Real World Workflow

Just wanted to pass along a good way to keep up on the latest knowledge base articles from Phase. Subscribe to their RSS feed and it will keep you updated on the last ten articles released.

Current ones include how to stop that damn AFD lens from dropping out of focus when shooting overhead (We always used to gaff tape the lens, but Phase has a much more elegant solution in their article) and how to use C1 with the Leaf iPad app.

Good way to stay updated when you’re not on set.

Phase One RSS feed

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

So a photog that I tech for gave me his laptop and asked me why he wasn’t able to play DVD’s on his 2008 17″ MBP.

“Hm?” I replied

(Apparently the person who set up the machine left out unessential things like idvd to trim down the OS. )

Then after light temple scratching and medium to heavy google searching I realized that.  No you can’t fix it without re-installing the OS and having to reformat and have to re-instal all your programs.

Then after less temple scratching and medium to heavy google searching this was discovered.  So I thought i’d share it:

Just an interesting bit of info:

Hey Techs, just got back from a shoot in a really remote location where I had the misfortune of finding out that if a regular Pocket Wizard (Plus, not II) is left on until the battery runs out, you may end up with a dead unit. Mine was out cold, and no battery swap or reset or anything would get it to work. We did have a hard wire backup, but I’ve never seen this before and wanted to pass it on. Make sure your PW’s are turned off, or be extra cautious and pull the batts if you know you won’t be using them for awhile or if they might get switched on during transit.

Ok, I know I said I was getting along fine with C1 5.1, but that tagging issue was killing me. 5.1.1 fixes this and a few other things, but thank God, I’m glad that’s over.

Ok, Techs, I’ve been working with C1 5.1 for a few weeks now and I have to say that aside from a few majorly annoying things. I’m much happier with the app overall. It is noticeably faster, the crop tool is a godsend (or maybe the way it should be), and the batch rename is working just fine in most situations.

For the bad, let’s just say the tagging issue has people frothing over at the Phase forum, and it’s a huge PITA. Let’s hope Phase fixes this one quick. For the moment I just have to remember to clear the tag on the next capture if I don’t want it, much like I’ve almost automatically learned to reset the capture counter when I switch filenames or start a new folder.

It could just be that I’m pretty used to the app now, so I’ve learned to deal with it’s quirks and really, 3.7 had them too, so I’m not that plussed that things aren’t perfect. Almost every capture app I’ve ever worked with hads its pluses and minuses, so 5.1 really isn’t that out of line with most of the usual crud I’ve had to deal with. I do find that it is more stable than 3.7, but that is another huge topic relative to the machines/os it’s installed on etc.

As with 3.7, I’ve found that making folders and moving files is best done inside C1 as all the relative changes stay with the file and if there’s one surefire way to crash C1 5.1, it’s to mess with the file hierarchy outside of C1 while the app is open. Guaranteed to crash almost every single time.

Anyway, just my 2cents. Would love to hear all your love/hate responses, and if anyone is using V5.1 with Leaf I’d love to hear about that too.

Hey Techs,

I’ve never been a fan of hard drive a long term archiving media but the reality is everyone finds to too cheap and convenient to ignore. Well after reading this article I started thinking that the technique outlined in the relating article might be worth doing as a just in case. Well typing command lines 190 times didn’t appeal so here is an app that runs the command with less effort. This is completely harmless to the data on the drives but does take a long time to run and at the moment can only run on one drive at a time. If the interest is there I will work on it to run on multiple drives. Enjoy.

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?

Hey Techs, Just wanted to pass on something from Miss Winnie. Seems that shooting tethered with a Leaf Aptus 5 and a 27″ iMac are not so compatible right out of the box. iMac’s FW port power is 7W and the Leaf needs about twelve to spark up and do it’s thing, so use a powered FW repeater when in Leafland with the iMac.

This is one spot where the Phase backs and their ability to use battery power while tethered come in handy. Just remember to have a ton of them and keep them warm if using in cold temps. Colorado was not nice to the batts on one of my last shoots. To be fair just about any battery is going to have a problem in freezing temps and Jon Gilbert over at Phase One has a great suggestion of using handwarmer packs taped to the batts to keep them going in cold situations.

I find it interesting that the iMac is so under-powered in the FW department. Hell my pre-unibody MBP spits out about the same power and I’ve never had an issue with connections on any Leaf backs though I have heard of notebooks not providing enough power as well. One thing for certain is not to try to shoot to an external FW bus powered drive and power a DB because the power is split among all the connected devices. (Eric I. will tell you that that style of shooting is just plain stupid anyway, and I agree.)

Anyhoo, many thanks to Winne Au for sharing this and here’s wishing a good connection to all of you in Techland.

This car shoot was extremely long and cold. Everywhere, from SF to Moab and Telluride I was constantly battling shorter battery life, weird display issues and the random camera gremlins that pop up whenever you have freezing temps. (Hey PhaseOne–dunking your backs in liquid nitrogen and showing how they’ll still work after thawing is great, but did you freeze the battery too? Just wondering because we went through a ton of 2500mah batteries that were barely lasting an hour, fully charged, in the cold.)

On the way out to SF I had noticed something amiss with my MBP’s battery, in that it was not holding a charge for long at all. A quick check of the system profiler revealed a “check battery” status, that had me concerned. Given that most of the locations I had my own genny and a few backup machines, I wasn’t too worried about it and filed it away for a future troubleshooting session. (Yes, I had been calibrating the battery, and it only had about 160 cycles, so it shouldn’t have been dead to the world). After a few weeks of trying to recalibrate and removing replacing the battery, I was almost down to a quick 20mins of runtime before shutdown. Adding to this, I noticed a weird bump in my trackpad that I could only attribute to the super cold temps we were experiencing, even though I tried to minimize outside exposure as much as possible. All of this came to a head in the Denver airport where all of a sudden I had no keyboard or trackpad and a battery that was more useful as a paperweight than as a power source.

Upon getting home and settled in, I started thinking that if both the keyboard and trackpad were out, it could very well be a connection issue since the odds of both failing at the same time are very low. A quick web search revealed that the trackpad connector is outside of the case, under–you guessed it the battery! I turned the machine over, popped out the battery and used a small precision screwdriver to reseat the trackpad connector, which did look a little loose. While the battery was out I gave it’s contacts a quick squirt of contact cleaner on the outside chance it could be a dirty contact or corrosion causing my problem. I powered back up and…

Voila!

Son of Spanky (the machine’s name) is back in business. Rock On. The funky bump is even gone on the trackpad, though that might come back to bite me later.

Oh, if you click the coconut icon at the top of the post, it takes you to the Coconut Battery App website, where you’ll find a nifty little app that show you your battery status and cycle states as well as additional info that comes in very handy when troubleshooting battery issues. Highly recommended.