nickonkenShoptalk

Tech Tip: Submerged CF Card

I was just down in Miami this week shooting an advertising campaign on the edge of a pool. One thing lovely about the 1Ds MKIII is that when you eject a CF card, it likes to launch it as if it were a cannon ball. Seeing that the camera was vertical on a tripod, when I ejected the card, it shot straight out the back faster than I could catch it and it went fumbling into the pool with full of our last series of images.

My assistants quickly rushed it off to the hair department to dry it out with a hair dryer. After some TLC, and some dry heat application we took it over to digital to see if it was ok. Luckily being the solid state memory it was we were able to download the images on the card just fine.

After downloading the card, they taped it up, labeled it "H2O" and told me I should not use it again.

Moral of the story: Don't drop your CF cards in the pool.

A Few Resources for Beginners

If you're just starting out(or intermediate for that matter), and want to get some tutorials, read some good tech articles, here are a few photography websites that will help you out:

Studiolighting.net
Bill and Ed have a great resource here. There are tons of tutorials, lighting tips, and my favorite, interview podcasts from many pro photographers giving insights into their methods. (They interviewed me there as well. Click HERE to listen to my interview)

Strobist.com
Stobist is great for all that you want to know about lighting, including cheap ways of making your own.

dpreview.com
This is a great resource for finding out the latest and greatest on digital cameras. You can find reviews, and they have a great forum where you can post tech questions you may have about certain pieces of gear if you're researching a product to buy.

SantaFe Workshops
If you want to take a week class, the Santa Fe Workshops have a lot of great coarse. A great way to get immersed.

My Blog: nickonkenShoptalk
If you sift through a lot of my previous posts, and other categories I post random tips and pieces of my methods as I'm sure you might have found. For those who haven't, dig around.

More on Assisting...

Just found this great in depth article from my buddy Jeremy Cowart. It's a more in depth version than my last post on Assisting. It's a compilation of responses from a group of photographers from an ASMP forum. Great reading for those of you who want to learn how to be a better assistant!

Check it out here.

Image Cataloging and Lightroom

A few months ago I picked up Adobe Lightroom for the first time. I decided I wanted something a little more advanced for cataloging my images. I'm beginning to love it. I've been using it as a master editing program in my workflow process depending on the project. You can add keywords and ITPC data on import. I'm still using Capture One for the initial edit and image processing. Lightroom is great for organizing, keywording, and building custom contact sheets. You can even integrate your own branding.

My workflow process as follows: Import in to Capture One > Initial edit, contrast, WB, and Exposure adjustements > Process to Jpegs in C1 > Open processed Jpegs in Bridge > Make a more refined edit by starring selected images(these become my "Story" images) > Import Processed Jpegs into master Lightroom catalog

Depending on different jobs, determines what I do with them in Lightroom. I've set up one main catalog with all my select images, and my entire collection of photographs I've taken over the last few years. If the shoot has images I want to use in my portfolio I will add them to the master catalog. Now I can search by keywords if I'm building a promo piece, or creating a new edit for my portfolio.

Sometimes I will create a "job" catalog which allows me to create web contact sheets for the client. For example, this last Nike job, the client will have 3200 images to look through to make their selections. Lightroom made it easy to keyword, select images by keyword, and create a custom contact sheet out of those selected images. I now have a master catalog for the whole job.

Here's a couple screen shots:

Sample Catalog: Click here to see the actual gallery.

On Location Backup

Backing up on location is essential, especially on multi-day jobs. I recently had a friend who was out here on an assignment for a big client. His main drive's images got deleted, and his backup drive failed. Luckily after a couple grand, a few weeks in the drive hospital, and some serious sweating, he was lucky to recover his data. He was mortified as any of us would be.

Today my crew will embark on a 3 week job in Latin America for Nike. We will be going to Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo. We will have 4 shoot days in each city. I thought I'd share a little bit about my on-location backup system.

We have 3 LaCie 160gb Ruggeds, and 4 SmartDisk 120gb drives. The Ruggeds will be our primary drives. We will double up the images and keep two copies traveling with us. At the end of shooting in each city we will fedex a drive with all the images from that city back to the office here in LA.

Total, we will have 3 copies of all the images by the time we return to the states.

Assisting

I thought I’d take a moment to talk about assisting. I’ve encountered a few recent conversations that have inspired me to post on this. If you’re just starting and getting into photography, assisting is, in my opinion the best way to learn. You can see how other photographers work, learn lighting techniques, how to run a set, etc.

The number of assistants on a job depends on the size and technicality of the job. On bigger sets, the hierarchy starts with the first assistant who runs the set technically for the photographer. He/She must know have a vast knowledge of how to light, set up equipment, and have a good amount of on set experience. They will manage the rest of the assistants. That’s where starting out as a 3rd or 4th assistant is a good place to learn.

Here are a few things I expect from my assistants:

1. Know your role! This is probably the most important. The assistant’s primary job is to take care of the photography related technical aspects of a job so the photographer can focus on the creative and client relations aspect.

2. Do NOT push your own agenda. This is a good way to get yourself kicked straight off of a set. You are there FOR the photographer. Never talk to clients, especially about your own work. It’s very poor etiquette.

3. A good attitude. I can’t begin to tell you how far a good attitude goes. A good attitude to learn, and serve the photographer is extremely valuable. A photographer should not be questioned when they ask something of an assistant.

4. A positive attitude- Goes hand in hand in hand with a Good attitude, but a bit different. Sets can be stressful. A lot of times, the photographer is put under stress from the client. For me, an assistant with a positive attitude that can help me relax is a definite bonus. I want my sets to be positive and fun, and to be surrounded with a crew that add to that vibe.

5. Punctuality. BE ON TIME! Better yet, be early. Make the proper decisions to be able to make it to set on time.

6. Just ask! If you can’t figure it out, ASK. I’d rather you ask what you think is a dumb question(but usually isn’t), then make a mistake that costs money. I am more than happy to teach.

7. Attentiveness. be attentive to the photographer. Anticipate their move, have things ready before they need it.

Depending on the job, most of the times for me assisting isn’t too difficult a task. It’s a very laid back environment, and lighting is minimal. These are some of the things I like from assistants. Everyone photographer is different.

Above all, be willing to sweep the floors to learn and get in. Help a photographer out on a portfolio shoot, and if he likes you he/she may be more willing to hire you for the paid jobs.

Lifestyle Lenses.

Someone recently asked me what my favorite lens is, and obviously it depends for what type of subject. Since I've already posted my favorite lenses for Travel Photography, I thought I would do a post for my lifestyle work. The answers are simple: The Canon 35mm f1.4L, the 85mm f1.2L, and the 20mm f2.8. All of these lenses create a certain look depending on what I'm going for.

*I just noticed that this post looks weird in RSS reader, so you have to view it in the actual blog for the captions to line up with the images.

The 35mm f1.4L
Most of my lifestyle work is a realistic feel, which I use my 35mm probably 85% of the time. Most of the work I've shown in the last year has been with that lens. Here are some examples:
Interaction Group:

Interaction Single subject with environment:

Indoor tight space low light:

One thing I love is when shooting vertical images, you can fit the full body of a person in the frame and still have space to crop to an 8.5x11 crop ratio:

Realistic Action:

The 85mm f1.2L
I love using the 85mm for a more cinematic feel when I still have interaction with the subject. You're farther away from them, but not too far away. You can also get a nice compressed look if you'd like to put your subject in their environment.
Cinematic:

Subject far in environment:

Tighter Compressed:

Compressed Action:

The 20mm f2.8
This lens is fantastic for close dynamic lifestyle shots, or action.

Dynamic Lifestyle:

Dynamic Action:

RAW vs. Jpeg

A question from a reader was raised recently whether I shoot RAW or Jpeg. In answer to that, RAW is the only way to go. Shooting RAW is like shooting film. It gives you the latitude to "develop" your image as you would with film. You can control your exposures(within a couple stops. You should always be as close as possible to perfect exposure), contrast, saturation, highlights, shadows, white balance, etc.

When you shoot JPEG, the camera is essentially processing the image before you have the chance to control the developing and processing. It throws away information to compress it. Shooting RAW, gives you every single bit of information that was captured when the shutter was clicked. Using RAW editing software such as Capture One, Aperture, Lightroom, etc to "Develop" your images gives you the option to control the end product. Shooting RAW creates a faster editing workflow as well.

Workflow

Just read Joel's comment: With regards to workflow, which programs are you using these days? Where do you stand with the whole Aperture vs. Lightroom?

Well, I'll tell you that I stand outside of the Aperture Vs. Lightroom thing because I use Capture One 4. I prefer it when it comes to color. I haven't yet been able to get the color out of those programs by sliding a couple sliders. I know both Aperture and Lightroom both have better cataloging, and metadata systems, but to me the image comes first. There are a few sketchy things with the program, but again, it's about the color of the image to me. Capture One has a special algorithm that it uses to interpret the RAW files, which gives me the color I like. Color preferences all depend on what type of color your eye/vision/style prefers as well. I do an initial edit in C1, and process my selects to Jpegs. If the job requires a tiff format, I will go back and reprocess the individual images when the client makes their selects. Saves time and disk space.

My second edit is done in Adobe Bridge.  I can sort through the processed jpeg folder with the processed look, and I'll star my favorites, then apply any final touches to my final selects.

Preserving Image Details

A reader just asked me this: "I love the way you shoot into the sun whilst still preserving the details in the image. I've been trying to accomplish the same thing without success. Do you use any filters for this?"

There are a few different aspects to preserving details when shooting. The first thing, is to turn on your highlight alert in your camera. The Canon cameras will make every pixel flash if it's blown out. This will help you make sure you're not blowing out the highlights on your subject. I shoot a lot of things back lit, and try to over expose as much as I can without blowing the highlights so I push the exposure until I see the highlight alert. Your subject is what needs not to be blown out because you can't get that information back in post if there is none there. Backgrounds are fine if they're blown.

A big thing I look for when shooting in natural light is sun and shade spots. I usually make sure my subject is fully in the sun, fully in the shade, or backlit where the subject's back is towards the sun. This creates an even light on the subject. Some people like spotty light and shadows on the subject, and if it's done right it works. My personal preference and style is even lighting on the subject. If I have an assistant, I like to use foam core as a bounce light.

This is for natural light scenarios. If you're using artificial light, you have to dial down your lights so they aren't blowing out on the high light areas.

If there is still information in the highlights, you can usually dial them back down in post a little.

I don't use any filters. What you see is straight out of the camera.