So, after months of work and patience, the new blog, same as the old blog but better, is now hosted on my very own site: zeraphoto.com. I'll leave this be for archival purposes, but please visit my site for all the current postings, as this will be my last on this blog, unless, of course, something goes horribly wrong with my site and I'm forced to return to nice, old, friendly, reliable google (this is in case they're looking and want to save some server space by deleting old accounts).
Nice google, good google, that's a good Web conglomerate. Sit. Stay. Stay. Staaaayyy, ....
2010-05-16
iPad update, week four: crappy wifi but a happy ending
So the glamour is starting to wear off a bit, but the iPad is a very capable device. I am officially bummed that I didn't hold out for the 3G version; I seriously thought of the iPad as a laptop substitute so I'd use it the same way, coffee shops, at home, in the office, etc. That, and I couldn't bear the thought of giving AT&T even more money every month—my service plan already costs me $175 a month. When I was in college, that was exactly half a month's rent.
But a slew of new apps, some catering specifically to the needs of an architectural photographer, coupled with an ongoing battle to keep the thing connected to wifi networks, changed my mind about the whole 3G thing. More about that in a bit, though; I've some bitching to get out of my system first.
The wifi problem is weird - my iPad stays connected to a network fairly well when using Safari, Mail, and most apps that only make light use of the connection. But whenever I launch a VNC app or Daylite (third-party calendar/contact manager that uses a shared database) to connect to a computer on the local network, the wifi connection drops; the app, of course, freaks out because it just lost the connection it thought it had and promptly freezes/crashes, and then the *really* annoying part happens: my saved wifi settings get deleted from the global system prefs. In order to access wifi again, I need to go into settings, manually find my local network, then re-enter my password in order to reconnect. Every. Single. Time. Not being able to access other devices across a local network kinda makes the whole wifi thing a lot less useful.
So, after the tenth try at connecting, and instead of satisfying my urge to discover how many times I could skip an iPad across Puget Sound, I took a couple of deep breaths and called Apple customer support. The first rep I spoke with was enormously polite and helpful, and, after walking me through the process of reinstalling the device's firmware, she determined that my issue was most likely rooted in a hardware fault, and would I like to go to my local Apple Store for a replacement? Sure thing, I said, and thank you.
After hanging up, I still had a couple questions, but the second Apple person I spoke with was not nearly as friendly and was really quite condescending. I was actually happy when the only part of AT&T's crappy cell service I can rely on occurred - the call was dropped. I didn't bother to call back.
At the Apple Store, I spoke with a tech who went through the same set of questions and troubleshooting stuff, and arrived at the same conclusion as the phone rep. So, I said, instead of a straight exchange, how about I just pay the difference between my current wifi model and the 3G version? I'd love to see if the 3G version worked better across networks.
"Um, sure," said the clerk, instantly elevating himself to near-hero status. So, here I am—a happy 3G + wifi iPad owner.
And the original wireless problem? Honestly, it's still there, but the 3G model is tons better than my first iPad. I can actually use my local network connection about 75% of the time. The tech at the Apple Store told me that some of the connectivity glitches were known issues that should be resolved in an upcoming firmware update.
Despite these early-adopter pains, I still don't regret getting an iPad. They're awesome portfolio presentation tools, are lots lighter than a laptop, and, with a real word-processor, PDF reader and the ability to ingest Canon raw .CR2 image files, it might yet supplant my laptop for many, many things.
But a slew of new apps, some catering specifically to the needs of an architectural photographer, coupled with an ongoing battle to keep the thing connected to wifi networks, changed my mind about the whole 3G thing. More about that in a bit, though; I've some bitching to get out of my system first.
The wifi problem is weird - my iPad stays connected to a network fairly well when using Safari, Mail, and most apps that only make light use of the connection. But whenever I launch a VNC app or Daylite (third-party calendar/contact manager that uses a shared database) to connect to a computer on the local network, the wifi connection drops; the app, of course, freaks out because it just lost the connection it thought it had and promptly freezes/crashes, and then the *really* annoying part happens: my saved wifi settings get deleted from the global system prefs. In order to access wifi again, I need to go into settings, manually find my local network, then re-enter my password in order to reconnect. Every. Single. Time. Not being able to access other devices across a local network kinda makes the whole wifi thing a lot less useful.
So, after the tenth try at connecting, and instead of satisfying my urge to discover how many times I could skip an iPad across Puget Sound, I took a couple of deep breaths and called Apple customer support. The first rep I spoke with was enormously polite and helpful, and, after walking me through the process of reinstalling the device's firmware, she determined that my issue was most likely rooted in a hardware fault, and would I like to go to my local Apple Store for a replacement? Sure thing, I said, and thank you.
After hanging up, I still had a couple questions, but the second Apple person I spoke with was not nearly as friendly and was really quite condescending. I was actually happy when the only part of AT&T's crappy cell service I can rely on occurred - the call was dropped. I didn't bother to call back.
At the Apple Store, I spoke with a tech who went through the same set of questions and troubleshooting stuff, and arrived at the same conclusion as the phone rep. So, I said, instead of a straight exchange, how about I just pay the difference between my current wifi model and the 3G version? I'd love to see if the 3G version worked better across networks.
"Um, sure," said the clerk, instantly elevating himself to near-hero status. So, here I am—a happy 3G + wifi iPad owner.
And the original wireless problem? Honestly, it's still there, but the 3G model is tons better than my first iPad. I can actually use my local network connection about 75% of the time. The tech at the Apple Store told me that some of the connectivity glitches were known issues that should be resolved in an upcoming firmware update.
Despite these early-adopter pains, I still don't regret getting an iPad. They're awesome portfolio presentation tools, are lots lighter than a laptop, and, with a real word-processor, PDF reader and the ability to ingest Canon raw .CR2 image files, it might yet supplant my laptop for many, many things.
2010-04-30
Two weeks with the iPad, … the good, the bad, the honest.
I've now had the iPad long enough such that I finally feel comfortable writing about the thing.
Initial reaction was good. It's basically a giant iPod touch, so there were no surprises as far as shape, fit & finish, etc. It's kinda heavy, so that, coupled with the smooth glass screen and smooth aluminum case makes for something of a precarious user experience. I'm always afraid that the thing is going to squirt out of my hands like a giant bar of soap. And at $700 for the 64GB model, dropping it is pretty much unacceptable.
Initial reaction was good. It's basically a giant iPod touch, so there were no surprises as far as shape, fit & finish, etc. It's kinda heavy, so that, coupled with the smooth glass screen and smooth aluminum case makes for something of a precarious user experience. I'm always afraid that the thing is going to squirt out of my hands like a giant bar of soap. And at $700 for the 64GB model, dropping it is pretty much unacceptable.
I got a great leather slipcase for it, which is an lovely way to store the thing, but I'm most looking forward to the Apple case I've ordered, which is more like a notebook cover. That style of case seems far more useful. I'm kinda disappointed about just how tough the naked iPad is too hang on to; I don't want to pinch the edges of the screen for fear of damaging some delicate internal stuff, but I want to drop it even less.
Onward. It took all of 10 minutes to set up to my liking, as it's pretty much exactly like my iPhone. There are some nice interface tweaks in the menus, such as settings (pictured), and mail, which I'm still not sure I completely like but they all do work nicely.
All my iPhone apps work on the iPad, save for those relying on GPS or cell-tower triangulation, so Navigon is useless, but it would be really cool to see Apple add GPS to a future iteration so we can navigate from the large screen.
Apps that have not been optimized for the iPad show up iPad size at first, but there's a button labeled "2X" that scales the app to fit the iPad's much larger screen. While this is cool, the scaled app looks like hammered shit; everything is pixelated to the point that it offends my eye so much I go back to the smaller native size.
And don't get me started about Flash not working. I can't view my expensively-designed, beautiful portfolio Web site on my iPad. Well, at least not the Flash portion. I don't really care why Apple is in such a pissing contest with Adobe over Flash. I'm not a developer, I'm not a designer, I'm a photographer who wants to show off his work, and Flash does an amazing job. I rely on my designer to make decisions as to what technology to use in order to provide the best, most consistent viewing experience possible, and he chose Flash, just like the zillions of other designers who've done the same.
From what I've read, the much-vaunted Flash killer that is HTML 5 will be really good, but it's gonna take years, as in three to five years, in order for it to fully supplant Flash. So why pull the plug now, so far in advance? This is the angriest I've been with Apple since I owned a Performa. And not even Steve Job's recent explanation of why he hates Flash can soothe that frustration.
Enough about that. The iPad is a lovely device, filling a niche squarely between my iPhone and my MacBook. The iPhone is a device I would prefer not to be without, like, ever. I'm still not so sure as to whether I'll get to feel that way about the iPad. Perhaps next week when my iPad Camera Kit arrives in the mail next week (it's been shipped; the tracking info shows it as having left Shenzen, China, a couple days ago and it's now sitting in Hong Kong, no doubt awaiting customs clearance). I've spoken with folks at Apple and the kit is supposed to support Canon RAW files, so perhaps it'll at least make a decent photo-storage device/viewer. I'm a relatively deliberate shooter, so it'll take a long time to max out 64GB of space.
Enough about that. The iPad is a lovely device, filling a niche squarely between my iPhone and my MacBook. The iPhone is a device I would prefer not to be without, like, ever. I'm still not so sure as to whether I'll get to feel that way about the iPad. Perhaps next week when my iPad Camera Kit arrives in the mail next week (it's been shipped; the tracking info shows it as having left Shenzen, China, a couple days ago and it's now sitting in Hong Kong, no doubt awaiting customs clearance). I've spoken with folks at Apple and the kit is supposed to support Canon RAW files, so perhaps it'll at least make a decent photo-storage device/viewer. I'm a relatively deliberate shooter, so it'll take a long time to max out 64GB of space.
2010-04-16
iPhone - the best camera to have is the camera ya got in yer pocket
Every now and again, I am fortunate enough to be able to travel for both work and for fun. Being a pro photographer does has its perks regarding having ready access to lots of swell gear, but all that equipment does tend to get heavy and bulky after a while, so it's sometimes nice to leave the big stuff at home and travel light. The old adage "it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools" couldn't be more apt when applied to photography as well.
A camera is nothing more than a tool. Sure, some cameras are definitely nicer than others, but they all really do the same relatively simple thing: transfer reflected light to either a piece of film or a digital sensor. Optics and digital sensor quality aside, the best camera to use for a given situation is the one you happen to have with you, because if there's no camera there'll be no picture anyway.
I may not always have my nice Canon DSLR with me, but I do always have my iPhone in my pocket. Candidly, the 3G's camera is sorely lacking from a technical standpoint, but that doesn't make the thing any less convenient and handy. I actually like the challenge of trying to take a good photo with a middling camera. There are also plenty of free/99¢ apps to compensate for some of those technical shortcomings.
The real magic of photography is, and always has been, content and composition. Technical prowess certainly has it's place, but having technical skills without a good eye will only get you lots of nicely-exposed, boring photos.
This gallery is of panoramic photos were all taken with my iPhone and stitched together with a $1.99 app called AutoStitch, and subsequently enhanced with either the free Adobe Photoshop for iPhone app, or perhaps another free app; I can't always remember which combination of apps I've used for an image. Taking the panos is pretty simple; it just requires looking at a scene as a larger image and then, using a steady hand, photographing the entire scene one frame at a time from left to right, then feeding those frames to the stitching app. Easy, and fun!
2010-04-09
The importance of stability
Stability, .... in this case, I'm talking about camera stability, not emotional stability, which will be addressed in a future post.
Lugging around a tripod can definitely be a drag, especially when it weighs in at 13 lb., but when the wind kicks up or there's heavy traffic nearby, nothing beats a stable platform.
The tripod on the left is a Gitzo aluminum G1415 with a G1527 column and Manfrotto 405 head. It's my favorite working rig, as it's incredibly stable and the head is basically three micrometers on three different axis points to make precision adjustments a breeze.
It definitely is something of a beast to travel with, though, as the tripod and it's padded bag weigh about 15 lb. and need to be checked when flying. Unless it's going to be absolutely necessary for the particular shoot, I usually pack a Gitzo GT2942 Basalt tripod with it's Frankensteinian pano rig: an Acratech leveling base, a Manfrotto QTVR pano rotation head, an Acratech Ultimate Ballhead, all topped off with a Really Right Stuff Precision Plus pano kit. The head assembly outweighs the tripod legs by quite a bit, but it all disassembles and fits quite nicely into my carry-on sized roller bag, which, honestly, usually gets checked anyway but that's only one checked bag even for a week of shooting. I also stick a Benro TRCB069 tripod in the carry-on bag, too; it's awesome to have a back-up tripod, or sometimes I like to shoot with two cameras on their own tripods.
Over the past six weeks I did three shoots that required air travel; I've got the whole packing thing down to a science. My camera and lenses go into the Crumpler Karachi Outpost backpack I've written about before and absolutely love. The laptop and all necessary cables, chargers, manuals, spare hard drives and snacks go into a giant, elderly Timbuk2 courier bag, and both bags go on the plane with me. The camera bag goes in the overhead and the computer goes under the seat. The tripods, clothes and toiletries all go into the one checked bag. Everything essential to the shoot is on my person; worst case is that, if the checked bag goes astray, I can get some T-shirts, a pair of jeans and a toothbrush pretty much anywhere, and even a cheap tripod can be pressed into service if need be. There's a Walmart just about everywhere; I can't say the same about a camera shop that happens to stock a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5, which is, without question, my most-used lens.
It's definitely tiring lugging all that stuff through airports, especially on a flight with lots of connections, but the comfort of knowing I can complete the job even if my bag gets lost definitely makes it worthwhile. Besides, the extra weightlifting involved helps offset all the less-than-healthy food I inevitably eat while traveling.
2010-03-26
Traveling again!
2010-03-03
Hypera zoilus Kaldari, aka clover leaf weevil, swimming in a dewdrop.
fpz_20100303_MG_7870-2
Originally uploaded by zeraphoto
A short post today, but I just wanted to share something I found in my garden this afternoon.
2010-02-26
Gearing up for traveling to location shoots, Part I
Traveling is always exciting and fun, but traveling as a working photographer adds a lot of logistics that need careful consideration.
Working locally, most of my camera equipment fits in one Pelican 1600 case, which is handy when shooting interiors as all my stuff is visible at once, yet the case stacks nicely on my cart with my other Pelican cases and soft-sided bags (those are full of lighting gear; an explanation of that stuff will be in a future post). It's easy to move everything around on the cart at once, especially when I'm working solo.
The Pelican cases were spendy, but worth every cent, as they're pretty much indestructible, stack nicely, and really protect my expensive gear. Hell, they'll even float when loaded, which is comforting when I'm wheeling everything onto a dock to photograph people working on a dam or to photograph a yacht.
I also take along a Crumpler Karachi Outpost camera backpack, which allows me flexibility to pack the basics into the bag, sling it over my shoulder, grab a tripod, and be lots more mobile, which is handy when going up in a lift or a crane basket to get a higher perspective.
Part II will deal with the pared-down kit for flying; part III will cover lighting equipment.
2010-02-10
The fallacy of free
Free is good, right? Well, not always.
This post has been brewing for quite some time, but I never seem to have gotten around to writing it. The catalyst was last week's discovery of a new online arts magazine, titled, provocatively enough, "Pilfered Magazine" (I'm not going to legitimize their existence by providing a link; you can find them yourself if you want). The site's layout was actually quite lovely, and the photography displayed seemed quite good. The problem was this: all the photos were "found" online, i.e., used without permission, as in, stolen.
Here's a good synopsis of the current state of events, via the Copyright Alliance blog:
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/02/infringing-site-re-imagining-our-perspective
Now, you're probably aware that there's a growing anti-copyright movement that's been around for a while and continues to gain ground. Folks who promote this seem to be primarily interested in sharing music and video files without having to pay for them, again, stealing. They'll argue fair use, deep pockets on the part of the movie studios, etc., but my guess is very few of them actually have to try to earn a living creating the content they so willingly steal and gripe about having to pay for.
It's very, very, very disturbing to me that many folks out there feel that it's entirely acceptable for me to have spent the last 15 years of my life spending gobs of money on education and equipment, working like a demon, sacrificing relationships, etc., all in the name of perfecting my craft, just so they can have the fruits of that labor for free.
Also interesting is the hypocrisy of sites like boingboing.net and neatorama.com, collators of news that is overall quite fascinating and entertaining, whose writers decry copyright protections when it comes to enforcement of rules when the law is on the side of the record labels or movie studios, but get quite belligerent when one of their readers has a photo ripped off.
Which is it going to be kids - rules or no rules? These self-titled "copyfighters" talk out of both sides of their mouths. Cory Doctorow might be a fine sci-fi writer and has definitely earned his bully pulpit, but I don't agree with him on this one -- there needs to be strong copyright protection law right alongside open source and creative commons, and let the content creators choose which route to follow. Don't undermine the protections afforded to content creators by copyright law just because you're too cheap to spend $12 on a music CD or mp3 download.
I'm willing to bet that the folks who willingly steal music, photos and video online would quite disapprove of my dropping by their homes and stealing the lawn furniture or a nice shirt from a clothesline. Suddenly, the argument of, "Well, it was out there for all the world to see, what did you expect?" doesn't seem quite so legitimate.
Sure, creative commons is a great idea and one that definitely has a place. Sure, fans may get wind of musicians or artists via the work they've put online for free and catapult the artist into fame and fortune, but that happens about as frequently as you see a herd of unicorns strutting down First Avenue farting rainbows.
And who really catapults that fortunate few to prominence? The very record labels and promoters vilified by the copyfight crowd. Why? To make money off royalties so they can run their business, invest in new acts, and, yes, make a profit. No business that expects to stick around for more than a week needs to turn a profit. Even charities turn profits in the form of investment dividends; otherwise they'd quickly run out of money and be able to help no one.
Do not these people understand that, if they undermine a content-creator's ability to own and thereby control their own work, the only work available will be that of hobbyists who have other sources of income, or folks who've made their money via licensing and are now so wealthy that sales no longer matter? The people in the second group will eventually die off, leaving only the hobbyists and trust-fund kids to make cute pictures of kittens in fields of daisies, or, even more likely, mashups of stolen high-quality work from all the now-destitute content creators.
Do I pay for my music? Absolutely. I admittedly partook of a few downloaded mp3s back in the day, but quickly realized the hypocrisy of that behavior and promptly went back to the record store. I pay for my software, ebooks, and movies, too. All of it. That stuff costs real money to produce, and I don't know of any business that will survive by expending large sums of money to give away the resulting products.
Why not then go after the root cause of the profiteering, then, instead of the rule that the profiteers abuse? Seems to me that the music industry has been hiding behind copyright to deflect scrutiny from its Dickensian business practices, and everyone's been trying to flog the copyright protections rather than the folks who are abusing the copyright creators. The labels don't create the songs (well, discounting the Britney Spears music factories), they're distributors who extract copyright from the artist in exchange for access to the sales channels.
Anyway, to wrap up this rant, copyright reform is necessary and welcome; the elimination of protections for content creators is completely unwelcome.
This post has been brewing for quite some time, but I never seem to have gotten around to writing it. The catalyst was last week's discovery of a new online arts magazine, titled, provocatively enough, "Pilfered Magazine" (I'm not going to legitimize their existence by providing a link; you can find them yourself if you want). The site's layout was actually quite lovely, and the photography displayed seemed quite good. The problem was this: all the photos were "found" online, i.e., used without permission, as in, stolen.
Here's a good synopsis of the current state of events, via the Copyright Alliance blog:
http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/02/infringing-site-re-imagining-our-perspective
Now, you're probably aware that there's a growing anti-copyright movement that's been around for a while and continues to gain ground. Folks who promote this seem to be primarily interested in sharing music and video files without having to pay for them, again, stealing. They'll argue fair use, deep pockets on the part of the movie studios, etc., but my guess is very few of them actually have to try to earn a living creating the content they so willingly steal and gripe about having to pay for.
It's very, very, very disturbing to me that many folks out there feel that it's entirely acceptable for me to have spent the last 15 years of my life spending gobs of money on education and equipment, working like a demon, sacrificing relationships, etc., all in the name of perfecting my craft, just so they can have the fruits of that labor for free.
Also interesting is the hypocrisy of sites like boingboing.net and neatorama.com, collators of news that is overall quite fascinating and entertaining, whose writers decry copyright protections when it comes to enforcement of rules when the law is on the side of the record labels or movie studios, but get quite belligerent when one of their readers has a photo ripped off.
Which is it going to be kids - rules or no rules? These self-titled "copyfighters" talk out of both sides of their mouths. Cory Doctorow might be a fine sci-fi writer and has definitely earned his bully pulpit, but I don't agree with him on this one -- there needs to be strong copyright protection law right alongside open source and creative commons, and let the content creators choose which route to follow. Don't undermine the protections afforded to content creators by copyright law just because you're too cheap to spend $12 on a music CD or mp3 download.
I'm willing to bet that the folks who willingly steal music, photos and video online would quite disapprove of my dropping by their homes and stealing the lawn furniture or a nice shirt from a clothesline. Suddenly, the argument of, "Well, it was out there for all the world to see, what did you expect?" doesn't seem quite so legitimate.
Sure, creative commons is a great idea and one that definitely has a place. Sure, fans may get wind of musicians or artists via the work they've put online for free and catapult the artist into fame and fortune, but that happens about as frequently as you see a herd of unicorns strutting down First Avenue farting rainbows.
And who really catapults that fortunate few to prominence? The very record labels and promoters vilified by the copyfight crowd. Why? To make money off royalties so they can run their business, invest in new acts, and, yes, make a profit. No business that expects to stick around for more than a week needs to turn a profit. Even charities turn profits in the form of investment dividends; otherwise they'd quickly run out of money and be able to help no one.
Do not these people understand that, if they undermine a content-creator's ability to own and thereby control their own work, the only work available will be that of hobbyists who have other sources of income, or folks who've made their money via licensing and are now so wealthy that sales no longer matter? The people in the second group will eventually die off, leaving only the hobbyists and trust-fund kids to make cute pictures of kittens in fields of daisies, or, even more likely, mashups of stolen high-quality work from all the now-destitute content creators.
Do I pay for my music? Absolutely. I admittedly partook of a few downloaded mp3s back in the day, but quickly realized the hypocrisy of that behavior and promptly went back to the record store. I pay for my software, ebooks, and movies, too. All of it. That stuff costs real money to produce, and I don't know of any business that will survive by expending large sums of money to give away the resulting products.
Why not then go after the root cause of the profiteering, then, instead of the rule that the profiteers abuse? Seems to me that the music industry has been hiding behind copyright to deflect scrutiny from its Dickensian business practices, and everyone's been trying to flog the copyright protections rather than the folks who are abusing the copyright creators. The labels don't create the songs (well, discounting the Britney Spears music factories), they're distributors who extract copyright from the artist in exchange for access to the sales channels.
Anyway, to wrap up this rant, copyright reform is necessary and welcome; the elimination of protections for content creators is completely unwelcome.
2010-01-04
Tripods, photo storage, clothing, gear bags, traveling, oh my!
So, progress has been made. I've been delightfully busy shooting, but have managed to solve my tripod dilemma, found a laptop-free photo storage solution, decided which camera bag I'll use for my trip, and beefed up the cases for my Profoto lights, something I'll talk about in detail in a future post.
First off, the tripod: a carbon-fiber Benro C-069M8, the smallest in the lineup. It folds down ridiculously small - 14 inches(!) -- weighs just 2.2 lb. with the head, and supports 13.2 lb., and is just shy of five feet tall fully extended, all of which is just enough for my 5D Mark II and 24-70 f/2.8 zoom.
For traveling to India, I have finally come to terms with a minimalist kit: the aforementioned body, lens and tripod, a 24mm tilt-shift and a lensbaby 2.0. For backup, I'll take my Leica D-Lux 4. For photo storage, I picked up a Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA, which has a 250GB drive, a passable viewing screen, is completely user-updatable, and only cost $300 from Adorama. I feel better about having gotten that from them after getting my tripod directly from a distributor in China to save myself $100 over U.S. retail.
I was going to break this out into several smaller posts, but I think it'll be better to roll it into a single travel-photo entry, including clothing options, tips on how to deal with traveling with camera gear, and how to pack it all for a multi-week trip that will take us from the Himalayas to the tropics, all in three weeks.
OK, so the bag I'll be taking is hardly stealthy, but it's relatively compact - the Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home. It's got enough room inside for the cameras, lenses, cords, cables, lens filters, etc. that I'll bring, along with a little extra space for a hat and gloves as necessary.
Notice there's no flash in the kit. I'm an architectural photographer, and I like to use light. Lots and lots of light. If I can't have my Profoto kits, I'd rather do without. The 5DII does remarkably well at pretty high ISO settings, so I can get great stuff with the 2.8 lens and a 800-ish ISO. For really tough light, there's the tripod, which I can jam in on top of camera inside the bag.
To make things a little less susceptible to thievery, another upgrade was to swap out the Canon's garish red camera strap (which came complete with bright white embroidery proclaiming the make and model of the camera) for a plain gray one. Add a couple bits of judiciously-placed black gaffer's tape to hide the logos, and, voila - a much less flashy camera. The Leica benefits greatly from this treatment - covering up the red Leica logo on the body front and the Leica name on the back and lens cap took about 90 seconds and suddenly made the camera look like a run-of-the-mill point-and-shoot. I find that I get much better photos by attracting less attention, and a good way to do that is to avoid looking like a pro.
The carbon tripod is tougher to anonymize, but covering all the logos, etc., with some more black tape made it look a lot less flashy. The camera bag has been coming with me everywhere lately, for no other reason than to get it all scuffed up so it's also not looking all shiny and new.
So, my carry-on will be the camera bag, crammed with all my core equipment - the photo-storage device inside it's Pelican micro-case, the requisite battery chargers, power converters, my iPhone, medicines, a notebook, a paperback, some pens, etc., a battery-powered shortwave radio, and my iPod Shuffle.
The other carry-on will be a standard rolling carry-on bag containing clothing for the three-week trip, along with the first-aid kit and the tripod.
My wife will also have a carry-on, so I think we'll be covered for three weeks worth of stuff without needing to check anything, at least on the international legs. I expect we'll need to check some stuff on the internal flights on smaller aircraft.
All of our clothing is either lightweight wool, polypro, or nylon, so it packs small, and dries fast so it can be washed in hotel-room showers and dried overnight in the room or on a balcony rail (I pack a 15-foot length of parachute cord and some one-inch A-clamps from the hardware store to use as a clothesline and clothespins). Three complete changes of clothing, a rain shell, some long underwear, a wool hat and gloves and a pair of Teva sandals get packed; the heavier shoes go on my feet.
This post is out of chronological order; we returned from the trip a few days ago but I was unable to post this until now. Bear with me, intrepid reader.
First off, the tripod: a carbon-fiber Benro C-069M8, the smallest in the lineup. It folds down ridiculously small - 14 inches(!) -- weighs just 2.2 lb. with the head, and supports 13.2 lb., and is just shy of five feet tall fully extended, all of which is just enough for my 5D Mark II and 24-70 f/2.8 zoom.
For traveling to India, I have finally come to terms with a minimalist kit: the aforementioned body, lens and tripod, a 24mm tilt-shift and a lensbaby 2.0. For backup, I'll take my Leica D-Lux 4. For photo storage, I picked up a Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA, which has a 250GB drive, a passable viewing screen, is completely user-updatable, and only cost $300 from Adorama. I feel better about having gotten that from them after getting my tripod directly from a distributor in China to save myself $100 over U.S. retail.
I was going to break this out into several smaller posts, but I think it'll be better to roll it into a single travel-photo entry, including clothing options, tips on how to deal with traveling with camera gear, and how to pack it all for a multi-week trip that will take us from the Himalayas to the tropics, all in three weeks.
OK, so the bag I'll be taking is hardly stealthy, but it's relatively compact - the Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home. It's got enough room inside for the cameras, lenses, cords, cables, lens filters, etc. that I'll bring, along with a little extra space for a hat and gloves as necessary.
Notice there's no flash in the kit. I'm an architectural photographer, and I like to use light. Lots and lots of light. If I can't have my Profoto kits, I'd rather do without. The 5DII does remarkably well at pretty high ISO settings, so I can get great stuff with the 2.8 lens and a 800-ish ISO. For really tough light, there's the tripod, which I can jam in on top of camera inside the bag.
To make things a little less susceptible to thievery, another upgrade was to swap out the Canon's garish red camera strap (which came complete with bright white embroidery proclaiming the make and model of the camera) for a plain gray one. Add a couple bits of judiciously-placed black gaffer's tape to hide the logos, and, voila - a much less flashy camera. The Leica benefits greatly from this treatment - covering up the red Leica logo on the body front and the Leica name on the back and lens cap took about 90 seconds and suddenly made the camera look like a run-of-the-mill point-and-shoot. I find that I get much better photos by attracting less attention, and a good way to do that is to avoid looking like a pro.
The carbon tripod is tougher to anonymize, but covering all the logos, etc., with some more black tape made it look a lot less flashy. The camera bag has been coming with me everywhere lately, for no other reason than to get it all scuffed up so it's also not looking all shiny and new.
So, my carry-on will be the camera bag, crammed with all my core equipment - the photo-storage device inside it's Pelican micro-case, the requisite battery chargers, power converters, my iPhone, medicines, a notebook, a paperback, some pens, etc., a battery-powered shortwave radio, and my iPod Shuffle.
The other carry-on will be a standard rolling carry-on bag containing clothing for the three-week trip, along with the first-aid kit and the tripod.
My wife will also have a carry-on, so I think we'll be covered for three weeks worth of stuff without needing to check anything, at least on the international legs. I expect we'll need to check some stuff on the internal flights on smaller aircraft.
All of our clothing is either lightweight wool, polypro, or nylon, so it packs small, and dries fast so it can be washed in hotel-room showers and dried overnight in the room or on a balcony rail (I pack a 15-foot length of parachute cord and some one-inch A-clamps from the hardware store to use as a clothesline and clothespins). Three complete changes of clothing, a rain shell, some long underwear, a wool hat and gloves and a pair of Teva sandals get packed; the heavier shoes go on my feet.
This post is out of chronological order; we returned from the trip a few days ago but I was unable to post this until now. Bear with me, intrepid reader.
2009-12-26
The long and winding road to Shimla
11-ish a.m.: We're on a bus, driving down an amazingly twisty mountain
road. The young man sitting across from us just pointed out his
university out the window - apparently the largest buildings in the
state, perched on a ridge with an commanding view. Folks are amazingly
friendly here, even to strangers. He's already asked our names so he
could friend us on facebook. Kwazy.
Yesterday, while at Humayan's Temple in Shimla (look it up on google;
it's cool), we met two young Indian men, one a soldier and the other a
banker, both on holiday. We'd been hesitating about entering the
temple as non-Hindi, but they said there was no harm in entering, so
we left our shoes on the cold paved walkway and followed them in to
the smoky little building.
OK; had to stop writing for a while as I was getting carsick because
the road was quite possibly the windiest I'd ever been on, and 120km
to boot. We're in our room in Chandigarh now, waiting for the
restaurant to open for dinner at 7 p.m., about 30 minutes from now.
Anyway, getting back to yesterday, those two guys offered to take us
up to Kufri, a little town about a dozen km north of Shimla, a bit
higher in altitude, and home to a wildlife preserve. I was somewhat
reluctant, but Laura accepted and we walked with them down from the
temple and another 1.5 km to the army base, where we got their car and
started driving.
As soon as he started the car, the stereo started blasting a live
version of Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like A Knife," and they didn't turn it
down, although they did shout back to key us know they loved loud
music and hoped we did, too. Turns out the banker dude was a hobbyist
rally driver, so off we went, speeding up the narrow, crowded
Himalayan road to the awful caterwauling of Bryan Adams. It was
appropriately surreal, and I'll post the video once we're home.
Stopping frequently for directions, sometimes in the middle of the
road such that the pedestrian helping had to shout over the din of
honking horns from the drivers stuck behind us, we eventually made it
to the preserve. Much like everything we've seen, it's simultaneously
awesome and decrepit. There were lots of barking deer, but they were
mangy and didn't bark. The bears were stuffed into a little cave-like
pen while two workmen tried to pull down a tree in the enclosure using
a rope tied to the top such that the tree just swayed around a lot; a
saw would have been more efficient, and it was apparent there were
saws available.
The wolves looked tired and sad. The bright spot was the snow leopard
- it looked healthy and active and was quite lovely to watch. There
were also several pens of local pheasants and other gamebirds, all
quite spectacularly plumed.
The drive down was done to the strains of an Enigma's Greatest Hits
CD, which seemed far better suited to the circumstances.
So, on to today, from where I left off on the bus, feeling a little
queasy. We got into the station at Chandigarh just fine, and my wife and
I had a brief grumpy exchange that apparently left us both with
expressions such that the touts left us mostly alone; I'm thinking of
picking a fight with her in the airport tomorrow to see if it's a
workable tout-avoidance option. It did take four auto-rickshaw drivers
to figure out where the hotel was, though - the facade is hidden
behind an enormously bushy palm tree.
Tonight's hotel is The Kaptain's Retreat, smack in the middle of a
strip mall. The hotel is owned by cricket star Kapil Dev, who has
surprisingly good taste in furnishings, as well as food - the hotel
restaurant dinner was dee-licious.
Before dinner, though, we took a cab to Chandigarh's Rock Garden,
built over time by a nutty artistic guy on what had been vacant land.
It's a cross between Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona and South of The
Border on Route 95 in South Carolina. It's a maze, decorated with
stones, sculptures, and walls made of recycled porcelain, pottery,
crockery, and the like. There are small armies of figures made of
pottery shards, clay, and zillions of old bangle bracelets. We only
had an hour there as we arrived close to the dusk closing time, but it
was a very cool experience.
On the way back to the hotel, our driver got lost and we asked someone
in an adjacent auto-rickshaw for directions at a stoplight. They
thought about it for a bit, then the light changed and our driver
zoomed off. The guy behind us had his driver flag ours down, ran up,
asked if they could join us, then directed our driver to our hotel.
The guy was on his way to work, but still took the time to help.
Anyway, Le Corbusier is responsible for much of Chandigarh's city plan
and quite a few of it's buildings. Too bad we don't have time to check
them out, as we fly out to Udaipur first thing tomorrow, where we'll
settle for the next six days.
Time for lights out. There's a construction project along with what
sounds like a factory right outside our window, complete with loud
music and barking dogs. My wife is already sound asleep.
road. The young man sitting across from us just pointed out his
university out the window - apparently the largest buildings in the
state, perched on a ridge with an commanding view. Folks are amazingly
friendly here, even to strangers. He's already asked our names so he
could friend us on facebook. Kwazy.
Yesterday, while at Humayan's Temple in Shimla (look it up on google;
it's cool), we met two young Indian men, one a soldier and the other a
banker, both on holiday. We'd been hesitating about entering the
temple as non-Hindi, but they said there was no harm in entering, so
we left our shoes on the cold paved walkway and followed them in to
the smoky little building.
OK; had to stop writing for a while as I was getting carsick because
the road was quite possibly the windiest I'd ever been on, and 120km
to boot. We're in our room in Chandigarh now, waiting for the
restaurant to open for dinner at 7 p.m., about 30 minutes from now.
Anyway, getting back to yesterday, those two guys offered to take us
up to Kufri, a little town about a dozen km north of Shimla, a bit
higher in altitude, and home to a wildlife preserve. I was somewhat
reluctant, but Laura accepted and we walked with them down from the
temple and another 1.5 km to the army base, where we got their car and
started driving.
As soon as he started the car, the stereo started blasting a live
version of Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like A Knife," and they didn't turn it
down, although they did shout back to key us know they loved loud
music and hoped we did, too. Turns out the banker dude was a hobbyist
rally driver, so off we went, speeding up the narrow, crowded
Himalayan road to the awful caterwauling of Bryan Adams. It was
appropriately surreal, and I'll post the video once we're home.
Stopping frequently for directions, sometimes in the middle of the
road such that the pedestrian helping had to shout over the din of
honking horns from the drivers stuck behind us, we eventually made it
to the preserve. Much like everything we've seen, it's simultaneously
awesome and decrepit. There were lots of barking deer, but they were
mangy and didn't bark. The bears were stuffed into a little cave-like
pen while two workmen tried to pull down a tree in the enclosure using
a rope tied to the top such that the tree just swayed around a lot; a
saw would have been more efficient, and it was apparent there were
saws available.
The wolves looked tired and sad. The bright spot was the snow leopard
- it looked healthy and active and was quite lovely to watch. There
were also several pens of local pheasants and other gamebirds, all
quite spectacularly plumed.
The drive down was done to the strains of an Enigma's Greatest Hits
CD, which seemed far better suited to the circumstances.
So, on to today, from where I left off on the bus, feeling a little
queasy. We got into the station at Chandigarh just fine, and my wife and
I had a brief grumpy exchange that apparently left us both with
expressions such that the touts left us mostly alone; I'm thinking of
picking a fight with her in the airport tomorrow to see if it's a
workable tout-avoidance option. It did take four auto-rickshaw drivers
to figure out where the hotel was, though - the facade is hidden
behind an enormously bushy palm tree.
Tonight's hotel is The Kaptain's Retreat, smack in the middle of a
strip mall. The hotel is owned by cricket star Kapil Dev, who has
surprisingly good taste in furnishings, as well as food - the hotel
restaurant dinner was dee-licious.
Before dinner, though, we took a cab to Chandigarh's Rock Garden,
built over time by a nutty artistic guy on what had been vacant land.
It's a cross between Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona and South of The
Border on Route 95 in South Carolina. It's a maze, decorated with
stones, sculptures, and walls made of recycled porcelain, pottery,
crockery, and the like. There are small armies of figures made of
pottery shards, clay, and zillions of old bangle bracelets. We only
had an hour there as we arrived close to the dusk closing time, but it
was a very cool experience.
On the way back to the hotel, our driver got lost and we asked someone
in an adjacent auto-rickshaw for directions at a stoplight. They
thought about it for a bit, then the light changed and our driver
zoomed off. The guy behind us had his driver flag ours down, ran up,
asked if they could join us, then directed our driver to our hotel.
The guy was on his way to work, but still took the time to help.
Anyway, Le Corbusier is responsible for much of Chandigarh's city plan
and quite a few of it's buildings. Too bad we don't have time to check
them out, as we fly out to Udaipur first thing tomorrow, where we'll
settle for the next six days.
Time for lights out. There's a construction project along with what
sounds like a factory right outside our window, complete with loud
music and barking dogs. My wife is already sound asleep.
2009-12-24
Day 14, India
Today's coordinates: the Lemon Tree Hotel, Muhamma, Alleppey, Kerala,
India
Time: 2009-12-23 18:29:38 +0530
ISO6709: +24.611789+73.661613+0/
Google: http://maps.google.com/?q=24.611790,73.661613
This morning we left Udaipur at 6:30, our ancient cab winding though
the dark, narrow streets, which were surprisingly empty at that hour,
save for all the dogs, cows, and motorcycle milkmen.
Airport security seemed a bit tighter than on our last internal
flight, no doubt due to the approach of Christmas. The flight was
smooth, although the pilot set us down in the middle of the runway in
Mumbai, necessitating an overly exciting stop at the very, very, very
end of the runway. You'll learn more soon about Indian driving habits.
At least they're all consistent.
The connecting flight left 90 minutes late, all of which was spent
sitting in the plane at the gate, as the airport was temporarily
closed for an unnamed VIP's arrival. At least our seatmate was
pleasant, so the conversation helped pass the time.
Once airborne, it was somewhat surreal to find myself aboard an Indian
aircraft, flying low over the jungle, listening to Muzak Christmas
carols playing over the plane's PA system. Feliz Navidad, ... Feliz
Navi-dad, ... Namaste. This is your captain speaking (in Hindi).
Once in Cochin, we hired a taxi for the 90km drive to the resort.
Sweet Jeebus. The drivers in southern India make the rolling circus in
Delhi seem comparitively civilized. No one really seems to like their
side of the road, instead crossing into opposing traffic at 90+ km/h
for no apparent reason, blowing their horn, perhaps flashing their
lights, perhaps not. Our driver managed it all in tit-for-tat fashion,
swerving out of the way at the latest possible second, never using
more than a couple of fingers to manage the wheel, and refusing to
shift any lower than third gear, which made for painfully labored
starts in the tiny, underpowered Tata hatchback he piloted.
Even better, it is 90F and humid here, and the little extortionist
wanted an extra 500 rupees to turn on the car's air conditioning. You
all must understand that my level of self-restraint is worthy of a
statue somewhere, as I managed to say "no, thank you," instead of
exposing him to the volumes of unsavory language I've acquired over
the years. The little opportunist even tried to wrangle more money out of
us because he failed to get proper directions before we left, and thus
overshot the turn to the resort by 6km or so. Watching him stop every
few hundred meters to grudgingly ask pedestrians for directions was
somehow enjoyable, although we seemed to understand the Hindi
directions better than he did.
He was the first taxi driver we've encountered who wore his seatbelt.
Encouraged, we looked for ours, only to find that the buckles had been
cut out. I asked the whereabouts of the rear seatbelts, and the driver
shook his head, smiled, and said, "not required." I then asked why he
wore one, and, in true Hindi fashion, he smiled and said nothing more.
Life is apparently cheap here, and ours must ring up at even less than
his.
We eventually found our way to the resort, which is a couple
kilometers down an unmarked road (no big deal there, though; *all* the
roads here are unmarked; if there ever were road signs, they've long
since been stolen and used as building materials), we again had to
surrender our passports for a couple hours to the innkeepers so they
could photocopy them and register us with the local police station.
It's been the same drill in every town.
All foreign tourists are under very close scrutiny these days because
of it coming out that the mastermind of last year's attacks in Mumbai
was an American citizen, albeit of Pakistani origin. Another classic
case of closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. They're at
least polite about it all, though, and are treating all foreigners the
same regardless of nationality so as to properly inconvenience
everyone equally.
And the room is nice, with the resort being on a lovely lake of
dubious quality. However, if the hotel's pretty little swimming pool
is half as chlorinated as the water that comes out of the shower tap,
it's going to be as sanitary as hell.
We'll explore more tomorrow.
India
Time: 2009-12-23 18:29:38 +0530
ISO6709: +24.611789+73.661613+0/
Google: http://maps.google.com/?q=24.611790,73.661613
This morning we left Udaipur at 6:30, our ancient cab winding though
the dark, narrow streets, which were surprisingly empty at that hour,
save for all the dogs, cows, and motorcycle milkmen.
Airport security seemed a bit tighter than on our last internal
flight, no doubt due to the approach of Christmas. The flight was
smooth, although the pilot set us down in the middle of the runway in
Mumbai, necessitating an overly exciting stop at the very, very, very
end of the runway. You'll learn more soon about Indian driving habits.
At least they're all consistent.
The connecting flight left 90 minutes late, all of which was spent
sitting in the plane at the gate, as the airport was temporarily
closed for an unnamed VIP's arrival. At least our seatmate was
pleasant, so the conversation helped pass the time.
Once airborne, it was somewhat surreal to find myself aboard an Indian
aircraft, flying low over the jungle, listening to Muzak Christmas
carols playing over the plane's PA system. Feliz Navidad, ... Feliz
Navi-dad, ... Namaste. This is your captain speaking (in Hindi).
Once in Cochin, we hired a taxi for the 90km drive to the resort.
Sweet Jeebus. The drivers in southern India make the rolling circus in
Delhi seem comparitively civilized. No one really seems to like their
side of the road, instead crossing into opposing traffic at 90+ km/h
for no apparent reason, blowing their horn, perhaps flashing their
lights, perhaps not. Our driver managed it all in tit-for-tat fashion,
swerving out of the way at the latest possible second, never using
more than a couple of fingers to manage the wheel, and refusing to
shift any lower than third gear, which made for painfully labored
starts in the tiny, underpowered Tata hatchback he piloted.
Even better, it is 90F and humid here, and the little extortionist
wanted an extra 500 rupees to turn on the car's air conditioning. You
all must understand that my level of self-restraint is worthy of a
statue somewhere, as I managed to say "no, thank you," instead of
exposing him to the volumes of unsavory language I've acquired over
the years. The little opportunist even tried to wrangle more money out of
us because he failed to get proper directions before we left, and thus
overshot the turn to the resort by 6km or so. Watching him stop every
few hundred meters to grudgingly ask pedestrians for directions was
somehow enjoyable, although we seemed to understand the Hindi
directions better than he did.
He was the first taxi driver we've encountered who wore his seatbelt.
Encouraged, we looked for ours, only to find that the buckles had been
cut out. I asked the whereabouts of the rear seatbelts, and the driver
shook his head, smiled, and said, "not required." I then asked why he
wore one, and, in true Hindi fashion, he smiled and said nothing more.
Life is apparently cheap here, and ours must ring up at even less than
his.
We eventually found our way to the resort, which is a couple
kilometers down an unmarked road (no big deal there, though; *all* the
roads here are unmarked; if there ever were road signs, they've long
since been stolen and used as building materials), we again had to
surrender our passports for a couple hours to the innkeepers so they
could photocopy them and register us with the local police station.
It's been the same drill in every town.
All foreign tourists are under very close scrutiny these days because
of it coming out that the mastermind of last year's attacks in Mumbai
was an American citizen, albeit of Pakistani origin. Another classic
case of closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. They're at
least polite about it all, though, and are treating all foreigners the
same regardless of nationality so as to properly inconvenience
everyone equally.
And the room is nice, with the resort being on a lovely lake of
dubious quality. However, if the hotel's pretty little swimming pool
is half as chlorinated as the water that comes out of the shower tap,
it's going to be as sanitary as hell.
We'll explore more tomorrow.
2009-10-09
The epic travel tripod search begins
OK, so I need a new compact travel tripod, and I mean compact, and it's gotta be able to hold at least a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70 f/2.8 lens, and ideally my 1Ds Mark II and the same lens. Did I mention that I want the whole thing to fold down to 16 inches or so?
I've found several from Gitzo that meet the weight criteria, but they're all 20+ inches long when folded, so they're out of the running. The Gitzo 1541T carbon model definitely fits the bill, but it's price is a usurious $600, *without* a head. I'm sure it's a swell tripod, but I'd rather put that money toward another lens or some lighting gear.
So the search continued. In 2007 I bought a small carbon Induro for a trip to Europe, but it was kinda flimsy and still fairly long when stowed (about 20 inches), and the spelling of the name drove me nuts, so it was sold off via eBay.
Things then swung the other way - if I couldn't find the compact tripod of my dreams for less than the price of a cheap used car, I'd get something really sturdy and compactness be damned. The Gitzo GT2942 seemed nice, so I got one, along with a second-hand aluminum Gitzo G1415. Oddly enough, they're the same length folded (19 inches), but the 1415 weighs as much as a school bus. Once it's set up, though, it doesn't move. They've both been serving me well for the past year or so.
But now there's a three-week trip to India on the horizon and being able to travel very light is again something important. The spendy Gitzo is still not an option, even if only on principle.
An evening's worth of Web searching turned up the relatively new Chinese brand Benro. Calumet and Adorama stock most of their stuff, and of special interest is a line called "travel angel," which looked like a reverse-engineered version of the svelte Gitzo, but at nearly half the price. Reviews were difficult to come by, and, as the ones I found were written by photographers, the grammar was so lousy that I again got disgusted and moved on. Having been an editor in my past life, the running joke in the newsroom was that most photographers couldn't spell their own names save for the fact that they'd had their whole lives to practice it.
In any event, I thought that the largest model would work, and the aluminum version (TRA269) seemed priced quite nicely at $190 from Adorama.
Then we enter the world of "this is why buying locally is better than mail order." No one in Seattle stocks the Benro tripods, though, so I'm buying without the ability to actually handle the tripod first. The tripod arrived late last week - build, fit and finish, and functions were all great, especially for the price. I didn't at all like the head's quick-release platform, but I was planning to swap it out anyway with a Really Right Stuff B2 Pro platform I had kicking around, so no big deal there. The problem, and eventual deal-breaker, was the diameter of the thing when folded up. The folded length was perfect at about 16", but it was nearly 5" in diameter, which would be like sticking a stack of one-quart paint cans in your camera bag; too bulky!
There are two smaller models available, the TRA169 and TRA069, but nowhere can I find listed the closed diameter of any tripod. The smaller aluminum versions only holds five pounds, so it's out, but the carbon TRCB069 holds 12 pounds and should do the trick. Adorama wants $400, but I can get it on eBay for $300 straight from China, so that's where the process stands for now while I decide whether to buy the thing from China and risk not liking it.
So, it's back to Adorama with the aluminum Benro TRA269 tripod for now. If anyone actually reads this post and has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
I've found several from Gitzo that meet the weight criteria, but they're all 20+ inches long when folded, so they're out of the running. The Gitzo 1541T carbon model definitely fits the bill, but it's price is a usurious $600, *without* a head. I'm sure it's a swell tripod, but I'd rather put that money toward another lens or some lighting gear.
So the search continued. In 2007 I bought a small carbon Induro for a trip to Europe, but it was kinda flimsy and still fairly long when stowed (about 20 inches), and the spelling of the name drove me nuts, so it was sold off via eBay.
Things then swung the other way - if I couldn't find the compact tripod of my dreams for less than the price of a cheap used car, I'd get something really sturdy and compactness be damned. The Gitzo GT2942 seemed nice, so I got one, along with a second-hand aluminum Gitzo G1415. Oddly enough, they're the same length folded (19 inches), but the 1415 weighs as much as a school bus. Once it's set up, though, it doesn't move. They've both been serving me well for the past year or so.
But now there's a three-week trip to India on the horizon and being able to travel very light is again something important. The spendy Gitzo is still not an option, even if only on principle.
An evening's worth of Web searching turned up the relatively new Chinese brand Benro. Calumet and Adorama stock most of their stuff, and of special interest is a line called "travel angel," which looked like a reverse-engineered version of the svelte Gitzo, but at nearly half the price. Reviews were difficult to come by, and, as the ones I found were written by photographers, the grammar was so lousy that I again got disgusted and moved on. Having been an editor in my past life, the running joke in the newsroom was that most photographers couldn't spell their own names save for the fact that they'd had their whole lives to practice it.
In any event, I thought that the largest model would work, and the aluminum version (TRA269) seemed priced quite nicely at $190 from Adorama.
Then we enter the world of "this is why buying locally is better than mail order." No one in Seattle stocks the Benro tripods, though, so I'm buying without the ability to actually handle the tripod first. The tripod arrived late last week - build, fit and finish, and functions were all great, especially for the price. I didn't at all like the head's quick-release platform, but I was planning to swap it out anyway with a Really Right Stuff B2 Pro platform I had kicking around, so no big deal there. The problem, and eventual deal-breaker, was the diameter of the thing when folded up. The folded length was perfect at about 16", but it was nearly 5" in diameter, which would be like sticking a stack of one-quart paint cans in your camera bag; too bulky!
There are two smaller models available, the TRA169 and TRA069, but nowhere can I find listed the closed diameter of any tripod. The smaller aluminum versions only holds five pounds, so it's out, but the carbon TRCB069 holds 12 pounds and should do the trick. Adorama wants $400, but I can get it on eBay for $300 straight from China, so that's where the process stands for now while I decide whether to buy the thing from China and risk not liking it.
So, it's back to Adorama with the aluminum Benro TRA269 tripod for now. If anyone actually reads this post and has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
2009-10-06
Please stop undervaluing your work, at least for my sake, OK?
Pricing is a thorny issue at best, and we’re all aware that these are not the best of times. Frequently, business owners in service industries will discount their rates in tough times in an attempt to garner more business. This is both dangerous and foolhardy.
I recently had a conversation with an architect about pricing, so I’ll use his industry as an example to illustrate this point.
Consumers of architectural services have come to expect that if they shop around, they’ll find an architect who’s willing to do a particular project for what amounts to a loss for that architect, because the architect has an attitude that work is scarce and they need to chase it. For example, if they tell the potential client that it will cost $10,000 to design a building, the architect knows that chances are good that the client will also solicit bids from other architects until they find one who will do the work for less. When a client shops on price, we all know quality is the first thing to suffer, but that’s either not apparent or not an issue to our fictitious client, as he knows that architectural fees are all over the map and they’ll eventually find someone to take their sucker’s bid.
If, on the other hand, someone steps into a law office and asks the attorney to take their case at a discounted rate, they’ll be shown the door, albeit very politely. Attorneys present a united front when it comes to valuing their services. It’s not collusion or price fixing; they all know what it costs to run their businesses and they know the market value of their services.
Why, then, for the love of Ansel Adams, are photographers so willing to do a shoot for less than the cost of producing one? Do they actually think it’ll help them to get more business in the future? Do they think that working for a loss will keep food on the table?
Not only will that practice quickly drive them out of business, it also serves to devalue the entire industry and our entire craft, not to mention driving down the quality of output and, by extension, the clients’ expectation of quality, which further devalues the industry. You can’t tell me that folks will go the extra mile for a client who’s underpaying them, even if that underpayment was the photographer’s idea in the first place.
If you go into a bank and ask for a loan, they’ll tell you that it costs what it costs; there’s no dickering on the fees or rates, even in tough times. You want to have cable television? It costs what it costs, good times or bad. How about a cup of coffee? Or a manicure? A chiropractic adjustment? Have a new set of new tires installed on your car? Those services always cost the same, and only go up over time. Sure, there are discounts and coupons available, but the core price never changes.
There’s a reason for that - the companies providing those services know how much it costs to deliver them, what the profit margins need to be in order to both maintain and grow their businesses. An occasional discount serves to build customer loyalty. A fire sale is a whole different matter.
Do you for one second think that, once the economy turns around, our clients will suddenly think it’s OK to go back to paying $5,000 for something they they’ve been getting for $2,000 or less, even though it really cost $5,000 to produce all along? Of course not. How does one buy and maintain expensive equipment, studio overhead, etc., etc., on hobbyist rates? The short answer is that they don’t.
If you’re looking to curry favor with a client who’s also on hard times, by all means offer them a discount, but for heaven’s sake don’t cut your rates; by doing so you immediately devalue yourself, both in a professional and personal capacity.
By arbitrarily lowering your rates, you are telling people that you were either overcharging them to begin with, which is not good, or that you have no confidence or self-respect, which is almost worse. You’ve immediately declared yourself an underling instead of a peer. Have you ever noticed that the clients who pay your full rate will usually treat you better than the folks to whom you’ve granted a deep discount? That’s because you’ve earned their respect and they see you as a partner in something. The converse is they the client treats you like the garbage collector; someone who is performing a necessary task that doesn’t require much skill and therefore isn’t all that worthy of much attention or respect. It’s not all about money; it’s about knowing how to be a businessperson. Like it or not, if you’re self-employed you need to be a businessperson. If you are not, you’re causing harm to more folks than just yourself.
This could be the beginning of a rapid industry-wide downward spiral unless we create a unified front; otherwise we’re all working for peanuts and photography is going to be looked upon as a cute little hobby that people make a cute little amount of money from. “Oh, you take pictures. How nice. My nephew got a camera for his 15th birthday, … what was it, … a 5D something or other -- I think it’s a lot like that one you’re holding.”
Do you really know how much it costs to produce a photo shoot? Honestly? If not, that’s a large part of the problem. That’s symptomatic of not being a good businessperson. Attorneys are all service providers; they produce nothing tangible, there are no cost-of-goods-sold computations, etc., for them to make, yet they know exactly how much an hour of their services costs, and don’t waver on that, as they’ve got to cover those costs if they’re to make money.
Your profit margin is a cost of doing business; that’s your salary, your future operating capital, and your business savings for the inevitable equipment upgrades. You may have noticed that your local photo equipment shop isn’t cutting its prices; neither is the electric company, your ISP, your cell-phone provider, your automobile mechanic, your bank or your landlord, you still need to pay their regular rates or fees, even though the economic times are tough.
Why, then, have many photographers decided that their services worth less, even though their cost of doing business has not gone down? Photographer services should actually be worth more in tough times, especially in the commercial world; providing valuable images to help companies market their wares in tough times helps companies to maintain sales levels. Produce good results and the client makes more money. That’s valuable. Why do photographers seem to feel that the opposite is somehow true?
Why on earth have photographers decided that the first serious communication with a client includes dickering over the value of their services? This hasn’t “happened” to us, or to architects, or to graphic designers or any other creative types; we have allowed this to happen to us.
There are a million ways to justify cutting rates, but most all of them come down to a lack of business acumen, a lack of confidence, or some combination of both.
Then why have we begun this seemingly desperate race to the bottom? Panic? Fear? I have no idea, but if people don’t pull together we’re all gonna be looking for a different line of work.
There will no doubt be squeals of protest about this article from folks justifying their cuts -- I have kids! I need to make a living! Well, by providing $1,000 worth of work for $500, I’m here to tell you that you’re not making a living. You’re losing money and doing nothing more than burning the furniture to keep warm. When the furniture is gone, you’ll be cold again but will have nowhere to sit while you shiver. To continue with the allegory, if, instead, you were to instead sell some unused furniture to make ends meet while still charging properly for your work, you’ll still be able to afford to heat the place, albeit modestly, but when things turn around you’ll be able to replace that furniture with perhaps something even nicer than what you started with.
Short-term desperation is causing serious damage to this industry; we’re already dealing with a complete removal of the financial barriers to entry. If we add to that the perception that we ourselves don’t value or respect our own hard-earned skills, talents and wisdom, then there’s nothing left.
Real enough for you? I’m not trying to tell you that I think this is the end; I’m telling you that I can see the writing on the wall and it ain’t a pretty read. If anyone out there has an intelligent counter-argument, one that explains how a full-day photo shoot that requires a top-end camera and lighting, takes two full days to plan, a full day to execute with the help of at least one assistant, and another two days to edit and deliver, can be effectively produced for $1,500, I’m all ears. And, yes, people have been bidding $1,500 for jobs like that; I know, as I’ve been underbid three times this summer alone for jobs just like that and the “winning” photographer charged exactly that.
Please explain to me exactly how $1,500 is going to cover a full week’s worth of your work, pay for an assistant, cover gasoline / mileage, equipment, meals, etc., let alone a creative fee.
I’m listening, ...
I recently had a conversation with an architect about pricing, so I’ll use his industry as an example to illustrate this point.
Consumers of architectural services have come to expect that if they shop around, they’ll find an architect who’s willing to do a particular project for what amounts to a loss for that architect, because the architect has an attitude that work is scarce and they need to chase it. For example, if they tell the potential client that it will cost $10,000 to design a building, the architect knows that chances are good that the client will also solicit bids from other architects until they find one who will do the work for less. When a client shops on price, we all know quality is the first thing to suffer, but that’s either not apparent or not an issue to our fictitious client, as he knows that architectural fees are all over the map and they’ll eventually find someone to take their sucker’s bid.
If, on the other hand, someone steps into a law office and asks the attorney to take their case at a discounted rate, they’ll be shown the door, albeit very politely. Attorneys present a united front when it comes to valuing their services. It’s not collusion or price fixing; they all know what it costs to run their businesses and they know the market value of their services.
Why, then, for the love of Ansel Adams, are photographers so willing to do a shoot for less than the cost of producing one? Do they actually think it’ll help them to get more business in the future? Do they think that working for a loss will keep food on the table?
Not only will that practice quickly drive them out of business, it also serves to devalue the entire industry and our entire craft, not to mention driving down the quality of output and, by extension, the clients’ expectation of quality, which further devalues the industry. You can’t tell me that folks will go the extra mile for a client who’s underpaying them, even if that underpayment was the photographer’s idea in the first place.
If you go into a bank and ask for a loan, they’ll tell you that it costs what it costs; there’s no dickering on the fees or rates, even in tough times. You want to have cable television? It costs what it costs, good times or bad. How about a cup of coffee? Or a manicure? A chiropractic adjustment? Have a new set of new tires installed on your car? Those services always cost the same, and only go up over time. Sure, there are discounts and coupons available, but the core price never changes.
There’s a reason for that - the companies providing those services know how much it costs to deliver them, what the profit margins need to be in order to both maintain and grow their businesses. An occasional discount serves to build customer loyalty. A fire sale is a whole different matter.
Do you for one second think that, once the economy turns around, our clients will suddenly think it’s OK to go back to paying $5,000 for something they they’ve been getting for $2,000 or less, even though it really cost $5,000 to produce all along? Of course not. How does one buy and maintain expensive equipment, studio overhead, etc., etc., on hobbyist rates? The short answer is that they don’t.
If you’re looking to curry favor with a client who’s also on hard times, by all means offer them a discount, but for heaven’s sake don’t cut your rates; by doing so you immediately devalue yourself, both in a professional and personal capacity.
By arbitrarily lowering your rates, you are telling people that you were either overcharging them to begin with, which is not good, or that you have no confidence or self-respect, which is almost worse. You’ve immediately declared yourself an underling instead of a peer. Have you ever noticed that the clients who pay your full rate will usually treat you better than the folks to whom you’ve granted a deep discount? That’s because you’ve earned their respect and they see you as a partner in something. The converse is they the client treats you like the garbage collector; someone who is performing a necessary task that doesn’t require much skill and therefore isn’t all that worthy of much attention or respect. It’s not all about money; it’s about knowing how to be a businessperson. Like it or not, if you’re self-employed you need to be a businessperson. If you are not, you’re causing harm to more folks than just yourself.
This could be the beginning of a rapid industry-wide downward spiral unless we create a unified front; otherwise we’re all working for peanuts and photography is going to be looked upon as a cute little hobby that people make a cute little amount of money from. “Oh, you take pictures. How nice. My nephew got a camera for his 15th birthday, … what was it, … a 5D something or other -- I think it’s a lot like that one you’re holding.”
Do you really know how much it costs to produce a photo shoot? Honestly? If not, that’s a large part of the problem. That’s symptomatic of not being a good businessperson. Attorneys are all service providers; they produce nothing tangible, there are no cost-of-goods-sold computations, etc., for them to make, yet they know exactly how much an hour of their services costs, and don’t waver on that, as they’ve got to cover those costs if they’re to make money.
Your profit margin is a cost of doing business; that’s your salary, your future operating capital, and your business savings for the inevitable equipment upgrades. You may have noticed that your local photo equipment shop isn’t cutting its prices; neither is the electric company, your ISP, your cell-phone provider, your automobile mechanic, your bank or your landlord, you still need to pay their regular rates or fees, even though the economic times are tough.
Why, then, have many photographers decided that their services worth less, even though their cost of doing business has not gone down? Photographer services should actually be worth more in tough times, especially in the commercial world; providing valuable images to help companies market their wares in tough times helps companies to maintain sales levels. Produce good results and the client makes more money. That’s valuable. Why do photographers seem to feel that the opposite is somehow true?
Why on earth have photographers decided that the first serious communication with a client includes dickering over the value of their services? This hasn’t “happened” to us, or to architects, or to graphic designers or any other creative types; we have allowed this to happen to us.
There are a million ways to justify cutting rates, but most all of them come down to a lack of business acumen, a lack of confidence, or some combination of both.
Then why have we begun this seemingly desperate race to the bottom? Panic? Fear? I have no idea, but if people don’t pull together we’re all gonna be looking for a different line of work.
There will no doubt be squeals of protest about this article from folks justifying their cuts -- I have kids! I need to make a living! Well, by providing $1,000 worth of work for $500, I’m here to tell you that you’re not making a living. You’re losing money and doing nothing more than burning the furniture to keep warm. When the furniture is gone, you’ll be cold again but will have nowhere to sit while you shiver. To continue with the allegory, if, instead, you were to instead sell some unused furniture to make ends meet while still charging properly for your work, you’ll still be able to afford to heat the place, albeit modestly, but when things turn around you’ll be able to replace that furniture with perhaps something even nicer than what you started with.
Short-term desperation is causing serious damage to this industry; we’re already dealing with a complete removal of the financial barriers to entry. If we add to that the perception that we ourselves don’t value or respect our own hard-earned skills, talents and wisdom, then there’s nothing left.
Real enough for you? I’m not trying to tell you that I think this is the end; I’m telling you that I can see the writing on the wall and it ain’t a pretty read. If anyone out there has an intelligent counter-argument, one that explains how a full-day photo shoot that requires a top-end camera and lighting, takes two full days to plan, a full day to execute with the help of at least one assistant, and another two days to edit and deliver, can be effectively produced for $1,500, I’m all ears. And, yes, people have been bidding $1,500 for jobs like that; I know, as I’ve been underbid three times this summer alone for jobs just like that and the “winning” photographer charged exactly that.
Please explain to me exactly how $1,500 is going to cover a full week’s worth of your work, pay for an assistant, cover gasoline / mileage, equipment, meals, etc., let alone a creative fee.
I’m listening, ...
2009-08-27
Backups, Part III and a link to my presentation movie
OK; so instead of retyping what I've already created, here's a link to a presentation I made for the American Institute of Architects about this very subject.
Questions, anyone? Buhler? Buhler?
2009-08-13
We interrupt this blog for a two-day road trip
Went on a great road trip to south-central Washington to photograph the landscape and a wind-generation facility. There are plenty of new photos from the trip on my site in the commercial architecture and panorama galleries. Please check them out -- feedback is welcome.
2009-08-11
Backups - we all know why they're needed but why don't we do it?
Backups are daunting if you're just starting out -- how much do I back up? Where do I back it up? What about all those unorganized photos, movies, songs, etc.? Sometimes it's just easier to ignore the whole thing rather than tackling the whole problem of organizing just to to *get ready* to do those daunting backups. Right?
Well, sure, until that inevitable system crash and resulting data loss sends you out onto that ledge.
Here's the straightforward, easy way to get organized: start now with new data and don't worry about the old stuff for right now. Create an organization system for your photos, music, whatever, and start putting the new stuff into it. Then, after a fashion, you'll get so sick of looking through all the mess of the old data that you'll slowly start bringing it into the organized system and, before you know it, you can find things. Every time. Quickly and easily.
But what about the backups in the interim? Easy. Get an external drive the same size as your current computer's drive and just duplicate the whole thing for now, and do it on some sort of regular basis. Many drives come with software that lets you schedule your backups; Apple's Time Machine is a good example, but there are plenty of others.
Back to the organization thing: there are several schools of thought: one is the giant bucket school, and then there's the "lots of smaller buckets" school, and degrees of bucket size in between.
What that means is this: put all your images on a disk into one folder, but keyword them using an application like Adobe Lightroom, Apple's iPhoto, etc. You can then search for the photos with the application by whichever parameters you've used for the metadata. The date and camera info should be there by default, created by the camera when the photos were taken, so there's two search terms already. Some cameras have internal GPS recording, and then you'll enter things like info about the subject of the photos, the client you've taken them for, or any other pertinent data. Metadata is great, so long as your editing application doesn't strip it out, which some Windows photo editors do for some reason.
With that in mind, here's what I do. On my server (or your computer's hard drive) create a folder called photos or some such thing, then fill that with folders named for clients (or subjects like mom, dad, cats, ponies, carnival rides, vacations, etc.) Within each of those folders are folders named for the dates of the photos:
photos>client1>2009-04-03
2009-08-11
photos>client4>2007-02-15
And so on. Yours could look like this:
photos>kids>2006-04-09
2008-09-26
photos>vacations>cabin>2009-06
And so on. Just give it a little thought before you start and then be consistent and you'll be OK.
Everybody still with me? Good. Next time I'll expand on some of the details above before moving on to the next step.
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