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You are here: Blog > Blog > 2009 > July

Canon Releases Quarterly Earnings Report; Industry Still Looks Bleak

July

30

Canon has released its earning report for the second quarter today, and the results proved that the photography industry is also taking huge hits from the current economic crisis.

Compared to the same period of last year, sales were down to 28.2 percent all across the company—causing the company’s profits to nosedive to a whopping 72 percent. Camera sales are 20.7 percent less: Canon’s point-and-shoot products, the PowerShot line in particular, hasn’t been selling well.

There is a bright spot in this otherwise dark news, though: DSLR sale trends are actually up. According to Canon, the EOS 5D Mark OO and the EOS Digital Rebel T1i units have been selling well. A small portion of the company, but good news for investors all the same.

canon-rebel-official-pic-rm-eng

The company predicts that their earning performance will improve by the end of this year, but a full recovery isn’t expected until 2010.

View Canon’s report here.

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Who is Harry How?

July

29

Harry began with no photography background, but he had the drive and the perseverance, and he pursued a profession he would truly enjoy.

Today, Harry is a very successful sports photographer.  No matter what professional level you are at, new or have been around for awhile, you will gain something from Harry. So let’s spend a few minutes listening to Harry’s video.

Then come back to this blog to get some ideas. And share some of your own thoughts and experiences.

[pro-player width='530' height='253' type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25WmoFKNADU[/pro-player]

Okay now you that have listened to the video, let’s open this up for discussion about Harry’s topics.

1.  Building Your Portfolio
So Harry talked about the importance of building a portfolio. Let’s think about what actually needs to be in your portfolio. Your images, date of images, location and the type of event. And if your images were published in any print media such as the school newspaper, community newspaper and so forth. Make sure you get a copy of that publication for your own files.

So where do you go to get images for your portfolio. Contact your local high school and college coaches for upcoming sport events. Introduce yourself and use that opportunity to shoot at a variety of sport events. In exchange, offer to give them a few pictures to print in their school newspaper/newsletter. This is a win-win situation. Especially for you because you get images and you get published.

Let’s be a little different: you can go to elementary schools, talk to the principals and see if you can get some shots of kids playing soccer or other outdoor physical activities. Gather some of your friends for a weekend of fun photography–get some pictures of them water skiing, snow skiing, running a local race for a cause, skating, bowling, on large water slides, bumper cars, roller coasters–you get the idea.

2. Finding Your Mentor
First make sure you always have business cards because you may run into that photographer or editor who is at one of your events and who is interested and willing to critique your work. If they do not have a card to give you, then you can use your own business card to write down their contact information. This sounds trivial, but it is important.

It is typical for people to go directly to the top ten magazine editors to find a mentor. Well, good luck, coz chances are they are too busy to help you. I think it is always a good idea to develop a relationship with two mentors. They’ll look at your images with different perspectives and come up with different criticisms about your work.

Here are some ways to find mentors:  Contact a small or large newspaper editor; college professor of film, or an established diversified photographer.

3.  Having the Right Equipment
Harry does a great job letting you know exactly what you are going to need in the beginning to keep your expenses at a minimum. The bottom line says Harry is get a good camera, a good lens and a good zoom to get those images that will land your first job.  It will all pay off!

Now share your thoughts and ideas on any of these three areas.

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Hasselblad CFV-39 digital back

July

27

Are you a Hasselblad camera lover? If you are, you’ll probably love this news. Hasselblad’s answer to digital SLRs (which has been mushrooming every few months for the past years) was unveiled last June—the new Hasselblad CFV-39 digital back. This camera matches the design and application of Hasselblad V cameras, and can transform any camera to a digital photography gadget.hasselbladcfv_39

The CFV-39 has a sensor that’s a hundred percent larger than those of leading DSLRs today, and has a digital lens correction feature for Carl Zeiss lenses. This lens correction technology was possible through Phocus, an image processing software that’s compatible to both Mac and Windows.

Product manager Peter Stig says that “Quickly and easily, the Hasselblad CFV-39 can transform a V System film camera into a high-performance digital camera. Just snap on a charged battery, insert a CF card, add the back, and you’re ready to shoot.”

Here’s a list of some of the CFV-39’s features:

  • The Hasselblad Natural Color Solution gives a generic profile that delivers true colors.
  • Cable-free operation. The 202 FA, 203 FE, and 205 FCC are fully supported. Other 200 and 2000 series models can be used with C-type lenses only.
  • F and FE lenses work smoothly with the CFV-39 using 202FA, 203FE and 205TCC/FCC, though the camera might require slight modification.
  • Select from two image formats: square (29 megapixel, 5412×5412) and rectangular (39 megapixel, 5412×7212 pixels).
  • A sensor 100 percent larger than a full-frame 35mm DSLR sensor.
  • Store images in a CF card or computer hard drive.
  • Store images captured with a Hasselblad camera quickly, effectively, and safely in the available media in a Hasselblad raw file format, 3F RAW (3FR).
  • Open 3FR files directly in Photoshop CS4 and Aperture on Mac OS-X, and directly convert to Adobe’s DNG (Digital NeGative).
  • A full set of metadata (capture conditions, keywords and copyright, facilitating image asset management solutions) are kept in the image files.
  • Capture rate of 1.4 sec per capture with 39 captures per minute.
  • ISO speeds range from 50 to 800.

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At Long Last, an Invisible Flash!

July

25

Every photographer knows how crucial good lighting is when taking photos. Natural light is a great help, but unfortunately, it’s not always there, so photographers use flash. The thing with flash, though, is that it can be quite intrusive—especially if you’re trying to catch a candid moment. Well, that might change in a few months or years.

An Associate Professor at New York University, Rob Fergus, and a first-year student from the same school, Dilip Krishnan, developed a device that emits invisible light. Dubbed the “dark flash,” actually has a wider range than normal flashes do.

Still, the “dark flash” still has a few kinks: the photos it takes are monochromatic, some blind spots, etc. Rob and Dilip took two exposures to get around the first problem. One is taken with the “dark flash,” and the other without it (using ambient light). The second exposure retains color information lost in the first. The two exposures are then reconstructed.

dark-flash

Sure, the photos lose too much information for this flash to be of any use now, but who can tell? In a few years (maybe even months) these kinks may be rectified and taking photos with flash will never have to be as intrusive as it is now.

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Canon Launches Hybrid IS (Image Stabilizer)

July

23

Canon, one of the leading camera manufacturers today, has announced that they’ve been developing a new optical image stabilizer which will compensate for two kinds of camera shake—the first in the world.

Considering how bulky most professional cameras are today, it’s nearly impossible to hold a camera perfectly still while shooting, especially when the subject is moving (like in sports photography). Other IS features compensates for one kind camera shake only. The Canon Hybrid IS (Image Stabilizer) counteracts the errors caused by the two types of camera movement: angle camera shake, and shift camera shake. Angle camera shake can cause drastic changes when shooting in standard, while shift camera shake is more visible in macro photography and other close-range shooting. Camera shakes occur when the camera moves while its shutter is open, and its image sensor is exposed to light. The result is often blurred or unfocused subjects. canon-hybrid-is

Canon has been studying methods to correct camera shake errors since 1980s. This company is the first to launch a single lens reflex camera that features such a mechanism in 1995, the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Canon has produced a total of 21 such lenses with image stabilization capabilities since.

The Canon Hybrid IS feature will be available in interchangeable single lens reflex (SLR) camera lens released before the end of July 2009.

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Alex Dejong: Beyond the Blindness

July

22

Wanna know what true passion is? It’s when you lose something vital to something you love, and instead of giving up, you find ways to keep doing it.

Many people will probably say that a photographer is nobody without his eyesight. But if they do, then they probably haven’t met Alex Dejong.

Alex lost his eyesight because of a brain tumor three years ago. But thanks to technology, Alex’s blindness doesn’t get in the way of doing what he loves best: taking photos. Alex created a visual image from sounds using assistive software (a voice app that his smartphone, Nokia N82, supports), then takes the shot with his Leica or Canon.

Alex Dejong

Because of his handicap, Alex can’t edit his own photos so he hired an assistant to edit his photos for him. But Apple’s iPhone 3G changed all that. iPhone has a feature called VoiceOver, which reads the icons the user’s finger touches. Because of that, using photo-editing apps enables Alex to perform some editing tasks he couldn’t do before.

Alex says “Even if I don’t see the output myself, I still want to have my hand in everything that I do as a photographer.”

If that’s not passion, we don’t know what is.

View Alex’s awesome gallery here.

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Walter Iooss—4 Decades of Photography, Published (Part 4)

July

21

After 40 years of taking photos of the biggest names in sports, Walter Iooss surely has a lot of things he can publish.

And publish he did. By now, Walter already has several photography books, most of which showcase the fruits of his hard work and perseverance over the years, and some are collaborative works with some sports legends (like his work with Michael Jordan on the book Rare Air: Michael on Michael). Here’s a few of Walter’s books:

Classic Baseball – The Photographs of Walter Iooss Jr. – 40 years’ worth of classic baseball images, with commentary of Pulitzer Prize winner, Dave Anderson.

Sporting Life – bits and pieces of Walter’s journal, which chronicles his life as a photographer, collage-style. It contains an assortment of knick-knacks he has gathered from his profession over the years ( 150 photos and illustrations, various newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, etc.). Photos of his most famous subjects like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Muhammad Ali, are also featured in this book.

Sports People – Pro and amateur sports personalities are featured in this book, along with essays about each subject.

Diamond Dreams: Thirty Years of Baseball Through the Lens of Walter Iooss – a 135-photo collection of Walter’s best baseball shots. This book’s introduction was written by Tom Boswell, a sportswriter.

Walter Iooss: A Lifetime Shooting Sports & Beauty – a collection of Walter’s work through the years, which includes not just sports icons, but various personalities like Sugar Ray Leonard,Ken Griffey, and Paulina Porizkova. This book shows his versatility: Walter’s excellence is not confined to a baseball, football, or basketball court. Anywhere he goes and no matter who he photographs, he gets the perfect shot.

Sports Illustrated: Athlete – a rather unorganized portfolio of Walter’s work for Sports Illustrated. The photos are not arranged in any manner, and the only identification you’ll get is Walter’s brief descriptions of some of the shots sprinkled throughout the book. The introduction was written by Michael Jordan, who Walter has worked with a few times.

You’ll notice that instead of the usual jargon-filled, technical photography books, Walter’s publications are more visual than descriptive. And the thing is, no words are needed when looking at Walter’s photographs. No tech-talk needed: Walter’s photos are enough to teach, and more importantly, inspire budding photographers who looks at his books.

Walter Iooss

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Walter Iooss–Just Like Dad (Part 3)

July

19

Like most boys tend to, Walter Iooss picked up one of his old man’s hobbies—photography.

Not knowing how it’s going to change his life, Walter tagged along his dad at football games. His father, Walter Iooss Sr., who was a “big Brooklyn Dodger fan,” owned a lot of photography equipment back in the ‘50s. One football game was all it took, and Walter was hooked. His father let him photograph a football game one afternoon, processed the film they used (a black-and-white Kodak Tri-X film), and the rest, as they say, was history. Or in Walter’s words: “And it was epiphany.”

His father was quick to realize that Walter had a real knack for photography. Noticing that his son really enjoyed taking photos, he encouraged him, and before long, Walter went from taking photos of his friends playing baseball and football to photographing his sports heroes: Johnny Unitas (Baltimore Colts), Mickey Mantle (New York Yankees), and Raymond Berry (also from Baltimore Colts).

It was a wistful, nostalgic day for Walter when he finally met Johnny Unitas in 1999, when he was assigned to shoot him for a cover of Sports Illustrated (SI). “I photographed the great Johnny Unitas at 15 or 16, and finally met him years later—he was the last of my boyhood heroes,” he says.

Johnny Unitas by Iooss

A few years after he started being a shutterbug, Walter attained some formal education in photography: he attended the German School of Photography, which was located in New York City. Walter spent his summer break learning about accelerated photography fundamentals in this school.

His talent and his perseverance bore fruit early: at 17, Walter got his first professional assignment. He was sent by Sports Illustrated (SI) during the summer of that year to photograph an 80-year-old sailor, but his first major assignment from the magazine came in September, 1961. SI sent him to photograph Roger Maris’ 61st home run—a feat that broke Baby Ruth’s record at the Yankee Stadium.

Walter has since photographed many Sports heroes, including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, among some. His profession has taken him to various places around the world, like Thailand (for Fuji’s project) and Cuba (for a photo essay in SI). Walter believes that in photography, the person taking the shots needs to constantly push his limits, because “People are looking for something edgier all the time.”

Walter currently lives in New York with his wife Eva. And just like him, their sons Christian and Bjorn also picked up their father’s love for photography. Christian is a photo editor for Golf World and Bjorn is now a photography major in Rhode Islands School of Design.

Part 2 – Catching the Essence Part 1 – 4 Decades of Taking \”Perfect Photos\”

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Workshops in a Book

July

18

We know it takes time and money to attend professional workshops.  You may be fortunate to be a staff photographer, and if so, these workshops are usually your perks.  But if you are independent and living on a modest salary, these classes may not be fit it in your schedule or your budget.

One of Blinq’s goals is to provide you with useful and reliable resources. So we will do the crawling for you so you do not have to search through millions of links trying to find a useful webinar, podcast or webcast, or even a book. That’s right, a workshop in a book!  Oddly enough,  I was thinking how nice it would be if there was a workshop in a book.   Good thing, there’s a very good one.

Dave Black has been sports photographer for thirty years.  He’s made a name for himself through his passion of teaching. He has a great online tutorial called “Workshop at the Ranch,”and you can also attend one of his upcoming workshops in the USA. Dave has done a wonderful job covering all the bases for workshops–online, on-site, or in a book.

Dave recently self-published a book called “The Way I See it.” What makes this book so different from others is that it is written in the format of a workshop.  So instead of sitting at a workshop for hours, you get fifty pages of beautiful, instructive photos.  Dave took the time to find out the needs from his thousands of followers so he could write a book that would inform and inspire photographers.

A nice way to use Dave’s book is to gather some of your photography buddies and go through each section together as a round table discussion.  Plan a monthly rendezvous for each section.  This way, information overload will be avoided, which often occurs at these weekend workshops. Most try to cram in too much new information and can hardly retain any of it.  This book can be used in a very advantageous way for you.  A monthly or bi-weekly session using Dave’s workshop book  will trigger fresh ideas and you can share information. Definitely mutually beneficial.  And you will walk away refreshed.

On the topic of self-publishing- the next blog will touch on some ideas and thoughts about writing and self-publishing your own photography book or ebook someday.

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Walter Iooss—Catching the Essence (Part 2)

July

17

You know you’re good at what you do (in this case, taking photos) when well-known publications like Sports Illustrated (SI) trust you to take pictures of big-shot sports superstars (Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan among some).

Walter worked for SI for more than 20 years. From that, we can deduce that Walter truly has the talent and passion for what he does; because you can’t shoot the same athletes and same kind of events for more than two decades, and still be able to produce out-of-the-ordinary results every single time, if you don’t have the skill, and more importantly, the heart to do the job. Walter is so good at what he does that more than 300 of his photos were used as SI covers.

One of his most remarkable photos that he took for SI is one of Michael Jordan, where the legendary basketball hero was dunking a ball amidst a blue-painted floor. Walter actually had a parking lot painted half blue and half red, since he didn’t know what color uniform Michael would show up in.

“I had the idea to paint this parking lot blue. I also trucked in an NBA-regulation basket that I could move to create a shadow where I wanted one. I stood in a cherry picker, some 20 or 30 feet above the ground, and looked straight down, waiting for the right light with a camera that took 14 frames a second. Michael has young legs back then and could fly. Not only do you see his beautiful form from above, but you also see the same image from the side, in his shadow. Of all the pictures I’ve taken of him, it’s my favorite. It was just so unusual; no one had quite gone there before,” Walter says. And true enough, Walter goes to great lengths and “goes where no one has gone before” continuously, and the photos he takes, as a result, is always astounding.

Michael Jordan in full flight
Michael Jordan in full flight

 

In 1992, Walter talked to Michael Jordan about a photo essay he had in mind. Fortunately, the Chicago Bulls superstar agreed. Iooss successfully captured the basketball hero in all his glory, but also managed to show him as an ordinary human, and not just a point-making, basketball machine. In his autobiography (the photos of which are all shot by Walter Iooss) Rare Air: Michael on Michael, Michael talks about the things that the trappings of being a basketball god often conceals: his passion for basketball, his competitive attitude, and his devotion to his family. Aside from including notes from Michael himself, the photos in this book grant us a brief peek into the many facets of Michael’s life: on the golf course, on the court, with his wife, and in the bubble bath with his kids.

Walter Iooss with MJ
Walter Iooss with MJ

 

Superstar as he is, there are plenty of books have been written (and will be written) about Michael. But only in this book is his life so simply—but so completely—encapsulated. And that’s the mark of a true photographer—Walter doesn’t just take the shot; he wholly depicts the essence of the subject he photographs.

Part 3 – Just Like Dad

Part 1 – 4 Decades of Taking \”Perfect Photos\”

 

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