Firemonkeyphoto

The Swiss Fast Lane (top speed 1/8000th)3
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on January 9th, 2011

This post has been knocking around for awhile in the dark pipework behind this blog and in the dusty parts of my mind. It is unashamedly technical and really only useful for the folks who have access to an Elinchrom Ranger with an S type head, a pocketwizard TTL for Canon and a 5D (mk2). Other equipment will almost certainly work, but I can’t tell you how well!

About a year ago, Alex Ray from The Flash Center came through Edinburgh riding herd on David Hobby. He mentioned that with a certain Elinchrom Ranger head and the new “tweakable” pocketwizard TTL (mini TT1, Flex TT5)  transmitter units there was a possibility of synchronising the flash burst and the open shutter far beyond the normal flash synch speed of a camera. This wasn’t the incremental increase found when using speedlights, but the ability to synch at any shutter speed, no matter how fast. Purely by coincidence I had the very equipment to do this already. All that was needed was to play with the HyperSynch delay on the transmitter.

For the stopping of fast objects with artificial light, the norm is to use a strobe with a short duration in a dark area and use the duration of the flash to act like a very fast shutter. This is limiting for a “location” photographer who only has a single cheap, slow, flash head.

The Pocketwizard and Elinchrom trick ensures the shutter will sample some part of the flash output. The shutter is open for less time than the flash is switched on for. At normal speeds, the flash waveform will be shorter than the time the shutter is open for. This means the flash exposure is not affected by the shutter speed at all. At the high speeds involved in this trick the shutter grabs a  portion of the flash waveform. This means that the flash will be less powerful than normal and the flash exposure determined by the power of the flash (in two different ways), ISO, aperture and unusually, the shutter speed.

This is a touch unusual as shutter speed does not affect flash exposure in the normal (sub 1/200th) realm of flash photography. However in this case, it determines how much of the flash output is seen by the sensor. It also affects the size of any unexposed or dark bands, where the shutter is open but no flash is present, or where the flash waveform is rising or quenching.

The flash power not only affects the maximum light output of the flash, but also its duration (and thus shape). At full flash power it is possible to get a solid exposure of all but the very lowest part of the frame. At lower powers the flash exposure drops steadily with shutterspeed and the top of the frame sees a dimmer flash output while the lower part of the frame is cut off. It seems that this trick works at its best with the Ranger dumping its maximum output into your subject, your sensor will only see a small portion of this. That said, an Elinchrom Ranger has 1200Ws of power to burn, so with a bare head it is perfectly possible to work with the lights at a distance while outside.

The fact that it works in the presence of ambient light is probably the biggest advantage of this trick for me. Indeed, when working with a single head, it seemed the more ambient light present, the better. Working at very high shutter speeds drastically limits the contribution of the ambient light. In order to include ambient light with a shutter speed of around 1/8000th of a second, at a reasonable aperture,  I was normally forced to abuse the high ISO abilities of the 5Dmk2.

The high shutter speeds means a wide aperture is possible in broad daylight. To make the big strobe look like daylight and to dump most of the full power, I tend to use the flash far away without any reflector. Big lights, far away is the opposite of the normal Strobist thinking but I find the results appear more natural at first glance. The light affects the entire scene very evenly, much like a low sun, however it is completely under the control of the photographer. I borrowed a 50mm f/1.2 lens and made some photos with it set wide open.

The ability to freeze fleeting details that are normally invisibly fast can add additional layer of interest to a photograph. I was struck by the ability of the flash to freeze translucent substances such as sheets of water. This worked best with the flash providing a backlight with fill being povided by the ambient. The reverse works equally well but it can be easier to arrange the artifical light behind a subject and it is easier to control the shape of the flash light with modifiers.

The magic delay value set in the Pocketwizard transmitter seemed to be -2500, the maximum allowed by the software. The reciever was a standard plus 2 Pocketwizard. It would be interesting to see what the optimum delay value was if Pocketwizard allowed a larger range to be set. The drawback is that at this delay value the use of normal hot shoe flashes is limited. A dark band at the top of the frame is observed from 1/250th with the exposed portion of the frame being relegated to the center half of the frame by 1/1000th of a second and closing to a tiny slit at higher speeds.

Hundred Metre Club: Promo shoot2
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on November 2nd, 2010

They are well worth a listen: http://www.myspace.com/thehundredmetreclub/

Shooting a band portrait is a new one for me. I am happy doing lit work and I can light groups, however band photos are another realm of art. There are some rules such as No Brick Walls & No Instruments. However the main aim is to allow the band to carry some message through the photo.

I went about this by not directing the shoot at all. Setting the lights into a safe but interesting configuration and waiting for a moment. John, John, Dean and Hugh were comfortable enough chatting amongst themselves. I made sure they didn’t stray out of the lit zone or form a straight line and waited. I made quite a few frames. Waiting for 4 people to have interesting expressions similtaneously with a 7 second recycle time is a long game and light and patience was slowly falling. To get ‘insurance’ I finished off getting the band to look at me and working through some deliberately goofy poses. The idea being they would settle out of the poses and I would get a second of relaxation in which to shoot.

We then moved to a tighter and more posed arrangement in some rockpools. The wind prevented deploying a soft source as planned so I worked though some arrangements until I found a three light cluster to the right could fake a soft source and some on axis fill gave me some shadow control. The light was fading quickly now and a 1/10th second shutter speed let me put some camera shake blur into the image.

Portraits over 3 years0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on July 31st, 2010

I have been shooting headshots of  Edinburgh University Sports Union’s committee for three years now. Often I’m shooting the same people in different committee positions. Meanwhile my lighting has been evolving. I have more kit available and considerably more know-how. Here is a comparison of my shoots over the three years:

Year 1: Unfamiliar rental kit and a wierd location. I pulled over a golden divider wall to make a cleanish background and put two light lights in the ’safe’ 45/45 configuration.

Year 2: Arranged a speedlight to flood a neutral coloured wall. Large silver brolly camera high right, softbox for fill. Using lots of large modifiers in a right space (to get the background) was a bit intimidating for some of my subjects.

Year 3: Weather was good so used a wall outside. Lit the background with a gridded flash aimed to rake across the stonework. Two lights to rimlight and a rotabox stood off a few meters as the mainlight.

I’m happiest with the single left photo from year 2, however the setup had a flaw in that it created a “dark eye” on the right that was underlit by the high mainlight and was’nt filled properly by the softbox. The lighting had to work on ten people of different ages, sexes and builds. The year 1 photos hit a problem with cases of “rugby player brow” due to the all the lighting being set high and aimed down. The year 2 low softbox was specifically tailored to deal with this, but did’nt always get both eyes. By year 3 I just dropped my mainlight to head height and made sure if was sufficiently backed off not to vary in exposure dramatically across the face or be a distraction when shooting. It could have been closer to the middle for more even exposure, but I was fine with how it fell. A subtle gradient in lightroom could even things up if it looked like a problem. I concentrated on giving my light a bit more depth, making sure there were shadows and a decent hair/side/backlight that I varied from person to person.

The examples I am happiest are generally the women. I hypothesise this is because a generic light looks better on ladies and OK on blokes, wheras a special “bloke” shooting light would make the men look great would’nt work on the ladies. There are a number of other factors that may explain it, but thats my first thought. As a compromise in the 3rd year I walked the rimlights around to form a side light when shooting the men, this was a change I could make while chatting to the subject and getting them in the right spot for all the other lights. Over all three years I used a marker on the floor so I could guide people easily into the right place.

Samhuinn 20090
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on February 28th, 2010

Its freezing cold, breath is misting in the air and I’m sweating profusely. On my back is my biggest camera bag, chock full and on my front is another sack full of rope and metal. Behind me is the registry office and I’m meant to be inside it. Halloween revellers pass, glimpsing at us with our painted faces and finding us photographers still as freaks in a melange of wierdness. Time goes on and the other photographers in our team head into position, cameras in hand. I’m not in position, my camera is’nt near my hands and the kit I’m carrying does’nt allow me to make a good backup plan. I’m to be on the third floor, flashes rigged, tripod up and harness on ten minutes ago. Dan and Ania, my last companions have to move soon. The day of packing and checking, the practice shoots and careful organisation are sliding down the drain because someone, somehow got the time wrong. Soon the Samhuinn procession will come down the Royal Mile, surrounded by spectators and I’m going to miss it.

The man with the key appears, sometime after eternity (subjective I suppose) and I’m in. Racing for the wedding chamber on the second floor. I dump my sacks and run through the kit, assembling it as fast as I can. I’m muttering “Do it like you practiced, just faster, same order”. Its pitch black outside so the flashes get rigged first. Three all sliding home onto one light tripod. The tripod and each flash clipped to a rope, the rope clipped to some stout plumbing. Full power, full zoom, the throw from the second floor out to the stage outside St Giles is long and right at the edge of what my kit can do. The time-lapse camera is prepared, the cable release is shorted, meaning that when the camera is switched on, it will motordrive for the entire event. 10s exposure on shutter priority, the light goes from dim to blinding during the performance and that’ll give the camera a chance to cope with the flares. Focus checked, double checked and triple checked. The camera is clipped and placed next to the flashes on the huge windowsills. Last but not least is my two hand-cameras. 5D bolted onto a titanic 500mm F4 from lensforhire.co.uk and a 1D with a 70-200mm for some flexibility. The 500 goes on a borrowed tripod and all the gear is clipped back to the building. I’ve dumped all my insulating layers and in only a long-sleeve t-shirt I’m out on the ledge in the chill October air. The crowd have gathered but the main procession is’nt in place yet. I plan to use the time to dial in my aperture for the flashes, around f/5.6. The pocketwizard on my 1D can’t reach the flashes, just two windows down, its AA batteries are somehow kaput. The TTL1 on my 5D is fine but there is no time to swap. I push the 1D to its highest usable ISO, 1600, crank the lens as wide as it will go and machinegun the procession, trying to pan with my subjects between the slaps of the shutter.

The procession reaches the stage and its game on for my flashes, the 500mm lens ultra-tight on the performers. The 5D can’t focus the big glass at the dim start of the ceremony so I’m manually focusing. Its a BIG focus ring but a nice tight lens so I do ok. Its VERY tight for the fire-dances so I switch to the 70-200mm, VERY time consuming with all the ropes, straps, tripod set about me. The 70-200mm is finally in the tripod and the flashes are doing OK. I’m hoping the time-lapse camera is still shooting but I can’t move to check it, even as the chill begins to settle through my shirt.

Fire dances and swirls, flightless birds are driven off by painted men and the stage goes red. The Red-Men are showstealers, stacking human beings to the beat of battling drums. The pyro guy is on the stage and the flare goes off, I expose a few frames at 1/20th before zapping the shutter to the maximum 1/250th I can squeeze from my strobes. A second flare backlights the performers and the hags are on the stage. Hags tear the hearts out of the red men and the Wild Hunt starts to encroach upon the stage. Somehow I find time to trade ISO for flash power, dropping each flash to half and throwing on a warm layer. Giant insects are battling a tree and I’m switching up for my 500mm for the fight of the kings.

The Kings are huge with recurved legs, I can’t include all of one in the frame. They duel with flaming swords and staves, posing and finally one is set ablaze and they fall. The Cailleach is onstage revealling with shockingly white hair and bloody teeth. She revives one (or both..) and friends and performers begin to mob the stage.

The drummers flank proceedings and the crowd surges in. The dancing begins and slowly dies down, my work is over. The gear goes into the bags and I meet my escort home outside, we work late pulling together an edit for the BBC website and other news outlets before slinking off to the after-party at Three Sisters.

Innerleithen winter series: round 1, practice0
neil posted in Photos, bikes, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on January 31st, 2010

All shot using my Elinchrom Ranger pack. The sheer power of the pack meant I could back the light well away from the track and work wider in a larger area of light. It also meant I could light dark areas of forest though sufficient clutter to give the impression of dappled sunlight. Care was taken to ensure the light was nowhere near the riders line of sight, lighting from the side or rear.  It took about the same time to rig as a single speedlight and the pack and head fitted well in my camera bag. Using the pocketwizard ttl’s delay setting I could reliably get a flash synch of 1/320th and 1/400th (with the shutter effect in the above and below images), much better than the native synch of 1/200th and the speedlight synch of 1/250th. This sort of increase is very valuable when working with fast moving downhillers.

The temperature hovered sufficiently close to zero to harden the track. Areas of heavy braking were being polished to a disconcerting lacquered mud finish, featuring the asthetics of common mud and the friction of an ice rink. The practice session was interrupted by a riders meeting on wether the course was worth racing, the race still being in doubt at sundown on saturday. I hope to make it on the sunday, for the race, on one of the later races.

Wild Hunt0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on January 11th, 2010

I’ve got another shoot at in half an hour, we’d arranged to meet twenty minutes ago, but there is no sign of Wild Hunt. I’m just packing up to head on to the next assignment when my phone rings, they’re on the Royal Mile and headed over. Graham and I re-rig all the lights and set them up facing the glowsticks we are going to use to position the group on the featureless grassy field. Three lights, snooted & flagged to prevent excessive spill onto the grass. The camera, unusually for me, is on a tripod. The tripod’s head is inverted so that the camera hangs inches above the ground and the 70-200mm lens is clamped into place. This lets me hold a 10 second exposure, f8, ISO 800 to fill in the night sky. Streetlights are reflecting off the cloud give a spooky orange sky, we were’nt that lucky with the clouds, on a good night they provide a wonderful dappled orange fractal background. I missed a trick here, if I’d blue gelled the strobes and then balanced it out, the sky would’ve been a deeper more fun shade of orange. I’m still nailing down focus and testing the lights when the hunters roll up to strap on stilts and pull out swords. We do some static shots with them arranged in a vee, stacked as tight as I can get them. They move a little, creating dark shadows around themselves. If I’d had my creative hat on, I’d have zoomed in after the flash to create a black outline around the performers (next time!).

I know I’ve got the safe shot. I could go now and get to the second assignment, but I’m meeting the next group nearby and I’ve surely got time to make another photo? Plumping for extra credit, I ask the hunters to run through the area defined by the glowsticks. Graham takes charge of the flashes, primed to trigger them when the hunters are in the flash sweet spot and sufficiently spread. This leaves me free to open the shutter and work with the group. After the first run-thru, I show them the image on the camera’s LCD. In seconds the whole group is on hands and knees behind the camera (except the two ladies on stilts), shouting and laughing and totally up for another go. We do three and I notice that one girl hangs back, there is some negotiation and the whole group runs through at her pace, making sure they are all in the picture. Pop! They come through and bee-line for the camera, leaving their shadows on the night sky. Sweet. I’m happy, they’re enthused and want to see it big ASAP.

The next assignment call, its a misunderstanding somewhere, we are’nt shooting until next week. In fact the shoot never happens. That would’ve been a blow, except I took a fun photo already.

Portable photo backup/storage0
neil posted in Neil, phototech on July 11th, 2009

The requirement for a portable backup device depends on its intended use. Different photographers work in different ways in different environments, which is why there is no single solution. This is an attempt to categorise the way people shoot and the backup device I would use in each case. The assumption has been made here that bandwidth limitations preclude uploading to a backup at home. As things stand I can see two or three distinct categories for which a different device would be appropriate:

1) Hotel room backups, the backup device can be safely and conveniently stored in a secure location and the time taken to backup the images is’nt as important as the ability to do something with the photos once they have been backed up. For this a laptop with the possible addition of external hard drives would work nicely. This solution would also be valid if the shoot was such that a laptop was small change in terms of bulk and mass compared to the rest of the gear being moved or not a great deal of movement was anticipated in the shooting. This is how Joe McNally, Drew Gardener, Steve Frischling and many others appear to operate.

2) Light hotel room backups, where the hotel is’nt secure and the shoot is mobile and relatively “low kit”, however the ability to get on the internet is more important than absolute minimum weight. It is acceptable, in this situation, to link multiple devices together. This allows the use of a netbook (samsung NC-10, 160GB/£290) and a rugged hard drive (LaCie 500GB/£148), a solution favoured by David Hobby or interestingly, the Archos 5 media player (250GB/£255) which provides a usb host, web browser and netbook size hard drive at a very light weight. The downfall here may well be either battery life or speed of the transfer from the card. On trips when I’m stuck with a computer for non-photo reasons, I travel with a 1kg Dell laptop which has an in-built very slow card reader.

3) On the move backups, which requires a single device with prodigious speed and battery life that can be used while shooting on the move. Backing up in this situation precludes things like cables, a boot process and extensive clicking or button pressing. The ideal here is to put the card into a device and press “go!”. This is the world of the Epson P-7000 (160GB/£538) series which are good kit but extremely expensive (review here) or the Nextto Extreme ND2700 (160GB/£163), which is cheaper and claims the worlds fastest transfer speeds. The compromise being that Nextto does’nt allow for viewing of the images and has an unusual user interface. I use an EPSON P-5000 for backups during weddings and longer sporting events.

I fully expect the technology involved to change quite quickly, certainly the model numbers involved increment endlessly. I think that the “light hotel room” backups solution is the one most likely to change with the advent of new gadgets. If someone could make a smartphone that could manage the transfer of data to a rugged hard drive at night, confirm the transfer and maybe upload selected JPEGs then that would appeal greatly, but thats probably a bit niche!

5D mk2: First Industrial Shoot Impressions2
neil posted in Travel, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on January 19th, 2009

There is nothing quite like an industrial shoot for testing out a camera. You have to produce good work in a limited timeframe while working with subjects who are frequently new to being photographed. Concentration should be on making the subject look interesting and making sure all the little details are there. In this scenario any equipment you have is either helping you or hurting you.

On location there were some real positives to the 5D:

Its big screen cannot be praised sufficiently, especially when working with off-camera flash lighting. When I made frames with my 1D, I found it much more difficult to assess what the light was doing and pick out the little details that you need in some pictures. It also made it easier to show subjects the image you were going for and get their assistance in improving it.

Live view is extremely useful when working with shallow DOF prime lenses and stationary subjects. With live view I could dial in the focus manually on a 10X zoom and be certain it was nailed. I was’nt using a tripod for this, just bracing the camera.
Wide angle lenses are useful to show the size of machines or workmen in context, so a full frame camera is pretty useful here, although you could use a crop sensor and a specialist ultrawide.

The images have the impression of greater sharpness at low ISO ratings than the 1D images, I don’t know why, but it is nice.

Unfortunately the sheer size of the images has reduced my post processing computer to a whimpering pile of 1’s and 0s, so I’m not posting any images with this and more importantly I’m not getting a paycheck until I can get the images are finished.

Canon 5D mk II First Impressions3
neil posted in Photos, Neil, phototech, 5Dmk2 on January 11th, 2009

The short version:

Awesome files

Huge files! Are you ready to deal with them?

Clean High ISO, usable at 6400

Unchanged ergonomics

Slow autofocus in low light

The only criteria for choosing a camera is “will it help me make better pictures?”. After nearly two weeks with the 5D mk2, I’m ready to answer that question for myself, hopefully this article will help you make up your mind

Yes, it will help ME make better pictures

The clean high ISOs mean that I can use streetlights and other low intensity ambient sources without compromising picture quality. A good example of this is shown below, happily shot at ISO1600 retaining plenty of detail. Canon has brought its heel down on chroma noise which, subjectively, is the worst kind of noise. The pictures gains texture but not distracting colours as you rise in ISO.

Its smaller and lighter than a 1D. This means I’ll take it more places, travel more easily and be able to work longer. Its batteries are smaller and the charger is sensibly sized. The battery charger for a 1D is getting on for the same size as the 5D. If you own a XXD camera already, this won’t make a difference to you. I expect a lot of shooters to be using the 5D as their main camera, backed up by a 1 series body for when the weather turns foul or blistering AF/shoot speed is needed.

The main issue I have encountered with the camera so far is its AF is slow in low light. It is particularly pronounced after coming from a 1 series body, I have’nt used an XXD camera so I can’t give a comparison there. With a little care, focus can be achieved but it is’nt the instant reflex you might want. It certainly is’nt a mainstream sports camera, especially considering the file size it outputs. My 8GB card can store 288 images shooting RAW, not enough for an intense single day of shooting. The size of file has broken my workflow completely, dealing with the 5D files strains my single core 2Ghz desktop and as a result I’ll have to upgrade as soon as I can afford to.

I have’nt seen any sign of the “black dot” problem (and there is a firmware update out for that anyway).

That said the 5D makes pictures that make me drool and its high ISO performance has opened some doors I plan to explore in the coming year. It has made a new slice of the world shootable for me. If you own a D3/D700, I can’t give you a comparison there, but for Canon users its ground breaking stuff.

Have’nt used the movie mode extensively although it looks promising, I’ll have a shot with that when I own a computer capable of playing the movie back.

I encountered an unexpected upside when hunting a battery in Jessops, Glasgow, the attractive shop assistant looked at me with new eyes when she realised I had a 5D mk2. With a plane to catch and an inability to switch the thing on I could’nt exactly exploit the situation. It probably would’nt have worked out anyway, she probably just wanted me for my body.

Photoshelter collection closing0
neil posted in rants, Neil, phototech on September 11th, 2008

Effective 10th October.

Statement on PSC’s corporate blog here. They cite an inability to displace Getty as one of the reasons for shutting down.

I feel like I just got to a great party, opened my first beer, then the police bust the whole thing. For others, who have earned substantial income from the collection, it must be very hard news.