Berlin – Berlinale

My last post was written whilst in a cold and snowy Berlin. This post is written from a cold and rainy Los Angeles (I missed the snow by a few days… yes really … snow in Hollywoodland! )

I am here for a few jobs and then a little bit of a rest time for myself and a bit of art before returning home. So I guess the next post will be about Red (Blue) carpet’s on the beach, but until then, back to Berlin (a city and event I really love).

Dame Helen Mirren on the Golda Red carpet inside the Berlinale Plast shot on the X-HS2 with the 16-80mm & V1 flash.

So “Crossing the streams” right away and posting a colour image immediately followed by a black and white (I use that phrase as I am sitting below a Ghostbusters poster as i write, but I digress).

Dame Helen Mirren on the Golda Red carpet inside the Berlinale Plast shot on the X-HS2 with the 16-80mm & “catch flash”

Usually I set up with 2 cameras – one with flash, one without, one for full lengths and wides and the other for tight portraits. However after a little discussion and thought, I decided I would not bring the 100-400 with me, choosing the 50-140 as my longest lens on the trip. All the full lengths are being handled by the 16-80 (an often overlooked lens) – far lighter than the 16-55 with a very useful range for this kind of work.

Much of the time in Berlin I only set up a single camera; for all of the photocalls I used the 50-140 with which I could shoot single full lengths and headshots, for the red carpets, the 16-80, sometimes adding the 90/F2 if. I wanted a shot of the “talent” walking up the carpet.

This meant my usual plan of using flash on one camera and aiming to catch other peoples flash with the other was out of the window and so as you can see with the two shots above I choose to flip between these “modes” on the H2S by turning the flash on and off, slowing the shutter speed to help catch any possible flashes. It was a bit more hit and miss but there were enough hits….

At the photocalls, (above), it is easier to work this way with a single camera than on the carpet as the lighting is so good, a flash is not needed, leaving very few changes to the settings needing to be made as I shoot.

Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw Red carpet inside the Berlinale Plast shot on the X-HS2 with the 16-80mm (with flash)

Leaving the 100-400 at home meant I only brought 2 X-series bodies with me (I usually travel with 3) so I had space the pack the GFX50R as my “walk around” camera. I may have mentioned before how I love the tones and graduations this camera offers.

Inside the Neue Wache shot on the GFX50R with 63mm

The final image, taken on my final day in Berlin on this trip was taken inside the Neue Wache, a place I could spend hours inside, in silence. I find it incredibly moving and peaceful at the same time. I had been sitting in the corner for quite a while, almost in a meditative state with the camera on the floor just waiting for the feeling to be right to release the shutter. A couple walked in, both wearing red. They waked to the “Mother with dead son” work, paused for a short while then turned and headed back out. The red contrast felt right so I released the shutter with a resounding “thunk” the woman paused, turned and cocked her head, mirroring the mother, obviously noticing me for the first time.. “thunk” again… and thank you…. (1/100th @ F2.8 / 400ISO)

I have always said the key to photography is not kit, it is not speed, it is about waiting, understanding and sensing.. Make the right choices and wait.. If you take the time there are images everywhere.

(She says using a medium format digital camera that is out of many peoples pockets).

And on that note… time to wait… again.. for the next post 😉

Happy shooting and please let me know what you think.
J x

HM Queen Elizabeth II … pt 3, laying in state

The last post left me at about 3:30 on The Mall having got there early on the Wednesday morning.

After filing my images and managing to get a dinner with friends in Soho, I headed to Westminster Hall where I had a 30 minute slot to photograph the late Queen laying in state at 21:30.

Luckily before dinner I was able to store some of the kit I was carrying in a secure location so again, I needed to plan what images I wanted to make. Many of the National papers and major agencies had earlier time slots which enabled me to see what they had filed. As expected most had focused quite tightly on the coffin, guards and visitors (there is an saying in the press photography world “Tight, Bright and Shi……” .

The Westminster Hall, where the late Queen was laying is the oldest part of the parliamentary estate and having walked through it many times I had an idea of its grandeur and size. I headed back with the 35/1.4 mounted on the X-H2S and the Laowa Ultra wide on the GFX50R.

The sensor on the GFX50 has an enormous dynamic range and shooting in RAW on that camera gave me the best chance of getting detail in the rafter shadows as well as the colours of the Royal Standard & Yeoman Warders.

Stopping the lens down a bit and reducing the ISO enhanced this enabled me to slow the shutter and blur the members of the public giving them a ghostly appearance.

Stopping this lens down a bit also does give nice a nice star points.

With the H-2S i focused on the details like the changing of the guard.

The final post in this series will be later in the week when I focus on the day of the funeral. As always I would love to hear your comments and questions.

Shooting interiors with the GFX50S

I mentioned in my last post that I had hired a GFX50S for a major interiors photoshoot (well, I’m not sure if I mentioned interiors).

Looking down on myself. BFI Southbank. GFX50S, 32-64/F4

Given that I am mainly a press photographer, you might consider it a bit strange I am shooting interiors, the short line is, I actually started out many years ago shooting and teaching very technical architectural and historical building photography including producing rectified images that could be used for measuring features.

Back to the present day and I have reinstated building photography (well actually venue photography) to help grow my business (new website coming soon).

This led me to using the GFX50S with the 23mm and 32-64mm on a Tripod in the BFI Southbank in the second week of March.

Bar & Restaurant , BFI Southbank. GFX50S, 32-64/F4

Working in mainly performance venues and cinemas, my typical subjects have very bright lights (stage lights and projectors) in very dark rooms (with typically black dark walls). This means a very high luminosity range in most scenes and therefore my go-to method in the past has always been a form of HDR, bracketing all shots and then choosing how I combine them to get the get, most realistic result back at the office.

When I moved over the the X-Series cameras, shooting bracketed series became so much easier. On my old cameras I could set the bracket but I still had to press the shutter for every exposure i.e. Correct exposure, +1, +2, -1, -2 having to count each shutter press, every now and then I got out of sync and had to start again. With the X-Series (and now the GFX) this became so much easier, turn on the bracketing, switch to continuous and a single press fires the 5 shots. So much easier!

I shot the BFI with a mixture of X-T2 and GFX. For the larger auditorium the X-T2 and 14mm was mounted on a correctly set nodal ninja to produce a wide panoramic image (interesting note – although Lightroom has introduced panoramic blending, ptGui still does a better job with more control in my opinion).

NFT1 of BFI Southbank. X-T2, 14mm, Nodal Ninja

I triggered both the GFX and X-T2 using a Pocket Wizard PlusIII with a cable plugged into the 2.5mm socket. One thing to note that although the pocket wizzard can trigger the Autofocus, it is far more reliable to manually focus each shot, making use of the focus peaking to check the DOF. (For panoramas I never refocus, I choose an appropriate aperture and use hyperfocal).

So how is the GFX an improvement over the X-T’s for this work? If we ignore that the fact that the camera is producing bigger images there are 2 key points.

1. Detail. I know this has been covered to death but this camera really does capture all the detail and nuances of the scene in front of it. Even thought the delivered image might be no bigger than a file delivered from an X-T, the detail in even the downsized images still exceeds that rendered by it’s smaller cousins.

2. Dynamic Range. This to me is the real game changer. Scenes where I would still have typically used a second exposure just to add shadow detail, I could just lift the shadows on the GFX files. There really is so much more in the files as the comparison below shows.

Riverfront Upstairs BFI Southbank GFX50S, 23MM, Single RAF vs HDR comparison.

Whilst there are a number of DSLR’s now with around 50MP, offering a similar sized file, what the GFX50 offers with its larger sensor are less tightly packed pixels compared to standard full frame (simplifying it somewhat) . This very visibly leads to better quality pixels, resolving more detail and packing a greater range of light sensitivity, giving greater detail and smoother graduations in colour and light/shadow.

Obviously there are downsides. Autofocus is not fast enough for my press or red carpet work (although I have ideas here). It is expensive (compared to the remainder of the X series, less so it comparing to the high end professional Full Frame Nikons & Canons like the D5 & 1DX). I am going to try the GFX50R next to see how it compares which at it’s lower price point, may be a more viable option (although no vertical grip may make this too much of a compromise).

BFI Southbank GFS50S, Handheld 32-64/F4

So the bottom line, what value will it add to my business? Would it just be improved image quality or are there other benefits? Would these improve my profitability? These are the difficult questions every professional photographer has to consider when new cameras and technology are released.

At the price point, this camera in my mind is without comparison for photographing interiors and I will ensure I price all future work of this nature to enable me to hire this in. In such a technical genre of photography, this camera can feature as a sales point as well as production tool. The same is true for studio based portrait work where again, I will hire it in for the higher-end shoots.

The Riverfront , BFI Southbank. HDR GFS50S, 32-64/F4

At the moment I cannot quite justify adding this system to my owned arsenal but should the pricing change with the introduction of the GFX100 (100MP version), this point of view might change.

If you photograph buildings or landscapes, I highly recommend trying this camera if you have not already.

GFX50S – First Touch for a digital medium format 1st timer.

Next week I have the first of a couple of large interiors architecture shoot. As I was planning the shoot I realised this would be the ideal test bed for the Fujifilm “medium format” GFX50S camera.

Until this week my only experience with medium format is my vintage Rolliflex, so I have never shot with anything other than Full-Frame or APS-C on digital. With this in mind I arranged to hire a GFX with the 23mm and the 32-64mm for a good few days before the shoot. My plan was to carry it with me instead of a little X-T to get the feel of the camera.

The first day I had it I needed to pop up to Gatwick Airport. Shot with the 23mm at F20, ISO800 (Not the ideal settings, I was rushing!!) , this JPG was shot in ACROS. I love the graduations in the greys, which given it is a JPG with it’s limited grey levels is quite an achievement.

I was struggling to find the limits of focusing, reframing and at what speeds I could hand hold the camera. It’s not really that much bigger or heavier than the full frame Nikon’s I used for years but there is a whole different feel (especially where depth of field is concerned) . This is another ISO800 JPG.

(Sorry for mixing colour and monochrome, a big no-no normally).

I’m sure every photographer has a long suffering partner that is asked to pose of “just look up” again and again and again. This RAF was shot hand-held at 1/40th on the 32-64 at 64mm. At 3200ISO and F4, using the Classic Chrome profile in lightroom mobile I love not only the colours and the graduations from light to dark, but also the way the sharpness in the eyes transition to the milky soft out of focus areas.

Its this transition in sharpness that give medium format its “almost 3D” quality.

This final picture was shot this morning, at 1/3000, F9, ISO100. The RAF edited in lightroom mobile has had the Velvia Profile applied and a couple of selective edits. This is only a small version of the image, you will have to take my word on how much detail there is in the wave.

So after a couple of days, what are my initial thoughts?

It’s not as big and as heavy as I thought it would be, its not much worse than say a D800 with a decent lens on it. Of course it is slower than its smaller Fuji cousins but I kind of like that, it reminds me to slow down and this about the shot I’m taking, I cant take 2 or 3 frames at high speed so I have to concentrate on the moment.

I was nicely surprised on how well Lightroom Mobile handled both the JPG and RAF files on my 2018 generation iPad Pro . Sure the previews took a while to build in the photos application import but copying over was fast, as was the ingesting into lightroom and editing.

The only real niggle I have at the moment is a user interface issue. The GFX50S has most of the buttons (in similar places) that the X-T range have. Why then can I not assign the front dial to ISO like on the smaller cameras. I could argue with myself that “well fast use is not what it is designed for, you are probably not going to be following action with the GFX50S up to your eye needing quick adjustments”. This is true, on a tripod or in a studio the top-plate dial is fine but why limit it? It’s only software. Why are these things not more consistent??

I had avoided this camera since its release because I was worried that I would love its image quality, I was right to worry….

More to follow….