john lanford

And God knows, Camera men will always take a free lunch if offered.

w/o knowing your subject matter, no one can suggest anything other than how to illuminate. Lighting is about mood. You are painting a picture on a dark canvas. With no more info than you have supplied, all I can suggest is using your 1ks for wrapping everything; your softs for CU illumination and get your lasers high and back shooting towards your camera from the back sides. May have to use one of your 1ks for front illumination and diffuse it some or flood it wide. Forget the fog machine. throw in from anywhere your headlights. Again, with no mood set (what kind o music, subject of song?) who knows? Got any gels?

Mafer...Cardellini. Hmmmm. Both have their respective uses. To dismiss one over the other is shortsighted. Needed a little kick the other day in an odd place. Grabbed a mafer, MicroPro and a Flexarm. Done. Don't think the Cardellini would have worked.

I use the 350 almost daily and I have experience the same thing on a number of occasions. The tendency for this flip out to do this comes from over extending it's flipped out position. I, too, have found that "re-alligning" the plastic 'clip' at the base allows for the screen to operate properly again. It is fragile, simple as that. Be careful when operating these cameras with the flip out monitor open. I would suggest to only use the monitor in the flipped out position, with exceptions of course, when the camera is mounted to a tripod. Using it in the flipped out position when hand held is when the chances for overextending it are greater.