TWiP #259 – A Wider Aperture

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Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Derrick Story, Dan Ablan, Nicole Young

Episode Overview

Apple releases new hardware and updates to Aperture at WWDC, Canon rolls out two new STM lenses, and Leica makes a $50,000 Limited Edition camera. We also dig into the topic of whether it's better to specialize or generalize in photography.

Once again we've reverted back to recording the show using Skype due to some concerns with the audio coming from G+. If we can get the audio out of G+ to match what our audience has become accustomed to, we will go back.

This week:

Aperture gets a significant update (6:30)
Apple adds a retina display to the MacBook Pro (12:30)
Canon releases two new STM lenses (33:30)
Leica announces a $50,000 Limited Edition Camera (43:30)
Is it better to specialize or generalize in your photography? (48:50)

Derrick Story, Dan Ablan, and Nicole Young join Frederick Van Johnson to discuss these topics and more on this week's episode of TWiP.

We record TWiP every Wednesday at 6pm Pacific, so be sure to circle Frederick on Google+ to catch the show. *Note that this week's show was recorded as an audio only show while we work out some things on the technical end to improve the audio quality of the recordings via Google Hangouts.

1. Apple adds retina displays to the MacBook Pro

2. Aperture gets an update

3. Canon rolls out new STM lenses

4. Leica announces a $50K Limited Edition camera

Derrick Story: New MacBook Pro 15″ Retina Display

Dan Ablan: Photoshop Compositing Secrets by Matt Kloskowski

Nicole Young: Gelaskins

Frederick Van Johnson: Apple Aperture ($79)

Please Support our Sponsors:

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Connect with Our Hosts & Guests:

Derrick Story: http://www.thedigitalstory.com or Twitter or Google+

Dan Ablan: http://about.me/danablan or Twitter or Facebook

Nicole Young: http://www.nicolesyblog.com or Twitter or Google+

Frederick Van Johnson: www.mediabytes.com or www.twitter.com/frederickvan or Google+

Credits:

Pre-production by: Bruce Clarke
Post production by: Suzanne Llewellyn
Bandwidth provided by: Cachefly
Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro
Photo Credit: Apple

Hey Frederick, great episode. I was really interested in listening to your discussion in response to the question about the shoot everything photographer, and how Nicole talked about splitting your brand. I am a Taipei based photographer, and because of attracting various clients have had to split my brand multiple times. My business partner and I often talk about your “bread and butter” type of shots. Where it may not be the coolest or most adventurous shots, but they cover all your basic income needs, and you should still take them. For us this is mainly kids, simple portraits, maternity shots..things of that nature. We also get hired by numerous airline magazines, and work with some large clients like Greenpeace, who are looking for environmental portraits and editorial work. Our personal work consists of a lot fashion, and finally we shoot a lot of events, and kind of dirty nightlife “fun” documentation. How do you reconcile shooting a pregnant mom all day, then stay out till 4 am shooting drunk people, and then wake up and shoot an anti pesticides campaign? Well, what we have done is created two distinct portfolios on our site ( http://www.upagainstthewall.asia ) One highlighting fashion and studio work, and another that showcases the more editorial work that we do, as these are our most desirable candidates. But then we have all these awesome, fun, party pictures that sometimes garner clients as well, and we found that these clients often come from word of mouth, so we have a gallery on our site that is password protected, that show all the other things. Finally the last thing that we do, and I think is quite useful, is when we are approached to shoot the “bread and butter” shots, we will tailor make a gallery showing specific images based on what the client is looking for, and then password it with their name, which lets them know we are taking there requests seriously and starts the whole transaction off in a good way. That is how we handle the multiple personality syndrome that occurs so often in photographers lives. Thanks again!!

11 Comments

MsJeni says:

June 16, 2012 at 12:37 pm

Hey Fred, I’m still using my G9… So you are in good company. 😉
Joe Brown says:

June 16, 2012 at 2:51 pm

This week’s show was great. I wish you would have elaborated a bit more about the Auto ISO question. I’m using the 5DMK2 and I wonder if I can truly set Shutter and Aperture, and have the camera choose the ISO it needs. Or, in manual do you have to choose all three numbers for the exposure?
1. David says:
  
  June 19, 2012 at 2:47 pm
  
  Auto ISO on the 5D2 is very limited compared to other cameras. You can use it in aperture priority mode, for example, and it will give you a shutter speed of roughly 1/focal length. But you can’t use it in manual mode and you can’t limit it very much.
2. Martin Baker says:
  
  June 29, 2012 at 12:59 am
  
  Hi. I raised the Auto-ISO question. Thrilled just a get a question on the show! I’ve got an article on my web site debating Auto-ISO in some detail here: https://www.everythingd7000.co.uk/1478/debating-auto-iso/
  Although it’s geared towards the Nikon D7000, it should answer a lot of your questions. If not leave a comment on the post.
  Hope that helps!
Joedotbrown says:

June 16, 2012 at 2:56 pm

I do plan to listen again, so maybe what I’m asking was in fact addressed. Thanks for the podcast – it’s really good.
Up Against The Wall says:

June 17, 2012 at 8:20 am

Hey Frederick, great episode. I was really interested in listening to your discussion in response to the question about the shoot everything photographer, and how Nicole talked about splitting your brand. I am a Taipei based photographer, and because of attracting various clients have had to split my brand multiple times. My business partner and I often talk about your “bread and butter” type of shots. Where it may not be the coolest or most adventurous shots, but they cover all your basic income needs, and you should still take them. For us this is mainly kids, simple portraits, maternity shots..things of that nature. We also get hired by numerous airline magazines, and work with some large clients like Greenpeace, who are looking for environmental portraits and editorial work. Our personal work consists of a lot fashion, and finally we shoot a lot of events, and kind of dirty nightlife “fun” documentation. How do you reconcile shooting a pregnant mom all day, then stay out till 4 am shooting drunk people, and then wake up and shoot an anti pesticides campaign? Well, what we have done is created two distinct portfolios on our site ( http://www.upagainstthewall.asia ) One highlighting fashion and studio work, and another that showcases the more editorial work that we do, as these are our most desirable candidates. But then we have all these awesome, fun, party pictures that sometimes garner clients as well, and we found that these clients often come from word of mouth, so we have a gallery on our site that is password protected, that show all the other things. Finally the last thing that we do, and I think is quite useful, is when we are approached to shoot the “bread and butter” shots, we will tailor make a gallery showing specific images based on what the client is looking for, and then password it with their name, which lets them know we are taking there requests seriously and starts the whole transaction off in a good way. That is how we handle the multiple personality syndrome that occurs so often in photographers lives. Thanks again!!
David says:

June 19, 2012 at 2:42 pm

Great show. TWIP is one of the podcasts I really look forward to each week. Ok, rave over, now it’s time to put my grumpy pedant hat on.

When you talk about ISO, can you please pronounce it as ‘EYE-so’, rather than ‘eye-es-oh’? Contrary to popular belief, ISO (or Iso) is a word, not an acronym. The body that regulates these things is known in English as the International Organisation for Standarisation (IOS). The acronym is different in different languages. So they picked the Greek word ‘Iso’, meaning ‘same’, as the abbreviation for their name.

Thanks!

David.
Tim says:

June 20, 2012 at 5:16 am

Pancake lenses – glad you are all excited about them. The Pentax pancake lenses are fantastic, now Canon shooters get a chance to use them.
Jon Miner says:

June 22, 2012 at 8:16 am

I got behind and missed #258 (which I’m in the middle of now), but immediately noticed that the sound was better, and thought “hey, they must have figured out the sound problems in Google+ or switched back to Skype” .. Thanks for moving back to Skype, the sound is so much better.

Regarding red eye in theatre photos, I’ve shot dozens and dozens of shows (probably 40K frames or more) in lots of different theatres and have never seen red-eye from theatrical lighting. The instruments are all way too high (even a spotlight), unless he’s shooting from a really odd position. It’s got to be the flash popping, which is rude for the actors and others enjoying the show. Of course, photographing the show (depending on the contractual terms) is probably in violation of the terms under which the production was licensed from the copyright holder..