Hey Girl, Nice Shot

The Barnwood Rug via Savvy Photographer

If you have been on the Savvy Photographer website recently, or visited their booth at Imaging USA, you may have noticed the insanely cool barnwood floor rug they are offering for sale.  

 

Barnwood rug?

Yep, that's what I thought too.  It looks like a real floor in the photos so I asked if she would take some detail shots of the edge because I was just having trouble envisioning how this could possibly have been a rug!!

And happily she posted some new picture with some of the details about the edge...

 

She described it as something more like a giant mousepad.  NOW I can see.  It looks like such a cool product and a great way to have a mobile flooring system for when you need it without the expense of actually putting in barnwood floors.  Learn more or order your barnwood floor rug: Barnwood Floor Rug (via Savvy Photographer).

The iPad - a New Tool for Professional Photographers?

As I sit in a Starbucks working on my Macbook Air, waiting for a call from my mechanic on my iPhone, it should come as no surprise that I'm already drooling over the new Apple tablet, the iPad.  Yes, unfortunate naming...they could really have thought harder about that one but all in all, it looks like a great internet appliance that would fit in perfectly with my increasingly Apple heavy technology.

 

In case you are living under a rock, yesterday Apple announced their new iPad - a tablet device based on the iPhone operating system. In a lot of ways it is like a giant iTouch (the iphone without the phone part).  It appears to be about the same size as the larger kindle but with a yummy color display.

As I watched the live feed from engadget yesterday, I was thinking about how fun this little item would be.  Here are a few ways...

• Showing client slideshows and videos on a device they can hold in their hand!!!  Since the iPad will run any of the iPhone apps, it seems that the Animoto iPhone app would work on it which means I could show any of my Animoto videos on it.  I love how they look on the iPhone and seeing them bigger but still in a hand held device would be really appealing.
• Reviewing client images!  Load up their gallery on there and be able to meet them anywhere...Starbucks, their home, a park, and show them their gallery without requiring any additional equipment.  And sliding through a gallery is way more fun than using a mouse, right?
• Help with ordering-Since the device is wifi enabled you would be able to connect to your online gallery system and help them place their order.  I know I have a few clients that just can't seem to place their order themselves but I like to get all my orders in the same way to make sure the go through the workflow.  With this it would be even easier to meet them for a quick ordering session.
• It is small enough to fit into your bag to carry with you to shoots so you can browse while you wait for your client, and also have access to review online information such as your policies or package pricing.  Also, I imagine it won't be long before there is an application that allows you to create contracts that can be signed using a stylus on the iPad directly (a paperless contract!!!).  There are already applications that allow you to sign for credit card transactions on an iPhone and this seems like it would be very close to that. How great would that be for contracts, model releases, policy acceptance?
• With Keynote, the Apple presentation software, you could just prop that baby up and show a presentation.  I am thinking about trying Keynote out for my talk at the Workshop on the Waterfront and possibly re-writing my class for moms using Keynote so I could see it being handy to have a portable version other than on my laptop that could be handy for more one-on-one teaching.
• And on the non-client side, being able to browse email, read blog posts, and catch up on facebook without using my laptop seems like a bonus.  Using the touch screen instead of a traditional keyboard seems like a great solution to someone like me that likes to scan online content while I watch TV at night.  
• With a camera connector kit option it seems possible that you could review pictures with clients in almost real time to make sure you got THE SHOT that they are looking for.  If that is your thing.  Not mine...I like to go home and live with my pictures a bit and edit them before showing a client.  But I could see this being a great feature for commercial photographers.
• There are mini-projectors out now that work with the iPhone so surely those types of things will come out for use with the iPad too! And with optional components it can be connected to your TV or projector for presentations on the go!
• And that is before the applications designed just for the iPad start showing up!  I can't wait to see what those look like!!

The negatives that stood out to me...

• I am surprised it didn't come with a camera but with my iPhone and my laptop both sporting them (in addition to when I carry my big mama camera around) that isn't really that important to me!
• No support for flash on website.  While I kinda understand not supporting flash on an iPhone, it seems that on something bigger like the iPad that is designed to be an internet device that they wouldn't build in support for flash. 
• No multitasking. Which means I can't be checking on my Facebook status via the Facebook app and reading tweets via my Twitter app at the same time. Just like on my iPhone when one opens the other closes.
• Right now the iPhone version of google docs is read only.  I wonder if with more screen real estate they would make it read/edit.  That would be sweet!

The pricing is a little confusing.  The base 16 GB model with wifi but no 3G is $499.  But is is $130 more for the 3G version (which will connect to ATTs wireless network) which seems like a big jump.  I'm actually wondering how much I would use 3G (don't forget you'd need to add monthly service).  I also wonder if there is any kind of service discount if you are already an ATT customer (which I am with my iPhone).  Or if I can tether it to my iPhone in those cases where I'm working somewhere without wifi.

In the end, I think the form factor is handy.  I do worry about my Macbook Air screen getting bent or something spilling on the keys.  I could definitely see room in my world for all three (the Macbook Air, iPad, and iPhone).  But I'm a little more gadget obsessed than most people.

What about you?  Are you drooling over this new device?  Do you have other thoughts as to how it could be useful with your business?

How I use my Shootsac

I officially love my Shootsac.  I bought mine a few months ago with the yellow and white polka dot pattern cover. 

I store my spare lenses in the inside pockets.  I keep the center pocket empty so I can fit my Canon 5D Mark II body in there with no lens on it.  In the outside pockets I usually keep my cell phone, some little toys like a pez dispenser and wooden block that I can use during a shoot.  Today I figured out that I can also stick my hand puppets in there instead of having them hanging out of my pockets.

I do a LOT of running and squatting during sessions and the nice thing about the ShootSac is that it totally stays put on my hip.

Canon 5D Mirror Problem

In the Fall the mirror in my Canon 5D detached in the middle of a newborn session.  I only had a digital rebel backup which was actually hard for me to use because I've gotten so use to my full frame happy place with the 5D.  So I rented a 5D until my camera was fixed and was happy when my camera came back to me with no charge on the repair since it was way outside of warranty.

Then I heard of another friend's camera doing the same then.  Then another.

Turns out to be a pretty common problem.

So Canon released a Service Notice noting that this is a "rare" problem but that camera that experience this issue will be repaired free of change.  So if it happens to you, at least you'll know that you won't be charged for the repair.  Now that the 5D is my backup camera and I've already had the repair I have high hopes that I will get to stay in my happy place. 

more lens tests

I took the kids out to the botanical gardens to see their clean-up status after Hurricane Ike and to try out my new camera/lens.  All in all, I was happy with both!

Sebastian at f/1.8 using the 5D Mark II and 50mm 1.2L

Abby at f/1.8.  Here you can see that back focus problem that is bantered about online whenever anyone talks about this lens.  Apparently if you center point focus when you are close to the subject it does back focus and I saw this on a lot of my test shots.  I'll definitely need to practice with this lens to compensate for the difference between this and my 50mm 1.4.  But the color and bokeh are fantastic.  I was really impressed by those!!

A few other test shots...

Updating Equipment

At the end of the year I got to try some new equipment, and buy some too!  Christmas was a good season for me and I reinvested in some new equipment for 2009.

Buy: Canon 5D Mark II Camera Body
Yeah, I bought one.  I was lucky and got one direct from Amazon when they happened to have them in stock.  I haven't really had a chance to do much with it but I'm hoping to get out this weekend to test it out.    I'll be sure to post a full review with pictures when I have more time to spend getting to know it!  [PS.  as of 11:15am on 1/9 Amazon has the body in stock but they go out of stock quickly!]

Buy: Canon 50mm 1.2L Lens
I really struggled with this purchase.  I have heard from so many photographers that this lens just wasn't worth the extra money.  I think when they say that though they just mean from a sharpness point of view.  But after my 50mm 1.4 lost focus abilities for the SECOND time this fall, I knew I needed a change.  I debated just buying a second 1.4 so I'd at least have a backup but after talking to the person at my local camera store started to second guess.  One of the benefits of the L lens is that it is just a better made lens so it is less likely to break down.  And that really sold me on it.  So I ordered one.  And when I got it I put it on and took a few test shots. AND I LOVED THEM!  One of the things I didn't really expect was that the bokah would be so different.  But the blur is smoother and just yummy!  I mean, I don't know how else to describe it.  Yes, I'll post some test shot pictures of that soon too!  Oh, and it is heavy!

Borrow: Canon 24-70mm 2.8L Lens
My sister in law picked up this lens at Christmas during her visit to Houston and let me borrow it to try it out and I really liked it.  It is likely going to be my next lens purchase.  The sharpness is fantastic and the images had a great quality to them.  I can definitely see having fun with this lens!  I was a little sad to give it back.  And I could see it being a great combo with the new 5D Mark II.

When You Don't Have a Backup

So a couple of weeks ago I was setting up for a newborn session in a family home.  I took out my camera and took a couple of test shots.  I noticed that on my second or third shot the shutter seemed to be slow.  Then, all went black.  And there was a little noise of something jingling in my camera.

It was not Santa.

"OH CRAP"

The mirror in my 5D was just floating around in the camera - not attached to anything.

Luckily I knew the mom well enough to just fess up and say "I can come back in two days and get a rental for the newborn pictures."

I've always considered my Digital Rebel my backup.  But since it is not full framed it would actually force me to take pictures DIFFERENTLY than I normally do. And, yes, I recognize it is not a good backup for a 5D but I've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the new 5D to come out so I could use my OLD 5D as a backup.

So I immediately went to the LensProToGo website and found that to my absolute JOY they had a 5D body in stock.   A few clicks later and I requested it with overnight shipping.  I called the three other clients I had over the next two days to reschedule since I would probably not get the camera in time for either of my sessions the next day.

A short time later I got a call from Paul at LensProToGo verifying that he was ready to ship the camera and to make sure I was ok with the extra fee for the overnight shipping.  YES, YES, YES!

He was nice as can be and I felt good knowing the camera was on its way.

The camera arrived the next day as planned.  I opened the box and found the return shipping label all ready to go, and the pelican case holding the camera.  Inside was the camera body with the battery grip, the two batteries, and a charger.  I was very happy.

Since I'm still waiting for my camera to get back from Canon, I still have the rental and it has been working out great.  Since it is the same camera body I'm used to it was super easy for me to go in and set it up with my custom settings.  And knowing that I just put it back in the case, tape the box backup, and slap a label on it helps me to not feel like I have ONE MORE THING to do when it is time to send it back.

So check them out.  I'm totally happy with them.  And if you are a NAPP member you get a discount (yeah, love to work my member discounts).

DIY White Balance

I have an expodisc that I use for custom white balance and I love the results.  The colors are so much truer straight out of the camera...when I take the time to set it!

If you don't want to shell out the $$ for an actual expodisc you can take the DIY approach to make your own.  What a great idea!

Check out the post on the DIYPhotography blog.

Mobile Studio Setup

I've gotten a lot of questions about my mobile studio setup so today I went ahead and set it up my living room since my baby girl was NOT interested in taking an afternoon nap.  Let me preface this with "I am not a studio lighting specialist" but this is as much as I know how to do.

So I usually start out putting up my background support system.  I have the Impact Portable Support System.  It is two stands, a cross bar made up of four bars so you can use two or more depending on the width you need, and a carry bag that it all fits into.  For the setup shown in my living room below I just used two of the bars connected which I think makes about an 8 foot length.  I have three backdrops: Black, Blue, and a textured blue.  All are 10'x20'.  I use the black one the most.  I've used it a bunch for newborn sessions which are typically black and white with the black background.  I've never used the bright blue (my husband wanted it to blue screen stuff).  I have only used the textured blue one a few times.

Recently I added three 53" rolls of Savage Paper.  The one shown is Rustic.  I heard a rumor that they plan on coming out with another size that will be between the 53" roll and the 107" roll which is great because the 53" roll is okay for one kid but not much more than that.  This was actually my very first time trying out the paper and I still need to fine tune my technique but it was cool to try it out.

For my lights I have the Digi Bee package from Alien Bees.  Alien Bees are a good beginner lighting system because they are not super expensive and they are pretty easy to get started with.  I choose not to upgrade to the B800 because I didn't think I needed the extra output since I typically shoot individuals but if you plan on doing families and larger groups you might want to opt for the higher output lights.  The package included two lights, two light stands, two carry bags, a silver/white umbrella, a shoot thru umbrella, and the transmitter/receiver combination for firing off the lights.

Here's a rough diagram of my setup:

I have one light set to light the backdrop.  The amount of light you have hitting the paper will alter the look of the paper.   I took a few test shoots and adjusted as necessary to get the look I wanted.  I probably should have pulled out more of the paper so the subject would not be as close to the background/backlight because it did create a shadow.  I used the shoot thru umbrella with the second light to light my subject but with a softer light thanks to the umbrella.  I used my Sekonic light meter to measure the light so I could get the amount of light I wanted.  Normally you'd want your subject to be about 6 feet from the background but I didn't have quite that much room. 

Here's the setup in my living room...Abby helped me out!  She just started walking so she was all over the place.

And here is a picture from this setup.  BTW, the yellow duck is from Michael's and it is a hand puppet that quacks.  Abby thinks it is so funny so it is great to use when I need to get a quick smile from her.  I also did a quick black and white conversion so you could see how the paper looks in black and white.

Printing: In-House or White House

Many photographers struggle to decide whether to print in house, or to go with one of the many pro-labs now offering affordable prints to pro-photographers.  If you are printing your pro-prints at Walmart...well, you need to rethink that pronto and get a White House Custom Color account.  Your customers will thank you.  Especially when the prints still look awesome 20 years from now.

When my sister-in-law first got into photography, I was helping her with a lot of her digital retouching.  Sometimes though, the prints that we had worked on would come out looking weird when they were printed by the pro-lab she was using.  After a dizzying experience at the first PPA conference we attended together we cooked up the idea of me becoming a mini-pro lab for her.  Here's what that led to:

First, I ordered the Epson 9800 printer.  It is a thing of great beauty.  It'll print up to 44" wide.  Think about that for a minute.  That is REALLY big.  It'll print on canvas, photo paper, and fine art paper with no problems.  I can use it with rolled paper or feed individual sheets into it.  We had grand visions of selling lots and lots of big prints which would help defray the cost.  It takes up a good chunk of my office space.  It cost about $6000.  The ink cartridges I buy are around $120 each, and it takes 8 colors of ink.

Next, I needed paper.  After testing a few different luster papers we decided we liked the Kodak Professional Luster paper the best.  So I ordered up a few rolls.  10" rolls are great for 8x10 prints and smaller.  16" rolls are great for mid-sized prints, and for bulk 4x6 prints.  24" rolls are great for big prints and mass printing but I personally don't recommend paper prints bigger than 16x20.  Instead I recommend canvas prints.  So, I tried a few different canvases and decided I liked the color gamut and texture of the Epson Canvas the best.  I use the PremierArt Water Resistent Canvas.  We really REALLY wanted to offer greeting cards and so I went on a search for the perfect paper for that paper.  I LOVED the Hahnemuhle Fine Art Papers but I really thought having something on a roll would be better.  I tried a variety of different papers from Breathing Color but despite their claim to be anti-curl, the paper still had major curl after printing and I needed something flat for the cards.  Now I have a closet full of rolls of Breathing Color paper sample rolls.  I tried pre-scored fine-art paper cards but I couldn't print full-bleed on them, and they didn't work well on my desktop printer feeder.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I also have an Epson 2200.  I did decide I could do custom flat cards pretty easily with sheet paper and cutting the cards to size.  I'm now using Hahnemuhle Museum Etching paper for single sided prints, and Hahnumuhle Photo Rag Duo for double sided printing.  Both product beautiful prints and have great texture and weight.  I use the Photo Rag for my business cards which I print in small batches so I can customize them for the season. 

Okay, so now I needed envelopes so I ordered various samples and decided on the bright white envelopes and translucent envelopes, both from Red River Paper.  And I ordered some stationary boxes for delivering cards and envelopes to customers.

Well, I didn't want to have all this equipment and supplies and not have beautiful prints so I ordered the X-Rite Pulse ColorElite System which allowed me to not only calibrate my monitor, but to create custom profiles for my printer for the various papers that I use.  These are more accurate than using the canned profiles.  The cost for the system, about $1200.

When we started out I was pretty much doing all my work on my bitty little mama laptop.  You know, a small laptop that I can tote around with one hand while carrying one of the kids with the other.  So, I upgraded to a massive Alienware workstation which I think ran about $3000.  It is huge and very heavy so it sits on the floor under my desk.  I have a dual monitor setup with one large monitor as my workspace, and a smaller monitor where I can keep palettes open and a small window with TV (because I need TV on to work).

And this list doesn't include the 54" Rotatrim cutter I have to cut the paper/canvas that comes off the printer, the Breathing Color Glamour II varnish I use to finish my canvases, the packaging for the prints, the time it takes to actually cut all those prints, the shipping to send them to my sister-in-law.  Yeah, So we're talking about about a $15000 investment to get started the right way.  That is a lot of prints. And I still can't do EVERYTHING. I don't gallery wrap, I don't do a lot of mounting, I still don't do folded cards.   And the supplies are not cheap which are the recurring costs.

If I had it to do over again: I'd go to http://www.whcc.com and we'd each setup an account and we'd do all the printing through them.  If I had calibrated my monitor we probably would have had better luck printing with them anyway.  Now my sister-in-law is using them for almost all of her printing because they have practically unlimited options (papers/finishes/mounting/sizes) and their prices are hard to beat.  And if you place a big enough order you might even get some blow-pops in your order.

Having said that, I love that I can print myself.  But it is definitely not for everyone.  I just spend $400 on restocking paper to prepare for the holiday printing.  It cost me almost $1000 every time I have to refill all the inks in my printer. The good news is I can get the inks from a local distributer and I can even pick them up so I don't keep a big supply here in my home.  I moved the game room around in our house so half of it houses the printer, cutter, and a couple of tables for working on which are "hidden" behind a large bookcase.  I use the bookcase as a room divider and the area in front works at a client review area with lots of samples of my products and some seating for the families when they come to see their slideshows (which I project against a blank wall across from the bookcase).  My linen closet has been cleared of towels and now houses all my paper and packaging.

What has your experience been with printing yourself versus using a pro lab?