Topics Covered:

• Setting Commander Mode for your Nikon camera and firing off-camera Speedlights using a pop-up flash.
• Assigning multiple flashes to groups A and B to control from your Nikon camera’s Commander Mode.
• Adjusting your flash channel, illumination pattern, and zoom position. (more…)

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• We rent a lot of fancy video gear, but if you find yourself up at over 13,000 feet needing, for example, a boom or dolly or jib, you might be well-served watching this video from our friend Chase Jarvis on how to improvise when necessary.
• So we knew the Nikon D3s is a tough camera. Nikon Rumors has a nice piece on just HOW tough it is.
• Models, you need to read this piece on DIYPhotography. Model Jen Brook has an open letter to other models on a few things all models ought to pay attention to.
• From our friends over at Profoto, here’s a really cool piece on how to light and shoot a 40-foot yacht.
• And finally, for those of you who like free (at least for the moment) software, the folks over at Red Giant have launched a public beta of their video workflow app that fits in between your camera and your editing software. Bulletproof is well worth a look if you’re seeking something along the lines of Lightroom for video. Here’s a video preview…

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff! As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Everyone may have the day off today, but not our Deal of the Week!

Save 25% off these items with this week’s deal. Just use code “BLDOW” at checkout:

Remember, if you place your order this week by 11:59 PST, Sunday, June 2nd, 2013 you can always schedule your rental anytime this year and STILL get the 25% off on your item!

Happy shooting, everyone! For our Armed Forces for which we pause today to celebrate Memorial Day, thank you for your service!

Photographer Benjamin Von Wong set out to the Salton Sea with some dart rope and a crew of chance encounters who were excited to make the trek to help out with this dramatic shoot. Check out the spectacular results below!

Luck, Fire, and a Failed Ecosystem
by Von Wong Photography, reprinted with permission.

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The Hasselblad H5D40 medium-format digital camera is here, so of course we had to give it a go. We pressed a number of our staffers into service as models, and went through an impromptu portrait session.

Sample images as well as first impressions after the jump.

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With our dependence on LCD screens to give us immediate exposure feedback, knowing how to meter light is at risk of quickly become a fading skill. In this guest blog post you will learn how your DSLR meters light and what that means for your photography. This is a great intro for beginners as well as an easy reminder for the more seasoned shooter. (more…)

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers are hosting a 2-day conference in June at Stanford University titled “Entertainment Technology in the Internet Age”. They are in need of a few volunteer still photographers to document the event and provide the following:

• Photos of speakers
• Panel sessions
• Shots of the general audience

Volunteers will receive the following:

Work 1 day, get free access the second day of the event.
Work ½ day, get free access the other ½ day of the event.

This 2-day conference takes place on the 18th and 19th of June and will be held at the beautiful Stanford University campus. It explores the tech, creative, and biz requirements for delivering a compelling, high quality, monetizable entertainment experience over the web.

Volunteers should contact the volunteer coordination chair, Kellie McKeown, at: [email protected]