Came across this old Chrysler in the parking lot of the Haystack School of Crafts in Sunshine, ME. I jokingly said it was the Batmobile.

Sunshine, ME, August 24, 2010.

Then we looked inside…

Batman? Green Hornet?

Same parking lot, something more Maine-esqe:

I’m realizing I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks other than earlier this evening. There have been assignments but I have also been gearing up for my first film assignment. It’s part of an annual report shoot. I’ll be creating a dozen environmental portraits (still images) and then producing/directing/shooting six short video pieces to accompany the annual report when it appears online.

The nature of the job is such that it is more cost effective to buy the needed equipment (HDslr, sound, continuous lights) than to rent because the work will be spread out over a significant amount of time.

Over the years I have owned between five and eight cameras at any one time. With the switch to digital that got whittled down to three and with the current generation of cameras, they’ve been rock solid, so I’ve only needed two. I shoot with Canon 1Ds Mark III’s. That body is pushing three years old so it does not have HD video.

Prior to this assignment I kept video as a professional option at arm’s length, even questioning the convergence of still and video. I was shooting video for myself but I was content knowing that when video reached the camera models I use, I would be able to dip my toe in then. Well… times change and so do clients’ expectations. With HD quality video becoming more prevalent in higher end dslr cameras and with the demand for video growing, clients are beginning to ask for and expect video.

So, for me, the first step was figuring out which camera body to get. In full disclosure, the film project I need to complete could be shot with a pro-level video camera. In fact, on a certain level it might be simpler that way. But if I’m going to do this I need to do it in a way which takes advantage of my current stable of lenses, my knowledge of still cameras, and sets me up for future projects. Those factors point toward getting a dslr with HD capabilities and which can create the shallow depth of field film look those cameras are known for.

Since I shoot Canon the options were the 7D, 5D Mark II, and the 1D Mark IV. I can’t go wrong with either of these for the upcoming assignment so it became a question of which will benefit me more after the assignment. Each camera has its strengths and weaknesses. The undisputed king is the 5D Mark II because of its full-frame sensor but it is also the most temperamental of the three. It doesn’t have the range of HD settings of the other two, it can be hard to focus, and it doesn’t play nice with external monitors once you start recording. It also does not have the build quality of the 7D or the 1D Mark IV.

In the end I went with the 1D Mark IV as much for it’s similarity to what I currently use as anything. Same body size, same build quality, same batteries, same accessories, same button layout. What it will add to my kit for the future is higher ISO capability along with the video strengths mentioned above. Would I rather have full-frame (the 1D Mark IV’s chip has a 1.3x factor)? Yes. Are the odds of Canon announcing a replacement for my current cameras, the 1Ds Mark III’s, this August good?  Yes, they are very good and, yes, it will probably have HD. But I need a camera now and one which can be vetted prior to this assignment starting.

While this has no bearing on the upcoming assignment – here’s a quick test of the 1D Mark IV’s low light capabilities:

This was shot a few nights ago, about 10PM. 1D Mark IV, handheld, 50mm f/1.2, @ 1.2, 1/50, 30p, 1080P, ISO 12800. The only tweak to the camera was to set the picture style to Neutral.

I am amazed you can see levels of detail in the trees, in the clouds, and those dots at the end are not noise. They are stars. Here’s a larger version (you can see the stars better.)

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09/01/10 – Realizing that Firefox does not play well with self-hosted *.mov or *.m4v movie files. It presents them as dark and contrasty. Safari works fine. So, if you are viewing this video (or any others on the blog) via Firefox don’t expect to see the detail I describe above.

Videos hosted by third-parties (e.g. Vimeo, YouTube) appear fine in any browser. I will look into these or WordPress’ VideoPress in the future.

Yesterday at the Shanghai World Expo Canon exhibited a new camera concept, the Wonder Camera.

Fans everywhere of Sleeper inspired design rejoiced…

Engadget story on the Wonder Camera and via Electronista.

Webb Cove, Stonington, ME, 2007.

You have to think that at some point in the past man stood on the shore and looked out across the water. Behind him was the land he knew, in front of him the water, the horizon, and the sky. Not having the ability to go to the sky, nor having the ability to travel under the water beyond one breath, he thought, I need to go across there. I need to visit the land off in the distance. I need to discover the land I cannot see. Then, having done that, having ventured across oceans and returned, the next realms were above and below.

To go to outer space, to work one mile down beneath the surface of the water, both are inhospitable environments which test the limits of our technology. Complicate each with additional risk factors, going to space with a reusable rocket like the Space Shuttle, or not only venturing one mile down but actually working there via robots and drilling for oil, and you have situations which demand great respect for planning and fail-safe backups.

The New York Times had an article recently exploring the parallels between the current Gulf situation and Melville’s Moby Dick. What has struck me though is how the oil spill in the Gulf reminds me of the two Space Shuttle disasters. Obviously, the goals in each are wildly different, science and exploration versus profit. But in each case, it was technology which brought us to the forefront of what was possible and it was human planning and decisions which determined whether it could be done safely and smartly.

The Challenger and Columbia Shuttle missions both revealed instances where corners were cut when better backup systems could have been incorporated. For Challenger, ejector seats and pressurized suits were foregone even though they had been included in test flights. For Columbia, the mission brought front and center the issues of designing a re-usable spacecraft without including a method of checking the integrity of the ship before re-entry and of not providing a way to repair simple exterior issues while in flight.

Similarly, in the Gulf of Mexico BP cut corners in its quest to turn a profit quickly and the government was lax its oversight. One would think that to drill for oil without the utmost in safeguards would be a deal breaker. While a business person might argue that the cost of that is too high, it inhibits exploration and production, what we are seeing is that the cost of not doing that is even greater.

The leading edge of technology may make things possible but it’s the human element which will always be the mitigating factor.

I’m excited to announce that I have just joined up with Wonderful Machine, a web portal and photographers’ representative dedicated to connecting art buyers with photographers. Part sourcebook, part agent, Wonderful Machine actively promotes its photographers through its website, print ads, direct mail, email promos, and portfolio showings. It has managed to hold buyers attention in a crowded dissonant marketplace by carefully selecting its members and promoting them only within areas where Wonderful Machine sees a deep proficiency.

When you sign up with Wonderful Machine, as with any rep, they decide how you will be marketed and which images will be used. Users of the web portal can search by city or specialty, or contact Wonderful Machine directly to find the best fits for their projects.

It was great to see that Wonderful Machine’s photo editor saw the depth in my work to include me in five categories: architecture, corporate, institutional, landscape, and fine art.

My page at Wonderful Machine.

Wonderful Machine’s home page.

Wonderful Machine has a great blog, too. Well worth a look and a subscription.

Goldman Sachs is in the news. Executives are on capital hill today to testify to whether they led investors astray by playing both sides of fence, aggressively selling mortgage derivative products while betting against them at the same time.

I photographed E. Gerald Corrigan, a Goldman Sachs partner and managing director, at the corporate headquarters in New York, in 2009.

New York, NY, February 24, 2009

I did two scenarios, one in a conference room adjacent to the hallway above and the other in the hallway. Both were setup and pre-lit in advance of the subject’s arrival, a needed step since he allotted me less than ten minutes. The conference room was the safer bet and led to a safer, less interesting, image. Corrigan conceded to the hallway image only because it was directly in his path out of the conference room.

The advantage of a bit of window light and the glow from behind made the image. I used only one light, an extra-small softbox with a grid to provide fill from camera left. The backlight glow is from a piece of artwork embedded in the wall and just peeking into the frame.

At the time it was late February, the economy had fully tanked the fall before. The golden glow seemed a nice play on Goldman Sachs’ name and it left room for the viewer to interpret the image as they saw fit.

For the moment I’m watching the iPad from afar. Already the owner of an iPhone and a laptop, the iPad is not jumping out at me as a necessity. You can’t tether to it when shooting without a laptop or a computer in the middle, so no benefit there. You can do what you can do on the iPhone, only larger, but also without the versatility of a laptop.

One area where it does show promise is as a portfolio but whether it can stand on its own or if it needs to act in concert with a printed portfolio is to be determined. The other area where it may have some effect is the magazine industry – potentially providing a new way for readers to view publications and a new way for publishers to present their content.

Some photographers and publishers are predicting a sea change, which when coupled with the video capabilities of new dslr’s or the Red camera, will drive motion to become the new still image. Witness the Alexx Henry videos such as this one for Viv magazine. When I watch it though – I just shake my head. Sure it can be done but how often and on whose budget? When I see the amount of work, the equipment used, and the size of the crews involved it’s hard to believe that this level of production is sustainable in any way.

Rob Haggart of aPhotoEditor.com has an insightful evaluation of the iPad and its implications for work, viewing photographs, and the magazine industry. Video samples of it in use as photographer’s portfolio and as a magazine e-reader are included.

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May 4th, 2010 – Update:

In addition to running aPhotoEditor.com, Rob Haggart is also the force behind aPhotoFolio.com. My site runs off his service. Rob announced yesterday that aPhotoFolio.com is the first portfolio web design company to release custom iPad versions of their members’ sites.

As seen below in the comments, regardless of where you fall on the iPad and its usefulness, having a site which re-formats itself to take advantage of the iPad is a smart move.

My web site is, as always,  jonroemer.com. To see how it re-formats itself for an iPad, view it on an iPad, or get a preview of the iPad version by going to ipad.jonroemer.com. This forces your web browser, on any computer, to launch the iPad version. It’s not as functional as it is on the iPad (you can’t swipe to move through the images or the thumbnails) but it gives a clear sense of layout and the automatic reformatting.

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano. © Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson/Arctic-images.com

This is a current photo of the volcano which is wreaking havoc with Europe’s air travel.

It seems a perfect backdrop for a groovy airbrushed mural on a 70′s van. Just add a dinosaur, an ice-age cave man and cave lady (in a fur bikini), a dragon, a Norse god and goddess, a wooly mammoth, a horse, a wizard, or Princess Leia… and then you really have something.

70′s Vans

Vans via online creative commons sources.