Another version

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…of the recent “rain”-shot Joseph and I put on at our Mono workshop. I asked recently which one you preferred. Here’s mine:

Evanna, photo by Michael WIllems

Evanna, photo by Michael Willems

Overall, I slightly prefer this one, because:

  • She is larger in the shot.
  • The wet road looks more realistic.
  • It looks like she is in the rain, now – rain drips off the umbrella.
  • I like the lit umbrella, to provide contrast with the hair.
  • Her face is part lit, not evenly lit.

But that is my opinion. Yours may differ. Validly! In interpreting art, a lot of it is valid opinion.

Opus Redux, or Fun Facts

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Remember when I said a while ago that 8 out of 9 of my Opus lights had broken or malfunctioned?

Fun fact. One of them that I had repaired? It arrived with the fuse replaced, and with (I give them that!) a new cable and a new modeling light? Here it is:

I just turned that one on for the first time since I received it back from the repair.

It turns on, but it will not flash (whether I press the test button or fire it via eye or cable).

Groan.

Credit where credit is due.

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While Sears has not so far handled my watch destruction well (see previous post of a few days ago), Apple has come through once more with shining colours.

I took my iPhone 3Gs in to the Apple Store on Saturday. Cracks had started to appear on the bottom. Was that covered by warranty, I wondered?

When I arrived, the Apple Genius (hum) told me that:

  1. My warranty had expired by 37 days
  2. But since my iPhone looked well-treated they would replace it anyway.

Result: a brand-new iPhone 3Gs, with no cracks.

New iPhone 3Gs

My All-New iPhone 3Gs

They even set it up for me, gave it a quick charge, exchanged the card, and made sure it worked. Kudos to Apple Sherway Gardens and Chris the “Genius”. Credit where credit is due.

Of course this is sensible customer service. I will no doubt keep going back to add to my iPhone, iPod, iPad, iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air repertoire.

Less can be more

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Less can be more. We sometimes make things complicated as photographers: we get gear-itis. Yeah, me too.

But you can keep it simple. Richard Avedon shot much of his work with a view camera and a white sheet on the shady side of a building. Period. For the longest time, Robert Mapplethorpe shot with a simple Polaroid camera with no settings to speak of.

So while I teach complex lighting, and I teach making complex technologies like TTL understandable, sometimes it can be simple.

Look, for example, at this recent shot of model Lindsay:

Model Lindsay, photo by Michael Willems

Lindsay, photo by Michael Willems, 2010

This is simple how?

  • A simple background. A white wall. I love white walls.
  • Simple lighting equipment. Just one flash, namely a 580EX speedlite on the camera.
  • Simple lighting setup. That flash was aimed at the wall and ceiling behind me. Using TTL, so no metering was necessary (just flash exposure compensation of about +1.3 stops)
  • Simple colour (namely: no colour. I love black and white).
  • Simple clothing. White top for high-key effect. Jeans for a contrasty dark area.
  • Simple pose.
  • Simple post work (just slight exposure adjustments as needed and skin fixes where necessary).

Sometimes less really is more. Don’t you think?

So here is your assignment, should you wish to accept it: find a white room and shoot a high-key portrait like this. Aim the flash behind you. Expose well: to the right. Have fun!

Making money?

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A reader who loves photography asked me the other day to give her some tips on making money with photography.

Making money with photography?? Oh noooo!

No, it is not that bad.

Yes, making money as a photographer is tough nowadays. You have to be really good, well-connected, hard-working, and lucky.All of the above.

You see, traditional ways have all but disappeared. Magazines no longer buy photos. War journalists no longer get sent. iStockphoto and Flickr have destroyed a lot: even national newspapers now often buy illustrations for a few bucks instead of paying a photographer. The proliferation of cameras has ensured that every Uncle Fred “can do it cheaper”. Commercial shoots used to net thousands; now hundreds, if you are lucky, and even then they are very rare since magazines and their adverts are themselves rare.

But it is not all gloom. You can sell, still.

  • People still have portraits made.
  • Local newspapers still buy photos (although not many). Magazines, too.
  • You can sell prints to your friends.
  • People still advertise.
  • Stock may only sell for a buck – but 1,000 sales at $1 is as good as one sale at $1,000.

Note that I did not mention weddings: you have to be really good to be a wedding photographer. Not for the casual user.

It takes a lot of time to get into newspapers and magazines. I advise you do two things:

  1. Get good at your craft. Take courses. Learn from pros. Tag along and assist, for free if you learn. Be confident in your chosen types of photography.
  2. Get your name out. Exhibit. Start contacting your local papers. Network. Persevere and persist! Enter contests. Collect references. Shoot relatives for free, initially. Network. Sell photo books. Contact local companies with proposals. Sell micro-stock: half your work will be rejected if you are good, but the feedback will be very useful. Network. Build a mail list and a phone book.

There are no easy solutions, but there are many part solutions. By doing a lot, you will see that you get traction sooner than you think. And it is all worth it in the end.

I shall write more on this in the next weeks.

Oh and that wooden carved figurine? He’s Indonesian. He takes on all the shame and bad vibes in the home, so you don’t have to.

Quality

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I was amused to see Leica announce recently that they would not be issuing any micro four-thirds lenses. In a recent Popsci blog, Leica’s VP marketing is quoted as saying:

“One reason why we’ve decided not to move into Micro Four Thirds is that we have looked at the sensor size and realized that it cannot produce the image quality that we need. Therefore we decided to stick with the full format in addition to APS-C. It’s all about the ratios”

Interesting. Really? So why is Leica selling rebranded Panasonic cameras at the bottom end?

So let’s see what a real micro four thirds Panasonic, my new GF-1 with fixed 20mm lens, can do against the top of the line Canon, the 1Ds Mark III with a prime 50mm lens. Crazy comparison, eh? Who’d be crazy enough to shoot the same object with a highest-end SLR versus a point and shoot?

Me.

I just shot my most patient model in the studio, lit by a couple of Bowens strobes.

  • Both cameras set to manual, 100 ISO, f/9, 1/125th second (as measured with the light meter). One shot focus, focus point on the eye.
  • 1Ds Mark III: 50mm f/1.4 lens on this full-frame 23 Mpixel camera
  • The 12 Mpixel GF1 was fitted with a 20mm f/1.7 lens. Because the sensor is four times smaller than a negative, this is equivalent to 40mm “real” length.

So the shots:

Full shot, Canon:

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens

Full shot: Panasonic:

Panasonic GF1, 20mm f/1.7 lens

Detail, Canon:

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens (detail)

Canon 1Ds Mark III, 50mm f/1.4 lens (detail)

Detail, Panasonic:

Panasonic GF1, 20mm f/1.7 lens (detail)

Panasonic GF1, 20mm f/1.7 lens (detail)

In all cases, click to see a larger picture.

These were RAW images that have been read into Lightroom and edited slightly for white balance and exposure. No sharpening or noise reduction was done.

What does this show me? Yes, I suppose at higher ISOs I’ll see more of a difference, but at these low ISO settings, any megapixel count over ten is “enough”, and the difference in the case of such a controlled shot is minimal.

Certainly, this does not in my opinion warrant the comments by Leica.

While I am not about to hang up my DSLRs, I am impressed by the small camera’s ability to produce professional work.

So to Uncle Fred (and you are not Uncle Fred, or you would not be reading this):

  • It’s not about the equipment;
  • It’s about the picture.

There! Let’s start thinking more about the image than about how we make it.

Snaps

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One great thing about having a small, small camera with a great lens and a larger sensor is that you can use it all the time. I don’t often take snapshots, but why not?

Michael Willems, by Michael Willems

Michael Willems, by Michael Willems

Daniel, forgetting to look his almost-sixteen-obligatory-grumpy-self:

Daniel, by Michael Willems

Daniel, by Michael Willems

Sears Oakville. Avoid.

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Get good service, tell a few friends; bad service, tell them all. And that is what I am doing here, in an off-topic post.

Executive summary: Avoid Sears Oakville, and in particular their clock and watch department.

I took  my Omega watch in to them a few months ago to have the battery, which had recently finally died after several years, replaced. This is a thin watch and is hard to handle. The last battery was installed there too, but by a watchmaker.

The current manager of the clock department, Nancy Kaye, told me she was not a watchmaker.

That became obvious. She broke my watch. I got it back not working, with the dial turned. She tried again: now completely broken, and the dial dented.

“We have no way of knowing it was working when you brought it in”, she and Sears say. Cost: $350 plus tax. My cost, they say.

So beware, when you bring a perfectly functioning watch (and not a cheap one either) into the clock and watch department at Sears, and they break it, you end up paying, and they wash their hands of it. Implicitly accusing you of lying.

This is not acceptable. My letter to the Better Business Bureau has gone out. Facebook is next. Small claims court too, maybe. Thousands of you now also know that having Sears do anything is taking a huge risk. I assume this will cost them much more than owning up would. I hope so: this kind of running roughshod over the customer is not acceptable.

Hyperfocal what?

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What is a “hyperfocal distance”?

In essence, the hyperfocal distance for any given camera, lens and aperture combination is:

“The focus distance you set your lens to for that camera, lens and aperture combination that gives you a focus distance that goes exactly to infinity, no farther”.

You see, if I set my lens to infinity, for instance, I am focusing well beyond infinity, and “wasting” some of my sharp range. By focusing before infinity, I can set the lens just so that the far edge of my “acceptably sharp”area goes exactly to infinity, not more. And now I am not wasting any sharp area.

In the past, on prime lenses we had a focus indication dial, with aperture numbers indicated on the focus ring to help us set the hyperfocal distance. On today’s zooms, this is absent; plus, since a lens can be used on cameras of various sensor sizes, it would not work anyway.

So today you go to DOFMASTER, via this link here, to calculate the distances for your lens/camera/aperture combination.

Nice to know, so you can set your lens to the right distance for manual focusing, for instance. And nice to know just so you get a feeling for what you can achieve in a shot.