What Went Wrong with Kodak

David DiSalvo, on how Kodak failed to react to market forces in time:

The fall of the company that George Eastman built is perhaps the most salient commentary on the new economy in recent memory, and tells an unfortunate story about much of America’s industrial base. Monolithic, inflexible and unable to keep up with the shifts and turns of disruptive technology, once great companies like Kodak can’t survive without exhaustive restructuring. Hopefully, other U.S. companies have been watching and learning.

Moving

Sorry for the sparse updates recently. I’ve spent the last few days moving. It’s not a process I recommend; moving is incredibly disruptive, not just because it requires exceptional amounts of exertion, but because it upsets one’s routine. In a literal way, the world I woke up in yesterday is no longer the one I’ll wake up in today. It’ll take some getting used to. To commemorate the occasion, I tried my hand at some street photography last night in Harvard Square. (Again, I used my Canon 5D Mark 2 on ISO 3200.)

It’s a place that’s full of character. These photos are my brief love letter to it:

Tips from the Works of Cartier-Bresson

Eric Kim (via Vanessa) has some pretty good tips, drawn from the work of master street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Perhaps my favorite one is “stick to one lens”:

Although Henri Cartier-Bresson shot with several different lenses while on-assignment working for Magnum, he would only shoot with a 50mm if he was shooting for himself. By being faithful to that lens for decades, the camera truly became “an extension of his eye”.

Apply the same mentality to when you go out and shoot. I encourage people to use different focal lengths to see the world differently and experiment—but ultimately sticking with one focal length will help you solidify your artistic vision. You will be able to see natural framelines in your everyday life, and know exactly how your photos will appear when shooting from certain angles and distances.

There Is No Tomorrow

Some inspiring words by photography Martin Prihoda (via David Hobby):

What I realized is that putting your visions of success and happiness into the future tense really is a negation of your success and happiness right here and now. We are unhappy with how things are so we fantasize about the future and how happy we’ll be when we have our new car, house, salary, job, relationship.

But its all bullshit. You’re lying to yourself. If you can’t feel your success right here in the present moment, then you never will. It will never ever come.

Testing Botero Background #023

After viewing the Strobist Lighting Seminar DVD Box Set, I was particularly intrigued by what photographer David Hobby was able to achieve using a cheap, simple collapsible muslin background created by Botero. I decided to buy Botero Background #023 (the same one in the DVD, apparently) and try to replicate the effects that Hobby created. So, I did a quick-and-dirty setup in my living room, got my roommate Matt to pose for 10 minutes, cranked up my f-stop to minimize ambient light, and fired away. Here are the photos that resulted.

In general, I’m extremely impressed that I was able to achieve this look in my living room, which, trust me, does not resemble a photo studio in the slightest. Here are a few of my notes:

I used two flashes: one flash aimed at Matt at a 45 degree angle to his left and above, fired through a Westcott 43″ umbrella on top of a light stand. The second flash is directly behind Matt, pointing at the wall, and was triggered via infared sensor.
The different colors were achieved by putting different colored gels on top of the background flash. It is amazing what a difference a $.50 piece of see-through plastic can create!
Unfortunately, the Botero background wrinkles extremely easily, exacerbated by the fact that it is collapsible. These wrinkles are also very, very obvious in photos where the background can clearly be seen. As a result, I had to shoot at high focal lengths (using my 70-200mm) in order to make depth-of-field more shallow to achieve the kind of bokeh that minimized these wrinkles. Unfortunately, I think I overshot it a little bit; there’s some image softness in a few of these photos and I think f4 would probably have been sufficient, given how close I was to Matt
On a related note, I bought the 5×7 Botero background for $65. Apparently they sell other, much larger sizes (a 10×12 and a collapsible 8×16). I think the 5×7 is a good combination of portability and big size, but I did find myself struggling on numerous occasions to crop out the edge of the background. In other words, this background is a bit small and will constrain your options, so if you are going to shoot with the 5×7 background, you need to use a 70-200mm lens (or higher).
It was surprisingly difficult to lean the background against anything that wasn’t a wall. Anything smaller would create an uneven shape, so just keep that in mind if you’re hoping to lean this thing on a chair or something.

Overall, I’m pleased with the purchase and am glad that with just a $65 item, I have another major asset I can add to my portfolio.

Testing the Canon 5D Mark II’s Low Light Capabilities

When the White House puts out a photo of President Obama, it’s frequently taken using a Canon 5D Mark II (Example: this iconic image). It’s the same camera that Jerry Ghionis uses. It’s one of the gold standards of DSLR cameras these days, in terms of image quality.

I recently acquired a Canon 5D Mark II after the unit went on sale at Best Buy. There are many reasons to own one, but the two primary ones for me were the fact that it sports a full-frame sensor (allowing me to take full advantage of my EF lenses), and the fact that it gets amazing low light performance.

Last night, I decided to put the latter to the test. I spent some time with my friend Rachell, during which I shot a few photos at ISOs 2500 and 3200:

On the way home, I shot a local band, Cradle to the Grave, who were performing at the Plough & Stars bar in Central Square. All of these photos were shot using ISO 3200 or ISO 4000:

My thoughts? The low light performance is spectacular. It is, in fact, so good that I’m pretty irritated I have not been using this camera all along. With my Canon 7D, I top out at ISO 1600 before the images become unusable, noise-wise, for any professional context. Yet with the 5D Mark II, even the ISO 4000 images are theoretically possible to use (realistically I probably wouldn’t go higher than 3200, but it depends on the situation. We don’t always get to choose our optimal ISO levels). And as you hopefully can see above, this makes possible images that I could only dream of prior to this point.

How many images have I missed out on because I did not have this camera before now? I shudder to think on it. But I’m glad this camera and I are finally together.

[Thanks to Alex Billington for hooking me up with the 50mm f/1.4 lens used in all these images. Extremely handy for producing sharp images in very dark situations!]

The Camera Equipment I Use

In the past few months, I’ve gotten many questions about what camera bodies and lenses I use. I thought it would be useful to make a post about it, so I can just refer people to this post rather than answering the same question dozens of times. As of today (8/16/2011), here is what I own. Typically, I’ll use some combination of these bodies and lenses for any given shoot:

Camera bodies:
Canon 50D
Canon 7D
Canon 5D Mark II
Fuji X100 (fixed 23mm lens on cropped sensor)
iPhone 4 (favorite apps: OldCamera, Pano, Hipstamatic)

Camera lenses:
50mm f/1.8
50mm f/1.4
70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM II
24-70mm f/2.8

***

I’ll try to update this post as my needs and interests changes.

Shooting San Francisco

I visited San Francisco this past weekend to see some old friends and see about a job opportunity. I was able to bring my Canon 7D with me, along with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. In addition, I brought along my trusty Fuji X100 as well. The Fuji is a phenomenal travel camera — small, unassuming, attractive, and likely to spark conversation with those who see you using it:

In addition, I did a brief photo shoot with my friend Sara. We took these photos after viewing the Picasso exhibit at the de Young museum, which, btw, was breathtaking:

Sara is one of those natural beauties, a person whose posing and expressions are so sublime that they rarely needs any direction from me. I hope these photos were able to bring out that beauty.