My Bits And Pieces - I'm Talking About Photos...  

Nick_

Check it. All booked out too (not surprising with a tiny intake).

Slav

Those film shots look like you have light leaks in your camera.

Congrats on the workshop, whatever you want to call it

Nick_

Umm yep, I did say that in the post actually (The last sentence) & also mentioned it a few posts back too about how I recovered it (as in the grip/leatherette) but took it out for a roll with it partially covered and didn't even think of the two spring steel (hollow) pins letting light stream in both before and after the curtain.

Thanks, hopefully it doesn't rain for it!

Nick_

One workshop down and it was pretty hard to compress it all whilst also helping out some indivduals!

Next one is this weekend and it's all booked out as well. Hopefully an easier session with more advanced attendees so less "what is aperture" and more "lets shoot wide open".

Also got the in-store catalogue out for my work. It's here if you want a look. P.s. Don't let me know if you're pixel peeping and find a masking error haha. But no seriously, don't :/

http://issuu.com/theoutdoorfurniturespecia...s/docs/magazine

Ben092

Looks pretty darn good to me Nick.

I take it they are good models, dont complain much?

Nick_

Haha it's not the models more so than the help

No not really. It was mostly challenging with cramming as much in, when we could which meant shooting at the worst times usually and 99.9% was all done within 8:30-5 and we just dealt with the weather. Waiting for cloud cover or trying to exposure for midday sun and lift the shadows with a couple of Einsteins with vagabond minis. Only 3 lifestyle shots in that mag aren't mine although a fair amount of the product shots aren't mine.

Personally next year will be better and hopefully a bit more planning and input from myself to stretch the process out and get better shots for more cohesion. So much more to it than you'd think. A fair amount of an eye opener, but looking around and really trying to delve into it shows you that we barely scratched the surface of some of the work people do in catalogues, let alone furniture - it's pretty hardcore! Domayne recently shot their catalogue too (it's the start of everyones new season) and they shot with a tethered Hasselblad and knocked up a studio in a warehouse for it all! They had more crew in the photog dept than we have almost in the whole head office! Also the studio stand they used for the warehouse shoot was worth about $5k! They're epic in terms of reproducibility, sturdiness and a tiny-ass footprint to boot.

Check out this small one (only 8 foot): http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/2170...amma_Stand.html
Wonder what the post is on that bad boy!

SR33

If I had a studio I would so purchase that. Will be great investment. I have used one before and its awesome!! I'm sure you can pick a 2nd hand one up from here.

The freight is like 2k!!! WOW

Nick_

Yeah I'd grab one too, especially for throwing a macbook onto as well etc.. Would be epically handy and they're very easy to unlock and move for the wheeled ones from what I've seen.

SR33

Just saw the catalogue shots you took. Great work man. All from just using the Einsteins?

What did you mask in for some of the shots?

Nick_

Yeah sometimes all 4 e640's and PCB 67" Octas, PCB "Lrg" softboxes and sometimes just 8.5" reflectors or silver umbrellas, all depends on... everything of course haha. I don't think there's a single shot where we didn't use even one light though - had to fill those shadows. Really wanted to get that sort of medium format depth but sometimes I just couldn't fill it without making it look too flashed. Watch the legs of the chairs though, it's pretty easy to read what I did from there.

Masked in tons of stuff. I did a lot of work to most of the images from just simple lightening of shadows to all-out colour correction. Usual cloning/try and make a scene still look natural but remove tons of stuff.

Learned tons and it already feels like I cringe when I look at the images and think I could easily improve again, next season will be a lot better I think. Especially with locations - I think some were a let down in a lot of ways.

Had a full page ad in the latest Home Beautiful too which is pretty awesome! Also doing up some BTS vids of the TV Comm shoot we did for the Youtube page. A rather long process! All time-lapse too.

SR33

Do you find with the Einstein that after you take the very first shot the power level either goes full power or no power?
Its strange. Mine does it everytime.

Could be the MC2.

I should try it with another trigger.

Nick_

Nope. Nothing but flawless performance, we're using the cybersync and commander but. It's the bomb.

SR33

yeah I might buy them eh.. Have a few issues with pocketwizards.

Nick_

Tad ironic isn't it...

SR33

Or it could just be the MC2. hmmm

Nick_

Could be, know anyone else local that has E640's you can test it on?

Nick_

Well a project of mine of late has been developing my own film again. Haven't done this since high-school and whilst the main idea is to keep it on the cheap side (Although developer isn't exactly expensive) it's also been pretty cool to develop film with coffee. Yep. I've been using Caffenol-C, which is a developer made at home, the C at the end is for Vitamind C or Ascorbic acid. Had to get that off ebay unfortunately, as getting it at the chemist is really expensive for only 150/200ml rather than 500 for half the price.

Got a Paterson tank off ebay from the UK and I'm in business. Grabbed some Ilford fixer from Photocontinental as you can't really make that at home without ordering chemicals and it's just plain easier and cheaper to buy.

Sent 3 rolls through the Caffenol now, with the latest being last night. Two rolls through the FED now and one roll was an old Holga roll I had on my desk for years waiting dev. I must say it's pretty good! It's very easy to use and forgiving, especially when you can't really develop at 20 degrees constant in Aus when it's not winter. Also bought a Canon EOS 650 film SLR to through on the 50 1.4 for some film street. The FED is rather strange to focus versus an SLR, although it's to be expected, being a different camera and all. Anyway here's some taken and developed yesterday.

T4ZZ

That's a different way to process, but they look nice nick did you actually print to paper or scan the negs onto your computer?

Also I thought I would go through your thread form the start considering its near 60 pages long...you have come a long way man! was also interesting to see some car events from back in '08 that's a few years before I ever got into cars and eventually owning a Dslr.

Nick_

Yeah there's a bit in here!

They're scanned negs, dont think I'd ever print to paper, a total darkroom setup is beyond my scope for this. Especially since a few years i had eveything i needed and got it for free including enlargers but just dont have the time or room for that. Scanned using a lightbox and 5d2+100 macro, which doesn't help in hiding grain!

Its too easy not to dev at home as well, can do it on a weeknight in your jocks without going to the shops and waiting etc.. Start to finish is about an hour with dry, ready to scan negs, set up to pack up. Scanning takes about that alone as well though.

Nick_

So I sold off my Petax MZ-50 with its slow-ass zoom and got an EOS650 film SLR to throw my 50 1.4 onto. Good buy! Although its currently pulled apart on the desk behind me (the strap hoops are corroded as hell), I still got a roll through it on the weekend. Little macro work and a walk around some markets.

Scratched the neg whilst scanning on the guy with the bottle shot (first frame off the roll) sadface. Again all home dev'd in Caffenol. This time I was halving the recipe and adjusting times a bit. Dev for 5min30s and fix for 5 in about 26 degrees.

Garfield Gangsta

Love that scratch man... makes the image in my opinion. Has a very real nostalgic look