An Extra 12″

An Extra 12″ (adjustable spanner)

 

Been doing a few product shots this week, mainly tools. The texture on some of these is absolutely stunning. Choosing a background that compliments the product is quite a big part of the process. In this shot I wanted something other than a plain background, but not with too bold a texture. I used my son’s balance disc, and lit it with a single gridded strobe, shooting at F2.8 on an 85mm lens at pretty much closest distance to the spanner, which was sitting on a piece of glass between two chairs, over the training ball.  Ambient light illuminated the upper side of the tool. I also used a 0.6 ND filter in the gel holder of my Pro Shade, just to allow the use of a wide aperture (throwing the rubber spikes on the balance disc out of sharp focus).

The camera was mounted on a Manfrotto 3021 tripod, with the centre column set parallel to the floor. This is a great tool and the only way I think it could be improved is perhaps a carbon version, with titanium fittings. Just waiting on that lottery ticket….

500px Global Photo Walk 6th September 2014

In a couple of weeks’ time, 500px, the photo sharing site, are organising a global photo walk, and I’ve prepared a route for the Tokyo segment, passing through Sumida-ku and Koto-ku. 

We’ll be meeting at 2pm on Saturday 6th of September, in Asakusa. The assembly point will be just in front of the koban, which is on the junction of route 463 and Edo Dori (opposite Burger King).  Approximate finishing time should be around 5-5.30 pm, right in the middle of the Golden Hour, and by then we’ll be at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Shirakawa.

I went out yesterday to map the route, and provide some ideas for photos that we can make along the way:

 

details in the dust, at the start of the route, in Sumida Park

Tohoku Expressway viewed through the frame of the railway bridge

Asahi Flame building

Asahi Buildings. both are covered in reflective materials.

Asahi Flame building. nothing very interesting inside, as is often the case. but the exterior is clad in these highly polished tiles, which are going to make life interesting

here’s the Facebook page for the event. This will carry further updates on the event and more detail on the route, as we get closer to 6th September: https://www.facebook.com/events/535767803215353/

 

meeting point in Google Maps, here: https://www.google.co.jp/maps/@35.710726,139.797673,3a,75y,107.1h,102.03t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sqIUIHj8FOQ03CcvUhaSWxA!2e0?hl=en

 

hope to see you all in a couple of weeks. cheers, Peter

 

 

great light is where you find it

the other day I spent 8 hours in Tamachi, where I was engaged to photograph a workshop dealing with improving your TOEIC score (Test of English for International Communication). The event was held in a giant glass fronted office building, and afterwards I went out into the huge lobby, and noticed the amazing light. Floor to ceiling glass on two sides, and highly polished black marble on the other two. So I grabbed Ko, who was assisting at the event, and we shot a few photos, one of which you can see above. All natural light, around 5pm.

the keitai and the blossoms

at a bridge over the Kanda river, where the cherry blossoms proliferate and swoon, it’s a great photo.
the backlighting is reflected from the screen of her keitai, onto her face and glasses.

If you can’t laugh at yourself…..

 

So we went rollerskating at Tokyo Dome, with some friends. It seems to me that the younger or more female you are, the better you’ll take to life on 8 wheels.  Granted, some of the skaters were hardly in the prime of life, but then they had been skating champions in their youth.

My performance of Swan Lake was therefore nothing short of a cataclysmic artistic interpretation. The wall & I became firm friends. It is slightly more tricky I suppose, when you have ¥¥¥ of camera gear hanging around your neck.

 

You can have the best camera, lens, and lighting in the world…….

…but if you don’t have rapport, you ain’t got shit.

This is what I have learned.

Aniella & I had a great rapport!

Happy Birthday, Cliff! and, more haste, less speed.

Today I won’t be blogging about Valentine’s Day, or Whitney Houston, although I will be recalling and honouring another great musical talent, taken too soon, in the greatest tradition of rock & roll.

Happy 50th birthday, Mr. Cliff Burton! Okay, I missed the date by 4 days. That doesn’t stop me celebrating your life, or your works though. You were the ‘quiet one’ in a world of noise. When the other guys in the band were goofing off at presscalls you were diligently tuning your guitars.

I was covering the Monsters of Rock Festival for All Action that year, and had a proper photo pass. Shot a few ‘interesting’ backstage pix, some from the photo pit (an area between the front of the 80,000 strong crowd, and the stage). Here’s Cliff having the time of his life; the bottles in the foreground are traditional gifts from fans, bestowed upon their heroes from long range (thrown from the crowd). Eg Def Leppard ‘bottled off’ at Reading Festival a couple of years previous – ie retreated under a hail of bottles.

As always, I had considered film developing a bit of a chore, and used to up the development temperature, to save time. Of course the risk of ‘reticulation’ ie cracking of the film base, was always present – as seen here. After removing the developer I flooded the developing tank with stop bath (which inhibits the action of the film developer)……it’s supposed to be around the same temperature as the developer but………you can guess the rest! On this small scan you might be able to make out the random cracks. Fortunately the colour transparencies which I shot for the agency were processed properly!

And the moral of this story is – it’s perfectly okay to make mistakes. Just learn from them!

Pinhole Fun.

A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I picked up an inexpensive gadget for my Nikon: a pinhole lens. I had intended to use this for a wedding that I was shooting, but the couple decided they didn’t have time to pose in a local park. A great shame. I had pretty much forgotten about this lens, until an acquaintance of mine, English photographer Alfie Goodrich, announced a workshop based around pinhole photography.

What makes a pinhole lens special? Let’s see – it’s taking a trip back in time to the tenth century, recreating those early imaging techniques but with the added value of being able to see the recorded image right away. Stripping cameras back to their bare essentials – and dealing with the problems early photographers faced – long exposure times and images that suffered from poor quality lenses. Wearing the hair shirt, if you like. A little bit of adversity goes a long way.

So I’ve been shooting with my Kenko Pinhole Lens (details in Japanese here)http://www.2dachsies.com/2dachsies.com/Pinhole.html#9

You don’t need to be able to read Japanese to see that this little beauty has an aperture of F250!! – and a field of view approximately equivalent to a 50mm Lens.  Here in the first shot I’m on a 2 second exposure, so holding the camera on the ground kind of makes sense:

Today I took a bike ride to Nakano-ku, and cruising along route 318, got the shot below. Exposure 1/6 second, handheld and riding at about 10km/hour. I’m having a lot of fun with pinhole!

Taxi!

On Route 20 west out of Tokyo, a busy four lane highway, with a further 6 lanes expressway some 30 feet above. Pedestrian bridges are common at large intersections, so it makes sense to use them to get a cleaner image. Keep it simple, stupid. By shooting from overhead we can eliminate the distractions of a typical urban background. I’ve been in the habit for a while now, of going out with just one body and one prime lens. It seems to focus the mind more. This one was shot with my elderly D1x, and the 35mm F1.4 lens, albeit stopped all the way down. You can can really only make this picture at a certain time of day; when taxis starting lighting up, but while there is still ambient light.

First impressions – Tokina 10-17mm ‘Fisheye Zoom’ Lens in Nikon AF Mount.

It’s been around 20 years since I owned a fisheye lens, but I’m increasingly finding uses for one. Being a crop-sensor shooter my options are Nikon 10.5mm, Samyang 8mm, or Sigma 10mm. These are all full frame fisheye, on DX format bodies, ie they fill the entire frame with the image, rather than giving a circular cropped image within the image area.

The Tokina struck me as a bit of an oddity but in fact it’s still capable of use on an FX or fullframe camera, like the D700 or D800, that is next on the shopping list. At 15mm on the D700 it still gives a 180 degree angle of view; all that is sacrificed is the ‘ultrawide view’ that 17mm gives on a crop sensor. Still works as a fisheye and I’ll be keeping the D300 as body #2 in any case.

I shoot live bands, and more often than not the stage is about the size of a matchbox, in the more intimate venues of the Tokyo music scene. This lens is invaluable! Turns the tiniest venue into a Hollywood Bowl-sized stadium!

Wide open, 10mm at F3.5, 1/100th sec.

Tokina’s usual substantial build quality is evident. The lens feels solid but not particularly bulky, about the size of a 50mm F1.4 lens. There is no filter thread, due to the extreme angle of coverage, but I’ve yet to have a foreign body/lens surface interface issue.  Tokina claim that the ‘WP’ coating on the front element is more resistant to accidental coating damage; I’ve resisted any temptation to put this to the test.

At 17mm it’s a stop slower, which is a pain, but then the overall size is extremely convenient. Although I wouldn’t perhaps pack a fisheye for every job, quite often it is left in the bag as it occupies minimal space. At a pinch I’ve shot group portraits at 17mm; having used Tokina’s older prime 17mm F3.5, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the perspective of the prime is a lot punchier, but perhaps not the lens of choice for group shots. Zooms are always compromises, but in this case it’s a happy compromise.