If you read this blog from down under, you should come by and say hello at the Digital Media Festival this week. I will be speaking Thursday the 15th at 9AM. I am dreading the flight but I am very much looking forward to the event and to seeing Sydney. Still can’t believe they wouldn’t spring for Pip to be my translator.
I am speaking this Thursday the 18th at Photo Plus Expo at 1:00 PM (High Volume Workflow) and again on Friday at 3:45 (Lightroom Laptop Workflow). If you are in NY this week please look me up.
Hi everyone! I’m Adam, and this is my first D2F blog post. You may have been in touch with me for job deliveries, or seen me around on shoots. Recently I had the immense pleasure of embarking on a two week excursion to the Czech Republic, within the (former) Eastern Bloc. The trip was incredible, and thanks to the fact that my friend who I was traveling with has family in Czech and spoke the native language fluently, I got to see a lot of amazing parts of Czech that your average tourist would probably never encounter.
We at Image Mechanics enjoy sharing personal projects when we think they’re cool, so I’ve put up a gallery of photos from my travels for people to check out. Just click this nifty little image below:
Hope you enjoy it! If you have any questions about visiting the Czech Republic, I can be reached at adam (at) imagemechanics (dot) com.
I arrived Sunday for the PDN On the Road series in Atlanta. The trip was pretty good even though on the Chicago to Atlanta leg I had to sit next to the bathroom. I have had worse flights so all in all it was a very efficient and painless trip. I loved being able to jump on the MARTA train at the airport and arrive at my hotel 17 minutes later for a grand total of $1.75. Individually and as a company, I am constantly evaluating my choices and how they affect the environment. This one was an easy choice. Check out the escalator from the train station. It was so long and steep that it made me a little anxious - keep in mind that until my back surgery, I was a frequent rock climber and heights don’t usually bother me. This is one extreme escalator.
After the speaker dinner, Aaron Schindler and I popped our heads into Daily’s Downstairs where we heard some great live music. I would loosely classify the sound as ska/jazz with a Joe Jackson influence. They are called Wabi Sabi and I liked them so much that I bought their CD.
Is your sensor looking a little dirty? Well, it’s inevitable and not very difficult to remedy with a steady hand and a bit o’ nerves. Recently we received the Delkin Sensor Scope System, for use with 35mm D-SLRs and put it through our usual tests (remember, we test this stuff so you don’t have to.)
The package is cool, tons of sensor swabs, large bottle of cleaning fluid, the actual scope and a little USB vacuum thingy. Everything is pretty dang useful, especially the scope. It is essentially a lighted loupe which is designed to fit perfectly in the lens mount of both Canon and Nikon bodies so that you can see the dirt which is there and know when your cleaning has removed it. I would recommend purchasing the scope and the wands/fluid seperately and save yourself the $20 from the hokey USB vacuum.
Now we get down to the task at hand.
The instructions are pretty basic; set your camera to it’s sensor clean option, inspect the sensor with the scope, clean sensor with wand, re-inspect with scope, and repeat process till clean.
Our conclusion, it works. The sensor is clean and free of residue and accomplished with minimal complication. Why pay for a sensor cleaning service where you lose your camera for 3 days and pay $40 each time when for a $130 investment you can clean your sensor at your own convenience. Of course, safety is paramount, so follow the directions and make sure your camera’s battery is fully charged to avoid premature shutter return. Other than that I’d recommend this system to anyone serious about taking clean, dust free images. Just remember to buy the scope and duster refill kit seperately. It’ll save you the $20 from the vacuum to put towards a nice 12 pack for congratulations on a job well done, you deserve it.
P.S. For our medium format backs we’ve found the sensor brushes from Visible Dust to be more than adequate since wet cleaning is very rarely necessary.
Links…
The numbers are in and the new 8-core is downright amazing! This last week was a doosey, our new machine was put to the test and it came screaming through with flying colors.
Here are the machines specs…
and coupled with our unique workflow here’s what it can do.
Shoot #1 - 9 Hours, 22 Setups, 835 Leaf 22 Megapixel Captures, TIFFs and JPGs processed of ALL shots and transfered to client hard drive less than a half hour after last shot. Beat that processing time Leaf Capture and Capture One Pro.
Shoot #2 - 8 Hours, 55 Setups, 1603 Leaf 22 Megapixel Captures, 358 Selects made on set, Contact Sheets Printed, TIFFs Processed and DVDs burned of said selects with transfer to client hard drive. Complete delivery within a half hour of last shot.
Shoot #3 - 7 Hours, 52 Setups, 1263 Leaf 22 Megapixel Captures, 292 Selects with same processing and delivery as above.
Verdict… It’s Ridiculous! I’d like to see this done with any program other than Lightroom and any system other than the newest 8-core, JPEGs and TIFFs only take 2.6 seconds each to process!!!) I’ll even put up the wager of a bacon sandwich the size of your head if you think it’s beatable. (Real world shooting only, this takes into accout wardrobe changes, lunch, etc…)
Who Can you Trust Nowadays?
(We know it’s definitely not your meter.)
Recently we’ve been running into the fact that (a majority of the time) the meter reading on set isn’t quite right, so today we decided to get to the bottom of things. We gathered all the meters we had in the office and put them to the test once and for all. To start, we brought out our Leaf Aptus 22, Phase P25 and Canon 5D (all shooting tethered to the same computer). The three meters we’re using are a Sekonic L-758DR, Sekonic L-508 and a Minolta Flash Meter IV.
Now for the pseudo-scientific method. We took all three meters and cameras into our “back office” (it’s really our outdoor storage space), took an ambient reading, and shot using said readings. Below are the results.
Film and digital photography have just enough things in common to lull you into a false sense of familiarity. Basic exposure rules still apply like they did with film, but just like different film stocks had their own exposure rules, digital chips have their own special requirements. Shooting digital is closer to the way we used to shoot 400 speed Tri-x rated at 200-250 ISO. By doing this you effectively lowered the ISO by one stop to open up the shadows and add a little punch to the negative. If you wanted to you could have shot it rated at 400 and get acceptable results but for an optimal negative you rated it slower.
Digital works pretty much the same way. Just because the chip says it is 100 ISO doesn’t mean that your meter should be set to 100 and off you go. First you have to deal with signal to noise ratio. One of the best written articles about how a digital chip works is Expose to the Right> on Luminous Landscape by Michael Richmann.
At Image Mechanics, the way we do it is to expose so that the important highlight detail is walking the edge of being blown out and then process it back down to the desired look. The histogram is a good tool that gives you a feel for overall exposure but it can only tell you that something is blown or clipped, not whether it is important detail that you want to hold in your image. To visually check what is blown or clipped, we use the shadow/highlight exposure warning in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom.
I am happy to announce that I am participating in PDN’s 5 city tour - PDN On The Road. I will be covering Lightroom and CS3 workflow. They have pulled out all the stops and put together a great two day event in each city.
What file size is needed for a billboard? This is a question we receive on an almost daily basis. Today we made some calls and ran some tests to put this debate to rest.
Most people think that billboards need to be shot on the biggest and best digital camera possible. That’s not true. When printing a 14 foot x 48 foot billboard, Clear Channel, the largest monopoly media company in the US, requests a 3.75 inch x 12.25 inch file anywhere between 300 and 600dpi. The Leaf 22 megapixel backs produce an original file size of 13.333 inches x 17.787 inches at 300 dpi - right in the middle of their specs. Big enough, to say the least, and most images aren’t run the full length of the billboard! Check out Clear Channel sample billboards.
Don’t take my word for it, here’s the link to clear channel info and specs
We spoke to other billboard companies as well and were told that they were fine with any image shot on a 10 megapixel camera or better - Canon 5D anyone?
So our conclusion, size doesn’t matter, as long as it’s 10 inches megapixels or larger, wink wink.
