I’ve had many cool emails from my Monday Podcast, Thanks to Film. One came from my dear old friend (best man at our wedding) Roger with a link to this great interview with some of the world’s best Directors of Photography. I’ve listened to it a dozen times now and there is so much simple wisdom in it I wanted to share it with you! Enjoy!
Working on our Normandy Bound project, there are times when the work takes place where there is no light. That’s to say, there is no light to tell the story. At those times, I grab the light I know, a single SB-5000 to supplement the available light. My skill base is to meld the two light sources so the vast majority of the time, the flash fills in the shadows. So I walk around the entire time (I walk up to seven miles in a day and never leave the C-47!) with an SB-5000 in my back pocket. The D5 & Z7 have the WR-R10 always plugged in so all I have to do is grab the SB-5000, turn it on and shoot. This works great for quick fill. Like the photo above where I simply placed the flash on a book on a paint can and shot Davida sewing on the new material covering the aleron. I can’t let my photography influence the work, the story, it’s the way I work. But there are times when I have the luxury of time to light correctly to tell the story.
As you can see above I switched out the 8-15Fish for the 105f1.4 shooting at f1.4 and placed the SB-5000 on a stand so I could more preciously point the light and modified its light with a Impact Quick Box. This permitted me to control the background and the light. I really love how with the Z7 I can have the Fn1 button to preview the image I just took. And if I don’t like the exposure, I can quickly without taking my eye from the viewfinder, adjust the exposure of the SB-5000 wirelessly with the WR-R10. Brilliant!
This all permits me to dial everything in, light, gear, and story to tell the photo I had in mind. Davida is quite a craftsman, something you see in his intensity to his craft. That’s what I strive to bring out in my photography with time, light and story!
Quite often in posts, I mention how many bodies we have in operation in filming our Normandy Bound documentary. It’s hard to imagine how many bodies you need when you’re doing what appears on screen for a few seconds. Here’s just one example (the bottom photo is simply a quick production shot taken with a Z7 / Z35f1.8). Out of the scene on the top right shooting straight down on Samy and Davido sewing is a Z7 / Z24-70. On the left on the top, there is the Z7 / 70-180macro doing a close up of just the hands. In the middle is a D850 / 24-120 capturing an overall of the scene and on the bottom is a D850 / 105f1.4 at f1.4 capturing just the needle as it comes through the aileron. So that’s five bodies just to cover this one scene and a production shot. The lighting is Genaray LED lights set up to look like work lights rather than filming lighting. The trick in all of this is to STAY out of the way of the work and to set up gear that’s not in the view of other gear. Brent & I work fast to set up, triple check and then hit the Record button for a shot that in the final cut (if it makes it) a 5-7second scene. Phew! It might seem crazy but I’m here to tell you it’s a ton of fun. And that’s just one reason for how many cameras.
Photo Mechanic
A common question that hits my email inbox is how do I keyword? This is especially true after my Workflow piece. Because of the way I file my images and requests we receive from clients, the only genre of my photos that receive a Keyword is my aviation images. All my critter, landscape, and other photographs receive no keywording. For me it’s real simple, there’s no money in it and since it takes time, I put it into other pursuits.
Adobe Bridge
Aviation though Keywording pays for itself. I do all my Keyword tagging in Photo Mechanic which then shows up in Bridge where I search for finished images to send out to clients. It makes it really fast and for that one genre of our business, that makes us money. So, do I keyword? Yes and no, only when it pays for itself.
The amazing Think Tank Airport Security V3 & Shape Shifter
It started out as just another of those great adventures. Sharon & I left the house at 02:00 on the three-hour drive to the airport. When we arrived at the Alaska counter in Reno to leave our bags for our flight to Anchorage, we found out that our 07:00 flight had been canceled. It happens (especially flying as much as I do, a United 1K) and 24hrs and 6 itineraries later, we were in AK! I have to hand it to Alaska Airlines, they did a great job getting us to ANC in what were really trying times. You can’t control wx nor the public, both working against them in times like this. Molly and the crew at the desk at Reno did a phenomenal job! And every time we went up to the counter to deal with the next canceled, delayed and other flight issues, Molly would thank us for being so calm and smiling. As we heard the other traveler’s horror stories, it was quick to figure out which passengers weren’t, calm and smiled.
Now when I plan my flights, I always look at the gear I’m going to take, what I’m going to carry it in and the planes I’m flying so the gear always goes with me on the plane in the overhead. We’ve all heard the horror stories and sure don’t want that to happen to us! Right? So I fly thinking the worst might happen (but rarely does). Well with all the changes in our itineraries, my plane planning went out the window and the short hop to SEA, my Think Tank Airport V3 wasn’t going on the plane! I put my puff jacket in to cover the main compartment, stuffed other clothing to prevent any jarring and with confidence placed my Think Tank on the La Carte cart. This is what was inside:
Nikon D5
Nikon Z7
Nikon 180-400f4VR
Nikon 105f/1.4AFS
Nikon Z24-70
Nikon 14-24AFS
Nikon 24f1.4 AFS
Nikon TC-20e III
SB-5000 AF Speedlight
I realize many would never do what I did, and that’s probably really smart. But see, I not only have real confidence in my packing gear, but also the Think Tank Airport Security V3 (its never let me down)! I talked with the guys loading the bag, explained the big, red fragile label (get a roll at Amazon and always have with your) I placed on the bag in front of them that the contents were really fragile and asked to “take good care of my baby” and they said, “We’ll take good care of it.” And they did, checked the bag as soon as we landed and everything was just perfect. My puff jacket has a new shape but nothing a little wear won’t solve. And the whole time, calm and smile made the travel as smooth as was possible. We all can deal with these situations in many ways. I’m just passing along what continues to work for me when traveling, calm and smile!
I was out shooting with a friend and they saw in My Menu on the Z7 I had the menu option Image Size. They asked why … why would you want to limit the size of the file if you’d paid for a megapixel camera? Now that’s a really darn good question. I think my response surprised them so I thought I’d share it with you. To start off with, the Z7 and D850 have an option to change the file size they record. The Large file for the Z7 is a 45.4MB Nef (260MB once opened in PS) for example.
That’s a great big, gorgeous file that prints up big and beautiful. And when you come back from a week of shooting and file 4000 of those big, gorgeous images, that’s a lot of hard drive space eaten up. But what if you’re not going to make big ass prints, do you need those big files? In this example, I was taking some family portraits in less than desirable circumstances. I didn’t need or want big files for what I consider to be no more than “record” shots. When working on our Normandy Bound project and I’m taking detail shots that won’t even be a half page in a magazine, I don’t need those giant, beautiful files. So I simply go to My Menu, select Image Size and go with Medium or 25.6MB Nef files. It makes everything go faster, uses less storage space and takes care of my client. Shooting landscapes or subject where the potential is a large print, I go Large otherwise, I go with Medium. Hope that makes sense small files, when I do it with the Z7 / D850.
