Photography 4
Mr. & Mrs. Claus spread their magical cheer at a recent mini photo session at Balzano’s.
This past weekend Dodge + Burn Photography did a tag team-up for Small Business Saturday. We teamed up with Balzano’s restaurant in downtown Bloomsburg to do a breakfast buffet + mini photo sessions with Mr. + Mrs. Claus. Overall it went really well and the feedback was excellent. We only had a few kiddos not into it.
From a technical perspective, my wife and I were pre-planning on how best to handle the shoot; she would be shooting and I would be handling the payments, quick-editing, and delivering the photos all before the families would leave the restaurant.
One of the ways we thought we’d be efficient was to do tethered shooting. Tethered shooting is basically having a USB cable connected to your camera and to your laptop. Once she’d shoot, it’s show up in Lightroom almost immediately. This worked out awesome for this occasion. That is until I had to review our client’s photos with them while Lisa was still shooting. This proved to be very frustrating since I would be showing a photo and then once Lisa would shoot a new image, LR would then jump to that new image. So, in theory it would have been awesome if we didn’t need to review photos with anyone during the shooting.
The other step to cut down our processing time was to apply a preset during the importing process. The night before the shoot when we were doing our setup, we did some test shots for the lighting and angles and such. When we came home, I loaded those pics into Lightroom and made a custom user preset. Since the lighting and environment wasn’t going to change, we would apply this preset to each image as it was being imported into Lightroom. This was a huge time-saver for this type of shoot and I only then had to adjust the angle and cropping of some.
All in all, this was a great learning experience for the above mentioned, as well as doing speed-shoots with the big guy in the red suit.
A gallery visitor looks on at my Purdy Teeth photograph of an unauthorized public installation at the “What Are You Watching?” show at the Stairwell Gallery.
Photograph credit: Stairwell Gallery
There’s still time left to check out The Stairwell Gallery’s open-call show “Photography: The Photographic Process,” now on view at The Antler in Downtown Bloomsburg. One of my Fresh Air Fresheners is included.
The Stairwell Gallery called all artists to enter original works of art for an exhibition that revolves loosely around the photographic process. All photography including traditional and alternative darkroom processes, digital and digitally altered photographs, photo silkscreen and paintings derived from photographs, and even installation proposals were considered. This exhibition was open to all artists, regardless of levels of experience and abilities — more than three dozen have participated, from the “usual suspects” to first-time exhibitors.
Show ends Friday, April 3.
For more information visit the Moose Exchange at their website here.
DIY DSLR Shoulder Mount
I decided to make a DIY Dual Shoulder Mount for my DSLR. This all started because: (a) I have no willpower when it comes to resisting the temptation of buying new tech toys, and (b) I have a tech-pusher for a boss and he will convince me I need these things to do my job well. So, in lieu of buying an expensive camera shoulder mount, I decided to build my own.
I initially got the idea and blueprint from @ryan_conolly and Film Riot’s YouTube video found here (I suggest you check out their other great videos on video techniques, tips, and other DIY accessories). This was an excellent starting point for me, but I wanted to take it a bit further.
DIY DSLR Shoulder Mount: Detail of the Hondo Garage FIfty Dollar Follow Focus
As I was searching the interwebs for follow focus adapters, I stumbled across Hondo Garage’s aptly-titled Fifty Dollar Follow Focus. For the price, compared to other retail offerings, you couldn’t beat it. So, I ended up ordering one, as well as their Big Rig kit which included aluminum rods and a Twirl-Be-Gone anti-rotation plate and a Barely base plate. I also got an adapter for my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens here. On a side note, my rig arrived missing a few pieces due to mishandling by the USPS. After an email, Wiley at Hondo Garage responded right away and sent the missing parts out the next day. Kudos for the great customer service. Since this post is about the shoulder mount, I’ll do a review of the Fifty Dollar Follow Focus in a later post.
Other touches I put on this baby are a pair of foam bicycle grips on the handles for comfort and a small level, mounted with small magnets, attached to the mounting plate.
DIY DSLR Shoulder Mount: Detail of the camera mounting area
Here’s a list of the parts and materials used with prices:
**Note: Prices and links to products may not align as time goes on.
Base parts & materials:
- 3/4″ PVC: piping (x12′), couplers (x2), 90° elbows (x6), tee joints (x6), and caps (x4) — approximately $15.00 (Cheers to my father-in-law for spotting me some extra)
- Metal mounting plates (x3 – I put 3 of these together to compensate for the height of the 1/4″ quick release screw) — $1.80
- 3/4″ Foam pipe insulation (x6′) — $5.86
- Black Rust-Oleum Primer & Paint (for metal & plastic) (x2) — $11.82
- 2.5 lb. weight plates (x2) — $9.96 (I got these free from my brother-in-law, but this was the price I found on Amazon)
- Screws and nuts (x4 6-32×2) — $1.12
- 1/4″ Quick release screws (x1 pack of 2) — $6.99
- PVC purple primer and cement (x1 each) — $8.48 (Again, father-in-law to the rescue)
Additional flare:
- Foam handle grips (x2) — $1.73
- Small level (x1 pack of 2) — $2.98
- Magnets for level (x1 pack of 2) — $4.00
- Hondo Garage’s Big Rig — $145.00
- Hondo Garage’s Fifty Dollar Follow Focus — $50.00
- Hondo Garage’s Canon 50mm f1.8 Nifty Fifty Follow Focus Adapter — $18.11