If you should wonder how the pictures in my previous blog post are made, here are some shots of me in action. All these action pictures were taken by my son Kobe. To be completely honest, his shots are probably better than mine. It’s a serious blow to my ego to be beaten by an 8 year old boy but I could argue that he had a great teacher.

Usually I get the hang of the controls of a new camera pretty quickly but I did have some serious struggles with this one. The fact that the camera was in a housing, the water was freezing and having waves crashing in my neck, might have made things a bit harder. I also had some buttons on the housing getting stuck and it was hard to pull them out with frozen fingers. I hope that it was just because the springs on the buttons where a bit stiff because the housing is brand new or that it was because of sand getting into them. I missed some good shots of a nearby kite surfer by being stuck in video mode, so let’s hope the stuck button problem will go away.

One of the reasons to go for a micro 4/3 underwater setup is the excellent live view feature. The LCD was actually pretty easy to see, even in the bright sun. I can imagine it would have been a lot harder with a traditional viewfinder. The autofocus performed quit well, although it’s not as responsive as my GF1. The fact that I used the Olympus 14-42 kitlens has certainly an influence on the autofocus. I would normally work in manual mode but as this all thing is so new to me, I stuck to Aperture Priority and it performed pretty well.

Shooting half/half images (half below, half above the surface) isn’t easy in the waves. Normally this is done with a much wider lens (usually a fisheye) and a large dome port, so it was a bit hit and miss with the standard port and kitlens. But by “reading” the rhythm of the waves, I could predict the position rather well.

This little test was way too short to jump to conclusions but it gave me a positive vibe about what might be possible. I’ll keep you posted on my H2O experiments, failures and the occasional good shot.

When I blogged a couple of weeks ago that I was selling my Canon 1D mkIII, a lot of people started speculating what I would replace it with. Most thought I would get a Medium Format and although that would make sense quality wise, unfortunately it doesn’t financially. I actually never had the intention to REPLACE the 1D mkIII, I just didn’t use it much anymore and I could use the money for a new challenge: underwater photography. Or I should rather say: “in-the-water photography”, as I currently don’t have the ambition to do scuba diving photography but rather explore the new angles that I can explore from on/in/under the water.

After lots of research I decided to get myself the Olympus E-PL1 (a camera pretty similar to my trusted Panasonic GF1) and the Olympus PT-EP01 underwater housing. I’ll review this combination later, after I have some more hands-on time with it. For now, let’s say it seemed like an affordable way into underwater photography while still having decent image quality and handling.

This was my first underwater picture with the Olympus:

Unfortunately, this was the second one:

I was really dying to test out the new toy in the water. Unfortunately it’s winter here and during my last dive (2 weeks ago) the water temperature was barely above freezing (4°C). That makes it hard to find volunteers to go playing in the water. This weekend the kids and I had a short trip planned to the coast. I decided to take my wetsuit and camera with me, just in case I felt the uncontrollable urge to jump in the North Sea. Well … the urge was there. I spent about 10 minutes in the surf and a tidal pool to shoot whatever was there.

I’m pretty happy with what I got, considering the fact that I spent most of my time in the water fiddling with the unfamiliar controls. But I know it’s not more than a couple of lucky shots. I’ll need a lot more practice and experiments. If anyone knows good water related subjects or wants to help me out by assisting, let me know.

Last year in the spring I bought the Panasonic Lumix GF1 (which is now replaced by the GF2). I’ve been wanting to blog about it ever since I got it, but I’ve been way to busy having fun with it. The other reason why I haven’t blogged about it is that I wanted to keep it all to myself and didn’t want anyone else to shoot with this fantastic little camera.

The pics in this blog post were all taken in 15 minutes behind the scenes of a shoot I did last week with Fotofolio to learn from each other how we use the new Pocketwizards (more to come about that this week).

Why Did I Buy the GF1?
Just like many photographers I got frustrated with the bulk of a DSLR sometimes. Like when I’m with my kids, when traveling, … And I got equally frustrated by the lack of speed, image quality, low light performance and too much DOF of a compact camera. I even seriously considered getting myself a film rangefinder. When I borrowed a friend’s old Leica last year, I loved the size, the manual controls and the image quality. I love shooting film, but to be honest all the developing and scanning is a pain in the ass. Certainly for a camera that I want to use very often since I want to have it with me all the time. Digital rangefinders are simply to expensive to justify for what I would use it.

But the last few years there have been some interesting experiments going on putting a bigger sensor in a compact body. When Olympus and Panasonic announced the Micro 4/3 system, they got my interest. I kept following their progress and when Olympus announced the PEN E-P1, I was ready to buy. But when I read the reviews, I decided to hold off a bit longer. It seemed like an almost-but-not-quite-there-yet thing. But then I read about the Panasonic GF1 and it seemed that this was the camera for me. It took me a while to finally decide to get one, but I haven’t regretted it for a second. I got it with the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens (40mm because of the 2x crop factor).

The Down Sides
It’s rather pricey, no automatic image rotation, limited dedicated micro 4/3 prime lenses available and I’m not too crazy about the colors. But that’s it what I’m concerned

Why I love the GF1
Technically the GF1′s qualities certainly beat the average compact camera. But even without any lab tests, I can tell it’s also considerably below my DSLR’s. But this is RSO, Review-sort-of, my way to write what I personally think about something. A review that should be taken with a grain of salt just like any technical review. And I just happen to like this little camera a lot. It’s also important to be realistic and see it like what it is. This isn’t a sports or wildlife camera, nor is it a camera that I would use for high end commercial jobs. To me it’s mainly a black & white reportage/documentary camera. (The in-camera “Dynamic Black & White” setting is pretty damned good by the way.)

It handles surprisingly well. In fact, it far exceeded my expectations. It feels sturdy and stable used with one or two hands. The LCD screen is great, even in lots of light. It’s almost as responsive as my high end DSLRs. All the automatic stuff like autofocus, auto exposure, … works great. When I put it in auto mode, even my 3yo daughter Noa makes great pictures with it. And with a couple of presses on the well laid out buttons, it’s daddy’s perfect manual machine. The menus and operations are intuitive and sometimes almost revolutionary. I can even fire speedlites remotely by putting a Pocketwizard on the hotshoe.

At the same time it looks like an average (slightly large) compact camera. I feel the size and look of the camera let me get closer to people and make more intimate shots. You might give up some image quality but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to get better stories.

What About the Image Quality?
Like I said, it’s not on par with my DSLRs … technically that is. I’m not a big fan of the colors most of the time. From iso800 on the images become pretty noisy. But in black and white, it shines. The noise actually becomes pleasingly close to the authentic, organic feel of film grain. The GF1 shoots RAW and these files seem to hold surprisingly much detail in the highlights and shadows. I love playing around with the Graduated Filter in Lightroom on the GF1 files to make the sky more dramatic and dodge and burn area’s to lead the eye to the subject.

Do You Have Any Bold Statements?
Yes I do: If I was a Magnum photographer, I’d travel the world with a couple of GF1′s.

And that was not bold, just to bold. I got some ideas for personal documentary projects floating around in my restless brain. I want to do one of these projects this year and I will probably shoot it mainly with the GF1.

Let me start this first blog post of the year by wishing you all an amazing 2011 in which you can turn dreams into reality!

You all know that 2010 hasn’t been my the best year of my life. I suffered, struggled and cried. But I also learned, achieved and laughed thanks to my friends, my family and my kids. This new year is in no way going to be a walk in the park but I feel strong enough to tackle the challenges because I know you will pick me up when I stumble.

If I have one New Year’s resolution, it’s to be more radical. I’m going to say NO to things that only clutter my life in order to create even more time quality time with my kids. I’m going to be a better business person to free up time and energy for more creativity.

Last week the kids and I spent a short vacation at the coast with “Ponette”, one of my best friends. It really recharges my batteries to be surrounded by nature, laughter, trust and intelligent conversations.

Rearranging my priorities in life will have an impact on my photography too. After all, ever since I started shooting professionally I’ve seen it as a part of my life and as a way to create a better life for my family.
Lot’s of new things have been set in motion over the last months and many other ideas are in various beta stages. Some will work, some won’t. I’m sure I’ll have enough to blog about this year.

Let’s start this post with a bit of (recent) history. (Or you could just skip the first part):

Back in the days when Strobist started the small flash revolution, getting the right gear together wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Basically we mainly adapted pieces of gear that weren’t made for small off-camera flash lighting. No shop could give you a good answer and you had to research what was available, get some parts from your local store, buy the other stuff on eBay and then try to make it fit together. These days every serious store can provide you with all the bits and pieces (even in a kit) and many manufacturers make equipment specially designed for off-camera flash use. One of the first manufacturers that stepped up was MPEX. They started supporting Strobist and stocked up not only the right equipment but also the knowledge about it.

For many the reason to start using small off-camera flashes is that it’s an affordable way of lighting with artificial light. The most expensive part is usually the flash itself. A Canon 580 EXII or a Nikon SB900 doesn’t come cheap so people started looking for cheaper alternatives. You don’t need all the high tech mambo jambo in these state-of-the-art but expensive flashes anyway if you are going to shoot all manual. I’m not saying these flashes aren’t word their money (I even started to become a fan of all the automatic stuff for certain uses) but lighting manually is often still the best way to get the best results. People started to pay ridiculous prices for old Nikon SB flashes and brands like Vivitar revived their old models.
My 3 Vivitar 285HV’s have been my workshorses for a couple of years and I also used some old Nikons but you still sometimes got faced with the fact that these were never really designed as off-camera flashes. No build-in optical slaves on most of them, stupid pc or even more exotic connectors, …

Enter a couple of years later when MPEX decided to start Lumopro, a new brand that makes lots of toys for us small flash lovers. I was pretty impressed with the first flash they made, the LP120. So when they came out with a new and improved version, the LP160, I really needed to take it for a short test drive and took it with me on holiday.

Finally the review:

We all know the dynamic range that digital sensors can capture is much less than what we see with our eyes. On a little geocaching trip with Noa and Maya I encountered such a situation. High noon, kids in the shade and some beautiful clouds. Trouble is, you can’t capture it all in a photograph. If you expose for the kids, the background blows out.

And if you expose for the background, the kids become silhouettes.

But hey what does daddy have in his backpack? Diapers, cookies and a first aid kit. But also a couple of pocketwizards and a Lumopro LP160. Noa became the model, Maya acted as a VAL (voice activated light stand) and I shot with the Lumix GF1. It became clear very fast that the LP160 is one helluva powerful flash. It packs about the same power as a 580EX or an SB900. So that’s a step/stop up from the previous model.

Noa is not too much of a poser, so you have to be fast if you want to shoot her, so that was an excellent recycle speed test. Despite the fact that we fired the flash at full power, it recycled really fast. I didn’t measure it but the recycling time seems close or equal to a 580EXII and certainly waaaaay faster than my Vivitars. It also seems pretty friendly to the batteries, I seem to get more flashes out of a set of AA’s than with the Vivitars.

Time for Maya, who DOES like to pose. We went for a slightly larger frame and to get all attention to Maya, I zoomed in the Lumopro. It now has an electronic zoom motor build in which feels a bit more professional than the manual zooming in the previous model.

The only criticism I can think of is the battery door. You have to push the batteries with one hand and slide the door with the other to get it closed. The door also comes off completely so make sure you don’t forget it somewhere. The feel, the controls and the power have certainly improved compared to the LP120. Lumopro clearly listened to their user base and made syncing the flash a breeze. It has a pc sync connector so you can still use your pc cables until they break (which happens usually 2 weeks after you bought them). But it also has a mini-jack connector which is way better suited to the task. It also has a pretty sensitive build-in optical slave that can even set to ignore a pre-flash. Optical slaves can be a very handy and cheap way to sync a flash in controlled environments. In fact I shot a commercial assignment this morning with a Hensel Porty as my main light and the LP160 as a fill light, synced with the optical slave. Worked every time.

So yes, I really like this flash. I can’t predict if it will stand the test of hard use for many years, but it feels like it’s up to the task. I think Lumopro set the new benchmark for affordable off-camera flashes with the LP 160.

By the way, I know that last picture isn’t very impressive but believe me it’s not easy to trigger the 10 second self-timer and race up those rocks in time to have yourself in the picture too. I just couldn’t not include this picture after all the exhausting speed climbing

I just got back from almost two fantastic holiday weeks with the kids. I enjoyed myself a lot and I’m sure the kids did so too. They are really the perfect travel companions. For our first week of holidays we went camping in the Ardennes. This area is only about 90 minutes by car away and I spent a lot of holidays camping there as a child and later as a mountainbiking teenager. The more surprising it is that it took me so long to come back here. I’ve always loved this area with it’s landscapes, textures, light and people. Traveling is not about how many kilometers from home you are, it’s about going somewhere with an open mind.

On our way to the camping we saw some people having a paintball tournament on a soccer field and we stopped to watch for a while. The kids got the VIP seats.

Marshmallows taste only good when cooked over a fire or BBQ.

The first few days it was pretty hot, here’s Kobe seeking some refreshment by the lawn sprinkler.

Pushing the kids to do photography is not something I do, but I admit that I enjoy it very much that they start shooting pictures more and more. Very funny to see them directing people like I sometimes do. Maya took a portrait of me in which she asked me to look angry.

Our 60 year old English camping neighbor gave me one of the best compliments possible. He said: “your kids play like we did when we where kids”. I still think about that single phrase a lot. As a parent these days it’s not always easy to give your kids the space to play, explore and make mistakes. So each time I’m capable of doing that, it makes me very proud. It’s often about finding the right surroundings to let kids be kids and this camping was certainly one of those places.

Big thanks by the way to one of my Facebook friends who referred me to camping Try des Baudets. It’s just the right size and has the right atmosphere for a trip with small kids.

My holiday budget is very limited these days but I absolutely wanted the kids to have a couple of great weeks away from home. During this week, I spent just a bit more (mostly on ice cream) than I would spend during a week at home and still it was a true holiday.

One of the best ways to get to some nice spots without spending a lot of money is Geocaching. We found a couple really nice ones in the area around the camping. Kobe and Maya really love hiking in the forest, just like I do. Noa is slowly getting the hang of it too.

Here’s a family shot with the self timer.

On our last day, after packing all our stuff, we took a steam engine to the train museum.

After this week, Kobe went on his first boyscout camp and the girls and I joined some friends in a holiday cottage in another part of the Ardennes. I’ll post some pics of that trip later.

I so enjoyed this quality time with my kids and my batteries are recharged. There’s lots of obstacles ahead of me, but at least I have the energy now to have a good shot at getting where I want.

I must admit, in the aftermath of the incredibly time and energy consuming adventure of creating my own instructional DVD, I got a bit burned out. I loved making it and I’m very proud of the result but it was a huuuuuuge job, certainly combined with my personal situation. It’s not that I had enough of teaching but I felt I needed to focus on my photography again. It’s a great feeling to teach other photographers but I started feeling like I was the only one that didn’t progress as a photographer.

It wasn’t deliberate but for a while, I just had to put my blog, workshops and LIME in the fridge and focus on my own work again. I spent a lot of time studying the work of people that I admire, re-evaluate my own work, meet creative people outside my own little network and did a lot of thinking about the direction I want to go.

You know how important it is to me to master as much techniques as possible but these are just tools to allow you to tell a story or convey an emotion. And I just found that even though my technique is better than ever, I wasn’t very happy with my pictures anymore. So I went back to the roots, keeping it simple, shooting for fun, focusing on feeling rather than detail in the shadows and perfectly level horizons. And I found it back … the amateur photographer in me.

With the changes in my personal life, things have changed pretty dramatically for my financial and business situation too. I’m not ashamed to admit that a visit to my accountant earlier this week wasn’t very motivating. And I would like to thank everyone who bought Motivational Light, because you gave me that little bit of breathing space to dedicate some time to rediscovering my own creativity.
To make things work out, I really need to grow my business faster than what would normally be possible but I believe I can do it thanks to finding myself as a creative photographer again.

I know I need to be more business minded. And I know that I need to make some decisions that I don’t really want to. But I’m still very positive that I can work things out. Last week, with the help of many great friends, I spent the whole time testing out ideas and concepts for a new big project that I will launch in September. I strongly believe that it is going to be a way to be creative and economically viable at the same time. All the images in this post were taken during that creative test week.

The test week was really the the result of all my self rediscovery activities. I’m charged with creative energy and feel like shooting every day again. I feel I’m ready to teach and blog again and all of that is thanks to my friends, family and my kids who have supported me through these difficult times.

I’ll be taking some time off to enjoy the kids but after that I’ll be back at full force! Promise

Can I fall in love? Considering my previous post, a title like this could make you think this blog post is about women. Well it’s not but if the newspapers can use misleading headlines, so can I. This is about lenses, the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM in particular. I’ve had it for a couple of years (it’s actually my second one as the first got stolen 13 days after I bought it) and it’s always been my least favorite lens.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great lens: well built, the perfect all-round focal length (on full frame), it’s fast and accurate. It’s good at almost anything … but great at nothing. It just isn’t as edgy, extreme or special than any of my other lenses.

Come to think of it, it’s not that different from falling in love with a woman. You just don’t fall in love with a girl because she’s moderately interesting, slightly intelligent, not ugly and reasonable in everything. You fall in love because you get a kick out of Nobel prize winners or because she makes you laugh every minute (or just because she has the perfect boobs).

But in the end you might be probably better of with that first girl who can be trusted every time. I got a similar feeling with the 24-70. That lens has been my must-have/go-to lens when I need to play it safe. But to see if I can fall in love with it, I’m going to use it more often for a while during those times where I don’t have to play it safe and would normally choose another lens. Yesterday I took it with me on a long Geocaching walk with the kids and some friends.

Because the weather forecast was far from great, I used my bulletproof vintage 1Ds mkII. In combination with the 24-70 that’s a heavy beast to lug around for a long walk during which you need to operate a hand held GPS and a bunch of kids. But I don’t regret it as I’m pretty happy with the souvenirs I was able to make of this great day. I’ll keep committing myself to using the 24-70 more often for some time and I’ll report in later.

It’s been quiet on my blog. It happened before and it will happen again. Usually this happens just because of a very busy time. But the last months it was not just the heavy workload that kept me from blogging, I went through a very dark time in my personal life. After 10 years of marriage my wife decided to move out. I never saw it coming and it was a very hard kick in the face for someone for whom family is the most important thing in life. I won’t pretend that I understand it all and I don’t feel the need to blog the parts that I do understand.

I just know that I have no choice but to move on and start a new chapter of my life. I’m in the clear with myself and I just try to make the best of it. I have the kids every other week and I miss them like crazy when they are not with me. But I can still be the father that I always wanted to be. After my wife moved out, I decided to take the kids on a trip to the coast to get our minds of the big changes and show them that I’ll always be there for them.

We had such an amazing time and all enjoyed every second of it. Even though it was pretty cold, it was dry and the sun was out most of the time. We also had a lot of good conversations on how we have to go from here both emotionally and practically. I’m so proud of the way the kids handle this. Off-course they feel lost sometimes but they don’t hesitate to talk to me. They also understand my situation really well and help me out so well.

Lately I found myself again. And that’s thanks to the incredible amount of help and support I received from my family and friends. I feel very lucky that I can count on so many great people.

My main concern is being a good dad but to do that I need to figure out how to sort out the many practical and financial challenges I’m facing. I really want to keep the house and the studio but that won’t be easy. I’m going to have to refocus on some parts of my business to increase my income substantially. Some things are still a bit vague but every day my plans take more form. You’ll discover them over the next months and I hope I can count on your patience and support.

Shared fun is doubled fun, so I’m really happy that my friend Pieter also got himself a medium format film camera. I’m sure that if an experienced film shooter would overhear our conversations, he would shake his head but it’s a lot of fun sharing the little knowledge and the bags of bullshit we think we know about film. Pieter got himself a Mamiya C3 which makes my Hassy look like a very modern camera. The Mamiya is even more counter intuitive than the Hassy but at the same time it’s such a nice piece of machinery. Pieter’s first two test rolls didn’t came out so well (ok they weren’t exposed at all) but then he discovered a small dial that solved the problem. So when I visited him for recording the LIME podcast, we went outside and shot another test roll in five minutes.

This is one I made of Pieter:

And this is one he made of me:

Next time we got together, Pieter showed up with a roll of Ilford Delta 3200 (iso) film. Underexposed shots showed a lot of grain after pulling the exposure up during scanning.

But when metered correctly (yes, this is the way to do it), the grain is really fine and actually pleasing:

Here are some more Hassy scans from the kids:

And here’s a pic of my fantastic grandmother who’s still going strong:

I’m really happy (actually I’m jealous) to see what Pieter is squeezing out of his Mamiya. He just started a personal website where he’s posting his non-wedding work like snowboard photography and amazing pictures of puddles.