Enough with the Pixels

So this week I got my copy of the new B&H catalog and on the rear cover is an ad for Canon’s new Cinema camera that is capable of 4.5K video. Every time I see this kind of stuff I think to myself, enough with the fake perceived new pixel resolution. The thing that irritates me the most is consumers being suckered into buying these products.

Why am I so annoyed, well because unless you read the articles about it over the last couple of years, most neuroscientists agree that these resolutions are undetectable by the human eye.

"There's going to be some density beyond which you can't do any better because of the limits of your eye," said Don Hood, a professor of ophthalmology at Columbia University, in a phone interview with NBC News.

A person's field of vision covers about 200 degrees, a little more than a semicircle. At arm's length their index finger's fingernail will appear to be about the width of one of those degrees. Imagine that fingernail covered in 120 alternating black and white stripes — being able to discern those stripes at that distance is just about the theoretical limit of the human eye.

In reality, though, hardly anyone has such superb vision. In fact, most people would be unable to discern pixels or lines twice that size. And whether a phone or tablet display meets that standard depends on how far it it is from the viewer. In a living room, a viewer's 40- to 60-inch TV is positioned at a fixed distance, probably seven to nine feet away. Unless pixel-hungry TV fans buy far larger set, or push their couches much closer, any increases in resolution simply won't be perceived.

Most experts agree that 3D was a more meaningful invention than 4K because at least 3D can be seen by the human eye.

So if piling on more pixels isn't the next big thing — despite what TV makers and retailers will try to tell shoppers over and over again — what is? Experts said there are plenty of ways displays could improve.

Neuroscientist point to newly developed "quantum dot" technology for displays that is already leading to far better color representation on some devices. Advancements in dynamic range, leading to displays capable of showing light and shadow in movies and games the way we see them in real life.

When you're in a scene where there's indoor stuff, outdoor stuff, glossy materials reflecting other lights ... that dynamic range is huge,. Consumer-grade displays don't get that stuff right.

Some of the great masters, the painters, they knew things about light and shadow. They kind of knew instinctively how the retina works. In other words, perhaps the secret to a better TV is hidden in the smile of the Mona Lisa.

So, keep all of this in mind, not only when you buy TVs and other displays, but also when buying newer cameras. If you think your customers will prefer the new 4.5K or 5K video, you are wasting your time, better to stick with what actually works, rather than having clients upset because you shot their wedding in 5K and they cannot see a quality difference.


Comments/Questions

Are Drones Dangerous?

As I am sure you and most everyone is aware by now, drones are becoming more and more mainstream, especially professional drones. No I am not talking about the Reapers that Uncle Sam uses to rain down Hellfire missiles on terrorists, I am talking about photography and videography drones.

I personally own the DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone and love it! But many people are nervous or even scared of drones after all of the negative coverage on the news, especially on TV. They hear stories about drones falling on people or crashing into objects and wreaking havoc on innocent people.

People are afraid of many things, and thanks to all the negative press, many people are afraid of drones. They are paranoid that someone is using a drone to film them in the shower, or in some other "Peeping Tom" fashion, or that a drone will fall out of the sky and hit them or their children in the head.

Still from video I shot in Barnesville, Ga with my Phantom 3

The truth is drones are no more dangerous that anything else and safer than cars, yet you drive your car all over town every day and never give another thought about it. The incidents of drones crashing are the exception, not the norm as a general rule, anyone like myself that has spent considerable money on a professional grade drone will take the time to learn everything they can about it to fly it as safely as possible. I watched hundreds of videos on the Phantom 3 and drones in general to try and make myself as knowledgeable as possible on the subject of drones and safe drone flying.

Additionally, the better, professional drones like mine come equipped with a "Safe Mode", which prevents the drone from flying more than a certain distance away from it's GPS "home point" and it also doesn't allow you to fly more than so many meters off the ground. The manufacturers
put these safety features into their software to help prevent people from making serious mistakes and hurting people or property. Once you have mastered your drone and honed your piloting skills, you can take it out of "Safe Mode" and then you can fly mine up to 2 miles from the take off point and fly to the maximum legal altitude which is 400 feet in the U.S.

The point I am making is that drones, like many other items are just another tool in a professional photographer's bag. A drone can be dangerous, but why live in fear of something happening when the chances are Slim to None and Slim is out of town. I personally have practiced with mine a lot while nowhere near people or property, I also use and recommend an app call UAV Forecast, which uses your GPS location to tell you if the weather is suitable for flying or not.

Railcar I shot in Barnesville, Ga with my Phantom 3

Most anyone that is a serious drone photographer or videographer is going to spend considerable time learning everything they can about their new gear before they ever use it out near people or objects that it could cause harm to, no one want to pose a risk to the health and well-being of others on purpose and most of us also buy special drone insurance just in case something does go wrong. Many of you probably don't even realize that a lot of your favorite TV shows and movies now use professional drones with professional "pilots" flying them to film.

With the enormous cost in making a block-buster movie these days, studios look to save money any way they can and a $1,000-$5,000 drone that be used over and over again is way more cost effective than say a $60,000 a day camera boom truck. Just as many of you might not be aware, but the GoPro action camera is also used by many studios for shooting TV shows and movies because again a few $300-$400 GoPros mounted on car bumpers for chase scenes are way cheaper and the GoPro is capable of extremely high-quality video and stills with it's 12MP camera capable of 1080p or even 4k HD video as the new model is capable of and so is my drone.

If there is one thing I want you the reader to take away from this week's post is that drones are nothing more than another camera "body" and most of them are being flown by professionals who take flying and filming with them as seriously as any other photographer using any other conventional camera body and lens combination. So, next time you are out at a skate park or some vacation spot like a beach in Florida and see someone flying one of these professional drones, instead of being afraid of the drone, walk over and strike up a conversation with them.
I have people walk up to me and ask me about mine all the time and many times they ask me to shoot some footage or stills of them.

Keep in mine that the media loves to blow things out of proportion as they are looking for ratings and sensationalism and less about sharing the truth on a subject. Now get out there and check out some drone photographers, or rent one and try it out for yourself!

Comments/Questions

Giving Back - Videos

Good morning everyone.

This week we will continue in the theme of giving back. We want to build a great portfolio for community charity work so what can be better than giving back to the local community.

To add some great features and additional work to your resume', why not add some video to your work. The industry is starting to demand that photographers also add some video to their packages. This might be a really opportunity to improve upon your video skills.

Here is a short video on how to set your WB for your DSLR camera.

and this video as well..

They are easy to follow and getting your WB correct in camera will be a breeze.

If you have a few different cameras than were mentioned in the videos then you can also check out this link for additional camera WB settings.

Last week we had a online video training speaking about some of the sites you can visit to find out how you can contribute to the community.

Here are two of those links.

Volunteer Match

Shutter Mission

Have a great Wednesday and I will speak to you again next week.

Denzil

Video and PH350

Good Morning Everyone and welcome to another Terrific Tuesday!

If you are wondering what I am doing talking about video when this is supposed to be a blog about photography, then you are not the only one.  Down the road if you continue your studies in the BS program for photography you will take a class called Time Based Media where you will be using video editing software from Adobe.  Remember a few blogs back I talked about the need to have a camera that is able to record movies?  Well, this is the class that meets that requirement!

 Adobe Premier Pro CC video screen

The video editing program you will be using is called Adobe Premiere Pro CC.  You can access this program through the Adobe Creative Cloud umbrella or you can download the trial version straight to your computer and use it for 30 days.  Things you might want to take into consideration is that the program only works on Windows 7 or higher, it will not work on XP or Vista (trust me I know!).  There are tutorials in Lynda.com that will guide you through everything you need to know about the program, the combined time necessary to watch all the tutorials is about 29 hours!

When you open the program for the first time, it might look similar to Lightroom, don’t be fool, it is not the same process.  In this program you will be dealing with videos, audio, still images (photos), adding music, titles, motion graphics for both videos and still images.  To complete the assignments you will be dealing with WB for video and images, recording interviews and audio with different equipment and also dealing with continuous light in the form of a hot shoe mount LED light.  Of course you might be using your tungsten light set when doing the interviews because you will not be using your flash or strobes unless is for still images.

 

Adobe Premier Pro CC audio + video screen

So, my point is simple: be prepared before you get to the class!  I was not, and I struggled getting all the necessary equipment, learning how to use it while at the same time trying to get the homework posted on time.  The final project is to be about 60-90 seconds long, but you will have hours of work to get to that small amount of time!

I know that this is a different post than usual, but I felt I needed to post the warning out there.

Check out Adobe Premier Pro, if you have never used it, it is going to be an eye opener.

If you have any questions about it, the class, or what equipment you will need, drop me a line, I will guide you to where you can get all the information.

Until then, this is your Tuesday Ambassador wishing a great and wonderful, fun-filled, picture-taking day for all of you!

 Tuesday Ambassador

Stop taking pictures of your kids...seriously

OK, don't actually stop taking pictures of your kids, they're only young once, just stop using them as models for class.  Get out of your comfort zone!  I know it sounds terrifying, right?  It is.  I'm not even going to try to convince you that it isn't.  I mean that's why it's called the comfort zone... because that is where we feel most comfortable.  It's different for each of us.  I prefer to shoot portraits, lit with strobes either in studio or on location.  Natural light?  Forget it.  Out of my comfort zone.  Still life...out of my comfort zone.  See the pattern?  We all do it to some degree and we need to stop if we are going to grow as photographers.

When I first started classes I had no idea what I wanted to shoot when I grow up.  And there are days where I still don't know for sure what I want to shoot.  I have, however, been exposed to so many things that I never considered 3 years ago.  One of my first classes was "Drawing - ART 1010" or something like that.  I hated it.  With a passion, I mean seriously, I use a camera for a reason.  But now, 3 years later I understand that it wasn't about becoming the next DaVinci, it was about learning something new.  In the case of that class, it was light and shadow and as a side benefit, now that I use a Wacom Intuos Tablet when editing, some of those drawing techniques really come in handy now.  The point is, I was forced out of my comfort zone and I am a better student and photographer because of it.

I have been in classes with plenty of other people that pitch a fit in the classroom... "well, I'm a nature photographer so I don't do well with people" and "I'm a natural light photographer so I don't really need to learn how to use these lights" and so on.  Guess what, those people did not do very well in those classes or assignments and it showed in their final projects.  The people that were not afraid to go out and learn something new, even do something that made them uncomfortable, without making excuses really did the best in my opinion.

Speaking of going out of comfort zones, when I took Time Based Media, I was not looking forward to it. Not one bit.  Create a 90 second video?  Storyboard it?  Work with audio?  You gotta be kidding me?  I tried my best to go into it with an open mind and I was very pleased with the results.  And it opened my eyes to a whole new world of opportunities for me.  (And yes that means I have a short film brewing in the back of my brain somewhere).

Bottom line, be open minded and get out of your comfort zone!



Athlete Profile: Eric Dasher from Mike Krogemann on Vimeo.