Author Archives: Michael Willems

Geo tip

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A tip for those of you for whom this is new: about the iPhone.

I use my iPhone camera rather more than I was expecting I would.

Even though I would not want to publish the pictures I take with it, I do take pictures, and then edit them with Chase Jarvis’s Best Camera app.

Why?

  • To remember things. Like printed directions, or a bill, or a product I want to buy, or a URL I want to remember. Snap snap: and I have it forever. Easier than writing.
  • To remember student comments like the following from last week (OK, I apologize profusely for blowing my own trumpet but I think since this blog is a free resource, at least I am allowed to do this every now and then. Right?):
Michael Willems Reference

Michael Willems Reference

  • Importantly, to geotag. Whenever you take an iPhone picture, the iPhone embeds the location it was taken at. So for each shoot, I do a quick pic like that to remember exactly where I was.
  • To recall where a client wants me to take a shot. To recall a great shoot location for an upcoming portrait. One snap and the exact location is forever memorised.
  • To track a trip. A snap every hour during a road trip, and like Hansel and Gretel, I memorise a trail for later recollection or blogging.
  • To recall a vendor location.
  • To store a portrait snap to go with address book records.

Like many of these tools the real use only becomes apparent later, when bright people start to think of even better uses. Use your iPhone camera and tell me why and how you use it.

POSTSCRIPT: Can you geotag even when you have no data plan? Yes! You do not see a map, but that does not matter. Your iPhone knows where it is because of the built-in GPS. That needs no data plan.

My New Girlfriend

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Well, that is what “GF” means. Not that Japanese product marketers would know that, which is why Panasonic names their flagship micro four-thirds camera the “GF1”. So my new girlfriend is not a girlfriend, but a camera:

And oh my, is it ever amazing.

First, credit where credit is due: David Honl, who joined me to teach two workshops last week in Las Vegas, turned up with a small Leica X1 camera. Dave carried just his Leica, and he got very cool shots. I was inspired.

Not inspired enough to mortgage the house and buy a Leica as well. But more than inspired enough to buy its equivalent: the Panasonic GF1.

  1. Micro four thirds sensor – meaning a quarter the size of 35mm film, i.e. a 2:1 ratio
  2. 20mm f/1.7 prime lens (interchangeable)
  3. Great controls, very intuitive
  4. Great feel, almost like a Leica
  5. Flash shoe, so I can use a Pocketwizard
  6. Great image quality, low noise

I have now owned it for about three hours, so not much photography yet – I was teaching. But a few snaps here just to give you a taste of this camera and its excellent prime lens:

Michael Willems, self-portrait with the Panasonic Lumix GF1

Michael Willems, self-portrait at 120 km/h

I love f/1.7:

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot

panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Petter, shot by Michael Willems

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Batteries at f/1.7

Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot by Michael Willems

Brake! (Panasonic Lumix GF1 shot)

So why a little point-and-shoot, from an SLR shooter:

  • A spare.
  • An un-intimidating street photography camera.
  • A camera to carry when  you want to be unrecognized as a pro.
  • A camera to put in a coat pocket when an SLR is not allowed.

I can see me take many pictures in situations where previously, I did not. As in that last shot above.

This camera offers excellent quality: at first sight, amazingly, it looks as good as the SLRs I shoot with, even at high ISOs.

Those were tryout snaps; soon, real photos.

MUA? What MUA?

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Why do photographers need a make-up artist (a “MUA”) at a shoot? What does a make-up artist do? I thought that might be worth a few words today.

First of all, a make-up artist does make-up. D’oh.

Make-up is important for everyone – ask a TV producer: who ever appears under the cameras without make-up? Almost no-one. Richard Nixon lost an election because of his unkempt appearance.

Right, Michael. But surely young models, who are not Richard Nixon, do not need make-up? Right?

Sure they do. Even Angelina Jolie (or fill in your dream person).

Let me illustrate that.

Below, Angelina’s skin photographed close-up with a modern DSLR and a 100mm lens:

A wall. Photo Michael Willems

Not Angelina. Photo Michael Willems

Okay, maybe that is not Angelina’s skin, but you get the idea. No-one is perfect – people are people. Young and old, male and female: we all have pores, freckles, blemishes. Young models are, well, young, so they also have acne. The dream angels you see in Vogue have been photoshopped. They’re called “dream” for a reason.

So that is one reason you need a MUA: to fix flaws. So that the photographer does not have to spend hours in Photoshop or Lightroom “fixing” them.

And then the MUA does hair. Straighten, brush, whatever it needs: the MUA knows, and keeps a look out during a shoot.

Once all that is done, a very important function is to match the mood with the look. A good MUA knows how to do this. And to match the make-up and hair with the outfit: this too is very important. The MUA talks to the creative director and the photographer, and helps create the perfect look.

A further reason is to help with things in general. A shoot is always hectic and an extra pair of hands is great. And an extra pair of eyes. Runny eye shadow? Non-glossy lipstick? Hair in the way? The MUA keeps a close lookout for these things.

I would say that the final reason is one of the most important: a good MUA makes the model (male or female, young or old) feel good about themselves, and confident in their abilities. Feel great, feel beautiful, feel like a million dollars – and that translates to looking great.

To illustrate all that, here’s one more shot from Sunday’s workshop:

Evanna Mills, photo by Michael Willems

Evanna Mills (photo Michael Willems, Make-up Liz Valente)

Side note: I have been asked why we use young women as models in the workshops. Do we just like photographing young women?

Sure we do. But you would be surprised how little the photographer actually cares about the type of things he shoots. That is, you can have the same amount of fun shooting women or men, young or old; shooting jewelery or forests, shooting products or buildings. Old men are just as great as young women, creatively speaking. But models, most of whom are young women, are a good choice for several reasons.

One: they get paid to be there and they are very patient. Two: they have infinite energy. Posing all day takes it out of you. And three: they know how to pose for the camera. Finally, most importantly, they are not afraid. A good model is unselfconscious and will not worry for each shot how they look.

And the MUA reinforces that confidence.

Why? Or why not?

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I am tempted to buy a small camera to add to my repertoire – like an Olympus PEN or even better, a Panasonic GF-1. The GF-1 with the prime 20mm f/1.7 lens is appealing, except for the slow way you move the focus area and the high price.

But I am tempted nonetheless, thinking “always carry it”, “street photography”, and “at lower noise than the G11, what with the micro four thirds sensor”.

What do you all think?Save my money, or take the plunge?

Geez, Apple. Sort it out already!

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So I love the iPad and use it all the time.

As a photographer, I use it to show my images. As you might imagine. Using the only viewer available: the built-in one. Apple in its typical dictatorial fashion seems to prohibit other viewers – there are none on the App store, except a few that look at your Flickr portfolio – let’s not go there.

No, to view files you must use the Apple viewer, and to transfer them, you have to use iTunes.You can tell iTunes what folder (with subfolders) to sync, from anywhere on your computer, and it does that.

So I select some images in Lightroom and write them to JPG files in that chosen sync folder. So far so easy.

But you cannot in any way sort them. I thought that you could sort them by renaming, but no such luck. They always sort by “date taken”.

GROAN. Imagine that I have a selection of model images. And that the earliest one is NOT the one I want to see first, and when people look at the list of folders. Alas, that is what  happens. Misery: that earliest image always shows as the key image for that folder, since it is the first one in it.

One way around: use iPhoto and sort in iPhoto “events”.

Which of course is not practical: managing the RAW images in Lightroom, and then having to further manage the JPG images in iPhoto? Nah, think again, Apple.

One trick, which just took me a while to work out: use the excellent EXIFTOOL command line utility to change the date EXIF tags in the file. Open a command line, run EXIFTOOL (I have written about this before: search for it on the right), and run a string like:

./exiftool -“DateTimeOriginal”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“CreateDate”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“DateTimeDigitized”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” -“ModifyDate”=”2008:03:12 10:03:40” /Users/michael/Desktop/Kat-20030312-IMG_3202.jpg

Simple it isn’t. But one good thing: you do not have to type the filename. When it comes to the filename, just drag the image from your desktop into the command window, and the Mac enters the fully qualified file name, with path. And yes, that also works in Windows.

Memory cards Q&A

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A quick Q&A note about memory cards today.

Q: How many of them do I need?

  1. Get many.
  2. Get more.
  3. Now get more.

Memory cards, I have said for years, are just like baskets. Photos are like eggs. Need I say more?

Q: Do I need fast cards?

Not necessarily. For video and for fast shooting as in sports a fast card is needed. For everything else, there is little need. Fast cards are convenient (faster review, faster writing of the buffer) but not necessary.

Q: Should I buy brand names?

Yes. Lexar, Sandisk, etc are in fact electronically better.

Q: What size?

It depends. I like 16 GB for the big cameras but only because I can write to two cards at once, and because my big cameras write big files. Normally I would say 8-16 GB, no larger.

And when travelling, 4GB cards. Why? Because a 4GB card will write in its entirety to a DVD. An 8 GB card, on the other hand, has to be written to two DVDs which will increase the confusion factor.

Canon updates

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Canon has released several updates: new firmware for the Canon EOS 7D, version 1.2.2 (download it from here), and new firmware for the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV., version 1.0.8 (download it from here).

I recommend that when able, you do these updates. Full battery, newly formatted-in-camera memory card, no lens or a good Canon lens on the camera, and then do the update. Features and fixes could be useful, and there may be undocumented fixes also, I suspect.

Autofocus assist: will it work?

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My Canon speedlites (like the Nikon flashes) have an “Autofocus Assist Mode”, where a red pattern of lines emerges from the red square at the front. I am talking about big flashes, like my 580EX 2:

580ex2 Flash

580ex2 Flash

The flash emits the red beam when needed to help the camera focus. This happens:

  1. When it is dark
  2. When the subject has too little contrast (try focusing on a blank wall).

It is cleverly linked to the focus spot: when you are using a focus spot that can detect horizontal lines, it will emit horizontal lines; when using a focus spot that can detect vertical lines, it will emit vertical lines.

But when does it not work?

  1. When it is not dark and the subject is not low contrast. If the camera can focus without the assist light, it will. Why waste battery power?
  2. When you are not using “One Shot” focus (Nikon calls it AF-S). The red light helps the camera lock focus: when you are in a mode that does not lock (namely manual focus or AI Servo/AF-C focus), it will not try.
  3. When you are using a focus point that cannot be reached by the red pattern (think wide angle lens).

Hope that helps. Flash can seem very complicated, but if you know all these little things, it gets a lot easier to use.

Choose

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Light. And hence, photographic lighting. It can make a picture completely different from any other picture. Photos are about light, composition, and moment. Light is a differentiator as large as the other two.

And it is a matter of taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.

So, to see what others think, let me ask. Which of the two pictures below (taken on Sunday during the all-day workshop) do you prefer?

I was going to go into the differences, but I should not do that. Just a simple question: which one do you like better? View both large to see the detail.

Please let me know, in email or by commenting below.

Number one:

Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems

Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems

And number two:

Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems

Girl in rain. Evanna Mills; photo by Michael Willems

I am curious. I suppose I have a preference, but I will not tell you which one it is.

Engineers… sigh.

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An old one:

  • Q: What does an engineer use for birth control?
  • A: His personality.

I am constantly amazed when I see how engineers fail to communicate. They assume that ordinary people know or understand things that the engineers take for granted. If I know it, so must others, right?

Wrong. Here are just a few of the constant stream of things that make photography difficult for mortals.

  • Nikon menu spaghetti: The vertical menu tabs in Nikon cameras. And the navigation: “left, up/down, right, up/down, select, up/down, Set”. And then if you forget the final “up, set, press OK”, you lose the setting you have just done.
  • Nikon menus: in addition, most users do not understand that the menus are longer than the screen. The scroll bar is small and unintuitive. So if the vertical menu displays 8 functions but contains 18, most users will never know about those additional 10.
  • Nikon hidden auto ISO. Hide the Nikon auto ISO setting in a custom function, and users wonder why their pictures get all grainy (and their studio pictures fail completely) when they have clearly set ISO to just 200 in the main ISO screen. D’oh!
  • Wakey wakey – that fact that you need to wake up your camera by briefly pressing the shutter before you can set anything. I cannot tell you the number of times I hear “my camera isn’t working: it’s on but when I turn that dial, nothing happens”.
  • 1/1. When I set my flash to full power manual, a Canon flash displays “1/1”. In a world where only one in ten Canadians can tell me that 1,000 times 1,000 equals one million (most think 10,ooo), why do you think that people know that one divided by one is one? And even if they do, that “one” means “full power”?
  • Lens terminology. “ZOOM LENS EF 70-200mm 1:2.8 L USM IS”: need I say more? Instead of “1:3.5-5.6”, why not say f/3.5 to f/5.6, so beginners understand it? Look at that string: one colon three dot five dash five dot six. Clear, not.
  • Auto-focus terminology – We have AF mode and AF point selection, but AF point selection is not called anything like “AF”. So when people look for the word “AF” to select where the camera focuses, they get how it focuses instead.
  • Colour: why call “white balance” after “white”, which is not a colour? If they called it “colour balance” it would be sooo much clearer! Yeah guys, I know. Don’t think science; just think customer!
  • Terminology. Why call it “3D Color Matrix Metering” or “Evaluative metering” when “Smart Metering” would work a whole lot better?
  • Alonzo the Clever Mexican. I have had several people ask me who Alonzo is. Al, that is. Namely Al Servo, the Mexican who invented continuous autofocus. I mean really, do you know how few people know that “AI” means “Artificial Intelligence” (I estimate fewer than one perfect of Canadians)? And that a Servo Motor is a closely controlled electrical motor with negative feedback loop?

The list goes on, and on.

Don’t these companies do any UI testing? Head in the sand! The GTA Nikon rep recently looked at me baffled, and says “but no-one else ever told me this is confusing” – like it’s my fault.  Yeah buddy, that’s because I teach this to ordinary users, day in day out, and you just sell it.

Camera people always get defensive. “But everyone else understands it!”, they say. Um… look up “survivor bias” on Wikipedia, guys.

So if you find yourself confused: it’s not you. It’s the camera and the manual. It is time Apple designed an SLR. But do not despair: take some training and in spite of the camera companies’ engineers’ best efforts to avoid clear communication, you will learn this stuff.

And yeah, I am an engineer.