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Posts Tagged ‘$4000’

Wet plate photographer shoots portrait of subject 4000 miles away via Zoom

08 Apr

Life is difficult when you are a portrait photographer and social distancing restrictions prevent face-to-face meetings with anyone beyond the people you live with. Not one to let a global virus pandemic get in the way of a good picture, Shane Balkowitsch combined modern and ancient technology to create a wet-plate photograph of a friend who was almost 4000 miles away using video-conferencing application Zoom. From his studio in Bismarck, North Dakota, Shane photographed Morgan Barbour in London, England, as she streamed video of herself to his computer screen – which he photographed using a 10x8in large format camera with a wet collodion plate loaded in the back.

Morgan in the Zoom video conference on Shane’s screen

Shane tells DPReview that the idea came about when Morgan asked him to make a wet plate image of her. He was going to copy a previous print he had made of her, but having just been introduced to video conferencing the week before it occurred to him that he could make the picture ‘live’ using the computer screen. He sent instructions to Morgan about how she could set up the lighting in her house to create a silhouette and they had a conference call to make the shot.

‘I’d never shot this way before’ Shane explained ‘and I didn’t know what to expect, so I decided that instead of trying to capture a “well lit” portrait we could go for a silhouette. It would take us back to when photography was first invented and the very simple, honest photographs of 180 years ago when photographers were just trying to get any proof of the photograph.’

‘The two plates we made are rather lovely in their simplicity and mood. Our first attempt, which is now known as “A Distance Exposure In Isolation”, is the better of the two. The light reflecting off her upper body adds just the right degree of femininity for me.

Shane tells us that he would usually expect an exposure of ten seconds for his wet plate portraits but this one needed Morgan to remain still while he counted down a full minute.
‘I wasn’t sure how the image on the screen would come out, or if it would come out at all. The wet plate process relies on ultraviolet light to make the exposure, and I didn’t know whether there would be some sort of UV filter on the monitor to protect users’ eyes. Fortunately, however, that turned out not to be the case. It still needed six times the usual exposure to activate the silver on the plate though, and that was for a backlit silhouette. If I’d wanted to get detail in her face I’d probably need two to three minutes.’

Shane says he is stunned by the mixture of technologies that exist 170 years apart, and how the light traveled from Hampstead in London to his Bismarck studio 3961 miles away. ‘There’s no truth in the light I recorded!’ he exclaims. ‘It has been transfigured and translated so many times. It passed through the background in Morgan’s house to reach her phone, where it was converted into zeros and ones to travel across the globe via the internet before reaching my screen. Here it was turned back into light again before passing through my lens and on to the plate. It’s amazing.’

The final image – note the cursor in the top left corner. A sure clue to the mix of technologies

To avoid capturing the texture of the screen Shane says he focused on the outline of Morgan’s lips and nose, and then pulled the focus back a little to blur the pixels of the screen and to create a softer feel to the picture. ‘I didn’t know if I’d get reflections off the screen too, but they don’t seem to show in the picture. There was an odd mark on the plate that I noticed as the image developed. I didn’t know what it was at first, but when I came to remove it I realized it is the arrow cursor from my computer left in the picture area by mistake. Kinda funny!’

Shane’s darkroom, where he sensitizes and develops his plates

Shane will have the chance to practice the process once again this Friday as a model from New York has contacted him since seeing the pictures of Morgan to have her portrait taken. ‘We’ll see what we can come up with. We just got off the phone together, we have never met but she has wanted to have her portrait taken by me for some time.’
Shane says ‘If we ask ourselves, “why would you even attempt this?” the answer is simple – out of necessity. I am usually booked 7-8 months ahead for my Friday sessions in my natural light wet plate studio, but right now I’m having to cancel all those sittings. Now I can shoot remotely. Take that Coronavirus! You think you can stop us from creating? I think not.’

Self-portrait with one of his wet plate cameras

Below you can see the video of the conference call during which Shane made the picture, which also shows the process of sensitising the plate and developing it after the exposure. You can see more of Shane’s wet plate work on Instagram and on his website.

Shane may be the first to shoot a wet plate image directly from a live subject on computer screen, but Robert Matheson used a similar process to record portraits from a live image projected onto a wet plate during the interview below.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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$400 Camera VS $4,000 Camera – Can a Professional Photographer Spot the Difference?

23 Nov

In this video, Peter McKinnon asks the question “Can a professional photographer tell the difference between a $ 400 camera and a $ 4,000 one just by looking at the pictures?”

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Watch the video, and take a look at the images shot with the Canon Rebel and the Canon EOS R. Can you tell which is which?

Can you really take professional photos with an entry level camera? Can you be a professional photographer on a budget or do you need to spend thousands of dollars on professional gear?

You may also find these articles helpful:

Shooting Portraits Like a Pro on a Tight Budget

A Look Inside the Bag of a Hobby Photographer on a Budget

10 Tips for Creating a Photography Kit on a Budget

Small Budget Photography: Lenses

Beginners Guide to Different Types of Digital Cameras

 

What cameras do you use for your photography work? Are you achieving great photos with less expensive gear? Share with us in the comments below.

 

The post $ 400 Camera VS $ 4,000 Camera – Can a Professional Photographer Spot the Difference? appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Fujifilm’s MK 50-135mm cine lens will arrive in July for $4000

03 Jun

Fujifilm has officially launched the MK 50-135mm T2.9 cinema lens aimed at emerging filmmakers, giving it a mid-July release and $ 4000/£3300 price tag. It will be available initially in the Sony E-mount, but the company says it is working on a version for its own X-mount cameras that will go on sale before the end of the year. It was first announced back in February alongside an 18-55mm T2.9.

The DSLR and CSC stills lenses that many videographers use suffer from shifting focus and centring during zooming, according to Fujifilm, and ‘breathing’ often alters the magnification of the view as focus distances change. If the background changes size in the frame as focus is being pulled, or the subject goes out of focus during a zoom, the fluidity of the sequence can be destroyed. This new lens is intended to replace these still lenses, with their unsuitable characteristics, so that photographers using small cameras can make professional-looking films.

The Fujinon 18-55mm T2.9

The new lens matches the three-ring layout and 82mm filter thread size of the existing Fujinon 18-55mm T2.9 so it should be easy to switch between the two, and with both lenses videographers will have most popular focal lengths covered. The lenses are designed to work with APS-C and Super 35mm sized sensors, so will provide similar angles of view to a 75-200mm on a full frame system.

For more information see the Fujifilm website.

Sample footage

Press release

Fujifilm launches the FUJINON MK50-135mm T2.9 telephoto zoom cinema lens with advanced optical performance, ultra-compact and lightweight design, and excellent affordability

FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Kenji Sukeno) will release the FUJINON MK50-135mm T2.9 (MK50-135mm) telephoto zoom cinema lens in July 2017. The MK50-135mm has a focal length of 50-135mm and can be combined with the FUJINON MK18-55mm T2.9 (MK18-55mm) standard zoom lens, that was released in March 2017, to form a kit that covers the most frequently-used focal lengths of 18mm to 135mm, accommodating a broader variety of conditions.

The rapid growth in popularity of movies made by emerging cinematographers in recent years, including corporate and commercial movies on the internet and other venues, has increased the opportunities for shooting movies using cinema and regular digital cameras, and it boosts demand for high-performance cinema lenses that deliver high resolution and advanced scene-depicting capability. For filming such materials, interchangeable lenses for digital cameras are often used instead of cinema camera lenses as they are more affordable and mobile. However, these lenses are designed primarily for shooting still images, and therefore prone to problems such as focus shift and optical axis shift while zooming, and so on.

In response, Fujifilm has developed the MK series of cinema lenses that resolve these issues while still offering advanced optical performance and an ultra-compact and lightweight design – all at an affordable price. The MK18-55mm that was launched in March this year has been popular among emerging cinematographers who praise it for its edge-to-edge sharpness and ease of handling thanks to its compact and lightweight design.

The new MK50-135mm is a telephoto zoom lens that covers the focal length from 50mm to 135mm. It has the maximum T-stop value of 2.9*1 across the entire zoom range, enabling to shoot with a shallow depth-of-field with beautiful bokeh. The lens is compatible with E-mount*2 cameras with the Super 35mm*3 / APS-C sensor. It incorporates the benefits of short flange focal distance*4 into optical design to the maximum extent to achieve advanced optical performance while maintaining a compact and lightweight design. The lens design is optimized for shooting movies, minimizing focal and optical axis shift while zooming and lens breathing (change of angle of view during focusing) – negative traits that are typically observed in still lenses for digital cameras. The lens also features three rings to enable manual and independent adjustment of focus, zoom and iris (aperture), all with the gear pitch*5 of 0.8M (module). The focus ring can rotate fully up to 200 degrees to facilitate precise one-handed focusing. These features make the lenses comfortable to operate.

The MK50-135mm can be combined with the MK18-55mm to form a compact and light weight kit that covers the most frequently-used focal lengths between 18mm and 135mm, accommodating a variety of subject matters including landscape, architecture and portraiture. They share the common front element diameter, filter thread and three-ring gear positions, allowing users to share the use of the same accessories such as matte box and filters. This eliminates the need to re-adjust accessory positions when changing between lenses, streamlining operations in frontline video production.

The X Mount versions of MK lenses (with the focal lengths of 18-55mm and 50-135mm) for Fujifilm’s X Series of digital cameras (APS-C sensor) are currently under development, and due to be released by the end of this year.

FUJINON lenses offered by Fujifilm have been used at movie / CM / TV production sites around the world for their advanced scene-depicting capability. Tapping into its optical design, high-precision processing and assembly technologies that have been nurtured over the years in the cutting-edge field of video production, Fujifilm will continue to expand its lens line-up to meet the diverse needs at the video production industry.

*1 T-stop value is an index that indicates brightness of a lens based on its F-stop value and transmission rate. The smaller the value, the greater amount of light the lens transmits.
*2 Lens mount format developed by SONY Corporation
*3 Super 35mm is a standard format for motion film cameras using 35mm film stock, and refers to a sensor size used in many cinema cameras.
*4 Distance from lens mounting reference plane to sensor
*5 Distance between gear teeth

1. Product name, release date, pricing
Product name: FUJINON MK50-135mm T2.9
Release date: Mid July 2017
Expected user price: GBP £3,300* (ex VAT)
*At today’s GBP/EURO exchange rate

2. Main product features
Advanced optical performance, packed into a compact and lightweight lens barrel
The MK50-135mm covers the focal length of 50mm to 135mm and when combined with the MK18-55mm standard zoom lens, they form a kit that covers 18mm to 135mm, the most frequently-used focal length in video production.

The MK50-135mm supports E-mount cameras with Super 35mm / APS-C sensor. It achieves advanced optical performance despite its compact and lightweight body, weighing just 980g, by incorporating the benefits of short flange focal distance into optical design.

The MK50-135mm has T2.9 speed across the entire zoom range which allows shooting with a shallow depth-of-field and eliminates the need to re-adjust lighting.

The MK50-135mm offers advanced edge-to-edge optical performance and low distortion*6 and is designed to match the color temperature of FUJINON HK Premier, ZK Cabrio and XK Cabrio lenses to simplify color grading*7 when using a combination of lenses.

*6 Distortion refers to a phenomenon in which an image formed through a lens becomes partially contracted or extended at the edges.
*7 Processes of correcting colors during video editing

Resolving issues associated with using interchangeable lenses for still digital cameras in video production

The front focusing group of lens elements and the zooming group of lens elements are driven independently from one another to suppress focus shift while zooming, eliminating the need to re-focus after zooming in or out. The optical and mechanical approach means there is no time lag as seen in an electrical control system.

The use of the front inner-focusing system controls lens breathing (change of angle of view during focusing) to achieve smooth focusing.

By using design and manufacturing technologies developed for FUJINON HK, ZK and XK Cine lenses, optical axis shift is minimized while zooming, eliminating the need to re-compose the shot when the angle of view is changed.

Comfortable operation as expected of a dedicated video lens
The focus ring features a rotation of a full 200 degrees to allow precise focusing even when shooting with a shallow depth-of-field.

The lens features three rings to enable independent adjustment of focus, zoom and iris. The fully manual mechanism of all three rings enable intuitive operation that often cannot be attained with electrical mechanism which typically causes time lag.

All the operation rings have a gear pitch of 0.8M, the same as all other FUJINON cine lenses, which allows the use of any standard third party accessories for video production such as Follow Focus.

The iris operation ring has a click-free seamless adjustment which enables smooth, precise exposure adjustment while also preventing noise and camera shake caused by clicking.

Standardized MK series design

The MK50-135mm shares the same front diameter of 85mm and filter thread of 82mm with the MK18-55mm,allowing users to use the same matte boxes and filters on both lenses.

The two lenses also share the same dimensions and three-ring gear positions, eliminating the need to re-adjust accessory positions when changing between them.

The MK50-135mm offers a macro mechanism with the minimum object distance*8 of 0.85m (wide angle-end), broadening the types of scenes that can be covered with a single lens.

The MK50-135mm features a Flange Focal Distance adjustment function*9 to achieve optimum camera and lens matching, bringing out the full optical performance of the lens.

*8 Distance from the image-forming plane to a subject
*9 The position of lens’s image-forming plane can be adjusted according to each camera’s flange focal distance (distance from lens mounting reference plane to sensor).

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Canon EOS-1D C sees $4000 price drop in North America

31 Jan

New pricing for the Canon EOS-1D C will go into effect in North America February 1st, taking the retail price from $ 11,999 down to $ 7,999. The camera is coming up on its third birthday, introduced in April 2012. The 18MP full-frame sensor is capable of 4K video. Read more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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