Drowning Pool

These photos were some of the first I took with the X-E1's back in April when I got them. This was part of a shoot in Europe with a heavy metal band called Drowning Pool. While heavy metal is not really something that I listen to much, it was a fun tour and the guys in the band were a lot of fun to work with. 

One of the complaints I had heard about the X-E1's was that they had a hard time focusing under less than ideal light. I figured a rock concert would be an excellent place to test how well the camera could actually perform. I shot the show with two bodies and the four primes, 14mm, 18mm, 35mm, and 60mm (35mm equivalent 21mm, 28mm, 50mm and 90mm)

It was a great night and a great shoot. Initially,  I was worried that I would miss stuff, or that it wouldn't be in focus, but I had just as many keepers as if I had shot it with my Canon gear (which was sitting safely back stage in case the X-E1's weren't up to the task.) One of the things I found is that people paid me a lot less attention with the Fujis than when I use my Canon gear. I guess a smaller camera does not elicit that response to make faces and do weird stuff when someone is taking your picture.

But I was really amazed at how well the metering worked (under crazy, always changing lighting), how well the focus worked, and how well the camera was able to handle some fairly contrasty scenes at high ISO.

This was the night that I really fell in love with what the Fuji's could do. 

And a couple of photos... 

Why am I using an iPad mini?

A question I am asked frequently is why a photographer (me) would use an iPad mini versus a regular sized iPad.

When the mini was first released, I had the current retina display version of the regular iPad and was very happy with it. I looked at the mini as sort of a budget ipad and never really thought any more about it. And then a friend of mine, a photographer who travels as much as I do, got one, replacing his full sized iPad, and started raving about it.

It's funny now, looking back on it, that all the reasons I dismissed the mini as suitable for me were completely WRONG. 

1.  No retina display -- I bought into the retina display mindset fully. How could I ever go back? It really doesn't make that much of a difference on an iPad*. Yes the text is a little bit crisper on the retina, but other than that, it uses more battery power and quite honestly, photos look fine on the non retina display if you are looking at the photos and not searching to see pixels. (* It makes a huge difference on a MacBook Pro vs older screens.)

2. Older CPU so it's slow --  So it is the previous generation CPU, but so what? I do edit photos now and then on the iPad (more for fun and convenience than necessity) and it can churn though large raw files at nearly the same speed as the larger iPad. I mean if I was rendering large movies or something like that, it might make a difference, but it does fine with watching movies on iTunes, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. as well as playing games, including the FPS offerings. 

3. It's smaller- everything will be too small -- True, it is smaller. But everything looks fine on it. Editing photos, writing emails, facebook, etc. The only thing that it might make a difference is playing games where the simulated "thumb sticks" are on the lower right and left side of the screens. I find that my thumbs keep creeping up towards the center of the screen, but I blame my lazy thumbs for that more than the iPad mini design. 

4. There aren't any good protective cases --- WROOOONG. The Otter Box case for the mini is the best case I have ever had for any iPad... ever. It protects it fully (including the ports), looks good, doesn't add much bulk and means that I don't need a neoprene or some other sort of soft case to put it in when I carry it. In the Otter Box case, I can put it a camera bag, laptop bag, backpack, or whatever without having to worry about it getting beat up. 

So these were my main arguments against it, here are a few things I discovered after I bought it that make it an ideal travel companion.

It is much lighter -- I don't notice that I'm carrying it because it doesn't weigh as much as the regular iPads. It is also easier to hold when you find yourself in that weird spot where you are reading, surfing the web, playing games, etc. and you have to hold it for an extended period of time. It is much more comfortable to hold, and easy to hold one-handed. 

It is smaller -- It fits in every camera bag and backpack I own. When I had a full sized iPad, I had to make room to wedge it in most of my camera bag setups. It also took up almost as much room in my laptop bag as the laptop due to the footprint of the big iPad. The mini fits in everything. It'll even fit in my chestvest camera bag. It is much easier to carry around. 

The battery life is awesome -- I assumed that it being smaller, that the battery life would not be good. This thing seems to run forever on one charge. Doing a lot of overseas work, the iPad mini has been my companion now on a lot of 8 - 12 hour flights and the battery life is amazing. Part of this is because it is a smaller non retina display, so it requires a lot less power to keep it going. I use it a lot for reading books and surfing during downtime and it seems to last a lot longer when plugs are in short supply. 

Not entirely sure of my decision when I bought the mini, I kept my iPad3, expecting that I would continue to use it along with the mini. But after buying the mini, the full sized iPad just sat, unused. I was happier using the smaller iPad! I ended up selling the iPad3 about two months later after realizing I never used it!

The iPad mini with a picture of my daughter in ballet class. The image was shot with a Fuji X-E1 and 60mm lens and processed and edited on the mini

The Chair

I found this chair in an alley sitting in the cactus on a walk back home from the gym a while back. It was next to some trash bins so I assume it was meant to be thrown out. I shot it, and knew I liked it (the photo, not the chair), but spent most of the rest of my walk home trying to figure out what is was abouth the scene that grabbed me.

Was it the contrast between the green and red? Was it the fact that the chair, which didn't look to be in too bad of shape was abandoned in such a prickly spot amidst the cactus? Even though it is a total juxtaposition of elements, every time I look at the image, the chair just seems to belong there. Almost as though the cactus has grown up around it.

I guess in some ways it reminds me of a throne and in that setting, I suppose, a throne for a particularly prickly ruler of some sort.

Maybe what it is that gets me is the unanswered question of how did it end up there.

This was shot with my iPhone 5 (since I don't take a full loadout of cameras to the gym with me)

Happy Aug 6

Fuji

I have had the opportunity to shoot with the Fuji X-E1 bodies and primes for the last few months. If you are not familiar with them, they are beautiful cameras. They remind me of the Contax G bodies that were around in the late 90's and early 00's. There are a few important differences. The Fuji's are digital and the Contax G1/G2 were film bodies. The Fuji bodes can focus properly (and have only improved with a number of firmware updates) and the Contax bodies could never focus properly. But what they have in common is that they are both very attractive cameras that feel great when you are using them.

What was heartbreaking about the Contax G1/G2 bodies was that they felt so great when you held them and shot with them, but then were crushed with the results when you would get film back with images horribly back focused or front focused. The Contax cameras were rangefinders, but they did not include any type of split-focus or other focus confirmation in the viewfinder so you had to hope that the autofocus was focusing on what you wanted it to... and more frequently than not, it didn't.

But back to the Fuji's... the more I use them, the more I have fallen in love with the X-E1's. They are small, quiet bodies with sharp lenses, and what comes out of them rivals the quality of my DSLR's, even at high ISO. I also find that when I use them, I am able to blend in much better as a guy with a small digital camera or two versus using the Canon DSLR's and the EF-L zooms or primes. They have become my "personal" cameras. I was able to take some time after a couple of shoots in Germany and put the Canon's away and wander a few cities in Germany using the X-E1's and had an amazing time of not only really good food, but had a blast shooting... Here are a couple of images from one of the trips. I will post more images soon.

Charging laptop batteries

It is 3:45am. I am sitting here in my hotel room at the Radisson SAS Kuwait (which, incidentally has the best breakfast buffet I have ever had at a hotel... it is really something) looking at my laptop and three depleted batteries. After the 4 1/2 hour flight from San Diego to DC, and the 12 hour flight from DC to Kuwait, I have emptied all three batteries I brought with me.

One of my first orders of business is to recharge all my batteries. I travel with one of the new unibody aluminum MacBooks because it is a lot smaller than my 17" MacBook Pro and it is small enough that I can actually use it comfortably in the airplane... even if the person in front of me reclines their seat all the way.

So now I am at the hotel for an overnight stay and have to try to get some sleep and recharge all my batteries. Recharging this many batteries is always a hassle when you are trying to do it overnight, because you end up having to wake up every few hours to switch batteries.

I really dislike doing this, especially here, because Kuwait is 11 hours ahead of California time. That means that when my alarm goes off and wakes me up at 1am to switch batteries, to me, it feels like 2pm (I got here about 10 hours ago) and I just can't get back to sleep (I have that groggy I just woke up from a nap feel). So now I get to sit here watching my battery charge on the laptop... groggy but not going back to sleep.

With the unibody MacBook and 15" MacBook Pro, there is a battery cover that comes off under the machine to replace the battery. Initially I thought this was a pretty good idea. It saves weight on the batteries and on previous laptop models, I always seemed to end up with one Apple battery that didn't match the tone of my laptop. It was a few shades too light or dark. Not that this matters, since few other people peer at the underside of my laptop... but I knew... and it always bothered me.

Oh yeah... back to the MacBook battery cover... after a few times of sitting on the plane, with the laptop upside down on my lap and juggling the old dead battery and trying to avoid knocking my cranapple juice off the tray in front of me while trying to line up the little slots to get the batter cover to close back up, it makes me miss the simplicity of the older-style battery. All you did was use a coin to turn the switch under the laptop, the battery pops out, click the new one in, and you are back in business. It was a one handed process. There is no way to get the battery cover seated correctly on the laptop without two hands.

Hmmm. My mind wanders a bit when I am sleepy....

Something cool that I found at MacWorld this year was the U-Charge by FastMac. It allows you to charge your spare laptop batteries without the laptop. You plug in their brick (about the same size as a MacBook charging brick) and then attach the cable right to the battery terminals themselves.

Currently it will charge the older style MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well as Powerbooks and iBooks. FastMac said that their charging cable for the newest MacBook and 15" MacBook Pro is in production and will be available very soon. The cable is going to be about $20 if you already have a U-Charge unit and will be priced about the same as the existing unit if you wait and buy it when the cable is available.

It won't solve my battery door issue (minor as it may be) but at least I can be charging multiple batteries at one time... and hopefully getting more sleep when traveling.

Packing to go out of town.

I am out of town for the next week on an overseas shoot. I am hoping to post during my time that I am gone... but that all depends upon how crazy the schedule gets.

One of the things that I am always trying to try to perfect is how to pack for long out of town shoots. By nature, I like to bring everything that I might possibly need with me... and then some. The problem is that ends up being waaaay more than I could every sneak past the flight attendants as carry-on.

Each shoot is also different, so each time I have to weigh what to bring, and what to leave home.
But I am always trying to thin down my load, and bring only what I will need, but at the same time not leaving anything behind that I will end up really needing... and many of my shoots are in places where there is nowhere to pick up an extra battery charger, memory cards, or rent lights or lenses if I end up needing them (or needing more that I packed.)

It is also tough because I refuse to check camera or computer gear. I want to carry it on the plane, and carry it off the plane so I know that it arrives in one piece.

I have had a few memorable experiences where my luggage did not arrive when I did. The most extreme was covering Hurricane Rita when I worked for five or six days with only what I carried on the plane... my cameras and my laptop. No clothes, no mosquito repellent (which I sorely needed... I looked like I had chicken pox by the time I was done), no toothbrush, or anything else that I had packed. It was a drag. Even worse, since it was a fairly serious storm, there were no stores open so there was nowhere to buy clothes or anything else... I was ripe by the end of that assignment.

I was on a shoot once that was in a more remote area of the U.S. and we were going to be lighting everything... so I carefully packed my lights in a Pelican case and my light stands, gels, grids etc, in a separate case. The lights showed up... the second case with everything else didn't. The nearest place to rent lighting gear was about 4 hours away and we had to start shooting in a couple of hours. The airline was reeeeeeeeealy sorry... but still they didn't make it and we had to make do. The client understood, and it turned out OK, but it was still not the most ideal situation.

So I don't even want to think about what it would be like to arrive somewhere and not have my camera gear and/or laptop. I can make due without most things, but as a photographer I need the cameras to do my thing.

I have accepted the fact that there is no way for me to carry-on lights along with cameras and my laptop (unless I am just using 580's, or have brought an assistant with me so I can use them to carry on the lights) most of the time when I have to bring lights, I just have to check them and pray that they make it.

The one thing that has totally made traveling a little more fun it is the ThinkTank Photo Airport International II rolling bag . It holds:

5d MkII's x2
50D
16-35 mm f2.8
24-70mm f2.8
70-200 mm f2.8 IS
24mm f1.4 II
50mm f1.2 L
135mm f2
580 EX II flashes x 2
small bounce cards, off camera cables, etc.
lots of camera batteries
chargers for the 5D MkII's and 50D
memory cards
flashlight and lots of other odds and ends.

It is a great bag. It has survived multiple trips to Iraq and Afghanistan along with lots of other places both in and out of the U.S.. It is one of the things that has made travel easier. It is also international sized, so I have never had a problem bringing it as a carry on... even on overseas flights. It also fits in the overhead on the smaller jets.

Along with the Airport International II, I also carry the Shapeshifter. for the laptop. Thinktank has really cornered the market in good travel gear for the photographer.

But I am off for another adventure. I have all my gear packed (hopefully) and I will be posting more soon.

Some of my favorite things.

Here is a short list of some of the things I am using that I really like.

1. Canon PIXMA MX7600 inkjet all-in-one printer

I recently replaced my office all-in-one printer. I got the Canon PIXMA MX7600 inkjet all-in-one and absolutely love it. It has a much smaller footprint than the printer I had previously, the print quality is amazing, it is quiet, and it has built in duplex printing, copying and scanning.

Yes, all three processes are duplexed. I had a hard time believing this when I read the specs on the printer.

It is the best office printer I have ever used. Another thing I really appreciate about it is that the software that comes with it actually works. With certain other popular brands of all-in-one printers, you buy it, get it home, and then discover that when the box says it works with OS X, that means it PRINTS with OS X, but scanning and faxing aren't supported "yet." All the features are supported on the Canon.

I paid about $350 for it.

2. Skype

I started using Skype on the advice of a pastor friend of mine before we took a trip to Fiji last August. Since I seem to be doing a lot more international work lately, it was always a hassle to make phone calls from other countries. You could find decent internet just about anywhere (including Iraq and Afghanistan) but you were still stuck paying $2.50 a minute on the cell phone or having to use a calling card.

With Skype, you can use your internet connection to make phone calls. You install the software and with a US account, you can call other Skype users for free. For a few bucks a month you can get a phone number on Skype that will let you call US phone numbers for no additional cost, too (so if you have a Skype account with a phone number, you can call other phones for free, too, with no limit on the number or duration of calls.)

Skype also has texting (like IM) and video conferencing which seems much more robust than iChat or AOL's video chat and seems to work at much lower bandwidth. You can also send files, photos, or other docs over Skype, too.

3. ThinkTank's Shape Shifter laptop backpack

As I rapidly rack up airmiles, I have been continuing to hone what I carry and how I carry it.

I have a closet full of laptop bags that almost do what I need them to do, but not quite. Either they are great for a light load, but won't fit everything I need for a road trip, or they will hold lots of stuff, but not be padded well enough for the bumping around that happens on the road, or they are padded well and hold lots of stuff but won't fit under the airplane seat and have no means to lock the compartments.

Thinktank Photo has created the near perfect bag with the Shapeshifter.

It holds everything computer related. It will also hold either one of my laptops (17" MBP or 13" aluminum MacBook) and all the chargers, converters, card readers, backup hard drives, and all the little bits and pieces. You can also unzip an inner area of the bag to expand its size so it can also accommodate a couple full sized DSLR bodies and lenses. If you don't need to carry that much, you can zip the inner area closed and you have a very thin, streamlined laptop solution.

It is also padded in an intelligent way. It is not puffy like the Michelin Man, but has the right amount of protection in the right places.

The outside pockets don't have a lot of padding, but I am putting the more rugged things in those pockets, pens, biz cards, headphones, card readers, cables, etc.. The laptop area is well protected, including on the bottom, (which many laptop makers seem to forget that we do set the bag down once in a while).

The pockets where you would put camera gear are very well protected with a denser foam that is quite thin, the advantage of this is that it protects what is inside (and keeps what is inside from beating up anything around it) but is thin enough that when you close that pocket, it is not a big puffy blob in the middle of the bag.

The key pockets also have reinforced zippers with the locking holes on them so you can secure them and the bag. It won't prevent a determined thief from getting to what is inside, but it will probably deter the causal crook that is looking for an easy unsecured target of opportunity. It comes in black, black, or uh, black and is about $250.

4. Drive Genius 2

There are lots of solutions for Mac Drive/Data recovery. Techtool, Disk Warrior are the two biggest. I have used both, and found both to be lacking. Techtool often finds problems that aren't really there and other times has created new problems. It also seems like it is always a step behind on compatibility. It takes them a long time to release updates when there is an OS update or a new Mac released.

Keeping up with these is important because a big part of their pitch is the ability to use a boot disk or other device to boot your Mac when it is having trouble. I got suckered in a few years back when they came out with a version of TechTool that you could install on a firewire flash drive and it never worked as advertised. It never was able to boot up my Macs and when you talked to tech support they would try to talk you into their annual subscription to get all the updates... huh? Pay for the software and then pay for updates? I tried it... the firewire solution still didn't work and so I swore off Techtool.

Drive Genius I really like. It is simple and works well, but they too are way behind the curve on keeping up with current Mac hardware. As of the writing of this, they still don't support the aluminum MacBook (which was released more than three months ago!) So if I have a problem with my MacBook, I can't boot up with their disk. What is the point?

I found Drive Genius 2 about a year ago. It works as advertised. It works will all my Macs, they seem to update it fairly frequently, or at least when there is a need for an update, and everyone else I have turned onto it loves it also. It has a simple interface, keeps things working the way they are supposed to, and doesn't offer a lot of garbage that you are most likely not going to use.

It can be found for $99

Until next time...

(The photo at the top is from a project I shot in Fiji in Aug 08. It is just a photo that I like... it has nothing to do really with photo or Mac stuff. The fellows in the image are Fijian sugar cane farmers. )