Real World Workflow

Hey Techs, I just got back from another location shoot and wanted to pass this along. I know I’ve been on a bit of ThinkTank worship here, but their Pixel Sunscreen v2.0 kicks major stray light butt. I think I’ve tried just about every shade combo under the sun (!) and they always seem to have some kind of drawback. The fit on bellows type is awesome for one person, but try to have an AD or two look over your shoulder and it’s damn near impossible. Laptop case/shade combos are handy for getup and go work, but they are a bit tight on the port access now that everything is FW800. On location it can be a bit tricky holding an connection while moving around, mainly due to that clunky huge FW800 connector. I usually resort to gaff taping where the FW800 connector meets the lappie, which is not pretty but works. Btw, Rick Allen has a more elegant solution using the Ethernet port and a stubby cable to hold the FW800 in. If I can find that link I’ll post it as it’s a quite brilliant solution.

This latest version 2.0 of TT’s sunscreen has some awesome features, such as side and rear access to ports with super easy access and setup and breakdown is super quick once you get the hang of it. There’s a side circle/doughnut that holds the shade in collapsed mode that also doubles as a handy stash pocket for cables, power supplies etc. Inside there’s two more pockets plus a clip to hold notes or your drink tab depending where on location you are. The bottom of the shade has non-skid stuff inside and out so the lappie and shade won’t slip and slide. Don’t even get me started about the construction. It’s first class all the way, and worth every bit of it’s 69.00 price tag. (Oh yeah, you and the AD also can edit while holding Mai Tai’s on the beach and both be able to see what’s going on.) TT says the fabric is not waterproof, but I’ve used it in some rain squally conditions and it’s definitely water repellent with some kind of hydrophobic coating. Honestly if it’s getting that wet outside, you might want to move indoors or have a pop-up tent handy.

This shade and my HyperMac external batt make the ideal run and gun combo for me. Many time I just put the batt underneath the lappie and am on my way. About the only thing I would add would be soft velcro strips on the bottom or some kind of quick release cable setup for attaching the shade to a laptop plate. Other than that this thing is just about perfect, and that’s coming from a grumpy tech that can find fault with just about any gear ever created.

Think Tank Pixel Sunscreen 2.0

Edit: To say my solution is elegant is maybe an overstatement but thanks E —- Rick

I had a two day shoot last week, setup on a quad-core tower, using Capture One 5.0.2 and a Nikon D3x. I have to say that Nikon has really stepped up their game with the last few cameras they came out with. Some of the controls are less convoluted than with the Canon. Its a surprise that this is only the first shoot I’ve ever had with this camera. Much like the Canon line of lenses, the nikons best glass are in the prime lenses. The auto-focus is also least to be desired.

My main issue was with the software, lots of bugs and I’ve made a list:

- Capture numbering continuos, will not reset to one on new shot.
- Capture format keeps reverting back to “Name and 4 digit counter”
- Cannot use underscore in name box, only dash (you can in version 5.0)
- Camera connection locks up intermittently.
- Images very slow to render
- Image selection will not keep up unless you set to Auto Select New Capture to Immediately (then you wait for render)
- Most setting sliders are slow to react, especially when captures are coming in.
- Lots of crashing while trying to process, especially if you add images to the queue too quickly

Some pet peeves with this release that really bother me are:

- the whole set as compare variant thing gets really annoying. You have to be in your “multi-view” for it to work.
- The speed of capturing is really slow, but to give credit where credit is due, I have not tested this with a digital back.
- Still really missing a loupe tool, guys !!!!
- When I add folder as a capture folder, it should automatically be added as a favorite, no?

I’d be curious to know if others have been having these problems or similar and if so, which systems are you using this with?

Ahh, Winter. As the leaves fall and the days get shorter the challenge of daylight shooting increases accordingly. Longer exposures and trickier color balances are the norm as the sun rakes it’s lower angle through the sky. I recently had some challenging files to work through and happened across a few new tools in C1v5’s detail tab that I wanted to mention.

For the grumps in the group, the big news is we now have a floating/dockable focus window back, akin to the beloved 3.0 version, and while I’ve grown pretty comfortable with the Navigator tool while zoomed to 100% (in many ways this is a much faster way of working), the focus window is still a welcome addition and sure to warm the hearts of all you 3.7.9 curmudgeons.

The Sharpening tool now has quite a few presets that are good to check out and find your level of comfort with. I personally think the defaults are a little too crunchy, and generally go for something slightly softer on Phase backs. Canons I pull back even more. While many catalog and magazines may say not to sharpen files, I do feel that a little pre-sharpening is a good thing and God knows if I didn’t sharpen for certain clients, we would end up with mush on print. Capture, processing, pre-press; things have changed ever so slightly(!) since digital took the stage.

Onward to Noise Reduction. Here the Luminance and Color sliders do ok, (I’m always looking for a better noise solution that doesn’t resort to smearing the file to eliminate the noise) but the big news is the new “Long Exposure” slider that works surprisingly well, and it’s much better utilizing all three of these tools, I’m much happier with this than I ever was in v379. I think I’ll be using this one a lot more this time of year.

Next is the Clarity, smarity tool: Good for some situations, but really, flag the lens during capture and eliminate flare as it happens. If you get too heavy with this tool you’ll end up with a crunchy contrasty mess. Localized adjustment would be a great thing to have here.

The Moire tool is ok, good even, but I do hope that Phase will integrate LC’s advanced moire tools which were some of the best I’d ever used.

Finally, the Spot Removal tool is cool. Helps clean up those little annoying specks without a trip to PS, but still needs to be taken further with presets and different brush softness and shapes to be truly effective, but I like where this is going. For all of you bitching and moaning, you’ve got to admit that this tool, along with the Focus Mask tool were things we didn’t see coming, and it does show that Phase is working on improving this app, even if it’s not always in the direction we’d like.

So there you have it. The Details tab really does have some nuggets in there that can take a problematic file and make it better. That makes me and my client look better, and that is really what I want out of a raw converter.

It’s amazing to watch seasons, the raking light across the buildings, the color slowly draining away to that grey palette of winter. I find it oddly, weirdly comforting too, a way to ruminate on the passing year’s high’s and low’s I guess. A way to contemplate the future as well.
Much of that future in MFDB land is murky, but on the software side this 5.0 release does have some good stuff worth looking into. I hope you get a chance to check it out soon.

Hi everybody-

Just wanted to invite you to read about a test we just did comparing these 4 cameras’ capabilities at higher ISO’s:

http://blog.lux-sf.com/?p=280

Enjoy!

Just picked up the new Wacom Intuos4 last week and have to say, it’s pretty cool so far. The major change is in the keys and the scroll wheel, which is rad for PS 4’s rotate feature. No more twisting your hand awkwardly while churning out the perfect channel mask, the scroll wheel makes short work of  rotating the canvas to the optimum position. The oled displays next to the keys make it quite easy to see what you’ve mapped them to, and the whole tablet flips to either a left or right hand orientation, with a detachable usb cable.

In practice, I find that once you’ve mapped the express keys to your particular setup, they actually become useful. On the old version, I would inevitably forget what I mapped the keys to, or had them change when using a different computer (I would assume that copying your wacom prefs file to a jump drive and putting that on whatever host computer you’re on would solve this, but with everything else I’m doing to set up for a shoot, it’s always a low priority, but still frustrating nonetheless). The scroll wheel has a little led that show you which of the four functions it is currently assigned to and it works well with not only scrolling and rotating, but also brush size and soft/hardness. I do miss the little nub in the old keyset that allowed you to find a common reference point by feel. That’s really my only complaint about the tablet; the keys are arragned in a kind of v-height thing that should allow you to feel what key you’re using, but it’s not as intuitive as the old inverted nub/dot of the old one. I’m getting better at it, but do think it could be improved.

All in all the Intuos4 is much easier to use than the last gen, but if you’re not big on the express keys and are a keyboard power user, I don’t know that this is a must have. The sensitivity is increased from 1024 to 2048, but I haven’t seen/felt that great a difference. This is a solid step up from the Intuos3 and you really can’t go wrong upgrading. I feel I’m a bit faster and more precise in my masking, and that alone is worth it to me.

Wacom Intous 4

While Noah’s 40 day flood was an admittedly epic event, I had something similar happen last week when a pipe burst in my NY apartment.

OK, maybe it wasn’t as epic, but coming home to find my bedroom crammed into my living room and no heat on a twelve degree winter night sucked pretty bad. It also caused me to take stock of the household items and make sure the insurance co. had an updated schedule of everything. While in the process of doing this, I hadn’t really realized what I carry around in my pack when I’m on tech jobs in and out of NYC. It’s only when it’s all spread out that you get a good idea of what’s in the sucker. There’s a few items missing, but generally this is what I have with me at all jobs whether I’m hopping the 6-Train or settling into UA flight #5 seat 23B.

Most items are self-explanatory, especially to us techs. Wacom tablet, MBP, Wiebetech external drive and cable pouch are always with me so that even if the machine I’m working on dies and the backup does too, I still have a way to keep the shoot running. A few items like flash drives and QP cards didn’t make it out for the pic, though I swear they’re in there somewhere. The Camera pouch is for the G10, which is always with me and was used for this pic. The Bose QC 3 headphones Eric I. turned me on to, and they are indispensible though expensive. Being able to use the noise canceling feature has saved me on many flights where getting some much needed rest wouldn’t have happened otherwise. There’s also an iPhone charger, because someone always needs to charge their iPhone, and I can’t get through a day of heavy usage without it. Notebook , dvd’d sharpies, card reader, blah, blah. All I know is that if I don’t have them, I’ll be cussing up a storm soon enough, so in they go. Lastly are the personal effects, because you never know when the shoot gets extended and you’re off to some far away town with the clothes on your back.

The pack itself is a Patagonia Lightwire 25 that is the best I’ve found so far. It has a waist belt, which I think is essential when you’ve got 20+lbs of stuff crammed in there, and it has a suspended pouch for the computer so it doesn’t smack the ground every time you put the pack down. There are some other bags like the Booq series that I’d love to test out, but for now the Patagonia suits me just fine.

Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell, or Patagonia if you prefer. I’d love to hear what you carry and what pack/items you wouldn’t want to be without.

Oh and it’s 58 degrees in NYC today! In Feb. no less. Time to go for a walk with the pooch in Central Park.

In tech world location carts are almost as important as the camera/DB/computer when shooting tethered. If you can’t provide an accessible solution, you might as well shoot to card, which comes with it’s own set of issues. (Fwiw, card shooting is faster, provided the shooter knows proper exposure and can nail focus. If not, by the time you’ve downloaded the card, checked exp and focus, and reshot if anything needs to be corrected, you could very well have tethered up and been faster overall. Eric I. please feel free to chime in.)

On location, I tend to use a variety of cart solutions depending on what the type of shoot and subject is. Many times, a lappie with a gitzo plate fits the bill, but on longer jobs where the shooter wants a tower based approach, I’ll usually go with the location standard  Kartmaster 500. It’s solid as a rock and works exceptionally well overall (especially when the AD decides to lean on it while editing.)

There is a downside however: It’s a heavy, pricey bastard.

Admittedly, all that solidness comes at a price, and that is weight. Getting that thing in and out of a cab can be a pain. Downside number two is that the front wheels in kart mode can be a little too small and catch in potholes or on curbs. Oh, and number three: price. This puppy can run you close to $1000.00 by the time you get the shelves that make it a functional location piece of gear.

All that said, the Kartmaster 500 most definitely has its place in tech location setups. It sets the standard for other carts to measure up to.

Functionality in any location cart is key, and with that in mind I started wondering about the Multi-Cart series of carts, having seen them at Fotocare and PhotoPlus Expo here in NY. While they definitely seemed scrawnier than the burly Kartmaster, I could see a use for them in situations where portability and form factor were more important than the 500lb gorilla. Specifically, I loved the idea of being able to take the Multi-Cart down to half size, giving me a more portable footprint that was still leagues above the tripod plate combo.

I purchased the R10 because of the locking 5″ casters, although I would have preferred the R12 with it’s four 8″ pneumatic tires that would come in handy around NY’s potholey streets from hell, but the 8″er’s don’t have a locking mechanism, although I think one could find a suitable 8″ caster that would fill the bill. Plus, the R10 goes for around $230.00, with another $60.00 or so for the shelf unit, a considerable savings over the 1k Kartmaster. So, how did it perform?

In short, pretty darn well. The versatility of the R10 is pretty hard to beat, you can configure it eight different ways, and the felt covered shelf lets you mouse around to your heart’s content. I loved the half size for tight location shoots, and it’s a breeze to chuck in a cab. With the cart fully extended, you’ve actually got more lengthwise room than the Kartmaster. Downsides? Well, build factor of the R10 compared to the 500 is no contest, the 500 wins hands down–it’s a solid pro level piece of gear. With the R10 I did get a bit nervous anytime someone went to lean on it; it’s a little too unstable to totally support that kind of action, but to be fair it wasn’t designed to. As expected on the R10 the 5″ locking casters still catch in potholes, and I would love to see a 8″ pneumatic version w/lockers on the R12 as an option. Give yourself a little bit of time for assembly, this unit is not ready to go out of the box, and mine came with a shredded tire tube that Fotocare fixed right away. But overall, as for price, value and versatility, the R10 has earned a place on my gear shelf as a very useful piece of location gear. I think with a few tweaks it could be my goto cart for many shoots. Check one out for yourself next time you get a chance.

I don’t know about other tech’s, but my daypack is stuffed full of gear that just always lives with me. ( I keep meaning to do an urban tech backpack review for those of us who routinely hop on and off the subway, airport, train, van…you know, whatever has wheels and gets us to our destination.) Besides the ubiquitous rocket blower and QP card, there’s always an assortment of batts, AA’s and CR123’s that are ready for use when somehow there’s no others to be found, and while this does come in handy, it’s always been a thought that I wouldn’t be too surprised if one my pack suddenly started smoking due to the potentially noxious bunch of gear rolling around inside, no matter how hard I try to keep it organized.

Surely, the Gods must have intervened today because while I was in BH Photo picking up a Tenba case for my printer, I came across this nifty gadget. Made by SureFire, the mega-flashlight honchos, the SC1 holds up to six CR123’s in a waterproof o-ringed case that beats the crap out of the box and/or plastic baggy that normally passes for packaging. Now to find something similar for the AA’s. I’ve seen some foam/Pelican units that no doubt are better than what I’ve running with now, but I’d love to find a unit closer to this one.

Now let’s see what happens next time I run the TSA gauntlet at the airport. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

One of the big challenges for the work we do is client delivery. To start, it’s time consuming and can drag on long after a shoot with photographers and art directors alike making changes, requesting new edits, etc. When clients drag their feet and you’ve moved on to another job, this can prove to be a burden. There is also the issue of shoots where no art director is there to sign off on images. In the meantime you are emailing jpg’s every 10 minutes, compressing them down to make them “email-able”. All of this is time consuming and painful and completely unnecessary. This is where Lightbox Network comes in.

For 20 bucks a month you can secure yourself 1 GB of server space on a website that will allow you to upload your edits and make them viewable by clients via a web page that makes it easy for them to edit with a built in approval system as well as download final selects thereby cutting out the painful steps of client delivery making it seamless, effortless and providing the immediacy that so many have come to love with digital. Need more space? Just add on for an additional fee. For an additional $10 a month you can add on live edit which will allow you to upload simultaneously while shooting, providing an editing platform for art directors, creative directors and editors who are back at the office.

Further streamlining the workflow, Lightbox Network has recently launched an Aperture plugin that allows you to Export images directly from Aperture to Lightbox. more info here.

Just a quick note about an inexpensive product I have been very happy with.

$18 computer tool kit from Newer Technology. 11-pieces including the perfect size screw drivers and torx drivers. Just did a hard drive swap on a MBP and this kit helped make it seamless. (Along with the great video tutorials on OWC)

Everything you need inside including magnetic drivers that make the job simple. No more dropped screws into the caverns of your computer. And the nylon pry tool is a nice mar free solution to popping covers and changing batteries on iPods.

Newer Technology Tool Kit