In need of a visit to the gear doctor

A couple months ago I wrote about my new-to-me 5D camera. Last Sunday, Lady Pebbles and I took a day trip to Cedar Breaks National Monument to make some photographs of the eclipse.

It was a beautiful day. We got down there mid-afternoon to spend time scouting locations before the big event which started a couple hours before sunset. Everything was mostly dry, but there were still patches of snow in a couple places on north facing slopes on the trail. Being a nice warm day, the snow was melting, making the fine clay soil slicker than snot. As I went around one of these spots on a particularly steep slope in the trail, I stepped on what I thought was firm ground. However, it turned out to be a dry crust on top of slick mud. I immediately slid right down into the center of the snow and mud.

Fortunately, I was able to catch myself and slid just on my hands and feet so I didn't get all muddy. All my gear stayed out of the mud. Except my camera. I was carrying it attached to my R-strap by my back hip. As I slid down the hill, it slid around my body and into the mud. It didn't fall; it just crept around and bumped into the ground. My hands were caked in mud and the top of the camera and lens had a little mud, but overall, things weren't too bad.

I used the snow to clean my hands and the worst of the mud from the camera. Everything seemed to be in good shape. We continued scouting locations and making images. Finally we found where we wanted to stay and setup our gear.

I made a couple hundred exposures of the gorgeous canyons as we waited for the eclipse to start and chatted with other photographers setting up next to us. About 45 minutes after the start of the eclipse, I clicked the shutter, looked through the viewfinder to reframe and saw nothing but black. Weird. I hit the shutter release. It opened and stayed open for several seconds before closing again. The image was completely blown out. Really weird. I cycled power and tried again. Same thing. I took it off the tripod, removed the battery grip to really make sure the power was disconnected. I put it back together and tried again. Still the same thing. Hmm. I took the lens off and immediately saw the problem.

The inside is supposed to look like this:

But instead, what I saw looked more like this:

Arg. The partially silvered mirror that allows you to see through the lens had separated from the flippy-uppy thing that takes it out of the way of the sensor. Hence the black viewfinder. And since the exposure meter is mounted behind it, it wasn't geting the proper readings, causing the long exposure times.

This is actually a known problem with the 5D model and Canon has a recall notice out on it. I'm not sure if this body has been in for the recall upgrade or not. And I don't know if the minor tumble had anything to do with it or not. I'll be taking it in to Pictureline to have them send it in. Hopefully, Canon will repair it as part of the recall, but if not, I'm going to have a camera doctor's bill shortly.

Light painting tool - progress update

Last post I showed a couple circuit boards for a light painting tool I'm building. I planned on getting it finished by last week, but spring time house projects intervened and I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. However, I did get the user controls assembled. The three controls will adjust the red, green and blue sections of the LEDs. There are two ways to program it: either as RGB sliders or HSV sliders. I'm undecided which will work best, so I'll probably try both ways and see which I like better. Any thoughts on which way to go?

Light painting tool

I was scheduled to teach a course in the local university's life-long learning program, so over the last several weeks I've focused on making some tools for one of the topics I was going to cover: light painting. This is a photo of control boards I worked on this week for two of these tools.

For this project, I decided to make my own printed circuit boards for the first time. At times it was pretty frustrating learning just the right technique to make them come out properly. But in the end, I am pleased with the results, particularly for a first attempt.

As part of the process, the copper covered board is put in an acid bath to etch the traces. It was pretty cool watching that happen; took me back to the days of watching a print emerge on a white piece of paper in the darkroom.

I plan on finishing them this week and taking them to the next Friday Night Fotogs get together. When I do, I'll post a follow-up with pictures of the completed tool, some build notes and the resulting images.

New (to me) gear

With this week's release of Canon's 5D Mark III, my good friend Rich Legg upgraded his main camera. In doing so, his old Mark II shifted to the backup position and his classic 5D became surplus. So, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse and my new primary camera is now full frame. Even though this body is newly mine, we're already old friends. In the last three years, I've probably shot it more than Rich has. He let me borrow it for a long weekend trip and I've shot second shooter at a couple shoots for him. I'm now looking forward to using it full time.

Crickets

Hear them? The crickets? It's been pretty quiet around here for awhile.

The reasons are multifaceted.

One: I've been busy with things other than photography and haven't spent much time posting articles here.

Two: I have three blogs that I try to keep up. A couple years ago, I'd made a plan, and set up reminders, to write one post for each blog each week. It was simply too ambitious. It was unmaintainable. And it got to the point where I simply dismissed the reminder without giving any serious thought to it. The reminders, rather than spurring me into action, ended up being a means for me to put a guilt trip on myself and resenting. I simply over-committed myself, got overwhelmed and ignored things.

Three: I ran into the issue that some of what I wanted to share didn't fit well into any of my blogs. Things crossed over into other areas that didn't weren't really about the topic of the blog. Additionally, some things didn't fit the written format well.

So, the last couple months I have evaluated what I want to do and how I want to move further with my blogs. I've decided to continue the three blogs. However, instead of posting to each one each week, for a total of three posts a week between them, I plan to only write one post a week and rotate through the blogs. This means each blog will be updated once every three weeks. I think actually writing one post a week is better than not writing three.

I have also started a new video blog. It is less focused on a particular area and so it allows me to share more variety of things. Some of those things will be photography related and when there is cross over, I'll also cross post.

This blog also has a related twitter account. It serves as both to alert of new articles here and also pointers to other things photography related I find out in the internet. I plan on having several posts a week there, so followers will get more than they do here, but won't be spammed with huge amounts either.

Until next time, keep watching the light.

Recent tweets

• Now that's a big camera. (I'd hate to buy a digital back for that!) http://kck.st/z8olTU
• Historically interesting, but I think I'll keep my DIGIC II: http://bit.ly/wSUwVd
• Using LEDs to make a camera: http://bit.ly/yUpswq (Cool, but Canon and Nikon don't have to worry anytime soon.)
• Eyeballs, Rifles and slow-motion video: what could be better? http://bit.ly/wAqPJn

Hooked on Light links

• Flickr
• Twitter

Time-lapse Turntable: the making of

Last week I posted a video giving an overview of my Time-lapse Turntable project. Here's a fun time-lapse showing some of the construction.

Enjoy.



There has been some interest expressed by people wanting to know where to get one. If you are interested in me making one for you, e-mail me at turntable@hookedonlight.com and I'll put you on a list. If there is sufficient interest, I may possibly produce a batch of them for sale in the neighborhood of $200-$300 each. Anything made for sale will be significantly more polished than this rough cut proof-of-concept version.

Time-lapse Turntable: Project overview

I recently did a project for my friend Nicole Young to allow her to do some panning during a time-lapse sequence. This video is an overview of my approach to this problem. In the future, I plan to post some detailed, technical articles on my computer related blog, Skylark Software. These articles will be more about the electronics and software than the photography aspect, so I decided to post them there.

There has been some interest expressed by people wanting to know where to get one. If you are interested in me making one for you, e-mail me at turntable@hookedonlight.com and I'll put you on a list. If there is sufficient interest, I may possibly produce a batch of them for sale in the neighborhood of $200-$300 each. Anything made for sale will be significantly more polished than this rough cut proof-of-concept version.



Now, go see the results Nicole got on a recent trip to Moab.

Time-lapse Turntable: Sneak peek

It's been really quiet here on the Hooked On Light site. I've been busy with other projects and haven't done too much with photography lately. Here is one project that is photography related that I've worked on recently. I'm planning on getting a blog article up about it in the next couple weeks. Enjoy the sneak peek.

Photocamp Utah 2010: Wrap-up

At Photocamp Utah 2010 I presented a workshop demonstrating high-speed photography. As promised, here are my notes (pdf). The video from my presentation can be seen here; the first little bit was taken during setup so it takes a bit before it really gets into the presentation itself. All the videos can be seen here.

Some points of clarification

I was asked a couple questions afterward and thought I'd share them to help clarify what I talked about. If there are other questions, please leave a comment and I'll update this post.

What kind of camera can I use?

For the first setup, any camera that has continuous fire mode and a means of firing a flash will work. Typically this means something with a hotshoe connector on it.

For the second setup, any camera that can be set to a long enough shutter speed to allow you to trip the shutter and then cause the event will work. Since the trigger fires the light which causes the exposure, you just need to be able to have the shutter open when the light goes off.

For the third setup, the camera needs to have a remote shutter release connection.

Can I use the built-in flash?

This will only work for setups one and three and depends on the model of your camera and how much control you have over the flash. My camera does not have a power adjustment for the built-in flash so it won't keep up with drive mode. I think some cameras do have the ability to adjust the power and so they may work.

Will any battery powered flash work?

The key is to have one that has multiple power settings; the lower the power setting the better. I have an older flash that I've used for relatively slow things that works acceptably with it's lowest setting of 1/16th power. It probably would be too slow for things faster, like BBs or bullets.

Regarding setup three, how do I connect the triggers to the camera?

I had a cable that connected the trigger to the shutter release. This will probably involve a custom cable. This was easily done with my camera model since the shutter release plug is a standard size commonly used in audio applications. Some models of cameras have a plug unique to that camera manufacturer. In these cases, you may have to buy a shutter release button and cut the end off to connect the wires to the trigger.

There are also setups where you could use a radio to connect the trigger to the camera. This will require cables to connect the trigger to the radio transmitter. (This is the same as for setup two.) And you'll also need a cable to connect the receiver to the camera's remote shutter release. What this looks like is highly dependent on the radio and camera models.

Setup diagrams

Diagram templates courtesy Kevin Kertz.

Setup 1

Setup 2

Setup 3

Other wrap-up blog articles

In no particular order, here are some other Photocamp Utah wrap-up blog articles. If there are others, let me know about them and I'll add them to the list.

• Pat Wright wrote about volunteering and community.
• Mike Tittel wrote about the Business of Photography panel.
• Ann Torrence recapped the event in general.
• Nathan Marx recalls his thoughts on Zack Arias' closing keynote.
• Nicole related her Photocamp experience with raising her children.
• Alicia D reminds us of Zack's Transform video that brought him to our attention.
• Ryan makes some observations about the volunteers.
• Dav.d shares an HDR tutorial based on his presentation.
• Torsten Bangerter learned you have to have a goatee to be successful as a full-time photographer.
• Parker Grimes gives us his perspective as someone who had to drive four hours to get here.
• Nicole Young thanks the key players that made this a success.
• Quinn gives us a refresher on the high points of the opening and closing keynotes.

Auto-mode: Yes or No?

The other day, my friend Nicole Young (aka Nicolesy) published a thought provoking article entitled Just Say No to A-U-T-O. In this article, she discusses the results of an informal twitter survey where she asked:

When would a photographer want to use the "Full Auto" mode? (Original here)

(In addition to her article, there are some good comments in response; you might want to check it out.) Her conclusion was:

If you ultimately want to have more creative control of your images then it’s my recommendation to say “no” to the green square.

A mutual friend, Bryan Jones, mentioned in his response that he shoots in Program mode 30% of the time. Now Bryan is a brilliant guy and an expert on things optical. As a post-doc vision researcher and a freelance photojournalist, if anyone is capable of shooting without auto mode, it's him. The amount he used it surprised me enough that I thought a bit about the advantages for an advanced photographer to use auto mode. As I pondered, one reason for a knowledgeable user to use an automatic mode occurred to me.^[1] (And there are probably other reasons that haven't occurred to me.)

Those who know me know that in addition to programming and photography, one of the things I enjoy is going fast. Since I also don't like to spend lots of money, the best way to go fast cheaply is on a motorcycle. So, I ride. In my education on the topic, I've read Keith Code's books A Twist of the Wrist and A Twist of the Wrist 2.

As part of Keith's instruction, he introduces the concept of attention cost. The theory is we have a fixed amount of attention. Minor distractions reduce the amount we have to devote to important tasks. For example, as it relates to motorcycle riding, an air leak in your helmet will cause a tickle on your cheek, diverting attention away from the more critical shifting, braking, cornering and accelerating tasks. Fix the air leak and you will go faster around the track because you can pay more attention to the tasks that are important for speed.

I think this is directly applicable to photography and the question of whether to use auto mode or not. What is important to your shot? Where should you spend your limited attention?

© Nicole S. Young - All Rights Reserved
Used with permission

For the stock and creative shooting Nicole does, things controlled by the various manual modes are critical. They are vital components of making the shot. If something unrelated to these things, such as composition or lighting, is not exactly right, she can adjust and retake the shot. Auto mode simply does not give her the technical control she needs.

© Bryan W. Jones
Creative Commons License

For the photojournalism shooting Bryan does, I doubt things like ISO, f/stop and shutter speed are as important as they are to Nicole. On the other hand, the situational awareness to anticipate shots, move into position, frame and snap the shutter to get the once in a lifetime event are critical. For his style of shooting, auto mode eliminates distractions and allows him to focus on capturing the moment.

My conclusion: automatic mode has its place. The key is to know how to use all modes of your camera, evaluate each situation you're shooting in to determine what's most important, and then choose the mode that's applicable.

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1. To be clear, I have not talked with Bryan about this. I don't know his reasons. It's just his doing it that caused me to think about why one might do it in general.