Getting to know the CamRanger - Part I

June 04, 2014

I’ve recently partnered with CamRanger SA and Sunshine Company down in Cape Town, and it's been a good ride. I've been playing with the Camranger for a few weeks now, and man, is this thing powerful.

The CamRanger allows you fully to control your camera from your iPad/iPhone, wirelessly. And when I say “fully”, I’m not kidding - you’ve got full control over the exposure controls, as well as shutter release control, HDR, time-lapse, and even fine focus control. It’s pretty amazing.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be teaching you how to use the Camranger. I’ll start off today with the basics. So let’s jump right in.

The CamRanger connects to your camera via the USB port (the one you’d normally tether with). Once you plug the CamRanger into the USB port on your camera, you’ll need to download the CamRanger app from the App Store. Don’t worry, it’s free.

Once you’ve got the App installed, just follow the instructions to get the CamRanger hooked up to your iPad. It’s pretty straight forward.

So here’s what you should be presented with, more or less:

This panel on the right is essentially the main control panel. Here you’ve got full control over everything you could want to control on your camera.

If you’d like to change on of the settings, you just tap on the setting, and the control panel will change and display the various settings you can change that variable to. Something important to note is that you’ve got the ability to see a live feed directly from your camera using the live view button in the app.

Something else you can change (and something I’d encourage you to change) is the quality setting. Along with shooting in RAW (which you should always be doing), you can set your camera to shoot JPEGs as well.

This might not be something you do when you’re shooting without a CamRanger, but when you are, it would be a wise decision to create low resolution JPEGs along with your RAW files. The reason for this is that if you only shoot RAW, the camera is going to send full-res files to the CamRanger, which will increase the transfer time. In my case, my 36MP D800 files take so long that it makes using the CamRanger an incredibly exhausting experience. The moment I have the camera creating small JPEG files, the transfer between the CamRanger and my iPad is significantly faster, as now the files being transferred are only 9MP.

Once you’ve got your settings dialled in, it’s time to pick the point you want to focus on, which is as easy as tapping on that point on the screen. Once you tap on the screen, the CamRanger takes control of the lens' autofocus motor and makes the correct adjustments. How nuts is that? You can also double tap the screen to get a 100% zoom to make sure you've nailed the focus.

So that’s it! Using this CamRanger is a piece of cake. It’s a good, solid setup that I find to be incredibly reliable.

The range on the wireless network that the CamRanger sends out is big as well. I did some long exposure work a few nights ago, and ended up standing on almost the opposite side of a highway I was photographing, while I was controlling the camera from my iPad.

So here’s the image I shot for this tutorial. I did 100% of the control in this shot on my iPad. In fact, I even composed the shot using my iPad, without looking through the viewfinder in my camera (or using liveview) once.

In the next tutorials I’ll be coving the finer focus control, Focus Stacking, HDR, as well as Timelapse, to name a few.

The Profoto Situation, Part II

May 13, 2014

So, remember that issue I posted about last week, with my Profoto B1 light? If not, read about it here.

In a nutshell:

I bought a Profoto light for a stupid amount of money, because Profoto lights are amazing
My Profoto light broke from pretty much nothing, because the case was defective
I sent it in, they refused to fix it and wanted me to pay for it
I complained about it on twitter, Profoto (Global) said they agree with the assessment
I wrote a long-ass blog post about it and it gained some traction on the web

So, after that, I told the local Profoto guys to fix the light at my expense. They then dropped me an email saying that they "are under rule from international standards for their warranty on all their Profoto Equipment. There are some hard costs that they need to pay regarding my repair, but to ease the costs of this repair and to show their good faith regarding my unit, they are willing to give me a 5% discount on my next Profoto purchase".

Errr, I don't know how 5% is supposed to make me feel better about Profoto refusing to acknowledge that their light is faulty, but thanks, I guess?

Now, as I said before, my next Profoto purchase would be an octa. I don't need another light. The Octa is somewhere around R6500 here. 5% of that is R325. For the foreigners - that's like $30.

Thirty. Dollars.

Sure, I could use that 5% when I buy another B1, but that's never been my next planned Profoto purchase.

Now, I'm not complaining about the 5%. It's only 5%, which doesn't mean much on this scale, but whatever. Money isn't the issue here. So, thanks Profoto for the 5%. It's certainly better than nothing, but it sure as hell doesn't make me feel any better about the fact that they refused to fix my light.

Now here's where the story gets absolutely nuts. And I'm sorry, but this is where my tone will stop being as warm as it's been, and as it was in the last blog post.

I got an email from who I believe is the head of Profoto here in South Africa. The email started off nice and friendly. Stuff like "We're glad you chose to accept our 5%", and "Even though the repair assessment didn't go in your favour, we strive to give our customers the best service", blah blah blah. And then, the winner - Are you ready for this? I hope you're sitting down for this one:

"We kindly ask that you respond on your Blog and social media posts to also include the courtesy offer from our side to give additional discount. No mention of this has yet been made and we would like for you to conclude this matter now with some positive feedback. We believe in building bridges here, not burning them and we could very well see a strong relationship with you in future".

Okay, so let me just wrap my head around this one. They refuse to fix a light that should never have broken, I complain about it on the web, a stack of people see me complaining (Including Profoto), they then offer me pocket change for a discount, wait a couple of days, and then ask me to blog about "their courtesy offer"? Seriously? It feels like Profoto is trying to buy some good rep from me.

Sorry Profoto. I'm not on your payroll. I'm just an artist trying to make beautiful photos. I'm not sponsored or endorsed by you guys, and you absolutely can NOT buy a good blog post from me. Want a good blog post? Acknowledge the fact that your light was defective. Don't throw a few bucks at a photographer that spent $2500 on your light and think that you can buy some good rep.

Geez.

Anyway, let me end this post with this: Despite all this crap, and despite the fact that I've pretty much lost all respect for this company, I still believe that their lights are amazing. I'm still happy that I bought the B1, and as I said, I'll probably still buy more Profoto stuff. But the people behind Profoto need to reassess the way they run this company.

Anyway, that's my rant.

My bad experience with Profoto and my flashy new B1.

May 06, 2014

Off-camera lighting has been a big part of the way I make photos since almost the very beginning. I've always loved lighting my shots well, and I can pretty comfortably say that no less than 95% of my work is artificially lit. Until just recently, I've been doing all my work with speedlights. In fact, 100% of the work on my website was done with speedlights. However, I recently decided it was time to upgrade, and invest in something a little more powerful and supposedly robust. Since the upgrade, I've been both impressed, and incredibly disappointed. Here's my story:

Introducing the Profoto B1 Air:

This light is an absolute game changer. It's a full-on 500W studio light, but it runs on a small battery that clips into the light. No packs, no mains, no nothing. Just a monster 500W light that can do 220 shots on full power. I hardly ever go above 1/8th power on a speedlight, so this B1 pretty much lasts forever with me. And at 500W, it's powerful enough to light a small fishing village.

It's solid, it's powerful, it's reliable, it's convenient, it makes it easier to get the job done. On paper, it's the perfect location light. I honestly couldn't ask for a better light. This light is the perfect, perfect light for the work I do. So I bought it. Here in South Africa, the light costs R27 000 (+- $2570). I bought it before a recent price jump for R25 000.

Just take that in: R25 000. That's enough to buy a cheap car. And that's R25 000 before the R4000 trigger, which is a standard platform independent trigger, by the way - not the regular awesome Profoto trigger that allows you to control the power of the light (there's no Nikon version yet). This is also before the R6000 - R7000 octabank I need to buy to replace the 5' octa I use at the moment, or the R1500 speedring I need to buy to make my current octa work. The trigger and the octa/speedring were purchases I knew I'd have to make, though, so I'm not complaining about that. I'm just emphasising that when I bought this light, I knew it was going to end up being a R30 000+ investment, one I was willing to make, because Profoto lights are supposed to be those lights you buy once and use until your arthritis stops you from pressing the shutter release.

So, how did I justify buying this light? Well, it's more power than I'll ever need on-location, it's a quick setup, and Profoto lights last forever, right? They're industry standard, right? They're some of the most robust, most solid lights in our industry, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought too, until I took it out of my bag one afternoon and found this:

Yeah, that's a crack. That's one big-ass crack. The light still works perfectly, but it's got one massive crack in the casing. I found that after having the light for about 6 weeks, and having used it all of about 10 times. Now, I'm the first one to admit that gear of mine has a bit of a rough life. I've had my gear ruined by being blown over by the wind or dropped before. In fact, my previous octa got so destroyed at a shoot I did that I took it off the stand and threw it in a bin right there on the sidewalk before grabbing another out the car. One of my speedlights is held together with two hair elastics because I dropped it on the first shoot I ever did with it. I've got no problem admitting this stuff, but I can tell you with absolute confidence that this Profoto B1 has never been dropped or taken a knock, let alone one that could cause a crack like that. It's never blown over, it's never been dropped, nothing. In fact, most of that light's life, it stood on a C-Stand in wedding receptions pointed at the ceiling because I haven't sorted out an Octa for it yet. The light is absolutely spotless apart from the crack. No scratches, no marks, no bumps, no nothing. Have you ever even heard of a cracked Profoto light? Aren't these things supposed to be tanks?

The only way that crack can exist is if the light has some sort of manufacture fault and that it cracked while being transported or something. I don't know exactly how, but I know for sure that there's no chance that the B1 experienced the kind of trauma necessary to crack it's casing like that. Now, I don't blame Profoto for a moment for having a light out in the wild that has a fault in the casing. That's going to happen to every company. But what absolutely grinds my gears is that Profoto isn't interested in fixing this thing. I took it back to the store I bought it from, and the guy at the store said that he'd "never seen anything like this", after which he took the light from me and sent it down to the local Profoto distributor, who says I need to pay R1241 to fix the light. I contacted a global Profoto rep who essentially told me "Yeah, sorry bro but we're happy with the assessment made on your light".

So here's my gripe. The light either has an incredibly poor build quality that is surpassed by the $140 LumoPro speedlights I had when I was starting out, or there's a fault in the casing and Profoto is not willing to accept it. In the case of the former - why the heck did I spend R25 000 on this thing?

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm not going to fix the light or that I'm not going to buy a Profoto light again. Of course I'm going to fix the light, and I'm sure I'll buy another one sometime soon. Profoto has the reputation it has because it's products really ARE that good, they really are that robust. I was just unlucky on this one and got a bad light. I just wish Profoto would accept that.

So, if you ever decide to buy a Profoto light, know that you'll probably get a fantastic light. Also know that you might get customer service that'll make you want to throw the light at someone.

New year, good news!

January 01, 2014

Geez guys, happy new year! I hope your Christmas was filled with win!

I've got so much stuff I can't wait to share with you. I did some shooting at the end of 2013 that made me SO happy, and I can't wait to get those photos up here for you to see. I've just finished up my holiday, and this morning has been my first little stretch of work. Some new work will be up for you to see soon.

In the meantime, I just thought I'd share something exciting that happened at the end of last year. Nikon South Africa announced their "Top 10 Images of 2013", and a photo of mine was in that list! The photo they selected was an image I shot at Louis & Meghan's wedding a few months ago. This image is probably still me personal favourite image of mine as well, so this was such and encouragement. Here's the photo:

You can actually view a whole stack of photos from that wedding right here in this gallery.

And here's a link to the rest of the Top 10 images that Nikon posted. Have a look!

That's all I wanted to share for today. Hope you guys have an awesome year, and I hope to take photos of you sometime.

Ett

Something a little different...

November 19, 2013

Meet two of my clients - Liz and Dyce. I had a shoot scheduled with them, and called them up a couple of days before and said "I've got an idea. Want to give it a shot?". They were keen, so I started planning.

Since I started taking photos, I've realised how I really just need to keep growing and doing a better job than I did at the last shoot. I decided to do this with engagement photos as well. I'm so tired of seeing the same shoots over and over all over the internet. It's time that photographers stop being lazy and start creating compelling photographs, not just "good enough" photographs.

Instead of dragging the couple into a pretty location and photographing them, I decided to make the location itself look a lot more interesting, and then spend a lot more time processing the images as well. So I called up my assistant and PA, Aubrey, as well as a good friend of mine, Bernard Brand (check out his work here), and after telling them my vision, I dragged them into this job with me. I hired furniture, I hired a trailer, and we even carried my own couch and lamp out of my house and loaded those onto the trailer for the shoot as well. Oh, and we did this at 4am.

Here in Pretoria, we have trees called Jacaranda trees, and in October every year, for about 4 weeks, these trees bloom the most beautiful purple flowers. This particular street is lined with them, and had envisioned putting this furniture in a street lined with Jacaranda trees. Shooting at 5am was also a non-negotiable because I wanted the warm sun behind them, and I also wanted fresh jacaranda flowers on the ground.

Liz and Dyce were freaking great as well. They drove a long distance to get to us that morning, and they were up for anything I suggested. They also had the most amazing chemistry, which is a key component in couple photos.

Big thanks to Aubrey for the awesome BTS photos.

Here are the final images from this shoot.

This sort of engagement shoot is something I've started offering as a different kind of shoot altogether. It was quite a bit of work it make this happen.

Hope you like the shots!