We’re talking about the video portion of our program.
The video you make with your still camera.
No we’re not going to go to the D90 and Canon Rebel series. Yet.
And the 5D MKII will have to wait.
Let’s start small. And relatively accessible for the wallet. Add video in your pocket. While we are test driving the suit jacket cameras, let’s get the video done at the same time, right?
Let’s take a look at the point and shoot variety.
Of course we have the Flip Ultra video. Simple, removable batteries, up to 2 hours record, very good vid quality.
The video we shot at MTV Movie Awards was made with this. decent sound also, right?
The stills were shot with a Nikon D700.

Now we’re going to test out the Nikon S620, and the Canon SD780IS, along with showing you the Flip Ultra and the Canon D10
This is all about using something small, something you can carry in your pocket, something that is essentially unobtrusive.
Every photographer should have video camera in their bag. Period.
I won’t lie. It does hurt when I know if I bring out the big unit and pro sound, it will rock. Hard. Add sweet lights, and we’re home free.
I can go smaller, with a prosumer camera and add solid mics and a smaller light, I’ll still get some excellent result results.
And if the big sensor still camera, with the awesome lens, isn’t in my hands I feel a wee bit naked.
This is not about that.
This is about ease of operation. This is about recording an event in the simplest of ways. Losing the bulk. And seeing what you sacrifice. Not the highest end point and shoots. A reasonable price camera. The most bang for the buck.
Why am I telling you all this now before the results are in?
Because we want you to suggest some ways you would use these cameras, and we’ll try to replicate those situations.
The Canon D10 will just be an underwater test because, well…. none of the others can do that.
Sure there are some other units out there but those brands have led the pack so off we go.
And by we, I mean, whomever I’m hanging with to get these tested.
The D700 will stay at home for these tests, as will the P2 HD vid camera.
Carry a camera, always. Sometimes, it just needs to be tiny.
The goal is to find a great small camera to take around, get the shots of the life events, maybe some vid, vlog all in a tiny package.

The question is now coming up: should I expect my still camera, no matter what size, to deliver the video I need ?
Or when I shoot stills, have a still camera in my hand, and when I shoot video, have a video camera in my hand?
The combo we used, due to restrictions on the MTV Movie Awards, was the Flip, not the norm, and the D700.
The manufacturers are all now combining these features and even though we have first generation, the line is getting blurred.
It hasn’t hit the pro-lines, yet.

Ok, for everyone who only shoots film, you can sit this one out. Get a Flip and relax.

So we would like to hear like to hear from you, and see how you’d like us to adjust the test.
Consider this part one of an ongoing real world review.

If you are lying there, comfortable in the knowledge that all of your digital life is safely tucked away on your hard drive, in it’s little folder, juts waiting for you to access it, it’s time to WAKE UP!
OK, sure, you have an external hard drive back up with ALL of your photos and movies duplicated. Or 2.
Right?
Maybe if you have your photos on multiple computers you have a plan where you back them all up monthly onto one hard drive so that, just in case you have to leave the premises, you grab the one HD and get safe.
Right?
Well, I hate to be the one to burst the bubble, but you should do more.
Back it all up onto hard media. Not spinning hard drives, alone. We’re talking about DVD’s.
You see with Hard Drives, it’s not a matter of if they will fail, it’s when. No chicken little mentality here, but been there, and unfortunately, done that. Learned the hard way. Here’s just one article on the subject from a report by Carnegie Mellon.
And not the one where you get 1000 for $20. I wish that was the case. I have some of those that not that many years later, start to denigrate and drop stuff.
You need archival DVD’s. Rated for 100 years. Gold plated.
The ones I like are from Delkin.
Its a simple process. When you gather enough stuff to fill a 4.7 gb disc. Tag it and bag it. Burn it and store it.
And here is the other part of that equation: when you write on the disc so you know what it is (date/subject/title/etc..)
DO NOT USE A SHARPIE!!!
Tempting, I know, you have a few right there in front of you.
The chemical in the ink will destroy the disc eventually.
Use a special marking pen made to write on discs.
The next part is to store the discs in a special non corrosive sleeve, in a proper binder or storage box. This is another place that I’ve learned a lesson: went to Staples and bought the humongous box of plastic DVD cases, but the corrosive fumes given off by the plastic defeated the entire purpose of an archival disc.
Yet another brick in the wall. but there you have it . What are your images worth to you?
We’re going to help get you started on this though, with this weeks giveaway.

With a set of 16 Archival DVD’s, a binder with pages that can hold 40 discs, AND yes, the special markers to write on them, all made by Delkin.
The details on winning this package will be in this weeks NEWSLETTER sent to subscribers on Weds. @ 9:00 AM PST.
The 65th reply to the email will be the recipient.
And yes—–WE SHIP ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!!!

Special Note! If you would like to go ahead and just order some of these discs, Delkin is giving our readers a 15% discount on all Archival Gold products. just use the code ” AGINDUCED ” when asked for the coupon code online.

For those who are curious, we are exploring the Blu-Ray solution to this workflow, since you can store 5 times as much data on one disc, but the prices are still a bit high for the discs themselves ( $10 vs $25 for comparable storage). However, we do know that the Blu-Ray players are backwards compatible so will always play DVD’s.

Last note: the giveaway last week asked for the ISO of TRI-X as the answer to the question. Since 220 film is 320 and 35mm is 400, we accepted both.
Winner will be posted later today.

Of course you remember the famous scene of Keanu Reeves in the Matrix, dodging bullets by inhumanly leaning backwards, and you got to study the moment from all 360 degrees.
Pretty darn cool.
And you know how they did it? Still cameras. A whole bunch of them. And powerful computers, spiffy software, and patience. It took a loooooong time to do these scenes.
Today on the MTV Movie Awards Show, you’ll be able to see your favorite celebrity, showing off their fashion sense, in this “frozen moment” in about 90 seconds, using 48 Nikon D700’s.

Designer Christian Siriano from Project Runway

Study their fashion faux pas, and blind grabs from the closet, while you are being guided along by Christian Siriano, the designer from Project Runway, who totally made the phrase “fierce”, into 15 minutes of pop culture.
Now we are here telling you all about this because, we had a chance to check out the rig and talk to the folks behind. And got to see the 48 Nikon D700’s ringing the circular red carpet.

Here is a subjects view, complete with instructions on where to look.

With a 28 mm fixed lens, the images are captured and instantly fed to a computer (one computer for every 4 cameras), then all of the 12 computers are fed through one slammin’ feed to the bank of brilliant workers behind the scenes.

Yes, pay attention to the men and women behind the curtain.

Why Nikon? You’ll hear it all in the video.

Yes, this is not one for you to try at home.
MTV was pretty smart to try to give this awards show, which appears to be THE hottest ticket of the year to get, tougher than the Oscars, some extra cool factor.
In recent award shows there has been a camera at show level and had celebs show their kicks. (sorry, as a dude, the shoes don’t matter to me) How do you top that? Like this.
Sure you’ve seen the effect, but this fast? Nope.
Enjoy the show, and watch for the 48 D700’s clicking away.
And check out the site after the event to see if it worked like you thought it would.

By the way, we met this very cool blogger you should take a look at : iJustine. Writes about a bunch of stuff but has a cool vibe and is very tech savvy.

iJustine about to do her 360

Last night at the M+B gallery in Los Angeles a new exhibit opened called BARACK OBAMA: THE FRESHMAN.
The photographer, Lisa Jack, a fellow student at Occidental college, photographed our future president at 20.
This single roll of film, comprises this show and give a tiny, fleeting, glimpse of the man would make history.

© Lisa Jack

On the shoot itself, Lisa Jack described it as initially awkward. “Barry” showed up to the shoot with a bomber jacket, flared jeans, a pack of cigarettes and a Panama hat he thought would look “cool.” Initially, he posed self-consciously, but as the shoot progressed, the personality and charisma we would all later bear witness to emerged. He began asking questions, which was unusual since normally the photographer asks questions in an effort to draw out the sitter’s personality. According to Jack, the key to Obama’s personality was his desire to understand where one comes from and how that determines one’s sense of self. Being herself a young undergrad, her interests did not lie at the time with questions of identity and selfhood, but rather she secretly hoped that “Barry” would ask her out afterward. He did not, and although pleased with the photographs, they did not maintain contact afterwards, until a random chance encounter 28 years later in Washington DC. Lisa Jack ceased photographing and went on to pursue psychology and is currently a professor of Counseling Psychology at Augsburg College. After having her one roll of film from that day sit neglected for almost thirty years, Jack now offers up these images “so that others may see a side to him [she has] yet to observe captured in the maelstrom of contemporary media”.

The amazing thing about this show is the crowd it drew. This art gallery would never be a destination to a vast majority of the attendees who came. Painting one wall like an American flag, people would pose next to photographs of the young Barry, almost as if he was there.

They searched his face in the photographs to see if there was that glimmer of future success, some telling pose that foretold the future.
Simple compositions, he appears confident and happy to be the subject of Jack’s camera. Lisa told me that he was just one of many students who became her photo subjects. And how many of us have grabbed anyone we know to pose so we can work out lighting, lensing, exposure, composition and perhaps, as she said, a closer understanding ?

Lisa Jack, signing posters.
The entire contact sheet covered one wall and was a crowd pleaser. Perhaps that is the print to buy. Each image, lined up in true sequence. Spare $8k?

The prints themselves start at about $1000, for an 11×14 print, and I’m sure they will do well. the people taking the orders could not put their pens down.

The phenomenon is incredible. rare in our history has a politician, created such sycophants.
Couples were even taking photos in front of THE SIGN!

Lisa Jack did a fine job on the photographs. She doesn’t take picture these days. It was a dream she had to be a photographer.
This one roll of film, though, has changed her life.

So, who is in your archives? Or are you about to shoot the next luminary?

M+B
612 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, California 90069
T 310 550 0050
F 310 550 0605
Tuesday – Saturday, 10A – 6P

Every year I fly up to the Academy of Art to join a group of professionals in reviewing the photographic graduating class’s portfolios. We sit in a room and it is a bit like speed dating: the director of the program puts each student with a different reviewer, and shortly thereafter, calls time and they move to another opinion. I mean, person.
Wow. How tough that has to be, especially on the graduates who just received their degrees the day before, and now all of these strangers are critiquing their work.
We all try to be honest, yet gentle in helping guide the new photographic stars entering the marketplace. In a 7 min. block.
The undergrads, who still have some time on the academic clock, get to join in, and here is where you get to track some growth.

This year was no exception.

Rosanna Anson has only been in the photography program, for 1½ years, but she is already a star.
Her fashion work had it all: attitude, brilliantly shot, defined style, and yes, showed off the garment, as is the raison d’etre.
But we also wanted to share some of her conceptual work.

© Rus Anson Photography 2009
“My Circus” depicts a gauzy world populated with pastels, a mustachioed ringmaster, and an altered reality of a memory.
You can almost hear the calliope playing a strangely familiar, but oddly tweaked tune.
It’s a gentle world though, even when the knife thrower, tips his next move. And it is a fresh fashion layout.

There was a unique take on suicide also, that I had never seen before. Not angst ridden dark moment but a graceful, Olympiad dive into space.

© Rus Anson Photography 2009

You have to check out the rest of her work and her blog. She will be here for a long time.

Time was called and another student took a seat.

He goes by Unni, a young photographer from India, only in SF for college.

In San Francisco there is an area called the Tenderloin, where the poor, the outcasts, and the questionable find a home.
This is where Unni met his subject. And now his friend. In a series called “She” he has presented the world of a 50 something transvestite, living in squalor and turning tricks. At the same time there is his implied sense of normalcy in his/her world, as depicted most poignantly to me, in this photograph:

© Unni Photography 2009

By putting applying nail polish, onto chewed up hands, from a crusted over bottle, there is a strange modicum of attempted beauty.

Unni has spent a great deal of time befriended this person, and will deliver a solid body of work from that closeness. As any great documentary photographer knows, you must create a relationship, of some sort, with your subject to gain the trust to get the shots, that tell the story.

Here is a link to his site and his youtube channel.

There were many more very talented photographers I met, but one thing is for sure: the Academy of Art in San Francisco is bringing some incredibly talented photographers to the world in commercial, fashion, and documentary.

Can I go back to school?