Here in Nottingham in addition to our photography,  we are also producing video!   Recent projects include training videos,  conferences, and video greetings cards!

We have just updated our showreel, so take a peak here!

Cheers!

Occasionally there is a new bit of gear that comes along that really can change how we work as a photographer. The new iPad is one of them.

In the field,  we often produce pictures that have to be sent quickly to our clients.   For the past 20 years we have acquired the photography onto our laptops,  post produced in Photoshop,  then transmitted via the mobile or land telephone network.

There have been some big developments along the way,  better scanners,  better modems,  connecting to mobile phones,  moving from site to site onto FTP and email….. 

With the launch of the new iPad, with its new screen and combined with the Photogene app, we are seeing the biggest development since the first Apple 165c’s that we used in 1993.  

Whilst many photographers use ipads to display their portfolio, the latest machine is now capable of being a powerfull tool to serve our customers.

With that in mind… I went down to KRCS and picked one up to replace my Dell.  In addition I added the camera connector kit, and installed Photogene and its Pro upgrade.  (I will put up a more extensive review of the Photogene App later…. )

Using the camera connector kit I can upload images directly from my Canon’s into the iPad.   It’s very quick and easy.  One of the downsides is that it is difficult to import specific images as the filenames are not shown in the window during the import process.  Nor can you zoom in the preview to see if it’s sharp at this stage.

Once the images are in the iPad,  Photogene takes care of all the post production,  captions and exporting to the customer or back to the office. 

Photogene works in mysterious ways, and there are some drawbacks.   Due to the lack of a lot of oomph on the iPad,  it can’t open the images at the full resolution to check focus.   In addition whilst you can use RAW files,  you can only export JPEG’s….  Photogene produces the JPEGS from the RAW as part of the export.  

Captioning control is excellent, giving access to all the IPTC fields we need, and allowing generic information to be saved and the pasted into the fields, thus saving considerable time and effort.

FTP access is built in.

So,  we can quickly acquire the pictures,  including RAW images,  into the iPad,  adjust, crop, sharpen, and caption,  then send them out via email or FTP.   All in super fast time, all from a device that is a fraction of the weight and size of our previous laptops, and best of all, as Photogene is only $7.99… all at a cost far cheaper than before.

So,  what’s the downside?

1) Apple’s crappy Email software; 12 years ago when we left Apple and went onto PC’s it was largely because Apple’s Email software didn’t work well with attachments when sending to PC’s.   Guess what??? 12 years later… same problem.   Older versions of Outlook do not like attachments sent on the IOS.   Sometimes it works… sometimes not.   (It never works with a forwarded email BTW….) 

2) Apple’s policy that we can not rename the files in the album;  This means that when emailing images…. we cannot rename the file to match the Title field in the IPTC…. instead it comes across with a generic number generated from the camera.   This is fixed by Photogene when you export by FTP,  but isn’t on the email…. I have communicated with the excellent guys at Photogene, and pointed out this issue,  and they have told me it will be changed to allow us to rename the file when exporting via email as well.  Nice One!

There are some other minor operational issues that are more about workflow,  but nothing that can’t be overcome easily and quickly.  

Certainly sending pictures back just got a whole lot quicker. 

But coming back to the problem with the Apple Email software not liking JPEG attachments…..  that is a big problem.   And apparently it’s not something new either.  I suspect that if the client has been keeping his/her Outlook updated and modern,  it’s not a problem… but we know that certain national papers can’t get pictures this way due to their legacy email systems….  So some consideration is going to have to be made to overcome this.  In the interim we can send easily back to the office,  and we can also use FTP…. I also am thinking about rigging up a fancy redirect thingy on our servers, but we shall see!

If you want something to work out of the box,  it’s not quite there… still a bit bleeding edge to be reliable.   But watch this space!

You can learn more about Photogene here; http://www.mobile-pond.com/MobilePond/

We do a lot of architectural and showhome photography, for clients ranging from The Sunday Times to Crest Nicholson and Oakdale homes.  (In fact,  you can see some of it on our home page!)

The key to success is to make the end result seemless.  And that is a lot harder than it looks. 

You need an almost custom approach to each property.  Some might have lots of available light,  so you add some light into the dark corners.  Some might have weird loft conversions,  so you pull your hair out and put multiple lights in various spots and spend hours trying to balance them.

No one approach seems to work, every room needs to be thought through and dealt with as an individual. 

Reflective surfaces can make life a nightmare, with brollies and hot spots being almost impossible to get rid of.   Unfinished gardens need to be hidden.  You need to be hidden!

Before our recent batch of houses I called up a mate of mine in Cumbria,  an old commercial hand who has quite a bit of traditional experience with this sort of stuff… but who has now retired to spend his days bodging small boats…  Anyways,  I thought he might have some old tricks which would cut through the hours of trial/pain and tribulations that we go through to try to get an evenly lit kitchen or bathroom.

“Phil,”  I said,” Wot’s the secret of Interiors??”

Sadly, according to Phil,  there is no secret magic solution.

It’s just long exposures, plenty of small remote lights, and trial and error. 

And if you want to see some of our results, you can take a look at our stuff on Crest Nicholson’s site…

Harvest Fields;  http://www.crestnicholson.com/harvestfields/Gallery.aspx

Kings Lodge; http://www.crestnicholson.com/kingslodge/Gallery.aspx

Lightmoor Green; http://www.crestnicholson.com/lightmoorgreen/Gallery.aspx

So,  when you are looking at those glossy brochures for your new three story townhouse, or flipping through the pages of Homes Weekly…. have a thought for the snapper who spent hours literally pulling his hair out and sweating to get it just right!

Photographers need Power.    Without batteries photography doesn’t happen.   Photo flashes,  cameras,  laptops,  they all need power.  It’s out Holy Grail on location. (As well as a good latte…)

Probably the biggest need is to power our speedlights on location.   The 4 poxy AAs that they have internally just don’t cut the mustard.   They don’t last long enough… and they don’t recycle fast enough.

To the end of having more power we have had Metz,  Quatums,  crappy Chinese stuff,  big lead acid jobs on our Bowens and multi AA packs from Canon and Nikon. 

Our experience with external battery packs has been poor.  High cost,  Unreliable,  poor build,  heavy,  memory problems…. and did I mention the high cost??

Until two weeks ago…..

Our friends at Calumet have come out with a new external battery pack designed to work with our Canon 580′s… (and Nikons etc…) it’s called the Power Block 900,  and we got our hands on one to give it a spin.

Calumet's new Power Block Flash battery.

(That’s it above….   pictured (from Calumet’s website…) with the Nikon Speedlight (Booo!)….)

Anyways…  I was suitably impressed.   We took it out on some portrait jobs for the Indy and e.on;  We took it off to Crufts in Paparazi Doggy Mode… and we thought it was great!

First off… the price.   Not Expensive.  In fact,  dare I say…. cheap. ( Certainly… inexpensive.) £140 without the camera specific cable.

Secondly… the build.   Impressive.   Nice solid build… not built down to a price.

Thirdly…. Does it work?   Yes.   We had no issues at all…we charged it up and went off for a week without even shifting the power indicator down a notch.  

In reality this is a pretty simple piece of kit, and it’s good to see that Calumet have produced a well built,  simple and inexpensive bit of kit that does exactly what we need.

It’s light,  so you don’t really notice it on your belt, it has a LiOn battery so no memory issues, it comes with an in car charger, and it works.

It does what it says on the tin.  No fuss. 

Why can’t more gear be like this?  So much stuff coming out now is either stupidly expensive,  (Ala all the new Canon lenses…)  or rubbish quality.   We need more equipment that is reasonably priced and of good quality.  There is a lot of downward pressure on the industry,  and it’s good to see Calumet responding to this and sourcing gear that is actually affordable.

 A great bit of kit.

You can get it from Calumet here; http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/eng/product/calumet_speedlight_powerblock_900/cf0192

If you are viewing our photography blog on a mobile device like a Iphone,  you may have noticed that we have added a new mobile friendly version!

There are some slight changes to how you navigate the mobile version over the desktop version,  but we have now categorized all the posts to make it easier to find something you are interested in,  and included some links for our technical tips,  booking advice,  and tearsheets,  on our welcome page to help peeps find things a bit more easily!

New posts will be included in a “New Posts” category to make it easy to go to the latest ramblings. 

If you dont like the mobile version,  then you can choose to use the desktop version instead by turning it off on your device!

Feedback with problems or issues will be greatfully recieved!