Gear used? Some times that really doesn’t matter. Does it?

The lovely Lavina with a couple of her dad’s Vespas in the last of the evening sun.

Looking like a ring flash is about as far as the similarity in use goes though. Rosco make it very clear that the Loop is a different kind of light and should be used accordingly. Don’t expect people at any distance to be illuminated by the Loop. Even though the light seems very bright when switched on in a dark room, the falloff is considerable and is best used in close proximity to the subject.

I had the Loop for a day and wanted to try it out on some simple portraits to see where it could fit in to the photographers arsenal. The light to subject distance is pretty critical, you really have to find the ‘sweet spot’ to use the Loop for the right effect. Too close and the effect is very similar to an on camera flash, too far from the subject and the light fades too quickly to have any effect.

The loop and its 8 x AA cell battery pack fits onto a standard 15mm rail setup system so quick and easy to use with any rig system. Strong magnets hold the Loop onto it’s mounting block which helps for  quick break-down and lens changing.  The Loop isn’t a light you will use every day but is a good effect light for stills and video.

Below are a few fun tests with colleagues as victims of… The Loop…

Filip Bunkens
Ioannis TsouloulisJef Janssens

Konrad Dwojak

From 9am till 11.45pm, Bar Buro in the heart of Ghent was the base for the event. I dropped by in the late morning to offer some support and shot some behind the scenes images. Filip was full of enthusiasm, briskly walking around the vicinity of the bar to make photos of his chosen subjects. Some pretty ancient cameras were being pulled out for the shoots too.. Great to see them working and not just stuck on a shelf somewhere. Mixing analogue with digital cameras was a nice touch, it could have been so easy to just be ‘purist’ and stick to just analogue but no, Filip clearly enjoys photography for the right reasons, the creativity.

I’d been following events throughout the day via Twitter and the #30303030 tag. The buzz of the social media brought in a press interview and a stream of happy messages from people who had taken part or simply passed by to offer support. I was in town later than night so dropped in for the closing moments of his marathon day.  He was still out shooting with the vigour and enthusiasm that he started with. A great idea, well executed. I don’t envy the image and film processing that has to come though!

Anyway, here’s a gallery of behind the scenes snaps.

Now, this was a real quick test. To simulate my personal shooting workflow. To know which file came from which camera I would now have to look at the EXIF for each file. I can remember a few shots that were made with a specific camera but the majority I really don’t know.

The pixel peepers are going to want low light direct comparisons, I didn’t do those. There are some low light shots is the set but ISO? In this type of shoot it doesn’t matter. This is real, this is how they work in this situation. Yes, they’re scaled for web, no there are no 1 to 1 crops. Isn’t this how we see the majority of images nowadays though? Larger samples, crops and more details to follow soon in my upcoming Blog posts and an extensive article in the Belgian photography magazine. SHOOT.
Below are a random selection, please take the time to check out the rest on my FB page. 

Thanks to  Noémie & Simon for the time.

I’ve decided to split the blog report into a few sections. This one is more of a visual post to set the setting, the “street” photography aspect of the City, another post will cover the events we took part in and one more will focus mainly on the camera itself.
My next challenge is to provide you, the reader with an honest and personal opinion of how the D800 feels and performs for me.

There are a number of questions I have been asked before, during and after the trip:
36mp! who needs that? – How is the image quality? – What are the file sizes like? –  What are the high ISO’s like? – How do the lenses perform in such a high resolution sensor?

36mp – well, yes and no. I was very, very skeptical to start with. around 77mb for a 14bit uncompressed NEF = about 200 shots on a 16gb card. Ouchie..  But you know what? I think it’ll only really hit the spray&pray people. Personally, as the time goes by I’ve found myself making less and less photos during a shoot. Not because I’m bored or lazy but because I’m paying more attention to the photos I make. I don’t need 10 photos to be sure, when I make sure for 1 or 2. Yes, it’s a huge pixel count but that does also mean the ‘cropability’ of shot is there. You can easily crop a fraction of the photo and still have a huge pixel count. YES, I know this isn’t the practice that most experienced photographers like, I like to frame a shot in the viewfinder as I see it and want it. Coming home and looking at my shots, there are very very few where I have shot with the forethought of cropping in post. Old habits die hard? Where you will feel the 36mp is in processing. Any processing tool is going to take a lot longer to munch one of these files, logically. It is already affecting my workflow.
Image quality is superb. As you’d expect from any modern day DSLR, the D800 delivers images that are just bang on. Yes, technonuts can split hairs and spot things I would never see in an image. My main concern is that I’m pleased with what comes out the camera and that my customer is pleased. I saw nothing that worried me in the IQ department of the D800. What I do feel though, there is a lot of dynamic range available, plenty of details in both highlights and shadows. High ISO’s? That is totally dependent on the situation of course. I shot plenty at 4000+ and had no nasty surprises. I’m willing to bet that the D800 is on-par or even slightly better than my D3. Again, there are plenty of charts and graphics online to prove the details. I’m going on my feeling here. Lens performance on the D800. It is critical. It will show up poor lenses. No doubt there. I used a variety of lenses during the trip and by far the most critical in my bag was the 14-24. But then again, I do tend to shoot into the light a lot.. The 70-200VRII does perform a lot better on the D800 than the VRI but the 24-70 feels right at home. My favourite lens of the trip was the 35mm 1.4G. It was made for this camera. Just a lovely harmony of image quality, rich colours, low distortion and that huge opening of 1.4 just performed so well.

Right. Most people are waiting to see samples. Image samples of the camera working in the real world.

I’ve included a few samples that show 1to1 crops of details for the pixel peepers. The full sizes JPG’s are there to download too.
Then a few samples shot on the streets and from our bus. I’d have liked to do more walking but the schedule was packed solid.
Finally… A link to a gallery on my Photography Facebook page that contains 124 of the ‘street’ shots. I’ve processed them with Lightroom4 and a variation on one of the presets by VSCO

Click on the link below each shot to download the full JPG.

Full sized boots

Full sized bike

Full sized hotdog

Some processed shots from the streets of NYC. For the full set see the link below.

Click the image below to see the full set over at the Rob Mitchell Photographer Facebook page.

Thank you for reading.

It has been a very busy week here but I did manage a wander through Ghent to fire off some test shots on a lovely bright Spring day. Nothing to write home about as far as image content in concerned, these are purely snaps to get to grips with the new settings and how the camera handles light and shadow.

One thing that you cannot miss with the D800 is the colossal file size of around 77mb for an uncompressed 14bit NEF. I certainly wish I’d bought shares in memory cards now! The up-side of the monster files is the detail that is contained in them 36mp isn’t there for nothing…

Anyway, We’re off to the Big Apple next Monday, I have no idea what the itinerary will be, Nikon are obviously keeping that hush-hush and a surprise. I’m looking forward to doing the camera justice and bringing home a bag of images and footage than can show the D800 off well.

Tomorrow (the 22nd March) is the general release of the D800 and there are going to be a lot of happy customers, I know that much already!

Here are some real snapshots in and around my adopted home city of Ghent. Simple and straight NEF conversions. Right at the bottom is just a quick idea of how much detail the images have in them.

Don’t forget, you can follow the #NikonNY event as it happens on Twitter as well as here.

Crop of the doorway of the old Post Office in Ghent.

Phonecall from HQ:

008, we have a mission for you:

You are required to turn the box up the right way and take the contents to New York for  an intense 2 day testing mission.
Enclosed you will find our new tool, the Nikon D800. An advanced and class leading 36 megapixel camera with advanced video options. 

Your mission is to be seen, provide visible coverage of your trip and report back to us with your findings.

————–

So… I am honoured to have the opportunity to represent Nikon at a Nikon event in New York. I’ll be taking the D800 and some accessories to give it a proper workout. Of course I have accepted the mission and will be leaving on the 26th March 2012 for a non-stop event. I have no idea what the challenges are in store, I just know when and where I’ll be dropped and picked up. HQ is keeping the rest of the mission a closely guarded secret. I will reveal all as and when I know myself.

I will be blogging and tweeting at all chances. If you’d like to follow what goes on during the mission, keep an eye on this blog and my Twitter feed.  Rob on Twitter   I’ll be using the hashtag #NikonNY for posts from there.
Until then, I’m going to charge up the battery and get accustomed to the new machine!

*added another feed. Tumblr account to get some Behind the scenes stuff posted quickly.

Below are a few snaps of the new releases.

The Fuji X-Pro 1

The Olympus OM-D

Cinema Skater Dolly

Here is silly little video clip I made with a Sample Nikon D4 and a pretty cool piece of kit, A Cinema Skater Dolly which is being imported into Belgium by the guys at Degreef & Partner Of course, not a worthy reference to either the D4′s performance (video was shot at 6400iso) or the dolly’s ultimate usability as a videography tool.

Until recently I’ve never owned an Apple computer. I used the Apple IIe at school, but that’s all. I’ve never bought one because I’ve never had the need to own one. Everything I’ve done has been PC-based because PCs have never substantially let me down or left me wanting. That is, up until a few months ago.

I started to look around for a portable computer, something to travel with, work on the go and use on location for tethered photography. My aim was to find a very compact 13in laptop with good battery life, reasonable processing power and a screen that was capable of running my photography editing software. It seemed that my first point of selection, the 13in screen, was already a seriously limiting factor in my choices. There really aren’t that many 13in laptops around. Sony seemed to be the company offering the best choices in that size range so I had a closer look at what they had to offer. I wasn’t too impressed. Internal specs are all much of a muchness these days and certainly for my use, a super high-spec machine wasn’t called for. However, hands on a Sony Vaio SA series I was seriously underwhelmed by the construction, the keyboard sagged a lot when typed on and the screen bezel really did have a lot of flex in it. The Sony Z series seemed more like what I was looking for slimmer, lighter and generally a better build quality. The price though! €1800odd was a little shocking.
Rather disillusioned, I left the Sony Center and walked past an Apple reseller. I peered in the window and saw the MacBooks sitting there, then dismissed the thought.

Later that evening I started searching again and still drew pretty much a blank on finding anything to fit my criteria. So I had a look at the Apple site. Those MacBook Pro laptops certainly look sleek and well thought-out. Damnit though, all my software is PC-based. The Macbook Air then caught my eye: 13in, super compact, nice resolution screen, powerful enough and a good battery life. €1279,00 all-in and delivered. Ok, not quite the full spec of the Sony Z series but I didn’t want that anyway.

This was getting tempting. I knew there was some clever way of running Windows software on the Mac so I’d be fine wouldn’t I?

In walked Adobe.

I don’t know any photographer that doesn’t use Photoshop and many use Lightroom to process images. ‘Dual boot’ setup on the MacBook Air and I’ll be all set. Oh no.. Adobe in their infinite wisdom informed me that although my Photoshop license is for 2 installations of the software, both of those installations must be on the same operating system. So, 2 x Windows and not 1 x Windows and 1 x Mac OS. Lightroom, on the other hand, can be installed on 2 operating systems. Go figure! I won’t go into the 2 week long battle and numerous telephone calls with Adobe to find a solution but in the end I was offered (for a remarkable price) a full retail boxed version of Photoshop to run on the Mac OS.  The choice was made, I was to own a MacBook Air.

The Experience?

Opening the MacBook Air, or as I will from now on refer to it as MBA, revealed a slick design and very robust looking machine. It powered up in silence and was set up, registered and running in a very short space of time. Biggest initial reaction? Wow, no s**t trial software or help utilities that I always spend ages un-installing on Windows laptops.

We sat there, MBA looking at me, me looking at the MBA. I had no idea what did what or how anything did what it did. A four-leaf clover key on the keyboard?..

Using the trackpad on the MBA was a delight, no laptop track pad has felt better. The gestures and controls were not unfamiliar to my iPad or iPhone, very comfortable and slick. Actually USING the MBA though? You know the feeling you have when trying to use scissors in the wrong hand? Lots of tongue chewing and crooked lines? That was me on the MBA.

Luckily I know plenty of MacOS users so I have been able to yell when I need to figure something out. I’m still not 100% up to speed but I’m slowly finding my way around and either being pleased at how easy some things are, or frustrated that other things are hard to do.

What I have heard though, is that a lot of established MacOS users are really not liking the way the new OS (Lion) is going. To me, it’s obvious where Apple are going. They’re turning the OS into a consumer-oriented system that will eventually merge the whole touchy-feely interface of all their products into one streamlined experience. ‘Think Different’ was once used as a slogan by Apple. I have to say that so far, I’m very much urged to ‘Think As We Want’ Anyway, that’s verging on a political discussion in the computer world. My requirements of the MBA are simple. Capture photos from a camera via a tethered connection, process photos and print photos. It seems to do it all remarkably well too. The processor seems nippy enough, the RAM keeps up and the SSD stores all the photos quickly. Photoshop runs very slick and very usable although I’d not want to push it to a hugely complex and multi layered file. Lightroom opens and processes RAW files with ease and setting up printers on the MBA is a breeze. I can even use the MBA to process the 360° panoramas that I make: I’d not do the full edit on there but all the software runs and it works very well. I’ve done a fair bit of writing lately and being able to do that on the move is very handy. I can do that on the iPad too but having a proper keyboard attached to the screen is a big bonus. Travelling with the MBA is easy too, I did buy a soft-sided protective case that does add bulk, but it’s still very light and still more ‘pocketable’ than any laptop I’ve seen.

My requirements are met, with just two noticeable downsides. When the MBA gets busy, the fan will kick in and it’s not a quiet one. Ducted well, I’m sure the draft from the fan would hover the computer off the desk. That is, until the battery is drained, which is pretty quickly when using processor-hungry software. An obvious down-side but nonetheless a bit of a drag if you’re not near a power socket.

The future?

Since my quest for a super-compact 13in laptop started, it has become common knowledge that Intel are very actively pushing the development of the so-called ‘Ultrabooks’ Laptops that will undoubtedly chase the Apple MBA and fight for a slice of the new market that Apple opened up with their slim machines. The days of the bulky and brick-shaped laptop are numbered, I hope. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Windows-based PC manufacturers will offer to compete in the segment. Will Apple pull me in any further? Not yet: I’m more than happy to continue working on dual platforms. My workhorse computer is a Windows PC that does all I ask it to do, and does it well. For portable work, the MBA covers it well. Getting used to the MacOS way of things is a slow process but having the luxury of not having to rely on it for pressured work does help. I really don’t mind having a foot in each camp. After all, when it boils down to it, they are only tools.

Oh, and that four-leaf clover key? I found out it’s called a Command key. Don’t ask me what it does. Ok?

I was asked by the marketing and brains department of Vedett to make an image of the inside of the ‘Vedett Motel’ I suggested not just any photo, but a full 360 degree interactive panorama of the unconventional motel room. Click on the image below to be whisked into the world of the Vedett Motel!

You’ll also see some hotspots in the panorama as you navigate around, mouse over them to read the labels. These hotspots can be used to link to any content online or stored locally. Try clicking the link on the TV monitor. The link will take you to a yet another Vedett project, a time-lapse clip that I created at the end of the 2011 summer. Shot from 2 cameras it captures the cars arriving at a drive in movie event sponsored by Vedett.

Click the image to open the panorama.

A few more shots of the Vedett Motel truck: