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Wish List II

jabari — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:19:29 +0000

My first “Wish List” post is a bit outdated. many things have changed since then, both within my own realm and within the photography gear market as a whole. I took more of a “money is no object” approach before, but this time around I want to build a list that is fairly obtainable. As a matter of fact, I’ve acquired a chunk of what’s listed already. I’ll ~~scratch things off~~ as I get them!

I’ve been wanting to take the medium format plunge for some time now. As I stated in another post, the cost of doing so has traditionally been beyond what I and most other hobby/semi-pro photographers are willing to spend. The market has changed quite a bit sense then! Quality digital backs of yesteryears have now been replaced by even bigger and better models. That, along with the mighty Nikon D800 nipping at the heels of medium format resolution has significantly decreased the price of entry into digital medium format photography.

Cameras & Lenses:

Mamiya / Phase One DF
~~Mamiya AFD II or III (backup + film)~~
Mamiya DM22 / Leaf Aptus 22
~~Mamiya 45mm 2.8 AF~~
~~Mamiya 80mm 2.8 AF~~
~~Mamiya 210mm 4 ULD AF~~
Mamiya AF Extension Tube #3

Nikon D3X OR Nikon D800E
Nikon 28-70mm 2.8 or 24-70mm 2.8

Lighting:

5 Paul C. Buff Einsteins [1 of 5 + 1 Alien Bee B800]
5 PocketWizard Power MC2 Einstein Receivers [1 of 5]
Swap My PocketWizard MultiMax And Plus II For 2 Plus III triggers
3 Paul C. Buff Vagabond Minis [1 of 3]
3 Vagabond Mini Spare Batteries
3 Paul C. Buff LiteMod Systems [1 of 3]

An Alien Bee Ring Flash would be nice as well, but definitely not on the immediate radar. Once I get a couple of more Einsteins I’ll trade my B800 for the Ring Flash!

Accessories:

5 Heavy Duty Light Stands [2 of 5]
2 Short Stands [1 of 2]
LOTS Of Modifiers!!!
Hard Waterproof Cases For Everything

I’d love to hear what’s on your wish list! Let me know in the comments below…

Nikon vs Canon

jabari — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:17:58 +0000

This is by far one of the most debated topics between hobby, semi-pro, and professional photographers alike. I know some who’d rather give up shooting than switch from Canon to Nikon or visa versa. It’s silly for sure to say the least, but I’ve participated in the occasional ribbing of my Canon toting counterparts from time to time. For me it’s all in the name of fun. However, many others take this topic far too seriously! I’ve seen friendships end, relationships go astray, and clients lost. So who was right? Which one really is the king of the photography hill???

The answer to the question is simple…neither! I’m sure you’ve heard a million and one reasons why one easily dominates the other, some of which are very sound. I’m also sure you’ve seen your favorite photographer brandishing one brand or the other at some point in time and figured, “That MUST be the best brand, right?”. I mean why else would he or she use it? To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t say exactly why. I can say with 100% certainty that it wasn’t because that brand was better than the other though.

The Test…

To prove this, I’ve put together a little test. I challenge anyone who has convinced themselves that one brand is better than the other to take it. If you can answer 10 out of 10 correctly then I will be the first to concede that whichever brand you think is best really is the best. Hell, I’ll even sell all my gear and switch if you believe Canon is better! Here it is…

Go to 500px.com and select any 10 of the fantastic photos on their main page.
Thoroughly examine each photo, then list whether you believe it was taken with a Nikon or Canon.
View the EXIF data of each photo and see if you were correct.

What was your score? 10 of 10? (If you say yes I know your lying!!!) 5 of 10? 1 of 10?

You probably chose your favorite 10 photos because those were they ones that you liked the most. Some were taken with a Nikon, some were taken with a Canon, and others may have been taken by a variety of other brands. My point is that the camera itself had very little to do with why you chose those images. It was the skill of the photographer that drew you in. Maybe it was the use of depth of field or some other technique related to composition. Maybe you were overwhelmed with the colors. Maybe it was the simplicity of abundant white space married with a small interesting subject. Whatever the case, neither Nikon nor Canon had anything to do with why you liked those photos!

So How Should I Choose?

I was originally a Canon shooter back in the day. I switched to Nikon for one reason and one reason alone. They simply felt better in my hand. There are a number of other things that usually factor in as well. I’ve listed a few that are important to me, and I’d be dilighted to add any others that you guys list in the comments:

Grip – Which feels better in your hand, both while shooting and while carrying it around. This sounds trivial, but after a 3 or 4 hour shoot you’ll appreciate making the right decision!
Ergonomics – Are important buttons easy to reach? Are there dedicated buttons for critical setting changes or do you have to go into the menus to change them?
Menu System – When you do have to use the menus, how hard is it to find and change settings that are important to you?
ISO – Is the camera capable of shooting at the minimum ISO required for the type of shooting you do? Can it produce clean images at the maximum ISO you’d like to use?
Flash Sync – For you strobe users, what is the maximum flash sync speed of the camera?

A Little Fun…

All that said, everyone knows that Nikon is the best! *grin* I kid. Enjoy some of the videos I’ve run across that have a little fun with this never ending debate:

Exposure vs Pay?

jabari — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:52:33 +0000

I’ve seen this video floating around lately. It pretty much sums up what you are really asking when you offer a photographer “exposure” rather than pay…

Nue York – Nudity At Its Best

jabari — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:11:49 +0000

The other day I happened to come across one of the more interesting art nude projects that I’ve seen in a while. Erica Simone is a New York based photographer who took a series of nude self-portraits in various public locations around NYC. The shooting style is like that of someone who happened upon her in the street and took a quick photo. I wouldn’t be surprised if she used a point and shoot as a matter of fact. It makes for a realistic viewing experience. You can check out her project here: Self Portraits Of A Bare Naked Citizen

Philippe Kerlo & Patrick Hall

jabari — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:11:59 +0000

I’d seriously fallen behind in reading my photography related RSS feeds. While catching up with them over the weekend I came across two outstanding videos on FStoppers.com. One was a super creative beauty shoot by Philippe Kerlo and the other was an over the top wakeboard studio shoot by Patrick Hall. If you’re a photographer in need of creative inspiration, here is 16 minutes of video that will get some the juices flowing!

Philippe Kerlo

Philippe is a beauty and fine art photographer based in Paris. This video features him shooting face shots through pexiglass decorated with paint and other colorful materials. The concept is amazingly simple, giving you a “why didn’t I think of that?” moment. The final results are outstanding!

[FStoppers post]

Patrick Hall

Patrick Hall (one of FStopper’s founders) is a wedding and commercial photographer based in Charleston, SC. He is experienced in wakeboard shoots, but wanted to do something with it that was completely different than anything that’s been done before. He wanted to go from amazing to over-the top. He definitely succeeded!

[FStoppers post]

H4D Review, well sorta!

jabari — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 04:30:57 +0000

For the past few years I’ve debated on whether digital medium format cameras are really worth the money, considering the most expensive SLR to date with all the trimmings is about $8000 (Nikon D3X) while a stripped down lower to middle of the line digital medium format starts at $10,000 and goes astronomically higher from there. For $2000 you can still get a great DSLR. That same amount in medium format may get you a lens. There is no question that the resulting image quality is better in medium format, but is it thousands of dollars better???

The Tour

I attended the Three Stage Tour event in Chicago yesterday and had the opportunity to shoot with Hasselblad’s newest creation, the H4D, for about 10 minutes or so. Not nearly enough time to do a full critique, but more than enough time to to make me want to abandon the Nikon ship (and I LOVE Nikon products!). Was it the new True Focus technology? Nah…not 100% sold on it, at least not for the type of shooting that I do. Was it the menu system? Ha! Nikon has them beat by miles in that department. It had to be the 40 – 60 megapixel sensors then, right? Nope…well, maybe a little! *grin* What impressed me most about the Blad system were the lenses and resulting image quality that they helped produce. Below are a few unedited photos I took from the event…

Click images to inspect full-size jpegs…

My Thoughts…

People always ask me to recommend a good first camera. I always tell them to start with a GREAT first lens and buy a used body with whatever is left in their budget. This is advice I wish someone had given me way back when I first started buying camera equipment. Nothing affects image quality more than lenses! Now-a-days, bodies are kept for a few years and then traded up. However, a good lens will outlive you as long as you take care of it. Hassy takes away the confusion in trying to figure out if one of their lenses is a good buy or not with a very simply solution. They only produce fantastic glass!

Pair that with the excellent new sensors and their new Phocus 2.0 software (which includes automatic lens correction and moiré removal) and you have what I consider a system that can provide you with the best possible image quality available today…bar none. Although there is a little room for improvement in the overall ergnomics of the camera, it feels very natural and well balanced in the hand.

Something that I think deserves a special mention is Hassy’s auto focus system in the H4D. In almost every single digital medium format camera I’ve used, the very first thing I notice is its god-awful auto focusing!!! It’s usually slow as molasses and often times misjudges the distance of an object (resulting in blurry photos). I didn’t think about the auto focus on the H4D until well after I put the camera down. The fact that I didn’t take notice of it while shooting is a fantastic thing, as it was performing within the range of my D2X.

Is It Worth It?

Back to my original question though…is it really worth thousands of dollars more than say, the camera system in my wish list??? The answer is an absolute definite no-question-about-it maybe. It really depends on who you are as a photographer. For me, unfortunately I have to say no, as I place myself squarely in the advanced amateur category. Photography isn’t a main source of income for me right now, so I can’t justify paying $19,995 + tax for a camera and one lens. However, if I were a full-time photographer there is no way I could justify not investing in the system that I felt produced the best quality image possible, and that is Hasselblad’s H System.

HDR Goodness

jabari — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:56:13 +0000

Here are some fantastic HDR shots from Japan. I haven’t gotten into HDR quite yet, but looking at these get the motivational juices flowing. These were shot by a variety of photographers. Enjoy! [http://www.geekiz.com/80-photographies-de-tokyo-en-hdr]

Wish List…

jabari — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:07:10 +0000

I’ve been horrible at blogging…period! Not just here but on my personal and business blogs as well! It’s not so much that I don’t like to write, or even that I don’t have anything to say at vthe moment. I’ve just been plain lazy about it! Today that ends (or so I tell myself yet again). Each day I’ll pick one topic…any topic…to blog about that relates to one of my three sites. That way each blog gets updated at least once every three days.

So today I figured I’d start with something simple…an equipment wish list! Below is a list of equipment that I’d get today if I won a sweepstakes at my favorite local camera shop…

Cameras & Lenses:

The first three lenses could handle about 99% of whatever I need to shoot by themselves, but nothing beats a good prime lens for specific tasks! Not a single lens up there competes with the “nifty 50″ for sharpness!

Lights & Stuff:

Most would opt for Profoto gear, and I can’t blame them, but I’ve come to love Calumet’s Travelite line made by Bowens. I’d go with six of their Travelite 750R Radio Enabled Monolights (with the PocketWizard radio option) and a gang of modifiers for each including:

Gridded Softboxes (Large|Medium|Small)
Snoots, Barndoors, and Grids
Gels / Gel Holders
Short stands (for background lights)
Scrims
And finally a couple of beauty dishes

I’d also throw in an Alien Bee Ring Flash for good measure as well as a couple of PocketWizard Plus IIs as spares. Hard waterproof cases to carry it all in would be great as well!

I’m sure I missed a few things but that’s the gist of it. I’m really interested in hearing what gear other photographers would get if money were no object. Would you scrap the dSLRs and go medium format or would you enhance what you already have? Let me know what your wish list would be in the comments below!

The Ugly “A”

jabari — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:10:47 +0000

Many people that I’ve met who are taking up photography have a hard time understanding the ugly “A” (aperture), and how to use it. Hopefully my explanation will shed some light…

Whenever you half or double the amount of light in a photo it is referred to as a “stop”. There are three ways to control this addition/subtraction of light: shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. Collectively, these make up exposure. (There are different reasons why you’d want to change one instead of the other, but that’s another tutorial!) When dealing with aperture in particular it’s called a f-stop. F-stops tend to be the least understood of the three…

SHUTTER SPEED

Shutter speed is fairly easy to understand when halving/doubling the amount of light because the numbers involved half and double. For example, if you want to double the amount of light for a photo that was shot at 1/250 of a second, you shoot at twice the exposure time of 1/125 of a second (remember we are dealing with fractions, not whole numbers!). If you want to half the amount of light in that original photo that was shot at 1/250, you’d shoot it at 1/500 of a second. So we have…

…1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/60 (a slight skip!), 1/125 (and another), 1/250, 1/500, and so on.

As you can see, the numbers half and double each other as you go down the line in either direction.

ISO

Technically, you aren’t adding more light when you change ISO. Instead you are changing the sensitivity of your sensor (or using a less/more sensitive film). Still, the affect on overall exposure is the same. For more light, double the ISO. For less light, half it…

100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and so on… (remember film speeds???)

APERTURE

(f-stops)
Aperture is the odd ball of the three. If you half or double the f-stop number, you are actually adding or subtracting two stops of light, not one!!! For example, f/22 to f/11 will quadruple the amount of light in the photo (again, fractions…that is why the actual number goes down when the amount of light goes up. Think of “f” as the FULL amount of light possible, which is then divided by the f-stop number). On top of that, there are crazy non-whole numbers to remember like f/2.8 and f/5.6. It took me a long time to fully understand the science behind why f-stop numbers are so odd (the inner geek in me had to know though!). Anyone who wants to know, send me a PM and I’ll forward some info to you. In the mean time, there is a very easy way to remember f-stops…

You only have to memorize two numbers, 1.4 & 2 (and a slight skip). Double the previous number to get the next stop. For example, 1.4 is the previous number to 2. Double it and you get the next stop after 2, which is 2.8. This gives you:

1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32

There is a slight skip at 5.6 -> 11, but easy enough to remember. Technically the scale starts at 1, but I challenge you to find a lens that has a max aperture of 1!!!

NOTE: Your digital SLR (and some film cameras) may show weird numbers like 7.1 as an option. That means it is set to display either half or third stops. This gives you more control over the exact amount of light you let in, but does the exact opposite as far as understanding the numbers! Don’t fret, as over time you’ll come to know them as well!

I hope this helps someone!

Baby I Like It RAW

jabari — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:23:23 +0000

A very common question that I’m asked by other photographers is if I shoot in RAW or JPEG. To be honest, I’m still not sure why people continue to compare the two, as they are apples and oranges serving two completely different purposes…

NOTE: For the purposes of this post, JPEG can be substituted with any other standard (non-RAW) format such as TIFF, GIF, etc.

The RAW Details

The primary purpose of RAW is NOT for end use (prints, web, etc), but rather for preservation & storage. This is why RAW images themselves can not be edited. The original data remains in tact. All adjustments & edits are stored separately and then applied when a JPEG is created from the original RAW file. It is the digital counterpart to a negative. In relation, JPEGS are the digital counterparts to prints. They are created from RAW files with settings that you adjust.

Keeping that in mind, film photographers don’t throw away their negatives after prints are made. On the contrary, they protect their negatives at all costs as countless prints can be made from them. The same goes for RAW. Just as you can manipulate a negative to produce different effects without loosing image quality in a traditional darkroom, the same can be done with a RAW file in image editing software. While you can make most of those same adjustments to a JPEG, some can never truly be changed (white balance for example). None of the adjustments can be made to a JPEG without at least some image degredation (athough usually minimal). There is also the possibility of accidentaly saving your edits on top of your original file, forever loosing it.

FYI

JPEGS made in camera ultimately came from a RAW file. If you have your camera set to JPEG only, the camera creates a RAW file, converts it to a JPEG, and then deletes the original RAW file. Again, IMO it’s like having a roll of film developed and telling the lab to destroy the negatives after making a print. Can you make other prints from an original print? Yes. Will they be usable? Maybe. Will they be better quality (or even the same quality) as if you had made them from the negative…NEVER!!!

The Final Word…

If the images aren’t of that much importance then by all means save the hard drive space and shoot JPEG. If you think there is the slightest chance that you’ll capture something worth showing off then RAW is the way to go. Otherwise, you’re throwing away the chance of producing the best possible END USE images each time you edit and/or convert.