vivian maier

Transcription

vivian maier

PL_JULY15.qxp_Photo Life Jan 2005 2015-04-30 2:08 PM Page 1
YOUR GUIDE TO EVERYTHING PHOTO
THE YEAR’S BEST
PHOTO PRODUCTS!
VIVIAN
MAIER
Her Life, Her Legacy,
+
UNDERSTANDING
THE SUNNY 16
RULE
and theQuestion of Copyright
WHY A PHOTO BOOK IS
GOOD FOR YOUR BUSINESS
GET BETTER RESULTS
WHEN YOU PRINT
LOW-PASS FILTERS
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
THE CANADIAN MOSAIC PROJECT A PHOTOGRAPHER’S QUEST TO UNITE CANADA
SOME SHOTS ECHO BEYOND
YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE.
CONTENTS
June/July 2015, Volume 40, Number 4
4
6
10
66
Cover
photo by
Glenn
Springer
Contributors
Editorial
Exposure
Close-up
VISION
22 The Story of Vivian Maier
by Stephen Bulger
Over the past eight years, photographs by a woman named Vivian Maier have taken
the photo world by storm. This tale encompasses a wide range of topics: hidden
talents, 50s and 60s Americana, auction-house finds, unknown intentions and/or
restrictions, copyright debates and a plethora of great photographs.
28 Best of Photo Clubs 2015
We invited members of photo clubs across Canada to share their finest work
with us; thank you to everyone who participated! We are proud to present the
top images submitted to the 2015 Best of Photo Clubs competition.
22
34 Without the Frame
The Flocks Return
by David duChemin
In January 2013 I returned to Kenya, near the Ethiopian border, where I documented the BOMA Project’s work among nomadic pastoralists eking out a living in some of the most desperate and inhospitable places I’ve ever been.
36 The Canadian Mosaic Project
28
by Tim Van Horn
On Canada Day 2017 in Victoria, British Columbia, at mile zero of the TransCanada Highway, a forty-foot multimedia pavilion on wheels will launch out
across the land on a 365-day tour broadcasting the beautiful story of who we
are.
40 Showtime Green
TECHNIQUE
42 Publishing a Photo Book
by Scott Linstead
A printed book is still an effective tool for sharing photography with an audience. A self-published book for profit and for advancing one’s career is well
within the grasp of the serious amateur photographer.
48 FAQ Low-Pass Filters
36
PHOTO LIFE
by Jean-François Landry
For a while now, we’ve heard a lot of talk about the low-pass filter. Their usefulness is being questioned since they cause a slight decrease in sharpness. Let’s
look into it more.
JUNE/JULY 2015
3
50 Photo 101 Understanding the Sunny 16 Rule
There are some simple, basic rules that can save you time and energy, even in
this digital age where everything tends to automate itself. The Sunny 16 Rule is
one of them.
GEAR
52 Digital Workflow
Printing Tips for Better Outputs
by David Tanaka
It seems so simple. The photo looks great on your computer screen. That special
fine-art paper you bought is just awesome. You hit Print and—disappointment.
What happened? Printmaking is a dance between printer, paper and computer.
56 The 25th TIPA Awards
As a member of the Technical Imaging Press Association, Photo Life joined the
other 27 leading photo and imaging magazines from 15 countries on five continents in Dubai to vote for the most outstanding photo and imaging products.
58 Gadget Guide
by Jean-François Landry
60 Imaging Products Review
by Peter K. Burian
CONTRIBUTORS AND EDITORIAL STAFF
Stephen Bulger is the owner of the Stephen Bulger Gallery, located in Toronto’s Art and
Design District. Founded in 1994, this is one of the few galleries in Canada that specialize in photography. bulgergallery.com
PHOTO LIFE JUNE/JULY 2015
Volume 40, Number 4
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EDITORIAL
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Peter K. Burian
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Guy Langevin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [email protected]
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PHOTO LIFE (ISSN 0700-3021) is published six times a year
(December/January, February/March, April/May, June/July,
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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of
Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department
of Canadian Heritage.
Peter K. Burian
is a technology writer and freelance stock photographer. He is the
author of several Magic Lantern Guide books on DSLR systems. He is also a digital photography
course instructor with betterphoto.com. peterkburian.com
David duChemin is a Vancouver-based photographer and adventurer. His bestselling
books on the art of photography have been translated into a dozen languages. davidduchemin.com
Jean-François Landry
has been providing advice to photographic equipment buyers
in Quebec City since 1989. He also shares his passion with amateur photographers through courses
and magazine articles. cylidd.com
Guy Langevin has worked as a graphic designer in the photo industry for many years. You
don’t collaborate with and befriend some of the best photographers in the country without learning a
few tricks of the trade, so he became a photographic designer.
Trained in aerospace engineering, Scott Linstead stepped into professional nature
photography after leaving a high-school teaching position in 2007. He is the author of the book
Decisive Moments: Creating Iconic Imagery (2010). scottyphotography.photoshelter.com
Jenny Montgomery is a theatre director and writer who first learned her way around a
darkroom in 1998. Photography runs in her family, so it was probably inevitable that it would be a
part of her life.
Valérie Racine began working for Apex Publications in 2002. She currently serves as
Editorial Director for both Photo Life and Photo Solution magazines. Her background includes
studies in art, art history and communications, and she is passionate about photography.
Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully
screened companies whose products and services might be of
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removed from this list and not receive these mailings, let us
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SUBMISSIONS
PHOTO LIFE welcomes portfolio and article submissions for
possible publication. Article submissions must pertain to the
subject of photography and include images supporting the
submitted text. All submissions must respect the publisher’s
submission guidelines. Complete submission guidelines are
available at www.photolife.com, from the publisher at
[email protected], or by calling 1-800-905-7468.
David Tanaka
is a technology writer based in Lethbridge, Alta. His work as a photographer
includes magazine assignments, fine-art printmaking and stock. He also teaches multimedia
communication at Lethbridge College.
COPYRIGHT © 2015 APEX PUBLICATIONS INC.
No material from the magazine may be reproduced without the
written consent of the publisher. Despite the care taken in
reviewing editorial content, Apex Publications Inc. cannot
guarantee that all written information is complete and
accurate. Consequently, Apex Publications Inc. assumes no
responsibility concerning any error and/or omission.
Growing up and travelling around Canada within the Canadian military community, Tim Van
Horn was hooked on movement and cultural experiences, which led him to embark on a lifetime
Publications Mail - Agreement No.: 40010196
171 St. Paul Street, Suite 102, Quebec, QC Canada G1K 3W2
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journey as a photojournalist. He is the initiator of the Canadian Mosaic Project. canadianmosaic.ca
4
PHOTO LIFE
Myth:
Professionals don’t use
mirrorless cameras.
Image shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1
with the M.Zuiko 75mm f2.0 lens
by Olympus Trailblazer, Tracie Maglosky
Fact: You can run your entire business
with the OM-D E-M1 system and lenses.
With a 16MP image sensor, the world’s most powerful 5-Axis Image Stabilization
system and a huge array of lenses for blazing-fast Auto Focus speeds, the portable
E-M1 is the only camera system your business needs. It can do it all—at a fraction
of the weight of a DSLR. Get all the details at getolympus.com/ca/en/myths.
GET POWER. GET PORTABLE. GET OLYMPUS.
E-M1
EDITORIAL
June/July 2015, Volume 40, Number 4
hat is most important in your life? For me, it’s the people I love: my spouse,
my family and my friends. And then there are all those connections that could
be described as acquaintances, like the people I’ve crossed paths with through
my work or those I meet through various day-to-day activities. I’ve come to realize that
these relationships are much more important than they might seem. These people are
actually the ones who help me reach beyond my world, linking me to the rest of
humanity. If I try to imagine lines connecting all of us together, with me somewhere at
the centre, I get a mental picture that enlarges my vision of community.
There is a theory that there are only six degrees of separation between anyone on the
planet. We probably won’t meet many of our 4th-, 5th- or 6th-degree connections, but by
reaching out to our friends, the friends of our friends, and even those people’s friends,
we get a pretty wide community. And if we were to use this interwoven web of connections as a springboard to learn from and inspire each other, imagine what great
things we could achieve together! The photographic community in Canada is alive and
kicking. Reach out—through a photo club, a photo contest or our Facebook page—and
I guarantee you will benefit from it…and so will the photo community! Will you learn
to be a better photographer? It would be hard not to. But more importantly, you will
connect with people and make new discoveries.
Valérie Racine
Editorial Director
© Tim Van Horn
With this issue, we announce the results of the Best of Photo Clubs competition and
launch the new edition of The World We Live In photo contest. We also share the story
of Tim Van Horn’s photographic road trip across
Canada. What do these
things have in common?
They all are ways of
developing community.
Tim Van Horn is working
to connect with a whole
bunch of strangers across
the nation. Photo clubs
are an excellent opportunity to gather with other
people who love photography and to learn together. And photo contests allow us to
reach out beyond ourselves by sharing our work with the greater community.
© niCK TrEHEarnE
W
COMING UP
THE WILDLIFE ISSUE
Behind the Image
Ian McAllister
Plan and organize your
wildlife-photography trip
How to make animals
comfortable with
your presence
Deciphering lens elements
(ED, SLD, etc.)
Gear selection
Remote accessories
The lowdown on the latest gear
Gadget Guide
LIKE PHOTO LIFE
FACEBOOK.COM/PHOTOLIFEMAG
6
JUNE/JULY 2015
PHOTO LIFE
Capture your adventures in crisp, clear
detail with a Nikon digital camera.
Get the picture
Nikon 1 AW1
The world’s first rugged
interchangeable lens camera
is the perfect vacation camera
Life doesn’t have a replay button. You need a camera
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life takes you.
Nikon D7200 Transform the ordinary
Bring your creative vision to life with photos and videos that shine with sharpness and clarity.
Shoot in nearly any light—from dawn until after dusk—and capture everything from sports
and action to wildlife and everyday moments. Then share your beautiful images easier
than ever with a compatible smart device. Whether you’re a passionate photographer or
videographer looking for a tool to ignite your creativity, a pro in need of a nimble second
camera or someone looking for an ideal blend of versatility and convenience, the D7200 is
ready for your challenge.
The Camera Store is the proud recipient of the Consumer Choice Award for Photographic Retailer 10 years in a row.
Big Box Prices, Expert Knowledge.
Call or check our website for guaranteed low prices.
802 - 11th Avenue S.W. Calgary
Ph: (403) 234-9935 Toll free: 1-888-539-9397
www.thecamerastore.com
THE PROFOTO
OFF-CAMERA
FLASH SYSTEM
Taking your flash off-camera marks a milestone on your
journey to becoming a great photographer. It means you
are ready to take control and shape light. You are no longer
content simply depicting things. You want to create them
yourself.
profoto.com/offcameraflash
Now, there are many flashes out there that can be placed
off-camera. But there is only one Off-Camera Flash system.
No other solution will make this transition as easy, while at
the same time providing you with such creative freedom.
EXPOSURE
WHAT’S ON IN TODAY’S PHOTO CULTURE
[your view]
ON THE BLOG Q&A “WOULD I GET BETTER
IMAGE QUALITY WITH AN 18-200 MM LENS?”
This is good to read. This helped me lots too. But i had a lens
that went to 300 mm, and it made sharp images until approx.
270 mm, then it seemed to go blurry. is this common? and for
filters for your lens, is it better to have a daylight filter on at all
times than not?
—Christie via the blog
Thanks for your note, Christie. Yes, the 18-300 mm lenses
usually do provide the best image quality in the 18-250 mm
range. (And the 18-200 mm lenses are best in the 18-150 mm
range.) A protective filter is fine, but as I said in my answer,
remove it when shooting toward the sun or even in strong side
lighting. And be sure to buy the lens hood if it did not come
with the lens. The hood shades the front element making it less
likely that stray light will strike it, causing flare (a bright/haze that
reduces contrast and, hence, apparent sharpness).
—Peter K. Burian
ON THE BLOG Q&A ABOUT LENS RENTALS
Thank you for your informative article on Canadian lens rentals.
a nice alternative for those us who do not have the immediate
funds for purchases of high-quality glass.
—Barry moon via the blog
Thanks for your comment, Barry Moon. Even a rich photo
enthusiast would be wise to rent a lens he needs only a couple
of times a year.
—Peter K. Burian
FEEDBACK ON THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
WINNING IMAGES
absolutely outstanding photographs for the annual contest
winners. and good work on the judges’ part as well.
—David Johns via email
HOW TO ADD TEXT TO IMAGES IN LR 5
i am using Lightroom 5 and cannot put text on my pictures if i
email them or just to send to family members or anyone. i was
using Elements 12 prior to using Lr 5. in Elements it is doable,
but it would create a new file…. is there a plug-in or photoediting software that i could purchase all together that would do
what i’m trying to do? if it means giving up Lr 5, so be it.
—George G. via email
Yes, you can apply text to images in Lightroom 5 when you
export them. When you use the Export command, if you scroll
down the right panel, you’ll come to a heading called
Watermarking. If all you see is the heading ribbon, open the
dialog by clicking on the triangle to the left of the heading.
July 25 - August 9, 2015
Books & Co. 289 Main Street, Picton ON K0K 2T0
The dialog has only two items: a check box and a drop-down
menu bar. Check the box. Then click the drop-down arrow and
choose Edit Watermarks. When you do that, a second panel
called the Watermark Editor will open.
© Mihal Zada
2014 Best in Show and Doug Boult Award | Mihal Zada | Brand New
Speakers Night | Friday July 31 | 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Admission $10. Students $5.
Robert Bailey
“What Were They Thinking?”
A behind-the-scenes look at judging photography
CLiCPhotoShow.com
10
JUNE/JULY 2015
This Watermark Editor panel lets you write the text you want to
include on the image and also gives you a lot of flexibility in
choosing the typeface, type colour and type size, where it will
be positioned and also lets you apply text effects. When you
save it, the next time you look at the Watermark dialogue, the
watermark you created will show up in the drop-down menu.
You can later delete or modify it.
—David Tanaka
EXPOSURE PHOTO LIFE
The moment when you no longer
take pictures, you make them.
This is the moment we work for.
// FREEDOM
MADE BY ZEISS
Carl Zeiss SLR lenses
Set yourself free. Free of the performance limitations of other lens systems. Free of trade-offs
between sharpness and harmonious bokeh. Free of inconsistent build quality, unnecessary flare
and mechanisms that focus “precisely enough.” Get to know the outstanding uniform characteristics
of the manual focus ZE and ZF.2 lenses and get back to making images that matter.
www.zeiss.com/photo/freedom
EXPOSURE
[what’s on]
© UnDErwooD & UnDErwooD, Bow riVEr VaLLEy, Banff,
aLTa.,1900, STErEoGrapH/LiBrary anD arCHiVES CanaDa
NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA
© wiLLiam noTman, GrEaT CEDar TrEE, STanLEy parK, VanCoUVEr, B.C., 1897,
aLBUmEn prinT/LiBrary anD arCHiVES CanaDa
© UnKnown pHoToGrapHEr, CoUpLE poSinG in fronT of niaGara faLLS, 1858,
amBroTypE/LiBrary anD arCHiVES CanaDa
Through august 30, For the Record: Early Canadian Travel
Photography is on view at the national Gallery of Canada in
ottawa. in the early 19th century, transportation companies hired
photographers to capture impressive Canadian scenery with the
goal of inspiring people to visit various destinations, and over
time, these images helped establish a national identity. in
addition, through September 13 Luminous and True: The
Photographs of Frederick H. Evans showcases the artist’s
platinum and photogravure prints. gallery.ca
12
JUNE/JULY 2015
© DonaLD LawrEnCE
© DonaLD LawrEnCE
© DiannE BoS
The Camera obscura project is
presenting the midnight Sun
Camera obscura festival from
June 17 to 21 in Dawson, y.T.
The festival features tours of
artists’ camera obscura projects,
workshops and presentations
open to the public, and exhibitions at the oDD Gallery in
Dawson City and the yukon arts
Centre in whitehorse. Dianne
Bos’ camera obscura will allow
viewers to see constellations of
stars from multiple pinhole
projections inside a tent, and
Donald Lawrence’s project will be
mounted on the George Black
ferry that crosses the yukon
river at Dawson City.
midnightsuncameraobscura.com
© DonaLD LawrEnCE
CAMERA OBSCURA
FESTIVAL
EXPOSURE PHOTO LIFE
Introducing the new
CANON EOS 5D S
There are still ways to stand out
Marking a new standard in high-resolution digital SLR photography, the
Canon EOS 5DS camera shatters the status quo with a new 50.6 Megapixel,
full-frame CMOS sensor. Perfect for commercial and fine art photography, or
any other application that calls for extremely high-resolution.
PL_JULY_ADS.indd 1
Henrys.com
2015-04-30 2:52 PM
EXPOSURE
© anUraG KUmar
[what’s on]
© HariSH CHaVDa
© arUna BHaT
1st Prize - Life in Colour
© rUDoi VLaDimiroViCH
Grand Prize - Life in Colour
1st Prize - General
1st Prize - Faces (Black and White)
HIPA: LIFE IN COLOUR
Hamdan bin mohammed bin rashid al maktoum international photography award (Hipa) has announced the
winners of the contest’s fourth year, which had the theme Life in Colour. photographer anurag Kumar from india
received the grand-prize award of US$120,000 for his image of Holi, india’s festival of colours. Twenty-two other
photographers were awarded with prize money totalling US$400,000. among the honoured photographers were
Sebastião Salgado, who won the photography appreciation award, and Scott Kelby, who was recognized with the
photographic research/report award. next year’s main theme is Happiness. The contest is free and open for
submissions through December 31, 2015. hipa.ae
14
JUNE/JULY 2015
EXPOSURE PHOTO LIFE
Pro Runner II Series
More gear. More options.
There are times when you have to carry it all. Pro camera
equipment for shoots. Multiple devices for workflow.
Accessories and necessities for travel. The Pro Runner II
series—the next-generation of our popular, professional
backpack design—is purpose-built to organize and
protect more gear, and provide more options for
maneuvering in busy airports and crowded streets.
Find out more at
lowepro.com/prorunner
©2015 DayMen Canada Acquisition ULC
Distributed by DayMen Canada – Daymen.ca
EXPOSURE
[what’s on]
© EDwarD BUrTynSKy
NEW PHOTO EXHIBITIONS AT WHYTE MUSEUM
from June 14 to october 18, the whyte museum of the
Canadian rockies in Banff is featuring two photography
exhibitions. Legacy in Time: Rephotography by Henry Vaux Jr.
is a collection of images taken by Henry Vaux Jr. and his
ancestors at the same locations over the last century. These
photographs reveal how glaciers, waterfalls, mountains and
lakes have changed over time due to climate change.
Though photography, video, installations and paintings from the
early 19th century to today, Water Eau 水 Mînî पानी Wasser ‫םימ‬
Acqua ‫ یناپ‬Tubig H2O explores imagery of water, promoting
reflection on how to protect this essential natural resource.
whyte.org
© HEnry VaUx Jr.
16
JUNE/JULY 2015
EXPOSURE PHOTO LIFE
[what’s on]
DNA Graphite Messenger Bag
From June 27 through
September 12, the Stephen Bulger
Gallery in Toronto is exhibiting
Canadian Modernism, which
highlights the work of John
Vanderpant and other Canadian
photographers from the 20th century.
© JOHN VANDERPANT/COURTESY OF STEPHEN BULGER GALLERY
CANADIAN MODERNISM
Tenba’s newest Messenger bag is
designed to provide year-round, allweather, rugged performance for your
camera and accessories – without
sacrificing stylish good looks. For example,
the front flap extends over the top of
the bag to ensure 100% weatherproof
coverage. For additional wet weather
protection, the DNA Graphite includes
a removable and reversible WeatherWrap
cover. Available in 4 sizes.
New! Benro Mach3 Series Tripods
Benro’s most advanced tripods, the
Mach3 series features classic design,
high-performance rubber twist locks, and
legs made from 9 layers of carbon fibre,
delivering unprecedented strength and
sturdiness without weighing you down.
Includes a short column for low level
shooting, spiked feet, and a gorgeous
carrying case you’ll be proud to carry.
Also available in aluminum models.
© HENRI VENNE
Mantis Background Kit
RESURFACING
Henri Venne’s Resurfacing will be at Art Mûr in Montreal through
June 20. These abstract, minimal images explore remembering
and forgetting. artmur.com
Bring your background with you!
Completely portable, the Mantis kit
is designed to support a roll or sheets
of background paper or any other
background material. The stand measures
9-feet high and 10-feet wide. Kit includes
2 anodized aluminum air-cushioned
stands and a choice of a telescopic or
4-section crossbar. It all fits inside a handy
carrying bag.
Tenba, Benro and Mantis products are
available at leading photo specialty retailers.
www.gnigami.ca
PHOTO LIFE EXPOSURE
1 Y 2015
2015-05-0417
3:47 PM
JUNE/JUL
EXPOSURE
[what’s on]
© JoHn moorE/GETTy imaGES, US, L’iriS D’or, 2015 Sony worLD pHoToGrapHy awarDS
SONY WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
The world photography organisation has announced the 2015
Sony world photography awards’ L’iris d’or/photographer of the
year recipient and the other competition winners. This year there
were 183,737 entries from 171 countries in the professional,
open, youth and mobile phone competitions.
U.S. photographer John moore was named L’iris
d’or/photographer of the year and was awarded a US$25,000
prize and the latest Sony digital imaging equipment. Chosen from
among the winners of the 13 professional categories of the
competition, his series Ebola Crisis Overwhelms Liberian Capital
documented the tragic spread of Ebola in monrovia, Liberia,
which was the epicentre of the epidemic. The judges stated,
“John moore’s photographs of this crisis show in full the brutality
of people’s daily lives torn apart by this invisible enemy. However,
it is his spirit in the face of such horror that garners praise. His
images are intimate and respectful, moving us with their bravery
and journalistic integrity. it is a fine and difficult line between
images that exploit such a situation, and those that convey the
same with heart, compassion and understanding, which this
photographer has achieved with unerring skill. Combine this with
an eye for powerful composition and cogent visual narrative, and
good documentary photography becomes great.” German
photographer armin appel won open photographer of the year
and was awarded US$5000. Elliott Erwitt was honoured with the
outstanding Contribution to photography prize.
Canadians Donald weber and Jennifer osborne were recognized
in the professional competition. Donald weber won first place in
the Still Life category for his series Molotov Cocktails, which
focused on this weapon used by Euromaidan protestors in Kiev,
Ukraine. Jennifer osborne was shortlisted in the people category
for her series Indian Me.
George Ching-yuen Lo won the Canada national award. all
photographs taken by Canadian photographers and submitted to
any of the competition’s ten open categories were considered for
this award. Sandra fiedler was named the second-place winner,
and Lise Simoneau was the third-place winner. worldphoto.org
ONLIN
18
JUNE/JULY 2015
EXPOSURE PHOTO LIFE
PHOTO LIFE & PHOTO SOLUTION PRESENT THEIR
21ST ANNUAL
3 THEMES
HUMANITY
ENVIRONMENT
INTERCONNECTIONS
PHOTO
CONTEST
THE WORLD
WE LIVE IN
WHY ENTER
THE PRIZES
THE CHALLENGE
THE RECOGNITION
A GRAND-PRIZE CRUISE
PLUS
MORE THAN $50,000
IN FABULOUS PRIZES
ENTER NOW! PHOTOLIFE.COM/TWWLI
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PHOTO LIFE & PHOTO SOLUTION PRESENT THEIR
21 ST ANNUAL PHOTO CONTEST THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
A GRAND PRIZE WORTH MORE THAN $16,000!
Grand Prize................................................................................................................................$16,712
2016 Heart of the Arctic expedition, July 11-23, with Adventure Canada ...................................................................$16,000
Kite Optics Toucan 10 x 42 binoculars .......................................................................................................................$537
Gift certificate for Photobooks by Pikto ...................................................................................................................$100
One-year Awesome account with 500px ..................................................................................................................$75
Humanity
Environment
Interconnections
1st Prize.......................................................$3,244
Sony α7 II with FE 28-70 mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS zoom .....$2,299
Sekonic L-478D LiteMeter .........................................$399
Blackrapid Sport Camera Strap ................................$120
Gift certificate for Photobooks by Pikto ....................$100
Henry's Learning Lab Productivity & Creativity 1-yr Sub ..$99
B+W 55-mm XS-PRO Clear MRC 007 filter ................$82
One-year Awesome account with 500px ..................$75
illumi 107-cm 5-In-One Reflector Kit ..........................$70
1st Prize.......................................................$3,245
Lowepro DryZone 200 Backpack .............................$400
1st Prize.......................................................$3,245
Lowepro Pro Roller x200 AW Black ..........................$400
2nd Prize......................................................$2,301
Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro Lens ........$700
Kite Optics Toucan 10 x 42 binoculars .......................$537
Lowepro Rover Pro 35L ...........................................$309
MeFoto RoadTrip Travel Tripod Kit - Red ...................$260
Gift Certificate for Photobooks by Pikto ....................$100
illumi 45" Umbrella - White with Black........................$70
2nd Prize......................................................$2,291
Lowepro DryZone Duffle 20L ....................................$150
Slik Pro 340BH Tripod ...............................................$149
2nd Prize......................................................$2,324
PocketWizard PlusX (2-Pack) ....................................$200
Hoya 77-mm Pro ND 100 filter ...................................$132
3rd Prize ......................................................$1,883
Datacolor Spyder5PRO......................................................$239
Lowepro Flipside Sport 15L AW ................................$170
Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible Speed Mount.......$100
3rd Prize......................................................$1,883
3rd Prize......................................................$1,885
Hoya 77-mm Pro ND 100 filter ...................................$132
Joby Pro Sling Strap..................................................$70
4th Prize ......................................................$1,323
Adobe Creative Cloud 1-year Subscription ...............$599
MeFoto RoadTrip Travel Tripod Kit - Blue...........................$260
Lowepro Photo Hatchback 22L.................................$120
4th Prize ......................................................$1,323
4th Prize ......................................................$1,323
5th Prize ......................................................$1,014
Manfrotto Befree Tripod............................................$260
Tenba DNA 11 Graphite Messenger ....................................$180
Rogue FlashBender 2 XL Pro Lighting System ...........$129
Manfrotto Advanced Tri-Backpack............................$120
Joby GorillaPod SLR-Zoom + Ballhead .......................$80
One-year Awesome account with 500px..........................$75
5th Prize ......................................................$1,014
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Mantis 2.0M Travel Light Stand..................................$70
Lowepro TopLoader Zoom 55 AW ll ...................................$60
Sandisk Extreme Plus 16GB SD Memory Card...........$50
6th Prize ......................................................$835
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7th Prize ......................................................$623
Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements....................$149
Joby UltraFit Sling Strap ............................................$50
7th Prize ......................................................$623
7th Prize ......................................................$623
ONLINE
© Sandra Åberg
75
00
[book
reviews]
by Jenny Montgomery
LOVE. LIFE. BEAUTY.
by Keegan Allen
St. Martin’s Press, $34.50,
320 pages, hard cover
fans of the television series Pretty Little Liars
will recognize Keegan allen for his TV, film and
stage work, but this artist is also a
photographer and writer. in Love. Life.
Beauty., allen shares the story of his life so far
through photography, drawings, writing and
poetry. The personal nature of his reflections
gives the reader the feeling of being allowed
to peruse his journal and follow the
development of his work over the years.
THE SUPERLATIVE LIGHT
photographs by Robert Shults
text by Dr. Todd Ditmire and
Rudy Rucker
Daylight Books, $39.95,
84 pages, soft cover
Creatively designed as a two-in-one sci-fi
book, The Superlative Light begins with Dr.
Todd Ditmire’s scientific introduction of the
Texas petawatt Laser facility in one direction.
Then just flip the book over to read rudy
rucker’s science-fiction story in the other
direction. Both narratives are aptly illustrated
with robert Shults’ grainy, mysterious blackand-white images of the Texas petawatt Laser
lab and the scientists who work there. This
book would be a fun gift for sci-fi, laser-loving
types.
SMALL YET DEEP
AND PARABOLIC
UMBRELLAS
Profoto umbrellas are now available in
no less that 18 models, three fabrics
and two shapes.
See them all at:
www.profoto.com/ca/umbrellas
SHOOTING SPACE: ARCHITECTURE
IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
by Elias Redstone
Phaidon Press, $89.95,
240 pages, hard cover
featuring over 400 images by 50 photographers,
this large-format book is an excellent resource for
architecture buffs. Divided into five sections—
manufacturing iconography, Cityscapes of Change,
man-altered Landscapes, Excavating modernism
and after architecture—Shooting Space thoroughly
examines photographic responses to man-made
environments.
PHOTO LIFE EXPOSURE
JUNE/JULY 2015
21
VISION
THE STORY OF VIVIAN MAIER
THE FIRST MAJOR PHOTO DISCOVERY OF THE 21ST CENTURY
BY STEPHEN BULGER
over the past eight years, photographs by a woman named Vivian
maier have taken the photo world by storm. in fact, scores of people
not normally interested in photography are familiar with her unusual
story. This sad tale of an intensely private woman encompasses a wide
range of topics: hidden talents, 50s and 60s americana, auction-house
finds, unknown intentions and/or restrictions, copyright debates and a
plethora of great photographs.
HER LIFE
Through the images Vivian Maier left behind and some serious sleuthing by many,
some details about her life have been pieced together. Born in New York on February
1, 1926, to a French mother, Maria Jaussaud, and an Austrian father, Charles Maier,
Vivian Maier spent some childhood years and, later, some young-adult years in France.
She lived with her mother; her father appears to have
been mostly absent. There has been no trace of her
brother, Charles, since the mid-1950s. At the age of
four, Maier and her mother lived with a successful
photographer named Jeanne Bertrand. It is assumed
by many that this relationship helps explain Maier’s
interest in photography.
HIGHLAND PARK, IL (SELF-PORTRAIT,
BEDROOM MIRROR), JanUary 1965
© ViVian maiEr,
CoUrTESy STEpHEn BULGEr
GaLLEry CoLLECTion
22
In the late 1950s, Maier returned to New York City
from France and worked a variety of jobs until she was
hired as a nanny by the Gensburg family. She moved
to the affluent North Shore suburbs of Chicago to live
with them. Maier remained a fixture in that family for
16 years and then proceeded to work for a number of
different families. Though usually seen wearing a
Rolleiflex camera around her neck and taking pictures,
it appears that Maier only shared a handful of her
photographs with a few of her subjects. The fact that
she left behind a secret collection totalling approximately 150,000 images is a testament
to her success at achieving privacy. In her later years, some of the Gensburgs
reconnected with Maier and helped her pay for living expenses, but they never pried
into her personal life or possessions. Those who knew her suggest that as she aged,
JUNE/JULY 2015
VISION PHOTO LIFE
CHICAGO (FAMILY STANDING NEAR CTA BUS), CirCa 1965 © ViVian maiEr, CoUrTESy STEpHEn BULGEr GaLLEry CoLLECTion
PHOTO LIFE VISION
JUNE/JULY 2015
23
CHICAGO (WOMAN WITH PEARLS),
1967 © ViVian maiEr, CoUrTESy STEpHEn BULGEr GaLLEry CoLLECTion
WILMETTE, IL (GLOVES ON WINDOW SILL),
aUGUST 1972 © ViVian maiEr, CoUrTESy STEpHEn BULGEr GaLLEry CoLLECTion
her behaviour became increasingly isolating, so it is doubtful that she would have ever
brought out her old photographs to share with others. After falling on ice and hitting
her head, Maier was hospitalized in November 2008. She was later moved to a nursing
home in the suburbs of Chicago, where she died in April 2009.
HER LEGACY
Vivian Maier’s acclaim as a photographer came only after her death. Many people
consider it sad that she did not know how deeply her photographs affect people, while
others strongly believe that her privacy is now being invaded. Among her personal
effects was a letter addressed to a printer, but apparently never sent, where she
describes her photographic aspirations. Looking at when she lived, I do not think it is
a leap of logic to say that she was a victim of her time. The few women who were
able to break through the wall of male curators came from professional photography
backgrounds and were often spirited as well as connected. Vivian
Maier had no such credentials, and without training in editing,
aT THE aGE of foUr,
she likely would not have been able to craft an impressive
maiEr anD HEr moTHEr
LiVED wiTH a SUCCESSfUL portfolio, even if curators had given her the time of day.
pHoToGrapHEr namED
JEannE BErTranD. iT iS
aSSUmED By many THaT
THiS rELaTionSHip HELpS
ExpLain maiEr’S inTErEST
in pHoToGrapHy.
Her discovery happened only because she gave up ownership of
her images. In addition to what she crammed into her Chicago
apartment, Maier had filled nearby storage units with possessions
of all sorts. When she stopped paying rent on these units, her
belongings became the property of the storage-locker company,
which auctioned off the units’ contents in 2007. A Chicago auctioneer named Roger Gunderson purchased the items for $250, and luckily the photographs and negatives were kept from the massive purge that occurs in these situations.
Gunderson divided up the photographic collection and auctioned it off in numerous
lots over subsequent weeks. At that time, John Maloof purchased around 30,000 of her
negatives (and some vintage prints) from an approximate total of 100,000 negatives
found in these lockers. Ron Slattery and Randy Prow were other original buyers of
note. It has been reported that there were between 5 to 10 original buyers, and some
of them offered the material they purchased on eBay, so at this stage it is difficult to
determine the full extent of her archive. I have met two Canadians who purchased
anonymous work on eBay during the period from 2007 to 2009. One owns a small
group of negatives, while the other owns 60 rolls of 8-mm film footage by Maier.
24
JUNE/JULY 2015
VISION PHOTO LIFE
CHICAGO (ELDERLY WOMAN, POLICEMAN),
MAXWELL ST., CHICAGO (TWO SHIRTS HANGING),
John Maloof made his purchase hoping to use the images as illustrations for a project
about a Chicago neighbourhood, but realizing they wouldn’t work, he stored them out
of sight for many months. Eventually he offered some for sale on eBay, an activity that
met with a degree of success. After appreciating the quality of Maier’s talent, Maloof
started uploading the photographs onto Flickr and went on to acquire works from the
other original buyers. He also met with the Gensburg family, who gifted him with more
of Maier’s possessions that were in an additional storage locker. This locker held
another large collection of her photographs and negatives, including hundreds of rolls
of unprocessed colour and black-and-white film. To date, his collection of Vivian
Maier’s work includes approximately 150,000 black-and-white and colour negatives, as
well as more than 3,000 vintage prints, hundreds of rolls of unprocessed colour film,
home movies, audio-tape interviews, cameras and ephemera. Maloof’s devotion to
Maier’s work has been crucial to exposing the public to her talents, and it has also
inspired him to become a photographer and filmmaker.
I first saw Maier’s work published in the New York Times and was intrigued but
skeptical. Photo geeks like me often discuss whose talents have been overlooked;
however, I do not remember ever having a single conversation about the possibility of
someone with this amount of talent working in absolute obscurity. Many experts
dismissed Maier’s work without seeing much of it because it wasn’t discovered by a
curator and because it was the public who so quickly canonized
her. Social media had already made it possible for single images many ExpErTS DiSmiSSED
to go viral, but never had an entire career of an unknown pho- maiEr’S worK wiTHoUT
tographer from the recent past gone viral! The more of her work SEEinG mUCH of iT
I’ve seen, the more impressed I am by her photographs. They are BECaUSE iT waSn’T
a fresh glimpse into America at a time that nostalgia has covered DiSCoVErED By a
so thoroughly.
CUraTor anD BECaUSE iT
waS THE pUBLiC wHo So
HEr.
Photographers are largely defined by the materials they select and qUiCKLy CanonizED
how they incorporate them into a distinctive style. Maier’s use of a
Rolleiflex camera for street photography isolated her subjects from their surroundings.
Shot from a lower vantage point, her portraits are imbued with a statuesque formality,
and her close proximity illustrates her confidence and empathy. I am especially taken
with her plentiful and varied self-portraits, which seem to project how she connected to
the world around her. Seeing a collection of them that spans a significant period of time
PHOTO LIFE VISION
JUNE/JULY 2015
25
NORTH SUBURBS, CHICAGO (SELF-PORTRAIT, STOREFRONT WINDOW REFLECTION),
WILMETTE, IL (GIRL INSIDE CULVERT ON BEACH),
is akin to having access to a diary where the person reveals private matters that touch
on universal themes; we become readers instead of mere voyeurs.
THE QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT
In 2011 Steven Kasher told me that he had just secured an exhibition with Jeffrey
Goldstein, who owned Vivian Maier negatives, and Kasher agreed to introduce us to
each other. I assumed this was the person who bought the contents of a storage locker
filled of her work, so I was surprised when Goldstein told me that he was not “the
owner that most people know about.”
Jeffrey Goldstein is a Chicago-area artist and a collector of many different types of
fascinating objects. Drawn to the quality of Maier’s work and fascinated by her story,
he eventually came to acquire approximately 17,500 black-and-white negatives,
30 8-mm movies and numerous colour slides, which he purchased from Randy Prow,
plus 2,000 vintage prints, some of which were purchased from Ron Slattery. He
founded Vivian Maier Prints Inc., which promoted Maier’s work
on its website, as well as through a series of travelling exhibitions
THE morE of HEr worK
that toured the world.
i’VE SEEn, THE morE
imprESSED i am By HEr
pHoToGrapHS. THEy arE
a frESH GLimpSE inTo
amEriCa aT a TimE THaT
noSTaLGia HaS CoVErED
So THoroUGHLy.
Maloof and Goldstein worked collaboratively to secure some of
Maier’s work for their respective collections and to locate the legal
heir to Vivian Maier’s copyright. They hired an esteemed
genealogist who discovered that her brother, Charles, had changed
his family name to a variation of Jaussaud in the 1950s, but it is not
known if he is alive or if he is survived by any family. The trail led
to France, and research indicated that Sylvain Jaussaud, a cousin, was the closest legal
heir. John Maloof made a copyright arrangement with him, and Jeffrey Goldstein then
made a copyright arrangement with Maloof for what he owns. Another cousin named
Francis Baille was dismissed by the genealogist as being further down the line, but
American lawyer David Deal insisted that Baille was the rightful heir. This caused Cook
County, Illinois, to initiate probate and proceed to establish Maier’s estate. Apparently,
Cook County believes her brother, Charles, is the rightful heir, so there is a waiting period
until Charles Maier reaches the age of 100 (which will be in approximately five years) to
allow him or his family to lay claim. Until then, Cook County wishes to register the
26
JUNE/JULY 2015
VISION PHOTO LIFE
WILMETTE, IL (GIRLS WADING IN LAKE MICHIGAN),
JULy 1968 © ViVian maiEr, CoUrTESy STEpHEn BULGEr GaLLEry CoLLECTion
copyright on all of Maier’s visual archive. John Maloof is challenging the ability of the
State to acquire the copyright of intangible property (the images) in probate, when he
rightfully owns the negatives of those images. Firm in his belief that he has obtained the
necessary rights, Maloof continues to exhibit and sell her work.
Jeffrey Goldstein decided to shut down his operation as soon as he heard of David
Deal’s challenge to the copyright, since he believes the matter could take years to
resolve. With much regret, he decided he would keep the Maier prints and films he
owns, but sell his negatives and return to the life he led before his involvement with
the Vivian Maier Project. He is very impressed with the photography community in
Toronto, and he thought it would be best to offer the collection for sale to my gallery.
I jumped at the chance.
My hope is to play a role in mining Vivian Maier’s archive to gain more understanding
of her, the world she lived in, and her place in photographic history. I believe that John
Maloof and Jeffrey Goldstein have done the necessary due diligence to rightfully use
the Maier material that they lawfully own, and unless some new information comes to
light in the next few months proving otherwise, we will continue promoting the work
contained in the negatives that we now own.
PHOTO LIFE VISION
JUNE/JULY 2015
27
BEST OF
PHOTO CLUBS
2O15
we invited members of photo clubs across Canada to
share their finest work with us; thank you to everyone
who participated! we are proud to present the top
images submitted to the 2015 Best of photo Clubs
competition. Clubs were also invited to submit a short
video about what makes their club unique; visit our
website to see the winning video!
1
2
1. Dall Sheep Horns
Darryl Robertson, Prospect, N.S.,
Photographic Guild of Nova Scotia
2. Snow Horse
Jen St. Louis, Elmira, Ont.,
Grand River Imaging and Photographic Society
28
JUNE/JULY 2015
VISION PHOTO LIFE
3
4
HEAD TO
PHOTOLIFE.COM/PHOTO-CLUBS
FOR A LIST OF PHOTO CLUBS
ACROSS CANADA.
5
3. Great Gray Owl
Bryan Urquhart, St. Catharines, Ont.,
St. Catharines Photographic Club
4. Rufus Hummingbird
Geoffrey Shuen, West Vancouver, B.C.,
North Shore Photographic Society
5. Grizzly Sow & Cubs
Missy Mandel, Toronto, Ont., Toronto Camera Club
6
7
6. Untitled
Chris Goldsmith, Newmarket, Ont.,
Country Images Camera Club
7. Untitled
Dave Robinson, St. Catharines, Ont.,
St. Catharines Photographic Club
8. Old House
Jean Orton, Portage la Prairie, Man.,
Manitoba Foto Friends
9. Skylines
Kevin Dawson, North York, Ont.,
Don Mills Camera Club
10. Sunset in Prague
Harjit Singh, Woodbridge, Ont.,
Toronto Digital Photography Club
8
9
10
30
JUNE/JULY 2015
1
VISION PHOTO LIFE
11
11. Goin’ Fishin’
Clayton Reitzel, Edmonton, Alta.,
Images Alberta Camera Club
12
12. Mt. Rundle
Robert Casement, St. Catharines, Ont.,
St. Catharines Photo Club
13. Early Morning Takeoff Into the Mist
Cliff Homewood, Richmond Hill, Ont.,
Richmond Hill Camera Club
13
PHOTO LIFE VISION
JUNE/JULY 2015
31
14
14. Dance Expression
Ann Alimi, Toronto, Ont.,
Toronto Camera Club
15. Love Silhouette
John Cianfarani, Mississauga, Ont.,
Oakville Camera Club
16. Dahlia Impression
Glenn Springer, Minden, Ont.,
Haliburton Highlands Camera Club
17. Dad and Son
Joseph Leduc, Newmarket, Ont.,
Richmond Hill Camera Club
16
32
JUNE/JULY 2015
15
17
1
VISION PHOTO LIFE
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VISION
WITHOUT THE FRAME
THE FLOCKS
RETURN
THoUSanDS of
animaLS wErE
BEinG DriVEn
HomE in THE
EVEninG SUn,
THroUGH DUST,
anD iT woULD
CULminaTE in
THE BLowinG of
HornS anD THE
LiGHTinG of
firES.
BY DAVID DUCHEMIN
in January 2013 i returned to Kenya to work for the Boma project, a
client that has become important to me as an unparalleled creative
collaborator. our work together takes us to the far north of Kenya,
towards the Ethiopian border, where i document their work among
nomadic pastoralists eking out a living in some of the most desperate
and inhospitable places i’ve ever been.
T
You need to know all that backstory
because it informed the kind of
photographs I wanted to make and the
way I made these photographs—which
isn’t the only way, but it is a way that
leads to deeper connections and opportunities that would otherwise be impossible
to create as an outsider. These type of
images underscore several responsibilities
of a photographer: the need to talk to
locals and be curious about their lives;
the need to prioritize relationships (talk
first, use camera second); and the need to
be receptive, which I believe is the central
work of any photographer.
34
JUNE/JULY 2015
We arrived in Kargi, the hot desert town
near which this image was made, late in
the afternoon. We talked to contacts there
and, through the dots and dashes of the
Morse code that is cross-cultural
communication, we slowly put the pieces
together. There would be a festival that
evening, and while it took a few more
days to get all the details of its
significance, we knew we had to change
plans and get out to a smaller village to
spend time photographing this festival,
which included the return of the village’s
flocks. Thousands of animals were being
driven home in the evening sun, through
dust, and it would culminate in the
blowing of horns and the lighting of fires.
We showed up and met the elders. We
laughed and talked, and slowly the herds
came in. One of the elders, a man named
Gabriel, befriended me. We stood there
holding hands, talking through my friend
and interpreter, Kura. And occasionally I
made photographs, until more and more
animals came, with their herders. Then I
was lying in the dust here and there,
looking for better perspectives, trying to
juggle two cameras, and praying the sun
would slow its descent and give me more
time. I photographed the backlit scenes,
staying out of the way of goats and
camels as much as I could, and shot
Gabriel a look now and then that tried to
niKon D800, 86 mm, 1/2000 S, f/8, iSo 400 © DaViD DUCHEmin
hey want more than photographs of
kids with flies around their eyes,
which works for me because I’ve
been a humanitarian photographer
working with the international NGO
community on that very premise: that
hope is a better story than despair, and
that perpetuating stereotypes of poverty
does no one any good in the long term.
So the body of work I am creating, as a
long-term personal project and collaboration with them, is documentary in nature
but also celebratory, because as rough as
these people on the edges of the Kaisut
and Chalbi Deserts have it, they are
creative, lively and graceful people with
an intimate relationship with the land on
which they live.
VISION PHOTO LIFE
say, “This is amazing; thank you for allowing me to be a part of this.” No mere agricultural gathering, this festival called
Almado was unique to this area and these
people and had strong religious themes
of redemption. It was an honour to be
allowed not only to witness and photograph, but also to participate. Eventually
Gabriel pulled me off the ground and
asked me to join the elders as we too
marched into the village—a small gathering of temporary, moveable homes made
of sticks and goatskins—to the blowing of
trumpets. It was surreal and deeply meaningful to me.
When it was all over, Gabriel gave me a
camel. An honest-to-God camel. He
called me his friend and asked when I
would come back. And I told him: when-
ever I can. I asked him to keep my camel
for me, and he has done so. A couple
months ago on my most recent trip, I
brought him the portraits I’d made of him.
And again I answered that I would come
back whenever I can.
I truly believe that the deeper the connections we make with people and the more
time we spend pursuing those experiences,
especially as we travel, the more unique
the photographs arising from those
encounters will be. Stay kind. Stay open
and receptive. Watch the light. Lie down in
the dirt and clean your sensor later if you
have to. These things may only happen
once. Pay attention. Connect. Forget the
guidebooks. It’s all about people. Then,
and only then, should you worry about
nailing your exposure and focus.
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The S4 and S6 Series Video Tripod Kits
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Elinchrom, Benro and Illumi products are
www.gnigami.ca
2 Y 2015
2015-05-0435
3:47 PM
JUNE/JUL
VISION
THE CANADIAN
MOSAIC PROJECT
A PHOTOGRAPHER’S QUEST TO UNITE CANADA
BY TIM VAN HORN
on Canada Day 2017 in Victoria, British Columbia, at mile zero of the
Trans-Canada Highway, a forty-foot multimedia pavilion on wheels will
launch out across the land on a 365-day tour broadcasting the
beautiful story of who we are. The entire exterior surface of the
Canada pavilion is a medley of 54,000 portraits, text and monitors,
woven into a dynamic interactive experience that will educate,
enlighten and encourage viewers of all ages. This will be the finale to
my ten-year “creative tour of duty” across Canada.
© Tim Van Horn
A
Somehow I just seemed to know by age
four that I wanted to be a “cameraman.”
I’m pretty sure the National Geographic
magazines lying around the house had
Years later, not having lost sight of my
childhood dream, I found myself studying
photography at the Alberta College of Art,
in Calgary. At nineteen I was influenced by
the vision of early masters of
photojournalism like Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange and W.
Eugene Smith. These larger-than-life, selfless, adventurous humanitarians were
Each person adds a new dynamic to the mosaic, like this pair from Halifax,
Nova Scotia.
36
JUNE/JULY 2015
© Tim Van Horn
s a boy growing up in the Canadian
Air Force community, I naturally
developed a sense of duty and a
lust for change and cultural experiences.
something to do with planting this
romantic notion of a photographer’s life
of travel.
Lady Icicle creates masterpieces along the walls of the snow castle at the
Snowking Winter Festival in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
VISION PHOTO LIFE
© Tim Van Horn
PHOTO LIFE VISION
JUNE/JULY 2015
37
armed with a camera, a noble cause and a
desire to create change, and they cemented
my need to witness and participate in the
documentation of our humanity.
In 2007, after having produced three
major bodies of work as an Alberta-based
photographer—To Be Hutterite, Death of
a Country Elevator and I Am Albertan—I
felt that I had done all I could in the
prairies, and I needed to venture out
across the vast Canadian landscape. In
October 2008, after 17 years of dreaming
of driving down the Trans-Canada
Highway, I set out from my home in Red
Deer, Alberta, and headed east on a oneyear-long journey to do a “day in the life”
look at Canada. I put my domestic life in
storage and rented out my house. With a
bit of saved money, I headed out in a
1999 camperized GMC van.
It’s true, October isn’t the best time of the
year to set out across Canada, but I was
on a quest and it didn’t matter when I left.
I just needed to leave. Without question, I
was mentally and physically tested that
winter, but that just seemed to melt away
with every new town, person or experience. I was living the dream I had dreamt
Aside from shooting beautiful landscapes
with people accenting them, I found
myself focusing more and more on creating
a Canadian flag mosaic made up of 2010
faces. It didn’t take long before I became
hooked on these intimate, up-close semiformal portraits and experiences with the
public. It gave me a reason to stop anyone,
anytime. The more people I met, studied
and recorded, the more people I wanted to
encounter and learn from.
A fish-processing plant worker holds a bin of haddock in the Acadian fishing village of Pubnico, Nova Scotia.
38
JUNE/JULY 2015
© Tim Van Horn
Having always done candid, Nikon 24-mm
wide-angle street photography, the idea
of a visual anthropological study of our
collective humanity using a formal
© Tim Van Horn
i’m prETTy SUrE THE naTionaL GEoGrapHiC maGazinES
LyinG aroUnD THE HoUSE HaD SomETHinG To Do wiTH
pLanTinG THiS romanTiC noTion of a pHoToGrapHEr’S
LifE of TraVEL.
of a thousand times before: exploring
Canada’s vastness from behind a camera
for one year as a nomadic photographer.
A member of the Canadian military medical personnel reads quietly before
crowds of families arrive at the annual Defence Community Family
Appreciation Days in Ottawa.
VISION PHOTO LIFE
foLLow THE paViLion
Starting on July 1, 2017, at mile zero of the Trans-Canada
Highway in Victoria, B.C., the Canadian Pavilion will stop at
schools, main streets and special events across Canada,
from west to east over 365 days. The entire exterior surface
of the Canada Pavilion will be a medley of 54,000 Canadians’
portraits, text and monitors woven into a dynamic, interactive
multimedia experience. Look for it in your neighbourhood
and on the Web at facebook.com/canadianmosaic.
I started looking down the road for
another national event to plug the
Canadian Mosaic Project into and there it
was: Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017.
Seven years was a long way off, but I said
to myself that if I keep it up, I could play
an instrumental role in visually
celebrating the biggest birthday of the
nation in my lifetime. I had been on the
road for two years already and was
somewhat directionless in my life, so I
decided to commit to the Canadian
Mosaic Project and embark on what has,
in turn, become a once-in-a-lifetime
“creative tour of duty” to unite Canada.
portraiture process was a new direction
to take with my work. With the 2010
Olympics two years away, I was busy
gathering portraits from across Canada
and had big plans of pitching my idea to
the Olympic Committee. However
unbeknown to me, the emails I was
sending to the Olympic people were not
making it to their destination. The
deadline had closed for submissions, and
there was no conceivable way to make
the mosaic happen. I was devastated. Yes,
everything happens for a reason, but all
that work for nothing? I felt I needed to
redeem myself for missing the Olympics.
Bus travellers by day, musicians by night, this
family with three home-schooled children calls
the inner-city streets of Montreal their home.
PHOTO LIFE VISION
© Tim Van Horn
© Tim Van Horn
wiTHoUT qUESTion, i waS mEnTaLLy anD pHySiCaLLy
TESTED THaT winTEr, BUT THaT JUST SEEmED To mELT away
wiTH EVEry nEw Town, pErSon or ExpEriEnCE. i waS
LiVinG THE DrEam i HaD DrEamT of a THoUSanD TimES
BEforE: ExpLorinG CanaDa’S VaSTnESS from BEHinD a
CamEra for onE yEar aS a nomaDiC pHoToGrapHEr.
A young woman wrapped in a Canadian flag
celebrates Canada Day 2014 at Pier 21, Nova
Scotia, where one million immigrants arrived.
JUNE/JULY 2015
39
Winner: Traces of Nature, Anastasia Emilova Kircheva, Edmonton, Alta.
Those Wild Oats, Debbie Oppermann, Guelph, Ont.
40
JUNE/JULY 2015
Male Emerald Tanager,
Jim Cumming, Kanata, Ont.
VISION PHOTO LIFE
GREEN
Snap Pea, Quincey Deters, Edmonton, Alta.
Trans-Canada HWY Aurora, Nebojsa Novakovic, Winnipeg, Man.
Creepy, Creeping Branch, Kris Heshka, Toronto, Ont.
Converse, Alma Lucie Robitaille, Quebec, Que.
WE INVITE OUR READERS TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SHOWTIME PHOTO CONTEST
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PHOTO LIFE VISION
REQUIREMENTS
please send your entries (max. five images per participant per theme)
to [email protected] following these guidelines:
•
•
•
•
•
Image format accepted: JPEG only
Image width: from 1800 to 4000 pixels (files must not exceed 3 MB)
Send only one image per email
Indicate the contest theme in the subject line
In the message, provide your name, address, phone number
and title of the image
This issue’s first place
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and a one-year subscription
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THEMES
DEADLINE
PUBLICATION DATE
B&W Landscapes
Family
Patterns
Kids
July 12, 2015
September 13, 2015
november 15, 2015
January 15, 2016
october/november 2015
December/January 2016
february/march 2016
april/may 2016
JUNE/JULY 2015
41
TECHNIQUE
PUBLISHING A PHOTO BOOK
TRANSFORMING YOUR PORTFOLIO INTO A POWERFUL MARKETING TOOL
BY SCOTT LINSTEAD
a printed book is still an effective tool for sharing photography with an
audience. a self-published book for profit and for advancing one’s
career is well within the grasp of the serious amateur photographer.
here was a time when photographers could present a high-quality
body of work to a publisher and
have a book published. Sure, the
T
42
JUNE/JULY 2015
publisher took the lion’s share of the
profits, but there was still money to be
made and there was no financial risk for
the photographer. That business model
is all but dead now, with photography
book-publishing deals reserved only
for the very biggest names in photography. However, one aspect of the photo
book that has not been lost during the
last few decades is how powerful of a
tool it is for the purpose of reaching an
audience.
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
FINANCIALS
In the absence of traditional publishing
approaches, self-publishing is the option
that remains for both the serious amateur
and the professional. Using a ready-made
self-publishing/print-on-demand service,
such as Blurb or Lulu, is a simple option
when profitability is not a concern. But, in
my opinion, selling a book at a profit really
requires a mass printing. Let’s take a
detailed look at what’s involved in producing a financially successful photography
book that can legitimize the photographer
and jump-start a career.
Producing a book that has a chance at
being profitable requires a significant
financial investment. When I selfpublished Decisive Moments: Creating
Iconic Imagery in 2010, I found it useful
to consolidate all costs related to the
production and initial promotion of the
book into a lump sum. Printing
1500 copies of my 64-page, hardcover
book cost $9450. This figure included
$1000 to have a designer follow my
simple layout instructions and prepare a
digital file that could be used by the
printer.
Additional costs included the cover
design and having a dedicated PayPal
sales page added to my existing website
($700). I also decided to add a dust jacket,
which cost $1636. I wrote all the text
myself but had it edited by a friend who
had professional editing experience
($250). Having advance copies shipped
ahead of schedule via FedEx to coincide
with the Christmas shopping season and
to fulfill pre-orders cost $1478. My wife
owns a bookstore so we decided it would
be the location for two book-signing
events, which had a catering bill of $500.
Other miscellaneous costs brought the
total cost up to $14,400, or $9.60 per
book. Half of the costs were paid by a
private investor who would naturally
collect half of all profit. The sale price
decided upon was $30, including the 5%
GST that would later have to be remitted
to Revenue Canada.
WRITING FOR DEMOGRAPHICS
This barred owl in flight appeared in a
chapter called “Anthropomorphism and
Forward Facing Eyes.” The chapter was
intended to highlight the effect that the
position of a creature’s eyes has on the
the photograph.
Nikon D3 and Nikkor 300-mm f/2.8 AF-S
VR II lens; 1/1000 s, f/2.8, ISO 2000,
manual spot metering on owl’s feathers.
PHOTO LIFE VISION
GEAR
© SCoTT LinSTEaD
perceived connection a viewer has with
$14,400 is no small sum for most people,
especially photographers. Knowing that I
needed to sell around 500 books to break
even, I had some ideas of who might buy
my book. As tempting as it was to throw
my favourite pics in there and talk about
why I love them so much, I instead decided to cater every aspect of the book to the
demographics I thought would be willing
to buy it. My first few years as a pro, I
photographed birds almost exclusively.
JUNE/JULY 2015
43
far
Com
pUr
mEn
wEB
SUC
anD
yoU
USE
wEB
anD
© SCoTT LinSTEaD
Since abstract compositions making use of reflections and in-camera optical effects through depth-of-field are common to contest-winning photographs, I
felt it was important to dedicate a chapter to the subject. Even if this kind of photography was never my strong suit, this was the sacrifice of producing a
book with a theme instead of purely showcasing my best work. Little Brown Bat: Nikon D300 and Nikkor 70-200 mm AF-S VR I lens, Phototrap infrared
camera trigger and four Nikon SB-800 flashes; 1/250 s, f/16, ISO 400. Western Diamondback Rattlesnake: Nikon D300 and Nikkor 500-mm f/4 AF-S II lens;
1/320 s, f/4.5, ISO 200.
METHODS OF INCREASING PROFIT AND PROMOTION
ONLINE ORDERS
Whenever I did anything in photography, be it a free interview
to a small blog or MSNBC running a story about me on their
website, it resulted in my website traffic peaking for a few days.
At the time, my website was designed to serve photo editors
exclusively. There was nothing there to sell to the public, so they
would simply look at the photos and move on. Those little
statistical blips that occurred whenever I had 15 seconds of fame
were not producing any revenue. Installing a Paypal button for
pre-orders was something I did before I even started writing the
book. The PayPal “Buy Now” button remains an excellent tool for
encouraging the anonymous impulse purchase.
PHYSICAL STORES AND BOOK-SIGNING EVENTS
In general, placing your book for sale in bookstores is quite ineffective. Self-published books are not easy to get into large bookstores, and small bookstores will likely not pay up front for stock
of your books. If they are willing to take it at all, they will suggest
a consignment arrangement, which means they will put little effort
into trying to move your books for you. After all, they have plenty
of stock that they actually paid for that needs selling. The unique
circumstances of being married to a bookstore owner were
undoubtedly advantageous. But I can honestly say that I don’t
believe it was critical to my book being commercially successful.
The brick-and-mortar store is really only useful if the photographer is physically present to meet the walk-in traffic, as is
44
JUNE/JULY 2015
the case with book-signing events. A glaring exception to
physical stores not being useful is McNally-Robinson, an independent Canadian bookseller that goes to absurd lengths to
support Canadian authors. I managed to combine a westerly
trip across Canada to complete a Canadian Geographic
assignment with a small-scale book tour at McNally-Robinson
locations in Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Another exception to
the rule occurs when a regional advantage is present. For
instance, outdoor photographers based in western Canada
whose portfolio reflects that landscape have had success selling their books to the souvenir shops in tourist areas such as
Banff and Jasper.
EVERYTHING YOU DO
If you are a serious amateur or a professional, you are likely
being asked to present to camera clubs, zoological societies,
etc., and those are great occasions to sell your book. But you
don’t need to wait for formal events; I have made unsolicited
sales of my book to other photographers that I’ve met in the
field and to people sitting next to me on a plane. The real estate
agent that sold us our first house bought dozens to give away
to his future clients. These in-person sales are uncomplicated by
shipping costs and packaging materials. You can shake the
hand and sign the book. People will sometimes buy multiple
signed copies to give away as gifts near the holidays. The
absolute best opportunity to sell books is all the time.
TECHNIQUE PHOTO LIFE
© SCoTT LinSTEaD
But people interested in birds are far from
ideal consumers. Bird watching is a lowcost hobby where the emphasis is on
viewing the birds from great distances and
developing identification skills. In general,
birdwatchers will buy field guides and
binoculars but little else.
Other demographics that I knew to be
aware of my work were other professional and serious amateur photographers.
Now, pro photographers generally don’t
buy photo books from their contemporaries, but they will buy something that
they can use for their own photography.
History had shown that my skills in highspeed and camera-trap photography were
something that photographers were willing to pay for, but writing for this relatively small group was almost certainly a
recipe for financial failure. I needed a
middle ground to support a wider interest
without excluding any key demographics.
I decided that a book of “amazing photos” and the stories behind them might
have a chance at appealing to the masses.
The book would be, in the most superficial sense, something that the casual
viewer could leaf through while waiting
in the doctor’s office and enjoy with minimal commitment. This quality could also
appeal to the gift-giving consumer. But
what if the gift recipient wanted to read
the always interesting, sometimes bizarre
backstories on how the images were created? Would they be turned off by excessive technical jargon? It occurred to me
that other photographers wanting to
replicate my results didn’t really want the
whole technical breakdown; what they
wanted was that singular detail that made
the photograph happen. Was it shot in a
studio? What specialized flash was used
to freeze the motion? In what corner of
the world was this species so approachable? I felt that these critical details could
be woven into an entertaining story without turning away the layperson.
Ultimately, “universal impact” was the
theme that I thought would bring photogPHOTO LIFE TECHNIQUE
PL_JULY_ADS.indd 2
raphers and non-photographers together
in regards to what constituted an amazing
wildlife photograph. In other words, a
bird photograph that’s awe-inspiring not
only to ornithologists, but also to other
photographers, non-photographers, the
young, the old and, in particular, any
demographic that would otherwise find
nothing interesting about a picture of a
bird, is an image with universal impact. In
writing the book, I ran with this theme
and hoped for the best.
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JUNE/JULY 2015
45
2015-04-30 2:52 PM
MEET YOUR
NEW BUSINESS CARD
Want to get the attention of that difficultto-contact editor? How about courting a
photo agency to represent your images?
A polite email won’t cut it anymore. Mail
them a book. A photo book that you can
afford to give to individuals in positions
of power is not a bribe; it is instant credibility that ensures they will remember
your name and return your phone calls. I
have given review copies of Decisive
Moments to magazines such as Outdoor
Photographer and Popular Photography,
which in turn drove those magazines’
readers back to my site to buy. I once
sent a review copy to Canadian
photography icon Rob Galbraith. The
technical leanings of my book appealed
to him, and he hired a writer not only to
review the book but also to conduct an
extensive phone interview with me. The
resulting feature on his website brought
in the final few hundred sales that
pushed Decisive Moments over the breakeven threshold.
My approach to producing a photo book
was specific to the kind of images I create, and naturally, mine is not the only
formula with which to find success. But I
believe the path of critical thinking about
your own photography as well as its
potential fan base is a legitimate one. To
paraphrase a well-known photographer,
“If you’ve managed to turn a profit with a
photography book, you’ve performed a
small miracle.” Reading between the lines
tells us that even famous photographers
don’t rely on book sales to pay their bills.
Despite this economic reality, the photographer in question still bothers to publish
books. A book that at least pays for itself
can enhance your photography career in
ways that you never imagined.
S
M
T
Y
D
B
T
*
© SCoTT LinSTEaD
As a photographer, I never put much effort into large-mammal photography. The image is a good example of choosing a photo to serve the
purpose of the book despite it not being a truly world-class image. In this case, the fawn appeared in a chapter called “Tender and Endearing.”
Nikon D300 and Nikkor 500-mm f/4 AF-S II lens; 1/320 s, f/4, ISO 640; lens rested on car window ledge.
46
JUNE/JULY 2015
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ANDYCONTENT!
PHOTO LIFE VISION
TECHNIQUE
FAQ
BY JEAN-FRANÇOIS LANDRY
in photography, we need all kinds of filters: UV filters, polarizing filters,
infrared filters, solar filters, graduated filters, neutral filters, coloured
filters... for a while now, we’ve heard a lot of talk about one filter in
particular that’s right in front of a camera sensor: the low-pass filter.
its purpose is to eliminate the moiré that appears when you photograph a surface with a fine, repetitive pattern. They’re in the headlines
because their usefulness is now being questioned since they also
cause a slight decrease in sharpness. Let’s look into it more.
WHAT’S MOIRÉ?
When you superimpose two repetitive
patterns (a series of parallel lines, for
example) with similar frequencies, with
one pattern slightly rotated from the
other, it’s common to see an odd wavy
pattern that has nothing to do with reality.
This effect is called “moiré.”
AND WHAT’S A
LOW-PASS FILTER?
To get rid of this highly unpleasant
peculiarity, camera manufacturers created
a low-pass filter (also called an antialiasing filter) that they placed in front of
“Moiré? Big deal!” say certain landscape
photographers who rarely encounter uniform patterns when shooting and who,
nevertheless, have reduced sharpness in
high frequencies (the veins of leaves, for
example) with little compensation.
A PROBLEM THAT
IS WORKING ITSELF OUT
Over time, new technological advances
have led to sensors with more and more
© JEan-françoiS LanDry
A camera sensor is made up of a grid of
photosites that are uniformly spaced. I’ll
let you guess what happens when you try
to capture a detailed, repetitive pattern
like on certain fabrics, a screen or an
architectural detail. Ah, yes: moiré!
the sensor. This filter, generally made of
several layers of birefringent crystals,
reduces the presence of high frequencies
(a tightly woven fabric would be a highfrequency zone). The filter just makes
them...blurry. It’s called a low-pass filter
because only the low frequencies “pass”
and reach the sensor, while the high
frequencies are wiped out. (A totally
blurred image wouldn’t have any
frequency or repetitive patterns.) Thanks
to the filter, the moiré doesn’t appear, but
the image loses a little of its sharpness.
© JEan-françoiS LanDry
LOW-PASS FILTERS
THEIR USEFULNESS AND
THEIR RECENT REMOVAL
For each lens, there is a specific distance (down to the centimetre) between the camera and the subject where the sensor’s grid aligns perfectly with fabric’s
pattern and creates a moiré effect like you see here.
48
JUNE/JULY 2015
pixels, and the size of the photosites is
decreasing. The frequency of the photosite
grid is becoming increasingly higher (with
more and more pixels on a given surface).
There comes a point where the difference
between the frequency of the sensor and
that of the fabric/screen/building is so
large that the low-pass filter becomes practically useless. The moiré simply doesn’t
appear, or appears only on rare occasions.
This is why certain manufacturers are
simply removing the low-pass filter in
order to get sharper images. It’s the case
for the Leica M and S; Fujifilm X-Pro1;
Ricoh GXR; Olympus OM-D E-M1; Sony
RX1R; Pentax K5 IIs; and, more recently,
the Nikon D3300, D5300 and D7100. (The
creators of Sigma’s Foveon sensor have
never used a low-pass filter; this sensor’s
atypical design creates no moiré.)
WHAT ABOUT THE NIKON D800E
AND CANON EOS 5DS R?
Responding to the current controversy
about the actual usefulness of the antialiasing filters, manufacturers sometimes
offer two versions of the same camera.
This is the case for the Nikon
D800/D800E, the Canon EOS 5DS/EOS
5DS R and the Sony RX1/RX1R. But since
they don’t want to make two different
cameras (physically removing the lowpass filter would mean recalculating the
entire optical system), they just add a second filter to counter the effect of the lowpass filter. Problem solved! (The Nikon
D810A does not have a low-pass filter
either, but it was designed exclusively for
astrophotography and has a modified
infrared filter that quadruples its sensitivity to infrared wavelengths.)
THE UNIQUE SITUATION
OF THE PENTAX K-3
Pentax (like Olympus) has an image-stabilisation system that is on the sensor
instead of in the lens. To compensate for
the user’s movement, the Pentax’s sensor
shifts so that it virtually stays at point
X/Y/Z 0/0/0, despite the camera’s motion.
So, rather than just removing the antialiasing filter, Pentax decided to move the
sensor in a small circular movement
(about the size of a photosite, or less than
3.88 µm) to create the same effect of an
anti-aliasing filter...on request! And that is
its genius: you can activate this feature
(which causes a slight loss of detail) only
when necessary. The rest of the time, the
image is clearly sharper, no pun intended.
The Camera Store
introduces a new line of
photography accessories:
ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION?
The jury is still out. In portraiture and
architectural photography, where textures
reign supreme, the low-pass filter is still
very useful. But for photographers who
focus on landscapes, nature and the starry
sky, its removal is often fantasized about.
The Nikon D800E (and D810A for
astrophotography), Canon EOS 5DS R
and Sony RX1R are made for these photographers. But don’t think that making
this investment means the images will be
twice as sharp. The gain in sharpness is
only about 5 to 10%.
How To rEDUCE THE moiré EffECT
Moiré is easily corrected in photo-editing software, but these simple steps will help reduce it
when you make the photo:
• Change the angle you are shooting from by slightly tilting your camera.
• Move the focus point slightly in front of or beyond the AF point.
• Change your focal distance or lens.
• Reduce the aperture a stop or two.
PHOTO LIFE TECHNIQUE
Purchase now at
thecamerastore.com
JUNE/JULY 2015
49
TH
E
For example:
ISO 50 .......1/50 s
ISO 100....1/100 s
FOR A SUBJECT IN ISO 200 .....1/200 s
DIRECT SUNLIGHT ISO 400 .....1/400 s
ON A SUNNY DAY, ISO 800 .....1/800 s
SET YOUR APERTURE
TO ƒ/16 AND MATCH
THE SHUTTER SPEED
WITH THE ISO.
E
L
RU
T
SUNNY
Shadows with distinct edges
ƒ/16
he experienced old-school photographer will tell you that you
don’t need your camera to think for you, and it’s true! There
are some simple, basic rules that—once you get the hang of
them—will save you time and energy, even in this digital age
where everything tends to automate itself. The Sunny 16 Rule is
one of them; it’s a quick way to choose proper exposure settings
without using a light meter.
UNDERSTANDING THE SUNNY 16 RULE
PHOTO 101
SHADE/SUNSET
No shadows
ƒ/4
VERY CLOUDY
No shadows
ƒ/5.6
Once you know the Sunny 16 Rule, you
can use same idea of matching the ISO
and shutter speed and then adjust the
aperture for other shooting conditions. If
you don’t have exactly the same ISO
values, choose the closest ones available.
CLOUDY
Very few shadows
ƒ/8
PARTLY CLOUDY
Shadows with soft edges
ƒ/11
GEAR
DIGITAL WORKFLOW
PRINTING TIPS FOR
BETTER OUTPUTS
GooD iS no LonGEr
GooD EnoUGH for
many prinTmaKErS,
HowEVEr. THE CoLoUr
GamUT (or ranGE)
DEfinED By SrGB iS
proVinG To BE Too
SmaLL for THE LaTEST
imaGinG DEViCES.
LEARN THE DANCE BETWEEN PRINTER,
PAPER AND COMPUTER
BY DAVID TANAKA
it seems so simple. The photo looks great on your computer screen.
That special fine-art paper you bought is just awesome. you hit print
and—disappointment. what happened? printmaking is a dance
between printer, paper and computer. for the best performance, you
need to channel your inner Bob fosse.
SPREADING THE SPECTRUM
Your computer uses a colour engine,
either built into the operating system or
from another source, like the Adobe Color
they remain as consistent as possible,
regardless of where the file ends up. It
needs to do this because the input sources
like your camera and the output destinations like your monitor and printer have
their own way of interpreting colour. Each
also has limits to the range of colours it
can express.
Engine (ACE). The colour engine works
with a vast theoretical colour model. Its
job is to manage the colours coming into
and going out of the computer so that
© DaViD TanaKa
A couple of decades ago Hewlett-Packard
and Microsoft set out to solve this problem
and came up with Standard RGB, or sRGB.
It’s still with us today and remains central
to most consumer electronics, computing
and the Internet. Serving as a generic onesize-fits-all standard, sRGB ensures good
colour without the need to calibrate every
consumer product on the planet that
works with colour.
This is soft proofing in Lightroom 5. The X-Y display option is enabled showing two variations of this
B.C. rainforest photo. On the left is what you would normally see when you work in Lightroom’s
Develop module. On the right is a soft proof of my Stylus Pro 3880’s output on Epson Velvet Fine Art
paper. (Epson Radiant White Watercolor looks nearly the same.) The red overlay indicates areas that
are out of gamut for this paper.
Good is no longer good enough for many
printmakers, however. The colour gamut
(or range) defined by sRGB is proving to
be too small for the latest imaging
devices. Early inkjet printers used four ink
colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
Today’s photo inkjets add variations of
these as separate inks (typically light
cyan, light magenta, and one or two
lighter shades of grey). Some even have
separate inks for primary and secondary
colours (red and green, for example).
This not only means you get more vibrant
and saturated colours, but also the ability
to express differences of hue better, often
edging beyond the colour gamut of sRGB.
The soft proof also shows that the image printed on this paper will have noticeably less contrast. The
soft proof of harder papers (Epson’s Premium Lustre and Premium Glossy) tell a different story. They
hold contrast better and show only a very few dots of red, mostly in the deep shadows. The overall
look is very close to the image on the left.
52
JUNE/JULY 2015
Likewise Raw-format images captured by
modern cameras exceed the gamut of
sRGB. The take-away from this would
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
© Frederico Marrtins
THErE arE a CoUpLE of
CaVEaTS To KEEp in minD
THoUGH. firST,
wiDE-GamUT CoLoUr in
iTSELf iSn’T SynonymoUS
wiTH BETTEr CoLoUr.
wHaT a BiG CoLoUr
SpaCE aLLowS iS morE
fLExiBiLiTy in
aDJUSTmEnTS anD
finE-TUninG.
seem straightforward: if you want to
preserve more of the data captured in the
Raw file, incorporate a wide-gamut colour
space into your workflow. There are
settings in Raw-processing utilities or
workflow products like Adobe Lightroom
that let you select a wide-gamut colour
space such as ProPhoto RGB for your
working environment. This is a good
practice for printmakers.
There are a couple of caveats to keep in
mind though. First, wide-gamut colour in
itself isn’t synonymous with better colour.
What a big colour space allows is more
flexibility in adjustments and fine-tuning.
Second, some of the colour data in a Raw
image will be beyond the capability of
your monitor to display or your printer to
print. These are known as out-of-gamut
colours. Under most conditions you don’t
know what they are; out-of-gamut
colours don’t announce themselves on
your monitor or print as blank areas.
That’s because one of the jobs of the
colour engine is to take those out-ofgamut colours and come up with the
closest match that the device in question
SEConD, SomE of THE
CoLoUr DaTa in a raw
imaGE wiLL BE BEyonD
THE CapaBiLiTy of yoUr
moniTor To DiSpLay or
yoUr prinTEr To prinT.
THESE arE Known aS
oUT-of-GamUT CoLoUrS.
PHOTO LIFE GEAR
PL_JULY_ADS.indd 3
can handle. But wouldn’t it be nice if you
could see the out-of-gamut colours to
determine where the potential colour
problems were? Enter soft proofing.
Most image editors and workflow suites
support soft proofing. The soft-proofing
module displays a version of the image
that’s been adjusted to simulate what it
would look like on a different device—in
the present context, what it would look
like as an inkjet print.
One of the benefits of soft proofing is that
out-of-gamut colours can be highlighted,
so you can take steps to make adjustments to the image to bring more colours
into the range that can be printed.
PAPER: THE X FACTOR
To create the simulation, the soft proofer
uses the paper profiles stored in your
computer. When you install a printer,
typically a number of paper profiles are
also installed. As well, most papers
geared to fine photography have profiles
you can download. Profiles hold specific
instructions that tell the printer how to
deposit the ink, taking into account
properties of the paper such as the
surface finish, texture and whiteness of
the paper itself.
When you use soft proofing, you start to
see the differences in how papers are able
to receive an image. A soft proof of one
paper may show few problems while
another may be flashing out-of-gamut
warnings all over the place. When
preparing images for printing, paper is the
X variable. Editing your image so that it
looks “puuurfect” on your monitor only
gets you partway there and, in some cases,
gives you a false sense that you’ve nailed
the look you’re aiming for. Soft proofing is
a useful technique for closing that gap
between what you want and what you get.
SHAPE THE
SUNLIGHT
Collapsible Reflectors are light
shaping in its most uncomplicated
form. They are easy to use, easy to
carry and can be used for bouncing
or diffusing sunlight as well as
flash light.
Read more at
www.profoto.com/ca/
collapsible-reflectors
Of course soft proofing is just a simulation. To get the true picture, you’ll need
JUNE/JULY 2015
53
2015-04-30 2:52 PM
to turn to hard proofing—actually making
a test print with the paper you’ve chosen.
Selecting paper can be chore, but there
are broad principles and a wealth of
information available from paper manu-
SELECTinG papEr Can BE
CHorE, BUT THErE arE
BroaD prinCipLES anD a
wEaLTH of informaTion
aVaiLaBLE from papEr
manUfaCTUrErS anD
inDEpEnDEnT SoUrCES.
SomE papErS LEnD
THEmSELVES To CErTain
KinDS of imaGES anD HaVE
THUS BEComE SafE
CHoiCES—GLoSSy for
HiGH impaCT, LUSTrE for
porTraiTS, maTTE for
LanDSCapE.
facturers and independent sources. Some
papers lend themselves to certain kinds
of images and have thus become safe
choices—glossy for high impact, lustre for
portraits, matte for landscape. But these
are starting points, not rules. The broad
range of inkjet paper available today
means there’s a lot of room for experimentation.
A FINAL FACTOR TO CONSIDER
© DaViD TanaKa
One thing I haven’t mentioned is monitor
calibration. Consider it part of the
minimum baseline for quality printmaking. If you can’t trust the accuracy of
your monitor, all bets are off for predictability elsewhere in the colour chain.
Here we have a completely different subject and colour palette: a street in the Bo Kaap neighbourhood
of Cape Town. The lower window is the soft proof for Velvet Fine Art paper. Most of the red building is
out of gamut, although it might be difficult to see in the screenshot reproduction. While the same relationships hold—papers like Velvet Fine Art have a smaller colour gamut than papers like Premium
Glossy—even the glossy paper shows a bit more out-of-gamut areas compared to the rainforest photo.
Monitor settings are also implicated in
another common problem: brightness
mismatches between the onscreen image
and the printed photo. If you use your
computer for other things like word
processing or Web surfing, there’s a good
chance that you have the brightness
control turned up. This can give you false
information about the tonal distribution.
Since the printer doesn’t have a
brightness knob, it prints the image
according to the data it receives—
accurately, but darker than you might
have expected. Some applications,
Lightroom, for example, have a “brighten
for print” setting that you can select to
compensate for this.
To make the photo look snappier on the velvet paper I would boost the contrast and play with
saturation/vibrance. To deal with out-of-gamut warnings, I would make a test print first, to see what
substitutions the colour engine makes to pull them back into the range that the printer/paper can
handle. Chances are they will look ok, because the rendering intent I’ve selected is “perceptual.” This
tells the colour engine to pick alternatives that look the best, not alternatives that are mathematically
the most accurate. If I don’t agree with the computer’s algorithm for what looks best, I can play with
the hue and saturation/vibrance controls.
54
JUNE/JULY 2015
THE BroaD ranGE of
inKJET papEr aVaiLaBLE
ToDay mEanS THErE’S a
LoT of room for
ExpErimEnTaTion.
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
Model—Colleen Novoligak. Photo © Michelle Valberg
Adventure Canada
T H E
E X P E D I T I O N
C R U I S E
S P E C I A L I S T S
Adventure Canada is a family-run travel company with more than twenty-five years experience,
specializing in small ship cruises to the Canadian Arctic, East Coast, Greenland, Galapagos, Haida
Gwaii, and select Canadian wilderness destinations. Our pioneering approach to expedition cruises
emphasizes scientific discovery, art, culture, learning, and fun.
Join Michelle Valberg on our Arctic Explorer voyage,
or Andre Gallant and Freeman Patterson on
Out of the Northwest Passage.
Freeman Patterson Michelle Valberg
Andre Gallant
Call us at 905-271-4000 or 1-800-363-7566 adventurecanada.com
ADVENTURE CANADA 14 Front St. S. • Mississauga, ON • L5H 2C4 Ont Reg # 4001400. Adventure Canada is a Member of TICO and ACTA.
Photolife Expeditions - June 2015.indd 1
2015-04-30 4:29 PM
PL_JULY_ADS.indd 4
2015-04-30 4:27 PM
GEAR
TH
THE
25
TIPA
AWARDS
THE 2015 WINNING PHOTO AND IMAGING PRODUCTS
as a member of the Technical imaging press association (Tipa), this past
march photo Life joined the other 27 leading photo and imaging magazines
from 15 countries on five continents in Dubai to vote for the most
outstanding photo and imaging products announced during the previous
12 months. Here are some of the award-winning products; visit our blog for
the complete 2015 Tipa awards list and product descriptions!
BEST ENTRY-LEVEL DSLR
NIKON D5500
BEST ADVANCED DSLR
PENTAX K-S2
BEST EXPERT DSLR
CANON EOS 7D MARK II
The D5500 is a lightweight, compact DX-format
DSLR (APS-C) that contains a 24.2-MP CMOS
sensor and can deliver up to 5 frames per second
at full resolution and Full HD video with a choice
of four different frames-per-second rates, from
24p to 60p. The ISO sensitivity range is between
100 and 25,600. This is the first Nikon DSLR with
a Vari-angle touch-screen 3.2-inch LCD. Using
Nikon’s wireless app, users can connect the
camera to a compatible smartphone or tablet
wirelessly with no hot spot needed. For capturing
action, the top shutter speed is 1/4000 s.
Numerous creative modes allow the user to
personalize each image’s look and style.
The Pentax K-S2 features a 20-MP CMOS sensor
without a low-pass filter. It has a weather- and
dust-resistant body, offers an optical pentaprism
(100% field of view), and is the first Pentax DSLR
with a Vari-angle LCD (3 in., 921,000 dots). The
compact body incorporates a Shake Reduction
(SR) mechanism and can handle all new and
many older Pentax lenses, albeit some require an
adapter. The K-S2 can deliver a top shutter speed
of 1/6000 s with a continuous shooting rate of up
to 5 fps. Creative functions include multi
exposure, interval shooting, an advanced HDR
mode, Full HD video, and built-in Wi-Fi with a
dedicated app for transferring images and for
wireless tethered shooting.
The Canon EOS 7D Mark II has a weather- and
dust-resistant magnesium-alloy body, a 20.2-MP
APS-C CMOS sensor, and dual DIGIC 6
processors. The camera features a 10-fps
shooting rate, a 65-point (all cross-type) AF
system and a 100% field-of-view viewfinder.
Exciting features include HDR and multi-exposure
modes, an intervalometer, and a bulb timer for
long-exposure capture. The camera has dual card
slots for both SD and CF cards. To support Full
HD video quality, it has Dual Pixel CMOS AF, a
dedicated stereo microphone, and built-in
headphone jack ports.
BEST PROFESSIONAL DSLR
NIKON D810
BEST MEDIUM-FORMAT CAMERA
PENTAX 645Z
This full-frame 36.3-MP DSLR includes a CMOS
sensor without a low-pass filter. The camera can
deliver up to 5 full-resolution fps with enhanced
noise reduction in its ISO 64 to 12,800 range,
which is expandable to ISO 32/51,200, and
broadcast-quality video in Full HD. Nikon’s Scene
Recognition System with the 91,000-pixel 3D
Color Matrix Meter III provides balanced exposures even under difficult lighting conditions with
exposure, AF, white balance and i-TTL flash control included in the mix. For videographers, the
D810 offers an HDMI port, in-camera time-lapse
and interval timer, a built-in stereo microphone
with a selectable voice-frequency range, full-time
AF and full-manual control.
The 51.4-MP CMOS sensor of the Pentax 645Z is
about 1.7x larger than those found in full-frame
DSLRs. It can deliver 3 fps with 10-image bursts
in Raw and up to 30 in Large JPEG format. The
tilting 3.2-inch LCD contains 1,037 million RGB
dots and has an “anti-gapless” construction that
reduces reflection and dispersion of light. There is
also a large, bright optical finder. A newly
designed SAFOX 11-phase-matching AF module
contains 27 sensor points, including 25 cross-type
sensors. When matched with a Live View function
that can magnify the on-screen image, very
precise focusing adjustments can be made. If
desired, ISO sensitivity can be raised to an
incredible 204,800.
BEST ENTRY-LEVEL CSC
SONY α5100
56
JUNE/JULY 2015
Dubbed a “super-compact” CSC, the Sony
α5100 is about half the size of a conventional
DSLR. The camera has a 24-MP APS-C CMOS
sensor with the same gapless on-chip lens
structure as the α7R. The camera delivers a
very fast 0.07-second AF acquisition time, with
up to 6-fps continuous shooting with AF
tracking, aided by the 179-point phasedetection AF sensor. There are numerous video
options: Full HD in cinematic 24p, 60p and 60i
frame rates; selectable in-camera XAVC S with
a 50 MB/s bit rate; Blu-Ray quality AVCHD; and
MP4 codecs—all with HDMI connectivity. The
camera also delivers an impressive ISO range
of 100 to 25,600.
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
BEST ADVANCED CSC
PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-GM5
BEST EXPERT CSC
OLYMPUS OM-D E-M5 MARK II
BEST PROFESSIONAL CSC
SAMSUNG NX1
Measuring a mere 59.5 x 98.5 mm (2.34 x 3.88 in.),
the 211-g (0.46-lb.) Panasonic DMC-GM5 is a very
compact and highly portable Micro Four Thirds
CSC. The camera’s Live View finder has 100%
coverage and contains 1.16 million RGB dots; its
Digital Live View MOS sensor delivers 16 MP. For
connectivity, the user can simply scan the QR
code displayed on the camera monitor with a
smartphone or tablet and use either as a remote
controller. The camera delivers JPEG and Raw
stills and AVCHD or MP4 video. It has all the
standard exposure modes plus a full complement
of metering patterns. The ISO range is 200 to
25,600, and the shutter-speed range is 60 to
1/16,000 s.
Housed in a dustproof, splashproof and
freezeproof magnesium-alloy body, the 16.1-MP
4/3 Live MOS sensor and TruePic VII processor of
the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II deliver a wide
array of creative imaging options, a 10-fps rate at
full resolution, and ISO up to 25,600. The camera
sports a 2,360,000-dot EVF and a 3-inch,
1,037,000-dot swivel touch-screen LCD. Its
extremely quick AF with an 81-point area delivers
excellent low-light and tracking performance. The
camera also features the world’s most powerful
5-axis sensor-shift image-stabilization system for
both stills and Full HD videos, plus a special
High-Res Shot option that is said to deliver
resolution equivalent to a 40-MP sensor.
The Samsung NX1 features a 28.2-MP APS-C
CMOS sensor and Samsung’s DRIMe V
processor. It can record 4K videos and fullresolution images at 15 fps, both with AF. It
features a 3-inch 1,036,000-dot AMOLED tilting
touch-screen monitor as well as a high-resolution
2,360,000-dot XGA OLED EVF. The camera has an
ISO range of 100 to 25,600 (extendable to 51,200)
and a new hybrid AF system that combines phase
and contrast detection with AF points that cover
almost the entire viewfinder screen. The NX1
offers a host of video options and supports DCI
4K (4096 x 2160 at 24P) and UHD 4K (3840 x 2160
at 24P/30P). Connectivity is via Wi-Fi, NFC,
Bluetooth and USB 3.0.
BEST EXPERT COMPACT CAMERA
FUJIFILM X30
BEST SUPERZOOM CAMERA
NIKON COOLPIX P610
BEST PREMIUM CAMERA
FUJIFILM X100T
Compact (118 x 71 x 60 mm; 4.7 x 2.8 x 2.4 in.)
and lightweight (423 g; 14.9 oz.), the X30 contains
a 12-MP 2/3-inch X-Trans CMOS II sensor for
Raw and JPEG stills and MOV format video with
stereo sound. The Fujinon 4x (28-112 mm
equivalent) zoom’s maximum aperture only has a
one-stop difference between the wide to
telephoto settings (f/2-2.8) and offers an f/11
minimum aperture. Shutter speeds top out at
1/4000 s, and ISO ratings go as high as 12,800.
Frame rates of 12 per second can be achieved,
plus image stabilization is built in. A 2,360,000-dot
resolution EVF is dubbed a “real-time” viewfinder
with a 0.005 s display lag time.
With a remarkable 60x integral Nikkor ED glass
zoom lens (equivalent: 24-1440 mm), the Nikon
P610 can deliver 7 full-resolution images per
second and Full HD videos while using Nikon’s
5-stop Dual Detect Optical VR stabilization. The
camera has a 16-MP CMOS sensor, an EVF and a
3-inch Vari-angle LCD; those last two offer
921,000-dot resolution. Shooting features include
filter effects and special effects, as well as a
macro mode and time-lapse video recording. The
P610 has built-in GPS and allows the transfer of
images to a compatible smartphone or tablet
using built-in Wi-Fi and NFC connectivity. Users
can also double the range of the lens using
Nikon’s Dynamic Fine Zoom.
With its 16.3-MP APS-C X-Trans CMOS II sensor
and EXR processor, the Fujfilm X100T delivers
impressive options and capabilities. Its 23-mm f/2
single focal length is the equivalent of 35 mm.
The high-resolution Advanced Hybrid viewfinder
(2,360,000 dots) features an electronic
rangefinder option. The finder also allows for
what Fujifilm names “Real-time Parallax
Correction” in MF mode. Other impressive features include an incredible top shutter speed of
1/32,000 s, seven customizable Fn buttons, Full
HD video with numerous selectable frame rates
(with optical finder viewing), plus built-in Wi-Fi for
transfer and remote camera operation via an app.
BEST EXPERT PHOTO/VIDEO CAMERA
PANASONIC LUMIX DMC LX100
BEST EXPERT DSLR PRIME LENS
SIGMA 24-MM F/1.4 DG HSM | ART
BEST PHOTO PROJECTOR
EPSON EH-LS10000 PROJECTOR
BEST PROFESSIONAL PHOTO/VIDEO CAMERA
SONY α7S
BEST PROFESSIONAL DSLR LENS
CANON EF 11-24 MM F/4L USM
BEST PHOTO SCANNER
EPSON PERFECTION V850 PRO
BEST MOBILE IMAGING DEVICE
SONY ILCE-QX1
BEST EXPERT CSC ZOOM LENS
FUJINON XF 16-55 MM F/2.8 R LM WR
BEST IMAGING SOFTWARE
PHASE ONE CAPTURE ONE PRO 8
BEST ACTION CAM
RICOH WG-M1
BEST CSC PRIME LENS
ZEISS LOXIA LINE
BEST ACCESSORY
UNIQBALL BALL HEAD
BEST IMAGING INNOVATION
LYTRO ILLUM
BEST EASY COMPACT CAMERA
CANON IXUS (ELPH) 160/165/170
BEST TRIPOD
MANFROTTO BEFREE CARBON SERIES
BEST ENTRY-LEVEL DSLR LENS
SIGMA 18-300 MM F/3.5-6.3 DC
MACRO OS HSM | CONTEMPORARY
BEST RUGGED CAMERA
PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-FT6 (TS6)
BEST STORAGE MEDIA
EYEFI MOBI PRO
BEST PHOTO PRINTER
EPSON SURECOLOR P600
BEST PROFESSIONAL LIGHTING SYSTEM
PROFOTO B2
BEST EXPERT DSLR ZOOM LENS
CANON EF 100-400 MM F/4.5-5.6L
IS II USM
PHOTO LIFE GEAR
BEST PORTABLE FLASH
NISSIN AIR SYSTEM
JUNE/JULY 2015
57
GEAR
GADGET
GUIDE
WHAT YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED
BY JEAN-FRANÇOIS LANDRY
if i were asked which photo gadget i cherished the most, i would be
hard-pressed to choose just one. at first thought, i’d say my Spider Holster,
but that doesn’t take into account the affection i have for my flashBender,
the passion i have for my B+w 1.8/64x neutral-density filter, the love i have
for my Cactus V4s or the attachment i have to my xume filter adapters. and
do you know what all of these have in common? The use of “my” before
each, which indicates that they all belong to me. and only me. Selfish, i
know. i never share my toys...
THE 60-MM F/2.8 2X
ULTRA-MACRO LENS
FROM LAOWA
YOUR HEART’S DESIRE
THE FLASHBENDER 2 XL PRO LIGHTING SYSTEM FROM ROGUE
FOR PURELY REFLECTIVE LIGHT
There’s nothing better for softening an image than redirecting the light from an external flash.
The FlashBender 2 XL Pro executes this brilliantly. Its 33 x 41 cm (13 x 16”) surface allows for
unprecedented coverage, and its new fabric softens reflections that could have an effect on
the quality of bright areas. The attachment, equipped with a Velcro band, is easier to handle
and keeps a firmer grip on the reflector than the earlier model. The FlashBender 2 XL Pro
Lighting System kit includes the reflector, a piece of diffusion fabric (that quickly transforms
the FlashBender into a lightbox), and a grid (that allows the flash to be unidirectional). The
whole thing is a little over 390 g (or 13.8 oz.). If anyone asks you what this kit is worth, you
can tell them, “Around $130, travel bag included.” redravenphoto.com
58
JUNE/JULY 2015
Lenses that work for
macrophotography rarely
exceed a 1:1 ratio. There are
a few exceptions, but they’re
not common. A new
Chinese company based in
Anhui called Laowa
(formerly Venus) has
launched a 60-mm focal lens
that offers a 2:1 ratio and a
focusing range from 18.5 cm
to infinity. With nine
elements in seven groups
and 14 aperture blades, it
seems like they have
succeeded. Mounts are
available for Canon EF,
Nikon F, Sony Alpha and
Pentax K. US$380; caps,
filter and pouch included.
venuslens.net
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
THE 50-MM LENS FROM YONGNUO
THE CLONE WARS
Fans of Canon are familiar with the EF 50-mm f/1.8 lens, more
so for its price than for its quality: $140 for a lens is a steal.
The company Yongnuo has decided to tackle this purchase
point with a clone that is a perfect copy of the original, in
look and performance. Word has it that it’s priced at about
US$100, but I’ve had a hard time finding it. As I write this, the
lens has not yet appeared on the international market. To be
continued... yongnuo.eu
THE UBH 35 BALL HEAD FROM UNIQBALL
A BALL HEAD TO SUPPORT THEM ALL
My search for the perfect tripod head is most likely over. After complaining about 3D
heads (they’re stable, but take too long to adjust) and insulting ball heads (they may
be fast, but they’re terribly inaccurate: as soon as you let go of it, the instrument
shifts, becoming off-centred by several millimetres), I was introduced to the UBH 35.
A design with flaws yet to be discovered, this ball head from UniqBall brings together
the looks of Chris Hemsworth,1 the stability of Simone Biles2 and the strength of
Žydrunas Savickas.3 Its two ball heads, one nested inside
the other, offer unprecedented flexibility and accuracy. At
500 g, it can support and easily manoeuvre a
load of up to 15 kg (or 33 lb.). A professional
camera body equipped with an EF 100-400 mm,
an AF 50-150 mm or an AF 300-mm f/2.8 lens
won’t make it flinch. (Its big brother, the UBH 45, can
support the 200-400 mm f/4, AF 600-mm f/4 and AF
800-mm f/5.6 zooms of this world.) The UBH 35,
however, is not a cheap piece of equipment at
$400 (and it’s $600 for the UBH 45). Is there a
sponsor in the house? redravenphoto.com
1
Actor, named Sexiest Man Alive in 2014 by People magazine.
2
Gymnast, World All-Around Champion in 2014.
3
Strongman, World’s Strongest Man in 2014.
THE FLEX FROM WESTCOTT
SO THAT YOU CAN BEND LIGHT TO YOUR WILL
What would you say to a light source that’s lightweight (142 g), completely bendable,
dimmable and water-resistant? Well, I have just described the Flex, a light panel with
256 LEDs spread across a flexible 10 x 10” surface. The Tungsten/3200 K version
promises a 1600-lux output at a distance of one metre, with a 98/100 CRI (Color
Rendering Index), while the Daylight version/5600 K offers 1900 lux and a 95/100 CRI
in the same conditions. The light coverage is close to 140°. You can adjust the LED
output from 5 to 100%, which makes the gadget particularly versatile (when shooting
objects, for example). There are several accessories, including an X support (called
the Flex X-Bracket Mount) and a diffusion cloth (the appropriately named
Flex 1/4-Stop Front Diffusion Cloth). The panel alone sells for $959,
so I’ll just mortgage “Park Place,” “Boardwalk” and one of my
railways. fjwestcott.com
Tenba Shootout Backpacks
For serious photographers, the Shootout is
Tenba’s ultimate no-compromise backpack.
You’ll be amazed at what you can pack
inside. And don’t let its streamlined looks
and lightweight fool you. This bag is built
for the rugged outdoors. The Shootout,
available in different sizes, features unique
side pods that allow access to cameras
and lenses without removing the shoulder
harness, plus Tenba’s exclusive multi-stage
tripod carrier.
Available colours
MeFoto Tripod Kits
Add Colour to Your Individual Style.
MeFoto RoadTrip and GlobeTrotter
Travel Tripod kits with matching precision
ballhead, offer an all-in-one camera
support system, converting from a tripod
to a full-size monopod. With their unique
fold-up design, MeFoto Travel Tripod kits
easily fit inside a backpack or luggage.
Available in carbon fibre or aluminum.
New! ELB 400 Lighting Kit
This revolutionary portable off-camera
flash system is perfect for outdoor
photographers who want to travel light
but insist on quality lighting. Features
an increased power range, new OLED
display, 20% faster recycling, built-in
wireless receiver, and new flash modes:
strobo, sequence and delayed. Two light
kit includes ELB 400, spare Li-ion battery,
Skyport transmitter, charger, strap, sync
cord, flash cable, reflector and case.
Tenba, MeFoto and Elinchrom products are
www.gnigami.ca
PHOTO LIFE GEAR
3 Y 2015
2015-05-0459
3:47 PM
JUNE/JUL
PL_JULY15.qxp_Photo Life Jan 2005 2015-05-01 8:47 AM Page 60
GEAR
IMAGING
PRODUCTS
REVIEW
THE LOWDOWN ON WHAT’S NEW
BY PETER K. BURIAN
Now that it feels like summer in most of Canada, it’s worth taking the time to inspect and
evaluate your current equipment. Is it still meeting all of your needs or is it time to upgrade your
camera, lens or carrying case in time for the most active season for photography? Some of the
following new products should certainly allow for more effective image-making. If anyone in
your family is active in sports, one of the new compact-system cameras would be particularly
useful, since these offer fast—or incredibly fast, in some cases—continuous drive for capturing
a series of action photos.
PENTAX K3 II
Retaining the well-sealed magnesium-alloy chassis
and the best of the 24.35-MP K3, this v. II model
benefits from an improved image stabilizer with a
4.5-step benefit, superior high-speed Tracking AF,
built-in GPS, automatic horizon correction and a gyro
sensor. The built-in flash has been removed, but a
multi-shot Pixel Shift “super high-resolution” system
has been added for images with better high-ISO
quality and full-colour recording at every pixel.
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3.2” (1.037-million-dot) LCD
100% optical viewfinder
8.3-fps continuous drive
Astrotracer for astrophotography
Wi-Fi with optional FluCard
27-point (25 cross-type) AF
Low-pass filter simulator
Full HD Movie with overrides
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Wi-Fi NFC and Snapbridge connectivity
ISO expansion to 102,400
Magnesium-alloy body
Full-HD 60p video
Can record to external drive
Port for external mic
Accepts wireless mic
$1250 (list) ricoh-imaging.ca
NIKON D7200
Nikon’s first DSLR with Wi-Fi and NFC for simplified
connectivity to a smart device, this 24.2-MP DX
camera excludes the low-pass filter for maximum
per-pixel sharpness and offers many amenities for
serious movie making. Other benefits include a 3.2”
(1,229,000-dot) LCD, 6-fps drive (7 fps in 1.3x crop
mode), the latest 51-point AF system, 2,016-pixel
metering and fast EXPEED 4 processor for shooting
up to 100 Large/Fine JPEGs or 27 Raw files in a
single burst.
$1200, body only; $1750, with 18-140 mm VR lens (street) nikon.ca
NIKON 1 J5
This 20.8-MP CSC, with an LCD that can be
rotated 180°, provides a drive speed of 20 fps
with continuous AF (60 fps with fixed focus),
making it ideal for sports. Autofocus should be
very effective with 171-point contrastdetection and 105-point phase-detection
technology. Removing the BSI-CMOS sensor’s
low-pass filter ensures fine image quality; the
J5 can also shoot both 4K and Full HD 60p
movies.
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Wi-Fi NFC and Snapbridge connectivity
3” (1,037,000-dot) touch-screen LCD
LCD can face forward
P, A, S, M and Auto modes
All important overrides
Many creative filter options
UHD 2160p/15 video
Lightweight body (265 g)
$600, with 10-30 mm VR Power Zoom lens (list) nikon.ca
60
JUNE/JULY 2015
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
NIKON COOLPIX P900
Boasting a 24-2000 mm equivalent lens with an ED
glass element, this compact camera with a 3”
(921,000-dot) vari-angle LCD and (921,000-dot)
electronic viewfinder also offers Wi-Fi with NFC and
built-in GPS. Activate the Dynamic (digital) Fine Zoom
mode and a 4000-mm equivalent can be achieved.
The Dual Detect Optical VR system is said to provide
up to a 5-step stabilizing benefit.
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P, A, S, M and Auto modes
Includes essential overrides
Very long focal lengths
GPS for geo-tagging photos
Wi-Fi NFC and Snapbridge
7-fps continuous drive speed
Full-HD/60p Movie mode
Weighs only 899 g
$700 (street) nikon.ca
OLYMPUS STYLUS SH-2
Retaining the best of the SH-1, but gaining a Raw
capture mode, the SH-2 also benefits from new
modes for long exposures at night, a live composite
(multiple exposure) feature and the Photo Story mode
with a choice of templates to be added, in-camera.
This 16-MP model with 24-600 mm equivalent lens
and 3” (460,000-dot) touch-screen LCD features a
BSI sensor, a 5-axis image stabilizer for maximum
benefit, full-HD/60p Movie mode and built-in Wi-Fi.
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Fast AF with many options
11.5-fps continuous drive
M and Auto modes
Includes essential overrides
HDR for great shadow detail
Many options for night photos
Numerous Art Filters
JPEG and Raw capture modes
$600 (street) olympuscanada.com
HD PENTAX-D FA 150-450 MM F/4.5-5.6ED DC AW
Another of the new full-frame series lenses, this
zoom is also compatible with Pentax DSLRs with
the smaller sensor as a 225-675 mm
equivalent. Targeting serious enthusiasts, this
well-sealed weather-resistant lens offers many
benefits: one Super Low-Dispersion and 3 ED
glass elements, both HD, as well as Super
Protect coatings, fast autofocus and a circular
diaphragm aperture for a pleasing bokeh
(defocused background).
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21 seals resist dust and moisture
82-mm filter size
HD coating vs. flare/ghosting
SP coating on front element
Direct Current (DC) AF motor and
quick-shift focus
• Internal focusing
• Focus preset and range-limiter switch
• Detachable tripod-mount collar
ty
READY TO TRAVEL WHEREVER YOU ARE
FOLDS TO ONLY 12.2”, EXTENDS TO 54.7”!
SIRUI T-005X/025X
ULTRA-COMPACT
TRAVEL TRIPOD KIT
12.2”
AVAILABLE IN ALUMINUM OR IN
8 LAYER CARBON-FIBRE
8
4
0
DISTRIBUTED IN CANADA BY KINDERMANN CANADA INC.
1-800-361-9682 [email protected]
PHOTO LIFE GEAR
JUNE/JULY 2015
61
PANASONIC LUMIX 42.5 MM F/1.7 ASPH
Much smaller and more affordable than the f/1.2
lens, this new 85-mm equivalent model with an
all-metal barrel employs internal focus and a
stepping motor that makes focusing smooth and
silent, useful in both photo and video recording.
The wide maximum aperture also allows a great
deal of light to reach the AF sensor, for faster
autofocus; this lens is compatible with the fastest
AF system of the latest G-series Lumix cameras.
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Wide maximum aperture
Stepping AF motor
Internal focusing
Circular diaphragm aperture
1 aspherical element
Power Optical Image Stabilizer
Close focus to 32 cm
37-mm filter size
Price TBA panasonic.ca
SONY FE 24-240 MM F/3.5-6.3 OSS
One of the four new full-frame lenses for the α7
series of CSCs, this zoom is impressive, with one
ED and five aspherical elements to control all
types of optical aberrations, linear-motor AF,
internal focusing and an Optical SteadyShot
stabilizer. The circular seven-blade aperture
helps to create smooth and pleasing out-of-focus
highlights for a very nice bokeh. Like all other
FE lenses, this one features a dust-andmoisture-resistant design.
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One ED and 5 aspherical elements
Fast autofocus
Internal focusing
OSS image stabilizer
Minimum focus from 0.5 to 0.8 m
Well-sealed
72-mm filter size
$1150 (street) sony.ca
TOKINA AT-X 11-20 MM F/2.8 PRO DX
A super wide-angle zoom for DSLRs with an
APS-C size sensor, this lens (to be available later
this summer) features a P-MO hybrid aspherical
element, three pieces of super-low-dispersion glass
and two moulded-glass aspherical elements to
minimize distortion and aberrations. Multi-layer
coatings resist flare and manual-focus override
(clutch) is available in AF mode for focus
touch-ups.
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6 high-tech optical elements
Internal focus
Focus clutch
Min. focus to 0.28 m
82-mm filter size
Lens hood included
In Canon and Nikon mounts
Price TBA daymen.ca
ZEISS DISTAGON T* 35 MM F/1.4 ZA
Another Sony full-frame lens for the α7 series, this
very fast Zeiss prime model is a premium-grade
product with one advanced aspherical glass plus three
aspherical elements. It also includes the Zeiss T*
coating for excellent flare control, Direct Drive Super
Sonic Wave autofocus system and an aperture-control
ring with a silent option for use when shooting videos.
Other benefits include rugged metal construction,
dust-and-moisture resistance and a circular nineblade diaphragm for a pleasing bokeh.
• Extremely wide max. aperture
• Advanced and conventional
aspherical elements
• Fast and quiet ultrasonic AF
• Silent option for aperture ring
• Minimum focus to 30 cm
• Dust-and-moisture resistant
• 72-mm filter size
• Circular diaphragm aperture
$1950 (list) sony.ca
COTTON CARRIER STRAPSHOT EV1
This revised model for owners of compact-system
cameras is thinner than the original Strapshot,
and includes a redesigned tether and wrist strap
that also acts as a safety leash against accidental
drops. The design holds your camera securely
when attached to just about any camera bag or
backpack strap; a very lightweight camera can
even be attached to a waist belt. This eliminates
neck or shoulder strain, while ensuring quick
access.
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Includes strap, connector and tether
Can attach to a D-ring or a strap
Patented locking system
Quick-release system
Attaches to bag, strap or belt
Weatherproof, rugged 1680-denier nylon
Suitable for any camera or bag/pack
$90 (street) cottoncarrier.com
62
JUNE/JULY 2015
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
PENTAX AF201FG
Many recent Pentax-branded products are
weather-resistant, and that includes this new
compact flash unit for interchangeable-lens
cameras. The drip-and-dust resistance will be
appreciated by all outdoor photographers,
whether shooting in rain, snow or in very dusty
environments. Features include bounce flash
(adjustable to angles of -10 to 90 degrees
vertically), a programmable control button and
five user-selectable modes, including Off.
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GN of 20 m at ISO 100
P-TTL with front-or rear-curtain sync
Manual Full Power mode
Manual 1/4 Power mode
Powered by two AA batteries
Adjustable tilt capability
Compact and lightweight
SIGMA TC TELECONVERTERS
Designed specifically for the new Global Vision
120-300 mm and 150-600 mm Sigma lenses, the
TC-2001 (2x) includes two special low-dispersion
(SLD) glass elements for optimal image quality, and
the TC-1401 (1.4x) features one piece of SLD
glass. Both benefit from a splash- and dustproof
design. Like all teleconverters, the 1.4x model
produces a loss of one stop of light while the 2x
model produces a two-stop loss of light.
• Exclusively for Sigma Global Vision
lenses
• SLD glass corrects aberrations
• 2x model includes 10 optical elements
• 1.4x model includes seven optical
elements
• Rugged and splash-resistant
• For Canon, Nikon and Sigma DSLRs
• Lightweight; 290 g and 190 g
$500 and $400, respectively (list) sigmacanada.ca
PROFOTO B2 250 AIRTTL TO-GO KIT
This 2.3-kg off-camera flash kit includes a fast,
powerful B2 Li-Ion AirTTL power pack with a
Li-Ion battery providing 215 full-power flash
capacity, a lightweight 250-Ws B2 flash head
with modelling light, a carrying bag with a
shoulder strap for the battery pack, a 2.8 A
charger and a padded location bag for the kit.
For full wireless TTL operation of one or more
B2 heads, add a Nikon or Canon dedicated
AirRemote TTL transceiver ($580).
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9-stop flash range
0.03 to 1.35 s recycle time
1/15,000 s Freeze mode
Supports high-speed sync
LED 9-W modelling light
LED data panel (battery)
1-hour battery charging
$2900 (street) profoto.com/ca
ACDSEE ULTIMATE 8
This is the first imaging software from this B.C.
company to add layer-based editing to its feature
set. You’ll find the same (numerous) capabilities as
in the ACDSee Pro 8 program, but with the added
ability to create and manipulate layers, as well as
support for 32-bit and 64-bit transparency.
Ultimate 8 is available only for Windows (7 and
newer), and it provides support for numerous Raw
formats.
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Image organization and search features
Great versatility in Edit mode
Layers option
Raw-format support
GPU-accelerated processing
32-bit and 64-bit support
Free trial available
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Opens like a doctor’s satchel
Zippered accessory pocket
Removable organization panel
Superior MaxFit laminated dividers
YKK RC-Fuse locking zippers
Removable All Weather cover
TSA-approved lock
Can attach to a roller case
$150 (street) acdsee.com
LOWEPRO ECHELON ATTACHÉ
The premium Echelon series also includes the
Echelon Roller case ($680) and Echelon Brief case
($289). The Attaché can hold a pro DSLR, three
lenses (up to 70-200 mm f/2.8), a flash unit, a 13”
laptop and various accessories. It’s made of 840denier nylon with a finely crafted exterior and classy
touches such as custom hardware, leather touch
points and saddle-stitched premium leather handles.
$357 (street) daymen.ca
PHOTO LIFE GEAR
JUNE/JULY 2015
63
LOWEPRO FASTPACK BP 250 AW II
The new AW II series includes a smaller 150
model ($110), as well as this larger 250 case
that holds a DSLR with attached 70-200 mm
f/2.8 lens, three extra lenses or flashes, a 15”
laptop plus a tablet as well as accessories and
personal gear. The Fastpack series has always
been highly rated and now offers extra benefits:
a built-in All Weather cover and CradleFit device
compartment plus three primary-storage zones to
help keep you organized.
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Customizable camera zones
Padded interior dividers
Open zone at top of pack
Full-access zippered opening
Protection for tablet and PC
Padded, removable waist belt
Flap with quick-release buckles
Can attach to a rolling case
$140 (street) daymen.ca
TENBA SWITCH 10
A new series of nylon faux-leather bags for
CSCs, the Switch is available in three sizes
(7, 8 and 10) in black only, but optional
coloured covers ($20-23) allow you to
change the entire look of the bag. The 10
model is the largest, suitable even for the
Sony full-frame α7 II, the Lumix GH4 or the
Olympus OM-D with a vertical grip attached,
plus an iPad or other tablet.
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Full flap and WeatherWrap cover
Quick access to contents
Moveable foam dividers
Padded sleeve for 10” tablet
Holds camera, flash and up to 5 lenses
High-grade strap with pad
YKK zippers and snaps
$130 (street) gnigami.ca
UNIQBALL UBH 35
UniqBall (also available in a larger 45 size, $599,
street) is a new type of tripod head with two ball
heads in the same unit. Rotate the outer ball until
the camera is perfectly level and lock it. The
second ball allows omni-directional movement
while the camera remains level. This design
combines the attributes of a traditional ball head,
a gimbal head, a pan/tilt head and a fluid head.
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High-grade aluminum alloy
Full tension control
Locks securely
Supports lenses weighing up to 3 kg
Integrated bubble level
Very smooth panning
Arca-style quick-release clamp
$399 (street) redravenphoto.com
DATACOLOR SPYDER5
A new version of the highly rated monitor-calibration
tool, the v.5 is said to provide up to 55%
improvement in tonal response for “more accurate
shadow detail and smoother gradients.” The
colorimeter device has been modified and is equipped
with seven new photodetectors. The software employs
the data it records to create a display profile that
provides accurate colour and tonal rendition of the
image you are viewing.
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Ambient light sensor (Pro and Elite)
Supports multiple-monitor calibration
Wizards for ease of use
Express version is affordable
Pro for serious photographers
Elite for pros and perfectionists
Projector calibration (Elite only)
Reliable colorimeter and software
$159, Express; $239, Pro; $349, Elite (list) daymen.ca
LENSBABY VELVET 56 MM F/1.6
This portrait lens was designed to provide velvety,
glowing, ethereal, impressionistic effects at wide
apertures and sharper images when stopped down.
Made of metal, the Velvet 56—in mounts for
Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony DSLRs—features a
maximum f/1.6 aperture and a very short
(12.7-cm) minimum focus distance for extreme
close-up photography. The standard version is
black, but a special-edition silver version is also
available.
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Manual focus only
Range of f/1.6 to f/16
0.5x max. magnification
Nine-blade diaphragm aperture
62-mm filter size
Metal barrel
Metal lens hood included
$624, Black; $749, Silver (street) lensbaby.com
64
JUNE/JULY 2015
GEAR PHOTO LIFE
Since 1991 the TIPA Awards logos have been showing which are the best photographic, video and imaging products each
year. For 25 years the TIPA awards have been judged on quality, performance and value; making them the independent
photo and
imaging
www.tipa.com
APRIL/MAY
2015
65
PHOTO
LIFE
GEAR awards you can trust. In cooperation with the Camera Journal Press Club of Japan.
CLOSE-UP
THE
HIPA
COMPETITION
DUBAI’S COMMITMENT TO PHOTOGRAPHY
BY GUY LANGEVIN
stablished by the Crown Prince of Dubai, HIPA’s goal is to
highlight the city’s commitment to support art, culture and
innovation. The awards demonstrate Dubai’s desire to position
itself as one of the world’s most artistically conscious places.
E
This year’s event made it clear that there are no limits to Dubai’s
ambition. With a grand prize of US$120,000 and a total prize
pool of US$400,000, HIPA has certainly put its money where its
mouth is. This season’s main theme was Life in Colour, and the
awards ceremony glittered, to say the least. The giant
multimedia show, complete with dancers and circus artists, was
a feast for the eyes.
And that’s without even counting the winning photographs.
With 60,162 images submitted by 30,878 participants from
166 different countries, the jury of top photo professionals had
plenty to choose from, and the quality of the winning photos
was indeed on par with what you would expect from such a
competition. In addition, two special awards honoured
Sebastião Salgado and Scott Kelby for their service and longstanding commitment to the art of photography.
The awards-ceremony week also included a series of
photography lectures and workshops by some of the biggest
names in the industry. Among them was a touching
presentation by world-renowned photojournalist Reza titled,
“The Power of Photography for Humanity.’’ The four categories
for the fifth season of the contest were also announced:
Wildlife; Father and Son; General; and Happiness, which is the
main theme of the competition.
Is your interest piqued? You have until December 31 to submit
images, and it would be great to see a Canadian photographer
among next year’s winners. More details are available at
hipa.ae.
TUrn To paGE 14 for morE informaTion
on THiS yEar’S Hipa winnErS.
© GUy LanGEVin
in mid-march, i was doing double-duty in Dubai. The
Technical image press association (Tipa) General
assembly was held there this year. This annual meeting brings together colleagues from photography
magazines around the world, and one of the items of
business is voting on the best photo products of the
past year. (Check out the award-winning products on
pages 56 and 57!) The other reason i was in Dubai
was because the Hipa organization—Hipa is short
for the Hamdan Bin mohammed Bin rashid al
maktoum international photography award—had
invited me to participate in the fourth annual
celebration of their photo competition.
Following HIPA’s opening ceremony, attendees admired the winning images of the Life in Colour category.
66
JUNE/JULY 2015
PHOTO LIFE
The perfect travel companion.
The irresistible appeal of Canon’s new EOS 7D Mark II? Not only does
it love to travel, it packs like a lightweight but performs like a superheavyweight. Inside the 7D Mark II’s surprisingly light and nimble
body, Canon managed to fit an updated 20.2 megapixel APS-C CMOS
sensor, along with other performance-enhancing features such as dual
DIGIC 6 image processors for faster processing as well as a brand new
65-point all cross-type autofocus system.
Great for when you’re out wandering, the 7D Mark II comes packed
with everything you’re looking for in a DSLR: unbelievable low-light
shooting capabilities, burst shooting to a maximum 10 frames per
second, Full HD video recording at 60p, dual card slots for both CF
and SD cards, USB 3.0 connectivity, built-in pop-up flash, a built-in
Speedlite transmitter for controlling off-camera flash, and even builtin GPS for automatic location tagging. Yes, you may be lost but your
camera never is.
And because it’s a Canon, the 7D Mark II is compatible with an
ever-expanding collection of EF and EF-S lenses plus a host of
EOS accessories.
There’s so much more to learn. Your best bet is to make your way to
a Vistek showroom and talk shop with a Vistek camera specialist. Find
out if a Canon 7D Mark II is in your future travel plans.
PHOTO | VIDEO | DIGITAL | SALES | RENTALS | SERVICE
T ORON T O • M I SSI SSAUGA • O TTAWA • CA LG A RY • E D MON T ON
V I STEK . C A
© Lenny Kravitz portrait by Mark Seliger
LIGHT SHAPING BY MARK SELIGER
“I use lighting as a tool to enhance. In my opinion, once the lighting
starts to feel tricky, then that becomes the photograph, and you’re
taking away from what I consider to be great portraiture.”
– Mark Seliger
Learn from one of the masters of portrait photography
at www.profoto.com/ca/markseliger

vivian maier

Transcription

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