Little Cameras

I have this fantasy about little cameras. And by little cameras I mean point and shoot stuff.  Anything from the camera in my iPhone to a little tiny $129 Powershot to a G10 (in the Canon world at least).  I always think that I’ll actually use one if I have one.  Then I buy one and it sits in my closet until it’s completely outdated.  It’s sad really.

My friend Meg bought a G10 last month (she seems to like it, we’ll have to get her to write up her thoughts.) and I’ve gotten to play with it a bit.  The screen is nice, the size and weight are more Canonet than you’d expect in a modern camera, and that’s a good thing mind you.  It’s got good physical detented knobs for a lot of functions, including exposure compensation right on the top left.  -2 < > +2  Sweet!  As you can see, I lust for it.

In the end however it’s got the same problems that all such cameras have.  I don’t shoot like need you to.  That is, in good light, at lower iso, or with a flash.  Those are all limitations of the size of the sensor (smaller than your pinkie) and their type (CCD). Maybe I have to stop thinking about them as a replacement for bigger more capable cameras and instead shoot to their strengths.  I’ve tried this once or twice, usually get back home and look at the images on screen and think, “Man I wish I had my 5D on me instead”.  I’m just not a ‘see a cool thing on the street and snap a photo of it” kind of photographer.

Those little Sigma cameras are pretty sweet looking.  But a 4MP Foveon image just isn’t enough for me no matter now good their adherents say they are.  I’m even cool with the prime lens they’ve got permanently in place.  It’s the $600 price that turns me off as well.

There’s rumors of Nikon or Canon coming out with a CMOS (that’s the good kind of sensor that’s in most modern DSLR) which could give much closer to dSLR performance in a smaller package.  When we can get Rebels and D40’s for $550 on sale, the manufacturers really need to think about getting a nice camera in the $400-$500 price range that doesn’t have just as many limitations as the $125 number.

From the research I’ve done, it’s Panasonic that holds the camera to get title in this category, I think it’s called the LX3.  Apparently it’s got lower noise and a faster lens (f/2) that it’s competitors and doesn’t try to push it’s megapixel rating for the sake of marketing.  I think it’s 10MP.  Plus it’s got modes to shoot 16×9 and I think 4×5 ratios, plus RAW.  

It’s funny, a lot of the time when I want to have a camera with me when I’m walking around, I choose my 40 year old Leica M4.  It’s bigger than a point and shoot for sure, and you’ve got to carry a meter with mine, but I’m not skimping on image quality.  On the contrary, you might say that I’m gaining quality.  That led me to think about a used M8, but the cropped sensor just pisses me off, and it’s too rich for my blood anyway.

To be sure, I see images all the time taken by people who use a G9 as their main camera and they’re gorgeous.  Makes me massively envious that they can do so much with them and I can’t. Maybe, that’s the reason for having one.  Like a cyclist training on one of those one gear direct drive bikes.  Limited, and hard, but massively efficient if you want to get better faster.

Ann Diptych

A delightful woman named Ann came over to sit for me today and towards the end of the shoot I thought I’d try some close-up portraits of her face with her hair pulled back.  Ideally for what I was trying to do, I’d have some strip boxes, basically a narrow (6-10″) softbox that lets you have a soft band of light that you can control more easily.  I don’t have one, so this setup was thrown together.  On her left was a White Lightning strobe with a 60″ softliter, and on her right was a small alien bee 400 with a large softbox.  It was the best I could do.

Ok, so this is an example of the differences that light choices and camera settings and post processing can make to a very simple image.

The image on the left was shot with just the While Lightning firing.  Even at it’s lowest power and me at iso 100, I had to stop down to f/3.5 or something like that.

For the shot on the right I used only the modelling lamps on the the two strobes.  Basically using them as low power hot lights with 250W bulbs in them. It was shot at iso 400 wide open at f/1.2.  It’s hard to tell in the small web size, but nothing save her eyes and lips are in focus. There was window light coming into the apartment too, illuminating the gray paper behind her.  The upshot of this is that when you set the white balance for the tungsten color on her face, it shifts the sunlit gray paper to blue. Pretty cool, eh?

I was trying to finish this up by stating which one I prefer, but I end up going back and forth. They’re different, and I’m sure people will have their preference.  I thought we might as well talk some specifics of technique here while we’re at it.

The Glossy/Matte Debate

It’s kind of funny actually, it used to be that photographers had an opinion one way or the other about the paper their images were printed on.  The older matte, more modern glossy, or a satin that was somewhere in between. Incidentally I prefer satin for reasons I’ll explain in a bit.  What’s funny is that not only has this argument become even more clouded with the explosion of inkjet photo paper options, but now it’s expanded to computer screens as well.

For those who don’t follow the debate, many photographers and graphic designers and some normal crazy people don’t like the glossy screens on many recent laptops. Sony and HP and Apple have been doing this for a while.  Currently, all of the latest Macs come with glossy screens as standard.  This includes the 13″, 15″ and now 17″ laptops as well as the iMac and the latest Cinema Display.  Up until this last revision in October, Apple gave the buyers of the MacBook an option to build the laptops with a matte screen, but now they don’t (I know the new 17″ has a matte option, but who wants to carry around a 7lb computer).

Well, a lot of people seem to be very upset about this and since I have two heads like Zaphod Beeblebrox, I’m willing to put one of them in the lion’s mouth.  I don’t see what the big problem is with glossy, unless you’re working outside all day. Especially with the bright LED back-lights in today’s displays which can overpower bright outdoor sun. Are there reflections?  Sure there are, but there were with matte screens too, they just got blurred and subdued and smeared so you couldn’t tell what was a brightness difference from a reflection and what was from the screen itself.

I had a 15″ MacBook Pro from late 2006 with a matte screen and I didn’t like editing on that at all.  I gave it to my sister a couple months ago and replaced it with a new 13″ MacBook. I wish it had the better screen of the Air, but I don’t do color correction on this thing anyway, it’s just for sitting on my bed writing blog posts and taking it on set to dump images to during a shoot. I have yet to have a reflection problem that couldn’t be fixed by turning the laptop 5 degrees or tilting the screen a bit.

And on the plus side, the glossy screen has much blacker blacks, and side by side with an identical machine with a matte screen in the store, the glossy screen is a closer match to my calibrated Eizo and NEC desktop LCDs.  Others may feel differently, but I don’t know many people who have gone glossy and then gone back. In my mind, it’s a whole lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt out there. Maybe fear of change. 

Oh and for what it’s worth, I like satin finish paper for the best of both worlds. Not too shiny, but with much richer blacks and more saturated color than matte paper.  I used to print my portfolio on matte and then one day I did a side by side with a satin print.  No contest, I reprinted my whole book that very night.  To be specific, Red River Arctic Polar Satin is my favorite and reasonably priced.

Let the onslaught begin.

My Current Kit

As you’ve noticed, I’ve been cleaning out my shelves of gear. Trying to get down to a nice tight setup that does everything I want it to do at least 95% of the time.  Or course there are time when I’ll need something special, but usually jobs like that will have budgets that I can rent.  

So when I get the call to shoot and I grab my bag.  This is what I currently grab.

Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 50mm/1.2L
Canon 35mm/1.4L
Canon 28mm/1.8

Crazy, not a lens longer than 50mm and I call myself a portrait photographer. How dare I!  <grin>   I used the 85mm/1.2L on an ad shoot a couple months ago.  It was amazing and I totally want one, but I think I’ll have to save up for it or try to find one used. $1800 is a little too rich for my blood at the moment.  

The new 50 is great so far.  The bokeh on it is better than the 1.4 and the overall contrast on the images is better.  Though you’re paying for that in 4x the cost and about 3x the weight and bulk.

I still love the 28, but it’s not quite sharp enough to use wide open on a 21MP sensor, or at least my copy isn’t, so I tend to stop it down to 2.2 at least.  

I bought the 35 recently to take the place of the 28.  I figured it’s faster, sharper, less distortion, etc.  At first I didn’t like the focal length, somehow I just didn’t see that way, it didn’t fit.  But I’ve come to start appreciating it now. Getting use to the ‘not quite so wide’ look.

On top of the lenses I usually grab some accessories:

Canon 580EX speedlight
Gary Fong Lightsphere (the original hard bulky one)
Coiled flash cable
36″ 5-in-one reflector

I shoot the speedlight through the diffuser section of the 5/1 as a make-shift softbox a lot.  With an assistant holding that stuff obviously, I’ve only got 2 hands.

So all of this fits into my small Crumpler backpack if you do it right.  Very small, very tight, very flexible and amazing image quality if you get all the technical stuff right.  You can trade the reflector for a little laptop if you want too.  Usually there are two bags going along under those circumstances though.

Finally I’ve put in an order for the ProFoto AcuteB pack and head, so that’ll be the optional bag when I don’t want to pack up an Alien Bee when I need a real strobe.  That’ll open up the option to shoot outside too which is kind of exciting.

If anyone’s got any questions, let me know.

Sarah

Recently I’ve felt stuck.  I liked the work I’ve been doing, but I’ve fallen into habits that keep me retreading the same steps over and over.  Well that’s all going to stop.  First off, this blog is going to be a lot more active with at least a post a day. More technique, essays, equipment reviews, random links and thoughts, etc.  So keep an eye out and spread the word.

Today I had to chance to shoot my friend Sarah.  I wanted to see what would happen if I shot with next to no light using just a small window on a rainy New York day.  I also wanted to see what would happen if I didn’t do any photoshop to them, so I limited myself to just the adjustments I could make in lightroom.  Kind of a tie one hand behind my back kind of thing as a training exercise.

They were shot wide open with either the 50/1.2 or 35/1.4   And let me say once again that there was NO light in this room.  Even completely wide open on the primes, shutter at 1/30th, and exposure compensation down a stop or so, the iso was at 6400.  Like I said, might as well been in the dark.  That 5DII is pretty impressive, but there are limits.  Anyway, take a look.

That second one is as close to Arbus as you’ll ever see me get.  😉

Changing Aesthetics and the Grace of RAW Files

I’ve mentioned before the advantages of RAW files and I firmly believe that anyone doing post production on their images should use them if only for the exposure latitude.  There are exceptions of course (sports shooters, parents who take 1000 photos of their kids, etc) but
to get the full potential of the image quality in your images you need to be able to get to the original data off the sensor.

One of the cool advantages of RAW is that RAW converters keep getting better, and you can always go back and reprocess old shots. it’s like upgrading your old 20D with a new image processing chip.  It’s also useful when you want to return to an old image for aesthetic reasons.  

As an example I pulled out a picture I took of my friend and author Grant Stoddard back in January of 2006. Almost exactly 3 years to the day. Back when I knew even less about photography than I do now.  It was shot on a Canon 20D with a 50mm prime and if I remember correctly, a big octabox on an Alien Bees 800.

Below are three different ‘editions’ of this image:

The first is a straight export of the raw image with default settings in Lightroom.  It’s a little over-exposed, but at the time I wasn’t quite that observant.

The second image is what I came up with 3 years ago when I post-processed the RAW file.  Really just exporting it with some extra contrast and then cleaning up a few do-dads. To my eye’s now, his skin is really blown-out and has no detail. It’s over saturated, and I was too heavy handed with the overall contrast.

This third image is what I did with it tonight. Obviously much more like my locally-contrasty sharpened look that people comment about. That said, it’s very different than the one from 3 years ago.  And just imagine what I’ll do in 3 more years.

Profoto AcuteB 600 – Opinions Needed

I’ve been thinking about upgrading my lighting system for a while. However the more I think about it, I’ve realized that what I really need is to augment it.

Currently, I’ve got a big White Lightning 3200 that I use as my key light at my place and a couple small Alien Bees (400, 800) that I use for secondary lights and on location. I’m a fairly simple lighting guy. Playing with 3-4 lights is fun, but quickly becomes more of an interesting enginering problems than taking pictures.  So most of the time I stick with one light, just like old paintings. The only reason I need that much power in the main light I’ve got now was to use a big octabox with my 4×5 and polaroid 55, which was rated at iso 25 for the negative.  However I’ve only got a handful of slices of that left and most of the time I use the thing at 1/4 power or less anyway (sometimes way less that 1/4).

They’re fine for my personal studio work and when I’m on a big job there’s always a budget to rent big Profoto Pro7A’s or some other similarly crazily priced gizmo.  What I need is something between my big strobes and the couple of speedlights I use for most quick and dirty gigs.  Preferably battery powered and still small enough that an assistant could carry it in a bag.

So I’ve been looking at and reading about the ProFoto Acute-B 600 for a couple months now.  $2000 for the pack, and about $800 for the head.. I figured with a decent bag to carry it all in, I’m looking at 3 grand. Certainly not cheap, but it’s for work and I need to buy things to write-off at the end of the year anyway.  However I was at a camera store this morning and the woman said that there was a deal currently running where you get the pack and head for $1999.  That’s more like it.

Before I pull the trigger though, I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this setup, good or bad.  I’ve found a few little reviews online, most positive.

http://briansmithphotogear.blogspot.com/2007/02/profoto-acute-600b.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157611180180194/

Thoughts anyone? 

Good to Great

Being good at something is not the same as being great.  Perhaps that’s the last great struggle in life.  Malcolm Gladwell has talked about how you can get good at almost anything with a few years of intense study.  Other will say that might be true, but it takes the rest of your life to become great at it.

The quote above is by Philip Seymore Hoffman from a long, and in my opinion, fascinating article in this week’s New York Times Magazine.  Most of his insights are spot on. If you haven’t read the whole thing yet, you should. Here’s a link, so go do that and come back. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21hoffman-t.html?pagewanted=1

Even just striving for greatness, whether or not you ever get there, takes a lot of work. Sure there are the usual crop of phenoms and just plain lucky bastards, but in the end it involves hard work and a lot of hitting your head against a wall until you find where the doors are. And there will always be others that are better or more successful than you. I’m fine with that (most of the time), as long as I still enjoy the work I do and make progress.

As a photographer, I’m Good, but I’m not Great. There may be those among you who plainly disagree with me on this on both sides, but that’s ok. I’ve come to the realization that there will always be a chunk of people who don’t like my work no matter how good I do or don’t get. That’s part of being alive I guess. But I’ve spent a lot of time lately looking at where I am and in what direction I’m going. I know I don’t want to just work for the paycheck, and I know I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.  I do want to make work that lasts, and I want to feel like I’ve used my life well in the end.

I got a larger wide-gamut monitor last week and have been digging back through my portfolio while getting used to it. And I’ve found my work to be crude and painfully lacking refinement.  That’s ok though, I’m not flagellating myself for the fun of it, I’m just being self constructively critical. I go through cycles as my pendulum swings between “Hey, that’s not half bad, I’m actually getting a hang of this” and “My God, I actually sent that image to a magazine!?”  Right now, I’m on the later, but as my friend Tom said last week, it’s those times when you usually have a burst of creativity. Let it come.

One last time with feeling.

Ok, time to put a ‘For Sale’ sign on some gear again.

My 3 very nice lenses didn’t sell a couple weeks ago.  A number of nibbles but no bites.  Therefore I’m going to try a super package deal before I put them on ebay.  I’d much rather sell to my readers.

So I’m going to lower my prices a little bit.
Canon 17-40mm f/4 L with lens hood.  Very good condition  –  $425
Canon 70-200mm f/4 L with lens hood.  Good condition (couple of nicks on the white paint – see photo) – $375
Canon 100 f/2  Very good condition – $250

If you want all 3 I’ve got a package deal: 17-40/4L, 70-200/4L, and 100/2, all three lenses for $1000 total.  That’s $50 less than I am selling them separately.

Also I’ve decided to sell my Canon 1DsIII.  It’s a super camera in so many ways, head and shoulders better than the 5dII, and it makes me very sad to do it, however I just can justify having both.  So it’s about 3 months old, cared for very well, and is in super condition except for one small cosmetic scratch near the hot shoe.  Original box, untouched strap, battery, charger, manuals, etc.  $6000

Oh and my Eizo CE240W  I’m lowering the price to $800.  Which is a crazy deal

All prices are without shipping. I’ll give everybody until Saturday morning to get back to me.  If you’re interested or have questions or comments, email me at bill@billwadman.com

5D Mark II Initial Thoughts

Ok, so I’ve now used the 5D Mark II on an actual shoot of an actual subject and so far my opinion is very favorable.  As most of you know I was an original 5D shooter and more recently I used a 1Ds3 as my main camera.  My comments will generally be a comparison of these 3 bodies. I’m sure I’ll come to more and perhaps better conclusions as time wears on, but here’s what I’ve noticed so far.

SIZE AND HANDLING
Compared to the 5D1 it’s obviously very similar.  The viewfinder is slightly bigger and brighter, but not as good as the 1Ds3. I have started to get used to shooting with the extra weight of the 1D and it’s got a feeling of solidity that neither of the 5D’s can compare to.  That said, the finish on the 5D2 is that speckled matte paint similar to the 1D which gives the new camera a bit more polish.

I will miss the portrait grip shutter button, but I’m willing to give that up for the weight and bulk that I won’t have to lug around.  Also, the information inside of the 1D’s viewfinder is better laid out (I like the exposure meter vertically along the side), but again, I’ll make that concession for the weight difference. Same goes for the mode dial which I’ve gotten used to not having, instead changing modes with buttons, but you can’t have everything.

The shutter and mirror black-out, sound and seem a bit more solid on the new camera though that could be chalked up to the fact that my 5D1 has had about 150,000 shutter actuations on it.

I don’t like the trash button being in the lower left corner of the new camera, but the new high-res screen is great.  Huge improvement.  You can actually zoom in and see if you’re shots are sharp now.

IMAGE QUALITY
Some people have noticed a bit more moire in the 5D2’s shots versus the 1Ds3.  That’s most likely due to a weaker anti-aliasing filter in front of the sensor.  I’m not sure if it’s true or just my imagination, but the RAW files do look sharper right out of the camera.  I edited in Lightroom after converting the CR2 files to DNG with the adobe converter (A Lightroom update is rumored for this Tues which will make this step moot).

Other than that, the files look great.  The sensor looks to be as good or better than the 1Ds3 to my eyes.  I’ve got a location shoot tomorrow, so I’ll know more after that.  But for low-iso studio use the images are beautiful.

There’s been a lot of talk in photo forums about the ‘black dot problem’  Basically in some images where pixels are blown out (say a photo of a streetlight at night) there is a group of black pixels to the right of it in the image.  I’ve not seen this problem, and honestly I’m not sure it should happen much in my kind of work.  As one comment on the subject I read today said, “all of the images I’ve seen with this problem are terrible images.  The black dots were the least of the problems”  Your mileage may vary, and I’ll keep you up to date on this one.

I’ve played with the higher-iso modes, but not for anything serious.  For my purposes, and keep in mind that I’m an anal pixel-peeper, 6400 seems usable.  Which means that I should not need to shy away from 1600 and 3200. In the past I tried not to go above 800 unless I had to.  My post tends to exaggerate noise and I don’t like the compromise in detail and dynamic range that you’ve sometimes got to make, so I’m pretty conservative.  This means I’ve got at least another stop or two of usable range.  Speaking of which, the new auto-iso mode seems like it could be handy for those situations when you’re in and out of light and want to worry about one less setting.

MOVIE MODE
I’m not a cinematographer, but if I was, I’d be pretty psyched.  I’ve only played with the movie mode once, but the video looked great on both my mac and pc and edited fine in iMovie.  Very detailed and very big.  Could be much fun.

That’s it for now, but as I mentioned I’ve got a shoot tomorrow which should be a good test. If anyone has any specific questions, let me know and I’ll try to answer.