Digital Capture Systems

The danger of buying new tech immediately

2011-03-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

It seam that the new 2011 MacBook Pro 15" & 17" models "freezes or becomes unresponsive to input when under heavy load" in fact the issue is so widespread and troublesome that an entire 'wiki' has been made for it at http://mbp-freeze.wikispaces.com/

The details of the issue is not what I want to discus here, what I want to talk about is the danger of buying new tech immediately. Apple, Canon, Nikon, Adobe and every other company on earth make a huge deal about getting you revved up to buy immediately each time they come out with a new product. Personally I dread it because when you work on set everything needs to work and work flawlessly! This is not to say that I don't like the new stuff, I just don't go out and buy it immediately, I wait to see what issues come out on the blogs, and there are almost always some issues. "Freezes or becomes unresponsive to input when under heavy load" I would be devastated if I grabbed a new MBP and jumped on a plane for say Patagonia for a 2 week long shoot only to find that every time I try and process or open a large file my computer crashes!

Personally I really like to buy refurbished Apple Computers when I can because they go threw them and test them more extensively than a just off the assembly line computer, not to mention you can save some CA$H (around $800 on the MBP above) I have not had any issues with a referb yet! I have had and dealt with many issues on new computers and they normally come to the surface pretty quick.

Mac OSX 10.6.7 now available via Software Update (backup first)

2011-03-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Time to run your Software Update but first back up your disk so if something goes wrong with the update you can revert. Be sure to read my last post "Back up before "routine" maintenance" before you do your Software Update's.

Back up before "routine" maintenance

2011-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

You can save yourself countless agony, loss and time (time is money) by backing up your system volume at key times. So may times we get a phone call and the quote is basically the same, 'my computer was working fine and now xyz is happening.' Then we spend 15-20mins going threw what the caller had been doing in the weeks, days, hours before xyz started happening, almost every time it is due to an update or new software.

The basic rule that we use is before any update, upgrade, new program installation or anything that might change the current setup of the system. NOW DON'T STOP READING. How you back up can be just as important as when you back up. Apple's Time Machine is a great consumer tool for backing up but professionals be warned. With Time Machine if you do something to your system that 'corrupts' it Time Machine will back it up AUTOMATICALLY as well. This makes getting your system easily back to it's previously peachy state difficult.

So what do you do, CLONE! We prefer Carbon Copy Cloner, Do it manually, NOT AUTOMATICALLY for the reasons above. You want a complete bootable exact copy of your disk that was made when everything was working hunky dory. So if you clone you disk when its working well, right before you update, upgrade, install a new program or do anything that might change the current setup of the system and something goes wrong or doesn't work right (which happens often). Then all you have to do is clone the back up back to your system drive and reboot and your good to go. Also once you are confident that the change to your system is stable back it up again.

Look Ma, we are on WIRED.com

2009-01-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/multimedia/2008/11/gallery_company_gear?slide=9&slideView=9

Speaking at Brooks Institute of Photography

2008-08-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

I got to speak to a class that will be graduating shortly from Brooks Institute of Photography mainly on the subject of Digital Asset Management. We basically went over most things related to computers, storage, capture, Lightroom / Aperture really anything digital, from what a scratch disk is to how to manage your files. The students were really receptive and asked really good questions and actually seamed interested!

LightSource Photography Podcast - E067 Simone

2008-08-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Check out our shout out on StudioLighting.net's Podcast on the iTunes store!

Chase Jarvis Vid

2008-08-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

For those of you who missed it! Check it out here!

In the trees with Marla Rutherford

2008-06-17T14:59:00.001-07:00

Last week we got to go to the beautiful Russian River with Marla Rutherford and the Divas from WWE. A fairly straightforward shoot, we picked up the grip and lighting from LA Photo Group, a fellow Sprinter owner and we were off to the races.

Our HD3 worked all day with out a hitch tethered to our laptop, we decided to go with the laptop for mobility sake since we needed to get 7 shots done in 8 hours. With our custom box we had all the hard drive space and battery life we could ever need. With a simple swap of hard a hard drive into the van we edited and processed out the files and the client was off to catch their flight.

Leopard, Canon, Capture One Pro Tethering Resolution

2008-05-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

This article has to do with getting Canon Camera tethering with Capture One Pro in Leopard.

Follow this file path /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type8Camera move the Type8Camera to the desktop incase you need it later, then delete the Type8Camera file from the orignal folder. If it give you the message cannot delete go to applications/utilities and open the activity monitor, in the upper right corner is a search input, search for Type8Camera, then click in the upper right corner quit process, then you can go back and delete the Type8Camera file. Open Capture one and all should be good

1Ds Mark III / WFT-E2A missing instruction!

2008-04-29T20:58:00.001-07:00

I recently got to use the canon WFT-E2A wireless transmitter, tethered via Ethernet which is great but there is a missing step that I would like to share. In the new EOS utility make sure you go under preferences and make sure you check the bottom box; Register WFT Pairing Software in Login Options.

Also FTP is faster!

Up high with Vincent Laforet

2008-04-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of working with Vincent Laforet in San Francisco. Vincents work is quite unique his high angle perspectives are very cool, you may have seen his work in National Geographic in February in the story about the drying of the west. Vincent is also a huge Aperture guy check out his video about him shooting the Chrysler Building also his article on apple about him working.

In order to capture the image for the shoot we ran two 150' cat 6 cables up to the cherry picker, the first to send the image from the 1Ds Mark III and the second so the laptop in the lift could use Apple Remote Desktop to see what was going on in the van. This way it was only the Photographer and the operator in the lift, the Art director and the clients could hang out in the van and watch the shoot.

With a 3am call time and a very limited time frame to shoot on the embarcadero being able to show up and be ready to shoot by the time we pull the parking brake, and being able to drive off seconds after the shoot is invaluable. Spend more time shooting and less time setting up and breaking down! After we finished shooting we were escorted by San Francisco's finest to Pier 34 to finish the post production.

A week with Chase Jarvis

2008-04-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

I just spent a week in San Diego with the crew at Chase Jarvis Inc. He is quite an inspirational person as well as photographer, I first ran into him at Brooks Institute of Photography when he came to speak about his photography. What impressed me was not only his photography but also his openness about the business and everything he does, a lot of photographers are very closed about how they do things for some irrational fear of someone stealing their method,. Chase Jarvis puts all this information on his blog so people can have intelligent conversations about it, and learn! I have also seen this secretive operation in the digital teching industry and I say ask us anything and we will tell you how we do it!

Chase with his #1 Scott

They don't get that much sun up in Seattle

Cody the man with the video cam

The whole crew watching the sunset at Sunset Cliffs

Chase and his wonderful Wife / Producer Kate

The Van hanging out at sunset cliffs

Working away, nothing like a 5am Call time

Its good for parties too!

I like this shot thank you Chase!

The van multitasking

The crew at the van

The Gear

2007-12-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

Dodge Sprinter EB
3000 W diesel Generator
150 Amp Alternator
4D Battery
Solar Panel
2000 W Inverter
Pioneer AVIC-N3 In-Dash Nav
XM Satellite Radio / Traffic
iPod Integration
Roof Mount AC
Microwave
Refrigerator / Freezer (Stocked)
3 Person Sofa
Ladder to roof with walkable roof rack

2 Work Stations
Mac Pro, Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
16GB (8 x 2GB) SDRAM
Mac Pro RAID Card
4x500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s (Dual Boot)
2x150GB 10000-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
One 16x SuperDrive
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
PCIe SATA Card
PCIe Firewire 800/400 Card
Mac Pro, Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
16GB (8 x 2GB) SDRAM
4x500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s (Dual Boot)
2x150GB 10000-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
One 16x SuperDrive
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
PCIe SATA Card
PCIe Firewire 800/400 Card
5x500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s RAID Tower

MacBook Pro 17" 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 3GB SDRAM

Hasselblad H2
HC 3.5/35mm
HC 2.8/80mm
HC 4/120mm
HC 4.5/300mm
Really Right Stuff L-Bracket

Leaf Aptus 75s 33 Megapixel Digital Back

Canon 1Ds MarkII 16.7 Megapixel Digital SLR
EOS EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
EOS EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
EOS EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
EOS TS-E 90mm f/2.8
EOS 580 EX
Really Right Stuff L-Bracket

Profoto B2, 2 Heads

4x Pocket Wizards
Gitzo 1348 Large Carbon Fiber Tripod
Really Right Stuff BH-55 Large Ball Head
6 C-Stands

200' Worth of Heavy Duty Extension Cord's

Tools, tape, foam core, random goodies.

Coming Soon:

Phase One P45+

Mamiya 645AFD

The Van Has Arrived!

2007-12-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

After a long wait and much preparation the van is ours. I drove it home to Fresno last night and it drove nice despite the wind and the Grapevine didn't slow it down at all. It is ready to roll. We are going to spend the next few days just shooting it for promos. Keep tuned in for updates.

The Van it so close

2007-11-18T08:23:00.000-08:00

Van Update

2007-11-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

The van is coming along well.

The Proper Care & Feeding Of: CF Cards

2007-11-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

Ok so everyone always asks me how to deal with certin issues, so I am going to start a new series, "The Proper Care & Feeding Of:..."

Everyone always brings me CF cards and bats their eyes at me and ad asks, "can you get the images off this for me." I always feel bad for them and say yes, but I always give them the CF card speech.

Choosing a CF card seams simple but there are a few things you should consider. Canon cameras do not like Lexar cards; this is my biggest customer, people that use Lexar cards with Canon cameras almost like clockwork bring me there cards. If you don't believe me just google lexar canon. Do not use to big of a card, when we used to shoot with film we would change out a roll of film at most ever 36 frames, so if you lost a roll of film you would not lose the whole job. I am not saying get cards so small that you need to change it out every 36 frames but don't get a 8GB card with a 40D. I like to get around 100 Images on a card. Also keep in mind that the High end Canon's and Nikon's have two card slots and you can shot to both of them at once, so you are backed up at the source. Somf you don't need speed a micro drive is much more stable than a CF card.

The simplest advice is as soon as you buy them organize them! I don't know how many time I have seen people trying to figure out if they have used the card or not. It is simple, just put a number on the back 1 to whatever and when you start shooting always start with number 1.

Before shooting you should do a few things. Format the card on your computer, use apples disk utility to format the card as an MS-DOS file system, this is the base system on the card before you format the card in camera. I do this before ever shoot, if I need to reuse the card during the shoot after downloading it I just reformat it in camera.

During shooting, make sure you formant it in camera every time you use it, don't just delete all, and don't pick and chose what files you want to delete, in my experience this is what tends to corrupt cards the most. Do not fill up the card! The way that the camera determines how many images can be stored on the card is by estimation, since file sizes vary if your last image is larger than the estimation it can lock up the card as well.

After shooting, do not browse the card, if you use an application to browse the card it can attempt to write files to the card and lock it up. Download the cards and make a copy on an external drive ASAP.

When storing your cards I recommend a good sealing card storage container like Gepe, do not just throw the card in your pocket or bag, the contact points for the card are in the tiny holes you don't want to get stuff in them.

When things go wrong don't try and reuse your card, just place it back in your card holder and continue shooting with another card. When you get back to your computer you can get the images off 3 out of 4 times. There is a bunch of software and services out there to recover your CF cards, the one that I have found to be the best is Data Rescue from Prosoft. The reason that I like this software is not only can it do CF cards but it can do hard drives as well, if you want you can get the Drive Genius + Data Rescue package, it comes with a whole host of tools that are great for digital photographers.

The coolest, or scariest thing I have seen in a while.

2007-10-30T17:10:00.001-07:00

LiveRetouch.com is service that allows you to send in your files or slides. They do the the workflow, key wording, photoshop, printing, just about anything that you can think of. This is cool for photographers, but it farms out a lot of the work that is traditionally done by assistants. Also the work is done on the cheep the retouching services start out at $5!!! So the retouchers that get paid good money better get ready to change their lifestyle, or is this just a passing fad?

Cannon Recall

2007-10-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

Canon Pulled its unsold 1D Mark III's today because of the autofocus issue. I guess canon decided that X is more than the cost of a recall (read below!)

INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - IN FLIGHT - NIGHT

Jack sits next to a frumpy WOMAN. They chat. Jack turns to
look at his food, takes a bite. He turns back and it's...

--a BALD MAN next to him, talking. Jack takes another bite,
turns back and it's...

--a BUSINESSMAN next to him. Jack takes another bite, turns
back, and it's...

--a BUSINESS WOMAN next to him.

JACK (V.O.)
The people I meet on each flight --
they're single-serving friends.
Between take-off and landing, we have
our time together, but that's all we
get.

INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - LANDING

Jack's eyes snap open.

JACK (V.O.)
You wake up at Logan.

INT. WAREHOUSE - CONTINUOUS

A giant corrugated METAL DOOR opens.

JACK (V.O.)
On a long enough time line, the
survival rate for everyone drops to
zero.

Two TECHNICIANS lead Jack to the BURNT-OUT SHELL of a
WRECKED AUTOMOBILE. Jack sets down his briefcase, opens it
and starts to make notes on a CLIPBOARDED FORM.

JACK (V.O.)
I'm a recall coordinator. My job is
to apply the formula. It's a story
problem.

TECHNICIAN #1
Here's where the infant went through
the windshield. Three points.

JACK (V.O.)
A new car built by my company leaves
somewhere traveling at 60 miles per
hour. The rear differential locks up.

TECHNICIAN #2
The teenager's braces around the
backseat ashtray would make a good
"anti-smoking" ad.

JACK (V.O.)
The car crashes and burns with
everyone trapped inside. Now: do we
initiate a recall?

TECHNICIAN #1
The father must've been huge. See
how the fat burnt into the driver's
seat with his polyester shirt? Very
"modern art."

JACK (V.O.)
Take the number of vehicles in the
field, (A), and multiply it by the
probable rate of failure, (B), then
multiply the result by the average
out-of-court settlement, (C). A
times B times C equals X...

CUT TO:

INT. AIRPLANE CABIN - MOVING DOWN RUNWAY

Jack is speaking to the BUSINESSWOMAN next to him.

JACK
If X is less than the cost of a
recall, we don't do one.

BUSISNESS WOMAN
Are there a lot of these kinds of
accidents?

JACK
Oh, you wouldn't believe.

BUSINESS WOMAN
... Which... car company do you work
for?

JACK
A major one.

Leopard ZERO disk Space available issue

2007-10-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting doing some image editing and my computer tells me that I have no disk space left! After doing some investigating online I found this thread on apples Support, but it was not very helpful, assuming we had the same problem, they thought that it had to do with the cover flow cache (as did I at first). After doing some investigating I found the incredibly large 120GB file at this path your-disk/users/username/library/filesync, the file that is in there was a file for .mac iDisk syncing. It appears that Leopard has an issue with its iDisk syncing. This is a minor issue that I am sure they will have resolved soon!.

Is Apple Hardware brass on the Titanic?

2007-10-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Is apple Hardwear doomed? You can put Tiger on a PC. With Apple hardwear being so expensive and the ability to install OSX on a PC is this the begenning of the end for the Mac!?

[OSx36]

Do a fresh install of tiger, OR ELSE!!!

2007-10-27T16:41:00.001-07:00

Do a fresh install of tiger or else you run the risk of the dreaded blue screen. Also don't forget to do a compleat backup, many people just the gun and get to antious to install new stuff, but always back up first!

[The Apple Thread]

Leopard Arrives

2007-10-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

Leopard rocks on the Intel! But if anyone have any issues lets talk post them! I ran it threw the ringer today with the following: Lightroom, Aperture, CS3, Leaf Capture 11, C1Pro, EOS Capture, and Live, I have not had any crash Issues. The RSS function in Mail is Awesome, and Spaces is too cool for tech's. Over all the system feels faster and more importantly smoother.

Two machines tested:

MacBook Pro: 2.33 Ghz Intel, 3 GB Ram

Mac Pro: Quad Core 3.0 Ghz Intel, 8 GB Ram