Archive for May, 2008

Workflow #5

Published
by
Julius
on May 30, 2008
in Technique
. 6 Comments

“Workflow” and me do not mix. My relationship with computers and technology is poor and every year or so people scoff at me when they say “YOU ARE USING WHAT!?” The process from the initial shot to the final edit ends at the computer, which is kind of a problem for me. I have an interesting relationship with computers, i just dont really like them but i need them so we are at a standstill. 99% of my work is shot on film which is funny because my workflow isn’t much of a “flow” at all, its more backwards than that. All the other cats at MJR are way more savvy about what they use and why they use it. Alot of the things I use only because one of them told me to! My workflow revolves around one word…easy.

My shooting style reflects my workflow. I do not shoot quickly and am never really in a rush when it comes to making exposures. i will wait and wait and wait. Having the quickest and fastest camera and processing equipment doesn’t really get me excited. For me, the more buttons the more headache and the more shit to break. I’m more about comfortability and being deliberate and precise from shooting to editing.

I shoot slide film that is thrown into a computerized machine at A&I Photographic where the images are then scanned at 25megs a piece, then cut and mounted. I get home… place the transparencies on the shelf where i know they will be safe from water damage and earthquakes and insert the disc of scans into my computer. All work is then dropped into Lightroom Beta 1. I back up the stuff on a 500g G-Drive whenever I get paranoid which ends up being about every 2-3 months or so. But since my work is all film, backing up has become a little less mandatory for me. Hell, a crash may even jump start me to be more organized about everything.

I shoot a leica m6 with motordrive with a 28mm summicron and a Mamiya 7II (6×7cm) with the 80mm lens. thats basically it. I rarely use a camera bag because by the time you get the camera out the damn bag the moment is gone. I also have a canon 20D with a 17-40 but that hasn’t been used in eons. I have access to tons of digital equipment but i never use it. i like shooting slides, i like the rangefinder system.

Well since im shooting film and since the Mamiya only carries 10 shots per roll, my workflow is a lot less intense compared to Sean, Matt and Mustafa and probably a little less intense than Rob’s.

Since i have never been good with computers i have never delved into the depths of photoshop or aperture or lightroom. For the guys who are coming home from a shoot with 5,000 RAW images, these softwares are a way of life. For me they are just things to use sparingly.

My editing is minimal, with slides there is no latitude in the film and when you shot it, you either got it or you didn’t. With the tools i have you see what you get and nothing more. if i choose to shoot at 50 ISO i may have that roll of film in my camera for 5 days until it is used. My brian doesn’t think about what I can do in post and i dont shoot anything to fix it later. 90% of everything seen in my images is done in camera with exposure and shutter speed combinations and a decent knowledge of the way my film stock will react. Here is everything in a short list from beginning to end

1. see/feel the opportunity for an image

2. frame up and expose

3. wind the advance and forget about the frame i just shot

4. Repeat steps 1 through 3….36 times on 35mm and 10 times on 6X7

5. drop 4-5 rolls off at the lab

6. wait 24-48 hours

7. pick up film and insert disc of scans into computer

8. minimal edit in lightroom blacks, and saturation tabs.

9. Wrestle with wordpress in sizing and uploading.

Thank you, ill be around for questions or comments

- j

Workflow #4

Published
by
Sean
on May 29, 2008
in Technique
. 10 Comments

Equipment

5DX2

24/1.4

35/1.4

50/1.2

135/2

45/2.8 TSE

580EXIIX2

Apple Computers 

Pocket Wizards and miscellaneous odds and ends. I use Kingston 4 and 8GB cards, Ideally I would be shooting all 4GB cards to make for an easy fit onto DVD. For all my shoots I bring along a black Crumpler 7 Million Dollar home camera bag. I chose that bag because it doesn’t look much like a camera bag and I don’t want to go advertising the fact that I’m walking around with $10,000 wrapped around my neck. 

Out of all the glass mentioned above, the 35/1.4 is my go to lens, used for about 80% of my images, it’s a total utility lens that can be used for many different situations. Next up would be the 50/1.2, there is something so right about the middle distance range that those lenses provide. I only own the 135/2 for when I can’t be physically close enough to shoot with the 35 or 50. Let me show you what I’m talking about…. Below is the 35/1.4 at full aperture on the 5D right up in the brides face. The aesthetic and characteristics of the lens are unparalleled. I’m not a pixel peeper by any means, but this glass is hot.

So, for as hot as the 35/1.4 is, the 50/1.2 is damn close. Let me show you what I mean…. Below is the 50/1.2 on the 5D wide open.

Again, this glass provides something special that even an f/2.8 lens can’t get close to. 

Workflow

For me this is a tricky subject. I shoot JPG primarily, but only since about two years ago when I swapped my Nikons for the canon 5D. I know the scoffers are saying WTF, but let me tell you, the JPG files that the 5D make are better than any RAW conversion I have done. Maybe you’ve noticed that once you import your files into whatever you import to, they change tone and color slightly. well, once I found out why this was happening I basically stopped shooting RAW. I still do, on occasion shoot in RAW mode but always ask myself why afterward. Just the amount of time I save on imports and not having to convert the files is well worth it to me. I ingest my files into a program called Photo Mechanic. The $150.00 I spent on this program may be the best money I’ve spent on any piece of gear or equipment. It’s just a browsing program I use specifically for editing down fast. It’s easy to organize and get through the files blazingly. I run through the images, tag my keepers and toss the frames that didn’t make the cut. From here I go back through the collection in PM and hit the letter E to send that file to photoshop, I work the file and save it in a subfolder of the folder I’m working in, I name that folder edit. I edit my files using Exposure 2 from Alien Skin and a mixture of home made actions. Because I use Photoshop almost exclusively for editing I have automated almost everything I do in PS with key commands. Above I mentioned I use photoshop almost exclusively, thats because I use LR to organize and import once I’ve finished my edit, I also love the web galleries you can make in LR. Check this one out. LR web gallery.

Backup

When the import from the card reader is over, if it’s a really important job I burn DVD’s of every card I shoot and put the discs away labelled in the clients file. From here I back the images up on redundant drives, I make sure the files are in three different places apart from my working drive. I have had great success with Western Digital and Seagate.

As much as I’d like to keep on going, I came down with the flu last night and now the room is starting to spin. I’ll be checking the comments section, so please feel free to ask anything I didn’t cover.

Cheers

Sean Flanigan | sean@wearemjr.com

Workflow #3

Published
by
Matt
on May 28, 2008
in Technique
. 2 Comments

Gear

When I head out to shoot i grab one of two kits. If on assignment I make sure to wear a black tshirt (as to not stick out while working a crowd) and have a black jacket in case I need to “dissapear” completely for a minute. I am now using a Canon 1Ds Mark III, but was shooting a Canon 5D for the past three years. My lenses include the 16-35/2.8 L, 24-70/2.8 L, 50/1.2 L and 85/1.2 L. I prefer to shoot with my 24-70 2.8 and a 50/1.2 unless I know I’ll be working with no space, in which case I’ll flip to the 16-35/2.8 L for wide coverage and the 85 for my medium/long distance shots. I prefer Sandisk Ultra II and Ultra IV 4GB and 8GB cards, and also use Sandisk Ultra II 8gb SD cards in the backup card slot on the 1Ds3. To carry my cards I have Gepe waterproof and shockproof cases. I use the Domke F-803 to carry my gear. When I’m not shooting for work I use a 1986 Leica M6 with a 35/2 Summicron ASPH and always have my Zeiss Planar 50/2 on hand but rarely use it. I also rock the Leica M Motor which has made me a more confident street shooter by making it possible to shoot rapidly, as moments develop in my viewfinder. Its a bit louder than using the M without, but the benefits outweigh the costs for me. Im not saying it has made me a better shooter, but I was always irked by having to remove my eye from the viewfinder to crank the winder. My boss says HCB is rolling in his grave.

Desk

Right now I’m using a MacPro with a 750GB RAID, a 250GB drive with my operating system and applications (kept at 70% free, always). There is a fourth 500GB drive for music and assignments I’m editing. Everything goes to the RAID eventually, and beyond the internal stuff I have a Western Digital 1TB External Firewire drive with everything copied. One of these days I will get around to duplicating everything and sending it to my parents’ house in Los Angeles for permanent backup. All of my assignments are also backed up on the office server, but my personal work is all kept on the system mentioned above. The MacBook Pro is at the center of my workflow, and is usually where I initially upload my shoots and edit while planted on the couch, speakers blasting a mix of Roy Ayers, Death Cab for Cutie, Mobb Deep or Daft Punk. My two computers are shared, and after I edit files on the MacBook they are transfered to a Drop Box on my MacPro for further duplication and archiving. I currently do-not backup to DVD-R.. maybe when BlueRay backups become bigger, i’ll do it.. but I am far too lazy to burn 400+ DVDs.

Workflow

All my film is processed by a lab in Cambridge, MA with a killer Harvard discount that I will really miss. They scan everything on a Noritsu, and my stock films are Neopan 400 in Xtol for black/white and Provia 400 and Kodachrome 64 for slides. I get them mounted and scanned. I rarely shoot color film. I much prefer the control I have over tonality with RAW files, so my Leica has only been shooting Neopan 400 lately.. with a dash of Kodachrome for the luxury of it. I have a Minolta DiMage 5400 Elite II that takes too long and has crap, obsolete software. (Thanks for killing Minolta/Konica, Sony)

If you arent shooting RAW, you arent getting what you paid for. All my images are ingested using Photomechanic where I tag my images with an “import default” profile that applies my copyright, contact info and a brief set of keywords. I always designate “published” “unpublished” or “personal” in the keywords, as well as “film” “digital” “bw” or “color.” My archive/folder structure starts on the work drive in a folder named “CR2,” and consists of the date and name such as “052308_Harvard.” For film i will designate “052308_Harvard_LEICA.” Inside that folder is “052308_Harvard_RAW” and “052308_Harvard_JPG.” The JPG folder is for my initial crop of selects after a quick tone edit in Adobe Lightroom. I only use Photomechanic for ingest and setting IPTC. Everything else is done in Lightroom. Files are named “052308_Harvard_001.CR2″

Files are imported into Adobe Lightroom Beta 2 and from there I use the star rating system to pick my selects. I admit this is the most careless part of my editing process, and photos get either a 1 or 0. I like it or I don’t. I pick photos that I think will keep people looking at them past the initial impact. If I’m not challenged to look at a photo for more than 2 seconds it doesn’t get a star.

Post

I have been shooting “under” .. purposefully shooting for shadows .. since this past summer. Something about the way Joachim Ladefoged entertains the eye with shapes and shadows really stuck. I also really love Antonin Kratochvil for his shadow-play.. and I love Chris Morris for his ability to illuminate subjects with 1.2 lenses in complete darkness… and make it look creamy as a melted ice-cream sunday. Morris’ tones, and Antonin and Joachim’s shadows are what I’m going for. I wont b/s anyone here.. I am heavily influenced by other photographers.. my eye is learning what it likes.. (never stop reminding yourself that you JUST began making images in what will be a life-long pursuit) and I am not ashamed to say that I edit to obtain a look that has captivated me since the moment I saw the work of the VII Photographers.

That said, I mainly use the “Blacks” slider in Lightroom’s Develop panel and find myself manually underexposing even more. I have found “brightness” gives a really nice luminance while playing with curves leads to burned pixels. Same with the contrast slider.. why use the contrast slider when you can combine “blacks” and “brightness” and get much smoother contrasts. The first time I used the Clarity slider was a revolutionary moment. Not too much, but always a little. I enjoy crisp images.. I generally shoot pretty shallow.. I rarely find myself shooting above f8.. (probably a habit formed from shooting the D70 with horrible ISO problems.. and the fact that I shoot a boatload of lectures, readings, meetings, and conferences where I wage war against tungsten lighting in remote lecture halls deep within the labyrinth that is Harvard) so its important that when I nail my focus wide open at 1/80 @ 1.2 iso320 on my 85 that the image is sharp. Photo Editors don’t like eyeballs that aren’t sharp, and they can ALWAYS tell when you are off focus.

If deviantArt taught me one thing, it was that too much post makes you a photoshop stud, not a great photographer. If it aint there, no ammount of contrast brightness curve tweaking is going to make your photo last more than 2 seconds in front of my screen. If your pixels are toasted, it wont even last that long

And thats the end of my story.

ps, back-up your fucking files

MC

Workflow #2

Published
by
Rob
on May 27, 2008
in Technique
. 0 Comments

Keep it simple.

Pre-game

This really only applies to my film workflow, as digital is basically set from the moment you turn it on. I always have two film bodies on hand and a stack of film at the ready. This way, when I click off that 36th or 16th frame a fresh camera with a new roll can be handed off immediately, with the spent roll being replaced by a new one and ready to go. This principle also works with digital, although a second body is really unnecessary given the speed with which one can swap CF cards. I shoot tethered, so this isn’t an issue.

Film

Once everything is souped and ready to roll, my process begins at the light table. There’s something about the feel of being huddled over a spread of chromes with a loupe and grease pencil that, for me, is really hard to let go of. Once I’ve made my selects, I scan both my 35s and 120s using an Epson flatbed photo scanner which, while not quite as nice as a slot-scanner, does a beautiful job for my needs. The largest my work prints is usually 11×14″, so the difference is negligible if not entirely unnoticeable. After everything is turned into zeros and ones, I archive the film in binders for easy access as well as the digital files on both my working drive and my RAID array.

Digital

I always shoot tethered as the ability to see the captures on a large calibrated display the moment they’re made is an absolute boon to the entire team. I shoot directly into Capture One PRO, where quick adjustments can be made to the RAW processing on the fly and retained for the remainder of the session. For example, if I were shooting a set destined for black and white reproduction, I could capture my full color RAW files but have C1 display them as tweaked black and white images as they’re transferring. I don’t use Capture One for my actual processing, however, as its algorithms have been far surpassed and version 4 is still three years late. After the shoot has been wrapped up, all files are archived on the working drive as well as the RAID. Next, the session is loaded into Lightroom where I can quickly run through, make my selects, and export them for retouching.

Retouching

After the captures have been archived, all of my retouching is done in Photoshop with the aid of a WACOM tablet. The only third-party plug-in I use is Alien Skin’s Exposure, and only very sparingly. Nothing more than a quick conversion to T-MAX 100 (my favorite black and white film stock, which it does a startlingly good job of emulating) or an overlay of Kodachrome 25 crunch for a bit of contrast before the image goes out to print. Beyond that, it’s all just a lot of gentle coaxing and an even greater amount of experience. I will be going into more detail on this subject in future posts, and will be sharing a lot of my personal knowledge and techniques. Once everything is press-ready, all files are archived to the RAID array.

Printing

Depending on the image’s final destination, I’ll either print from Photoshop to a large-format Epson inkjet or send the files out to be run on a Noritsu. While the Epson does a really incredible job, especially on my beloved premium gloss paper stock, you just can’t beat the astounding quality of a top-end lab machine. Once everything is on paper, a set of prints is archived (seeing a theme here?) in light-tight boxes and the rest are dropped off or FedEx’d out to wherever they need to be.

Parting Thoughts

I wouldn’t trade my film process for anything. While most people simply abhor souping and scanning, I see it as a labor of love. The tangible aspect of it all is what really makes it special. You can’t hold a RAW file in your hands.

The digital side of operations could use some help. The software just isn’t there; it’s made by engineers who make a living selling software, not technicians who make a living selling a beloved film stock. We choose a film for its characteristics and quirks. As Pascal said in his recent interview with the New Yorker,

“Photography as we knew it, meaning film and Kodak and all that, was a very subjective process. With film images you had emotions. You used to go out and buy film like Fuji, because it was more saturated, or you liked Agfa because it gave you a rounded color palette.” With a ten-dollar roll of film, he explained, you were essentially buying ten dollars’ worth of someone’s ideas.

Software is much more objective and flat, focusing more on the features than the funk. This is likely due to the fact that features are what sells software, and those of us who really demand the quality fit into a fairly small market. They have to make money, and the general public is where that’s found.

This brings me to the battle between Aperture, Lightroom, and Capture One. Truth be told, I’d much prefer to be using Aperture for both my capture and processing. The interface fits my way of thinking and working (do anything at anytime from anywhere) very well and the processing as of version 2 is superb. Until they pick up support for Phase One files, though, I’m afraid I’ll be delegated to the sectioned-off, machine-like world of Lightroom. This is not to say that Lightroom is an inferior product, I just don’t like having to switch panels and do things in the prescribed order. Keyboard shortcuts make life easier, but after using Aperture it’s always in the back of my mind. Capture One is thus a necessity for tethering Phase One backs, as is Lightroom for effectively sorting and processing them. Word is that Capture One PRO 4 will have some great and long overdue features, but we’ve been hearing that for years now. We’ll see, and here’s hoping for some very pleasant surprises.

Finally, I can’t stress the importance of archiving your work as much and as often as possible. We’ve all lost work to faulty technology; if you haven’t, you will. Make sure it’s secure, and if you’re running out of space, buy more.

No excuses.

Workflow #1

Published
by
mustafah
on May 27, 2008
in Technique
. 4 Comments

Here at MJR, we’ve got a pretty diverse line-up of dudes. So this week, we’ll be outlining our workflow from start to finish. Feel free to ask questions. As my focus is documentary photojournalism, please keep in mind that everything below will reflect that. All links are to show you what the heck I may be using.

1. Gearbox

Mainly, I use a Canon 5D with 24-70 f/2.8, 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.4 lens’. For film, I use Canon EOS-1V and EOS-1N cameras. Fuji Superia is my color film of choice, Kodak Tri-x 400 for b+w.

2. Desk

Since 90% of my work is now digital, all my photographs are funneled onto my laptop, a Apple MacBook Pro. I use redundant external hard drives by Seagate and Western Digital. I’ve experienced solid results from both companies, even in larger capacities. While on the road, I use a portable external HD to backup my files and a private FTP and one from MJR for selects. I scan at Philadelphia Photographics, who do a good enough job albeit abhorrently overpriced.

I use PhotoMechanic to sort, categorize and caption, Adobe Lightroom to import, edit, and export RAW files and negatives, and Adobe Photoshop CS3 for any resizing and b+w conversions. Oh, and I rock out to iTunes and procrastinate via Twitter.

3. In the field

Now for the good stuff. In a lot of my images, you’ll notice a wide range of tones and exposure control. I like to see a difference in lines and textures; some people dig flat black+whites and don’t get me wrong, all the power to them. But it’s not my cup of tea. So when I’m shooting, mainly in color, I employ a somewhat modified version of the infamous Zone System with a final objective being a well-toned black & white image.

This process starts from the moment I eye up my subject to the final output via LR and CS3. Because of the nature of digital, it is often difficult to yield certain results. Often times, the selection and specific usage of various films can be the palette from which a photographer projects their authorship. Since in digital, the palette is defaulted to the sensor, so to speak, I’ve decided to use everything from exposure to perspective to produce my vision. This what makes my images mine.

The sensor on the 5D is pretty amazing, and so it’s given me the ability to use a wide range of exposure combinations to work with. I’ve had the fortune of really growing within photography using digital (for news, commission and personal work) as well as film for the same. This has taught me some of the limitations and possibilities that the digital SLR sensor can produce. Understanding this, and how far you can push your files, is paramount in my photographic process. This is much akin to film photographers understanding how to push and pull their film to suit both their vision, content, and final output.

Since there’s not a bit of sense in using anything but RAW, go for it. Hard drives are getting cheaper by the month and since all are bound to fail, backing up in multiple sources and making prints can make that problem a more easily navigated transition.

4. Process

Once backed up, I sort through my take using PhotoMechanic (PM), a wicked fast program that’s light on the system. They’re marked as Winner (overall), Winner Alt (best of overall), and Superior (best single selects). Then they’re imported as RAWs into Lightroom (LR), given a blanket set of exposure corrections and color corrected, then exported as hi-res JPEGs to be resorted and captioned in PM. These JPEGs are what I mess with and print from.

Once the pic is in JPEG, it’s pretty basic. I try to avoid dodging and burning unless I need something specific, and when I do, it’s nothing too fancy. Levels and Curves are my friend, both in LR and PS. This allows me to more finely control the exposure of my photographs in a way I aimed for in the moments leading up to the shutter being clicked.

With this picture, I was aiming to get good shadow detail, but also a good amount of contrast to show difference between the cage and the police and coach. So in my final b+w edit, I’m lightly dodging the faces to differentiate. To do so when taking the picture would be to use flashes, something that isn’t my fancy.

By the time the conversion happens, the image has just the right edit for my final picture.

Then everything edited is backed up again and I’m pretty much done. Some photographers lecture for TIFFs. That’s awesome, but since I have the original RAWs I see no reason to have yet another set of images in a space-consuming format. If something is mighty special, I’ll put them on gold archival DVDs. But only if the image is whispering sweet nothings in my ear. Otherwise, to the HD with it.

When shooting negs, I’m using the same Zone System with a mind for the final image. This image, taken in Buenos Aires, is an example of my process. From the negative, it’s scanned as the highest-resolution that can be done (usually yielding a 50MB+ file) on a range of scanners: Minolta DiMage, Pacific Scan, or a Imacon I pay by the frame.

This was Kodak Tri-x 400 rated at 250 then developed at normal rating in Rodinal, hence the brown tint. And this is my process using Superia 100, rated at 160. Chemicals are typical store stuff.

Nothing special. My workflow with film is rather basic. So, there it is. Let the questions rip. Just remember that this is about the process, not about how crappy my negatives are. Sand+film = no good, dudes.

« Older Entries