byJoeyBaker » Photography

Signed and Released: Side Projects Are So Good

Joey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:05:38 +0000

Common thinking in the photography industry is to always have a side project going in addition to your main job. Work, even photography work, is tough. You’ve got to have a personal project going to keep you sane. Turns out having a side project can lead to some really good work too. Just ask Google about their 20% rule. After a long time of not following this sage advice, I am now fortunate enough to announce two.

The Vancouver Project

A good friend of mine, Andrew Burton, and I have been talking for a couple of months about the rise of DSLRs with video capability and what it the implications for sports photographers. Andrew had the foresight to see that this new technology would come to head in the very near future – namely the coming winter Olympics in Vancouver. Exploring thought, we also realized that this Olympics would be the first since the rise of the real-time web, live video broadcasting from cell phones, Google Wave, and, and, and. Our realization lead to a plan of action which we’re calling The Vancouver Project. Stop by and check us out. Shameless plug: if you’re in a position to help by spreading the word to the right people we’d love to hear from you.

Linked Photographer

In other news, I’m writing a book. That is a very weird sentence for me to write. I write posts, tweets, cutlines… not books. But, apparently, that’s happening :) An excellent friend of mine, and phenomenal fashion photographer, Lindsay Adler, approached a few months ago saying that she was looking into writing a book, would I be interested in co-authoring? Today, I signed the contract. We’ll be writing a book that’s got the tentative title Linked Photographer. It will be part treaties, part howto, and part reference on how photographers can use social media for business. It’s a bit more than a for-dummies book, but We’ll be launching linkedphotog.com soon, so stay tuned!

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LIVE | NPPA Photo Workshop

Joey — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:55:55 +0000

I’ll be livestreaming the Syracuse University NPPA photo workshop at 4:00pm EST. Click the link to watch here, or go straight to the Mogulus channel at mogulus.com/cutline. Similar Posts:

Lightroom or Aperture?

Joey — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:51:51 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

This gets filed under the old news category, but I thought I’d share a demo I did on Lightroom several months ago. (oh, and that’s my first submission to slideshare!)

Lightroom Workflow Intro

View more presentations from jbaker071. (tags: photography software)

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Why the Nikon D3 Sucks (and What the D4 Oughta Be)

Joey — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:27:55 +0000

I love me the Nikon D3. It’s the first camera that I’ve used where I feel confident going into any situation. The high ISO performance, huge LCD, dual CF card slots, 9 FPS, and 12MP files are amazing. Safe to say, Nikon hit a home run with this camera. That said, I’ve got some complaints. Call it a wish list if you will. But after using this camera for about 6 months in a wide variety of situations, it’s pretty safe to say that the tool isn’t perfect. With the release of the D3x, I’ve come to realize that Nikon is advancing technology, but is clearly holding out for the next release to do anything drastic. I might/probably am too late to get into the D4 product cycle, but nonetheless…

What could be fixed for the Nikon D4

The D90 gets the OK button right. Why can

The OK button is useless. There are two ways to confirm a command in the menu system: hit OK, or hit the center of the 4-way dial. However, most things only require you to hit the ‘right’ button on the 4-way dial. The OK button, aside from being repetitive, is out of the wa I’d like to see a repeat of the D90′s solution. Replace the ‘push the center to confirm’ option of the 4-way control with the OK button. This reduces clutter and makes menu navigating a more one-handed operation.

Small ISO button

ISO input isn’t always visible. God love ‘em, Nikon has made the ISO on this camera kick-ass. I’ve got no problem instantly turning the D3 up to 3200 ISO. The issue is that I’ve got to take my eyes away from the viewfinder to do that. Oh, and I can’t see that change on the top LCD like I can see shutter speed and aperture. I’ve got to go down to the bottom LCD. Now, this sorta makes sense because the small *hinthint* ISO button is right next to the bottom LCD. But, use the camera for just a few hours, and reaching for that button is as intuitive as looking at the top LCD to see what setting you’re changing. Looking at the bottom LCD is not. The D4 oughta have a bigger ISO button and have changes visible on the top LCD — perhaps in addition to in the viewfinder would be fantastic. Movie mode. Yes, this is sorta cheating. No camera did movies when the D3 came out. But I fully expect video on the D4. It better. :) ← Now on the D3s!

Lack of pop-up flash to be a commander unit.

No i-TTL built in. Okay, I get it. Pop-up flashes suck. And the Japanese think it’s the mark of an amateur camera. Fine. I don’t need a pop-up flash. What I do want, is a built in iTTL commander unit. Like an SU-800 built in. It would mean not having to carry a flash unit just to be a commander. That slims down on weight and makes the camera less bulking during use.

Looks like the M setting is further apart right? It

The focus switch isn’t eyes free. Not a huge pet-peeve of mine; I can find the switch on the front of the camera to switch focus modes between Manual, Single, and Continuous pretty easily. Perhaps spacing out the settings (sorta like the markings would make you believe the switch is doing) so that we can feel when we go to manual.

credit: Moose Peterson

GPS. This is a really old technology now. Nikon’s even built it in to point and shoots. Why do we have to deal with this annoying dongle to get GPS on the high end cameras. Can we get something built in please? Even if the radio defaults to ‘off’ to save battery, it sure would be nice to have geo-tagging become standard meta-data that all cameras provide. (Let’s go EXIF, you can update!)

Face recognition and tracking. This one should be a no-brainer. Consumers like to take pictures of people, so Nikon et al has given them a focus mode that fines faces. The camera can then follow that face across the frame to keep it in focus and determine the correct exposure to make sure the people in the shot are what come out. What about this sounds like something professionals wouldn’t want?

The vertical grip needs a revamp. Maybe I hold my camera vertically more than other people do, but I’m sure the vertical grip isn’t as comfortable as the horizontal one. The big difference is the ridges on the bottom of the camera, which are meant to give some grip on a tripod head, and the back-end controls.

The ridges: Who uses a tripod head that’s the size of the entire base of the camera? Really? Isn’t it more important to have the grip be comfortable when you’re holding it — a far more frequent occurrence than putting it on a tripod — believe me. I’d like to some some texturing on the bottom, similar to the horizontal grip.
The controls: There’s an AF button nicely placed for vertical grip use. But there’s no AF/AE-L button. To use that functionality, you’ve got to use the one intended for the horizontal grip — impossible to do with one hand. (Oh, and while we’re here, that AF/AE-L button is quite a reach even on the horizontal grip, even for my large~ish hands.)

Seems like there might be some room for a bigger screen here :)

Bigger screen. OK, I’ve bought into the hype. Big screens are really cool. They let us actually examine the shot in the field — turns out that’s pretty valuable. I don’t know how much larger you can get the screen without cramping the buttons or the innards or the battery life, but … I promise to buy it a screen cover for Christmas!

Previews have compression!? Riddle me this batman: when you zoom into a RAW photo on the camera’s (very large-sized) screen, you see jpeg compression if you get too far in. I presume this is because the camera isn’t actually showing you the RAW file, but the jpeg preview embedded in the file. I’m not sure what amount of engineering is required to get around of this problem — I imagine a lot — but it sure is annoying to zoom in to check detail only to have it obfuscated by the compression. Don’t have a photo of this (yet)

Don’t up the megapixel count! Weird right? Don’t increase something? Coming from me? I understand this is a pretty controversial view, but I’m a photojournalist. I do my photography light-and-fast. Quite frankly, a 12MP file is just perfect for my needs. It gets me plenty of resolution, but doesn’t slow down my post-processing much. I just don’t have the storage space/processor cycles to deal with say… 24MP images of the D3x at the rate I need to work. If a photog wants more resolution, then the D4x/D3x is where to look. Instead, how about keeping the D4 below 14MP and putting the engineering effort into bumping the ISO performance again? Think about this folks: a camera that goes into boost mode after ISO 25,600. Now, that, would change my photography a lot more than a few megapixels.

ISO settings are confusing. Further on ISO: when the bottom LCD tells me that I’m on ISO “Hi 1.0”, I’ve got to stop a second and do the math — I’m actually at ISO 12,800. Why do you do this to me Nikon!? I just want to know the ISO! I get the fact that you want to emphasize we’re in “boost mode,” but on the huge back LCD that has tons of horizontal real estate, why are we conserving space? Can’t it read “12,800 boost.”

Small complaint about the menu system. Nikon’s menu system has gotten much better over the years, it’s mostly logical, and despite the expanded number of options, it’s still pretty easy to find what you want. That said, there’s one command that Nikon buries: time-lapse. This admittedly, infrequently used option, is placed with the play controls — under an entirely different portion of the menu from everything else like it. Could it hurt to put it in a more logical place?

How the D300 handles metering.

Switch to control the metering mode is in an odd place. I struggled to on wether to write this one up, because, I don’t find it to be a problem so much as an oddity. The switch to set the metering mode is located on the side of the prism, on the top of the camera. It’s an okay place to put it, because it’s something that’s infrequently fiddled with, but it’s not the only place Nikon’s ever put that control. Instead of hiding it away on a surface used by no other controls and requiring you to bring the camera down from eye-level to make an adjustment, why not do like the D300, and have a dial around the AE/AF-L button? It’s not quite as easy to switch modes due to the dial’s stiffness, but that’s alright; at least then metering could join the big boys on the back of the camera.

My laptop (same battery type) gives a percentage, most phones do as well.

A battery % meter. I gather the determining the actual % of charge a battery has remaining is a hard thing to do, prone to inaccuracy and a quick drop at the end of the charge. Nonetheless, we’ve seen it done often enough that it’s time for DSLRs to join up.

Built in dust reduction. The D700 has it. ‘nough said. ← Now on the D3s!

In camera VR. I promise, no puppies will die if Nikon caves and puts sensor-based VR inside the camera.

Thoughts?

I think, that’s my whole list of notes, any thoughts/annoyances of your own?

A quick note: The Nikon D3s has been released since the writing of this post. It does fix a few issues (video, dust reduction, and awesome ISO performance), but much of this article is still relevant.

Update: In the comments, pjadams brings up the point that the AF coverage area is smaller on the D3 than on the DX sized D300. It’s a good addition, not because 51 AF points don’t give us enough coverage, but because it sucks to have 3D AF tracking loose the subject when they get too close to the edge of the frame.

Rumor: The Nikon D4 might make a secret, gaffers-taped, appearance at the Vancouver Olympics.

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Death Valley Photos

Joey — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:00:31 +0000

I’ve got my Death Valley trip photos up on flickr. Not too bad on the time too! Took me 6 days to work up the courage to sort through the nearly 1000 photos I shot, cull, edit, caption, and keyword them all. No GPS on this trip, so Geotagging is out. Bummer. Interesting notes about the shoot:

909 images shot; 63 selects
Lenses used: 17-35mm f/2.8; 105 mm f2.8 micro
Shot on the Nikon D70 (I know, I really need to upgrade my personal gear)
Only shot at two ISOs: 200 & 400
Most common aperture: f/8, followed by f/2.8
Shutter speeds span from 1/10 to 1/1600

My favorite photos from the take: Very closely followed by: Similar Posts:

The World Is Our Studio

Joey — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:29:57 +0000

-NEWS! – Nikon announces D3X digital SLR

Alright… so the megapixel war is old and worn. It probably doesn’t really matter too much anymore, but it sure is amazing to see some of these new cameras. 24 MP is a boatload of resolution. Bringing down the base ISO to 100, a really smart move for studio shooters. But, if the rumors are to be believed, this will be a $8000 camera – aimed at medium format shooters. Makes sense… the ease of use of a SLR is really convenient in a studio. Digital backs are really hiRes, but are equally as hard to work with. Not to mention, you can use the Nikkor lens system. It’s a bummer that they didn’t change the layout of the buttons a bit. I like the D300 method of putting the OK button in the center of the command dial. I’ll most likely go back and edit this post soon, but for now, I’m exhausted from a 8 hour marathon to finish a Knight News Challenge grant for CoPress. Update: click here for sample of the D3x at high ISOs. (thanks to Trusted Reviews)Similar Posts:

Red DSMC

Joey — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:00:54 +0000

The Red EPIC, configured as a still camera. (I think)

Well, someone finally did it. You can finally build your own camera. Cobble together all the parts you want with Red’s new Epic or Scarlet systems and you get a custom configured video/still camera. It’s a shame the thing is so darn expensive. As far as I can see: Pros

Dynamic range: 11+ or 13+ stops!!
FPS: 30+!!
Unless you go real low end, you’ll be getting really good resolution.
You can use Canon and Nikon Lenses!
If you’ve got the money to put into accessories: configure your ‘brain’ as a still camera one day and then a video camera, the next.

Cons

Price, you’re gonna have to spend a boatload to get a decent setup. ($7000 to use Nikon or Canon Lenses)
Judging from the configuration above, this is gonna feel like a medium format camera – the fast and light of a DSLR might be outa the question.
The earliest we’re gonna see anything is Spring 2009, and most likely won’t see the whole line until 2010.

Things I still wanna hear about

Storage: 24MP at 30FPS is gonna add up fast. Are we storing on harddrives, huge flash drives, what?
They claim this huge dynamic range: trust, but verify.
Will there be an optical viewfinder?
How much do accessories like the DSLR grip cost?
What about flash? There doesn’t seem to be a hotshoe.

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Best Practices

Joey — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:07:03 +0000

Awarded Best Practices, The Poynter Institute

This is a little old now, but worth mentioning: I’ve won an awarded a ‘best practices’ recognition from the Poynter Institute for the Light the Night audio slideshow above. I’m not really accustom to positive re-inforcement, but it did feel good to be told “good job.” Especially from an organization like Poynter. I’m grateful, thank you. Now let me bite the hand that feeds me. I would never have put this particular show up for ‘best practices.’ I think that it’s a really poor example of an audio slideshow. The photos have nothing to do with the audio, the audio is poor, the interview is poor, and the whole thing is too short for the story involved. But, I’ll use one of my favorite words here: meh… whatever. Cheers to the recognition, and let’s hope someone looks at the article and finds it helpful.Similar Posts:

The Power of “the Fourth Effect”

Joey — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:06:59 +0000

If you haven’t seen it yet, take a few minutes of your time to view this amazing example of the “fourth effect”. Similar Posts:

Reverie: The Future

Joey — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:08:56 +0000

no time for words – let’s let the moving images do the talking

-Without further ado: Reverie « Vincent Laforet’s Blog

Click here to see the video. This is the future. It’s astounding. Amazing. Phenomenal. [Insert your adjectives here.] Things that stand out to me:

Wide angle glass (the car scene) distorts in a funky way on video. I’m sure Laforet used a 16-35mm lens to shoot from the hood of the car – it gives a really cool perspective, and the distortion (pretty significant on that lens to begin with) is something else.
The low light capabilities of this camera are amazing.
The dynamic range on this camera is just astounding. See: the rearview mirror shot, the shot from the hood of the car.
The camera can shoot high-speed no problem. See: the tunnel shot.

I probably missed a thing or too, but I’ll end with this: I’m really glad it’s DSLRs are merging still photography and video instead of video camera companies tackling the problem. It’s true that I’m just more used to the DSLR workflow than video camera workflow, but I really think that video cameras have developed some bad practices that I don’t like to deal with. Some of these:

Poor low light performance, the solution has been just to add a light to the top of the camera.
Using tapes. Video went digital but brought analog tapes along with it. This means slow import times, no-reusability of recording media, the need to use tape, etc
Video camera lenses tend to do telephoto better than DSLR lens do (they’re smaller and lighter), but still camera lenses have much more creative flexibility (eg. fisheyes, wide-angles, lower f-stops, etc). I know some indie videographers that have setup systems to use still camera lenses on their video cameras.

Cheers, to Canon, it looks like you’ve got a real winner here – let’s hope Nikon can replicate the performance. Similar Posts: