“What? He’s doing video also now?”

That’s what my brother-in-law said when he found out I was attending a video workshop. Funny but that’s where I was on a Sunday morning. In fact, the workshop ran on till past 7pm! We had a blast.

Why would a stills photographer attend a video workshop? Well, my DSLR has been called a VDSLR but I like what Vincent Laforet calls it, a HDDSLR — a SLR that shoots HD video. It’s also a world apart when working with stills and video. It’s not easy but it’s something that requires a different kind of planning, approach and all that stuff.

While I’m not sure if I’ll be producing a lot of movies, I do believe that no learning is wasted and that if you only stop learning when you die. So, even from the stills photography side of things, movie-making does give you a few ideas and a cinematic approach is not a bad thing to add to your array of styles or ideas.

It was fun to see how things are done in the movies and learn some interesting camera tricks as well. There was basically an overload of information and I think it would be best done as a 2-day workshop as the video project takes time to work out, and do. Also, movie-making isn’t a solo endeavor so teaming up is a good approach but time is a biggest factor here. That said, the entire workshop taught me a lot of things, not to mention that if you want a cinema look, try not to use the zoom! That’s pretty easy… zooming on a HDDSLR is not the easiest thing to do.

Sorry bout the some of the photos below… I was using my iPhone as the class pace was fast and loaded, making it difficult to reach for the HDDSLR and take notes at the same time! The only thing I wish there was more off would be more examples and sample videos but this is an intro workshop so can’t go into such depth. Time to save up for my Redrock Micro video DSLR rig and the Intermediate Video workshop

A fun thing would be to have a Collision Conference or Re:Frame right here in Malaysia.

Kee Sitt and Grace demonstrating a 180 degree flip… a no, no in video.

Gear envy!

Editing our little Nescafe ad we made…

By the way, I’ll post our end result once I get the final copy from Karan.

It’s finally launched. Unfortunately not full-frame but otherwise, a rocking camera body I can’t afford anyways! Okay, wait, I have to clarify that. Purchase it, I can but need it I do not. Hmm, that came out rather Yoda-esque. Pretty happy with my 5D Mark II. Next on the list is a H4N audio recorder and a Red Rock Micro Video DSLR rig! And plus my 7D

Rob Galbraith has a good preview here and of course you have to watch Vincent Laforet’s Nocturne video.

And in case Vincent’s blog has been flogged by too many people, here’s the embedded link from Vimeo:

Nocturne from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Jerry Ghionis’ recently had a one-day seminar in KL and it was definitely worth going! Besides his usual humorous and approachable self, Jerry also dispensed with a lot of advice — what you normally get in a five-day workshop was distilled into just about 9 hours. Of course the classroom was larger, packed with over a hundred eager photographers and you don’t get a hands-on session with models and all that. That said, it still packed a lot of information and Jerry doesn’t hold back one bit. You get the genuine teacher in Jerry and he’s passion about shooting is equaled only by his desire to teach others.

We simply had an awesome time and managed to network with many great photographers as well. And time to start saving for the 5-day workshop!

Just to relate a short story here. I signed up for Jerry’s educational website, the ICE Society and Jerry’s beautiful wife, Georgina refunded me some cash. She told me that the credit card went through without the 20% promotional discount. I didn’t think much about it and went home pretty happy. Last week, I got my credit card statement in my inbox and it had the 20% discount applied. This means that I got 40% discount. I always believed that if you think you deserve to get paid for your services and work done, this also applies to others. I emailed Georgina immediately about the mistake and offered to pay the balance.

To be honest, Jerry and Georgina came across as good people to me. Good as in they were the kind of people you know were genuine 100% honest to goodness folks who made it. This means that I actually knew in my heart they won’t ask for the money. I even knew that even if I offered to pay the balance, they wouldn’t take it.

Well, that is true and Georgina thanked me for my honesty. To me it wasn’t about the discount, the money, or being honest about it. I guess that is the way I was taught or brought up but I can see why Jerry’s successful. Nice guys don’t finish last. They get the money and success (like all the awards he’s won)! Thanks Georgina and Jerry! I’ll send you a Christmas gift in the post!

Awesome experience with Jerry Ghionis!

On a lovely Sunday morning, Elyana and family got together, dressed up and spent some quality time with each other. In addition, they brought us in to have a portraiture session with them. I must also say that Elyana’s mom really cooks well and we had a boxful of yummy dumplings to take home with us! Oh, congrats to Elyana and Roslan on their tenth anniversary! Many happy returns!

Anyways, we started in their cozy home in Bandar Mahkota Cheras with their family and relatives and then took a short drive out towards Putrajaya where we had great fun near the Putrajaya mosque and main boulevard. Great time for the kids to go out, parents, relatives, and grandparents had great fun too!

I’m actually quite impressed with the way this outing was organized and we wish more people would actually spend the time to take photos of their family. You may not appreciate the photos right now but years later, when you look back at old photos, the memories are priceless. A lovely outing with the family, quality time with the kids and get family photos to boot! Excellent combination if you ask me!

And here I am caught by my lovely wife shooting on the move

Now, this is not meant to be a proper technical review of Dell’s new fancy U-series monitor. It’s just my personal (as well as an industry professional color & printing expert) opinion.

Dell’s Ultrasharp series of monitors were their premiere line of monitors with zero-pixel defect warranty and 8-bit panels and all the good stuff. Recently, some of their Ultrasharp panels got watered down TN-panels, especially the smaller sizes. That didn’t sit well with me and a lot of people. Lately, they revamped their entire monitor line with single letter prefixes, i.e. G-, S- and U-. The G-series seemed to be Green, as i.e. low-power, environmentally friendly monitors. While I do minimize my carbon footprint, using solar energy as much as I can (from water heating to pumping water), recycling rain water, etc, I needed accurate color without the price tag of an Eizo monitor. The U-series replaces the former Ultrasharp line and while a 27″ incher would be lovely (as of writing this, the U2710 has not made an appearance), I rather have two monitors than one.

The U2410 caught my attention for one reason. IPS panels. You can go read here about LCD panel types but when I replaced my 21-inch 45-kilo Mitsubishi DiamondTron monitor for Dell’s Ultrasharp 2405WFP, the monitor still won on color accuracy but not by much. The 2405WFP by the way uses a S-PVA panels which is not as accurate as an IPS panel.

Reference targets and print matching…

The RM1,799 price was also too good to be true (there’s a additional RM200 rebate that I can get being a Dell partner so if you’re nice to me…). I paid RM2,385 for my 2405WFP in 2005! Talk about deflation! I have to come clean here about my 2405WFP’s price. Dell’s check-out process double-added the Merdeka rebate, i.e. original rebate was RM900 with a RM250 Merdeka rebate. I ended up getting RM900 + RM250 + RM250. Kudos to Dell however. They shipped, I got the monitor and it was awesome.

Calibrating with an i1 Photo SG and reference Eizo monitor

Likewise, the U2410 (Ultrasharp, 24-inch, 2010 model) came in a non-descript brown Dell box. I’d love some Apple packaging but at the price I paid, I’d live with brown boxes. I won’t talk about the specs here, you can read them over here plus a better review if you want. Compared to my 2405, the calibration went much better and when compared to an Eizo monitor four times the price (and minus 4-inches), it looked close enough. The advantage of the Eizo was a presentable color-temperature, i.e. 5600K, 6000K, 6500K etc.

Good color uniformity

The best would be to use my pro-lab’s words. They calibrated my monitor with their production Macs that output to Gretag-Macbeth lightjet printers and a lovely 60″-wide HP DesignJet Z6100. First words after calibrating with an Eye-One Photo were “How many more can you get?” The calibration however was consistent and it was not too difficult (under 30 minutes) to get it to match a print under 6500K lighting. Compared to the Eizo, I could tell the Dell was visibly cooler but only if they were side-by-side.

With appropriate color profiles for the LightJet and DesignJet loaded, the reference target prints look great. We matched on Photoshop, we matched against prints, and we matched with a specific kelvin temperature light. I’ve been printing with this lab for 10-years and the past four years with my 2405WFP with relatively faithful color reproduction (with the preview profile loaded of course) so if they claim the U2410 is better than my 2405WFP, I ought to have a easier time previewing and working on the difficult colors.

My pro-lab is a stickler for color accuracy so they’ll still do final proofs on the Eizo but for 99% of daily photo work, they can use the U2410 so that says a lot. That’s because it’s already very close to the Eizo according to them so it makes sense to have more monitors to work with and only save final proofing for the Eizo. After all, you can buy a few U2410s with a single Eizo.

The U2410 (left) with my 2405WFP (right)

Compared to my 2405WFP, the U2410 was a bit cooler. That’s probably because my 2405WFP defaulted to a native white point of 5700K compared to the U2410′s default of 6500K. Color uniformity is good with deep blacks and vivid colors. Overall, the U2410 is easier to calibrate (with an i1 Display2) than my 2405WFP. I don’t notice any response time issues. I’ve been working on a video the past three days so video previews has no noticeable ghosting or contrast issues. No dead-pixels either! The only drawbacks for me is the lack of a CF reader (yes, would be nice to download 2 CF cards at one time using the monitor and my Sandisk reader) and the boring stand. At least my 2405WFP stand can double up as a stationary tray of sorts. Anyways, it makes up by having SDHC support on the SD, MMC, Memory-stick reader and the soft-touch buttons are nice. The double-DVI and display port options are also nice so I can easily hook up my notebook. HDMI is also a good thing to have. Overall, no regrets with another excellent Dell monitor. Won’t mind getting another one if I can just make the cart double my rebate!

By the way, 3840-pixels wide is just amazing

Factory calibration report!