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11 Mar

Posted at 09:13h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Get someone to write your speech for you. If you pay them enough they can make you sound like you know what you are doing. Okay, that's cynical, but consider the results of  getting up to make an extempore address and losing the plot in two sentences. You might not be able to avoid disaster four drinks into a wedding speech, but if you are vlogging or doing other recording whilst in control of the machinery, you can get help started your way before you open your mouth. We've all seen the tele-prompter machines that allow politicians to speak sincerely and directly into a camera, while reading the whole thing from a screen in front of them. The professional rigs are big and evident. Now you can get a tiny version for your own productions. You can appear good and sincere, on camera, and stay on-script. The Desview T1 Tele-prompter can present your thoughts, or the thoughts of your writers, to you as you are being filmed. You'll look focused and intelligent. The trick is a mirror that is partially front-silvered. It is mounted...

09 Mar

Posted at 08:45h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

There it was. Stuck on the accessory wall between stuff that hasn't sold yet and the stuff that might never sell.  The thing that we all should buy. I have an IKEA box at home on the shelf that contains the tools I need to survive photography. These used to be a sixpence, a film tongue retriever, and a blower brush. I have long sold the film retriever at the second-hand markets, the blower brush has perished, and the sixpence is now a 5-cent piece. But they have been replaced by a horrid collection of stuff. See the heading image...

07 Mar

Posted at 09:41h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

My video adolescence is proceeding apace and I have come to the point of considering the rig. It is, at least, a mechanical thing, and understandable. Briefly, it is the framework about which I might construct a confection of accessories to make the video camera experience work. Not a mental framework, nor a virtual one - a real metal structure. There are many makers of these items, but one of the best is the Smallrig people. They cast and mill custom designs in China for many different camera and lens combinations.  Not just new cameras - they have been doing this for a good deal of time. Older cameras may well be accommodated in their system. I pulled one from the Camera Electronic video cabinet without noting which camera it serves. The basic structures are very similar, with the chief differences being the angles of the aluminium cage and the fitments on the bottom for the specific camera. The work is extremely precise and well-finished. There are signs of thought in the design - a legacy of a number of past designs. Basically it...

04 Mar

Posted at 09:32h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Do you know who Bluestockings were? Go look it up. Then find a novel by Sarah Fielding and read it. It won't have photography in it, but you'll be on your way to literacy. In the meantime have a look at the Leofoto tripods in Camera Electronic. The ones hanging on the tripod hooks with the silver-coloured leg locks. Both the smaller and larger Poseidon models are quite beautiful - a term we seldom use for the everyday devices that make up photography. We might regard a camera or a lens as such, but we seldom extend the compliment to tripods and accessories. The advertising spiel for the Poseidon series mentions sea-water resistance conferred by titanium and silicon rubber parts. Certainly the main tubes in that gorgeous blue are carbon fibre. The surprise is when to unlock and discover that it's blue all the way up, Folks. Note that Benbo tripods used to resist seawater too - by the simple expedient of building their tubes upside down and sealed on the bottom. We sold one to a marine biologist who loved it for just...

25 Feb

Posted at 09:49h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Not if you're me, you can't. Nor can you see as well, nor so far nor as closely and finely. In fact, the little batteried box with the glass on the front can beat nearly all of us when it comes to vision and memory. This is a humbling thought for we monarchs of creation, but we've brought it on ourselves by creating photography. Be of good cheer - the camera and lens need not be your master if you enter into a bargain with it; you tell it what to do, and how to do it, and give it the freedom to operate. Reserve the rest of the artistic process for yourself. The camera cannot tell you what you are interested in recording - the closest it can come to this is to provide program icons that suggest activity or vision; sports, parties, portraits, etc. These are just shortcuts it suggests that might ( ...

24 Feb

Posted at 10:43h in News by [social_share]

Sydney, Australia, February 16, 2022 - BenQ, internationally renowned brand of digital lifestyle devices and innovator of professional display technology, announced it has become the world’s first stand-alone displays to achieve Pantone SkinTone Validated* for selected DesignVue PD (PD3205U / PD2705U) and PhotoVue SW models (SW321C / SW240). *Please visit here for more information “Having forged AQCOLOR Technology to deliver accurate colours for the global community of colour professionals, we look forward to incorporating Pantone SkinTone Validated for technology products that are more inclusive than ever,” said Grace Tran, BenQ Australia and New Zealand Product Marketing Manager. “Pantone SkinTone Validated gives designers and photographers confidence in displaying authentic real-world colours and accurately representing the world’s palette of skin tones.” Leveraging the Pantone SkinTone guide, the first science-based system for matching and reproducing human skin tones, the program comprises 110 discrete skin tones based on thousands of human skin measurements from a diverse range of ethnicities and age groups. As an extension to the Pantone Validated program, Pantone SkinTone Validated assures colour professionals that certified devices comply with the Pantone Matching System (PMS) and...

23 Feb

Posted at 08:11h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

No matter where you are. If your device can receive a signal you've paid for, you can watch your favourite show. There is an intriguing shelf at Wanderlust on the right side of the shop. It contains digital projectors - but not the big industrial ones that you see in lecture halls and theatre venues. These are smaller, personal devices that project an image for a small audience. There's the word - small - think in terms of a couple two, three people sitting around a table or lounge. If there's a big TV screen to watch, fair enough. But if there is only a laptop, tablet, or mobile phone screen then some of the watchers are going to miss out - and they will all likely be straining to hear the sound. Let's not forget social distancing, either. These projectors are designed to throw an image onto a subsidiary screen. This can be as sophisticated as an Ektalite surface or as simple as a plain white wall. Some have screen included. They have to have enough brightness to overcome ambient lighting -...

21 Feb

Posted at 08:24h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Well, let's be honest with ourselves - they've been doing that since their first Photoshop program. And we've grumbled about it as we learned what their odd words and commands meant. But this time Adobe can give us good advice. A lot of people use Lightroom to process their images - even if they do not fiddle with them later in any of the other Adobe programs. They get up a library of whatever the latest shoot is, throw out the duds, and clean up the rest. Then they sort and send the resultant images to other areas for storage, printing, or delivery. The lucky people who have discovered Loupedeck + do this with great ease and can power through large jobs a lot faster than the mouse jockeys. Ask me, I know. The best day I had in the last decade was the one when I saw the Loupedeck+ at a PhotoLive event. I watched a friend buy one and when I knew it wasn't dangerous, I followed suit. CE sell 'em...