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
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