That should be the title of the profession that I keep as opposed to Photographer. Every Photographer has outtakes, it's a fact of life. Pictures of people with their eyes closed, their fingers up their nose, a goofy face, and there's always the good photo that is immediately followed by the ubiquitous phrase; "That better not go anywhere!".
As soon as she stepped onto the black paper her phone rang, thus causing this immediate reaction. We all had a good laugh about it, right as she said exactly what you'd guess: "That better not go anywhere!". Oops. Turns out I don't listen very well, as so many of the people I've photographed have mentioned in the past. But what's the fun in having some of these if nobody sees them? That's where things get really tough because there are lots of GOOD photos that people don't ever see either and for a photographer that's especially frustrating.
I shot that photo for the latest issue of the Indiana Nursing Quarterly Magazine. Unfortunately this shot wasn't chosen to be in the magazine. My assignment was to show these two administrators furthering their careers through teaching. The problem that I faced in this shoot was that there were no students.....
The shot was taken at the Sim Center in the Fairbanks hall at Methodist in Downtown Indianapolis. The Sim center is a full entire nursing floor in a hospital completely fake and replicated for students to learn in. They have dummies that they can give pulses, or even simulate having cardiac arrest. It's really a pretty cool place if you're a nurse; or learning to be a nurse. Speaking of nurses AND outtakes, here's a video that probably could have stayed in the land of outtakes. Either way what other jobs can you name where you have to pay a Stripper $20 to wear the head of a lion and dance around for a minute, and go sledding all in the same week? More Soon.
So wow time has flown, as I realized today when my good friend Dr. X mentioned that it had been over a week since my last blog entry. Normally I'm on top of things like that, but I've been doing a lot of work lately which is good as it's kept me out of trouble I'd most likely get in if I wasn't busy. I'm not saying that me being in trouble is as predictable as hearing the phrase, "just across the state line" at the end of a radio or television ad for fireworks; I'm just squirrely and tend to find myself in strange spots from time to time. Speaking of strange spots, a friend of mine sent me this:
I can't take credit for this, and neither can my friend except for the fact that he sent it to me. All I have is a link to the original file on blogger, it doesn't even say what blog it's on, or where it's at. Whomever created this, is a Genius though, and it's exactly what I needed to see giving me a good laugh.
I've been shooting a lot of video lately as I think I mentioned previously. When I say a lot, I mean in the last 3 days I have shot and edited 4 videos, while shooting another that I have yet to edit. Shooting video on that 5D Mark II is phenomenal; albeit a phenomenal challenge. This video was shot at the Simply Wow event for women Entrapeneurs. The Audio works well, and the video looks good despite the fact that the entire thing was shot in Manual Focus.
I also shot a video last weekend at the Metromix Halloween Party. I was once told that Genius is created by mixing a little initiative, with a slight amount of insanity. I shot this event using the 5D Mark II for video as well, and boy talk about tough. I pushed the camera to the maximum of its range and quite honestly am I not only impressed with the camera, but I'm pleased with myself. Good party, the next one will be in the Red Room on November 14th in Broad Ripple. Hope the video makes you want to go...
SO that's what I've been up to, and the video isn't stopping. The first home bout of the 2009-2010 Roller Derby season is on Saturday the 7th as well. I shot a Rollin with Gunner video Today, and things are continuing as busy as usual. Shot some jewelry already this week for the first time in a while, but more on that soon as well as a few other projects I've been working on. LIfe has been exciting and sleepless lately. More Soon.
So I've had a few people notice that I've got access to a 5D Mark II on a frequent basis now and wanted to know my impressions on it. Since it's been one of the things that I've been particularly busy with the last two weeks, so I figure I'll say a few things about it. It probably wont be anything that anybody much better hasn't said somewhere much more important than here as the camera has been in much more awesome hands than mine for several months now. Also I'll probably throw a bit of technical mumbo jumbo that I don't understand in there from place to place too so be warned now. Or if you just like looking at pictures that's cool too as I'll be sure to post some extra ones this time. Nonetheless, here we go. (Canon 5D Mark II, 250ISO, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@16mm. 1/30th@F4. Single Canon 580EX Speedlight set to 1/4th power fired by pocket wizard to camera Left held by Suzanne the Koorsen Marketing coordinator. NO light modifier, except for the built in bounce card.)
Quite Frankly the camera is awesome. Yup, I said it. The Canon 5D Mark II is awesome; but it's not an end all be all by any means of the imagination. The shot above is for a special section the newspaper is working on. It is the owner of Kooresen Fire and Safety here in Indianapolis in their firefighting museum. In terms of detail, with 21.1 million pixels the camera does a pretty solid job.
That's a 100% crop of the first image in the blog. As you can tell at 250ISO the image is as clean as you would imagine from any modern digital camera. Notice how cropped in that is too, this camera has some serious resolution. The D3x has marginally more resolution, but at 22ish megapixels you don't notice the 2 more that the D3x has. AKA D3x 2 more megapixels...whoopdy freakin doo. The D3x costs more than twice as much as the 5D Mark II does also.
(Canon 5D Mark II, 320ISO, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@24mm. 1/50thF7.1. Canon 580EX Speedlight to camera right set to 1/2 power fired by pocket wizard through a 60" Translucent umbrella. Single Canon 580EX Speedlight set to 1/8th power fired by pocket wizard shot into the wall in the booth with the two students in the background.)
The Autofocus has problems in the dark, but the Autofocus is also the exact same module out of the original 5D making it like a bazillion years old. (ok more like 5 but who knows how to count? Seriously?) It does ok, especially with F2.8L glass when using the center Autofocus point in the viewfinder, but I don't trust anything but the center point. The Radiology shot above was about as dark as I'd trust the Autofocus in on anything that wasn't moving while using the autofocus assist. Ambient light in that room was 3200iso, F2.8 1/30th. Turns out you can't take X-Rays in bright places? I don't know thats just one of those things that I just didn't ask. I wanted more of an ambiance shot of the Radiology students, and I think my normal two speedlights provided that just fine. While we are on the topic of darkness though, the High ISO on the camera is pretty solid for the resolution. I'd say the D3 is about 1 to 1.5 stops better at High ISO image artifacting, but the 5D Mark II is twice the resolution. At 50% the 5D Mark II files look just as clean which is outstanding. (Canon 5D Mark II, 4000ISO, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@16mm, 1/40th@2.8)
That's Tom. He's a shooter in town that often helps me out with various projects here and there. I bet I could count the number of instances on one hand the photos where Tom ISN'T throwing the bird. Unfortunately I don't know where one of those 4 photos might be, so he gets to show finger extension on the blog to demonstrate High ISO. The images are manageably clean, ESPECIALLY for being 21.1 million pixels. You need to click on the lower photo to see it close up to understand the noise. Funny part is that the way I shoot things, I probably won't go much over 400 except for video. Video which is phenomenal out of this camera by the way. Anybody who has read this knows that I've gushed about the video on this camera. NIKON YOU NEED VIDEO LIKE COMES OUT OF THIS CAMERA. THANKS. Not that anybody who reads this can make any difference in that, but I feel better for saying it. (Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 400, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@32mm. 1/50th@F5 Single 580EX Speedlight set to 1/8th power shot on camera shot into a low white florescent light fixture above the receptionists desk.)
Overall Impressions is that I dig the resolution this baby puts out; in stills and in video. Awesome tool for when shooting the types of things that I end up shooting at the newspaper. Yea the Autofocus is a bit slow, but I don't shoot sports for the paper. When I do shoot sports it's on the side or for me which is why I own my own D3. Great Camera, but not an end all be all. I've played with the new 7D and the Autofocus is knock out. I only wish it was in the 5D Mark II. I haven't played with a 1D Mark IV yet, but I'm sure I'll have one in my grubby mitts for a little bit soon enough. (Canon 5D Mark II, 100ISO, Canon 16-35mmF2.8L@16mm, 1/200@F8. Single 580EX Speedlight set to full power to camera right fired by pocketwizard through a Lumiquest Softbox III.)
I guess that long story short, is that the camera handles like a camera. Use a couple lights, set it to take a photo and shaZam! You've taken a picture. The photo above is a Metromix promo. We wanted Photos of Adrianne on several Metromix boxes around Indy in landmarkish locations. That's one of the things we came up with. Joe McNally equates pressing the camera to your face, and firing the shutter like breathing, and really it's a great analogy. Last week I shot two months for the Roller Derby calendar. Saturday I shot the Tankersly's Family photos and today was a Roller Derby Scrimmage. We had set up to shoot another Calendar month, but it didn't quite work out. At the rate I'm going shooting photos may as well be like breathing; after all it seems like I can't go a day without doing it. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Maybe someday I'll just figure out what I'm doing. More Soon.
I have to thank my buddy brad for the title of this post as he was the one who came up with it. It is a very accurate description as to what has been happening for the last week or so as it feels as though I have been attacked on all sides by not only ninja's; but as my pals at Bungie would say: Ninja's that were on fire.
That being said I am going to keep this quick and easy. Derby season is on the way. I've got 3 calendar shoots this week to finish everything up, and November 7th is the first bout. You can check out the team here. You can buy tickets for the bout here. I'm hoping to be able to post more things that I've done at work with the 5D Mark II soon. Not that I can't post them now, but I've just been so busy fighting off the Ninja's that I would almost have rather floated over International Falls in a barrel.....Actually that sounds pretty cool so maybe it's not a good example. Been a lot of late nights, lots of early mornings lots of out of towns lately as well. Last weekend was in Lafayette for the Premier of the Independant film: Thick as Thieves.
(Nikon D3, ISO 6400, Nikon 28-70mmF2.8@28mm. 1/100th@F2.8)
The image above is from the Premier. I was hired to shoot the premier, the crowd, the tailgate at the Purdue Football game, and any other interesting events that may have occurred during that day. The film itself was made by Purdue Alumni, and they wanted to premier the film in Lafayette at their Alma mater. I was there when they did the first film,and they were happy enough with the photos to call me again while they were in the area. They did the big premier in Chattanooga Tennessee which was the weekend of the Motorcycle Grand Prix. (Nikon D700, 200ISO, Nikon AF-S 50mmF1.4. 1/640th@F2)
I find shooting events tough, as most of my day is setting up lights to eithe rmake something look un-lit, or quite frankly to make it look lit. Shooting from the hip, on camera flash, no flash at all, get it or don't......It's all a different kind of shooting to me. I was pleased with what I ended up with though.
The film itself was good. I didn't know what to expect, but these guys know how to make budgets stretch. The entire film was made on around $11,000, and what they did for that money seemed like money well spent. I probably would have lit a few scenes differently, maybe an edit here or there differently as well but EEEEEP! I know nothing about making a feature film so my opinion should be taken as lightly as anybody who has ever used the analogy "shake a stick at" to anything. I'm shakin a stick, but what I say still don't mean nuthin.
Nice job guys, I look forward to your next installment in the series for sure. Until then, as I mentioned earlier; Derby season is among us. I've been playing with a lot of video lately and after shooting headshots last Sunday at practice, I pulled the 5D Mark II out of the case and took it for a whirl. (Manual Focus and all...) I'm no Vincent Laforet with the 5D Mark II, but I think I did alright and am relatively pleased with what I made. The league knew nothing about this video, so if it gets pulled down that could have something to do with it. It was shot in about an hour and a half, edited in about 2 hours on a Macbook Pro, and I don't have any canned audio to throw over the top of it or I'm sure it would be much much cooler. Like Blue hair in a japanese cartoon kind of cool...or pouring a glow stick into Homestarrunner's mountain dew during a Techno song. (I hear they have to pump your stomach if you drink that stuff...) Otherwise the girls are getting ready for Season 4, and so am I. You should be too. More soon.
So I must be doing something right with the blog as someone reminded me today that it had been about a week since my last updated. In the last week I have been absolutely insanely busy so I guess I'm not surprised that I hadn't noticed, but I am here now with all sorts of factoids, and marginally interesting anecdotes from the last couple of days to spread onto the internets like a thin layer of peanut butter. Last week when I posted the blog about weddings I was waiting for the one and only Heather (as seen in this blog post). I was waiting for her to pick me up to go to the airport as I was traveling to Sioux Falls South Dakota with the Naptown Roller girls for their first WFTDA sanctioned bout of Season 4. (Nikon D700, 6400ISO, Nikon 18-35mmF3.5-F4.5@18mm. 1/80th@F3.5)
As I've said in the past Sports in general are tough to shoot and this derby bout was no slouch in itself. The venue was an expo hall that had literally just gotten done being the fair. It was 50 degrees in the venue, super wicked dark, and it smelled like Manure. How's that for motivation? Motivation to not sit on the floor that is (which of course I did, because well..........I'm that guy.) Anyway, the girls played hard and suffered a tough loss. As usual I was extremely glad to be allowed to go. Southwest Airlines had other plans for my return home, but that's another story; possibly a story involving my hatred for the severely antiquated, "paper plane ticket". The halftime show was remote control cars, which if I do say so myself were freakin sweet. The only problem is that at 1/400th a second at 8,000ISO i couldn't stop them mid air off the jumps. They might be the grainiest blurriest photos of something moving in the dark that I've ever shot. (Other than when I print things on sandpaper eat oreo cookies over my opened camera that is...) If there was a dial on my camera that read studio photos on one side, and super insanely dark you'll never get the shot otherwise on the other; my camera was just below the insane side. I'm glad I got to practice shooting before the home season starts though; it's always good to get a bit of a warm up. You can look at the rest of the pictures from the trip here. (Nikon D3, 1600ISO, Nikon 70-200mmF2.8VR@125mm. Nikon SB900 behind camera left zoomed to 200mm Fired by pocket wizard about 30 feet off the track taped to the outer railing of a set of bleachers set to 1/16th power. Nikon SB900 behind camera right zoomed to 200mm Fired by pocket wizard about 40 feet off the track taped to the outer railing of a set of bleachers set to 1/16th power. Both Speedlights were aimed at Turn 1.)
I did get a new camera at work this week though, and I've been using it non stop to run it through the rigors. I am no longer allowed to say that I am not allowed to have nice things as they purchased me a brand spankin new Canon 5D Mark II. I dig the resolution but the autofocus is a little slow and from what I can tell not quite as accurate as I like. Great camera though, and the video is what it was primarily purchased for anyway. Speaking of video, I produced another Gunner video this week at the Butler Homecoming. It was with the other HD camera at the office, but it is hot through the internet tubes as of this morning. The Chariot Race was neat for sure, and Gunner seemed to really be a hit with the students. You can check that video out here.
I'll post more of what I've done this week as it goes live, but as I've said I've been working a lot of video this week. In fact I even spent some time practicing with the 5D Mark II's video as it is Manual Focus Only when it comes to video. Some would say that is a downfall, I'd prefer to think it'll just take a little longer to adapt to. Practice makes perfect is what I'm told, but I'd prefer to think that the more I practice the luckier I get. It always seemed that way with golf anyway. I really look forward to the possibilities that this camera has. My 8 extreme long term readers will remember when I shot the Music video for KJ Testin earlier this year with a 5D mark II. If you don't remember, you can check it out here. To get a little practice in the hopes that I might get lucky with it I shot some video at Roller Derby practice tonight. I'm working on throwing something together with it, but I'm not going to lie iMovie is the only thing I have on this computer and I hate it, so you'll have to wait. I think maybe now I've got a few ideas for at the newspaper as well as for the Roller Derby rolling around inside my noodle. You'll just have to wait and see. More soon.
