I came home today to find that my Gary Fong Flip*Cage arrived. I was talking to Scott from Shuttercal the other day about this product and during our conversation I ordered it. We were also talking about our year of BenSpark and Shuttercal. In 2010 I’ll be a guest blogger for Shuttercal and I’ll be talking more and more about the service (which is free) to you here. If I could have created a Photo-A-Day interface Shuttercal would have been it.
But what I’m talking about today is the Gary Fong Flip*Cage (Not aff links). I ordered this because it looked cool, I’ve been seeing the advertisement in my photography magazines month after month and I decided to check out who this Gary Fong guy was.
Wow, he’s a pretty cool guy, he’s an inventor, blogger, millionaire and entrepreneur. He even wrote abook called the The Accidental Millionaire: How to Succeed in Life Without Really Trying (aff link) and don’t think for a moment that I’m not downloading that to my kindle once I get home. I can’t wait to read it. Gary has some pretty cool products for lighting as well. He’s make some very cool stuff including diffusers for DSLRs as well as Point and Shoots.
The Flip*Cage is very cool, it can be a tabletop tripod, a protective “roll cage” for your point and shoot as well as a tripod for vertical shots and you can even use it to take macros. I set it up to take a photo of my newly returned wedding ring (it is a new one, no one found my other one).
My only complaint is that when I am taking macro shots there is a shadow from the camera and using a flash is way to harsh so lighting is an issue. I will have to figure out who to light things better using the Flip*Cage.
So anyway back to Shuttercal. I’ll soon be posting guest posts on the Shuttercal blog. I’ll also be converting all my Photo-A-Day photos to be hosted on Shuttercal. And starting in 2010 I’ll be receiving monthly print packs of my past month’s photos for my Shuttercal Shoebox. This is an amazing product and I wish there was an affiliate program because I would be all over it. You take your photos for the month of January and in February they arrive to you on quality printed cards in a color coded box that fits perfectly in your 12 month shoebox. I can only imagine having all of my photos in physical form with notes and writeups on the backs all color coded by month so that I could share them physically with friends when they come to visit. Or better yet, imagine that I used Shuttercal for Eva’s 1st year of life and said I’d take a photo of her every single day (which I did) post it to Shuttercal and get a shoebox. Can you imagine what a fantastic keepsake that would be? These are just some of the ideas and tips I will be sharing with you as well as the Shuttercal community on the Shuttercal blog. Be on the lookout for it.
Damn that looks nice, I was looking for a way to take macro shots and I think I’ve found it
First, I was gonna poke a little fun at ya for not knowing who Gary Fong was. Then you graciously pointed out that he’s the author of Accidental Millionaire which keeps showing up in my recommendations in Amazon. I kept ignoring it because…well no reason really. Just never clicked through.
So now I have to ad Accidental Millionaire to my Amazon Wish List (not because Amazon told me to) because BenSpark told me to.
Duh…
FYI – Gary Fong’s products may look a little dorky, but they work. The LightSpheres are good at nicely distributing the light.
.-= Look at what Damien Franco wrote blog ..What is Shutter Speed? =-.
Damien,
I seriously had been seeing this Flip*Cage over and over and saying to myself I want to buy one review it well and see if I can get a few to give away. So I’ve taken half a step forward on that but that is it for now. I need to play with it more to do an in depth review. After I send this message I am going to go and download the book right away.
Try natural lighting, and turn the camera so it is opposite whatever direction the light slants. That should alleviate a lot of the shadow issue.
Quilly,
It might but as you see from the photo the camera is pointed straight down at the subject. Hard to say the least to get much natural light that will get under the camera when shooting indoors. Need to set up some other lighting solution for indoor macros.
I am curious where you got your Flip-Cage. I ordered one from a major New York retailer in September and have yet to see it. The retailer says it is on order from the factory.
Karl,
I got mine from Gary Fong directly. It was sent right away.