Calibrate Your Gear

Good Saturday from Prospect.

Today I'm going a little geeky. I'd like to share a little calibration exercise every photographer should do wether you are shooting film or digital. It's about knowing your gear.

A fitting layout for these guys. Remember them?

Recently I decided to put film back into my work flow, if for no other reason than self gratification.

Film has and always will have it's place. I'm not getting into all the reasons here in this post. It's been argued to death and this is purely a personal decision on my part to increase the quality of my work and make me a better photographer and designer.

To quote Zack Arias, I just want to suck-less every day.

Shooting film is about taking your time not shooting away and hoping you get a good shot. I will be the first to admit I fell into that digital trap early on and learned my lesson quickly. The trick to getting your work right starts with knowing your gear and planning your out comes.

The exercise before you is about aperture, shutter speed and multiple lenses in your kit, no matter what you shoot with.

Fortunately I have some great glass but every piece can have it's own little nuances that change the resulting final image. It's important to know what that is.

Here I'm setting up some interesting subjects in studio (a controlled environment) to judge those variances.

By taking the time to set-up (including using a proper light meter) a test environment like this we can judge on a common ground (good basis so to speak). 

I use Sekonic 398 and 358s depending if I'm inside or out. Although we have built in meters I have never truly trusted reflective variation in camera. I don't care what light is bouncing off a subject, I want to know what is lighting my subject. Incident meters do that. In camera meters don't, never have and never will.

Shot of my set-up

Anyway, as I said, I need to know what my gear does so I simply set-up and shoot adjusting aperture and shutter to simply see what the camera does compared to what my meters say. Then process the film and compare with the results I have for my digital gear. I've done this before with my digital gear but it was time to do it again, with everything.

My basic set-up was with two strobes. Main at 1/4 power (what you set your camera to) and the second at 1/8 power for fill (one stop difference f8 for main and f5.6 for fill). I usually shoot this way in studio or on location depending on the goal. Sometimes two umbrellas, sometimes, as you can see here, a softbox and an umbrella. Sometimes I go just for the one light (undetermined modifier) with an open strobe on the seamless to blow it out (one stop brighter).

The set-up is something that always changes and grows depending on the desired result. This one is my basic 45s so I know what it does.

This set-up let me start at my ISO, which is 100 (using Provia F100 in the Hassy and Velvia in the EOS 1V 35mm), sync at 1/200th and fstop at 8.0 shooting 1/3 increments to determine which suits my taste and accuracy on exposure. I chose 1/200 to kill the ambient and it's the fastest my Canon will sync, the Hassy goes to 1/500th but I want them as close as possible.

I've posted the digital resulting image, tweaked , to show what I've used to set the calibration, and a shot of my set-up in this post. I slowed my sync/shutter speed down to show you the overall set-up. 

Note: the test image contains all of what I want to test. Bright whites, deep blacks, shin tone, wood tone with grain, my calibration fan and background texture with primaries. I'll get everything from exposure, depth of field to detail and colour accuracy from this set-up. I don't need to pixel peep this to death, just understand the basic differences between my gear so I can compensate for it on set.

Another view with the shutter speed slowed down to let the ambient light in to show the set-up a bit better

You can make up what ever interests you just include the basics of what you shoot day to day.

Once I get the processed film back and can scan them I'll share those results.

Next post is about Letting your work breath (on Tuesday).

Enjoy. Derek

Boat Show is HERE and an old pic to start the season off!

Good Friday from Prospect.

Me at the helm in Lake Louise 1963

The boat show has finally arrived here in Halifax. It rings in the short time we have to wait until we are back on the water. It also reminds us of the chores we have ahead of us before that can happen, including the Honey-do lists. Ouch.

I hope to see allot of friends at the show and some great deals. Look out, here I come. Wish the photo vendors here in Halifax would put on something like this. Now that I would go to.

Kodak Bullet

BTW, just incase you thought I was pulling your leg about how long I've had the boating bug. That's me in 1963, first time at the helm. Go cat go!

Kodak Hawkeye with flash

This would have been taken by my Mother with her Kodak Brownie, like one of the two pics at the bottom. I have a Hawkeye (pictured with a flash attached) here but I think that's my wife's. Still trying to track down my Mom's Bullet with flash. She thought she gave it to me along with here 8mm but as I discovered after she passed away that my Dad had stashed the 8mm so the bullet is still missing. I'll find it.

Hope to see you at the show, enjoy Derek

And the WINNER is!

Part 2 of todays shoot. You saw the out of camera originals, now here are the final shots I was looking for the day. Which is your favourite?

Click on the LINK to see it LARGER. Check out the ducks flying in on the right.

Hope you like them. Derek

A Village between storms

Prospect NS 5D MK II, Canon 70-200f2.8 -  f11, 1/50, ISO 50

Good Wednesday from Prospect. Today I thought I'd share the mix of weather here.

I planned to sneak down to Prospect Village in the morning between two weather systems we are experiencing here.

The day started completely enveloped in fog. Could barely see the end of the yard.

Around 9:30a the fog rolled back with clear sky's at the studio.  I happened to be on the deck with coffee in hand and could hear the roar of the surf 4 miles away. It's quite common after a big windy storm. That got me itching to head down to the village to see what it was looking like.

So off I trekked with gear stowed in the back of the car for the 4 mile trip. The scene didn't disappoint in the least. From the top of the hill looking into Prospect village you could see how far the fog had rolled back to reveal the tranquillity of a 258 year old Irish Catholic fishing village. Founded after Halifax in 1754 by the British, used as a fishing stop over and safe anchorage since before 1612 by the French, and inhabited by the local native Mi'kmaq* for longer than we know. 

Anyway, as you can see I had to get to work on the scene since I didn't know how long the weather would hold. The day presented me with good overcast sky for lighting. Since I was breaking rule one, morning and evening light for landscape, I thought I could use the next best thing in over cast conditions.

5D MK II, Canon 70-200f2.8 -  f5.0, 1/320, ISO 50

5D MK II, Canon 16-35 f2.8
f2.8, 1/500, ISO 50

The sound I heard was definitely the surf just outside the village but I'd have to leave those shots for another time. With the fog position it kept the surf in a haze so I'd do more of those some other time. Trust me, lots of opportunities here to get shots of surf and breakers on the shore.

As well, I only came prepared to shoot what I could get close to by car (short waking distances anyway). I've ordered a new sling bag to let me trek off to get closer to that stuff but it hasn't arrived yet. I'll show you that when I get it. All my gear was still in the pelican case for now.

Here are a few shots of the morning. I mean I couldn't come back empty now could I.

BTW, by the time I post this it should be raining again with the fog back in.

Enjoy and we'll see you tomorrow. Derek

The full scene taken from the cemetery when I arrived. 5D MK II, Sigma 50 f 1.4 -  f11, 1/50, ISO 50 

*Note: There are still references to the reserve in the mid 1950s on government maps. As a matter of fact there is an ancient Mi'kmaq burial site just north of my studio. If you're interested in finding out more about Prospect you can go HERE.

Getting it on the LOW

Good Tuesday from Prospect. I didn't get a chance to write yesterday, I was out running the streets and taking care of business. When you work for yourself you have to wear all the hats and yesterday was schmooze and delivery day.

Today I just want to leave you with one little note. While I was shooting my son's GTI the challenge was to get the right angle and stay out of the shot. One thing you need to be prepared to do is get low. When I shot the Beetle (whale car, LINK to that post and the gallery) I was lying or sitting on the ground, as well as eye level and from above, to get the right angles .

Although I didn't get a shot of me shooting the VW my son did get a shot of me shooting his car.

As you can see it's a little tough sometimes getting back up with gear in your hands. But as you saw from last week, the position was worth it and no "me" in the reflections. It was the surrounding elements I wanted, which you can clearly see in the final from last Tuesday.

Enjoy and see you tomorrow, Derek

Easter Morning 2012 with the Masons

Well my oh my, I'm finally back on. I've been a little busy outside my blog as of late and thought I should update what's up.

I want to start with easter weekend just past. What a crazy bit of weather. 4 inches of snow to zero by the end of the day.

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As it turns out the bunny got here and left before it snowed. Seems he likes to make morning trails, not the smelly kind, but ones of yummy chocolate.

Thanks to my sons new girl friend who made our morning a little brighter. Thanks Laura.

I'm posting a few pics of the mornings discoveries for you to enjoy.

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Mother Nature thought it best to remind us!

Now as August ended, and September began, Mother Nature thought it best to remind us who's in charge.

With the lure of fabulous weather all summer, best on record, she had the idea it was time for a storm and along came Hurricane Earl.

He hit us direct but did show some mercy. He visited during the day, a rare occurrence for any hurricane, so we had the chance to watch him come and go.

The storm started first thing on the 5th (generator on by 10:00am, power out by 10:30am) and was all but gone by 12:30pm. The power stayed off until that evening.

We were well prepared and watched in awe as seas swelled with surge and walls of spray were lifted from the surface and screamed across the waves like great white curtains.

Here's a small gallery of images I took when it subsided and ventured out to assess any damage.

As you can see, with the storm all but gone, stress is lifted and the fun begins. The wind was still strong enough to knock you down if you weren't prepared for it.

Lots of leaves gone, debris on the beach and the loss of one grove of trees.

Gotta stop loosing trees to storms. That's atleast 15 in the last 15 years, one per year or more. Good thing I planted more in 2008.

Next; RNSYS Club Championship racing in Halifax Harbour - October 2010.

Last Day of Boating Season

Hi everyone, or at least the few who drop by.

I know we're now in the dead of winter and spring and boating season seems like light years away. Well maybe 6 weeks away. But still I'd like to share these images with you. They were taken in mid November here in Prospect. It's the day we took our dock out for the season and my first attempt with Lightroom 2.

Click the [link] to see the gallery of these images.

Hope you enjoy, Derek