Photographers realize that FLAAR will not use sub-standard equipment in their studios. No junk. There is no amount of advertising hype that would cause us to select a camera or lighting product unless it functions the way it should. FLAAR is currently setting up an even larger photography studio for evaluating cameras, lenses, tripods, lighting, and accessories at Bowling Green State University. Keep tuned for more information on what products we have selected to feature here. After all, we have 30 years prior photography experience as our guide. So we can save you the headache of trying to figure out what to buy for your own studio as you switch from traditional photography to digital photography.

FLAAR is in the forefront of evaluating professional level camera equipment for digital photography studios. It is rare for any evaluation facility to have the capability of doing actual photography inside a museum. But Dr Hellmuth is an archaeologist with PhD in art history from a European university, an undergraduate degree from Harvard and many years of training while a Visiting Fellow at Yale University. So doing photography in a museum is part of his decades of prior experience. This is why camera companies and companies who make lenses and photography lighting, tripods and all that kind of professional equipment look to FLAAR to evaluate, review, and then discuss the capabilities of their specific products. You can see Nicholas' photographs in National Geographic books, in luxury coffee table art books published in Japan, in scholarly art books published in Austria, as well in university press publications from leading American publishers.

If you would like to utilize the FLAAR studios yourself, you can sign up for the various photography courses on-line.

In the pictures at left Dr Hellmuth checking the color balance with a GretagMacbeth ColorChecker. Here we are using fluorescent lighting, nice and cool for museum photography of valuable and delicate objects, ideal lighting for the new generation of digital cameras.

Tanja Tathjen using a BetterLight Super 6000 on a Kaiser rePRO stand in the FLAAR digital photography evaluation studio in the Popol Vuh Museum.		Photographing an 8th century Maya ceramic funerary plate with a Cambo repro camera, BetterLight Super 6000 on Kaiser rePRO stand.