Print Shop

There is a very old-school print shop on the ground floor of the building next to mine. I’ve heard that it’s been there for about 100 years.  Well it’s closing and so I wanted to take some photographs before it was gone.

POZ – Waheedah Shabazz-El

A little while back, I mentioned how I had a couple nice assignments in a row, but I had to wait to show everyone. Well, one of them has been published, so I guess I can post them now. Plus my favorites pre-cropping/CMYK printing.

Bhairavi

Here are a couple of pictures that I took for one of those assignments a couple weeks ago.  I had about 10 minutes before the sun was gone, but I think they’re pretty nice.  I can post them, because the clients not going to end up using them. <blank stare>

HAC 33

James

Nathan

Self-Portrait 080919

Canon 5D Mark II – My thoughts

Yesterday Canon finally announced their replacement for the now 3 year old (that’s 108 digital camera years) 5D SLR. In a few ways, I miss using my 5D.  It’s small, light, and has excellent image quality. So as someone who shot over 120,000 frames with a 5D and used it as my main body until very recently, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this news and have some thoughts I thought I’d share with you.

First off, the good stuff.  21MP is super, though at less than 3 grand I’m a little pissed I just bought a 1DsIII. Higher ISO speeds and better high-ISO performance, looks pretty good so far, though I’m a detail guy and find the noise reduction necessary at these levels tends to mush detail a little too much for my liking. High-res screen, super and I wish I had it on my flagship 1D.  1080P video mode, honestly couldn’t care less as I don’t shoot video, though I guess this would be useful to photo-journalists.

Now for the bad.  Same or very similar AF system to the old 5D, hmm.. well I rarely use anything but the center focus point and almost all of my subjects are still, that said, I kind of wanted a pro AF system in a smaller package or at least a really substantial upgrade.  The new viewfinder is slightly larger at 98%, thought we’ll see if the 5DII’s is actually an improvement on what was a very good but not incredible finder on the original. I’ve become a little addicted to the 100% finder on the 1D.

But the main thing that’s stopping me from pre-ordering one right now is the shutter.  Supposedly it’s the same as the old camera.  While 3 or 4 frames per second is fine for me as I never shoot in anything other than single frames, the blackout time on the 5D can simply be described as glacial.  Seriously, it’s like 150ms or something.  I think my 40 year old Hasselblad is faster.  We’ll see I guess, maybe it’s better than I think or maybe I can get over it.

Oh, and I’m not sure why everyone is always complaining about the lack of environmental sealing in these non-pro bodies.  I’ve used my Canon cameras in mild rain tons of times and had no problem.  You’d think that everyone on DP Review was shooting on a sandy beach during a huricane the way they talk.

Anna

Getty Villa

I just got back from a trip to LA last night and have a few portraits to process, but in the meantime, here are some shots from the Getty Villa out in Malibu.

Never really use my flickr page, except for travel stuff, so here you go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billwadman/sets/72157607342353999/