Real World Workflow

Okay, no hot model shots, and it is oh so muggy, but the view from the balcony ain’t half bad. Now if only the stylist would get  cracking, I’ll wrap this puppy so me and Eric I. can scout the next meetup location, which is starting to look like a waterfront locale.  so ships ahoy mates and I’ll see you back in NYC.

Hey guys I’ve just released a couple updates of some apps I built and find handy. Job_folders is designed to keep your captures organized by creating a bunch of folders. And theCataloguer is designed to create a searchable text list of all your job folders. theCatalogue is saved to the shared folder. Enjoy

This weeks cool stuff is all about software applications whether it be OS X or online applications.

First off, OS X Leopard has been out for a few months now and its starting to come around with support by applications like Adobe LightRoom 2.0, which was also released today. OS X Leopard also adds the functionality of Spaces, a workspace management system that allows you to separate your tasks. Lets say that you are on a job teching. You also happen to be retouching and backing up. On the other hand you cannot stop updating your facebook profile and checking ebay for discount photo gear. Now you can separate the two with Spaces providing your “browsing” environment in a separate workspace from your “shooting” environment.

Also part of Mac OS Leopard is screen sharing which can change the way we see workflow today. Ever been on a shoot where the art director is unavailable? I mean besides emotionally, he cannot be physically present on set every moment. Slows things down right? Well with Screen Sharing, users on Leopard can share each others screens across the internet and your LAN. We can see the real world application of this product to speed things up, no longer does the art director need to be in the room to approve and image and through iChat starting a Screen Share also initiates voice chat, allowing photographer to communicate with Client. This application would also be useful when trying to keep clients away from a set. Simply setup a computer with a monitor in a separate room and share your screen so that they can watch as you shoot. Certainly it will make your tech breathe a little easier not having 25 people breathing down her neck for the entire shoot.

Social networking is big right now and can really help grow your business. For us it has become a very important tool for bringing the information to our subscribers without the needless annoyances of newsletters and bulk emails. While that can also be helpful we like the idea of being able to broadcast our content through other media. Facebook is one of the largest social networking sites right now, so we proudly use this site to broadcast our content and announce our kick ass events. Plus its a great way to connect with other people who pay attention to our site. So we’d like to ask you to be our friend. Click here to view our profile and us as your friend.

Yet another way to keep up, which we find is an even less intrusive way is using Twitter, another application under the subcategory “microblogging”. We use this to update our status through facebook and if you follow us on twitter, you’ll be able to get a quick update when we update our blog. You can see our twitter page here. If you aren’t a twitter user you should be.

And finally, another great application that we love is the Art Director’s Toolkit, which we find useful when your art director starts drawing on your $3000 Eizo which was witnessed just last week. ADT provides you with a few tools, the most important of which is a slide ruler that detaches from the application and stands in front of other applications so that you can do measurements. This is good for: checking gutter widths, alignment of products and logos, etc. Other utilities include number conversions, text alignment, layout grids and spreads, and many more all of which is bundled for the low cost of $39.95. You can read more about ADT here. Thanks to Ethan Clarke for the tip.

Don’t forget to send your favorite cool stuff to ebisaac@realworldworkflow.com.

Hasselblad has their new 50MP and Phase has their new 60MP and nestled somewhere in between is Leaf’s new AFI 10 System featuring a 56MP “True Wide Frame” (TWF) sensor. We really do love the Leaf AFI with its extremely expensive lenses and its somewhat awkward body design. It is truly a quality system and with the TWF utilizes the full angle of view of those great Schneider lenses that it uses and also implements the Verto Internal Sensor Rotation, which eliminates the need to rotate the back. This DALSA chip is exclusive to Leaf.

This marks the third 50MP plus digital back announced this month. You can read more about the New Leaf AFI System here.

Adobe LR 2.0, released this week, offers a few great new additions:

- 64-bit support with OS X.5 Leopard
- Graduated Filters in RAW Files
- The ability to mask effects (such as contrast, exposure, etc) applied to raw images
- New Digital Asset Management features allowing more efficient retrieval of images off of other drives (much like what Aperture has to offer)
- Enhanced Batch Processing
- Streamlined Photoshop Integration

The purchase price is $300USD, upgradable from 1.x for $99USD. You can read more about it here.

Here at Real World Workflow, we want you to feel that we try to keep things equal and balanced. We’ve made our complaints about whiny art directors, difficult photographers, pushy stylists and all the other idiots who put their hands on our screens or leave their trash on our cart. But today my friends is all about the tech! And not just any tech but the douche bag tech that we have all worked with at some point in our careers.

1.) Territorial much? Photographers who apologize emphatically for touching your computer have probably been yelled at by the last douche bag she worked with. People are going to want to look at the images, scroll through them, etc. For the photographer and most times the art director, this is fine. It is always good to check with the photographer first to make sure he doesn’t mind people perusing. If he does there are a couple of more diplomatic things you can do. You can lock the computer when you are away, make a vague excuse(“It’s processing right now” works for me) or the most subtle way for me, don’t connect a mouse. Use a Wacom tablet and carry the pen with you. That’ll slow em’ down. The douchiest techs get super territorial and downright rude.

2.)He’s got his fingers on CMD + E? AKA the Histogramaniac! This breed of douche bag are always sporting the hot red and green exposure warnings on the screen. They often yell out in front of everyone “IT’S TOO HOT!”. One douche ran out of an RV on to the beach screaming at the photographer in front of the whole crew as if the world was coming to an end that everything was too overexposed demanding a reshoot! Then there is the focus freak douche bag who yells out “BUTTER” and “RAZOR” as each shot comes in. Stop, please…now!

Discretion is key and having a code or a sign is an easy way to maintain it. However make sure its not annoying and obvious. Simply saying something to the first assistant is a better option. If you must hire a douche bag tech, please limit his caffeine intake.

3.) Opinions Are Like Apples (it sounds better if you hold your tongue) A douche bag tech will often offer his opinion when not solicited and make inappropriate comments. Better yet are the subspecies of douche bag techs that will bring up philosophical, religious or policital opinions in front of your art director or client. Other forms of douchiness are those who say things like “I hate still life!”…on a still life shoot…to the still life photographer…These people should be taken out and shot! When they get to a point where they are making comments about your photographs, that is probably a good time to tell him that you already have enough art directors on this shoot.

4.) He Thinks Its His Show Douche bag tech’s often try to differentiate themselves from assistants. So they will make a point to mention this to others as if they are compensating for something. These guys kind of consider themselves in charge of assistants and often command them to do things for them. They are know it alls and could do the job themselves if their heads weren’t stuck up their asses. If a light is two tenths to bright, they might even go ahead and adjust the pack themselves. A good assistant will chop his hand off. They also emphatically display their knowledge with great arrogance. There are even some companies out there that are kind of a little douchey in the sense that their production is bigger than the actual shoot. They bring vans packed with gear and big boxes to show just how cool digital is, meanwhile they distract from the real reason we are there.

5.) He’s Always Looking For Work The douchiest of all douche bag techs are also not working very much so you hear from him or her often because they “can’t seem to find work” or “its really slow”. Sometimes it is just slow and there are lull periods throughout the year. Its a bit different for everyone. But these guys usually don’t have busy times at all. They have occasional work but usually nothing at all. This is not to say that those calling for work are necessarily douche bags, but douche bags are definitely calling for work. We find it very difficult to recommend people like this because the only thing worse than being a douche bag is recommending one!

So there you have it. If you find yourself looking at this post and wondering if you too might be a douche bag tech, don’t worry there is hope for you. #1.) There aren’t that many of you out there, so the chances are pretty low that you are a bonafide douche bag – you might just be a photographer. #2.) It is never too late to change your ways. You need to relax more, take a breath and think before you speak. #3.) You may want to consider a different career path; Perhaps working at the post office? Corporate America also has a high demand for douche bags. Finally, we really don’t want you to take offense. The most important thing to remember is that without you we wouldn’t look so damn good.

1.) Hassy Vs. Phase – they used to be best of friends now they are sword enemies out for blood and they will fight to the death. Who will win? It’s hard to say. Phase has more pixels but Hassy has a faster, sleeker camera that gets all the girls and SYNCS AT ANY SPEED! Meanwhile Leaf is sitting idly. Perhaps this is their strategy, no?

2.) Death to Film did an interesting test with light meters and digital cameras. It’s a little confusing at first because they start pushing exposure in the software (bad Image Mechanics, bad!) but the gist of it is that light meters lie. Personally, I feel lucky to see a meter these days.

3.) Need work? Have you inputed your information into our database? We’ve got a nice list going but we still need more. It’s getting busy folks. The work is out there we just need to connect the right people with it. It also wouldn’t hurt to introduce yourself to us at one of our events (we bbq’d last month). The tech arsenal is still not available for everyone to view but we have found ourselves using it a lot these days and both Eric Z. and myself have access to it.

if you have any other cool stuff, send it on to me at ebisaac@realworldworkflow.com and I will be sure to add it next week.

Phase One has just announced the new P 65+ and also introduced us to a new term – Sensor+. The claim is that this new sensor is full frame and will also utilize a Dalsa chip, which we haven’t seen since the Lightphase/H10 days. Phase has been using Kodak Chips since the introduction of the H20.

Along with the bigger sensor, the resolution will be 60.5 Megapixel with 8984 x 6732 active pixels achieving 180 MB, 8 bit RGB files. The new buzz word, Sensor+ is a new sensor technology co-developed by Dalsa that will offer what they call “upgradeable CCD Functions”. I think the wording is very careful here not to imply that you could upgrade from a P65 to a P75 by simple chip replacement. Rather it implies that features that are not currently available may be available in the future although they do not say at what cost.

P65+ shipments have been announced for Q4, 2008…no comment.

Its official. Phase has countered Hassy’s 50MP announcement with a whopper of their own: Phase One P65+. Actual full frame 645 (or close enough) and a whopping 180mb processed 8 bit TIFFs.

Honestly, the main thing that excites me about this back is its “Scaleable pixel and file size”. That sounds like a great new feature. I would hope that you can shoot at 30mp and achieve faster than the “up to 1 frame per second”. Altho, even 1 frame per sec is a good speed improvement for Phase.

Since this new Phase back is a Dalsa sensor (vs. Kodak for previous backs) the ability to do long long exposures is now limited to 1 minute. That might be an issue for some product/automotive shooters

All in all, quite the exciting week in MF news..

Good morning techheads.

While slugging it through the iPhone 3G launch at the 59th St. Apple Store in NYC for seven hours yesterday, I had plenty of time to ponder the news last week relating to the 50, and 60 mpix backs being launched by Hassy and Phase ( for an update, head over to luminous-landscape.com and try to duck the personal attacks that get lobbed now and again). In short, and without any official detail yet from the Phase camp, mfdb’s are on the upgrade train again, with Phase supposedly releasing a chip that is essentially full-frame 645, to the tune of 54mm x 40mm, or in that vicinity (remember, official details not available yet and I’m not going to obsess over tenths of millimeters at this point.) with a 6 micron pixel pitch, and around 60 mpix.

In short, a whopper.

Hassy is right up there with their 50 mpix offering that Eric I. mentioned in a post last week. They’re working within their “integrated” platform now, and there are some benefits to this setup, like DAC correction and making the rest of us who invested in the H system use an external cable for the bricked H2F. Whatever. I like the Hassy H1/2 system and have worked with it on set for years now and cannot blame Hassy at all for doing what they feel the need to remain competitive and profitable in the marketplace. I do know that I’ve had exactly one query this year from a shooter that was using a Hassy back. Phase and Leaf dominate the NYC rental market, and it would take a hell of a product from Hassy to change this order, but hey, at least they’re making a serious effort.

Where this is all going is what was on my mind yesterday as I people-watched for hours while standing in line. The newly engaged couple next to me was mildly entertaining, as the girl had a freshly inked lower back tattoo of her new beau, “Leon” (I hope you two marry for life, because this could be embarrassing later on…can you say “cover-up”) and the law school intern on my right was cool, having got drunk until 4am and then passing out on his office floor before joining me in line. All this excitement waned rather quickly though, like in the first hour or so, giving me plenty of time to ponder the state of the mfdb mpix wars. Where is this all going?

Forward, is what I eventually came up with. Whether we like it or not, time and tech marches on. While I feel that the gear on many jobs is overkill, say, when using a P45+ for a magazine that publishes at a 6×8″ size, it’s not my call. What the client wants, the client gets, and if having a 50, 60, or 100 gazillion mpix back is what they want, thats what I’ll have to provide. There’s always going to be a market for in-store displays or promo events where the largest file will have a use, if only because that’s what the ad agency thinks is best.

What I worry about is whether the camera systems will be able to keep up, and as we get smaller and smaller pixels, noise and the theoretical limit of light gathering comes into play. How will lenses resolve this? Already depth of field is a huge issue, especially in still life, but in fashion and other genres as well. Will we move to some kind of rapid capture multi-shot that is auto-stacked in almost real time?

I would love to propose that DB manufacturers should be working on the quality of the image rather than the size. Whether through fat (I love the 9 micron) pixels, better profiling and improved color and/or higher iso’s, I think that these factors would have a far greater impact when the ink hits the press than a high mpix count. (And, as traditional print continues to decline as a medium, where does that again leave us when web images are usually optimized at 72ppi?!?!? ) But I think higher mpix backs will continue to hold sway in our business for now and in the future. There will always be shooters who think their ability is enhanced with the latest in equipment, and want the glam factor as part of their overall impact on set, and they’ll turn to us to provide that.

So batten down the hatches, Dtech’s. Get ready for more storage, faster processors and bigger leases because this Wave of Bigness is here to stay. I wish it wasn’t, but it is.

In my view at least. From the Apple Store, with Leon and his tattooed fiancee, law intern guy and me. But now that I have the 3G iPhone I’m at least current and up to date with the latest in phone tech; but wait just a minute, maybe two and that will change.