OTOA Conference

Last year I spent a week at the OTOA (Ohio Tactical Officers Association) annual training conference in northern Ohio providing photo coverage of their speakers, vendor show, range day and training classes spread out over the whole top of the state. It was a very busy week, but I had a blast and ran into some old friends.

I’ll be returning next week and will have a booth at the vendor show (#95 in the main room). Below is a slideshow of my shots from last year that you’ll see scrolling through on the TVs and screens during the event.

Ohio Tactical Officers Association Annual Training Conference June 3-7, 2019 Sandusky, Ohio - Kalahari Resorts and Convention Center

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New Construction Portfolio is Live

You may notice the new Construction portfolio that pops up on my homepage now. I wanted to feature the wide array of industrial photography that I’ve done over the past decade to bring sharp images to companies building new projects, both large and small. Shoot me a note if that’s something I could help you out with.

If you want to skip ahead in the slides, hit the button in the bottom-right that’s highlighted below and you’ll be able to scroll through thumbnails of all the images. Some of my favorite shots are in the Aerial section where I captured photos from drones while on the ground and from planes and helicopters while hanging out the window/door. Enjoy!

Small Business Website Design

I’ve helped a few small businesses update their web presences recently, and figured I’d show off one here that turned out great, for Black Knight Chimney, just north of Pittsburgh. After making sure all their Google listings were up-to-date, their existing domain was switched over to this new site where they show off their services, give a few ways to get in touch with them, and are able to push out News updates to their clients.

Oveready Triple Surefire Scout Head

I posted this brief overview over on the Primary & Secondary fb page, but figured it'd be good to share here as well - 

 

I’ve had the Oveready aftermarket Triple Surefire Scout head since last summer and finally got around to taking a few comparison photos. It’s marketed as 3500 lumens and goes for just under $300 (currently out of stock). It’s almost identical in weight and size to the stock heads, and has a clean black finish without any extra logos beyond the heat warning.

I’ve found the beam to be extremely wide, offering a solid, even flood that’s perfect inside structures. This is not like a 1000 lumen spotlight with a super hot focused spot for tagging things a long ways out - it’s like turning the lights on when inside. The diffuse nature of the beam means it’s similar to a much lower-power light at distance but extremely impressive up close. I’ve seen no concerns with shadows around objects or being thrown by other jewelry hanging off the front of a rifle.

You’ll see it compared below to another Scout head (the KM2, which offers 150 lumens visible and 120 mW of IR), and the X300 Ultra-A (500 lumens) using identical manual camera settings. The differences in hot spot diameters is immediately visible, and you can start to see the extra splash bouncing around the room from the light brown blinds.

The Oveready head also has fully customizable features, so you can reprogram it to perform different based on number of activations. This reprograming occurs using Oveready’s online app, where you make selections for brightness levels, strobe patterns, etc, and then create a programing video clip. They have you click your way into program mode on the flashlight, then hold it up to your computer monitor, where it “sees” the programing video and saves it to its internal memory. I thought they were crazy at first, but it definitely works - I have this one set up to be full-blast for the first 3 quick activations, followed by a 20% level on the 4th click in case I just wanted a task light. It allows you to set your secondary mode behind a number of quick taps to make sure you don’t accidentally engage it.

It uses a pair of IMR 16340 cell batteries to keep up with the power demands, which is rechargeable and puts out a peak 4.2 volts in the same body as a CR123. When operating at full brightness (30 watts, 3500 lumens), they advertise 9 minutes of straight run time. If you left it on that long I’m sure you’d need to be careful of the heat that’s being put out. If you run at around 1/3 power or 1300 lumens, they say it’ll last 24 minutes on a full charge. Here’s the manufacturer’s page on the head.