Texture and Tone

Photographers are attracted to the strangest things. A splash of light against a wall, a patch of peeling paint resembling nothing more than an artist's palette; decay. The reminder that something passed by today will not be there forever. Stop now. Make a picture.

From a technical viewpoint, the tonal range of this picture is enormous and although the internet version inevitably compresses the shadow detail, in the original file you can see all the way into the darkest recesses. This is an ISO 800 image, hand held and without any reflectors bouncing back the light from the window. And although I carefully selected the exposure to retain the highlight detail, it's otherwise straight from the camera. No HDR tricks. This is a level of performance you only see from the high end professional cameras which retain dynamic range as ISO increases.

Nikon D3 24-70mm f2.8 lens 1/200sec F8

Japan Earthquake Update

A statement posted today on the Nikon corporate website gives an update on how the company has been affected by last week's earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The name of the city of Sendai will be familiar to Nikon users as the location of the plant manufacturing the professional camera bodies. Several other optical companies  also based in the area  are thought to be similarly affected.

The developers of the popular iOS app ShutterSnitch have announced that until 20th March 2011 100% of profits from sales will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross.

The British Red Cross is also processing donations on behalf of the Japanese Red Cross.

Out of Focus

A shoot in the midlands earlier this week meant the opportunity to visit the annual Focus on Imaging show at the National Exhibition Centre.

Attention grabbing product launches were thin on the ground this year with Nikon being between major announcements and Canon's rather dramatic last minute withdrawal.  Plenty to see on the Lastolite stand though with their demonstrations and an excellent lighting tutorial on the neighbouring Westcott stand both making the visit and the £8.00 admission price car park charge worthwhile. Westcott products tend not to receive the attention they deserve in this country and Burgess Meredith was probably the last person to be genuinely excited by a new umbrella, but their ingenious folding designs and optical white covers on the shoot through models make them the umbrella of choice here. The umbrella does seem to be undergoing a resurgence at the moment, with giant sized alternatives to the big Elinchrom Octa on show.

Meanwhile, back at the Lastolite Batcave, their designers have been busy developing a huge number of new products at least one of which I can see being useful in my work on a regular basis. US photographer, Joe McNally's name has found it's way, literally, onto several new products including a development of the light panel which holds four SB900 (or equivalent) flashes on an extension arm. That's £1340 just for the flashes, if you're counting. Not far off the cost of a two head Elinchrom Ranger Quadra kit and not as powerful. Obviously, used individually, four SB900's may well be the more versatile solution, particularly if used together with the product which really caught my eye, the new Hotrod strip softboxes. I've long been a fan of the Ezybox Hotshoe for fast moving location portraiture where huge amounts of flash power is not always necessary.

This portrait of Jaronne for a magazine feature was made at the side of a busy London street using a single SB800 with an Ezybox Hotshoe . A fast way to work without drawing too much attention to a photo shoot.

You're never more than six feet from an Orphan Works bill

Orphan Works legislation is bearing down upon us in the UK once more, less than 12 months after it was last thrown out of Parliament. This time, if it's not our own government it seems the EU is coming for us too.

So what is an Orphan Work and how does it affect photography?

Simply put, an Orphan Work is  any intellectual property for which the owner cannot easily be traced.  Following a "diligent search" in Orphan Speak, the work, or image in our case, may be copied, reproduced and distributed without the inconvenience of any money changing hands. Except that is, for a token fee deposited with a yet to be created government orphan licensing agency.

Unfortunately for photographers, it's all too easy for our work to become orphaned once it appears on the internet. Few sites upload IPTC metadata in image files and many will actively strip it out. Once an image has been downloaded it's an orphan.

If that wasn't bad enough, the global nature of the internet means the work of photographers from the US, with its system of copyright registration and punitive damages, to Germany where intellectual property is inalienable, will find their work has not only lost its protection but the UK Exchequer has benefited at their expense.

Travels with my Quadraunt

  
Two years since the introduction of the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra and some 18 months since the first units arrived in the UK, mine has seen a lot of use. Let's see how it's working out between us.





The Quadra offers 400 W/S of power, delivered asymmetrically to two outputs and I bought the two head kit version, complete with Skyport transmitter and spare battery. The power is split in a 2:1 ratio between the outputs with the lower powered outlet providing a shorter flash duration.

Starting with the heads themselves. They're small and light enough to comfortably fit into a camera bag or pack if necessary and although they look fragile, mine have survived many falls onto hard surfaces without damaging the flash tube. Something which would have almost certainly meant a replacement tube in my previous system. Because the heads are small they require a slightly tricky adapter to fit regular sized Elinchrom softboxes and reflectors. My advice would be to fit the adapter to the softbox and then attach the head before mounting everything on a stand. Elinchrom state that the maximum size of softbox that can be used is the 1 metre sizes but I use a 1.3 metre Octa with no problems. Any larger and I suspect it would become difficult to tighten the adapter sufficiently to prevent the sotbox from creeping.

Attaching the leads to the pack can be a bit of a fiddle, not least because that area of the pack is congested with the strap attachment points and the outlet covers flapping around on their rubber ties. The latter resolves itself fairly quickly as the strap's D rings chew away at the rubber until the ties break free. Once the first one had broken, I cut the second away with a scalpel. So far, I still have both covers. Offering the plug to the socket in the correct position is easier said than done as both are black and there are no external notches or markings to help. In a hurry, it's tempting to try turning the plug in the hope that it will slip into place in the socket but this will eventually bend the pins and as the leads themselves are an expensive item I painted a white spot on the plugs to help align them.

The batteries are quite heavy but I would advise carrying the spare at all times as the pack will go into its slower recycling mode to preserve battery life long before the end of the charge is reached. The best field strategy would seem to be to swap the battery once it slows and place it on charge. With luck, it will be recharged by the time it is needed back in service on the pack. The battery attachment points on the pack are again a slightly fiddly design and one of mine has already snapped. I've spoken to Elinchrom about this and they tell me they've not noticed any unusual call for spares. I'm not the only photographer I know who's broken one though and it's hard to see how any special care could be used to attach the battery. So it's something to watch for. A turn of gaffer tape around the pack should be enough to hold the battery in place in an emergency.

The Skyport transmitter can be used  not only to sync the flash, but also to adjust the power and turn the modeling light on and off.  The reliability of the radio system is good, although not quite on a par with Pocket Wizard Plus units. I've encountered situations where the Skyport wouldn't fire the flash more often than I have with Pocket Wizard's which in my experience have only ever been thwarted once, on the roof of a police station in the middle of the radio masts. The Skyport does occasionally seem to freeze, requiring the removal and reinsertion of the battery, so this is always something to try when problems occur.

Design issues notwithstanding, the Quadra has generally exceeded my expectations of it, particularly in terms of durability and unless you really need the extra stop and a half of it's bigger brother, and particularly if you have to carry your own equipment, I'd recommend it.

Wow, great picture!!

"I found these great pictures on this site. It's on the internet so they're free, right?"

Actually, probably not. In fact if you can't see it explicitly stated in proximity to the picture, you should assume someone will require paying for you to use that image on your site. If in doubt it's always best to contact the photographer.

Sadly, there are tools that make it only too easy to indiscriminately  harvest pictures from insecure sites. If you're using one of these you're almost certainly one step away from breaking the law depending on what you do next, once your hard disc is heaving with booty.

My own images are stored using the Photoshelter system. That's where the links on the right take you. They're safe. If you're a photographer with your own server you might want to think about blocking the harvesters via an .htaccess file. No, I don't know what that is either. Luckily, US based photographer David Brabyn does.

Thanks for your interest. This blog is under construction. In the meantime please visit my main site

© Tom Parkes