I have never been 100% happy with a tripod head… until now. For most of my career I have used a tilt/pan head.. and it has always served it’s purpose, but minor adjustments were always a bit tedious. About a year ago, I got a ball head for the studio stand. Some colleagues just rave about ball heads, but I never thought I would like them. And although it is very robust, I was right.. I don’t like them… My problem with them is that if your tilt just right but need to adjust your vertical/horizontal you always end up throwing your perfect tilt off by trying to fix the v/h! (or vice-versa)

Although I have barely had a chance to use it I just purchased the Manfrotto 405 Geared Head. I know I am going to LOVE this head! It is compact in that it does not have long arms sticking off of it, but it is a tilt / pan head with two types of adjustments for each movement. One for broad/rough adjustments and another for fine adjustments. And the fact that it is geared (unless disengaged for the rough positioning) means that you never loose your fine positioning. I like is so much I may even buy another! (one for the tripod and one for the studio stand)

Well after some product research and a demo for the Hasselblad rep we finally felt it was the right time to get the latest high-end medium format camera. So about 4 weeks ago we got the Hasselblad H3D II. It’s a 39 megapixel camera with some amazing glass! It came with an 80mm (normal) lens, but in addition we picked up the 28mm, the 120 macro, and the 50-110 zoom as well as the pro shade, some extra batteries, and a new tripod and head. I tell you, we could make a lot more money if we did not have to keep investing in all of this expensive equipment! With wrapping up some projects and printing new portfolios and promos we have not even had a chance to shoot a single frame on the system but we’ll definitely share our thoughts with you once we start!

About two weeks ago, just towards the end of our UHC project we bit the bullet! We purchased the brand new Hasselblad H3D II. This camera was just release and we very well may have been the first studio in Los Angeles to have one! Check out the camera web site and we’ll tell you a bit more about in the next couple of days! (Yikes!!)

Well we’ll be working through the weekend on retouching and compositing. I was hoping we could get another interesting image up today but they are all still “in process”. So check back in next week and we’ll have something new to look at. We also have a bunch of other news but need time to pull it all together. So have a good weekend and we’ll be back on Monday!

Well I do my best to try and get a post in everyday, but the clock just struck midnight and so this post counts as Thursday instead of Wednesday. So… no double duty for me I am going to accept the fact that I missed Wednesday and here is my Thursday post.

Obviously we are working late. Retouching the UHC images, trying to get them out as quickly as possible (the client is very anxious to get them).

Here is one of the ones we delivered earlier today.

This was shot on stage with a set wall. We could have just as easily shot this in a home, but we had two other sets running at the same time on the day of this shoot and consequently is was less expensive to build exactly what the client wanted rather than trying to “make a house work”.

Here is another shot from the UHC campaign. We are delivering this shot to the client with the signs blank. But to illustrate the concept we inserted some graphics so that you could get the point of the shot… alas, way too much time spent on little details!

So last Friday we finished shooting the UnitedHealthcare Campaign that we have been working on for over a month. Tomorrow we will make selects and then the retouching and compositing begins. That will take another two weeks. We did over 40 different set-ups and many of them are going to require a bit of post production work. We’ll share a few of the images with you over the next few weeks as we finish them up. Maybe show some before and afters and pieces that get put into final images. So to start things off here is one of the images (before post-production)

We’re hoping to get back on a daily posting schedule next week. We are in the thick of a huge UnitedHealthcare campaign and we finish up shooting on Friday. We have a couple of weeks of retouching to do once we are done, but at least we’ll be back in the office and can take the occasional moment to get in a post. Lots going on here both with the campaign and otherwise, so we’ll have lots to fill you in on when we return! Talk to you in a few days!

We are in production overload. We are putting together 44 shots both location and studio for UnitedHealthcare. Having to cast over 40 different roles, prop, wardrobe, style, find locations and build sets for a shoot that starts next Monday and goes through the 5th of Oct….. We’re crazed! So.. if you don’t hear from us for a while, this is why. Look forward to sharing the finished product, but until then…

Just a quick note to say “Congrats” to my Brother and his New Wife, who got married this weekend! I only took a few snaps as I was just having too good of a time to be bothered with photos, but after I have a chance to take a quick look, I may post a shot or two. My family and I could not be more pleased to welcome our new sister-in-law to the family and we wish the more than all of the joy and happiness in the world! (Is my ear-to-ear grin showing in this post?) We love you guys! Congratulations!!!!!

For any of you pro’s out there that shoot with Canon Professional cameras, if you are not already aware of Canon Professional Services, it is a service you should look into. Strangely enough they have no U.S. website (I know.. how behind the times can a company be..?) But it is worth looking into even if it is only for the expedited turn-around on camera repairs and maintenance. They also “supposedly” offer free equipment rental either for evaluation purposes or to cover you while your equipment is at one of their service centers, although I have never utilized this service because the local rep has never returned my calls.. I know this is sounding like a lackluster endorsement but the repair turnaround is really my main selling point. I can offer anyone who requests it, their local Canon reps phone # in order to apply, or direct you to Canon’s main # 1-800-OK-Canon and request an application for Canon Professional Services or “CPS” You do have to prove your “Professional Status” with copies of tear sheets and promos. I just had two of my bodies and one lens go in for an overhaul and it looks as if the whole service was “no charge!”

So you’ve seen it..right?

The new Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III’s are due out the end of this year. I won’t get into all of the specs here but can send you to Canon, DP Review or Engadget to check out all of the details. The one plesant surprise is the cost … Rather than the rumored $15K the bodies should be thet same price as all of their predecessors, about $8K.

The spending just never ends!

We’re currently printing up the exhibition for the Pasadena Arts & Ideas Festival that we told you about in a previous post. All of the images are black & white and have a lot of dark tones in them. Usually we like to print on matte surface papers but the drawback to them is the frequency with which areas of dark detail block up into big patches of black, loosing all of the nice intricacies. So for this show we went in search of an archival exhibition paper and came across Crane Museo Silver Rag. It is very similar to a fiber based fine art gloss / luster photo paper. I have to say, that so far we have been quite pleased with the depth and quality if the imagery we are getting. Evidently quite a few museums work with this paper for their own exhibitions. We’ll let you know if we run up against any issues but, thus far we would highly recommend using this paper if you are looking for a high quality paper with a traditional “photo paper” look and feel.

Thanks again to the folks at InkJetArt.com!

Just a quick “Welcome Back” to my Rep David Gibbons. David, went to Nigeria (I was supposed to but got sick) to work on a documentary. We are glad that he is back safe and sound (if not a bit worse for wear from food poisoning) and hoping he thinks twice before doing another trip like that!

As we said in a previous post we went to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to shoot an ad campaign for next years White Sands International Film Festival. We shot for a week in some of the hottest temps the have had in a long time. Although we had a great time and were treated like royalty by all of our beautiful hosts… (that would be you Linda & Jim Gulley!) we were quite happy to get home to the cool temps of 95°+!

We shots a lot of great folks all around Southern New Mexico and a little architecture, a few interiors, a little food, and a couple nice scenics.

This shot was one of the local hotels on the main drag in Alamogordo. It’s our favorite kitsch locale. It was shot about a half hour after sunset, at an exposure of 1 sec. @ f9 at ISO 50 (you know.. I’d never have been able to tell you that, were it not for digital metadata!!)

Well after battling with our Lightroom software over the past few weeks we think we have found a solution to the extremely poor performance we have been experiencing lately. Although it is not the solution we had hoped for. It appears that besides the fact that we have the latest and greatest MacPro Tower, it still is not capable of handling a Lightroom Database of over 50,000 images (we are currently around 62,000) So the suggested solution from Adobe is to create multiple smaller databases, which is not the optimal solution when you are trying to organize all of your imagery in one place. But the performance otherwise was completely unacceptable. So we are in the process of building our group of small databases and we’ll let you know next week if it worked or not!

Well, sorry, it’s been a few days since I have posted, mostly because I have been down and out (sick). Still a little out of it but trying to come back. We have been struggling here with some software issues. Our Lightroom (the software we use for all of our asset management) database seems to have gotten “bogged down” by something. So we have been spending the past few days trying to rebuild the database without loosing any info. I think we might have succeeded. Today will tell. So hopefully we will be back on schedule here with daily posts. Will share more tomorrow!

Well, I was supposed to be on a plane to Nigeria right now. But.. “best laid plans…” etc. Instead I am grounded due to being sick. Nothing major, just enough to prevent me from going. Oh well, all things for a reason, right? This does give me the opportunity to better focus on the upcoming round of photography for United Healthcare which puts my mind at ease as it was going to be a bit much to come back from Nigeria and go directly from the plane into full production! We are really looking forward to this round as the folks at Deutsch continue to come up with some great ideas for imagery. Meantime we are wishing the documentary crew safe travels and look forward to seeing the fruits of their journey upon their return.

Well we are off to Nigeria for a documentary project and will return on the 5th of September, so have a great week and we will tell you more about both the documentary and the WSIFF Campaign that we just completed when we get back!

This summer we have been working on a pro-bono project for the Pasadena Conservatory of Music. Every few years the City of Pasadena holds and “Arts and Ideas Festival” and the next one is this October. The theme chosen by the Pasadena Arts Council for this year is “Skin”.

As part of their contribution to this city-wide creative festival, the Conservatory hired us to produce a series of 10 Black & White images that spoke to the interaction between skin and musical instruments.

We opted to do this gratis as the Conservatory is one of the great local institutions supporting and furthering The Arts in our community and we wanted to support their efforts.

So over a series of four days of photo sessions we did a variety of visual studies of the interaction between musician and instrument and will ultimately print ten 20 x 24 Black & White Fine Art Prints that will be framed and hung in exhibition at the Conservatory during the Arts & Ideas Festival in October 2007

Well as we have said in several other posts, we are heading out of town for a week of shooting. We’re off to Alamogordo NM, home of the White Sands International Film Festival. Next years festival is March 16th – 22nd. We attended this years and had an exhibition of the 14 Days in Great Britain images and also did a half-day workshop. This year we’ll be back again and will probably be doing a full day workshop.

At any rate we have been hired to produce imagery for all of the campaigns for the Film Festival this year and so we are heading out to do just that. So no posts again until the 27th! Have a great week and we’ll share some pics with you when we return!

(First Shot for the Campaign)

We are heading off to NM to do a shoot for a week and a friend of mine advised to grab a couple of bandanas to wet and wear around our necks to keep us cooler which I thought was a great idea! I went off to the local sporting goods store to grab some and while I was there a kindly sales woman pointed me to (and highly recommended) “blu Bandoos” which are these little neck straps that are filled with gel beads that when moistened stay wet and cool for hours and we saw some skateboarding product reviews in their magazines. While maybe not the most fashionable accessory, what a great find!

I have been working on computers since 1980. In those early years it was an Apple II. In 1986 I started working on “PC’s” all in DOS programs. In 1993 I started to work with newer Mac’s and almost immediately became a “dual platform” office.

PC’s have historically been really good with “data” while in my opinion Mac’s have been the undisputed king of the hill for graphics. And for the most part that is how my office ran.. PC’s for data (bookkeeping like Irenas Xero Cloud Services, databases, scheduling, etc.) and Mac’s for graphics (Photoshop-ing, film editing, design, etc.)

A lot of this had to do with the fact that there was simply a broader range of software available for PC’s that was not available for Mac’s. Well, with the resurgence of Apple over the past decade, I have been waiting (anxiously) for the software that I relied on to handle my data to catch up on the Mac side.

Frankly I feel the Mac is a much more elegant and simpler interface and user experience. So I have been hoping to migrate to a totally Mac office at my earliest reasonable opportunity. The last two programs that I was holding out for were;

1. A reasonably equivalent Mac version of Quickbooks. Early Mac versions were not nearly as sophisticated as their PC counterparts and I rely heavily on this piece of software. In fact they current Mac versions still lag behind but are close enough for me to have migrated over.
2. And an online postage option. Endicia was that solution.

About a year ago I bought an Intel Mac and was running Parallels & Windows on it and was fairly satisfied with the results, but once the “last two pieces” were in place, which was late last year, I finally made the transition.

I Love It!

Compatibility and networking are stupendous and I have only had the need to open Windows on my Mac a couple of times to check web issues on MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer) Other than that DHP is 100% Mac. I never anticipate going back. I like everything about Macs and miss NOTHING from Windows.

We are getting ready to head out of town for a week’s worth of shooting in Alamogordo NM.

You know, I have been accumulating equipment and supplies for over 20 years, and it always seems that you need just “one more thing” (or more likely three more things!) In going through our checklist today, we need yet another equipment bag. If you’re a photographer (be it pro or hobbyist) I am sure I am preaching to the choir, but it just seems to never end.

Today’s purchase is going to be another Lightware Case. We already have 8! You would think that would be enough! But you get all this equipment and then you feel obligated to drag it all along with you … just in case!!!!

Today I am writing a quick post to recommend a wonderful place for backdrops; Schmidli Backdrops. They have a wide array of backings to choose from and can also paint custom drops for your project. I have used other backdrop services and have been disappointed in the quality of the drops (wear and tear) when they were delivered. Schmidli’s have always looked great and photographed well, so I would highly recommend them for your next shoot! They have an extensive online catalog of their various backings, so check’em out!

One of the best investments I have ever made in my life was buying Apple Stock. I have gotten more return for each dollar invested with Apple than any other thing I have ever invested in (including my home, which was a GREAT investment). I only wish I had sunk more $ into it back when I first invested. But the more I think about it, I may be the cause for my own success with this because I am pretty sure I spend more money on Apple Products than anything else in my life (except my home which I spend A LOT of money on!)

I have done a lot of comparison printing on my various Epson Printers. Currently we are using both a 7800 for lager prints and a 2400 for smaller stuff. A while back I purchased a large variety of papers (50+) and printed the exact same image on all of them. One that had a broad range of color and tonality and was indicative of the type of real world imagery I would be printing. When I started this process I had no bias towards any product but was simply looking for the best thing out there. I will say that despite the fact I tested ALL kinds of surfaces I was specifically looking for a matte fine art paper on which to print my portfolios. But I did want to see how all kinds of papers performed so that I would have my favorites on hand for various other uses (i.e. client proof sheets, hi-res proof prints, etc.)

I am a “cut-to-the-chase” kind of guy so I won’t bore you with all of the details. The Winner is…. Hahnemühle Photo Rag. This paper surpassed anything we tested or have seen since for a Fine Art Matte Paper. A close runner up was the Moab Entrada. We were using the Moab for about two years as they were a Corporate Sponsor for the 14 Days Project, but since they are no longer supplying us with , what is really a very good paper, we are falling back to our true favorite. The clarity, depth, richness and saturation of the Hahnemühle is simply beautiful.

For those of you looking for a Glossy Surface, we recommend two… First place in our book goes to Pictorico’s High Gloss Film, but not far behind is good ‘ol Epson’s Premium Photo Glossy.

Everyone is looking for different things in their printing so you may like papers that are completely different but for what it’s worth, these are ours.

Tomorrow I will tell you a bit about a couple of papers I use for digital printing and why I use them. But in preparation, today I will point you towards my favorite supplier. InkJetArt.com has one of the best selections of digital papers around. Their pricing is also very competitive. They have a great staff of folks who are very knowledgeable about what is out there and what might be most appropriate for your individual printing needs. They also offer a great selection of sampler packets, which is a wonderful and relatively inexpensive way to try out a variety of surfaces that you might be interested in. Check out their site and see if you don’t find something new or different!

My sister and my graphic designer just bought new cameras. In fact they both bought the same camera. But while talking to them I found myself going to the same site for specs and reviews. Digital Photography Review is a great place to check out cameras and get fairly objective reviews. It’s actually where I did a lot of research on the Leica M8 that I recently purchased. Sorry if this is getting old, but I am wanting to fill out the Photo Related Links over there on the right, so you’ll probably see a few more entries over the coming week about photo resources. Hope they are helpful!!