blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer

Photo Gear – 35mm f1.4 Lens Options For Canon Nikon and Sigma

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:44:51 +0000

Photo Gear – 35mm f1.4 Lens Options For Canon Nikon and Sigma | by JP Danko | blurMEDIA Photography | Toronto Commercial Photographer | For my personal work, I absolutely love photographing people with a Nikon D800 or a Canon 5D Mark III. It is just so easy to crank up the ISO and shoot ambient light, hand held, pretty much anywhere – from bright sunny days, to indoor birthday parties (or you know moonlight if you really want to push it). Of course, I do add strobes once in a while, but the freedom to capture high quality photos with just ambient light is very liberating, especially when you’re trying to photograph people (read -kids) who don’t wait for you to go set up a couple of strobes. I mean, before I started using a Nikon D800, to capture good quality, evenly lit, photos of people indoors, I used to set up a couple of strobes across from each other in a room, and bounce them off the ceiling to light the whole room with high quality, pretty, even light. Now, I usually just crank up the ISO and shoot ambient. Of course, shooting low light (ie indoor) ambient is not always ideal. The ambient light isn’t always the best quality, or from the right direction (especially noticeable because it is often too dark in the eyes), and there are all sorts of white balance problems – but overall, for quick and dirty snapshots – its just so easy. Full Frame Prime Lens Options for Low Light Photography My favorite lens for the Nikon D800 is the Nikon 50mm f1.4 G AF-S. A 50mm prime lens is perfect for almost all situations. Its small and light. And its also cheap at only $439 (from Adorama). I bet 90% of the photos I take are somewhere between f/1.4 and f/2.8 – low light and really shallow depth of field – which the Nikon 50mm f1.4 is perfect for. I love the Nikon D800 - Nikon 50mm f1.4 G combination so much, I almost never bother to change the lens. However, on the occasions where I do want a different focal length, I almost always want a wider angle photo. Examples of Full Frame Prime Lens Low Light Photography Low Light Photography Example 1: This photo is a great example of how low light photography can look completely different than flash photography. I snapped this photo in a dim banquet hall using only ambient lighting with a Nikon D800 at ISO 6400 at 1/125 and a Nikon 50mm f1.4 G lens wide open (at f/1.4). The purple glow is from the stage lights, the key light is the overhead dim room lighting, which is conveniently bounced off of the white table cloth for a nice fill light (although I still had to manually brighten her eyes in post). I did have to manually adjust the white balance because auto white balance had no idea of what to make white with all of the varying light sources in this photo. Low Light Photography Example 2: Here is another example of low light full frame prime lens photography. This photo was taken with a Nikon D800 at ISO 3200 at 1/60 and a Nikon 50mm f1.4 G lens at f/1.4. The only light source is the ambient lighting in the room. I love the bright, colorful stage lights in the background, and the killer bokeh from shooting the Nikon 50mm f1.4 G wide open. Again, I did have to manually adjust the white balance and I brightened her eyes in post. Low Light Photography Example 3: As an example of just how dim the banquet hall was, here is the same scene taken with a cellphone camera. I think this also shows a pretty obvious difference between photographing low light scenes with a cellphone camera versus a full frame DSLR camera and a fast prime lens. I don’t care what kind of “artistic” Instagram filter you try to throw on that photo – its still going to look like a crappy cellphone snapshot. Wide Angle Prime Lens Options for Low Light Photography Besides 50mm, I find that 35mm is by far the most usable focal length. If I look through my Lightroom catalog, the huge majority of my photos are taken at a focal range between 24mm and 50mm. Whether I’m shooting with a prime or a zoom, I kind of always end up shooting wide to normal. Occasionally, I get up to 85mm for portraits, but I almost never shoot with a telephoto longer than that. If you think about it, that makes sense. Most of my photos are of people. And most of the time, I’m pretty close to them, with no opportunity to back up and shoot telephoto, even if I wanted to. When I shoot wide angle, I tend to be indoors, where space is limited and I need to shoot wide to frame the scene. Knowing that I use a wide angle lens primarily indoors is also helpful to confirm that I need a really fast wide angle prime lens, specifically for shooting low light indoor photos. The option is there to go down to a 24mm prime, but really 24mm is getting a touch too far into the murky waters of wide angle distortion – 35mm is really the sweet spot. 35mm f/1.4 Full Frame Prime Lens Options For Canon Nikon and Sigma Ok – so – a 50mm f/1.4 costs somewhere around $500. But, a Canon 35mm f1.4 Lens is $1,500 – and a Nikon 35mm f1.4 Lens is $1600! That is a big difference in cost! Then, there is the Sigma 35mm f1.4 Lens – a professional quality 35mm f1.4 full frame prime lens for $900. That is a pretty substantial savings. As a pro photographer, I learned a long time ago that it is a bad idea to make photo gear decisions based on cost – its just better to by the best equipment for the job. But in this case, its [...]

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The Return of Canadian Product Photography

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 04:37:24 +0000

The Return of Canadian Product Photography | by JP Danko | blurMEDIA Photography | Toronto Product Photographer | I have been getting a lot of interest lately for product photography. Businesses looking for Canadian product photographers or Toronto product photographers. That’s a bit of a change. For the longest time, businesses seemed to ignore the importance of high quality product photography. At the bottom of the spectrum, small online sellers have been using iPhones to take simple snapshots of their products. Even the trend with large businesses has been to have their designers snap product photos to use in their copy, just to save a little bit of money over hiring an actual professional product photographer. Online Competition I think the trend of do it yourself (DIY) product photography is starting to turn around, mainly because of the huge competition for sales online. Savvy marketing professionals are beginning to rediscover the edge that quality professional product photography gives them over their competition. Product Photography Studios When a potential client calls me looking for a product photographer, I usually just send them to one of the internet product photography studios that specialize in simple product photos on white – such as POW – Products on White. (Our specialty is more people in action using products). Product photography studios like POW – Products on White charge a ridiculously low rate of just $40 to $60 per image – so its pretty hard to compete with them on rates alone. However, I have been starting to hear from Canadian companies that don’t want to go through the hassle of shipping products across the border to the US just to have them photographed. Instead, Canadian businesses are looking for a Canadian product photographer. To fill that niche, I have been looking at a few options for taking more product photos in our studio. Product Photos A very simple method of taking product photos on white is to use a light tent. However, I find product photos that were taken in a light tent are usually unimpressive. Of course, light tent product photos are a million times better than most of the DIY product snapshots you usually see – but to me without shadows or highlights, they just look very flat and boring. Product Photos Need Shadows and Highlights to Look Interesting! To create product photos with shadows and highlights, I use the more traditional method – a soft box on one side and a reflector on the other (or sometimes two softboxes, or more…). Every product is different and it takes a keen eye to see how each individual product needs to be lit. The most important thing to consider is how reflections from the studio lights show up on the product being photographed. Usually, we try to accentuate the lines of a product with nice clean reflection lines – especially for reflective products and glassware. Product On White Backgrounds Here are a few examples of product photos on white that we created in our studio. Products on white are classic catalog product photos that marketers use to show their products in a clean, simple, elegant way. Products on Black Backgrounds Here are a few examples of product photos on black backgrounds that were produced by our studio. Products photographed a glossy black background are a modern way for marketers to make their products pop in a world where everyone else is using a plane white background. Any Questions? Are you a Canadian product photographer or Toronto product photographer? Have you seen an uptick in sales? Are you a Canadian business looking for a Canadian product photographer? Leave a comment below!

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Cinematic Time Lapse Video – Landscapes, Green Energy, Windmills & Industry

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:21:50 +0000

Cinematic Time Lapse Video Photography – Landscape, Green Energy, Windmills & Industry | by JP Danko | blurMEDIA Photography | Toronto Commercial Photographer | There is something inherently captivating about time lapse films. Check out our recent sample reel and let me know if you agree. Time Lapse Video Production Challenges Producing cinema quality time lapse video is a pretty big artistic and technical challenge. Artistically, you have to start with a scene that is a stand alone spectacular. Technically, you have to figure out how to animate that scene. Then of course there is the time. It takes a lot of time to create top quality time lapse video! (Or is it time lapse photography? – I’ve never really been sure. And is it time lapse or timelapse or time-lapse….or am I just dropping keywords at this point…). Over the last year, I’ve spent a lot of time lying awake at night wondering if my camera is still clicking away wherever I happen to have left it for the night. For the most part, I have solved my power issues for long time lapse sequences by using this handy little DSLR battery hack. But you still never know if its going to rain in the middle of the night, or worse yet, your camera is discovered and goes for a walk. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m really excited about the time lapse video sequences that blurMEDIA has been able to put together over the year. Security Guards And Other Pests To get these time lapse sequences, I’ve been assailed by overzealous security guards. I’ve left my cameras running for hours on end in some pretty precarious locations. I’ve had nightmares about torrential rain that turned out to be a ceiling fan (this is a recurring theme…). I’ve spent way too much time way too early in the morning setting up and monitoring time lapse camera rigs. I’ve spent a lot of time in fields of windmills, miraculously escaping the ravages of wind turbine syndrome (insert sarcastic tone here…). I’ve accidentally buried my camera waist deep in poison ivy. And finally, I’ve drunk a lot of wine sitting in front of a computer late at night, painstakingly editing time lapse video footage – down to each individual frame. blurMEDIA Photography – Cinematic Time Lapse Video Sample Reel So if you want to see how all of that cumulates into a time lapse film – please check out our sample reel (click above). So What Do You Think? Leave a comment below – please let me know if you have any questions about equipment, locations, technical details etc. And of course – if you see something you like, all of the cinematic time lapse sequences included in the sample reel are available for licensing. Most of the individual clips are available in lengths of 30 or 45 seconds.

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GoPro Hero3 Family Video Tips – Arctic Cat Kids Snowmobiling

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:20:45 +0000

GoPro Hero3 Family Video Tips – Arctic Cat Kids Snowmobiling | by JP Danko | blurMEDIA Photography | Toronto Commercial Photographer | I just picked up a GoPro Hero3 Black Edition for a big time lapse project I have coming up. When I got it (just before Christmas) the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition was not available in stores, so I bought mine directly from GoPro’s online store (along with a crazy 64 gig Sandisk micro SD card). While we were up at the cottage over the holidays, I decided to try out the GoPro, so I shot a bunch of video clips with the GoPro of the kids playing around on their little Arctic Cat z120 snowmobile (now the Arctic Cat Snow Pro 120 Youth Snowmobile). (By the way, don’t ask why my kids have a snowmobile – that is all my father in law’s doing. But the kids absolutely love the damn thing – and I’m pretty sure I would have killed for one when I was a kid!) The video was recorded entirely with the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition and was edited in Adobe Premiere Pro. 10 Family Video Tips This was a very simple video to record and edit, but it takes a little bit of professional knowledge to be able to pull it all together into an interesting finished video. Here are 10 family video tips that will help you create something similar: 1. Record Short Clips I recorded about 40 individual clips for this video – and the final edited video is only about 2 minutes long. Short video clips are much easier to catalog so that you can focus in on the good parts. Plus short video clips are way easier to work with in video editing software on the computer. 2. Record Clips From As Many Different Angles and Perspectives as Possible This is one of the best things about the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition – you can stick that thing practically anywhere! Never just stand in one place and hit record. Shoot wide, tight, details, high, low, from the front, back, side, top, bottom – anywhere you can think of! For this video I mounted the GoPro to the ski, dashboard and windshield of the snowmobile – along with sweeping hand held shots and shots from ground level. 3. Record in 1080p or Better 1080p video is 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high. If you cannot record in full 1080p video, record at the highest widescreen resolution that your camera is capable of. There is no reason to record in lower quality video – you can always down sample your video – but you can’t add resolution without losing quality. Memory and hard drive space is cheap – and you can always delete the portions of your source clips that you don’t use. With the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition you can actually record in better than 1080p video – which gives you the option to pan and zoom within your clips without losing quality. 4. Keep Your Camera Steady Jumpy, shaky video is unwatchable. Its a bit tough when your camera is mounted to a snowmobile – but generally you want to keep your video camera as steady as possible while recording. Any movements also need to be smooth and fluid. It helps to zoom out and shoot wide where possible – and don’t zoom in and out while recording. 5. Cut Video Footage to Create a Story Nobody wants to watch random uncut video! I used Adobe Premiere Pro because that is what I am used to. But because this was a very simple edit, I could have used Adobe Premiere Elements, or even one of the simple video editing applications such as Microsoft Movie Maker (free) or Apple iMovie ($5). At its most basic, all you have to do is splice together the best cuts of your favorite video clips into a timeline that makes sense. 6. Cut Your Clips – Then Cut Them Again My first step is to cut my source clips down to just their most interesting segments, and then drop them into the video timeline. Then after I start working out the story and put a more polished timeline together, I try to cut out anything that isn’t visually interesting or doesn’t add to the story. Be ruthless – you want your clips to be as short as possible. 7. Avoid Video Transitions Think about this – when was the last time you saw a TV show or Hollywood movie transition between scenes by using a vertical swipe transition, or any animated transition? You generally don’t see video transitions on TV or in Hollywood movies because professionals simply cut between scenes. The only video transition that has some use is a cross-fade transition. However, to cut between scenes effectively, you have to give some thought as to how the video will play. Usually scenes splice together well if they are of completely different. The more similar video clips are, the worse they splice together – with the wost case being two segments of video from the same clip (that is what we call a jump cut). This is where Tip 2 – Record Clips From As Many Different Angles and Perspectives as Possible – is important. If you have a lot of different clips, it is much easier to cut them and splice them into an effective video. 8. Touch Up Your Video All source video needs to be retouched to look good – video straight out of the camera just looks flat and limp. To retouch your video, first adjust the overall exposure, tweak the white balance and set the white and black levels (make sure that white is 100% white and black is 100% black). Next, tweak the contrast, shadows and highlights, and color. 9. Add a Soundtrack An appropriate soundtrack absolutely makes or breaks a finished video. Try to avoid copyrighted tracks where possible – facebook won’t even allow you to post a [...]

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Athletic Photography – Under Armour and Lululemon Beach Volleyball Uniform Combination

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:19:38 +0000

Athletic Photography – Under Armour and Lululemon Beach Volleyball Uniform Combination | by JP Danko | Toronto Commercial Photographer | Athletic Portraits | Dawn and I recently had the opportunity to photograph female beach volleyball player and model Chanelle Preradovich. We put this shoot together as a self funded project to create an interesting set of images to add to our stock portfolio. We ended up scheduling things just after the close of the London 2012 Olympics, so I guess we were suffering from a little bit of Olympic withdrawal. Chanelle plays college women’s volleyball at Mount Saint Vincent University. She also plays in a number of competitive beach volleyball leagues in Toronto during the summer. Concept If you search for “beach volleyball uniform”, you inevitably end up with a whole lot of images of…well you can guess. (There is a reason beach volleyball is one of the most sought after Olympic events…) The point is, most of the images of female beach volleyball players are all the same – and not exactly the types of images that clients want to use to promote their business. For this shoot, we wanted to do create something different – we wanted to really highlight the pure athleticism of beach volleyball players. Wardrobe Chanelle is wearing a set of Under Armour beach volleyball bottoms, and a Lululemon sports bra top. It was actually pretty difficult to put together a genuine beach volleyball uniform that would be similar to what Olympic level competitive beach volleyball athletes wear. We really didn’t want to cop out and end up just photographing another model in a bikini on the beach. Chanelle regularly wears a similar set of Under Armour bottoms, and a Lululemon sports bra top for beach volleyball tournaments, so we were pretty happy with the combination. Lighting First of all, the beach volleyball court location that we chose faces east. So, in order to take advantage of a dramatic sky with premium light, we had to start our session at dawn – around 6:00 am. Fortunately, Chanelle is a morning person – but Dawn and I are definitely not! For lighting, we used a typical three light setup. The key light is an Elinchrom BxRi-500 with a beauty dish. One rim light is another Elinchrom BxRi-500 but with a strip softbox. The other rim light is the rising sun. For power we used a small portable generator. Post-Production Editing To finish the images off, we ran everything through Topaz Denoise to clean things up. Then we cleaned up most of the distractions in each image, used Topaz Detail to add a little pop to Chanelle‘s clothing and skin and parts of the sky, and dodged the highlights and burned the shadows in Photoshop. Conclusion Any questions about the setup, lighting or post-production editing – hit me in the comments. Cheers! If you want to find out more about us – follow us on Twitter @blurMEDIAStudio, or add us on Facebook / Google Plus or check out our portfolio on 500px.

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Alberta Travel Video – Remember to Breathe Campaign

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 03:58:18 +0000

Alberta Travel Video – Remember to Breathe Campaign | by JP Danko | blurMEDIA Commercial Photography | Toronto Commercial Photographer | Tourism Alberta’s Remember to Breathe Campaign is simply spectacular. The three minute headline video features music by Calgary based roots-rock musician Wil (Wil Mimnaugh) and it will literally take your breath away. I first saw a 30 second spot from the Remember to Breathe campaign during a CFL football game on TSN last summer, and as a photographer I had to go to youtube right away. I think I watched it three or four times in a row – its that amazing. The video features an assortment of wicked scenery clips – each one is one of those impossible shots photographers and film makers live for. Then there is an assortment of slow motion, timelapse, and just the right amount of emotion and storyline, all tied together with Wil’s perfectly matched track “Roam”. I especially love the clips where time lapse clouds whisp across the sky in the background while people are in real time action in the foreground. The Remember to Breathe Campaign promotes Alberta travel, camping and tourism and was produced by Calgary-based agency Karo and planned by Venture Communications. The whole thing was filmed on location in Alberta, specifically for the campaign. I think its a very positive direction in the creative industry to see clients like Tourism Alberta looking to spectacular imagry to build their brand – along with a commitment to the budget required to produce this level of quality content. Cheers, | JP Danko | blurMEDIA Commercial Photography | Toronto Commercial Photographer |

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Photographer Convicted of Sexually Assaulting Models

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:16:18 +0000

Photographer Convicted of Sexually Assaulting Models | by Dawn Danko | blurMEDIA | I heard a disturbing story today about a (so called) photographer who was recently convicted to 16 months in jail for sexually assaulting several models during photo shoots. According to an article by Mike McIntyre in the Winnipeg Free Press, photographer Richard Dow was a former police officer who operated a part time photography business. Dow took advantage of aspiring models who agreed to pose for photos but were then touched by him in places such as their breasts or thighs without their consent. I am struggling calling this guy a photographer, because really he is just a creep with a camera who leveraged the guise of a photographer to lure young women into compromising situations. I haven’t seen his portfolio, and honestly I don’t have much interest in trying to find some of his pictures online, but I will venture a guess that his portfolio looks a lot like too many other amateur photog’s portfolios – lots of young women in lingerie and swimsuits. In fact model networking sites such as Model Mayhem and One Model Place seem to be made up of mostly young women posing in lingerie and swimsuits. We do occasionally use Model Mayhem to find low cost models for personal projects where our work is being financed out of pocket, so I thought I’d offer a few pointers to young women looking for legitimate, experienced photographers to help them build their modelling portfolios. 1. Do your due diligence. Check out the photographer’s website, flickr page, 500px portfolio, blog, facebook page, anything you can find online. Does he consistently create the type of work you want to be part of? Check with other models who have worked with him in the past (if he doesn’t have a list of models he has worked with posted on one of the model networking sites – ask for references). How was their experience? 2. Always bring an escort to your meetings and photo sessions until you have established a firm working relationship with a photographer. Always. There is no good reason for a photographer to require you to be alone in studio or on location. 3. Check to see if the photographer has a physical studio. There are way too many guys running around with an expensive camera claiming to be photographers who just want to take pictures of pretty girls in bikinis at the beach. 4. Insist on monetary payment. The trend on model networking sites is to work on a “time for prints” (TFP) basis (models exchange their time modelling for finished photographs from the photographer). Even if you insist on a token cash payment – such as minimum wage for your time – you will come across as much more professional (and therefore not an easy target). 5. Don’t model in lingerie or swimsuits. There is no reason an aspiring model needs to include lingerie/swimsuit work in their portfolio. In fact, models are much more likely to be taken seriously by agencies and potential clients if they don’t have these types of images in their portfolio. Above all, trust your instincts. If anything seems weird or off, get out of there. Stay safe! Here is the original article “Former Cop Gets 16 Months For Sex Assaults” by Winnipeg Free Press reporter Mike McIntyre, published on September 13th, 2012. Former Cop Gets 16 Months For Sex Assaults, by Mike McIntyre, Winnipeg Free Press A former Winnipeg police officer is headed to jail for sexually assaulting 11 young women whom he persuaded to model for his off-duty photography business. Richard Dow, 57, hung his head Thursday after learning his bid for a conditional sentence had been rejected. Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin ordered Dow to spend 16 months behind bars for what he called “humiliating and demeaning” acts. Martin denied the Crown’s request for a 5-year sentence. Dow pleaded guilty earlier this year to 11 counts of sexual assault involving women in their late teens or early twenties. The Crown dropped additional charges involving seven other complainants. All of the crimes occurred between 2001 to 2005. Dow was still an officer at the time. Dow took advantage of aspiring models who agreed to pose for photos but were then touched by him in places such as their breasts or thighs without their consent. In at least two cases, court heard, the women said he touched their vaginal area without permission. In one case, Dow went up to a 19-year-old girl and her mother in a mall, saying he was a police officer. The 19-year-old agreed to be photographed by Dow and her mother came with her, but on an occasion when she came alone in 2005, Dow squeezed her breast while she posed in a bikini. In another case in 2003, Dow suggested nude photos to an 18-year-old girl posing for him and then straddled her as she lay on her stomach and massaged her. Another case happened in 2004, after Dow and his daughter met an 18-year-old girl at a local restaurant and told her he was a photographer. During a later photo shoot, the girl said Dow told her she could be in magazine and rubbed oil all over her body. By September 2006, police had announced Dow, who had 18 years on the job, had been placed on paid administrative leave for accusations of sexual assault, and he later retired. www.mikeoncrime.com

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Adobe Creative Cloud Review

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 22:08:35 +0000

Adobe Creative Cloud Review Our photography studio upgraded to Adobe Creative Cloud about a month ago and I thought its time to offer a quick Adobe Creative Cloud review of our experience so far. An Adobe Creative Cloud membership gives users access to all of the applications available with the Adobe Creative Suite CS6 Master Collection, plus a few others such as Lightroom 4 and Adobe Muse. Out of the Adobe Creative Suite CS6 applications, we use Photoshop CS6, Lightroom 4 and Acrobat X Pro all the time. We also use Premier Pro CS6, After Effects CS6 and Media Encoder CS6 on a regular basis. Now that we have access to them, we will probably also use InDesign CS6, Adobe Audition CS6 and possibly Adobe Muse (only available with Creative Cloud) on occasion. Costs In order to outright purchase the core applications we need to run our studio (Photoshop, Lightroom, Acrobat, Premier Pro, After Effects and Media Encoder), we would have to invest in Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium ($1,899), plus stand alone copies of Lightroom 4 ($149) and Acrobat X Pro ($449) for a total cost of $2,497. Or upgrades of all of the above would cost $653 in total. Its a little convoluted – like trying to decode a cell phone plan – but Adobe has a buying guide that compares the various products and suites available, so you can figure out specifically which collection you’d have to go with to meet your needs. Alternatively, Adobe Creative Cloud costs $49.99 per month ($74.00 per month if you don’t want to commit to a whole year at a time). Or you can upgrade at $29.99 per month for the first year. A summary of the available Adobe Creative Cloud plans is here. So, at full price, we could pay for just over four years of Adobe Creative Cloud for the price of Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, Lightroom and Acrobat ($2,497/$49.99 per month). Or, as an upgrade we could pay for about a year and a half of Adobe Creative Cloud ($29.99 per month x 12 months + $49.99 per month x 6 months = $660). One big big big money saver would be if you have a mixed computer studio as Creative Cloud apps can be installed on both PC and Mac. If you wanted to install Creative Suite on your desktop Mac and your laptop PC – you would have to purchase two copies (one for Mac, one for PC). If you were eligible to upgrade all of the applications you use – and considering that Adobe traditionally releases upgrades every 1 – 2 years, it would probably be more cost effective to purchase upgrades as you decide you need them. But, if you have to buy one or two applications as a new user, Creative Cloud becomes much more economical. Cloud Computing Cloud computing is by definition a subscription service. Generally, I HATE subscriptions (thank-you cell phone and cable companies). Like drug dealers, it seems that every company is trying to get their customers hooked onto a subscription by offering a free trial and then billing you every month until you remember to cancel. I have had subscriptions for movie streaming, online training, accounting apps, job management apps – even razors at one point. The reason businesses love subscriptions is that like drugs – once you’re hooked, you happily make your monthly payments until you finally make an effort to quit (usually years after the subscription has ceased to be useful to you). However, I know that I will be using an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription daily – unlike say…random accounting apps that I forgot I even signed up for but billed my credit card every month for years. Cloud Features I am not one to always use the latest and greatest. If it works – I tend to stick with it. I still use Microsoft Office 2003 (sorry Microsoft – but Word is Word is Word – even if its almost 10 years old). However, when it comes to the software that we rely on to make money – its a bit more important to always have the most recent and up to date versions. With, Adobe Creative Cloud you get access to 20 gigs of online storage. 20 gigs is an awkward amount of storage space. Its more than enough room for saving a portfolio and maybe a job or two that you are currently working on. But throw in a video and some Nikon D800 raw files and you run out of space pretty fast. Never mind fantasies of hosting your entire catalog in the cloud (we’d need a few terabytes). And, while you can technically share files stored on Creative Cloud (by setting the file permissions and sending an email link) – sharing isn’t managed. Meaning, you don’t know if your client has actually downloaded the file you shared with them, you can’t set password controlled access, you can’t set expiration dates and you can’t even share directories of files. We currently use Dropbox (free) and WeTransfer (also free) to share large files, but I was really hoping for something better from Adobe Creative Cloud. There isn’t a proofing gallery option either – so you can’t create a proofing gallery and share it with a client – which would be very useful. One nice feature is that clients can comment directly on photographs that you have shared with them. No more emails from clients along the lines of “I like the one with the guy doing the thing – but I hate the one of the other guy”. Finally, Adobe’s cloud storage is not synchronized with any local files stored on a physical computer. Meaning that you have to actively manage your Creative Cloud storage, which makes it much more of a pain to use – as opposed to a service like Dropbox which automatically synchronizes a local folder across all of your physical computers, and is available on your phone or tablet, [...]

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Ballet Dancer Photography – Beautiful Toronto Ballerina in Ballet Studio

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 03:01:45 +0000

Back in March I had the oportunity to photograph beautiful ballerina Claire Beauchamp at her ballet studio in Toronto. I arranged the photography session with Claire as a self directed portfolio piece – I had been doing a lot of industrial and medical photography at the time and needed a break to photograph something a bit more elegant and dynamic – hence a beautiful ballet dancer. The ballet studio had the typical wall of mirrors, a fairly light wood floor, white ceilings and light blue walls. Going in, I was planning on shooting a high-key series by overexposing the background to white. I brought some random black backdrops with me to flag off the mirrors – one of which was a black on black damask pattern Bad Sass Backdrop. Lighting was a three light setup using Elinchrom strobes – two Westcott stripbanks for rim light, an Elinchrom Rotalux Octa as the keylight and a set of Nikon speedlights for the background. The high key setup was working OK – but the photographs just didn’t have the punch and drama that I had in mind. So we went with Plan B – the black on back damask Bad Sass Backdrop. Problem was, the backdrop was only five feet wide, so we had to improvise a little. I had always planned on putting the fabric portions of the photograph together as a composite, so I ended up building the entire backdrop as a composite photograph as well. Here is a little video that shows all of the layers of the finished image in Photoshop – it was a little tedious to align the damask pattern – a lot like doing wallpaper! Any questions about the setup, lighting or post-production editing – hit me in the comments. Cheers! If you want to find out more about us – follow us on Twitter @blurMEDIAStudio, or add us on Facebook / Google Plus or check out our portfolio on 500px. Cheers, John-Paul Danko blurMEDIA Photography Toronto Dance Photographer Toronto, Ontario, Canada blurMEDIAPhotography.com info@blurmedia.ca 905 818 5711

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DSLR Camera Battery Hack for Time Lapse Photography

blurMEDIA - Commercial Photographer — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 02:57:55 +0000

Shooting time lapse photography – or very long exposure astro photography, requires a lot more battery life than a single charge on the camera’s regular battery. We use Nikon D200 and D300s which use Nikon EN-EL3e lithium ion rechargeable batteries. However, there is no good commercial option to use a supplementary external battery. The approach presented herein would also apply to other DSLR cameras – most of which use a similar battery. It is possible to use an AC adapter (such as a Nikon EH-5a) to power the camera – but this option has several limitations. It requires either a long extension cord or an AC generator. But that sacrifices mobility. Alternatively, you could use a 12V power source, such as a car battery and a DC to AC inverter. But converting 12V DC (battery power source) to 120V AC (inverter) and back to 7.4V DC (camera adapter) incurs a lot of losses – it is much more efficient to eliminate any conversions and simply use the same voltage battery, with a larger capacity. The problem is connecting a suitable external battery to the camera. To do this I chose to hack an inexpensive aftermarket EN-EL3e and connect it to a larger external battery. (You could also connect the camera end of an EH-5a adapter to a car battery – but a 12V DC to 7.4V DC adapter would still be necessary, and an EH-5a is pretty expensive to use just for for the connecting socket.) The Nikon EN-EL3e is rated at 7.4 volts and 1500 mAh. A Canon BP970 high capacity camcorder battery is also rated at 7.4 volts, but 7200 mAh. That means a single BP970 battery (theoretically) holds nearly five times the capacity of a EN-EL3e (1500 mAh x 5 = 7500 mAh). This same approach will work for a Canon 5d or any similar DSLR. The key thing is to match the specified voltage of the proposed external battery to your camera battery – but look for a high capacity model – the higher the milliampere-hour (mAh) rating, the higher the capacity, the longer it will run your camera. For this project I used: Lenmar 7.4V 7200 mAh camcorder battery (aftermarket replacement for a Canon BP970) Lenmar PC911 Adaptor Plate Lenmar OmniSource Charger Flashpoint EN-EL3e (aftermarket replacement for Nikon EN-EL3e) You will also need a few feet of high gauge wire (I used 28 gauge from an old infra red extender I had lying around) a soldering iron, hot glue gun, phillips screwdriver and a multimeter. You should probably also know how to solder (its not hard – practice first if you are not sure) and a have a basic understanding of parallel versus series wiring. The following is a step by step tutorial on two ways to connect a sacrificial EN-EL3e to an external high capacity battery. Taking apart a lithium ion battery is a potential hazard – all batteries warn you to not disassemble them – so do it at your own risk. Note: Nikon and Canon camera batteries have a built in circuit board that tells the camera how much charge the battery has and controls charging. You cannot remove this circuitry from the sacrificial camera battery – or the camera will think the battery is dead and will not function. If you have a camera that doesn’t have a battery charge indicator, or one that can be turned off – you can simply remove the small circuit board in your sacrificial battery. Carefully cut open your sacrificial battery along the seams – without damaging the innards. Separate the two halves. Components of the battery may be taped to the plastic cover, so be gentle. Identify the circuit board at the terminal end of the battery. Note the positive (B+) and negative (B-) inputs to the circuit board from the battery cells. The common connector (VC) is part of the safety and charging circuitry. The outputs from the circuit board centre (C), positive (P+) and negative (P-) are connected to the corresponding battery terminals. Identify the lithium ion battery cells and carefully remove them from the circuit board. Remove the circuit board from the terminals (Note: At this point I proceeded to remove the entire circuit board and connect the wires directly to the terminals. It wasn’t until I put the whole thing together and tested it that I realized that the circuit board has to stay. So I put it back). Remove the terminals from the battery case (this is not necessary if you are good at soldering and are not worried about melting the case). Solder new leads to the terminals. At this point I put the battery back together without the circuit board. However, as noted – the camera didn’t work, so I had to splice the circuit board back in. Here the battery terminals center (C), positive (P+) and negative (P-) are connected to the corresponding terminals on the circuit board. The external battery leads are connected to the positive (B+) and negative (B-) circuit board inputs. The common safety/charge control (VC) is left unconnected. Components held in place with hot glue (do not use silicone – it is corrosive and will kill the circuit). Sacrificial battery re-assembled. After finishing this battery, I decided to do another one with a slightly different approach. Instead of removing the lithium ion cells from the sacrificial battery, I left them in place and just connected the leads from the external battery directly to the terminals of the sacrificial battery in parallel (positive to positive, negative to negative). This keeps all of the original circuitry intact and also provides a 7.4V battery with a total of 8700 mAh (7200 mAh from the external battery plus 1500 mAh from the original cells). In hindsight, it was quite a bit easier. External positive (+) and negative (-) leads from the external battery connected directly to the positive (+) and negative (-) terminals on the sacrificial battery. To hold the external battery I used a [...]

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