Don't Swat the Spyder - He's Your Best Studio Friend

Your normal reaction to a large Spyder may be to reach for a swim fin or flame thrower, but we would like to break you of the habit. Not only will you be a better friend of the environment, but you'll get better pictures as well. Miss Muffett - invite the Spyder Cube to sit down beside you.

The grey card is one of the most useful of devices to judge accurate exposure with. No matter how much confidence we have in the software of our camera, there are times when it can be fooled and we need to be able to correct its errors. If we use a grey card we can find the 18% reflectance point that gives our meter the best chance of an even exposure.

If we also have access to a pure black tone and a pure white tone in our image we can tell our computer exactly how far to go for the image that it alters.

Finally, for the ultimate of contrast control, we look for the ultimate specular highlight and absolute shadow. But frequently in the subjects that we encounter none of these attributes are to be found. We find ourselves basing our decisions in the studio, field, and computer room on uncertain things and sometimes can never seem to get a pure photo, no matter what slider we shift.

Enter the Spyder Cube. It has 6 working faces as well as a specular highlight collector and and a absolute shadow point . You can dangle it near to your main subject or screw it onto a tripod so that your camera sees it in the same light. One or tow test shots to the grey and you've got the basic exposure, and when you get the test shots back onto your computer screen you will have the whole range of tones there to adjust to; specular, white, 18% grey, black, and absolute black.

Here's the key to what you see:

A. As bright as it will ever get. Pure white from the strobe tube.

B. The 18% grey.

C. The white that you have to deal with in the lighting situation you are in.

D. The black you have to deal with with the lighting as it is.

E. As black as you can ever get it.

If you follow the entire sequence through to your printer - and then make sure that you examine the output from the printer in a strong, even light - you can produce full tones without skewing the contrast one way or the other. Some workers will go further and specify colour temperatures for viewing and time to let any drying effects of the ink settle down, but in general you can make a much more accurate assessment that you could back in the days of a wet silver print. Dry-down seemed to rob us of so much brilliance then unless we took extraordinary measures with ferrotype tins and glazing solutions.

The Spyder Cube is small enough to pack for the field and fast enough to deploy in any studio shoot - and cheap as chips compared to frustration time spent whacking sliders back and forth!

When To Use A Pro Lab - 350 Reasons

The new digital photographer can be forgiven for being confused by any number of aspects of the sport - there seem to be so many to learn.

He or she used to be confronted only by which film to use, does the orange needle match the mark on the light meter, and is the Chemist open so that I can drop my film in? Then in two weeks it was should I buy another roll of film or a bag of barley sugar and box of bandaids?

Now it is white balances, tonal curves, video frame rates, colour spaces, and all the rest. No wonder they have started putting an " Automatic " setting on new cameras and dedicating a knob or lever to it. The relief for some shooters must be palpable.

It is nearly the same for the shooter who wants paper prints of their work. What do they do now that the chemist has gone out of photofinishing and reverted to selling overpriced vitamin supplements and something for the weekend? What are the alternatives with that card full of images?

a. Print it yourself at home on a multifunction printer from Officeworks. No, please - go ahead and do it. The printer will only cost you a hundred bucks and you'll be so disappointed with the results that you won't even have to buy expensive ink cartridges later to try again. The larger multifunctions make attractive pots for cactus.

b. Get Officeworks to print it for you on their big machine. This sometimes works to some extent if your file is perfect and your need is modest. Do not expect art. They are not going to correct your flaws. GIGO.

c. Get an Epson photo-quality printer and do it at home. This works. Start off with the Epson Surecolor SC-600 and move up to the SC-800 if you want larger prints and cheaper ink. Then cast your eyes at the even larger range of large format printers from the company. They will not be cheap but their quality of print is professional and you can be sure that the prints that emerge with K-3 ink on quality Epson, Ilford, Permajet, or Hahnemuhle paper will be be permanent and accurate.

But sad to relate, you are still going to have to be doing a good job with the files. You'll be telling the computer what you want, but you'll have to make sure your monitor is showing you the truth. ( Hint: Spyder colour calibrators, EIZO screens...) And you'll have to make sure that the computer tells the printer the right thing to do ( Hint: either, you, the computer, or the printer will have to manage the colour. Decide early.) And you'll have to make sure that the printer knows what paper you're using ( Hint: paper profiles.)

You will also need to ensure that you put the paper in the right side up. Do not ask this writer how he knows that. Take it for granted that he knows...

A little unsure about all the settings and alternatives? Then you need the Automatic solution...

d. Take the files on a hard drive, CD, or memory card to a professional photofinishing lab. They have not disappeared with the advent of digital - in fact the good ones are going strong because they are the good ones. And they are resourceful, technically skilled, and helpful.

A visit to a professional photofinisher like Fitzgerald Photo Labs at 350 Fitzgerald Street, North Perth
is almost as easy as it used to be to put your films into the chemist. There are real people there who can look at your files and advise you on the optimum sizes that they can be printed. They can suggest paper surfaces for larger works. They can frame the bigger prints - and there are so many options for modern display that you can never run out of a fresh decor idea.

They are able to handle film needs as well - lots of people still shoot on film - and converting the negatives and transparencies to digital files is easy these days. You can get your work back in dual form - digital as well as paper print.

Again you can be sure that the pictures you pay for will be permanent. The big labs use Epson K-3 ink on their big machines.

The joy of a big lab like Fitzie's is that the printing people are there to talk to you and they know what they are doing from long experience. It is not just machine minding in a large furniture or discount store for them. Their job is a profession and they produce professional quality - and that's why Camera Electronic depend on them for our advertising banners and promotional prints. These need to be right and they ARE right.

For those of you  point out that I have forgotten the discount store and the furniture shop...well I remember them when I need tee shirts or kitchen chairs. But not when I need good quality photofinishing.

Day 2 - Pro Graphics - Screen It Like You Mean It!

Thursday of the 2-Day sale concentrates on the Screens of Our Lives...the monitors that show us the images our cameras take.

Camera Electronics sells only the best - EIZO - and there are at least five of the darn things on the Thursday special advertisement. They carry some healthy cash-backs from the manufacturers to further reduce the price. All the more reason to finally do what you know is going to make your images look and print better.

BTW, there are also smaller items on screaming specials - Colormunki and Spyder Elite 5 screen calibrators, for instance. And the bargain of the day - the Datacolor Spydercheckr 24 small colour chart.

If you are currently editing your pictures on a 1965 Astor television salvaged from the tip, please come in and see the EIZOs and the ancillary equipment. We can promise you a better view of the world.

Why Are Some K's OK And Some K's Are Not OK?

Because not all K's are created equal. OK?

You all know about the Kelvin scale of colour temperature measurement - named after Lord Kelvin - that measures the relative redness, orangeness, yellowness, blueness, and  eventual whiteness of light and strings it out on a numerical scale. The scale starts at 1, which is the colour and intensity of a mechanic's fingernails and goes to 10,000 which is he whiteness of sunlight as you come off a three-day bender and someone throws the window blinds open. I suspect Kelvin also had a scale for the screams as well.

Well, a lot of cameras skirt around this question by having automatic white balance programs in their software that measures the light, quantifies it on the Kelvin scale, and then gives you whatever the heck it wants to. If you include a dominant colour in your composition, it sometimes agrees with you and renders it accurately and sometimes argues the case by tipping the white balance over the other way to compensate for what it thinks is your error. If you are easily persuaded, you go along with it. Hey, it may not be science but it might be art...

If you are pedantic and scientific and people have started to get wise to your pictures of snowdrifts that look like a sort of a dirty peach colour*, you override the manufacturer's opinion and set the white balance yourself...by following the manufacturer's preset WB options. Now you can get a light blue or green snow drift. If you snow drift is lit by a fluorescent tube you can get just anything...

Determination is the thing. Your camera probably has a custom setting for the white balance in graded steps of Kelvin degrees. Find it in the menu next to the pet smile option and dial in 5000ºK. If you are out in fictitious sunlight at 11:00 in the morning with the sun to your back and a chocolate-box landscape stretched out in front of you you will probably get a reasonable balance. Likewise if you are in a studio with a studio flash popping away at a X-Rite colour card held by someone who is a neutral colour themselves...you'll get something recognisable.

But - modify that old sunlight with cloud, haze, chemtrails**, or advancing hours and it will get red or blue or orange or whatever - also if you are shooting in the studio you may discover that your beloved strobe units don't fire at 5000ºK.

I know - My studio lights fire at 5300ºK. Not a big difference, but enough to throw off some grey backdrops and some delicate colours. When I noted this happening I conducted a long test and look day and finally got the right number. I have it dialled in on a custom setting on the Fujifilm cameras and the whole thing now works a treat.

If you can't afford a big X-rite or an old McBeth chart get a Spyder ColorCheckr24 and make that do - you'll be glad you did in the end.

* Note peach coloured snow was common as winter wore on in Alberta. And there were worse colours as well...

** When I was a kid our chemtrails were maple syrup...

Rainy Weekend

Either you are or you aren't. You'll know for certain and the people around you will have a pretty fair suspicion, but either way you'll need to come in and see us here at the shop to spend money.

Well, that's what we are here for, isn't it.

In this case you are either going to be a person who stands outside in the rain with a camera or a person who stands inside out of the rain with a camera.

For the former, we recommend that you get yourself a packet of Op/Tec Rainsleeves for your camera and lens before you go out. You can get drenched as much as you like but have a little pity on the expensive electronics. For $ 9.95 you get two sleeves and you can cope with the wet.

For the latter, we recommend a Datacolor SpyderCheckr 24 card and a set of LEDGO LED lights. Armed with the card you can balance out whatever light exists inside the home with the soft light of the LEDGO panels and do wonderful portraits and tabletop shots inside in the dry. Boil the tea kettle, break out the chocolate biscuits, and stand at the window laughing as the outdoor photographer trudges down the street.

Pictures At An Exhibition - Or How To Be Modest

As photographers we are rarely encouraged to take pictures of someones else's photographs when they are exhibited. It is considered naff in some cases and criminal in others - particularly if we then whack them on our websites and claim them as our own.

It's a little different if we go to see pictures that have been done by other means - or sculptures or artefacts and manufactured articles. Sure, there can still be a degree of  taboo, but many public galleries are okay with it - as long as you do not use flash or tripods.

This is fine - I love wandering the art galleries of Victoria and New South Wales to see famous works of art - and new, obscure things. I have learned to cope with the light conditions of the places and to get a clear result.

The illumination can be problematical, though good galleries will have directed lighting that shows the art to good advantage. But the colour temperature of it may be all over the shop. I've taken to recording the art with RAW and a small jpeg - the little one as a sighting rifle for he more detailed capture. I have also considered one of the tiny Spyder Checkr 24 colour cards for my travelling bag so that I can reference back to a neutral result later on my computer.

Flash is out - the galleries do not want to subject the works of art to the danger of fading or the cleaning staff to the danger of discovery...put your camera up to the highest ISO that will deliver a clean image for your purposes, and turn the image stabilisation on. Consider attaching a Steadepod to the bottom of the camera and stepping on the footplate whenever you need utmost stability.

Lens choice? Well, if you have a lens that has very little distortion in the first place - like the 23mm f:2 on my Fujifilm X 100 - you need not worry. If you are using a zoom, do a little investigation beforehand to find out the focal length that will have the least barrel or pincushion to it - somewhere in the middle of the range.

Stop it down one stop from wide open if the lighting permits. Nearly every lens gains something from this.

Try to stand square to a flat work of art, or at the most attractive angle to a 3-D object. If the thing is big and you are standing on the floor you are likely be tilted up and getting some keystoning - correct it later with DxO or Photoshop. If you find that you can capture the image you want from further away in the gallery wit a longer focal length the keystoning will be less evident.

Be prepared to experiment. Circular polarisers can sometimes help with the view through a glass cover - sometimes not. Painters who have decided to express the grace and beauty of life with a trowel and mortar board are likely to have left a problem, as the surfaces of their works reflect light everywhere. You are allowed to curse them quietly.

You are also allowed to quietly abominate the crowds of people who will surge in front of you just as you press the shutter button. Patience - they will drift onwards eventually and if you  wait you will get a clear shot. It is the same at a car show - the gawkers and strollers sometimes work in tag teams but eventually they tire.

Final note. When you bring someone else's vision home to look at you are free to look and free to admire but you are not free to publish it out. There are still laws for this. The artist might be dead but you can bet their lawyers are alive.

Tell Me The Truth - Does This Colour Make My Monitor Look Fat? Spyder...

Still looking at the same screen, are we? The one we bought from Harvey Norman three years ago? The one that has never been calibrated or colour corrected in all that time?

Well, congratulations - you are an adventurer. Boldly going where most of us would never venture. I'll bet you eat meat pies from roadside stalls in tropical countries. I'll bet you pet strange dogs in back alleys. I'll bet you contract marriage in cocktail bars and buy gold bricks wrapped in newspaper.

The rest of us are cowards. We know that the colours in the screens of our computers are a variable feast  - and that leaving the thing unattended for three years is like leaving yoghurt open on the table for the same length of time. Most of us have chickened out and bought screen calibrators.

I chose the Spyder 4 Express since my computer is a stand-alone model and sits in a uniformly dim room - no changing lights. I fire it up every two months and it returns the screen to a fixed normality. Sometimes there is very little correction needed over the period - sometimes considerably more. The program that runs the calibrator shows me a before and after image for each cycle it goes through.

If I was running a series of computers or had weird lighting or strange desires* I would select the Spyder 4 Pro or Elite models. They do more but you have to know what you want.

Watch in the next little bit as we feature these Spyder 4 models at bargain prices. In the meantime, if you STILL have not calibrated your screen, it might be safest to convert everything to monochrome and grow a hipster beard. Then no-one can look at you funny.

* Don't ask. I might tell you.

Some Flashy Deals With Elinchrom

I love writing advertising copy for this place. I get to use all the corny old tabloid headlines as they are appropriate to the products advertised. As yet, I have not been able to incorporate WAR ENDS! in 100-point black bold at the top of the sheet, but I am still hopeful...

Coming away from that, here's good news for anyone contemplating some studio or portable flash to give them a little more oomph than speedlights...Elinchrom has a series of deals for January and February that will put money back in you pocket and new gear in your hands.

We've just gotten the tear sheet for the following:

1. Purchase any Ranger Quadra Lithium-ion 2-head set and get a $ 500 cashback from Elinchrom.

2. Purchase any Ranger Quadra Lithium -ion 1-head set and get $ 300 cashback from Elinchrom.

3. Purchase a bundle offer with ELC 500 or 1000 set and get a free 44cm beauty dish with dedicated grid.

4. Purchase a bundle offer with the D-Lite RX 4 To Go set and get a free Spyder 4 Pro.

5. Purchase a bundle offer with the D-Lite RX 4 To Go set and get a free SpyderCheckr 24 and a SpyderLensCal.

6. Purchase a bundle offer with the D-Lite RX One To Go 3-head set and get a free Spyder 4 Pro.

7. Purchase a bundle offer with the D-Lite RX One To Go 3-head set and get a free SpyderCheckr 24 and SpyderLensCal.

8. Purchase a bundle offer with the BRX 500/500 To Go set and get a free Spyder 4 pro.

9. Purchase a bundle offer with the BRX 500/500 To Go set and get a free SpyderCheckr 24 and a SpyderLensCal.

All of these things work good in themselves and the combinations of them is even better. Hop in for your chop.

Play A Game Of Checkrs With Datacolor

I love my colour reference board. I use it in my studio when I am trying to get an exact reproduction of the colours of  model cars. Then I distort the heck out of them with Photoshop Elements, but that is beside the point - I start out clean and clear.

Mine's an old model made by a respected old manufacturer. It was made while Elvis was alive but is still going strong - as it gets stored carefully in the dark between uses*. It cost me a surprising amount of money back then and I am glad it is still going strong - I like to get value for money.

Well, if you would like to get better value than that right now in a colour/B&W reference card may we suggest the Datacolor Spyder Checkr 24. It is made in a lot sturdier material than my old one and in a more convenient size - 5 x 7. You can haul it in any camera bag for a quick ref shot in every new situation.

There is also a downloadable SpyderCheckr camera calibration software and support materials note on the sleeve that protects the panel. Not sure what they expect you to do but all I have ever done is look carefully at the results on the Polaroid/print/screen image and then take appropriate measures. Call it chromatic blundering into the furniture, if you will, but so far it has worked.

$ 65 means you CAN afford this.

* If they had stored Elvis in the dark between uses he might still be going strong too.

Time To Upgrade With Datacolor

The first time a horse kicks you in the shin you notice it. If it goes on long enough you get used to it and dodge as best you can and then just tend to limp about. But the thing still rankles - and eventually you tire of the sport - generally before the gee does. At this point some citizens haul out a large betsey and old Dobbin is consigned to the glue factory.

So it is with electronic gear. The first glitch is frightening and causes concern but after you discover that you can "cure" it by turning the thing off and on again or banging the side of he box, you tend to just carry on and let it happen.

So it was with my old Datacolor Spyder 2 Express program in the iMac and Macbook Pro. It worked fine for 5 years and then occasionally it would hang up at the last part of the calibrations sequence - the screen would go sort of pinkish and I would have to run it again to get it to go straight through. One day the second run did not cure it and I needed a third one...kick, kick, kick...

Out with the electronic roscoe. Removed the Spyder 2 Express and installed a Spyder 4 Express in its place. All has become better. The new program works efficiently and already recognises what it must do without having to be repeatedly told.

One can only assume that there is a finite life to software, as there is to horses.

I Pressed The Print Button, But Why Does It Look Like That?

It looks like that for any number of reasons:

a. It is an autochrome. Made up of dyed grains of starch bound onto a glass plate. With an autochrome any image is a good image and if it has survived the last 100 years without cracking or fungus you have a museum piece.

b. Your print heads are clogged. Run a nozzle check on your epson printer. if the little pattern of checking squares has missing segments, run a head clean cycle. Check again and repeat if necessary. Eventually you will have a full checking pattern and a clean print.

c. You have got a massive imbalance between what you see on your computer screen and what your printer is being instructed to do. Have you calibrated the monitor screen lately? if not, try one of the Datacolor Spyder range of monitor calibrators. Do it regularly.

d. Is your printer confused as to who is in control? Have you given it double instructions with your image programming fighting with the in-built printer control. Choose one. Turn the other off.

e. Is your printer aware what sort of paper you've dropped in it?  You could probably print on sultana bread toast if you set the printer head high enough, but would it make a baby portrait look good? Be sensible with your paper choice and load the appropriate profile into the printer before you start. If in doubt, stick to the manufacturer's own paper.

f. It's your eyes. Visine in each one and a night's sleep. If your image in the mirror in the morning looks as bad as the print, see your opthalmic specialist. If he looks as bad as the print, you may have to be content with life as it is.

Cube Of No Colour - Eat Your Heart Out Rubik

The littlest things can often be the most important. If you are searching for a way to increase the colour and exposure accuracy of your photos, Datacolor have a neat solution to start doing this in the field or studio.

Lots of people start their shooting sessions with a shot of a grey card. This may not sound as much fun as starting them with a shot of rye whiskey, but in the end it delivers a better result. They carry the image of that grey card through the entire capture and computer stage and then look at it on the screen. When they can manage to see the same colour on the screen as in their hand they are on target. If they can carry that through to a finished file or print they are home safe.

I am afraid that this is an over simplification, but it is better than just setting the camera to Auto white balance and hoping for the best. Hope delivers sometimes but never when you are home to sign for it...

Datacolor have made a small cube that has black, white, and grey panels on all six sides. It has a tripod socket on the bottom and a cord to hang it from a Christmas tree on the top. You capture it in your first picture and then look at it in the final computer image, just like the flat grey card - but in this case it is bathed in the scene light from 6 different angles.

There are two extra features that are unique - a silver ball on the top that will capture and display the brightest of the specular highlights that the lighting affords. You'll know what your white-out point is.

Like a Highlander on guard duty, you will also know where the black-out point is - there is a hole on one face of the cube that allows light in but never lets it out again. Like the ATO and your tax money...

In store right now, and the best bet for quick post-production time that I know.

Is It Just Me Or Does It Seem Purple In Here?

The Macbook Pro that this blog is written on has a program inside it from the Datacolor people to help it keep the colours accurate. Every month it pops up a little window to tell me that it is time to reset the laptop. If I ignore it, it keeps reminding me - every time I turn on the laptop. It is like the still small voice of conscience. As we have been busy at home I have not bothered...

Looking at the heading image, I am starting to think I might make time...

For those of you who suspect that you might be in the same boat - you know; the one with the water coming over the gunwales and the sharks gnawing at the stern - perhaps you should come in and get a Datacolor Spyder for yourselves.

They do three models and they are not expensive - the top models calibrate all sorts of computers and monitors in all sorts of situations.