Real World Workflow

Word on the street is that C1Pro 4.2 Pro is being demoed at Photokina this year and has a release date of October 15, 2008. Also being demoed is the P65+, but it is unclear as to whether or not you need the new software to run the new backs or if they are backwards compatible and can be used on 3.7.x. That point will probably have a lot to do with how much 4 Pro gets used considering that it has generally been considered a step back by most photographers and tech’s. That said, there are some other features that make it desirable:

- Lens enhancement tools solve distortion, sharpness falloff, light falloff and can produce customizable vignetting for creative effects.
- Selective Color provides an intuitive toolset for customizing image colors to perfection.
- With the all-new Skin Tone tool photographers can easily set and reproduce skin tones shot under a variety of light conditions even without using a gray card.
- A redesigned Styles feature enables photographers to explore and create unique “looks” and to reproduce them consistently with ease.

More info including the press release regarding this can be viewed here.

Hey gang, this is totally unconfirmed, but I’ve been hearing that LC 11.2 is a bit buggy from a few different sources, so you might want to hold off on updating until we hear further news. I haven’t had a chance to check this out personally, and have had nothing but good experiences with 11.1.1, so if anyone has any additional info, please let us know.

This one comes literally from the set cart as I shot it with the camera on the laptop, here on the beach in San Jose de Cabo. Enjoy!

Phase One has released new firmware for all P+ series backs.  This update is recommended for P+ backs, but is especially important for P25+ as it corrects the black frames issue.

Important issues addressed with this firmware update: 
1. General image artifact improved on some digital backs (column artifacts,
centerline, and rings artifacts)
2. Overall improved image quality at long exposures (visible at exposures more
than 30 min.)
3. P 21 extreme Long exposure enabled (now works for more than 25 min.)
4. FireWire power circuit protection enabled (if user mistakenly inserts the
FireWire connector wrong way around at computer end)
5. P 25+ / Intel Mac tethered retransmitting lost data error corrected

It also includes new  special application camera modes.  While 99.9% of shoots Digital techs work on will not need a different Camera Mode, its good to know what they are there for:
New “Camera Mode” feature is introduced to facilitate use with Schneider electronic
shutter USB control and certain with some specific industrial applications.
A New “Camera Mode” menu item is introduced inside “Configuration” menu.
Configuration  > Camera Mode

• Normal (default)
• Mode 1 (Schneider electronic shutter option)
• Mode 2 (Aerial application)
• Mode 3 (Industrial – available only on Hasselblad V version)

When Installing the Firmware, be sure you are tethered to a Tower and do not have a battery or CF card in the back.

Firmware can be downloaded here: http://www.phaseone.com/Content/Downloads/Digital%20Back%20Downloads/P+%20series.aspx

Upgrading your Phase One Back has never been easier :

There is a new sticker upgrade package for those
photographers that demand the latest and greatest
You just peel the sticker off and paste onto your existing back:

21MP and HD Video
Yikes, here comes Canon
21MP for less than $3k.
DP Review on 5D-II

I’d like to be able to say that I only work as a digital tech, that I no longer do assisting gigs, but thats just not the case. A good 25% of my jobs are still assisting jobs. Which is how I wound up working as an assistant alongside a digital tech I’d never met or worked with before on a two day still life shoot. I’ve never seen better justification of the dayrates that techs earn than watching what effect an inept tech can have on a shoot.

I should have known from the beginning when I had to set up the Magliner because the tech didn’t know how to. Or when she didn’t know how to mirror a display. The real problem came with the monitor calibration. I don’t know what was expected, that Eizos would come out the cases calibrated perfectly, with no need to do anything on our end. But the tech seemed very put off by the fact that the monitors were quite clearly out of calibration, and had no idea what do about it. I managed to acquire a calibrater for her, which she looked at for a minute, then put to the side, never to be picked up again.

Throughout the first day, the photographer kept complaining about how the monitors didn’t look accurate, causing him to get frustrated with his lighting. I hinted multiple times that the monitors should be calibrated, to no avail. Then the issue of color came up, when the photographer asked about the color temperature, the tech stated “I don’t really know about color temperature.”. Towards the end of the second day, the photographer became so frustrated, that he had the tech set up his laptop as the shooting computer, so that he could get an accurate idea of what the shots looked like.

This is only a brief summary, leaving out a myriad of smaller incompetencies, such as being unable to set the camera’s rotation in C1, so that every image had to be rotated when it came in. I did everything short of knocking the tech out of their chair and taking over, but still couldn’t get through.  I refused to go so far as to humiliate another freelancer on a job, but it took a lot of willpower not to.

The reason I tell this story, is that this is the kind of person who will destroy the future of the digital tech profession. When people describe digital techs as “glorified photo assistants”, its this person their thinking of. The unfortunate truth is that a good digital tech is only noticeable in their absence, whereas an incompetent one will always be noticed. I wish I had a solution to this problem, instead of just complaining about it. I don’t know how to educate these people, or stop them from calling themselves techs.

Jill Greenberg recently released the photographs above of John McCain which were photographs shot during a shoot she was contracted to do for Atlantic Monthly. Atlantic Monthly claims that her “personal” project was not part of the contract and has threatened to sue. Obviously they won’t be calling her for the next job. But that begs and even more mindboggling question: why did Atlantic Monthly even hire her? Were they not the least bit aware of her politics or did they just assume she’d play ball?

Most would, but I have to hand it to Ms. Greenberg – the girl’s got big one’s. This is a potentially career ending move for her – on the other hand, having the wrong person in the white house doesn’t seem to shed a favorable light on the economy at the moment. I applaud her for her audacity. This is a proper display of civil disobedience and also an example of someone using her powers of fame for good.

I take no objection with any of the photographs but on a personal level, I have an issue with the two attacking his personal life. I am not a big fan of attacking political candidates on a personal level (unless its something really bad…like murder). Especially after the situation where Republicans spent millions of tax payer’s dollars trying impeach Bill Clinton for his own personal choices. In the end they only saw some sort of solution AFTER he’d already vacated is position in the White House.

And this isn’t the only issue to come up this week. Another photograph, this one of Governor Palin surfaced a few weeks ago and a recent article debunked the myth behind the photo positng the original (not Palin) next to the ‘Shopped one. I think this one should just be chalked up to Photo Illustration.

Which is where I see that photographs like the McCain series belong. They aren’t necessarily true representations of the subject but rather the artist’s perception of that person, which I think is valid…and necessary.

I’d love to hear the thoughts of all of you as well. What do you think of the photo’s? What do you think of Greenberg for doing these photos? How do these compare to the notorious photographs of O.J Simpson right after the murder? Those were doctored as well and received some pretty harsh criticism on maintaining truth in media? Is this topic just a little too Art Theory 101 for you? Speak!

note: We don’t usually talk about socio-political issues on this site. In fact, I don’t think we ever have, but I felt the need to bring this one into the light for three reasons:

1.) Our economy just tanked again when some analysts were saying that it might actually be getting better soon – that effects RWWF’s demographic economically.
2.) We are going to have an election in 49 days and on a personal level, I feel that we need to encourage all readers to vote, no matter who you are voting fObama.
3.) It involves an issue of image manipulation and photography, in general which really justifies the relevancy.

Eventually you will stumble upon someone who wants to use the Canon 1DS Mark III. If you are not a regular canon software user or don’t like its limitations, you can always use Lightroom to edit. Of course, no one really wants to use the Canon software to edit, however you have to use it if you intend on using Adobe Lightroom to edit and that is where the speed slows way down. Here is a step-by-step tutorial on connecting and successfully setting up a cohesive file structure for your digital capture session. If you don’t have a 1DS Mark III you can probably test this with other tether-able cameras.

File Structure

First you have to think about file structure for the images. I prefer to setup my sessions much in the same way that Capture One does. Here is what my structure looks like:

Session Folder (In a date format, followed by name of job) “080911_CanonTest”
  RAW
     TEMP (for incoming canon captures – only a temporary folder)
     Shot Folder (Description of shot) “Shot01″
     Shot02
     Shot03
  Processed
     Shot01
     Shot02
     Shot03

Setup EOS Utility

Second you must setup the Canon EOS Utility to capture, including the capture folder and file naming. You should have the USB cable connected to the computer and camera:

1.) Start the EOS Utility.

2.) Click preferences in the box on the lower right side.

3.) Go to the Destination Folder Drop Down Box.

4.) Click on the Browse… button under Destination folder.

5.) Now you will choose your temporary destination folder. This is where images that are shot will come into. Then you’ll use Lightroom to move them into their final destination. You should have already thought about your file structure at this point, but to give you an example I’ll use my example from above. Browse to Session Folder > RAW > TEMP

6.) In the next section choose “Remote Shooting” and choose “Shooting Date” in the drop down. This chooses the folder that the images come into. It will be created upon the first capture that is taken.

7.) Next go to the File Name Drop Down Box. Enter the name of the first shot (i.e “Shot01″).

8.) Enter the number of digits for file naming (I usually go with three b/c most shooters don’t capture more than a few hundred per shot.

9.) Enter the start number (should usually be “1″).

10.) Next go to Linked Software and choose “none” to insure that no other program opens when you capture.

11.) Click OK

12.) Next Click “Camera Settings/Remote Shooting”. If it is grayed out, check your camera connections, turn your camera off and then on or tap the button to wake it up.

You are now ready to shoot. You’ll notice that you now have full control of the camera including aperture and shutter speed settings.

13.) Fire a capture to make sure that they are coming in. Errors will appear in red and if you cannot initially fire, check that your auto focus is on or off.

14.) Browse to the location in finder to ensure that images are coming in. Once you’ve verified that your CR2 (Raw)or jpg (not recommended) image is coming delete it and then open Lightroom. (note: in the next steps you’ll be setting up lightroom to look at this TEMP folder. In order for it to work, it needs to be empty, so make sure that you have deleted all items in this folder before you continue.)

Setup LightRoom:

1.) Go to File -> Auto Import -> Enable Auto Import

2.) The Auto Import will now be checked, go back to File -> Auto Import -> Auto Import Settings

3.) The dialog box for Auto Import settings first displays an option to choose your Watched folder. Choose the location that you chose in the Canon Software as your capture folder.

4.) Under destination choose a location that you want to move the files for lightroom (yes, evidently you have to move them to another location for lightroom to use them). We choose the RAW folder for this. In the next step you’ll choose a subfolder as a final resting spot for your images.

5.) You also have to choose a subfolder name. So I think that the best option is to use the “Copy To” section as the Captures folder within the session folder for the shoot and then the subfolder as the shot folder for each shot within the session. The Watched folder will empty and only be a location for canon to capture.

So it would look like this, hierarchically for lightroom in the end:

Session Folder (Job Folder)
RAW
   Shot01
      Shot01_001.cr2
      Shot01_002.cr2
  Shot02
  Shot03
  TEMP (should always be empty if Lightroom is doing its job properly)

6.) The information section can just remain empty, except for the checkbox that says “Render Standard-Size Previews” – this should speed up generation a tiny bit.

7.) Click OK. Now when capturing images should come in about 7 seconds – 7 very long seconds.

8.) Under The Library Tab, go to Folders and choose the folder that the images are being moved to. If you don’t see this folder it is probably because you haven’t captured an image yet. Capture an image and the folder will generate.

And that’s all there is to it.

Found this great test done by Popular Mechanics to test the ruggedness of hard drives. Its a pretty abusive test. Those with weak stomach’s should heed caution:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4275478.html