I’ve just completed a product photography assignment for a local Harpenden company looking to re-brand their product range. The brief was to shoot on white at the companies HQ which is where the products were stored so I took along my mobile studio and set up a white infinity curve and a couple of studio strobes.
One interesting thing about this particular shoot was the requirement to brand some of the products with new product logos after the shots were taken. That meant a bit of post production work in the digital studio with all the perspective issues that this kind of thing can raise.
Another issue was that some of the products needed powering up so that the screen displays could be depicted. This required a bit of rigging with wires poking out here and there and these needed removing digitally from the photographs with a bit of reconstruction of various product sections.
It was a great shoot for a great local firm with a lot of discussion and experimentation during the shoot. It’s remarkable how rigid wires develop a life of their own when all you ask them to do is sit still and keep quiet.
I think I’ve just seen my favorite Leica camera:
Featured in this auction will be an original Leica Gun with 400mm Telyt, with Leica code RIFLE
Now that would make street photography extremely interesting.
Jessops, a large high street photographic retailer in the UK, seem to have pulled the Nikon D200 off their shelves. Rumours abound at the moment with some suggesting that the issue has something to do with RRP and Jessops wanting to sell below that price and others suggesting it’s a build issue. I find both a little hard to believe.
More here and here.
The BBC reports that about one-third of digital camera users in the UK are not backing up their photographs, according to research commissioned by Symantec. They also report that the way people are viewing their ‘snaps’ is changing:
The traditional photo album may be in demise; about seven out of 10 are printing less than a quarter of their images, while 30% said that they did not print out any hard-copies.
That’s a particular shame because the printed photo album fulfils a roll that is hard to replicate with purely digital/electronic means.
I’ve lost count of the number of times one or more of our albums has come out on the spur of the moment during a period of reminiscing with friends over a drink or two (ok, usually more than two).
“Wow, look how thin you were.”
“You look funny with hair.”
Clearly not references to photographs of myself.
The logistics of being able to do this in an impromptu manner with the usual equipment available are a great deal more complicated than with a book of photos. It just doesn’t happen, not in my household anyway.
John Long, from the Digital Imaging Group of the Royal Photographic Society, said the digital camera and the internet had changed the face of photography.
“People don’t print their pictures any more – they put them on their computer or on a CD. Technology has moved on and lots of people would now prefer to look at their pictures one at a time on a TV or computer screen.”
I’m not sure it’s entirely down to preference. Frankly I think it’s just easier, or rather the fact that it’s easier is a large part of the reason for the preference. That and the fact that storing large photo albums is often a problem.
Perhaps I’m just starting to fall off the crest of the technology wave. It’s been a long ride.
As for backups my own strategy involves backing up to separate networked hard drives and also to Delkin gold disk CD’s stored in Secol archive polyester based sleeves filed into their own brand archive box. I could, and should, probably do more.
In a few weeks time I’ll be off to the USA to, among other things, live like a cowboy for a week. This will mean that photo opportunities will present themselves while I am on horseback. How I’m going to deal with that has not yet become clear but it seems unlikely that I will be getting off the horse each time I want to take a photograph.
With that in mind and with my increasing need for a new bag to carry around some equipment I have opted to buy a Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW. I’ve heard some good things about them and like the fact that I do not need to take the bag off to access the camera.
Whether this will work on a horse is another matter but I’m going to give it a try.
In other news, some of the photographs that I took recently at an elderly care home in Hertfordshire are going to be used in the wider company brochure. The hour long session, in which I took quite a number of shots both indoors and outdoors, was a great deal of fun for me as the photographer and, I hope, for the residents too.
There may be an opportunity later in the year to take some interior room and exterior building shots for the company for their wider commercial material. This will involve travelling to a few of the more local homes first with the possibility that this may be extended to shooting at all 30 homes across the county. A big job, I think.
With this in mind, and to fill in a gap in my equipment at the lower focal ranges, I have opted for a 10-20mm f/4.0-5.6 EX DC HSM SIGMA lens. By many accounts it is a good lens and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it.
With more personal projects in mind I note that this weekend is the big one at Duxford with the Flying Legends Air Show taking place. All VIP tickets have been sold so I may have to mingle with the crowds. Expect lots of shots of the back of people’s heads.
UPDATE: Well, I’ve received the Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW bag and what a great system it is. Everything fits except the flash which will have to be belt fitted I guess. Probably not much need for it however. One excellent feature is that when the bag is rotated onto the chest and the camera is removed it makes a very stable elbow rest for shooting from. An unexpected and very welcome aspect.
Well, this has caught me by surprise. Adobe have acquired Pixmantec, the image software company that created RawShooter Premium and RawShooter Essentials RAW processing software.
UPDATE: And Microsoft acquires iView.
My current PC is long in the tooth. So long in fact that it has become an obstacle and a bottleneck in my digital workflow. My digital imaging software grinds into life and the operating system complains under the workload. The alarm bells ring all the louder when you start offloading images onto your backup networked drive because you’re low on PC disk space.
The decision to upgrade was an unavoidable one.
The specifications of a replacement system were easy to decide upon. A large and reliable hard disk, oodles of memory, a respectable graphics card and a fast processor. The monitor is not an issue as I have recently taken delivery of an Eizo s1910 so a PC that comes without a monitor was also something of a priority. There’s no point in paying for something that won’t get used.
A little while back I heard of the Dell Outlet Centre. It’s where Dell sell stock that has been returned for various reasons but is in full working order having passed again through the factory quality assurance processes that all their manufactured kit goes through.
I heard of some significant discounts using this service so went to take a look. Well, it was a manic day with sporadic visits to the site made necessary by the astonishing turnaround that they have. No sooner had I seen a noteworthy system than that system vanished into someone else’s shopping cart. Then, a few minutes later, another would appear with a different specification. Some systems remained untouched, systems which I had already decided were not suitable, but some stayed for a few minutes (and in one case seconds) only.
The site allows you to limit your search by certain characteristics so I plugged away and eventually made a purchase at something like £300 off list price.
The (early) days of spending £2000 on top class replacement computer every two years are long gone and I’m thankful for it.
A new Canon camera, the 30D, has been released and though it sounds like it might be a re-release of the old Canon D30 sources suggest that it isn’t. Now, we’re all confused about how Canon chooses it’s new model names. It doesn’t seem to make any sense and, dare I say it, it might actually lead to product confusion.
Why do they do it? How do they do it?
Mike Johnston, over at the OnlinePhotographer, explains:
As a final test, a metal band is placed around the head of a Rhesus monkey. The band is tightened until the monkey is in severe pain; he is then shown the proposed new product name on a flash card and has to pick it out from among several flash cards of nearly identical names posted on a wall; not until he picks the right one is the band loosened and his pain relieved.
It’s a complex process and I can’t help feeling that we should be thankful somehow. At least to the monkey.