A white background tutorial from 2012. Published. Copyrighted upon creation. Etc. Enjoy.

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/01/mini-old-school-class-on-white.html

Stand up to bullies.

in other news: Belinda and I finished working on, The Lisbon Portfolio. The photo/action novel I started back in 2002. I humbly think it is the perfect Summer vacation read. And the perfect, "oh crap, I have to fly across the country" read. It's in a Kindle version right now at Amazon. The Lisbon Portfolio. Action. Adventure. Photography.  See how our hero, Henry White, blows up a Range Rover with a Leica rangefinder.....

Remember, you can download the free Kindle Reader app for just about any table or OS out there....

It's starting to get hot and humid in Austin and I'm nostalgic for Berlin.

Random, mostly square images, taken with the Samsung Galaxy NX camera. In Berlin last September.

Did I ever mention that my hotel had the best coffee I've ever had? Well, it did.

Image Stabilization In Body or In lens? Seems like a straight win for Olympus, unless......

I've worked with an Olympus EM-5 and I've played with an EM-1 and I've got to tell you that if the number one thing on your decision list for buying a camera is the effectiveness of its image stabilization then Olympus has you locked in. For a little bit of perspective it's not like Olympus is operating in a vacuum, as far back as my time with a Nikon D300 and the first 18-200mm VR zoom lens camera makers have been offering some pretty awesome stabilization. That 18-200mm with its in lens vibration reduction was nothing short of miraculous in its day. But where Olympus has the in lens people roundly beaten is in the use of lenses that are too old to have had image stabilization or with lenses whose designs made I.S. impossible or too costly to engineer in.

Put a 1965 era Nikon 50mm f1.4 on the front of one of the new Olympus cameras and it's almost like you are shooting that nice, old piece of glass locked down on a tripod, even when you are handholding after your third espresso. So why in the world doesn't everyone rush to license this miracle of I.S. that is the Olympus IBIS?

This question comes up over and over again when people ask me why I chose to buy a Panasonic GH4 rather than an EM-1. And for a while I was at a loss for something to say other than, "I really love the video quality of the GH4 and when we shoot video we're generally working on a tripod or with some sort of stabilizing accessory..."  It sounded kind of lame as a rebuttal to my friends who gleefully regaled me with image after image, supposedly shot from the back of a racing dump truck with no shock absorbers, rattling down a rocky mountain road, littered with potholes, and shot by a hungover photographer with muscle tremors. And every one of the images was so sharp you could count the eyelashes on a mosquito buzzing around the subject's face.

Yes! Why can't we all have that same miraculous I.S.? Imagine how happy it would make my collection of old, Olympus Pen lenses.

However, there is a little fly in the ointment. While the Olympus I.S., which works by "floating" the image sensor from the infrastructure of the camera and applying motion correction in five axis, is wonderful it is very much a technology that works best for still images and is compromised by video.

Here's a condensed version of what I learned directly from Panasonic:

The single biggest obstacle to generating clean video images is noise. All other things being equal the biggest generator of image noise in imaging sensors is heat. Making an in-body, five axis, image stabilization system requires a very low mass sensor construction to enable the acceleration and deceleration required in moving an Olympus sensor in five axis, some concurrently and always accurately. Increases in the mass of the sensor and it's mooring constructions would require stronger motors and would compromise the integrity of the final image due to progressively uncontrollable inertial forces.

In order to make a very low mass, movable sensor construction Olympus is required to "de-couple" the image sensor from nearly all forms of mechanical heat sinking. A heat sink is a heat conductor (usually a low density, highly conductive metal) which draws heat away from an object and uses a larger radiator surface area to dissipate heat energy. In audio equipment, electronic power supplies, cameras (especially digital motion picture cameras) and computers one of the biggest design obstacles is the need to keep micro-processors within a narrowly proscribed temperature range. 

A rule of thumb from my long ago days studying electrical engineering was that every 10 degree (C) rise in operating temperature reduced the working life of an electronic component by half. Good designs are optimized mechanically or with forced, active cooling to keep silicon machines within a tight range of compliance. 

If you look at high-end video cameras, with no internal imaging stabilization whatsoever, like the Arriflex Alexa, the Sony F55 CineAlta and the Red Dragon and other Red cameras you'll find that all of them incorporate not only passive (and substantial) heat sinks but also cooling fans. Electrically powered cooling fans. To some extent this is what gives those cameras the stability to hold color non-linearities and especially electronic  noise to optimum levels during long takes. 

Olympus cameras as well as Nikons and many other consumer brands are crippled with crappy video codecs that don't require the camera to do heavy lifting in image processing. They also have very limited run times in video before noise begins to climb up and become overwhelming (or at least objectionable..).

What Panasonic have done is to forego the in-camera image stabilization in a compromise that gives the market a camera with incredibly good video performance, a tremendous ability to process high quality, high density video material, in camera, and the ability to run for as long as the memory card has available space, without a ramp up in noise generated by heat. In a fit of good design the entire alloy infrastructure of the camera is one giant heat sink working to the benefit of the imaging sensor. But this requires the sensor to be physically tightly coupled to the heat sinking.

A cool video camera is a less noisy video camera and a happier camera. Being from Texas I'll take one more seemingly logical step and conjecture that the heat-sinking happiness also carries over to noise performance in both long time exposures (which are historic heat and noise situations) and when shooting in situations that exceed the 103 degree (f) limits for high temperature listed in most consumer camera owner's manuals.

When a camera maker puts a temperature range in the manual they are pretty much saying, "Hey, we can't be responsible for crappy files when you are shooting in a heat wave." Does this make a difference? Absolutely. The fine sensor in my older Kodak DCS760 camera was noise free at ISO 80 but when I would use the camera at swim meets in the Texas Summer afternoons the on deck temperatures would routinely hit 105(f) and inside the black body of the camera I am certain it would have been 20 degrees higher. The result was obvious. At the beginning of a swim meet the camera would generate flawless files but by the end of the meet many of the files would be streaked with huge amounts of random noise. Big, splotchy, in your face noise. Let the camera cool down indoors and the good noise performance would return.

While I think the image quality of the EM-1 and the GH4 are roughly comparable as still cameras I am quick to admit that the image stabilization of the Olympus is a high water mark for the industry and a big selling point for their two top cameras. At the same time I think the GH4 stomps all over the EM-1 in terms of video quality, and overall design and usefulness as a video camera. A powerful and very professional video camera.

Both companies have made choices. The great thing for working photographers is that both companies' cameras can use either companies'  lines of lenses and many accessories, interchangeably. A pragmatic photographer, hellbent on using m4:3 for his working tools, could very well select one of each and use them for their unique, best features, as needed. The EM-1 when hand held still images are the goal and the GH-4 when video production is called for.

Much as I like the idea of the "ultimate" in image stabilization being available to me the GH4 speaks clearly to the engineer part of my brain and it's telling me that under adverse conditions (high ambient heat) with stills, or any use of video, the Panasonic choice buys me stable and long term reliable performance.

As my long time readers know I use tripods for nearly everything. I have more tripods in the studio, currently, than I do camera bodies. I think I'll stick with the Panasonic engineering decisions for now. And, in fact, their image stabilization in the 12-35mm lens and the 35-100mm lens are only about a stop behind the performance of the Olympus lenses. I can live (well) with that.

Last thought: If there is anything from the EM-1 that I would wish for on the GH4 the IBIS would be a distant third wish. My first choice would be to have the EVF of the EM-1. It's gorgeous! Second choice? That's for a future blog.

A Fun Venue for Learning Two Very Different Ways to Photograph Well. My review of two online courses.

One of the book cover illustrations for the soon to be launched novel, The Lisbon Portfolio. 

"Henry White" shooting with his Nikon and a 55 mm lens.

I've been doing this photography thing for a long time and I've come to realize that, like it or not, even photographers who describe themselves as generalists start settling into a groove over time. The groove is probably created by a combination of two factors: subject matter the photographer likes to shoot. And, subject matter that the photographer is good at shooting. As an example, when I started out my career I had a run of maybe six or seven years where a good percentage of my photography work revolved around using a 4x5 view camera to shoot interior and exterior photographs of architecture. The subjects included office buildings, factories, custom homes and even tract homes. I learned how to balance interior and exterior light and I learned how to use the rises and falls and tilts and swings of my view camera so well that it became second nature. 

But over time I found that while I was "good" at shooting architecture I wasn't passionate about it and so the people who were driven by their love and passion for architectural style and design were better than me. Additionally, while I liked the money that seemed to flow in freely I really wasn't inspired or particularly happy about shooting interior and exterior spaces. Unless the designs were really breath taking I found most of the work to be boring. Once you've practiced the skill set over and over again you really do remove a lot of the accidental but exciting stuff that makes any project more interesting. 

On the other hand I never get tired of bringing someone into the studio, lighting them and trying to make the best portrait possible. Because of the nature of portraiture it requires collaboration. It requires building an interpersonal understanding of some shared objective. And, to a certain extent, it requires mastering yourself so that you don't tip the scale too far in favor of the artist and out of favor for the sitter. Simply put, for a sitter to feel comfortable they need both physical space and emotional space. Too controlling a portraitist creates either an ambivalent or even hostile subject. Not the right mix for a revealing portrait. 

One major problem for photographers who've spent decades doing their photography is that we get locked in on certain things and we either don't recognize the need to change or don't have the tools to effect change by ourselves. Creating a new perspective is scary because we sometimes have to leave the things we know with certain assurance behind and, in a way, start over as  beginners. We have to get over our expertise when it becomes a boat anchor around our necks and we're wading out into deeper water...

I've found that I can learn from watching other photographers do things in different ways than me. Most of the stuff I find to watch on the web is a regurgitation of the same styles and points of view that we already have. We're watching videos by students of the students of the students of the originators of the discussions, who themselves were students of previous masters. There are millions of YouTube videos about "off camera" flash. Most are plainly derivative of the things David Hobby talked about and showed during the first five years of Strobist.com. David's work on Strobist.com (and the flash work of most newspaper photographers who got their start in the 1990's) is based on the work of people like Jon Falk, whose book, Adventures in Location Lighting, covered everything from the use of optical and radio slaves on small flashes to the construction and use of external batteries that could be used with consumer flash equipment.

Every once in a while I find something useful. It's usually a short interview with someone like Albert Watson or Nick Knight which ends up being inspirational but doesn't really move my craft, technique and overall point of view in one direction or another. 

But recently I decided to move past my own ego and look at some of the other photography courses on the www.craftsy.com platform. I have three of my own classes there right now. One is a free, more or less introductory course on photographing the day to day life of families. Launched last Fall the free class has played host to over 60,000 students.

I decided to look around and find some stuff I could watch that might be so different from the way I operate, both the way I see and the way I shoot, that it might budge me out of my complacency and change the course of my own "rut." 

The first course I found was this one by George Lange: George Lange's Course on about having more fun with photography.

George is a wonderful photographer, a former assistant of Annie Leibovitz, and the antithesis of me. He uses the latest, full frame, high ISO capable cameras to craft a style that doesn't depend (at all!!!) on using flash or supplemental light. But he gets great results and the rejection of lights for his personal work allows him to really concentrate on pulling emotion out of people and to enhance his awareness and appreciation of beautiful available light. For me his video course is all about the absolute JOY of photography. George seems to draw sustenance from each encounter with friends and family. 

I watched the course and I came away thinking of how much I need to free myself from my own need to control. (My favorite quote about control came from Stephen Pressfield's book, The Last Campaign. Alexander the Great's entourage, in an encounter with Indian holy men, asks them: "Alexander has conquered all the known world, what have you done?" and one of the holy men answers, "I have conquered my NEED to conquer the world.")

I found myself needing to control every aspect of a photograph, from the lighting and composition right down to the expression on a face. George is there to goad happiness from people and to capture the moment when they let go and really smile. I had a blast watching the whole course and would suggest it to anyone who thinks their work has gotten stale.....

The second course I found was one by long time photo book author and photographer, Chris Grey. It's the opposite extreme. It's a course on lighting products for clients. Something else I've done often in the last two or so decades but about which I could always learn more. When doing something complex, like product lighting and shooting, a nice refresher course is always welcome because a life spent mostly photographing interesting people is apt to make my other imaging skills a bit stiff and rusty. 

His course on Product Lighting and Photography walked me back through the process in a very logical, step by step approach which is coupled with his deep knowledge reservoir of facts and experience. Chris is good at explaining stuff. This video may not be "exciting" for a hobbyist who has no intention of doing still life work for business but it's a great review for me. In fact, I cued it up specifically because I'll be shooting new technology components for a client this week and if I walk away with three or four new ways to more efficiently and effectively do my work I'll be grateful. 

Head over to Craftsy.com and take a look. The things that make their course worthwhile to me are: There is a money back guarantee. You don't like a course? Let them know and they'll refund your money. If you buy a course and you like it then it's yours to keep forever. You can go back and review it again and again. The other thing I like about the Craftsy model of instruction is that part of being an instructor is the responsibility to respond to and answer questions from students in the online forum connected to each class. If you don't understand something the instructor is showing you can directly query him, even give him the time stamp from the part of the program you have questions about, and he or she will post an answer for you. 

Between Lynda.com and Craftsy.com you could put together a pretty good introductory education about most digital arts and crafts. Anyway, that's what I did after breakfast this morning. I watched Chris explain the technical nuts and bolts of lighting. The refresher made me feel a bit more confident about an upcoming, on location, product shoot. And that's exactly what I wanted.

Behind the Scenes at Our Green Screen Shoot. And a Few Notes About Some Patents Pending.

I wrote about our two shoots for Zach Theatre yesterday and I thought today I'd add some behind the scenes images to the mix just to show the set up. We're using two 4 tube fluorescent fixtures on the actual green screen. These are on either side of the green screed and about ten feet in front of its vertical plane. They are placed and turned to give an even spread of light across the background. We were able to achieve a fall off from center-to-side-to-side of about 1/10th of a stop. The small horizontal rectangle just to the right of the video camera is a small monitor which allows the clients to see what the image looks like and to show cameraman, Eric Graham, various things like a graphical representation of the fall off from one side of the green screen to the other.

This view angle shows our fill light on the left side of the frame (closest to camera). It's a 2 tube fluorescent fixture that's being diffused by a one stop silk diffuser. It's about twice the distance from the main subject as the main light which is on the other side of the camera. The soft, low level fill just serves to keep the shadow side of our actor's face from going into deep, noisy black. 

In this particular shot we're dong a zoom from a close up that frames just one of the actor's eyes and zooms out to reveal the actor from waist up. We chose to use a Sony EX3 camera in order to use a longer range zoom that has a power zoom feature. The lens is par focal which means that it stays in focus throughout the zoom range. Absolutely critical for this particular shot. 

I mentioned yesterday that one of the problems we're always trying to solve in shooting green screen is to keep the green color from reflecting off the background and wrapping around the subject. When that happens it nearly impossible to drop out the background cleanly and can ruin the effect you might have had in mind for your compositing project. Shown here is our solution. It's a Fiilex P360 LED light covered with a 1/2 minus green (magenta colored) gel. The gel helps to neutralize any bounce back from the green. It's mounted on a 12 foot stand on the back side of the background cloth and pointed out and down at the head and shoulders of our actor. 

In this shot you can see our main light just above and slightly to the left of the camera. It's a 6 tube fluorescent unit that belts out a lot of light. I have it covered with a thick, white diffusion material because I think it's cruel to have a bare light shining directly into the eyes of the talent. The diffusion helps take the edge off the light. I also like some diffusion on my lights to smooth out transitions. 

You'll notice that we don't have sand bags on our stands and I would counsel you to make it a practice always to sand bag your heavy lights. I took a chance since we were working on a closed set on the stage of a live theater and the crew and artistic personnel are used to working around possible hazards during rehearsal and stage creation. That being said, I was nervous about the high LED light until we finished the shoot and brought it back down. 

It is rare that we work this close to the actual green screen. Best practices call for getting the subject as far out in front of the screen as possible. We were limited by the width of the screen (about 9 feet) which, when we comped to mid thigh to top of head shot meant we were already at the side-to-side edges of our material. Our other limitation was our time with the space and with the actor. We had to shoehorn a still shoot, a lighting change and a video shoot all into the space of three hours. In a higher budget project with a more flexed out schedule we would have done this in a dedicated studio with a wide (twenty feet or more) cyc wall painted process green. 

If we had run out of space and it had been critical to get more on the sides but maintain very high resolution we would have turned the camera sideways, turn the file in post and then matted in more green on the edges. An additional burden for the editor but sometimes a trick to save the shoot from a host of technical maladies.  

Over the course of two hours of video shooting we ended up with three spot variations, any one of which would work for our fifteen second TV spots. 

We used a digital recorder with the EX3 camera so we could get 4:2:2 color which makes compositing easier. We used a small monitor so Dave Steakley (facing front in a blue t-shirt) could review the various takes to gauge the emotional feel of the clips. Eric, our camera man and director was looking at the same monitor for things like timing, zoom smoothness and accurate focus. I checked the monitor from time to time to gauge exposure and lighting aesthetics. All in all the projects were successful. The spots will run in  two weeks, the post cards will go out in a week and a half and all the edited and finished material will be up on the web during the final week of pre-production before the opening of the show. 

And the show is a re-imagined version of the rock opera, Tommy. 

All of the "behind the scenes" images were shot using a Sony RX10.  The RX10 is the most flexible camera on the market today. It's a great still camera, a great travel package and one of the best hybrid video/still cameras on the market. I hope Sony doesn't discontinue it before I pick up another one. 

On to more important stuff: Once Amazon patented the white background I couldn't stop thinking of potential stuff to patent. So, my I.P. attorney and I have been busy and here's what we have patents pending for at the moment, so please don't infringe or we'll come down on you like gangbusters and hasten my own yacht centered retirement at your expense. 

1. We were in a bit of disbelief when we discovered that no one, not even David Hobby, had patented the technique of using a battery powered flash off the camera. I found this amazing and my attorney thought it was a delicious place to start. We applied for two patents: One for using the flash off camera with a cable and the other for using a flash off camera with a radio trigger. Now, please understand, we aren't patenting the technology for getting the flash off camera, just the action of using the flash off the camera. You are now forewarned so put the damn flash back on your hotshoe and suck it up!

2. We were also amused that no one had patented the placing of photographic gear on a cart and using said cart to transport photographic gear from one place to a separate and different place. We rushed to patent the actual transportation ( or "movement" ) of photographic gear, including but not limited to, cameras, lights, stands, boxes, photographic equipment containers and other sundry devices, on a cart that is pulled or pushed from one location to another. If you like to bring a lot of equipment to your remote locations you'll need to lose the cart and hire more photo assistants or Sherpas. That or risk the wrath of our legal arm. 

3. We are close to owning HDR or "High Dynamic Range" recording. While some of the tools for creating the effect are patented we discovered that no one owns the patent for actually doing "Technicolor Vomit" (the technical term...) in post production or for actuating it automatically on your camera. We doubled down on this one and also sought to trademark the term, "HDR".  I figure every time Trey Ratliff shoots something I'll get a small royalty from him for the initial infringement and another micropayment from anyone who describes the resulting photograph using the term, "HDR." 

4.  While Amazon clearly owns the technique for creating images with white backgrounds they failed in their submission to extend their patent to the creation of images with color backgrounds and we were able to swoop in and lock that puppy down. The patent application is far ranging and includes the colors, red, yellow, blue, green, magenta, cyan and black. Or any mixture of these colors to create any other colors. We refer to this beautiful piece of legal work as "our money maker!"

5. You'll never believe this but while some camera straps are protected from being copied by pending patents no one has filed a patent for the actual use of a strap to suspend a camera from a human. Or animal, or "other."  Well, now we have. So whether you use a logical and straightforward strap to carry your camera, suspended from yourself, your heirs or your assigns,  or whether you use one of the camera-killing sling straps with a single attachment point that holds your precious camera in an inverted orientation,  you are now more than welcome to own the strap, and even argue the merits of each design but you will need to apply for a license in order to use said strap in the aforementioned manner. We're "pending" right now but with ground breaking precedence from Amazon it's really only a matter of time before we start a whole scale campaign to hunt down infringement on a mass scale.

6. Finally, we are attempting to get a patent for the use of tripods to provide a steady base from which to shoot images with a still or video camera. Now, just to be clear, it would not be an infringement to own a tripod or to even attach a camera of any kind to the tripod, but using it to provide a support during the shooting process will require a license. It's not the camera or the tripod themselves that are subject to this patent, only the intermixing of said articles in the pursuit of sharp photographs by application of photography while so attached. 

That's all we have for today but we are branching out. In the spirit of the Amazon patents for the white background we are looking into social media such as Twitter. While we can't patent the writing or sending of 140 character messages we may just be able to secure the patent for the actual reading of said messages on any sort of transmissive screen. Messages printed on paper fall outside the parameters of the filing but transmissive screens? That's a whole other ball park....

And would you believe that we just discovered that no patent currently covers the design and construction of baseball parks? Ah, the U.S. patent. The gift that keeps on giving for major corporations. Join the fun! What every day thing can you patent?

First Assistant Makes Short Work of Twin Shoots.

Ben, on location at Zach Theatre.

Lighting: Elinchrom Monolights.

Camera: Panasonic GH4

Lens: 35-100mm X f2.8

©2014 Kirk Tuck 

Ben was between projects today and agreed to come along and assist me on the back to back, still photo/video project I had on the books for this afternoon. We hit the ground running at Zach Theatre and set up our background for the stills. This is a shot of Ben standing in for the actor who will be starring in Tommy in July. At this point we were still doing some fine tuning and I needed to bring up the levels of the background lights. But I liked the image of Ben so I kept it. 

Ben has done probably  a dozen or so serious video projects and maybe 100+ fun, goofing around video projects with friends and at school so he's very conversant with the role of director and producer. He also knows his way around lights and grip equipment. 

Once the stills were done we moved on to lighting for the green screen video. Again, he moved smoothly and quickly through the process all the while keeping his ears open for changes in the agenda. He likes to think a couple steps ahead...

The director on the set was happy with the lighting and got the shots he needed. The Theatre now has good building blocks for print, web and TV to use in promoting the upcoming show. As soon as the actor left the set Ben was wrapping cables, pulling down lights and packing up stands. 

After we dropped off our intern at his college dorm Ben and I headed home. He's not a cellphone addict so he left his phone at home during the shoot. He checked his messages when we got in, critiqued (at my request) my current edit on the restaurant video I've been editing and then headed out the door for a dinner party. 

I was able to teach him something new today. Not sure when he'll ever use it again. But when you light for green screen your biggest fear is that the green reflectance will "wrap around" your actor or talent and give you green edges on the main subject. Then it becomes a nightmare to composite. I learned a long time ago to put a high backlight at the back of the set, aimed at the subject's back. The light should be gelled with a magenta gel (opposite of green) which will help cancel out the color of the reflectance. You don't need a heavy magenta. A 1/4 to 1/2 minus-green works great. We looked long and hard at the video footage in an onstage monitor and couldn't find a trace of the dreaded green wrap. 

It's fun to work with the kid. He's been booked up with projects and social functions since the end of school and I feel like I barely get to see him. Nice to work with someone really good.

Packing for two, sequential, inter-related shoots. One still photography and the other video. Double the pain?

I had the highest hopes for what some on the web are calling hybrid imaging. The idea is that we'd find one camera that would do really great photos and really great video (done!) and then we'd find one type of lighting that would work for both types of imaging. We would happily switch between stills and video without ever having to change our lighting and everything would be quick, convenient and merry. I bought into it. But it's total bullshit----at least for now.

Let me backtrack... I bought into the concept because, for many of the jobs I do the new way can really work. If I go out to shoot an executive portrait and the marketing department also needs an interview I can set up LED or fluorescent lights, grab a Panasonic GH4 (or even a Sony RX 10) and get good stills and video content at the switch of the mode dial and with the attachment of a good microphone. Where things start to break down is when we move beyond the easy stuff and introduce subject motion and the need to freeze action in still images. All of a sudden we're back into the realm of flash.

I'm doing a job today that would be perfect for continuous lighting if it weren't for the fact that we'll need to create a feel of rock concert kinetics with our actor. We're doing marketing images for Zach Theatre's rendition of Tommy and we're going to try and get wild stage movements and swinging, Roger Daltry-esque microphone moves frozen on a white background and then we need to get the same kind of moves again for video, on a green screen background. Ouch.

The fast movements of the actor require the action stopping short exposure times of flash. He'll also be wearing a jacket with fringe all along the sleeves and the fringe will create even more movement as the actor rocks across the white background. I'm taking four Elinchrom flashes to deal with this part of the shoot. We'll set up two units to light the background, one unit for a main light and the fourth for fill or accent. We've done this a thousand times before and I have no fears that we'll be able to get exactly what we want for the stills. With flash.

But flash is, of course, useless for video. We're shooting the actor against a green background so the editor can composite some really cool animation into the background. And that means that the screen has to be evenly lit and as far from the talent as focal length and studio configurations will allow. We don't want the green from the background to wrap around onto our actor's gold,  highly REFLECTIVE, jacket.

I'd like to through a lot of light onto this shot so we can use 60 fps to make the video look sharper. And we need to be careful to match front and background exposures so we don't have issues in post production. I'll be using six, big fluorescent fixtures with modifiers, where necessary. Two directly on the background, two on the talent and one as a backlight. The backlight fixture will have a layer of magenta gel on it to combat any incursion of the dreaded green wrap. (The Mag. filtered light will serve to cancel out the green).

To do these shoots, one after the other, requires: A set of background stands. A white background. A green background. Clamps to tighten up the backgrounds and kill wrinkles. Eight or nine light stands (the continuous lights require more stands for the modifiers we put in front of them). Diffusion frames for modifiers. Four Elinchrom strobes with umbrellas and a soft box. Six (heavy) fluorescent lights. Filter gels. Four 25 foot extension cords. One still photo tripod with ball head. One video tripod with fluid head. One monster Gitzo tripod as a solid base for our video slider. One heavy duty cart to transport everything with.

Did I forget anything? How about cameras? I'm taking the GH3's and GH4 and  small sample of lenses. And, with green screen, always a light meter. Oh heck, always a light meter anyway.

The schedule is tense. We leave the studio at 12:30 and start unloading and setting up at the theatre at 1 pm. The still shoot is first. We fine-tune and get our still shots from 2 until three. At three on the dot we pull down the white background and exchange it for the green one. We pull all the flash units and replace them in new configurations with the fluorescent lights. The actor's make-up and costume gets refreshed while the director and I fine tune the video imaging and go over settings.

We're using the clean HDMI out of the camera into a digital recorder that writes 10 bit Pro-Res 4:2:2 because the editor is old school and got burned on much older video cameras many years ago. He wants to start with the cleanest, sharpest green screen files he possible can. I am more optimistic and I'm dying to try shooting in 4K and then importing in FCPX as 1080p (in Pro Res 4:2:2) but we're working as a team and the editing is his area of expertise so I bow to his experience.

We need to be lit, metered, color correct and ready to go by 3:30 pm. That's a really tight turn around. But I think we'll manage. We have both Ben (super assistant) and my new intern in tow. Ben will take charge in wrapping up the gear we used for the stills. We start shooting the video in earnest at 3:30 because we have a hard stop at 5 pm when we have to start packing and hauling stuff out. The theater needs the space back by 5:30 pm.

If we shoot to the digital recorder in the video sequence then my part of the video production ends them. My job is to get the director and editor the best technical content I can so they can concentrate on directing and editing.

Ben and I should be back at the studio by 6 pm and we'll unload before we head to the house. Saturday I'll come back to the studio after swim practice and unpack every thing and put each tool in its place. Trying to stay organized so we don't waste time getting ready for next week's projects.

It would be a lot easier to do this all with one set of lights but sometimes you just have to bite down and do things in the optimum method. For this shoot it's all about lights and making stuff sharp. For the video it's all about nailing the green screen. And as far as I can tell there's no way to hybridize the lighting tools. Sorry Hybrid Imaging. 

Is a lens alone enough reason to get into a system? Maybe.

The Samsung 85mm 1.4 lens.

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

Downtown communications...

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

I recently discovered that the lens I've had in my equipment drawer for a couple months now may be the most fun 85mm 1.4 lens I've had the pleasure to own. It's solid and externally boring but it makes images that I find exactly in line with what I want. Longer than normal (120+ equiv.) Incredibly detailed and sharp in the middle, wide open. But is that enough to buy into a system?

When I was growing up in photography there were tons of photographers whose daily bread was made shooting Nikons and Canons. But a large number of them also had an additional camera around their necks. It was a Leica M3 or M2 or maybe an M4 and they generally had one lens for it. The guys who liked portraits had a 50mm Summicron and the people who were more inclined to shoot traditional photojournalism generally opted for a 35mm Summicron. No big system investment. A lot of the cameras were bought used. But the little outlier camera and lens was generally thought to be the shooter's "personal camera" or "art camera." The mechanism that aligned with his core vision. 

Now I am certainly not comparing the consumer-aimed Samsung NX30 camera to a Leica M3 but I must admit that even in my fervor to make the Panasonic GH4 and its family my primary shooting system I am happy to have the option of sticking a very well made 85mm 1.4 on the front of a camera with a slightly larger (and very detailed) sensor for shooting portraits. The combo of the NX30 and the 85mm has yielded some nice portraits for me and as soon as one of my clients makes their selections and launches some of the new people images on their websites I'll share them with you. 

While it is mentally convenient to "lock into" a system it's also nice to have options. The Samsung 85mm 1.4 is an option I like. Now I am waiting to see if the rumors are true. Will they introduce a professional caliber NX-1 at Photokina? Will it feature 4K video? Will it be affordable? 

In the meantime I'm heading back into the giant time vacuum that is known as Final Cut Pro to finish up a long and hesitant edit on a project. Hesitant because when given a huge range of choices it's alway harder to start.....

Camera Raw has come to the Panasonic GH4. In the form of a "Release Candidate." Whatever the hell that means.

Lauren Lane in "Vanya" at Zach Theatre. 

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

Shot in Jpeg with the GH4

No one has ever explained the term, "Release Candidate" to me but I'm guessing it means, 'we tried a bunch of different stuff and this is the one we think we're going to finally release but we are looking for adventurous stiffs to break it for us, just in case we screwed up mightily...'  Okay, I'm game. I'll download the "release candidate" of the new Adobe Raw 8.5 so I can use the Panasonic GH4 in raw file mode. I am a little nervous about the whole thing because Adobe put a little asterisk by the GH4 name on the list and noted that it was "preliminary" support. Again, as this was unexplained I'll guess that they are still trying to improve whatever it is they do to make the conversions pretty. 

Since all raw files seem to be modified Tiff files I'm a bit perplexed by the need for most camera makers to customize their raw code to the point that it becomes somewhat proprietary and requires the seasonal re-writing of the very software we want to use most in our jobs. If I remember correctly both Leica and Pentax give shooters the option of saving files in the ".dng" format which makes the files quite a bit more "universal" and pretty much ensures that even if the camera maker succumbs to the vagaries of the current market and goes away entirely there will always be a way to utilize raw files already shot. 

I guess every maker is looking for the tweak. According to Thom Hogan, Sony tweaks their raw files in the A7 series by making them lossy and encoding them as 11 bit files instead of 12 or 14 bit files like Canon and Nikon. Could be that Sony knows something the other two don't but it could also be that they are looking for some fast compression and more images on a card to serve to photographers who don't look under the hood much. Other makers seem to bake in some noise reduction that can't be turned off while some (medium format) even offer 16 bit files. 

At any rate I am happy to finally have a convenient way to work with the GH4 raw files. I'm heading out today to shoot some test shots so I can load a few and see if I can do a better job with sharpening and noise reduction than the camera does, on the fly with Jpegs. The update corrects a glitch for older Nikon compressed raw files and it provides support and lens profiles as detailed below. So....if you've got a GH4, an Oly M10 or one of the other beauties on the list you might consider heading over to Adobe:  http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/cameraraw8-5-cc.html

New Camera Support

• Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark II
• Fuji FinePix S1
• Nikon 1 J4
• Nikon 1 V3
• Olympus OM-D E-M10
• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH4 (*)

(*) denotes preliminary support

New Lens Profile Support

Lens Name	Lens Mount
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM A014	Canon
Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014	Canon
Tamron 16-300mm F3.5-6.3 DiII VC PZD MACRO B016E	Canon
Fujifilm Tele Conversion Lens TCL-X100	Fuji
Nikon 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f3.5-5.6 PD-ZOOM	Nikon
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G ED VR	Nikon
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM A014	Nikon
Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014	Nikon
Tamron 16-300mm F3.5-6.3 DiII VC PZD MACRO B016N	Nikon
Tamron SP 150-600mm F5-6.3 Di VC USD A011N	Nikon
Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC HSM A013	Pentax
Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM A014	Sigma
Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC MACRO OS HSM C014	Sigma
Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC HSM A013	Sony Alpha

Three cameras. Three photographs of medical practices. Three different looks.

Nurse with child in Premature Infant Unit.

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

I actually love making photographs of healthcare subjects. There's drama, compassion and it's all about the human condition. When I was younger I would faint at the sight of blood. As I've gotten older and had one health scare I've become less sensitive to things like injections and blood tests and more in tune with the idea of how vulnerable we all are when we present ourselves to our health care providers. I like that my images can help to demystify or humanize the experiences. That we can tell somewhat universal stories so that people can understand what they are getting into. 

These three images are some of my favorites from various shoots I've done in hospitals in Austin and San Antonio, Texas. I love looking at work that spans time and these span a decade. They were also done with three different cameras and three different lenses. It's interesting to see how the vision changes along with the equipment. 

The top image of the nurse and child was done most recently. We did it in 2012. I was using the Sony a99 at that point along with the 85mm 1.4.  With the progress in sensors I was able to shoot without having to supplement the lighting in the space. That made my job a bit easier and it was required on the preemie ward. Getting the right image required me to position the people in the right light since just about every place is top lit. It also required finding a background that wouldn't fight tooth and nail with my main subjects. The image was shot at f4 since that's both a sweet spot, performance wise, for the lens and also provided enough depth of field to cover what I wanted. With the good high ISO performance of the camera I was able to shoot at a high enough shutter speed to hand hold the camera. It's pretty straightforward documentation. 

Medical Technician. Austin Heart Hosptial

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

The image just above was done back in 2003 on a long, two day shoot for the Austin Heart Hospital. Our job was to fill a bucket list worth of images for an ad agency out of new Mexico. Back then we used two cameras primarily; the Kodak DCS 760 (larger APS-H sensor, 6 megapixels) and the Nikon D2H. I loved the low ISO image quality of the DCS 760 (think ISO 80...) and I used it wherever possible with flash or in daylight. But my "low light" camera was the D2H which allowed me to shoot images all the way up to a stunning ISO 800 with "containable" noise. This image was shoot quickly and hand held. The lens, if memory serves, was the really good, Nikon 28-70mm f2.8 (which I like much better than the 24-70mm that followed it). 

This woman was working with blood samples and needles and I was careful not to look down at her gloved hands...  I shot quickly. Probably no more than five frames. I chimped and then moved on. 

When I came across the image in post I realized that I had underexposed by at least a stop and back then cameras were much less forgiving about that. But the client liked the image and wanted to use it so I correctly the exposure and sent it along. While it has some pattern noise that show up on the solid areas the client didn't care. He said, "This looks like journalism. It looks real and not set up." Okay. I can go with that. I just love the raw feel of the image. 

Austin Radiology Associates Doctor in reading room.

©2014 Kirk Tuck

www.visual sciencelab.blogspot.com

The final shot is one I've always liked. I used it in one of my books and I've written about it before. It's lit almost entirely by flat screens in the small reading room. There is one flash directly behind the panels you can see in the background. There is a second light from the far corner of the room to provide some hair light and separation but all the light on the doctor's face is from the screen in front of her and a small reflector just to the right of the camera. 

The camera was one of my quirky favorites, the Fujifilm S5. I loved the way that camera handled flesh tones! It was magnificent. And I looked the tongue in cheek interpolation to 12 megapixels. It even said "12 megapixels" on the body so clients at the time were quite happy. But the real eccentric part of the image was the lens. I'd picked up a very old copy of the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 for a couple hundred dollars. The focusing was sloppy and sometimes the zoom ring became withdrawn and recalcitrant but just look at the out of focus effect in the background and the sharp-but-not-too-sharp imaging of the main subject. 

The image was shot in 2007 just as I started writing my first book. The one about using battery powered flashes. The marketing director for this client had a lot of respect for the doctor's time. We usually needed to get in, set up a shot, light it, and shoot it in about 30 minutes. Less time wasted was better. The time constraints worked well with our "new" lighting techniques. Back then we called the little flashes on the nano stands "light on a stick." Now it's pretty much ubiquitous. Not so back in the days of 80 ISO.....

As I said, I love shooting medical marketing images. It's all about the people and their interactions with each other and with ever changing technology. And that makes everything more fun.

Three different cameras. Three different lenses. Two approaches to lighting.