"Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together...."  Carl Zwanzig

No photographer's gadget bag is complete without duct (or Duck) tape. However, carrying those big rolls around can be quite heavy especially if you're a photographer who shoots in the field - wildlife, landscape, macro etc where you don't need a 10m roll of the stuff and where you do need to travel light. It's fine for those photographers confined to the studio or shooting high end commercial work with big lighting rigs, there a roll of duck tape is hardly noticed. For the rest of us, a metre or two is all you'll need, negating the requirements for a big roll.

But how can you carry it easily? Well, for those of you who remember film, I discovered about 8 years ago that a film canister is exactly the same width as a roll of duck tape. All you need to do is wrap 10 or 15 turns around the film canister and hey presto, instant gaffer tape on location.

The real beauty of this though, is that you can still use the film canister to hold other items - blue-tac, paper clips, drawing pins, plasters, antisceptic wipes... whatever you need. And better still, it's waterproof in there as well. In fact, whether you put duck tape on the outside of a film canister or not, it's worth carrying one with some little bits in it anyway - especially the plasters and antisceptic wipes...or maybe that's just me. Duck tape really does have a million and one uses, but no, I won't list them for you! Here's just a few things I've used it for.

* Sticking lens hoods onto lenses to stop them being knocked off
* Sticking flashguns to....well, just about anything
* Fixing broken kit
* Attaching light modifiers to flashguns
* Making random stuff

It seems the CompactFlash card association have been making giants leaps with their new memory card standards. They have just announced the CF 5.0 specification and, well, we just need to hope hard disks keep up as the figures they are talking about are CRAZY.

Ok, so there are no cameras that currently support CF5.0 but when it happens, well, here's some figures to keep you amused.

Currently, CF cards use 28bit addressing, a data transfer unit size of 128KB/se and a maximum capacity of 137GB. CF5.0 gives the following:
48-bit addressing
32MB/sec transfer unit size
144 petabytes of theoretical maximum capacity. Yeah, you read that right. And for those that don't know what a petabyte is, each petabyte is 1,000,000 Gigabytes. so that's 144 million gigabytes in a single compact flash card.

So, you'd best start looking at your hard drive storage now - or maybe just a couple of CF cards will do?! 

If you're of that persuasion and fancy an interesting technical read, here's the latest whitepaper on CF5.0 as a pdf. 

A new month and a new featured photographer. This time around it's Johan du Toit. I met Johan while running a photowalk along the South Bank in London. Johan is originally South African, but now resides in London. Watching all the photographers that turned up for that photowalk, I was immediately impressed by what he was doing. While everyone else was trying to get the same sort of shots as usual of the skater boys and bmx'ers Johan had his pocketwizards out and was trying to do something a bit different. Interesting stuff. 

Anyway, as usual, Johan was subjected to a barrage of questions from EOS Network. Here's what he had to say:

EN: What colour would your Ferrari be?
J: Matte black (I'm the second guest / featured photographer picking this colour, interesting!)
 
EN: Weddings, fun to photograph or the work of the Devil?
J: Fun, definitely fun! Like most photographer this was not where I thought my photography would take me the first time I picked up the camera, but thanks to great friends that decided to get married and insisted that I be their photographer this started a passion for this genre.
I used to believe that wedding photography was more reportage with 50-70% photos coming from moments that you capture. Now I know that although there are some truly beautiful spontaneous moments, there are very few that come close to a carefully created photo in which the photographer gives the client a hint and a nudge in the right direction or at times a specific instruction.
Thanks to Doug Gordon for showing me Flow Posing!
Weddings are special moments to the couple and to their family and friends. That is why it is so important that as a photographer you perfect your craft and give them the best service, for you it might be a job, for them it is memories that will last forever!

EOS NETWORK: What's your best bit of advice for a new photographer?
J: Don't worry about gear... get out and shoot. All photographers, especially new ones, can get caught up in gear... but actually it has very little to do with what you shoot with... think of Chase Jarvis and his Best Camera book... all the images were taken with an iPhone... and that is not a great camera with all the bells & whistles!! So learn how to use the gear that you have, because: "If you own an oven it does not make you a top chef" likewise, "if you own a camera, it does not make you a professional photographer". - Giles Christopher If you shoot more you will have more experience, learn more about the gear you have and what you like to shoot. This will build confidence and a style which will make you much more marketable than the kid with all the gear and no clue how to use it!! Only then should you start working towards upgrading your kit, after-all each style / genre has got specific types of equipment it requires.

1. Canary Wharf by Night
Reason: This is one of my first digital SLR images (40th), and one that brought me back to photography. After I arrived in the UK I decided to purchase a DSLR, ending nearly 5 years of not taking photos. It was taken at night in Canary Wharf, a place that has a soft spot in my mind’s eye.
EXIF data: Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S18-55mm at 18mm, 1 sec at f5.6 on ISO 400.

2. Houtbay
Reason: Taken on a trip to South Africa, this photo of Houtbay harbour (Cape Town) was taken near the end of the day. I changed it to sepia to give it that timeless feel that fits in with the boats and the harbour.
EXIF data: Canon EOS 400D, Tamron 28-300mm at 28mm, 1/125th sec at f6.3 on ISO 100.

3. Eyelashes
Reason: A home experiment on portraiture using a Lastolite Softbox. This is where the excitement of off-camera flash started. The Canon 580 EX II Speedlight was triggered with Pocket Wizards Plus II’s and was inside the Lastolite Softbox placed camera left on a high stand.
EXIF data: Canon EOS 400D, Tamron 28-300mm at 71mm, 1/200th sec at f7.1 on ISO 100

EOS Network: Johan, thanks for your time and for showing us your images. Some very interesting points raised, especially about the kit not making the photographer. Something we could all do with remembering now and again!