LIGHT Photographic Workshops: Canon Field Photography with Jennifer Wu

An amazing three day weekend spent with Jennifer Wu [Canon Explorer of Light], Jim Rose [Canon Pro Rep] and Hal Schmitt [Director, LIGHT Photographic Workshops] in and around Los Osos, California, learning about Field Photography ... you know, like landscapes and stuff where you're out standing in a field. As usual with LPW classes, not only did I learn a huge amount of just what the course description promised, but also all those little tidbits and tips that you can only pickup when actually working with the instructors in classroom and field. But Wait! I'm not done yet! There's more! I also captured some superb images that will likely turn out to be my first fine art landscape style prints.

Rather than regurgitate a chronology of events I'm going to talk about things I learned. Right off the top I got caught up in a discussion of the Really Right Stuff Pano kits. I recently bought the pano head and nodal slide (I know Hal doesn't like this name) but when the kit arrived it was clear that I could pop the nodal slide right into my RRS quick release on my ball head and use the panning feature of the BH-55 and didn't see the use of the panning head. Well, Hal steps right in and says, you need the panning head because the BH-55 panning head is beneath the ball head and you would have to level the panning head with the legset of your tripod. But with the panning head from the kit on top of the ball head it is easy. That's when I learned that there is a separate item dovetail that screws into the bottom of the panning head allowing you to use it with the quick release feature. I have ordered one from RRS and will take a few images and make another blog entry to explain it. None-the-less, it was a small epiphany to understand what is needed. It is another topic all together as to what/why the parallax aperture point is important.

I have had my 1DMIII's and 1DsMIII for quite a while but haven't used the LiveView feature. It just isn't too useful in concerts or boxing or shooting models in the studio. But boy is it a game changer for landscape and product work. In landscape work you can see the whole scene much more intuitively than looking through the eye piece. And since you have the camera on a tripod (don't you?) then when you swing it around it is easier to watch the scene change on the LCD. But better yet, with the 5X and 10X magnification you can do pin point focus adjustment. And, when you see the picture you want, you just punch the shutter release ... and you don't need to do the mirror lockup as a separate step ... the mirror is already up!

Better yet, if you are an HDR shooter, you may already know that you can set the camera to bracket, turn on high speed drive and then press/hold the shutter release and it will shoot one bracket's worth of images. But if you like to use mirror lockup, you can't do this ... ya' gotta' depress the shutter for each image and count them to know when you're done. BUT, if you're using LiveView, the mirror is already up and the multi-exposure trick with holding the release down does work! I love it!

We learned about the wonders of the Canon Tilt-Shift lenses and how combined with LiveView almost any idiot can take advantage of the tilt function to get amazing depth of field images in many common situations. Plus we also learned about the standard perspective correcting functions of the shift feature. And last, but not least, a review of what the newest generation of TS lenses does that is so much better than the originals ... the axis of the tilt and shift can be independently rotated and need not even be perpendicular or aligned. I've just started doing some architectural work using HDR but I'm very enthusiastic about trying out the perspective correction features of the tilt-shift lenses ... when there's finally some of them available. And since I have a winery client, I am also excited about trying the DOF correction while shooting vineyards! So I think these lenses will be a double win for me.

I'm not sure why Jennifer threw it in, but she did a couple of little field portrait things where she showed how to use reflectors to put a bit of light in shadows. Then she showed how to do this with a 580EX flash. Almost in passing she mentioned using gels with the flash as she pulled out her Lumiquest Gel Holder that holds the gel over the flash. I know several guys who use gels with their flash ... always taping the gels over the flash lens ... a messy proposition. But Jennifer had this neat little gadget which holds a few gels and uses velcro to put a gel or set over the lens. $12.50 at B&H! Got one in my wishlist!

We spent a lot of hours in the field shooting with Jennifer, Jim and Hal wandering around offering help and shooting. At one point Hal pulled out a Cokin filter set so I wandered over and chatted him up about it. Turns out that he wanted some really long exposures where the waves from the ocean (we were at a beach in Cayucos one time and at Montano de Oro another) and even with ISO 50 and f/22 the exposure wasn't long enough. So, Hal popped two neutral density filters on to get an additional six stops of slowness. I've Cokin filters on my wishlist now, too. But my use will likely lean more toward graduated filters and polarizers.

So, tons of neat stuff followed by image critiques. Then I had to head off into the sunset before they started printing images.

So, in addition to heartily recommending LIGHT Photographic Workshops in Los Osos, California, I am also recommending the amazing Jennifer Wu ... if you get a chance to work with her you'd better take it! She's like an Andy Katz on steroids!

That's it for now. Travel safe!

Dwight

PocketWizard: Follow Up!

In the interests of full disclosure I need to confess that there are a lot of good things I could say about PocketWizard, but the best is that they are listening and within unclear constraints on taking full responsibility for their failures they are working on moving forward. I got a very respectful email from David Schmidt of PocketWizard about my recent Facebook posts and blog entry. Let me tell you I have been threatened by large corporations for speaking out in the past and this wasn't that! Interestingly, those large corporations are no longer in business and some of their principals have gone to jail. :-) David offered to let me be minimally involved in some testing. I declined. I have no qualifications. But the effort and offer speak better about PocketWizard than I had given credit for.

So you know, I have had four PocketWizard Plus II's in my studio forever and even when I was shooting in my garage I only used PocketWizards. I did have some radio frequency interference issues with my Bowens QUADX strobes and temporarily abandoned PWs until I learned about ferrite filters and was immediately back. To their discredit, PW knew about the problem but didn't publish the cure on their website. Every professional photographer I know personally uses PocketWizards. I have every intention of being a PocketWizard user until I can't shoot anymore! But I won't be an early adopter as I detect that PW has moved into the realm of Microsoft et alia, feeling the need to make announcements and promises unmindful of any reality to which I am a part. I may never understand why this whole ControlTL business wasn't thoroughly tested by independent photographers with their own equipment before the first PR was sent out.

Also, for the RadioPopper fans, I do have an ST-E2 and did consider RPs, but I need a daylight robust solution to firing cameras where my current Canon LC-5 IR solution isn't working and RP doesn't address that need.

Disclaimer: David Schmidt does not know I am making this post. David Schmidt did not ask me to retract any statements. I am happy with my TT1 and TT5's to the extent that they work within a limited range well below that advertised.

Travel safe!

Dwight

PocketWizard: TT1/TT5/AC7 Behind Schedule and Underperforming!

After months and months of waiting, the PocketWizard TT1 & TT5's for Canon flashes came out a month or two ago. Immediately it was discovered that PocketWizard's estimates of effective distance were illusory, based on really terrible testing protocols and were probably a bit purposely self-serving. A lot of their advertised features also didn't work. But, with plenty of smoke and mirrors they brushed aside all criticism and patted themselves on the back ... after all, it wasn't their fault, it was the Canon flashes radio frequency interference. They didn't seem to care that distances, rather than being 800' or even 300' feet were actually less than 50'.

But the distance problems, among others, just wouldn't go away. They had sold too many units to too many guys who know how to count and measure. So, to quell the distress they invented the AC7, a radio frequency baffle of sorts. Once it was in the product pipeline, they could just refer to it each time they were criticized, once again deflecting responsibility. The trouble is, after months and months and many promised dates, there are still no AC7s! They were supposed to be here in June, then July, then August, then September, but today they were slipped until October. Not credible.

And if you're a Nikon shooter, it's even worse. They've kept the Nikon guys on the hook for months and now it may be a year!

So, I'm very disgruntled with PocketWizard. I was one of the guys who believed their advertising and promises and bought quite a few hundred dollars worth of their new line: one TT1 and Three TT5's ... I thought the PWs would work as advertised and then I thought the new shield would come on time. I was wrong.

I guess you can get away with this when you're a virtual monopoly. Oh, I know about RadioPoppers, but they can't also trigger cameras, which is one of my needs ... the Canon infra-red trigger I own doesn't work well in bright sunlight, sigh. So, I am screwed. I expect thousands of guys are screwed. I suppose PocketWizard will eventually be willing to take even more of our money to make their equipment barely limp along way under specs with their AC7s, but I don't expect them this calendar year.

Hope this saves some of you a lot of expense and disappointment.

Travel safe!

Dwight

Getting the Horizon Level

A week ago on Monday Night Lights webinar by Hal Schmitt of LIGHT Photographic Workshops there was a sample image presented during a sharpening talk with a tilted horizon. I made a comment to Hal during the seminar, via the GoToMeeting interface from my computer at home, mentioning it. This week at the start of the Monday Night Lights webinar Hal explained how to correct a tilted horizon ... Hal always takes questions and comments seriously. After a detailed and oft repeated explanation, Hal noted that, "It is always better to get the horizon level in the camera than in post processing." I am a terrible offender with tilted horizons and recently learned that there are bubble levels that slide into the hotshoe. I realized this was a good time to check with Hal for recommendations for such a beast. Without missing a beat, Hal suggested checking with Really Right Stuff, a world famous but local (San Luis Obispo) manufacturer of heads and related devices. Actually, a bubble level won't help me much with my concert photography as I couldn't see it in the dark anyway. But when I'm using a tripod and ballhead I notice I can't always see the little tiny builtin bubble level so this sounds like a good accessory to have in my camera case.

I just went out to RRS, http://reallyrightstuff.com/index.html, and found their RRS-337 Dual Axis level, $33.00. I'll order a couple tonight.

Now I need to recommend MNL with Hal Schmitt at LPW (http://lightworkshops.com/), yet again. That's "Monday Night Lights" at LIGHT Photographic Workshops. Their blog with the links you need to attend the free weekly webinars is http://lightworkshops.blogspot.com/. They use GoToMeeting for their interface which doesn't require you to install horrid software like Silverlight that you just can't get rid of once installed and to which you agree to find no fault! The seminars are approximately one hour although Hal usually runs over five to ten minutes. You can also find short synopsis YouTube videos of the material presented on MNL with the links posted on the blog and/or Facebook and Twitter.

Disclaimer: I am not compensated by LIGHT Photographic Workshops or Really Right Stuff for mentioning or recommending them. I still have to pay for everything. It sucks. But I need to keep them in business because they provide me with two of the few totally reliable resources that I need to keep my own business running.