will still come out with more money if I switch my plan...

3. Photos

Now this topic isn't so bad, but there is a point I would like to add. Having a mildly decent camera on my phone has been wonderful! I love it so much. Its one of the most used features I have. The only down side is, I bring out my professional Nikon camera a lot less because I know I have my phone with me. Then later I will look back and say man I wish I brought my camera with me today or I wish we got some higher quality photos of this.

4. Time

Phones are a great device to have with you all the time. They help me organize my life. However while they are helping me get more organized, I find myself wasting hours staring at their tiny little screens for no good reason. Rather if its killing time on a terribly made game from the app store or just scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, etc. I have found that I have to force myself to not just grab my phone whenever I feel slightly bored and unsure of what I want to do at the moment.

5. Distraction

My phone has become a huge distraction. I find myself staring at its screen while friends of my wife talks to me. It drives me crazy when I realize what I am doing. My wife and I have always made it our goal to never pick up our phones while we are out on dates or having dinner with people (this is one of my biggest pet peeves with some of my friends) but they still seem to claw there way into the pawn of our hands at other occasions. Its one thing if its for a photo, but to just scroll through Facebook or reply to an unimportant text.

 

Outerra Anteworld vs Real World Part 2: Taiwan

I wanted to take a closer look from the first blog post I made about Outerra's Anteworld, comparing the real world versus their video game world. If you don't know anything about the game please read my first post here.

I am going to be looking at specific locations and comparing them to what the real world actually looks like, to show how well or how bad they did recreating the world. Which is a huge accomplishment in the video game world what they have done already.

Below is a picture from google maps and a screen shot from Anteworld looking down on earth. Please click on the images to better see them. I actually labeled the locations that you can see on both maps. It is amazing how well they did replicating the shore lines. That is definitely the most impressive thing they've done in this game. I even tried to spot if they are missing any islands but it doesn't seem to look that way. Another impressive thing is how the land vegetation is similar looking in color in both worlds.  A interesting fact, this game world is actually round like the earth unlike most video games that feature a flat playing field.

As amazing as the game looks from space lets see how it compares to the land features. (Note: don't pay to much attention to detail because my computer doesn't run at the highest settings, I am looking more for structural forms that are correct or incorrect.) The game clearing doesn't place the right ground surface lots of times in the game, as you can see in the game its more rocky while in real life its very green. There is a structure of some kind in the real world but just ignore that the game isn't really modeling the world after man-made structures for now. However you can see from a distance that the mountain shapes are comparatively the same as in the real world. You can see that they seem to be missing the stems of rock that branch off into the water.

Please click on the next image to see a more detailed side by side comparison.

The mountains all seem to have the correct elevation in the game as in the real world. However, they lack the correct form and lack cliffs when there should be some present. 

I assume they got lucky on the design below. Where the world generated this rock in a pretty close place to them as it is in the real world. However, in the game this location lacks all the cliffs and land shape as it does in real life, but they did an excellent job on have the shape of the shore line weave in and out like it does in real life. One of the things that makes this video game world look so much like real life is because you can see as far as the eye can see in the video game, there is no distance limitations which is pretty similar to how our eyes work in real life.

Overall this game has impressed me a ton. I can't wait to see how far it comes along. I think they can do a lot of amazing things with it.

Outerra's Anteworld vs Real World

I first heard of Outerra's demo while scrolling through youtube watching stuff in the recommended pages when I came a crossed Gamersdissent's video. I immediately downloaded it by from http://www.outerra.com. Outerra is an amazing game world that has replicated the terrain of the entire world. You don't load levels the whole world is your level.

Sadly my computer does not have the power of most peoples gaming computers.I was a little worried about how well the game would run or if it would even work. Luckily it did work, however ran with very poor graphics and lots of lag. Even with my awful graphics the game still looks beautiful. 

One of the first things I wanted to do once i got into the game was to fly into outer space and see earth from the sky. It was like being a simulated google earth street view on steroids. One of my favorite features is that it does allow you to open up google earth in the lower right hand corner so you know where you are at. Sadly the game doesn't have an official day and night cycle. The shadow from the sunless earth blocked out a great view of America while in outer space.

I knew they didn't build mass cities in the game, but I wanted to find out how well the worlds features matched that of the real world. I was trying to think of a place that I knew pretty well that didn't have a lot of buildings on the features. I remembered a cool place when I was living in Taiwan so I decided to fly there to check it out.

As I walked around the flat surface of what was once a city filled with thousands of people I decided to go to the country side. It amazed me, what I saw when I got there. The terrain wasn't perfect but the elevation was pretty close and the coast lines where even more amazingly replicated. Below is a photo from the game and I photo from the real world that I took while living in Taiwan.

Click on the photo for a larger viewing.

If only the game would let me drive scooters around on the roads to bring back those wonderful memories of exploration on that beautiful island.

For only $15 you can back these guys up and get access to special game features like building roads and stuff.

Click here to see Part 2

Making Money on Youtube

Youtube has been constantly asking me to monetize (define: to convert your videos into making money) my videos. I kept ignoring it due to the legalities and the tiny 2 cents a month I would be making. However one day I finally decided to monetize my videos. It was very easy to set up an account on Google Adsense. Linking the google account you already own and your bank account.

Google actually will deposit a small amount into your bank account (like 10 cents) to confirm that your bank account is set up right. Within the next month I had earned $10 from one video on my youtube account. To make any money from your videos you need to 100% own all the rights to the video, especially the music. You don't need to own all the rights to the videos on your account, you can pick and choose which ones to monetize.

Just because you monetize your videos doesn't mean you'll make money. If your videos are only getting 100-1,000 views you won't make much at all. The video that makes me almost $10 every month has over 500 comments (30 or more comments a month) and has a total of 113,100 views (10,600 views a month). If only I could double this by getting a second video with similar statistics. Though the best part is, I only had to make this video once, upload it, and now I just sit and watch $10 come in every month from doing nothing more.

There is two types of advertising you can use on your monetized videos.

Overlay in-video ads - the ad is displayed at the bottom of the video.

TrueView in-stream ads. - the ad is played like a commercial before the video is played.

I would suggest using the Overlay in-video ads versus the TrueView in-stream ads. Most people (unless you have a really interesting video) will not take the time to watch your video if they have to watch a commercial before hand. This will limit your views and earnings. while the Overylay in-video ads doesn't disrupt the video as much and allows more users to watch your video because they won't be irritated by a commercial.

BARS - Michigan Skate Video

I managed to get a copy of the BARS video all the way to Taiwan. A skate video made by Logan Rice of a bunch of locals from the Michigan's Kalamazoo and Lansing area mostly. Lots of the skaters I have skated with a few times. I mostly bought the video just so I could see Martian Fobes part along with Deezle's (which is worth it alone). If your into skating and live in Michigan, you should definitely pick up a copy of Bars. You can buy it from Phono & Company.

Out with the old, in with the New.

It wasn't hard for me to find shoes for really low prices in the US. So luckily I brought a few extra pairs for skating in. But my shoes slowly all got pretty thrashed. I held out as long as I could to find a good price. I could find plenty of really cheap shoes for $15 but would fall apart within a week. I finally found a Vans store that sold shoes on sale for $30 and bought myself two pairs.

Valentines Day Skype Date

Last year someone formulate a contest to win a date with Owen Walsh and myself. After the deadline for filling out the questionnaire, Owen and I would read through the applications (not knowing the names of applicants), we chose our two favorites to take on the most crazy date they would ever experience. However since then Owen has gotten married, and I am still single.

For fun I asked my date from last year to go on a skype date with me this year along with Owen's date from last year, but my good friend Kyle would take her instead. We all downloaded the new Skype 5.0 (which is required for 6-way video chats), then went to our accounts and started our free 7-day trial for Group Video calls. Sadly after the 7-days is over, I will have to pay if I want to skype with more then one person.

Kyle and I dressed up for the occasion. We wore white shirts, black ties, red pants, and red bandanas. Kyle also had his du-rag and suspenders on. I had a trucker hat, and my long blonde hair wig on. It was fun just catching up with everyone. The 'date' wasn't as crazy as last year, but it was still a lot of fun!

Rosetta Stone

I just received Rosetta Stone to help me further learn Chinese (Mandarin). I actually didn't even know I was getting it until Word of Life provided it for me this past weekend. I think it is a great tool if you put the time into using it and also practicing what you learn from it to people who speak the language to correct your mistakes.

The main idea in how RosettaStone works is that when we are learning a language as a child we associate words with the things we see. As you learn words with Rosetta Stones they are accompanied with an image. There is also an microphone you speak into that it tries to tell you if you are saying a word correctly or not (not 100% accurate).

If you have the time and really want to learn a language, I would suggest this program. However I have heard that the best way to learn a language is to live among people who speak it, with limited use of English.

Vans - Yo Gabba Gabba

Vans has a few pretty sweet commercials promoting a new slip on design called Yo Gabba Gabba, I am not really sure what the graphic is all about or even if I am really down with it, I just like the commercials, its something that I would enjoy doing. And I love their shoes, just not these ones...

QR Codes

If you haven't heard of QR codes yet it's time to learn about them. The image above can be scanned by your smartphone (iPhone, etc.). When it is scanned it will automatically bring you to my website, for this instance this QR code will bring you to my blog. But no need for that because you are already here. 

However lets say I have a art show or a skate demo coming up and I want to promote it. I can put our fliers promoting the event, and then also have this QR code on the flier. People can then scan the code and it will bring up all the information they need to know about the event. There is many uses and reasons you would want to use this.

I can put this on all the photos I post online and if anyone is interest in my work they can scan it and it will bring them right to my website, making it easier to contact me.

QR codes are getting more and more common, especially as smartphones become more and more common. If you are interested in making one, it is a lot easier then you think. It won't cost you any money. All you need to do is follow this link and then proceed to enter in your web address. Then it will automatically generate your own QR code.

"Gossip"

The video is finally up online. Mark Wallenwine and Nick L. both directed the video, filmed, and wrote the script, well really they did everything. I have a little part in the video, so check it out. (The video was filmed in HD, it has been down graded by Sermon Spice for the streaming purposes. You will be able to download it in full HD)

Gossip

Sermonspice.com

See Details Buy Now

For the price of $10 you can buy it off of Sermon Spice or if you would like to support the video ministry buy it to help finance more and better videos.

If you would like to review the process it took to shoot the film click here.

Potential Skateboard Ministry

I have recently received an email from Christian Skaters Ministry. They are putting together a database for skateboard ministries around the world. They plan on making an iphone/ipod app. that will tell you where skate ministries are located, skate shops in the area, and other things related to skateboarding. They sent me an email requesting my information for my skate ministry. They had part of the form already filled out for me, with my name, my blog, my email, my facebook group, and my location (Taichung, Taiwan), with a little box checked that said, "potential ministry". Apparently someone over at Christian Skaters has found my blog, seen the different skate ministries I have been involved with, and noticed that I was going to Taiwan, and assumed that I have a potential skateboard ministry over there or me as a person has a potential skateboard ministry in general where ever I go.

CS5

If you are a photographer or do graphic design, adobe's photoshop is essential. However it cost around $1,300 for the Standard Design package! I have been wanting to purchase this item for quite some time now but I just don't have the money. However if you are a student in college, you can order CS5 Design Standard package for only $300, thats about an 80% discount! Follow the this link to receive the discount Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard Student & Teacher Edition [Mac]. The package includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat 9 Pro and other components (Bridge and Device Central). The Student/Teacher edition is the full program, it isn't any less of CS5 then if you spent the $1,300 on it. After you receive the package you have to send Adobe proof of enrollment at your University to receive a code for your new software to work for more then 30 days.

This is my first time working with photoshop in 3 years. I had a very terrible class on it in high school, that didn't do me much good. I am pretty much teaching myself as I go.

Here is a sample of a project I am working on for Taiwan:

ooVoo

Today I had a video chat with Owen, Jess, and Kyle using ooVoo. With Owen and Jess in Alaska, and Kyle in New York, and myself in Michigan, we were all able to have a conference video chat. Unlike Skype that only lets you chat with one person at a time, ooVoo alows you have video calls with up to 6 people at one time! It doesn't cost anything to do video calls, but it does to call land lines, and so does skype. (however it does cost some money to do video calls more then 2-way, but you start out with a 30 Day trial.)

It was nice having most of my core friends together, being able to get updates on their lives, and discuss wedding things going on with Owen and Jess.

For Today - Album: Portraits

I have recently found a metal band called "For Today" on itunes, probably if you like Norma Jean or War of Ages you will like them too. Their last album "Portraits" came out in January 2009 with Facedown Records. I don't know their plans for a new album but I am sure one will come out soon. They have very solid, God honoring lyrics, probably the most clear and direct ones I have heard from a hardcore band. All their songs have a theme based around Christ. Check out the lyrics from the song "Saul Of Tarsus (The Messenger)" below;

Lyrics to Saul Of Tarsus (The Messenger) :
May the world know that I am yours. I
will never be silenced. I will resist my sin to the point of blood, and I will
wear my scars like badges of honor. But let my hope cry out that my God is
greater than the pain of persecution. My God is greater than this
world.

There will never be another chance to live today for God. There will
never be another name that can save us from ourselves. And so, steadfast and
undeterred, I will proclaim the name of Christ to a dead and dying world. I am
not ashamed!
We will resist our sin to the point of blood, and we will wear
our scars like badges of honor. But let our hope cry out that our God is
greater than the pain of persecution.

Blinded, I saw that Christ is Lord.
Now, may the world see you through open eyes. God, my Father, reign



If you would like to check out more of their lyrics go to Lyrics Mania.


I didn't have the full $9.90 to buy their album, so I just bought a couple of their songs instead.

Fallen Fortes

This could be the longest time, I skated a pair of shoes at this poor of a condition. The bottoms of the shoes got so thin it was like skating in my socks. I bought these in the beginning of June (RIP June - August. 4th). I waited until I could find a pair for at least $35. I ended up finding the same pair but brighter red for $31, however accidently sent it to my parents house, instead of camp, taking it a extra week to arrive.

Flickr Page

I have recently created a Flickr account to upload photos too, to share to the world. I have also added a gadget to my blog on the right hand side towards the bottom of my page, streaming my recently uploaded photos from flickr. I haven't put much stuff up yet, but check out what I do have on My Flickr Page.

"Where Was God When"

Where Was God When?

This is a great book, written by Mike Calhoun and Ric Garland. They used the series for Snow Camp messages for 8 weeks. Mark Wallenwine and I had the opportunity in our first year of the Word of Life Bible Institute to help make videos for snow camp, which later became videos for the "Where Was God When?" book series.

Here is a beginning clip of one of the videos we made...

How a Skateboard is Made