Simpsons - Mapple Store

The Simpsons finally get Apple!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck9gvN241Z8

Sent from my iPhone

How to deal with Irate People

In retail we have to do this all the time (late deliveries, declined cards, DOA goods etc). Reading this, I realized it's exacly what I do, empathize, make sure the customer knows you're inconvenienced too, then, bring things down to a normal level of sanity.

Open Loops: How to Deal With An Irate Person

Motion Video Effects for the rest of us

just watch this.

More 5D MkII visuals from Laforet

As we're slowly finding out, it does take effort to get get good footage from the 5D MkII, but, when you exert that effort, it pays you back big time.

Check out the latest from Vincent Laforet here.

Indy film making is going to get very interesting this year, will it make it to the silver screen?

How the hell am I gonna convince myself NOT to buy one of these things?

5D MkII finally out in the wild

Well Dan Chung seems to have nabbed himself one of the first retail examples (jammy git!)

Check out his first video here

Just makes me want one more.

Oh, note the redrock micro DSLR cage, Mr Chung obviously knows the right people.

Update: another nice video here

What Credit Crunch?

Nobody seems to have told the shoppers at London's new Westfield
centre that we're on the brink of global financial meltdown.

XDR-TB

5D MkII initial thoughts.

Oh where do I start? I think a list in no particular order will have
to suffice.

This was a preprodution camera, any findings listed here may not be
acurate for shipping units.

1./ There is no way you can hold this camera steady whilst shooting video. Some kind of support is a must.
2./ Accurate focusing for video is easy before you shoot using a 10x zoom on the rear screen.
3./ Accurate focus whilst you shoot video is very difficult despite the awesomely sharp screen. The art of the focus puller is not lost.
4./ The HDMI port outputs a lower resolution whilst filming. Full res only on playback. Don't know what happens when viewing but not actually recording. I didn't get to test the hdmi at all.
5./ AF works during record but the AF on button causes the image to
brighten whilst the af works and this is recorded in the footage.
6./ Video became choppy when a lensbaby was used instead of a canon lens. Shame. Hope this is a firmware issue. Didn't have time to test if this was caused by a setting.
7./ Everything about this camera in low light is amazing. Stills and video. Just nuts.
8./ During video, ISO is used for auto exposure, like auto gain control I suppose.
9./ Nice grid option on live view.
10./ Peripheral brightness correction (vignette removal) works nicely in stills and video.
11./ Flash triggering of all kinds is disabled during video.
12./ To put 11 in context, whilst shooting video you can fire a full res still. Video is paused and a (roughly) half second key frame of the still is inserted, video then resumes. You are left with one video file and one image file.

More later as I absorb things and go over the footage and stills.

Unfortunately I can't publish the results or files publicly.

It's Nearly Christmas

And if you want to get me something, you can look here:

http://www.beermerchants.com/

Start at the mixed cases section :-)

Exciting times, now hurry up!

This is an amazing time to be involved in photography.
Tomorrow I'm going out to show some people a camera that has more than 20 million pixels and shoots some of the finest full hd video ever seen. (If anyone has any questions or tests for the 5D MkII just ask.)

In a few months, Elinchrom will ship a lighting solution that is so well matched to the 5D you'd think they had inside information. The Quanta pack, with 400j of flash and a super bright LED modeling lamp is just perfect for the 5D.
Ideas:
Fig rig.
Hotshoe mounted mic.
Bracket with Quanta head and Chimera mini softbox.

I cannot wait!

It's out, the first short film from the 5D MkII

well done Vincent Laforete

Get your Photokina Fix (but not here)

So, I'm not going to Photokina this year (no, I'm not bitter at all, who needs a week of the latest photographic gear and gadgets interspersed with great German beer in the evenings?)
Here a few sites to keep an eye on for the latest updates and news:

Calumet's Photokina Blog which promises to have news and video interviews.
DPreview's front page has a list of the goodies so far, sure to get longer.
Luminous Landscape has a great page, starting with the new Leica S2 Camera.

I'll post more links here as I find them so do come back.

Phaseone and Leica in Strategic Alliance

So, first it was Microsoft, now it's Leica.
I think this pretty much firms up the rumour of a Leica MF digital camera of one kind or another.
Does it also mean some Leica lenses for the PhaseOne Camera?

I have a feeling the next few days may hold the answers.....

The Leica Press Release in full:

Leica Camera AG and Phase One conclude strategic alliance

Leica Camera AG and Phase One A/S have agreed to enter into a long-term strategic alliance. Both companies are in mutual agreement on the terms of close future cooperation in the technical development and marketing of premium products for the professional photography segment. The objective is to offer photographers innovative high-end solutions that guarantee the greatest possible creative freedom and set standards in terms of performance, quality and technological maturity. Close cooperation has also been decided upon for the expansion of effective service and marketing structures.

The CEO of Leica Camera AG, Dr Andreas Kaufmann, welcomes the collaboration with Phase One: 'Our two companies are an outstanding match for each other due to the similarity of their corporate cultures, their extraordinary innovative strengths and their dedication to absolute quality. We complement each other very well, particularly in the marketing segment. This will enable Leica to establish a strong and sustainable position at the leading edge of the professional segment. Together with Phase One we will soon be able to begin offering professional customers a new range of products and services.'

In addition to digital backs for medium format and view cameras, Phase One, the world's leading manufacturer of camera systems for the professional segment, also offers industrialgrade software and image processing solutions specially designed to meet the most demanding requirements of professional photographers. According to the CEO of Phase One A/S, Henrik Håkonsson: 'Thanks to first class internal development and technological alliances, Phase One maintains its leadership in the provision of software and image processing solutions for the professional segment. As a consequence of this strategic alliance with Leica, Phase One now has access to the vast optical expertise of the market's quality leader and we can improve our product offerings to the world’s best photographers.

Leica Camera AG in Solms offers precision optical products of uncompromising quality and mechanical precision for the industrial and private high-end segments. The Leica range embraces a broad spectrum of cameras and precision optical products for analogue and digital photography, projectors and a range of binoculars, spotting scopes and rangefinders for field observation. Thanks to systematic investment in the manufacture of aspherical optical elements, Leica possesses vast expertise in the manufacturing, the optical calculation, the measuring and testing technology, as well as in the construction of lenses and the assembly of aspherical lens systems. Further information about Leica Camera AG and its products can be found at www.leica-camera.com.

More Laforete

2 Days ago I'd never heard of him, now, not long after finding his 5D MkII review, I find an amazing panorama of the Yankee Stadium.
Make sure you view full screen.

Run: 10K, I did.

So yesterday I did something I thought was impossible. I finished a Cancer Research UK Run:10K.
So today I'm feeling pain I never knew existed.

Feel free to donate.

5D, Game Changer

At least one person thinks so, I tend to agree.

New Elinchrom Products For Photokina

Elinchrom have on their website two new products for Photokina.

The first is an upgrade to the mid range compact mains flash. The Elinchrom BXRi comes in 250 and 500Ws versions and adds the following cool features:

• Recognition of pre-flashes by the slave cell
• Built in Skyport RX radio for power and triggering control

But, IMHO, the more important new item is the Ranger Quanta, a 400Ws battery kit. The heads are a new smaller design, it works with Skyport RX and the pack and battery are tiny. Think along the lines of Lumedyne, but Swiss.

The side links don't seem to go anywhere at the moment but there are more details in a PDF if you click on the 'News" link.

Enjoy!

Elinchrom in Maine Workshops

Check out this video from Tips From The Top Floor.
Loads of Elinchrom being used!

new videos on youtube

just uploaded the 30 minute Joe Craig intro to studio lighting (in 3 parts).

I'm going to give it a couple of days before sending a tfc e-mail just to see how they propagate on their own through subscriptions etc.

Bubbles

I'd like to thank the P30+, Mamiya 120 Secor D macro lens and my washing up for making that shot possible.

Woe Is My iPhone!

I'm sitting on the tube writing this post with a pen and paper, oh, and I'm late for work.

Why? Two reasons:

1. iPhones take Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to restore from a backup. (Think that waaa... ...aaay was annoying? Read on!)
   
2. The iPhone does so much you become dependent upon it.
   

So, from the beginning...

6:30 am. I'm woken from my slumber. The first thing I hear is the alarm on my iPhone. I wonder to my office and turn it off. Yep, the iPhone is my alarm clock and it's loud enough to do that job from two rooms away.

My mind goes through the semi-automatic dock clicking that starts Mail and iTunes syncing and downloading. Off I go to the bathroom.

I return.

Mail.app: Oooo Canon have announced a new DSLR, the 50D. Mmm, it's not the 5D replacement we were expecting. But, it does have face recognition AF in live view mode, interesting.

iTunes: The phone is done syncing but I see that there are some podcasts downloading. Let's see if there are any app updates while I'm waiting... There are, may as well have them too.

Bag packing time.

Just need to make sure all the bits of the Phase One camera I borrowed over the weekend are back in place, including the not so good UV filters the rental department uses.

Back to iTunes and a final sync. Even though there are five apps, it's only 7am so plenty of time to sync.

Get dressed, spend ages looking for shop keys, notice iPhone is synced and rebooting.

Eventually find keys, ironically, under keyboard.

Oh Dear! iPhone is still rebooting.

10 minutes later, not good! Still rebooting.

A quick google informs me of the need to initiate restore mode. Oh well, I might miss the 7:30 but the 8:00 still gets me in on time.

Unplug iPhone.

Restart iTunes.

Hold home button.

Plug in phone.

Yay! Life! But what? It's downloading the firmware, but it did that about a week ago, surely it keeps it? And why is it downloading it so slowly, 246KB/s when my DSL will do 860KB/s? Are so many users restoring their iPhones that Appl is throttling bandwidth?

Half an hour later and the firmware and software are on. Now to restore from the backup (fortunately done at 0:31 this morning, just before I went to bed.)

At this point I'll probably be a little late for work, but I may as well hang around, how long can it take to copy 6GB over USB 2.0?

Answer: I have no idea!

After another 30 minutes of waiting, the progress bar stopped moving. It was moving so slowly before that it actually took five minutes to notice that it had stopped!

So I gave up. E-mailed the shop to let them know I'd be there soon (normally I'd text, but not today it seems.)

In the end my commute today consisted not of Diggnation, Twitter and mobile e-mail, but of writing exhaustively long blog posts and reading a book (Aperture 2 (Apple Pro Training))

I haven't written this much since I was forced to at school (not with a pen anyway)!

Kinda fun though.

Maybe we all need a bit of unreliability once in a while.....

MotoCross Photography Workshop

Just uploaded details of a MotoCross photography workshop to the TFC website.
At £199 it doesn't sound cheap but when you consider that 32 people will have a motocross track and world class riders at their beck and call it's actually a pretty good deal.

The teacher, Adam Duckworth is the 2007 Commercial Photographer of the year, has worked for (and been editor) on the best biking mags AND came 4th in the 2007 Veteran motocross championship. Blimey, he's been a busy boy! I can't think of someone better placed to teach you how to not only shoot this subject, but also how to get your pictures published.


If you're interested, get in quick, I have a feeling it'll book up quickly.

All images © Adam Duckworth

Napping at your desk is the right thing to do!

Thanks to the soporific drone of my landrover's engine, I've recently found that a 15 minute snooze at a service station can change me from a dozy, slow, danger to an alert driver.
Well it seems that we should all be taking a midday nap. Scientists have found that not only does it have the more obvious benefits of alertness and performance but it also improves memory, lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke, diabetes and weight gain. That's right, you can nap yourself thinner!

Zzzzzzzzz

I wish I could GTD (Get things Done)

David Allen gives a great explanation of the Getting Things Done method an FastCompany TV.
I've read the book a couple of times and although I haven't implimented the whole system there are parts of if that I find very useful:

• Listing to-dos by context - in other words, not so much what do I need to do or when, but where do I need to do it. This way, if I have a minute spare at my computer, I can list everything I can do using it, without being confused by other errands, grocery lists etc.
• Next actions - Big, long term projects are daunting, but, the only thing you need to worry about is the next small thing in the chain to complete the project. That is the 'next action'.

If you haven't read the book, get it now Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity
Here's the interview:

First Part of the Joe Craig DVD on TFC TV

I've just opened up the first 6 (of 13ish) chapters of the Joe Craig DVD on TFC TV.
This video was made way back in the '90s, you can tell that from the period dress. :-)
Even with the bad fashion, all the techniques are just as valid now as they were then. In fact, given that the price of good lighting equipment has come down over the years (an EL500 kit was around £1000, a D-Lite kit is £400), the results show in this DVD are more accessible than ever.
Thinking about it, an Elinchrom Octa was £500+VAT then, and it still is now. I don't know many products that have stayed the same price for so long!
Click here for the complete playlist.

TFC TV Launches!

Check out the new video content at TFC TV.

Loads of new content including How to Light a White Background:

Geek fame!

Holy crap!
I just demonstrated the iPhone app iPint to Cleo Roccos!
Apparently she's calling Alan Carr in Vegas to tell him about it.

Sent from my iPhone

Is it the end of days for Jessops?

As you can see on Yahoo Finance, Jessops' share price has fallen to an all time low (3.35p at 15:20pm today) a drop of over 25% from just yesterday and 50% in the last 5 days.
Shares in the biggest UK photographic dealer have beeen falling fast for a while now but the latest slump is brought about by their report that this year will be worse than last, and that was bad.

It'd be a shame to see them finally go and you have to hope that they don't owe too many suppliers too much money.
It'll be very interesting to see how this pans out.
JSP.L will be on my iPhone ticker front page.

TFC Website updates

Just uploaded some new Elinchrom deals, free brolly kits, 18cm reflectors and grids and Prolinca triggers when you buy certain kits.
P65+ has been up for a couple of days and has attracted huge interest.
Had a meeting with Bogen this morning, look out for Manfrotto, Gitzo and Kata on the site soon.

New three column layout

I've wanted for a long time to move to a three column layout for this blog but was absolutely dreading trying to do it without turning the page into a CSS mess.
Thankfully I came across this page on Blogger Buster which has step by step instructions on how to modify the template.
3 minutes and I had 3 columns, so that's what makes CSS cool, now I get it!

Phase One announce P65+ 60MP Back

Phase One today announced the P65+, a digital back with an incredible 60MP.
Not only that but it shoots at up to one frame per second, that's faster than most lower resolution backs.
And there's more...
The chip is near as damit full frame 645, 20% bigger than the P45+ and Hasselblad H3DII50.
So, this back is perfect for high res work AND fast shooting.

You can order one now, pay for and receive a P45+ and swap over when the P65+ arrives for just the difference in price. If, before october 1st, you decide you don't like it, you can cancel your order and you'll only be charged a rental fee for the P45+.

Also announced today is a new PhaseOne 45mm f/3.5 tilt and shift lens for the PhaseOne/Mamiya645 platform.

The Phase One Press release follows:

Phase One Announces World’s First Full Frame 645 Medium Format Camera System, based on Breakthrough Sensor Technology Sensor+ redefines sensor functionality to support pros’ investments
Copenhagen, July 14, 2008 -- Phase One A/S today announced the P 65+ digital back and the P 65+ camera system based on Sensor+ CCD technology co-developed wi th DALSA Semi conductor. This patent-pending, Sensor+ technology represents a significant advancement in image capture. The chip platform offers the most demanding photographers upgradeable CCD functions, ensuring a longer lifespan for their digital back investments.
“Photographers need real reasons to upgrade past 39 Megapixel digital backs,” said Henrik Håkonsson, CEO of Phase One. “Real value includes higher resolution but also requires new functions, faster operation, higher quality through expanded sensitivity, increased dynamic range, better results in the studio or on location and a better longer-term investment. I believe we are able to achieve this and more with our Sensor+ technology.”
Improvements and upgrades based on Sensor+ technology have been designed to enable:
-- Scaleable pixel and file size
-- Higher sensitivity & dynamic range
-- Increased flexibility for operation and capture
-- Improved capture rates
The P 65+ digital back and the P 65+ camera system are fully upgradeable, based on advancements in the chip technology, providing a competitive advantage through enhanced performance and new functions as well as a lower overall cost of operation. Such improvements have previously been available only at the cost of new chips and hardware.
The Phase One P 65+ is the first digital back and camera system to take advantage of the new Sensor+ design and is the world’s first full-frame capture system based on actual 645 film format. The P 65+ provides the largest live capture area available with coverage of 53.9mm x 40.4mm – enabling full viewfinder coverage thus no need for lens magnification. “What you see is what you get.” The P 65+ sensor format provides 20 percent more live area compared to 39 or 50 Megapixel , 48mm x 36mm chips currently delivering or announced.
Sensor resolution is 60.5 Megapixel with 8984 x 6732 active pixels achieving 180 MB, 8 bit RGB files. In addition to offering the industry’s largest live capture area and highest resolution, the P 65+ offers captures at 1 frame per second, reduction of Moiré artefacts, next generation Lens+ & Focus+ technologies and an unprecedented 12.5 f-stops of dynamic range.
Pricing and Availability
More technical details and demonstrations of Sensor+ technology will be available at the Photokina trade show in September 2008. Camera shipments with P 65+ digital back are expected to begin in Q4 2008.
The P 65+ di gital back starts at $39,900; the P 65+ camera system starts at $41,990. Advance orders are available now. For more information please contact sales@phaseone.com.

Video projector ads on the Tube

iPhone Upgrade the final chapter

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iPhone, O2 and Apple

Why did O2 not anticipate the rush?
If I worked for a business where 200,000 customers registered interest in a product, I'd make sure I could handle most of them when I sent out a marketing message asking them to come to my website.
Apple do that, and I have to ask myself whether they knew o2 had done nothing.
Did they beg them to increase capacity to ensure a good user experience?
Did O2 not believe it's own hype?

Now, despite banging away at their website since 8:30, I still haven't been able to place an order and it appears they've run out of stock, unbelievable.

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I guess I won't be getting a phone on Friday

They seem to have sold out of 16GB iphones, quite how I don't know.
I think I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I won't be getting one.....

O2, now completely broken!

This must be what it's like to be Slashdotted and Dugg at the same time!

iPhone, You Can Tell O2 Are In Charge This Time

I've been on hold with O2 customer services for 15 minutes so far, they stopped playing hold music some time ago.
In theory I shouldn't be on the phone at all, but having filled in their form twice, credit card details and all, just to have it tell me it failed, I gave up on that route.
As it's been nearly 20 minutes now, I'm guessing I'm not the only one with this problem.
The annoying thing is that as an existing iPhone user I have to buy from O2 to get the early upgrade (my contract doesn't expire till October). I'd far rather sit outside the Apple store for a few hours on Friday morning that sit here on hold.

Short review of California Sunbounce on TWiP

This Week in Photography has a short review of calsun.

Makes great reading.

Flash - We have it so easy, and safe!

Someone has re-discovered flash powder.

How about an "International Flash Powder Day", although I imagine it might cut down the gene pool!

I hope you'll indulge me a small personal message

You know that break I took in Florence?

Well I got engaged!

Thanks for saying yes Vicky xxxx

Well the good news....

Is that the PhaseOne camera and back survived rather better when
dropped three feet.

DPI Show

Some of the guys are setting up for the DPI Show today.
It should be a really interesting show, it's certainly one of the few times you'll see Leaf Hasselblad and PhaseOne under the same roof!
There are loads of seminars on, I hope to catch a few on Aperture and Lightroom.

We've had loads of new gadgets in the shop over the last day or two:
Bongo Ties
ColorMunki
Lensbaby3 for Mamiya (and therefore Phaseone!)

I'll post more on these early next week, once the show is out of the way.

Colour management comes to Firefox

Check out this page at robgalbraith.com for instructions on how to
enable colour management in Firefox 3.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9311-9478

Basically you type
about:config
Into the address bar and then double click the entry

Gfx.color_management.enabled

Why they thought it should be disabled by default we'll probably never
know!

Going to Florence

And I have a dilemma: Do I take my 5D and 3 lenses (plus flash) OR my G9?

It's only a long weekend so I'm leaning towards just the G9, but then I know I'm going to have some of those "I wish I had my real camera" moments!

You decide......

New Canon DSLR, 1000D and 430EXII flash

Somewhat overshadowed by the launch of the iPhone 2, Canon yesterday announced a new DSLR. The 1000D is placed below the 450D in the product line, it'll be the low end DSLR.
So Canon now has 5 tiers of DSLR:

1. 1000D (Low end)
2. 450D (Amateur)
3. 40D (Prosumer)
4. 5D (Pro/prosumer)
5. 1D(s)MkIII (the two top end models)

Features include:

• 10.1 MP CMOS sensor
• Up to 3fps
• 7-point wide-area AF
• Self-Cleaning Image Sensor
• 2.5” LCD with Live View mode
• DIGIC III processor
• SD/SDHC card slot
• Picture Styles processing
• Compact and lightweight
• Compatible with EF/EF-S lenses and EX Speedlites

The RRP will be £499 including VAT. Does anyone remember that breakthrough day when the first sub £1000 DSLR came out? How things have progressed.

Also announced was the 430EXII speedlight. As far as I can see, nothing ground breaking about this one. 20% faster re-cycle, metal foot, new locking mechanism and camera menu control of the flash's features, but that's about it.

Both will be available sometime in July.

A lone fan outside BrentX apple store.

I don't know who's sadder, him for being here or me for blogging it!

Otherwise, the store is looking very quiet....

Running 10K for Charity in Finsbury Park

Somehow I've signed myself up for this 10Km Charity run.
I wasn't even drunk!
More details as I become aware of them.....

TFC Advertises on Strobist

Thanks to our involvement in the Strobist Photo Of The Year competition, TFC now have an ad running on www.strobist.com .
We now have a page on the TFC site specialising in portable lighting and accessories.

Video about Profiling, Proofing and Photoshop

This is a really good video showing how to set up Photoshop for a colour managed workflow.

https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a227210/p84783897/

It includes info on monitor profiling, printer profiling and how to fit these in to Photoshop properly.

It's a recording of an Adobe web seminar.

Stocktake Today

What fun, counting everything!

More Aperture

well my copy of the Aperture 2 Pro Training book just arrived. I'm half way through the Final Cut Express Pro Training book and I'm enjoying it. The lessons are short enough that you can do an hour a day and feel that you've started and finished something worthwhile in that time.
Both books come with a disk of lesson material. In the final cut express book the disk contains a folder full of footage for each lesson including pre-made sequences, clips and audio files. The footage is all really nice quality and illustrates the lessons perfectly. Hopfully the material in the Aperture book will be just as good.
Apple has a certification scheme for it's pro applications and these books comprise the study material for the first level of there respective courses. At some point I need to find out how easy it is to take one of Apple's exams.
More info on the Aperture book soon, once I've finished with final cut.

Aperture. A Great Tool For Selling Fast Macs

OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but not much.

I spent a nice day at Apple Yesterday learning the ins and outs of Aperture. We were all (6 of us!) sitting using Macbook Pros, whizzing along, capturing images, editing them and designing books. Having played with Aperture before I was now re-enthused to have another go. So I get home, open the old Powerbook G4 (17", 1.67GHz) plug in the drive with my Aperture library and fire it all up.
The first thing I do is turn on the new quick preview mode. I know my machine isn't quick and it always had problems displaying even thumbnails. Quick preview mode uses a RAW file's built in
jpeg preview to avoid having to process the RAW, it speeds things up quite nicely.
Oh, but if only it were all so good.
As soon as I asked for any kind of heavy lifting it all just ground to a halt. Even using the straighten tool became hit and miss, every mouse movement lead to some rotation, it was just delayed by 5-10 seconds.
I though about exporting a few images to Photoshop to do a photomerge, then I thought better of it.
Whenever someone says to me 'What computer do I need to run xyz software?" I've always said that anything will run it, it just depends how much time you have.
With Aperture however, you really must have an Intel machine
I't's not just about the time it takes to process your files at the end, with Aperture you're always processing the file.
I'll just have to hope that my Powerbook blows up sometime soon. Or maybe I'll buy an iMac, I could do with some work-home separation!

Aperture training with Apple

Off to Apple next tuesday to learn about Aperture. Looking forward to
it actually as I'm trying to use it to manage my own images.
I haven't got my head around the project/library/album thing yet. I
know there are loads of features I don't even know about, let alone use.

If you've got any questions for me to ask, leave them in the comments
below, email me or twitter @alexray.

Lunch at adobe's keyboard

At adobe today being preached at.
Already been told that piracy is like drink driving.
Learning a few bits about bridge and ps extended version though.

Copenhagen 2008, the pictures

Find them here...

Icecream and carrots

That's one I've not had before.

6 types of coaster

And each one for a different beer, all brewed in the resteraunt!

A big pile of phase one cameras

And also the new value added case, nice.

Phaseone camera

So far everything is looking good. The coffee looks good, the pastries
look good, the sales manual looks good, the camera... I'll tell you
when I see one!

Danish beer!

Mmmmmm

The view from seat 34F!

PhaseOne Camera, Any Questions?

I'm off to Denmark tomorrow to see the new PhaseOne Camera. If you have any questions, e-mail, twitter (@alexray) or leave a comment.
I'll try and get some footage and pics and blog them live.
Saw a G9 up-close yesterday (how have I not seen one yet?) OMG it's nice, think I might be picking one up to take to Denmark with me.

Sublime to the Ridiculous

Just got myself a Busbi Video camera.
Having played with the Canon HF10 hi-def camcorder, this thing just feels silly.
But, it only cost about £29, so I won't mind gaffering it to all sorts of silly places :-)

The quality isn't great, the most annoying thing is the wobble in the picture when you pan.
The clip below was also my first go on Final Cut Express....

How big is the HF10?

Answer: it'll easily fit in a pocket (without the mic)
In fact, this picture makes it look bigger than it is.

Some Great Training Courses at The Flash Centre

TFC have got some great one day events coming up.
A Lumedyne training day, run by DJ LaDez of Lumedyne. Should be a great day for anyone interested in portable lighting and getting the studio look outdoors.
An equestrian photography day. If you photograph horses, or just like horses and would like to take better pictures of them this is for you.
A macro photography day. If you like to get up close to very small things you'll learn lots on this workshop.

Canon Hf10 Quick Review

Well the HF10 has gone back to Canon :-( so I thought I'd better put a few words down about my experience with it...

First off, this camera looks good, really good. It's a world away from the grey plasticy
feel of my old MVX460. Everything feels really solid, even the little flaps and covers over the various ports. Most of the camera is a glossy black, which I thought might scratch easily, but after a week it seemed to have faired well.
My favourite thing about the HF10 when compared to my HDV tape camcorder is the format, namely, solid state. It makes a huge difference to usability. I no longer had to worry about where I was in the tape before I started to record. The number of times I've missed things in the past because I'd been reviewing some footage, seen something I wanted to tape, then missed it all whilst trying to fast forward back to the blank part of the tape. It also makes it really easy to copy your footage onto a computer for editing. I was using iMovie '08 and it couldn't have been easier: Just connect using the USB cable, plug the camera into the mains adapter (I assume this is to avoid loss of power mid flow and possible corruption.) Open the import window in iMovie, select the clips you want to import (they're shown as thumbnails.) Bob's your uncle, a few minutes later, it's all done. I found that the footage copied over at just faster than realtime. I'd hoped it would be faster as I'd used the 17Mbs setting (the highest quality) and USB is nominally 480Mbs. Perhaps iMovie does something during the import that slow things down. When we get our shop unit in I'll do some tests recording to media card and at different bitrates. I'm sure a lower bitrate and a nice firewire card reader will speed things up.
Quality wise I was impressed. I did notice some chromatic aberration and minor artefacts when I looked at still frames but the actual footage looked fine to my untrained eye. I'll try and get some reasonable definition examples up here.
I did find the lack of a viewfinder a tad annoying, I like to use the viewfinder when I'm zoomed in so I can jam the camera up against my head to steady the shot. However, the flip out screen is very high res and bright, so that helps make up for it.
The Wide end of the lens could have been wider, it was about 37mm (35mm equivalent) which was too long for my liking but no camcorders these days seem to come with a good wide angle lens. The sceptic in me suspects that someone wants to sell me a wide angle converter.
All in all, my first foray into High-Def recording was made easy by the HF10. The controls felt familiar, everything was where I expected it to be (except the menus to turn on external monitoring) and everything felt reasonably snappy and reactive.

Update - some HD footage, you may want to wait for the video to buffer before starting to play.
The embeded video below is not HD, click on the linck just under the video to see the HD version on Vimeo's website.


HF10 test (HD) from Alex Ray on Vimeo.

The Flash Centre's Website is down (and back up)

But the people who know are on to it so it should be fixed soon........

UPDATE, It's back up now.

Wacom Tablets

I'm off to a Wacom training day tomorrow.

Their product range has expanded over the last few years to the point where I just don't get the difference anymore, hopefully tomorrow will fix that!

I'm looking forward to having a good play with the 12WX tablet / screen device, what I saw at focus on imaging looked amazing but I didn't have time to really give it a test.

If you'd like any questions asked, email me, twitter me (@alexray) or leave a comment below.

Keep an eye out tomorrow for some live posts.

Canon HF10 Frustration

As much as I love Canon for lending me this HF10, they could have sent an instruction book with it!

I'm trying to get it to output composite video whilst in record mode, to use as a monitor. I'm fairly sure it'll do it with composite and HDMI but I don't have displays to test that.

Anyone know the answer?

(Update - Wahey! I eventually found the right menu item)

Feed Flare links added

So now you can Digg me, stumbleupon me or think I'm del.icio.us (highly unlikely!)
Look they're just below here....

Canon HF10 on test. Any Questions?

I have a pre-production Canon HF-10 camcorder that canon have loaned me.
It is full 1080p, records to internal 16GB of memory and also has an SD slot for expanding that capacity.
I've also managed to blag a DM-100 mic, so it's looking quite professional (and the sound is really good to.)
If you have any questions about it, or would like to have a look, give me a call at the number below, e-mail or preferably twitter me @alexray.

(It's only here till the 14th, so get in quick.)

Why have I only just started using Feedburner?

You'll see the fruits of my delayed labor all over the place:
1. just to the right, e-mail subscription.
2. on The Flash Centre website, the Blogs page now has nice links that show partial headlines.

I can now see how many people read this (rather depressing) :-(

In the future I'll move The Flash Centre's feed over as well, bringing the current subscribers with it (I have no idea how to do that!) That'll make it much easier to send out event notifications, we've been having reliability issues with the website's built in system lately.

Gary Veynerchuk Talks about legacy

Gary started in the family liquor store but built it into Wine Library, a massively popular store, website and now internet TV program.
And you can understand how he's done it with an outlook like this....



I really wish more of the business decisions I see made were made with this thinking in mind.

Canon HF-10 FTW

I have gadget lust for this thing. I want to do some video content for TFC, product demos, interviews, reviews etc and this would do the job perfectly.
I really want to know though, whether it can record at lower resolutions, I can't find any information about this. For those things I know are only going to ever be on the web, it would be nice to save some space (and processing power later!)
With a DM-100 mic the setup looks really cool.
(I just noticed on that review that it doesn't do SD recording, darn, but hey, I'll live)

Canon are trying to get a kit over to us to try out but nothings turned up so far. I'll just have to live in hope.


Oh, if you own a Nintendo DS, you have to get one of these:
CycloDS Evolution
It lets you store and play game files that you've downloaded from the net (of course, you have to own the game to download it, legally ;-) )
I already have 18 games on it (I've got a 1GB microSD in mine)

Please Apple, make this!

Macroumors is reporting that apple has filed a Patent for an automated fitness device.
The idea of telling my iPhone how I am now and what my goals are and have it work out a custom fitness regime is awesome!
I'd buy into that in a flash!

7.2 magnitude earthquake in China

Details only seem to be on the USGS website so far. Looks to be in a
relativley low population area.
The really amazing thing about this event; I heard about it first on
twitter!
In fact, it still isn't on the BBC website yet the news seems to be
spreading like wildfire over twitter. Is this the new method of news
propagation?

Alex Ray

http://www.theflashcentre.com
http://www.lunchatmykeyboard.com

Sent from my iPhone

Really cool flash accessory kit

Although it irks me to recommend a competitors product, I've just seen a great kit of speedlight accessories on Warehouse Express's website.
It includes a snoot with 2 grids, beauty dish with deflectors and grids, a big diffuser 'blob' and a set of coloured filters.
For anyone interested in the 'Strobist' methods this looks like a great way of getting all the modifiers you need in one go.
It's reminded me that I need to open a section of The Flash Centre's website dedicated to portable lighting. Just another thing for the to-do list!

Phaseone launch new camera

Phaseone's new camera is based on the Mamiya 645AFD platform but with loads of upgrades for increased reliability and useability.
Also, Phaseone have designed their own 80mm lens, aparently with unsurpassed resolution.
At the moment, the camera uses a focal plane shutter (which is guaranteed for 300,000 images!) but leaf shutter lenses will be available before the end of the year. This means users will have the advantages of being able to shoot at 1/4000s but also be able to sync flash at 1/800s.
A new version of captureone, v4.1 adds lens abberation removal and
tethered image previews in les than one second.

As you might expect, the camera won't be cheap, and you'll have to buy it in a kit with the PhaseOne 80mm lens. However, when its bought as a package with a back it works out much cheaper.
We'll start getting demo units around mid April, the camera starts shipping in August.
I can't wait to check it and the new lens out.
More info at http://www.phaseone.com/camera

London Photographic Meetup Group

I've just registered on their forum.

It's really important that companies keep the relationships and conversations going between themselves and grassroots organisations like this. After all, if you're not involved, the conversations will happen without you anyway and you won't know what's being said.

My aim for this month is to sign up for more forums like this.

PhotoshopUser TV Reviews Skyport

Scott Kelby reviews Elinchrom Skyport on Photoshop User TV.
The review is about half way into the episode.

http://www.photoshopusertv.com/photoshoptv/photoshopuser-tv-episode-124-march-10-2008.html

Alex Ray

Sent from my iPhone

Bowens, what is it good for?

Cutting sofas in half, apparently.

Samsung XL20 Monitor

I've just finished doing a quick eval of the new Samsung XL20 LED backlight monitor.
First impression ---- Niiiice!

To be honest, the whole experience was nice. Even the box is better designed than it's rivals; instead of having to yank a heavy screen out the depths of a deep upright thing (only to have the sprung base fly out!) the Samsung lifts gracefully out of the flat side of the box, much better.

The on screen display system is a pleasure to use (you can tell they make consumer products with granny safe GUIs!). It ships with a DVI and USB cable, both of which feel high quality.

Once connected you can instantly tell that this monitor has a huge gamut and a quick profile shows that the primaries are much more saturated than our Eizo CE240W.

My only complaint is that the Natural Colour Expert software doesn't work under Leopard. But soon you'll be able to use ColorEyes Display to calibrate it using DDC controls and the internal LUT, so you won't need NCE.

All in all a lovely piece of kit.

Coming to a TFC near you soon.

Somedays...

Somedays...
You have a good day at work

Somedays...
You have a good day of work

Somedays...
You just work

Nearly finished!

Cool things at focus on imaging 4

Found this great led on camera light. Unlike most LEDs this has a
wide, even beam. The joints allow you to mount and position it in
loads of ways.

The good part of focus on imaging

Need I say more?

Cool things at focus on imaging 3

Samsung are showing their amazing XL range of LED backlit monitors.
Oh, they are using coloreyes display to profile them!

The TFC team goes for a Nepalese

Bjorn and Danni

Bjorn Tommasen and Danni our 'booth babe' (not my words)

Cool things at focus on imaging 2

Gitzo press jacket as made by KATA (an israeli military manufacturer!)
With SWAT style pull out sign on the back.

Cool thing at Focus on Imaging 1

The new Canon hf10 and hf100. This picture gives you no idea how small
these are. Recording to SD cards obviously allows minaturisation but
this is amazing!
Full HD, HDMI output, twin SD cards. What else could you ask for in a
package this small?

The history of flash in the uk.

Tonights meal was acompanied by a fascinating history of the early
days of flash in the uk as seen by malcolm whittle, owner of Elinca.

As he says, there just don't seem to be the same stories to be told in
the modern industry as there are from the old days. Is that true of
all industries?

Alex Ray

http://www.theflashcentre.com
http://alexanderray.blogspot.com

Sent from my iPhone

Jim marks

Jim Marks discusses some of his celebrity photos on the flash centre
stand.

Pocket wizard man talks!

Lorenzo Gaspsrini talks about every aspect of pocket wizard.

What crowd already!

Chris burfoot is in there somewhere giving a talk.

Nearly there!

Progress is slow!

New Domain

The observant among you will have noticed that I now have a lovely new domain.
There it is, up there, see, http://www.lunchatmykeyboard.com.

The old blogspot domain still works but it points here.

I hear banging in my ears

They've got 4 pneumatic drills going at the concrete above our heads in the shop.

Our apologies if you call up the shop and we shout at you down the phone, we can't hear each other, never mind the phone.

Where's my headphones.....

New Photography Podcast

Check out This Week in Photography, with Alex Lindsey and Scott Bourne of PixelCorps.tv.

These guys also appear in This Week in Media, This Week in Tech and MacBreak Weekly, they have a great rapport and, most importantly, really know their stuff.

Well worth adding to your iTunes subscriptions.

Hong kong airport

Free wi-fi.

Nice!

Now if only I could download podcasts directly to this thing I'd have
something to listen to on the plane......

Alex Ray

http://www.theflashcentre.com
http://alexanderray.blogspot.com

Sent from my iPhone

PhaseOne Assistant's Training in March

The next Phase One Assistant's training course will be at Holborn Studios on 9th March 2008.
Contact theDigitalman for more info and to book your place.

Get in quick, the last one was booked up within a week of announcing it!

Found on Digg - Top 50 Quotes on Atheism

A lovely list of quotes about Atheism and Religion.

read more | digg story

Winner Of Strobist Picture Of The Year Chooses Elinchrom

300sl
Originally uploaded by moosehd2

This awesome image of a Merc 300SL was the winner of the Strobist Photo of the Year competition.
The lighting setup?
Go on, have a guess.....
No, try again,
Still wrong.
Give up?
Ok, get this, there were two SB-24 flashguns, laying on the front seats, pointing up.
And.... That's it.
Blimey.
So, well done to Ken Brown, firstly for an incredible image and secondly for choosing the Elinchrom D-Lite set as his prize.

Phase One Publish Capture One 4 Training Video

Phase One have put together a great video that shows you around the new and modified features of Capture One 4.
Grab the video here in .mov or .wmv formats.
Oh, it's a big file, so you might want to right click the link on PhaseOne.com (the one asking for US or EU) and 'Download As...' otherwise I guarantee you'll forget and close the window before the video downloads!
More once I've watched it.
Enjoy

New Canon HD Camcorders.... Drooool

Why is it that new products always get announced before I go on holiday but aren't available until afterwards?
Canon have just released news of a range of new HD camcorders, including a couple that record directly to memory cards.
Oh, how I'd give my left nut to take one of those to China with me! It would go perfectly with the incoming Hyperdrive Colorspace (I should get it in a couple of days).
Imagine the bright saturated reds of the Forbidden City and the multiplicity of greens in Guilin all captured in 1080 lines of high definition.
If anyone from Canon happens to read this.... Please.... I beg you..... I'll do anything.

My Xbox360 died.

For the last day or two Call of Duty 4 has been looking distinctly green, this morning there was nothing. I could hear it all happening but the tv was blank. At first I was extatic, what a great excuse to buy a new tv, but then I realised the Sky worked.
After an hour of swapping cables I called Xbox support, 10 minutes later they've already e-mailed a UPS label.
So what should I do for the next two weeks?
I guess this means I might get round to doing some house work. I'm just glad it happened after the christmas break.

Flying, Strikes Off, Batteries On

Yay! Some people have called of their strike, so now i can go on holiday!

Kinda Yay! It looks like the new rules concerning flying with lithium batteries doesn't affect smaller camera batteries like the BP-511 that my 5D uses. As far as I can tell from the rules, a BP-511 is 1.3Ah at 7.2V which is 8.5 Watt hours, way bellow the 100Wh where they start limiting you. Phew!

I'm still looking into storage devices, I can't quite bring myself to trust one that doesn't have a screen. Mmmmmm......

Any ideas?