Is it still possible to "Buy American"?

2010-10-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, it is more and more difficult. In today's global economy, the lines have blurred as to what is an American product and what has been brought into this country and represented as an American product. I feel the line from the Jeep commercial "You are what you make." Has never rang more true. In our lust for profit and cheap goods, we have given up our ability to make our own stuff. The politicians don't want to admit it but that is the reason for the high unemployment in America today. They have smoothed the way over the years for American companies to move their manufacturing overseas to take advantage of cheap labor but left the door open for those same companies to bring in their foreign made goods duty free. All the politicians beat their breasts and declare that something must be done but none of them do anything because they are all drinking from the same well and they will not risk dying of thirst just in order to help the country.

Here at Owen's Originals we are not without guilt. Years ago, we took great pride in producing all our own backdrops on American made canvas and muslin. Over time, as more manufacturing moved overseas, it became impossible for us to continue getting American made muslin so, even though we continued to paint and dye our own backdrops, we had to import the raw muslin and canvas to do that. We have found through experience that there is a huge difference in product quality from one overseas producer to the next. It has become our philosophy that is is better to pay more and make less on higher quality materials than to pay less and make more on low quality. For that reason, we now import all our backdrops from a source that we trust to always deliver the best quality. Also, as an American, family owned business, we know the importance of customer support and customer loyalty. We hope to continue to earn that loyalty over the years to come.

What can you, as a consumer do to make sure you are supporting American Business? Do your homework. Check out a business at the BBB (Better Business Breau). If they are listed, they will have a grade and company info. Ours is HERE Do not be fooled by a name. Just because the company name includes the name "American" or "Cowboy" or "U.S."dosen't mean it is an American business. Do a "whois" search HERE and paste the website address. Our "whois" info is HERE

Anyway, that is our take on the current business environment in the USA. What is yours?

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING AND HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO BUY?

2009-07-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is perhaps the most asked question that we hear so we decided to post this page of information. We hope you find it helpful.
First: There are two main categories of photo studio lighting. Continuous and Strobe. Lets talk about strobe first.
STROBE LIGHTING
Strobe lighting is a flash type lighting that is similar to the flash on your camera. All strobe lights have a flash tube that fires only when the camera transmits a signal for it to fire. We will get into that in a minute but first, lets discuss the two main groups of strobe lighting.
Monolight Strobes: This type of strobe is self contained. each strobe head has its own power pack. You can see what a monolight strobe looks like Here. This type of strobe is that most common as they are easy to transport and tend to be less expensive than the other type:
Power Pack Strobes:This type of strobe has all the strobe heads wired to a central power pack. the heads consist only of a flash tube and modeling light and derive all power from the main power pack. This type of strobe tends to be very dependable and is good in the sense that all parts are interchangeable. So, if you want more power: say you want to go from a 240 watt seconds kit to a 500, you just change the power pack.
Advantages of strobe lighting:
*Long Life (most strobe tubes last over 1/2 million flashes)
*Do not genterate Heat:(they fire only when the camera tells them to.)
*True Color Temp. (Most Strobes are 5100K color temp. which is daylight quality.)
Disadvantages of strobe lighting:
*Harder to learn to use (When using strobes, you must shoot on manual setting and the aperture and shutter speed must be set correctly.)
*Must Be Triggered by the Camera (All strobes need to have the camera tell them when to fire. This can be acomplished two ways: 1. By connecting the main strobe to the camera by means of a pc cord,or 2: By using a transmitter device that mounts on the camera. Many of the newer digital cameras do not have a port to plug into but this can be overcome by using a PC adaptor that fits on the camera hot shoe. You can see one Here . The other method which I perfer as no wires are involved is to use a wireless transmitter. Either an infrared trigger Here or a Radio slave Here. These both eliminate the neccesity of running a wire to the camera.
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CONTINUOUS LIGHTING
Continuous Lighting has gained a lot of popularity with the advent of digital cameras. It is a constant on light source which tends to be easier to use than strobe. There are three main groups of continuous lights:
1. Tungsten: This type of continuous tends to be the least expensive. It uses tungsten bulbs (like the ones in your home but usually larger.) They are usually inexpensive to replace but have a short life- normally around 15-18 hrs. You can see a popular tungsten kit Here.
2. Halogen: This type tends to be more expensive than tungsten but has a longer bulb life-around 200 hrs. This is a popular halogen kit Here
3. Fluorescent: This is the newest type of continuous lighting and it has the advantages of cooler operating temps and long bulb life-around 8000 hrs. Here is a Fluorescent Kit.
Advantages of Continuous Lighting:
1. Easier to use than Strobe (you just turn them on, position where needed and shoot on auto setting..
2. No connection to the camera is needed.
Disadvantages of Continuous Lighting:
1. Generates heat (Especially Tungsten and Halogen tend to get quite hot. Fluorescent is cooler.)
2. Require white balance ( You will need to do a white balance on your camera to correct the color as most continuous whith the exception of Fluorescent are around 3600K color temp.)
3.Bulbs Need replaced more often.
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We hope you have found this page helpful in selecting the lighting type you want. If you have other questions, please feel free to call us at 1-800-767-3122.

Photography Equipment by Owen's Originals

Is it still possible to "Buy American"?

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTING AND HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO BUY?