SSD's - A SOLID choice for laptop owners!

Computer performance is always of the utmost importance when you are dealing with handling and processing large amounts of data as is the case with digital imagery and video.

Most of the talk, justifiably, focuses on processor speed, video cards and RAM but, one of the newest things to consider when looking at this equation is the hard drive itself. Traditional hard drives are typically the biggest bottlenecking issue in that equation. It’s really amazing to me that it has escaped being under microscope for this long!

With this relatively new option of a Solid State Drive, we now have very powerful element to add to our systems.

As in any new technology, we find out fast when there is an issue, as is the case with SSD’s. The newer versions are starting to show more and more that they will become a bigger and bigger part of out system considerations and will only improve. Think about it…the traditional hard drive has been around since the 1950’s and drive capcity has been it’s biggest marked improvement. Smaller capacity, higher RPM drives showed some improvements in speed but physics shows us that these are even more prone to issues as was the case here with one of my Velociraptor 10,000 RPM drives. (I was truly bitten by a Raptor!)

Your standard SSD drives will more than double the read/write performance of these “elite” HDD drives ranging well into the 500 MB/s range

SSD’s, though more expensive per Gig (at least for now), offer a big performance boost and A LOT of ruggedness and durability which is HUGE for any on-the-go laptop owner.

Ever bump your Laptop or have a small spill and sweat those first few moments when you try and power it up? “Oh please God…please please please!…” With an SSD, you will more than likely break everything around it before you damage the drive itself. The spinning disks and moving reader arm in a traditional hard drive are VERY prone to shock …even more so when running.

That all said, HDD or SSD, a good back-up routine is always the best means of protecting your data. That plan should always include redundant data storage and OS drive imaging.

So here is some preliminary differences I saw with just changing our the hard drive…

System Specs:
ASUS G73SW-XT1 Laptop Computer

Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.0GHz

8GB DDR3 RAM

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Initial Hard Drives:

Segate Momentus 7200RPM 500GB HDD

New Hard Drive:

OCZ Solid 3, Solid State 480 Gb Drive

So right off the bat it cut cold boot times a least in half. I can now fully boot-up, sign in and get into an Adobe Lightroom Catalog, ready to work, in about 35 seconds

Adobe Lightroom preformance comparsions:
Importing from Same drive to Cat file (adding at existing location):
17.8 GB (19,202,928,640 bytes) 1307 RAW files
                                                                    SSD          HDD   
Time from start to Render                             00:29.0      01:21.0
Time from Start to end of 1:1 Render            18:32.0      20:17

Importing from USB 3 Card Reader with SanDisk Ultra 8Gb Card
(441 RAW files) 5.90 GB (6,337,811,06 bytes)                                  
                                                                      SSD            HDD   
Time from start to Render                               03:12.0        03:27.0
Time from Start to end of 1:1 Render              09:08.0        09:57.0

Some Pros and cons...
Pros:
Faster boot times
Faster program launches
Faster performance overall
More durability (perfect for laptops!)
Easier to recover data

Cons:
Smaller drive sizes
Cost per Gig
Newer technology

So in closing, though it may not be the right time for me (money and capacity considered anyway) to swap out my desktop drives. Keep in mind that I use my laptop to take work on the go. Our “Mobile Command” as we like to call it. The desktop and network at the home office is still the mother ship.

The SSD drives offer a hands down GREAT choice for a laptop user that boost performance and take the anxiety out of moving around with all that data.

A good read on the topic that doesn’t get too over the top technical…
Tech Work
Funny Video posted in the above article (also shows how rugged these are too)...

Samsung SSD Awesomeness

The "RAW" Deal: Part 1 - RAW's True Colors

So what is the “RAW” Deal?
Well, I wanted to pull together a couple of tests to visually show why, as professionals, shooting RAW is so important to us. Especially as Theater Photographers, it is an absolute necessity. I can’t begin to tell you how much variation in exposure and color temp we deal with within just one frame, never mind the 1500 or so we typically come back with from a dress rehearsal. The RAW file allows us the maximum adjustment potential from of each image.

With memory chips getting larger and cheaper, computers and cameras getting faster and faster, a lot of the old “drawbacks” to shooting RAW are rapidly fading away.

Add to this that Lightroom 4 is knocking on the door and, to me, it's a no brainer. Lightroom 4 will bring the ability to locally adjust images with unlimited variations of color balance, exposure, noise, sharpness…this is nothing short of MIND BLOWING. I have been personally waiting for this one for a while and I can’t wait!! This was made to truly exploit the RAW file’s power.

So what is it that you are looking at here?
Well, in short, I set-up a Color Checker card at the studio with a one light set-up. I metered the exposure to f8 then using RAW and JPEG formats captured the scene as metered. I also under and over exposed by a stop and a half using both Tungsten and Flash White Balance. Each over/under exposed image was pulled into Lightroom using all the same settings and corrected visually using the white balance tool and ONLY the basic adjustment panel. I glued them all together in Photoshop and put the screen shots of just the develop panel adjacent to each so that you can get some idea of what I had to do to obtain these results.

The facts behind the mechanics:

When you capture an image, a large amount of light data is collected by the camera's sensor.

The JPEG is the resulting compressed image file you get from the camera AFTER the data it is processed (developed) based on the settings you have plugged into your camera. All the data that it doesn't need based on the settings you chose (color balance, contrast, sharpness, luminance, exposure) is discarded. So, when you are shooting, if you don’t have all your settings nailed in camera or maybe you have a mix of color balances and varying exposures across a scene, you are already at a loss before you even get started.

As compressed files, JPEGs start to lose the quality of the original capture the second you take the image and continue to do so as you process them in any way. The advent of Lightroom and Non-Destructive editing has helped pull the reigns back on this situation to some extent, but your editing flexibility will always be limited by the data you are left with after the camera’s processor has dumped the information it deemed unnecessary.

RAW files send ALL the data originally collected from the sensor directly to the file and circumvent the processor thus maintaining the maximum amount of image data and post-processing power. Another nice benefit to RAW, you can forget about having to nail the color balance on location. Just shoot a color checker (as you always should) for a post processing reference. When you're shooting pick a setting that is close, lock it in and concentrate on getting the rest of it the way you want.

The old way of thinking, “I am a good photographer, I don’t need to shoot RAW!” is at the very least (and in my humble opinion) a naive and uneducated attitude. The fact is that no matter how good you are, within any one image you can have multiple sources of light (with a mix of White Balances) across varying exposures of light to dark. Looking at these test results, think about the fact that these images where taken in a controlled environment with the lighting, exposure and white balance already nailed. Look at the variations there and then think about how often do you get this much control in the field?

When you take all the other factors out of the equation, on some levels, the RAW file helps separate the Pro’s from the amateur shooters who everyday have more and more power in their hands. For those of us that obsess over quality and range in an image, the RAW file gives us that power to excel that not just anyone is going to invest the time and money into having or learning.

Ansel Adams spent hours and even days in the darkroom to get the final print, pulling off what we can do on screen in just minutes with one RAW exposure and some post processing. Just think about how jealous he would be at the power we now posses.

The dangers of flip-flopping:
Why not just switch back and forth based on the job? Switching your file format back and forth based on what you are shooting, at least in my experience, has proven more harmful then good. I have found it is just easier to leave the camera on RAW and forget about it. What inevitably ends up happening, sooner or later, is that in a rush to set-up your camera for a shoot, you will leave the camera on one setting when you wanted or needed the other. Not such a big deal if you accidentally shoot a RAW file but if you intended to have a RAW and shot a JPEG, that might be a problem! It happened to me once and my mind being so hell bent when it comes to shooting RAW, I actually felt about as sick as if I accidentally deleted the images. Sounds extreme, but that’s how I felt. Again shooting theater, I knew it was going to be a rough ride in post-production.

Q: So when do we shoot JPEG?
A: We only shoot JPEGs in our point and shoot for personal family photos.

Q: When do we shoot RAW?
A: Always in our professional work. It allows for the most processing flexibility - whether or not we've gotten it right in camera to begin with (which, by the way, should be something we all strive for!)


Test Set-up:

-Single 24x36” Softbox overhead.

-Middle images were metered and taken at 1/125s @ f8, ISO 200.
-With light settings locked in… Top row of images were all underexposed at 1/125s @ f22, ISO 200
-Bottom row of images were all overexposed at 1/125s @ f2.8 ISO 200
-Left column was taken using Tungsten white balance

-Right column of images was taken using Flash white balance
-The center column of RAW images was shot in both Flash and Tungsten. Showing both was irrelevant as once color corrected they looked exactly identical throughout the test range.
-Each over/under exposed image was then adjusted for color balance first using the LR dropper tool targeting the medium gray patch on the color checker card, then using on the basic development sliders adjusted by eye in efforts to achieve an image that most closely replicates the image taken at the metered exposure.

Lightroom and Photoshop: The Peanut Butter and Jelly of your digital workflow!

"Do you use Lightroom or Photoshop?"

I still hear this question all the time and it drives me crazy!!

The question was never there in my opinion.

How did it come to be that people felt they had to choose one or the other? These two powerful tools were meant to be used together in harmony. Sweet and Salty, Ying and Yang and ...oh yes...Peanut Butter and Jelly

I think this all started back when the awesome editing power of LR first came into light. People thought that PS was being challenged for it’s roll as the big Kahuna. Maybe because of this people felt like they had to choose sides, either Photoshop or Lightroom. I think somehow the purpose of these programs has been blurred. Not sure who’s fault it was…it just happened. Never the less, it is there and I see it and hear it all too often. The mindset must change in my opinion or else everyone will be missing the boat!

So lets stop putting these two into the same old “Nikon/Canon”, “PC/Mac” aurguments.

Is LR and awesome editing tool? Yes, absolutely. Does it replace PS. Without a doubt, NO. Now this is not to say that LR doesn’t have powerful editing capabilities and that it hasn’t greatly reduced my time spent in PS, because it does and it has. My ability to locally and globally edit and adjust LARGE amounts of images has skyrocketed while my time spent doing so has decreased dramatically. What LR brought to the table in addition to this is the ability to infinetly group, create multiple variations of, web publish, print, search and keyword images like never before. All this while keeping them organized! Spending less time in PS does not mean that it’s necessity has diminished. The beauty of this relationship is that when I do need to call in the power of PS, LR is the perfect launching point to go there and back again seamlessly. As soon as you save your file in PS, you jump back into LR and there it is: accessible, catalogued and even further editable within LR. What else can you ask for!?

Photoshop is, has been, and will continue to be (as far as I can see anyway) the go to program for major image modifications and element swap out. Not to mention all of the capabilities it gives to graphic artists and animators.

So lets look at some of the major issues people from both camps that I think are holding them back.

From Camp Photoshop:
A lot of people born into PS have a hard time getting there head around importing images into the LR catalogue. From a Photoshop users standpoint one has to think of it as the same task of copying your image files onto the computer itself. You can’t edit your files in PS without putting them on your computer, right? Importing into the catalogue in fact replaces the step of copying the files onto your system. Some people don't realize that importing into Lightroom and copying the images onto your system is done in one step at the exact the same time. As far as not “seeing” your files once you have start to edit them within LR…you just have to start thinking of the LR as you Explorer window or Bridge.

From Camp Lightroom:
Photoshop has been, is and will continue to be the most intricate program for image editing in the world. You have to know that and accept that as soon as you step in the door. So here is my analogy for you if intend to tackle PS. If your wife sends you to the grocery store with a growling stomache and $500 bucks in your pocket…the options are endless. However, if she sends you there with the list "milk and eggs" and gives you $5, your in, your out, end of story. The point to my analogy here is to know what types of things you need to do in PS, learn it, and use it. Get in and Get out. Going in to a program like PS without an understanding of what you need to do is a death trap. Go online and watch a few tutorials or get a book. It is so easy to find online tutorials these days…use them!

So in closing, the decision to use Photoshop or Lightroom is NOT a decision at all. I could not imagine having one without the other…Peanut Butter and Jelly!

RS DR-1 Double Strap

Double, NO TROUBLE !!

OK, so this is not me obviously, but this girl is far cuter looking in it than I am.
(This image is from the Black Rapid Website)

Talk about speeding up my shooting!

Felt a little anxious to sport this new gear at first. Then I thought to myself "is it really going to matter George!?" Like I would not look like a photo geek anyway with three cameras hanging off my neck using traditional neck strangling straps!! There really ain't no hiding that I am a photo geek, especially when I am working!

But seriously, talk about speeding up my camera transition time. Shooting theater, this has been one of the biggest improvements to my workflow in a while. Dare I even say that has improved my work.

I pick-up one body and just drop the other, then switch back again and the camera stays right were I left it always oriented, it seems, so my hands land right on the grip. No looking required.

They also have some cool accessory pouches that attach to the upper part. You can check them out in the video at the bottom.

Before that, check out this video Gail snagged of me putting the strap to work on a theater job. Watch how fast my camera transition time is and I am not even trying! Further, I don't even have to look at how the camera is oriented my eyes never leave the show. It is just grab and go!



As for the other dual straps out there (and there are a couple), I have not tried them so I can not pass ANY judgment. I would imagine that these would work similarly, but I will say that I can't imagine having the cameras hanging any other way would do anything but slow down my grip time. That is just me though and it could be just a matter of personal preference.


This is You Tube video from Black Rapid that shows off the strap systems pretty well...

Dan Doke at ASA Photographic Studios

We are excited about this training "Dynamic Lighting for Weddings and Portraits"--Dan's work is outstanding and we are looking forward to training with him. We will be meeting with Dan early this week to firm up details and will get word out by Wednesday. But, for now, the date is April 25, 9am-4pm.

I am posting this info here because we just learned our server had a "problem" last night and is still being "repaired." UGH! So, if you have landed here after not being able to access our site, rest assured, we'll be back on line...shortly...isn't that what they always say?

LOL
Gail

A PPAM SLAM

(Prepping for the 2010 Print Competition and Convention)

So once again this year we have managed put oursleves right on the deadline for the PPAM Print competition the following weekend. Deadline of course was the next day. I don't know... we seem to love the heat. We did not get to enter into PPANE because of major computer issues last year a week before the convention, so I did not want to miss a print comp again!


We made a couple of attempts at outsourcing our print work this year. I just really still have an issue with outsourcing my own print work. Always have been a "do-it-yourselfer" which is curse that I would not wish on my worst enemy. We did send out our black and whites to DSI and loved them right out of the box. Thank you Eric and Chris = )



I again called on Nancy Green for guidance and, as she did for us last year, she kept me from jumping. Thanks again Nancy! And a thank you to Steve Stedman as well!

So for our color entries I toiled all night to get my four entries and Gail's one done.

I set-up lights pretty much on spec. The halogen model lamps in our Alien Bees cast a nice smooth light and I was able to meter them right into ISO 100, 1 second @ f16 at a distance of about 4 feet. Even though the lights are not set at the exact distance and spread, I figure this will be close enough for me to ensure that my whites are not over the top.

With that done, the latex gloves were snapping, hard drives were spinning, printer were spooling, test strips were flying, glue was spraying and matt cutters were cutting. Still have glue stuck to my arm hair (curse of the Italian, comes with the territory).

Can't wait to see how they do. I felt like I entered a good a variety of work this year. I like to see how these differnt areas of my style will fair. Gail has only two she is enetring this year and I think she might kick my ass with it...we'll see. Best of luck Babes!

NO MORE PIXEL WAR !!

The MEGAPIXEL, Oh yes, the digital camera salesmen's best friend.

So I ask the question: Do we really have the need for more?

Go ahead and ask the average consumer about image to noise ratio...or what good glass really means.

So when will it stop I ask?

Is there really a need for 30 MP image files. In truth it depends on what your doing, but in most cases I am going out on a limb here and say NO F%^@$ WAY.

To add irony to it all, some of the same Photogs that are still pixel hungry and are itching to upgrade to larger Mega-pixel cameras still shoot Jpegs instead of RAW! Don't even get me started there.

Do we strive for quality? Absolutely, That is why we shoot nothing but RAW files for starters, but if I can barely see the difference I would bet my clients surely won't. Nine times out of ten they will end up picking the image that you are the LEAST passionate about anyway, right?

Might it be a possibility that we will see cameras that you can dial back a 30Mp image sensor to say a 15Mp image?. You know, something more deserving of a bunch of drunk people grinding it out on the dance floor at a wedding reception at 11:30PM at night.

The chips will and in some cases already have pushed the limits of detail that the lenses themselves are capable of capturing. So again, what's the point!

Don't get me wrong here, I am all for the progress and advancement of digital photography technology and I am looking to upgrade my camera bodies too, but I will upgrading more for the reason of better image to noise ratio at higher ISO's mainly.

I just think that my customers won't see or won't need a few million of those pixels that I am constantly chugging. To be honest, I don't think it has ever been an issue.

Now seriously...LOOK AT THIS!!!


This is an image file from a Nikon D300. A great camera, but pretty outdated at this point at 12 Megapixels. This crop would be the equivalent of a 20x30 and guess what? It would STILL be a sharp print.

How much more does my client need.

His hair follicles are so sharp guess what I end up doing...dulling it down!

Increasing image to noise ratios would get you just as far in most cases.

Personally, here is something that I would like to see be developed in the future and you heard it here first! A Digital chip that stores light data over time in a exposure thus allowing us to always over expose an image a bit and then, in post production, revert/dial back the recording history of the exposure itself in the blown out areas to get infoprmation back. A kind of super recovery tool.

OH YES, give that to me. I will gladly sacrifice some pixels for that capability.



Here are some other sites that gave me a little inspiration on this topic...

Techmiso

Monday Note

Consumer Reports.org




Comment 2/11/10:
John Flahrety - Diamond Photo Design

Hi George,

I really enjoyed reading your Pixel War blog post. I do understand your thought process. I am also totally on board with RAW processing of image files but I want MORE!!! I challenge you to think bigger, much bigger.

Personally, I L-O-V-E the ever increasing resolution of these cameras. I'm not much of a writer but here are my thoughts... Sure I have beautiful 24x36 images hanging in our studio from a 4 mega-pixel Canon 1D camera. Could it be better? Absolutely. You may not see a huge difference comparing an 4MP image to a 12MP image but you will see differences if you compare that 4MP image to Canon's 21MP file. I can see a difference in Canon's 21MP file when compared to Hasselblads 60MP file so I say let the war continue.

The number one reason for adding more mega-pixels to my wedding work is, I love to crop. More mega-pixel resolution means I can use more extreme crops in Lightroom with very little quality loss.

"Fashion and commercial" photographers shoot mostly for 8x10 rough off-set magazine print so why do they use the Hasselblad 40-60 megapixel cameras? They set themselves apart from us "Wedding & Portrait" shooters with super-clean-high-resolution images that look different than Canon and Nikon images. Hasselblad and the other medium format camera manufactures are showing their gear is worth the price and file sizes they claim. When these manufactures continue the "Mega-Pixel March" we will benefit with better technology in all areas not just more mega-pixels.

The Wedding and Portrait industry is already inundated with "amateurs". I would love to see Canon and Nikon keep the amateur cameras below 15mega-pixels and drive up our pro cameras to 40-60-80- even 100 mega-pixels. As a pro I expect my images, file sizes, computers, workflow, and finished work to far,far exceed what people get from Best Buy and Radio Shack and soccer moms.

I would love to see a clients face when they ask for the "Digital Negatives" and the photographer gives them 300MB files :) Another one of my theories is JPG killed the pro photographer. If we all just shoot professional RAW files then process to 16bit TIF files the digital negatives would need to be handled by pros only. We are our own worst enemy.

George your next blog post should be "Just say NO to JPGs".

-John

Get the Lowe Down!!

LowePro Camera Bags


Can I tell you how much I love my LowePro Bags!

Aside from all the great features and durability of these you gotta love a company that will back what they make.

For the first time in all my LowePro bag history (and I have a lot of history)...























lets see...
Orion
Nova 5 AW
Top Loader 65
Top Loader 70
Lowe Pro Pro Mag 1
Lowe Pro Pro Mag 2
Lowe Pro Photo Trekker Bag
Lowe Pro S&F Specialist 85 AW
Road Runner AW
Sling Shot 300
























...I had a zipper issue.

Well, one phone call, no BS and DONE!

Got my replacement bag shipped directly to me and I did not have to return my old one.

Gotta love that! And that is why I never look any further.

A big thanks to Maury at LowePro for your help!

Batta Bing BETA BOOM!! Lightroom Beta 3 !!

Lightroom 3 Beta with...drum roll please...WATERMARKING ON EXPORT.










After finishing up a few cartwheels around the office and rounding up the last few verses of "Alleluia Alleluia" I could hardly wipe the smile from my face.

A simple little interface that gives us exactly what we have been dreaming about.


You can select standard text or pull in your own logo, scale it up or down, designate location and opacity.

This will go on ALL our image export once we are running L3 fully.

I am also hearing whispers of networkability (the kind that you don’t need to computer hack to get it to work). That will bring on a few more cartwheels for sure!!


Adobe overhauled the import module. It scared me at first as I could quickly tell that I was not in Kansas anymore.

Everything is still there, just arranged differently. There are some advanced capabilities here too.







When you click the for previews in the import window, it starts to look more like you are in Lightroom verses in the Import window.

Another sweet feature is the Custom Picture Package in the Print module….











Are you seeing this? It is no mistake. You can drag and drop different pictures from the lower preview bar and then drop them in and resize, overlap, send forward, send back… It is starting to flirt with the makings of a collage builder right inside Lightroom!

Can not wait until the full version comes out.

Man I am so glad I jumped on the program at Beta 1! It ROCKS.

I have said it before and I will say it again and you can quote me on this one …

“Lightroom is the best thing to happen to photographers since the dawn of digital photography itself!”

Westcott Spiderlites: A Bright Idea?

These daylight balanced fluorescent constant light sources have been a new movement in Digital Photography and will most likely advance in there capabilities along with digital cameras.

OK, so when we first bought this kit we were undoubtedly less experienced in the realm of studio lighting so we were looking for a newer alternative. These lights did exactly that.

So not really having experience with the use of constant lights (and minimal exposure to standard studio strobes) I may have just had different, perhaps unrealistic and inexperienced expectations.

So getting down to business here, we picked up a Westcott Spiderlite TD5 Trio kit to play around in our studio.

The Kit came with

2- TD5s each with 5 – 30 Watt daylight balanced fluorescent lights each
1- TD3 with 3 – 30 Watt bulbs.
2- 24x32” Soft Boxes for the TD5s
1- 12x16” Soft Box for TD3
2- 10’ Heavy Stands
1- 8’ Light stand
Rolling case (great roller blade style wheels by the way)


After using them for a while I quickly found myself interested in having more power to shoot at lower ISO’s and/or eliminate motion blur. So, I invested in the larger 50 watt daylight balances fluorescent bulbs as soon as they came out. I guess I really did not have a grasp on how much brighter they should be as I was expecting a bigger jump in power. Though they were brighter, it was not that significant in my opinion. Especially when you consider the price tag since we I bought like a dozen of them to replace most of the ones we had. Each TD5 took four of them around the diameter of the base and one smaller wattage bulb in the middle as they can’t fit anything bigger in there. The larger bulbs are pretty bulky. Again the size jump in the bulbs may have also helped in given me false expectations of a bigger jump in power.










1/250 sec at f8, ISO 200                                             1/400 sec at f10, ISO 200
30 watt bulbs on left 50 watt on right                        30 watt bulbs on left 50 watt on right

Just to give you a better idea of what I am talking about here I put them side by side in this shot (these images is completely unmodified and are basically right of the camera.) Using the same soft boxes (no baffles)on the left the standard 30 watt bulbs and on the right the larger 50 watt bulbs. Disregard the look of the exposure itself. My goal here was to show the magnitude of difference between the two at the same camera setting in the same image.














30 watt                                                               50 watt bulbs
                           Both images shot at 1/80 sec at f2.8, ISO 200


Here you can see the targets taken with same exposure settings same distance etc… Not much difference. Again, maybe I just don’t have enough of grasp on it, but in looking at the wattage numbers compared to what we got with the kit originally; I guess I expected a bigger jump.


Each TD5 has three switches on the back which allow for any combination of lights (from 1 bulb to 5) to vary the total output though I never saw a need to run any less than 5 unless you could not move a secondary/fill light back enough so you had to throttle it back. I pretty much always kept them all on all the time and just varied distance to the subject with a secondary light.



1/40 sec at f5.6, ISO 200

Now given the awesome advances in image quality and noise reduction (i.e. Nikons D700 and D3) this system may be more of an option then when these lights first came out.






Here are some images our friend took of use using these lights in Auto mode basically.

We kept one soft box tight to the frame on the left and the other large soft box was on the right further away as a fill. Needless to say due to power limits we always kept them close to our subjects, typically just outside the frame.

1/30 sec at f3.5, ISO 500                                                             1/40sec at f2.8, ISO 500







1/30 sec at f3.2, ISO 500


At these settings, obviously, you can see how easy it is to capture that look of implied motion (wanted or unwanted). Not alot of room tom move without jacking the ISO up.




Bottom line is we took some great images with these lights and including these shots of us that we use on our website still to this day. So do they work? Absolutley they do. The question you need to ask yourself is are they right for your applications? I think we just quickly outgrew them as we tend to shoot too wide a variety of subjects and situations.


Some pros and cons
On the Pro side:
We love shooting at large apertures, so these were a no brainier. No light meter required. You can pretty much nail the exposure down with the cameras built in light meter. Lighting set-up is essentially WYSWYG.
It is a lot easier to imply motion in an image (if you like to play with that look) with these lights verses normal studio strobes. Lights run pretty cool for their output. A hobbiest or amature could snag a set of these lights and (with some portrait lighting basics) be shooting nice pics in a couple of hours without a lightmeter.

On the Con side:
Due to the slower speeds you are shooting at, I would forget toddlers for the most part (with a few exceptions). Infants worked out OK. If you don’t have a descent digital chip in your camera, you will have noticeable image quality loss if you are shooting higher ISO which you are almost bound to if you are trying to get your shutter speed up. Not a lot of room to move on the camera settings as you may be ISO and aperture bound trying to stay at or below ISO 400. Had a couple of bulbs burn out quickly (at least so, don’t recall dropping any while they were hot). Also on a couple of the bulbs, the little plastic housing at the base popped open the leaving the bulb and wires hanging from the screw in base (again I don’t recall any major studio accidents that would have caused this. I would say so if I did). This is an issue with the bulb manufacturer not Westcott, though they should be made aware of it.

If you are going in for a new kit, I would opt for the larger bulbs right out of the gate, as you can always throttle down.

Read more on the this product line on the Westcott site here.

An Image that No Digital Photogapher should be without!

Creating an "Drive Image" or a "Clone" as they are often refered to it is a great way to build yourself a system of safety nets. This is esentially an exact copy of your hard drive on a system as well as file level. (software, drivers, Operating system et...)that in some cases, based on the software that was used to create the image, is bootable. Meaning that you can just install the hard drive and start your computer right up again and have EVERYTHING. E-mail desktop settings....EVERYTHING.

After a little research I had gone with Apricorn's EZ Gig. One thing I liked about the program is that you could also use the drive images as a file back-up as well. Instead of just a full system restore, you can also restore just selected file(s).

Up until about a year ago I had never needed this for worst case scenario. Well, due to a couple of misunderstandings when I first spec'd out my workstation with Dell I came head to head with one of those worst case scenarios. You can read about our little adventure here...

(above: me sinking my teeth into a 10,000 RPM Raptor Hard Drive)


At any rate, I can say now that I have had first hand experience with this over the course of about two weeks.

As emotionally draining and completely disastrous as it was, This was a ray of hope in what would have been a completely dark time.

Long story short, I was able to install a new array of hard drives, restore the Drive Image to the Array, and with a little help from my tech get right back up and running again.


Along with EZ Gig we also have other systems in place to help create several safety nets to keep us up and running;

-First line of defense is our Sanho Hpeydrive UDMA (read more here). This portable hard drive speed demon is where all are cards go as soon as they leave the camera. Ranging in size, we have a 250 Gb version. Once it is close to full I knock off the oldest 70 Gbs or so. This gives our or most recent RAW files immediate on-site back up as well as gives us a single point upload from the three camera bodies that we run. By the time we get back to the home office it is now a one connection upload. No card shuffling at 1 AM after a wedding. Instead we get a first look at the wedding before we hit the hay.

-Using Vice Versa Software and the Black X (read more here) we sync the data on our Drobo (containing completed client work, all our documents ect…) with hard drives that I store offsite.

-Using Vice Versa Software and the Black X (read more here) we sync vital files from my work station to the Drobo nightly (Outlook files, current projects…)


So you can see here that we have several safety nets in place that keep us covered from a variety of scenarios. We let our customers know what we do as well. I think it adds value to be able to show that the lengths at which we go through to ensure that the memories we have captured for them our safe. Not to mention your own work and family photos!

Are you a Lightroom user or a Lightroom ABUSER?

A smarter and safer approach to Adobe Lightroom.

Don’t be afraid of the “Catalog”!

So as long as I have been a Lightroom evangelist (and I have been there since the beta 1 version) I have failed to step back and look at the big picture. I was previously using one large catalog to store all my work. All the while I was noticing that LR was running slower and slower despite all my efforts to speed it up. When you are up in your neck in work it tends to get harder to make better judgements about your workflow. Consider it an investment.

There it is. I have said it. I WAS WRONG!

Deeeeeeep breath......I WAS A LIGHTROOM ABUSER.

As awesome as Lightroom is at high speed/high volume workflows (and it IS AWESOME), clumping large volumes of work into one catalogue can have near fatal consequences.

The other problem here, and I saw this happening first hand on a screamer of a system, is that your system will continue to get slower and slower as the catalogue gets larger and larger. I could see it happening, but without any strategy or a better understanding about the catalogues I had no idea how to remedy the issue.

I have Tim Riley from RRG Keys to thank for making stop for a minute look at what I was doing.

Database files can and do corrupt. In certain cases, even though your original files will always be there, you can loose all the work you have done on them through Lightroom (knock on wood).

In the pursuit of the high speed workflow as well as a sound and safe one, a set group of procedures are needed here.

If you shoot very small volumes, then this may not be so much of an issue for you though you should look very closely at the principals here as you don’t want to find this out the hard way 10 years down the road.

As Gail and I are wading through 50,000+ images per year using this new process is essential to maintain the speed of our workflow as well as the protection of the time we put into it.

In short, create a new catalog file for each job.

If you shoot less volume, then you could consider making a catalogue for each month of the year, one for each type of work you do et… You must still remember to back-up the catalogue files every so often. Yes yes, this is the window that we click “skip” on everytime. It is infact trying to protect you. This will create a back-up of the cat file at that tim to another location. This will give you restore points if you will. It would be a good idea to do this to en external in case of a system failure.


Creating a catalogue file for each job has advantages. Safer, faster, multi-user access (though, simultaneous access, not yet)and pack and go capability (drop the folder into your laptop and finish the job on the road).


One hang up that I had a hard time dealing with was the losing the ability to look at all your best work from one Catalogue. Well, there are a couple of answers to that issue. One approach is to export your favorites from each job to specific folder. You then create a new "Favorites Catalouge" and set that folder up to be “watched” by that catalogue and then enable the auto-import setting. As long as you Export the favorites from each job to that watched folder, everytime you open the catalouge, those images will then be pulled in.

You can further enhance this by creating smart collection within this favorites catalogue and you can have Lightroom do most/all the work for you.

We will discuss more about good foldering systems later.

Bye for now, fel free to comment.