Further to yesterday’s behind the scenes post, I thought I’d share the above video, which shows the levels of noise at various ISO settings on the Canon 7D.

Note that the cleanest image is not at ISO 100, as you might expect, but at ISO 160, which is probably the 7D sensor’s native ISO.  The video gets progressively noisier for each third of a stop above a multiple of ISO 160.  This leaves your options at 160, 320, 640, and 1250.  I used ISO 320 for yesterday’s shoot.

Via WetPixel.

Me and Kat were in the studio yesterday shooting video for our upcoming Degree Show. The final video will consist of two uninterrupted static shots of a couple of minutes each, meaning that I had some time to wander around with my iPhone during the shooting process.

I have decided that portions of the video will be in slow motion.  This meant that I had to loan a Canon 7D from the stores at university, as it is the only cameras (as far as I am aware of) that I can have easy access to that can shoot 50/60fps video (my own Canon 5DMkII can only shoot up to 30fps).

Until yesterday I had been using my 5DMkII with the modelling lights of normal studio strobes, as the 5DMkII noise level for video at higher ISOs is manageable.  I had suspected that the 7D, despite its APS-C-sized sensor (compared to the 5DMkII’s ‘full frame’ 36x24mm sensor), would still perform well at higher ISOs due to improvements in the microlenses on Canon sensors between the release of the 5DMkII and the 7D.  I was also aware that the 7D is grainy on ISOs that aren’t multiples of ISO 160.

However, it turns out that the 7D is magnitudes grainer than the 5DMkII, which meant I needed far more light to compensate. I couldn’t light the studio using a single octabox on the HiGlide system as I had been doing, and instead had to use the ‘red-heads’ – the constant/video lights available to us at NTU.  I was hoping that I could fit some sort of Bowens adapter to them in order to continue using the octabox, or at least a large softbox.  Alas, they get far too hot for normal flash diffusers, so I had to make do with two large reflectorboards.

The finish work will be exhibited on the second floor of the Nottingham Society of Artists building on Friar Lane, Nottingham, between 21 May and 3 June, with the private view on Thursday 31 May, as part of Release – The Nottingham Trent University 16th Annual Photography Degree Show.

I have a Moleskine notebook that I use for uni and the odd other occasions that I need to take notes.

I love my Moleskine. The pages are the perfect size and shape for how I use a notebook, and the pages are light, yet thick enough to stop ink bleeding through to the other side, and sufficiently textured to feel pleasing to write on.

The major drawback to a Moleskine is that it’s a physical, analogue medium, in a world in which I’m used to the conveniences of digital tools. The photos I take on my iPhone (which, I am only slightly surprised to admit, has become my most frequently-used camera) automatically appear on my MacBook Pro and iPad. Anything I need to remember or retain a record of goes straight into Evernote, which is not only synced between all my devices, but which are also run through Evernote’s free OCR service, meaning that even text within photographs I’ve taken is searchable. I’ll leave the triumph that is my (well, Peter Krogh’s) photograph-cataloging system for another post.

Last week I stumbled across Paper, which is an ostensibly free iPad app for notes and journaling. On the face of it, this should make it an excellent replacement for my Moleskines. However, it has a couple of drawbacks.

Firstly, the only tool available by default is a generic pen. There are a total of 5 tools available which, apart from the pen, cost either £1.49 each, or £5.49 for the lot. The free pen isn’t a terrible choice – I’d much rather have it than, say, watercolours – but it is incredibly hard to use without a stylus, which is the second major drawback. My writing isn’t massive and, to be honest, isn’t that terrible, but I find it hard to enter text by hand into this app.

‘Arty’ as it looks, it isn’t particularly functional for writing, which is what initially drew me to Paper. What it turns out to be very good for indeed, however, is quick sketches. For instance, even for someone who can’t draw, the following drawing only took me about two minutes, and zero effort:

Each drawing is saved automatically as a page, meaning that finding drawing and notes that you’ve made is a case of flipping through pages rather than scrolling through filenames. I’ve also found that it’s useful for drawing lighting diagrams:

I’ve also been using Paper to scribble diagrams of ideas for layouts for an upcoming group exhibition. It’s quite satisfying to use for this kind of note-taking because the book-like organisation system means that you’ve always got a record of notes that you’ve taken without having to manually save.

So, in conclusion, it’s a great app for scribbles and drawings. Not something that could replace a physical notebook, but an excellent compliment.

Saw this great lecture on creativity by John Cleese on Saturday.  It’s 35 minutes long and (though presented in spoken English) subtitled, but worth watching the whole way through. It’s interesting because on the face of it a lot of what is being said sounds obvious, but the framework through which it is explained stresses the importance of simple, fundamental factors; namely, that creativity is not a talent and isn’t related to IQ, that it can only happen when you’re in an ‘open’ mode, that it requires support and is stifled by negativity, and, most importantly, the degree to which ‘creativity’ is related to ‘play’.

I’ve always considered Cleese something of a legend, and so I consider learning about creativity from him akin to being taught how exposure works by Ansel Adams.  This is one of those lectures that sticks with you.  Watch the video before it disappears.

Via PetaPixel.

For those of you that haven’t heard of it, Instagram is very popular amongst iPhone users – I’d say most of the people I know with iPhones at least have it installed, even if they don’t use it frequently.  I’d show you my profile, but unless you have Instagram installed on your phone, you wouldn’t be able to see it (my username is ‘danfoy’, if you’re interested) – all that can be shared outside of the app is a link to the current photo, without linking to a profile or even other images in your stream.  Check out this photo of Kat at the Natural History Museum if you haven’t seen what a Instagram looks like outside of the app before.

The pros and cons of Facebook’s acquisition are already being debated to death on the internet, so I won’t go into them here.  What interests me is the amount Facebook is prepared to pay.  To put it into perspective, Siri – the most technologically-significant feature of the iPhone 4S – only cost apple $0.2bn or so to acquire.  Google only paid $0.75bn or so for AdMob, which had an existing userbase and was making money as a business.  Instagram doesn’t make any money.  It doesn’t even have adverts.

It’s not like Facebook needs to expand its userbase, so the only thing I can think of that Facebook would want Instagram for is what it can learn from both it and the development team, and how they can use what they learn to influence future developments in the way images are shared on Facebook.  I think it’s great that they’ve put such a high value on forward-looking ways of sharing images.

Aside from being a musician, which is probably what he’s best known for (he’s the guy from White Town), he’s also a prolific photographer and skilled portraitist.  We met through the Derby Flickr group back in 2005 or so, and tend to get sucked into geeky photo-tech conversations whenever we meet.  He’s recently started playing around with new ways of lighting for portraits, but rather than going down the currently-popular ‘strobist‘ route, he’s decided to try out different ways to use constant light sources.

Jyoti has a Canon macro ringflash but, unhappy with the results that it produces for portraits, he decided to make his own ‘full-size’ version using a bent metal clothes hanger and some LED fairy lights.  He’s got some amazing results with it – check out this set of portraits of Toppy, and this set of Nat – and was kind enough to let me have a play with it whilst I was round.

(Click the images above to enlarge)

It produces a really interesting quality of light, especially for something so cheap to make.  I’ve used the ringflash at uni a couple of times, and the light from this isn’t really comparable.  I suspect that this is for the most part due to the distance I was using it at – the ringflash at uni is powered by a 3000 watt quad-pack, which at this sort of close range probably wouldn’t be practical (I try to avoid, you know, melting peoples’ faces off).  50mm wasn’t the most flattering perspective to use at this sort of range (still fancy getting an 85/1.8), and ƒ1.6 was probably a bit excessive as well (notice how parts of Jyoti’s face, even on very close planes, swim in and out of focus) but, hey, I was just playing around.  I love the weirdness of the reflections in Jyoti’s glasses in the last image… wasn’t expecting that.

On a slightly unrelated note, we also went on a walk around the fields near to where Jyoti lives, where I took some more photos:

For those of you who are interested, I’ve upgraded Adobe Lightroom to the recently-released Version 4, and the above two photographs were taken at ISO 25,600, with luminance noise reduction in Lightroom set to just 20/100.  How incredible is that?

The App of the Week on the iOS App Store this week is Cinemagram, which is an app that allows you to animate portions of otherwise static photographs.  Apologies for the mess my example image makes of the post – the app outputs animated GIFs, which unfortunately are difficult to resize whilst preserving the animation.

The app works by capturing a couple of seconds of video and then allowing you to mask over the details that you’d like animated.  It’s surprisingly satisfying.  It might be a bit gimmicky, but that sort of adds to its appeal- it’s a one-trick pony a-lá other ‘fatbooth’-type  manipulation apps, but at least with Cinemagram you get to be a bit more creative with your choice of subject.

Cinemagraphs aren’t new (there are some nice examples on Jamie Beck’s tumblr photoblog), but I wasn’t aware of such a simple way of making them before now (although in fairness, it’s not like it’s something I’ve been looking for).  It’s a pretty straightforward process, with a couple of catches.  Firstly, everything needs to be pretty still, and the details that move should move in place rather than moving around the frame.  The second thing to be aware of is that in order to create a seamless animation, the movement is played forwards and then backwards on a loop.  This is quite evident on the example (of Kat in KFC earlier) above – notice how she sometimes blinks ‘backwards’.

At time of writing, it is free in the UK iOS App Store.

Francesca - Pianosequenza by Mario Zanaria

I recently came across the excellent Pianosequenza series by Mario Zanaria.  In this series, Zanaria uses a whole 36-exposure rolls of black and white 35mm film to create contact sheets, which become the final output.  There are a mixture of square-ish ones in rows of 6×6 frames (as above), and others that are laid out as 5×7 frame portraits (such as this excellent piece).  Be aware, though, that some contain nudity and therefore may be NSFW.

They’re absolutely fantastic, as is the rest of his work.  We’re all familiar with the maxim ‘there is nothing new in photography’, but having said that, I don’t recall any well-known examples of contact sheets being used in this way.  The nearest thing that I can think of is the Facebook profile banner manipulations that were fashionable for a while, before Facebook Timeline came out.  To compare Zanaria’s work to Facebook hacks would be insulting, though – to end up with results this perfect, with 36 perfect frames, on an analogue medium, is very impressive and visually arresting.

Zanaria also sells a set of photobooks on Blurb.

Via PetaPixel.

Click to enlarge

“Interpretation of the nude in art is complicated by innumerable factors, including cultural and societal values, issues of representation, taboo, personal and universalised human experiences, and the power of the human sex drive. Yet, when interpreting material featuring nudes, we frequently attempt to screen and suppress our baser reactions in order to form a more cultured interpretation which we are comfortable sharing with others.

“The body of work created for Release is partly an exploration of the relationship and breaking down of boundaries between myself and the model, Katrina, who is also my partner. By prolonging key moments in the transition between dress and undress, it is my intention to draw attention to the factors which individually attract us, repel us, and complicate our interpretations, leading the viewer to learn something about themselves in the process.”

The degree show website should also be ready soon, and I’ll link to it as soon as it goes live.

It was mine and Kat’s birthday last weekend, and we decided to go down to London on the Monday and Friday.  Kat took her ‘blad, and I took my Bronica.  Shot off a couple of rolls of Fuji Pro 400H, which I got back earlier today.  As an apology for the lack of content on here for the past month or so, here’s a free grunge wallpaper from our London trip!  Taken somewhere near Whitechapel if memory serves.

Click the image above for a better view, or right click and ‘save link as’ or ‘download linked file’ to save it to your machine.  It’s a 1440×900 file, as that’s the resolution of my 15″ MacBook Pro’s screen.