Optics, Filmmaking and Triggers

There’s been quite a bit of news lately on various things relating to photography (although, nothing really new or exciting from Canon, apart from more confusion over 5D Mk III film vs still and the inevitable 1Ds Mk IV non-existent camera (*yawn*). But I digress, Gizmodo ran an article on high quality optics with a title I love – “Cameras are for Christmas, lenses are for life” – Amen to that!!

What really surprised me was that the lenses I lusted after are actually the cheapest cine lenses you can buy!! Who would have thought 7 Zeiss compact primes costing $US 21,000 for the set would be called “cheap”!! Still, $C 25,000 for a single Leica Summilux does make the full Zeiss set look like a bargain!!

The article highlights the same advice I give to all photographers who ask me what they should buy – lenses last a lifetime, save your pennies and buy the best glass you can tolerably afford!! It will serve you far longer than any digital body ever will!!

On other things, my camera axe first tests resulted in a note from a reader who mentioned a project on Kickstarter called TriggerTrap. It looks interesting, will be half the price of the Camera Axe, and should have most of the features. I think the one thing that surprised me was that the laser light sensor and a basic piezo microphone are on board – that was the one thing that annoyed me about my old trigger, I had to keep the unit itself close to the action!! Although the ready-built “pro” version is intended to be water resistent, I’ve learnt from bitter experience that the best place for your trigger device is as far away from the action as you can get it!!

On the plus side, the TriggerTrap has a USB interface so that other funky things can be done!! I’m a bit of a tinkerer, so I liked that idea and wish my Camera Axe had the same!

Check out the Kickstarter page and get your hands on one on the cheaps (it closes in a couple of days!)

Google+ FTL

Oh Google, so naive early on when you said you wouldn’t be evil, now look at you – congratulations on building a more useful Facebook on steroids, and then undermining all the goodness with your TOS… Perhaps they learnt this one from Facebook, but serious photographers (amateur or professional) should be concerned. Similarly, all forms of digital artistry are equally affected, perhaps more… Read on

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More Chase, and DIY Professional?

Everyone who reads my ramblings knows I have a thing for Chase Jarvis – he lives the notion that photography is a business, and I have to admire that dedication to his business!! Just because he happens to take an OK image every now and then certainly doesn’t hurt (and Chase, should you ever read this, I really mean “mind blowing awesome image”!!)

But I digress – Chase is doing my head in again, with his throw-away pearls of wisdom!! In a post he did last month (yes, I’m slightly behind on my RSS feeds), Chase suggested photographers should “Stop trying to get everyone to like your work”. He makes a great point, and it’s like Chase is talking DIRECTLY TO ME!!!

How many of us have an awesome idea for a shot – and then over a few minutes, hours, days, weeks, that brilliant idea loses its shine, puts a few doubts in your mind, and before you know it – you hate it! I’ve bin’d so many ideas using this process, it’s a wonder I ever shoot anything!! (Stop laughing at me, I do actually shoot sometimes!!). But Chaswami is correct, I need to “quit with my shifty eyes” and stop looking at what everyone else is doing – and just get on with my stuff!!

Here’s hoping I can convert this concept into more spontaneous shoots – some of the best images I’ve seen and admired came from that breathtaking idea moment being immediately followed up with some action!!

On a side note, I was impressed with the idea of a cheap PVC Flash Bracket for off-camera flash photography. However, what are the chances you’ll ever do a second fashion or catalogue gig if you used one of those on a commercial project!! It’s annoying and irrelevant, but commercial clients will notice cheap gear – it shouldn’t make a difference to the photos, but it will make a difference to the number of zeros you can put on your invoice!

Camera Axe first tests

Finally got a chance to test out the Camera Axe I purchased (and built) a little while back. I’ve been itching to try out some commercial advertising style product shots using water splashes – the picture in my head was along the lines of this ad from 2009 (and I realise that Coca Cola spends a bucket load on editing in post!).

Liquids are good at misbehaving – they never seem to make the shape you want! But they do have the advantage of making other cool shapes you never expected! Read on for more!

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