This time of year I get asked a lot what photo gear I take with me on a holiday. So let’s use my summer holidays with the kids as case study over a couple of posts to see what I’m taking and why. In the previous post I talked about my holiday workhorse, the Panasonic Lumix GF1 with the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens. The second camera I took was my good old trusty Canon Ixus 860IS compact camera.

The little Ixus has a pretty respectable age in terms of digital cameras. A while ago I conducted a workshop for Canon with the new Ixus range. Oh man, they have certainly come a long way since my 860IS. But still, as long as it takes pictures it’s the photographer’s challenge to make good ones with it, no matter how old the camera is.

Since I got the GF1, the old Ixus doesn’t get used very often anymore. The reason why I took it with me on holiday is for the kids. It has become their camera (mostly Kobe is the shooter). With the Canon waterproof housing, I don’t have to worry even if they want to make pictures on the beach or in the pool.

The first few days of our holiday, I spent quite some time on the beach as the only adult watching my three kids and Cedric, the son of our kind host. Leaving without a camera is rather unthinkable for me but I was a bit worried about getting too much sand in my GF1 and my Olympus E-PL1 with underwater housing was a bit too bulky (more about the Olympus later). So I took the Ixus and kind of rediscovered the joy of a waterproofed point-and-shoot.

When I got home and I started processing the pictures I was rather disappointed with the lack of detail in the JPEG-files after being used for a while to the GF1-RAWs. But then I remembered that I used to like black and white combined with going wild on the black- and contrast slider in Lightroom with the Ixus files.

Screw detail, I like black!

Screw noise, it gives you images character!

Screw burned out highlights, white is a color too! (I know, technically it’s not)

Screw cleaning the water drops from your lens, it’s fun to see what the light will do with it!

Despite the lack of control and image quality, I’m truly happy that I brought that old Ixus. I shot lots of great memories that I wouldn’t have shot if I didn’t bring a camera that I’m not too concerned about. I may not be the most careful photographer when it comes to my gear. But I know how hard I have to work to pay for the toys so I don’t want anything to happen to the tools of my business. But an old camera that’s just gathering dust serves nothing. It’s not that I want to break it but it wouldn’t be a disaster if it died while shooting family memories.

My advice: look into your cupboard for that old camera that you aren’t using anymore and take it on your next trip to shoot in places where you don’t want to take your darling camera.

This time of year I get asked a lot what photo gear I take with me on a holiday. So let’s use my summer holidays with the kids as case study over a couple of posts to see what I’m taking and why. I took three camera’s with me but let’s start with my holiday workhorse, the Panasonic Lumix GF1 with the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook won’t be surprised that I picked the GF1 as my primary camera for this trip. Most of my family pictures are taken with that little camera. With the risk of sounding like a Panasonic missionary, I’ll say it time and time again: The GF1 is an amazing camera that offers near DSLR quality in a near compact camera size.

For this year’s holiday we went to the area of Peniche, Portugal. Our friends Lente, Mario, Cedric and Claudia were so kind to let us stay in their fantastic new house. I’m sure they will think twice next time they invite two adults and three kids to stay for 12 days at their place. It was my first time in Portugal and I really like the area. It’s still wild and largely untouched by tourism. It’s amazing to have a spectacular beach all for yourself.

I like the black & white images out of the GF1 so much that I rarely use them in color. But I found out that the colors are actually pretty nice once I got a feel of how to handle them in Lightroom. I know the colors in these pictures are all but “correct”, but to me it’s about creating a certain mood.

One of the nice things about the GF1 is that it looks like a compact camera to the untrained eye. I hate looking like an ordinary tourist but sometimes it’s the best way to shoot strangers without attracting attention. The focus and shooting speed of the GF1 makes it even easier to capture a scene.

The 20mm 1.7 pancake lens is the perfect travel companion for the GF1. It’s size and weight make the camera pocketable (that’s if you have large pockets). With the Micro 4/3 format and it’s 2x crop factor, the 20mm becomes a 40mm. That’s still wide enough to capture and overview and doesn’t distort much if you use it up close for a portrait. So even though it’s a prime lens, I find it to be a good all-rounder. Image quality is great and with a maximum aperture of 1.7 you don’t need much light and you can throw the background out of focus.

I won’t say that the GF1′s dynamic range is at the same level as a full frame DSLR but it handles contrasty scenes surprisingly well. It never ceases to amaze me about how much image info you can still get out of a RAW-file.

High ISO performance might not be amazing but I won’t hesitate to use the camera at ISO 800 and for black & white, I’ll use ISO 1600 without worrying about getting too much noise.

For such a small camera it’s amazing how easy and fast you can control all the settings. I really think it’s a photographer’s camera. At the same time the automatic functions perform pretty well. I always shoot full manual on my DSLR’s and with the GF1 I also like the full control of manual. But I put it more and more in aperture priority mode to have it always ready.

With a twist of the mode dial, the GF1 becomes a simple point-and-shoot. Panasonic Intelligent Automatic mode (iA) does a really great job in getting a decent full auto exposure. We call it the Donkey Mode (i-A) and that’s the mode the kids use or what we set the camera when a random dorky tourist takes a dorky picture about our family.

In the next articles I will explain you why I also took some other cameras with me, but if I had to take just one, it would be my GF1.

4 DAY+ MASTERCLASS

This full immersion 4 day+ photography boot camp will rock your world and challenge you like you’ve never been challenged before. It’s about technique, lighting, posing, business, post processing but it’s also about identity, ideas and vision. You’ll get to experience all this in the great atmosphere of a small group (maximum 6 participants), creative subjects and great food & drinks.

We have prepared a great mix of lectures, practice sessions, product presentations and post-processing sessions. At the same time, we have build in the flexibility to adapt the schedule to the needs of the group. Thanks to California Sunbounce and Servix & Partners, we have a whole range of toys at our disposal for our experiments: lights, modifiers, reflectors, medium format camera, …

Lunches on Monday and Tuesday are included. The two days we are on location, we’ll make sure you can get lunch at very good rates. Drinks are on me when we are in The Barn. The welcome dinner and diner on Tuesday are also included in the workshop fee.

SCHEDULE
We’ll start this masterclass with a welcome dinner at the studio on Sunday night, so we can all meet and talk about what you can expect in the following days.

Monday is safe portrait day. I strongly believe that a safe portrait is the perfect starting point for a creative photoshoot. It keeps your clients happy, is het perfect insurance for anything that can go wrong and it builds confidence for both the subject and the photographer. We’ll teach you bulletproof lighting techniques, tricks to loosen up nervous subjects, posing tips and much more. This day will give you a toolbox of techniques to get the job done even in the most extreme situations.

Tuesday will be all about lighting. We’ll spent most of the time in the studio to create both natural looking images and extreme lighting setups. At night we’ll have a nice dinner together followed by a lecture about the business of photography with some surprise guests.

On Wednesday we’ll be working on location. The morning will be dedicated to run-and-gun techniques that will allow you to make spectacular pictures in no time with a minimum of gear. In the afternoon, we’ll take “spectacular” to a new level for a big and crazy shoot. We’ll all have to work together to pull this one off.

Thursday morning is special request time. If there’s anything we’ve missed during the previous days or that isn’t clear, we’ll handle it. In the afternoon, you will be presented with a great subject and a challenging assignment. Before we say goodbye, we’ll do a last image review / cocktail hour.

FOR WHO
his masterclass is not for the faint at heart. This is only for passionate photographers who are prepared to work hard to take their work to the next level. If you really push yourself you might even take it to the level beyond the next. We expect a good basic knowledge of photography, your gear and your post processing software.

WHAT TO BRING
A bag filled with a DSLR, some lenses and a laptop are all you really need but if you want to bring lighting equipment or your large format printer, we won’t stop you.

PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel BELGIUM
Number of participants: max 6
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Price: 910 EUR excl. VAT (1101,10 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching, model fees, equipment rentals, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, drinks at The Barn

DATES AND BOOKINGS
No dates set at the moment. Contact us if you would like to book this workshop.

BIG LIGHTS ON LOCATION WORKSHOP

Get your hands on some of the best battery powered studio equipment on the market for a full day of hands-on learning. Discover the power of big lights on location in a small group of maximum four participants.
If you need power and light quality, there’s no substitute for big lights. Rugged, compact battery powered studio strobes combine these qualities with portability and a high-end image. In this workshop you will learn how to improve your photography by using the big guns.

THE DAY
We will start the day with a tour of the gear and a discussion on how you can benefit from implementing big lights in your shooting style and workflow. Thanks to the support of Servix & Partners and California Sunbounce, you’ll get the chance to try out Elinchrom portable units with all kinds of modifiers like softboxes, reflectors, grids, ring flash and Sunbounce reflectors.
After a tasty lunch, we’ll start working on a couple of assignments that will push your creative and technical knowledge to a higher level under the Bert’s guidance. To end the day, we’ll break out the beers and discuss the pictures you’ve made.

FOR WHO
This workshop is targeted towards serious photographers who know the basics about lighting and want to learn more about using big lights on location.

WHAT TO BRING
You basically only need a DSLR and a lens. If you have your own big light(s), feel free to bring them.

PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel
Time: 9h30 to 17h (I’m notorious for going over time)
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Number of participants: max 4
Price: 245 EUR excl. VAT (296,45 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching, model fee and a tasty bread lunch

DATES AND BOOKINGS
- Thursday March 22 : book your spot (4 spots available)

This year I shot more communion sessions than I usually do. The fact that my own son did his communion this year had probably something to do with that. With girls, these kind of assignments are usually easy. At that age most of them love to pose and be a star in their own pictures. With boys however things are a bit different. At eight years old most of them really start thinking that posing in nice clothes isn’t really cool.

I always adapt my gear needs to the subject and the circumstances trying to find a balance between having enough technical options and avoid having too much gear that can disturb the flow of a shoot. Sometimes that means giving up some technical options to ensure good interaction, certainly if the attention span of your subject is pretty short.

Here are some of the communion pics of Kobe. I’ve shot all the images in 15 minutes around my house. Maya assisted me by preventing my light stand from getting blown over by the wind.

So what gear did I use?

I shot everything with the 5D mkII and the 70-200 2.8 L IS. This camera keeps giving me great image quality and the 70-200 is the perfect portrait companion. Thanks to the long and fast lens, I get good backgrounds pretty much everywhere. The fast glass allows me to throw the background out of focus and thanks to the narrow angle of a long lens, I can find many different backgrounds in one spot by just moving my camera a couple degrees. When slightly overexposed I find the 70-200 gives me nice creamy skintones while keeping the facial features sharp.

Lighting wise I took a single 580EX II with an umbrella, mounted on a lightstand. It’s small, light and gives me lots of options if I can combine it with available light. I can use it without an umbrella to create a sunny hair light or use it as a soft main lightsource.

The 580EX II is triggered by a Pocketwizard TT5 with a TT1 and AC3 zone-controller on top of my camera. Although the TTL works pretty well in these circumstances I shoot mostly full manual on my camera and flash for ultimate control over my exposures. After lots of practice I’m pretty good at guessing aperture, shutterspeed, iso and flash power, so I don’t loose any time with it. By shooting full manual the exposures are also consistent which cuts down a lot of time in post processing. The nice thing about the TT5/TT1 combo is that I can control everything from the camera and I don’t have to worry about max sync speed, as the pocketwizards will automatically switch to high speed sync when I go over my max sync speed.

It’s usually not hard to find some soft ambient light if you know where to look. It’s way harder to find soft light with the RIGHT DIRECTION. On overcast days like here, the biggest amount of light comes from straight above which puts the eyes in the shadow and creates shadows under the nose and chin. They might be less ugly than with hard light from above but they still are not very flattering. I often alter the direction of the light by blocking the light that comes from above. It’s simple but not always practical. Another option, and the one I used here, is to use a flash to give the light some direction. The first picture below is takes with only ambient light. For the second picture, I added a speedlight, to camera left.

As you can see from the un-flashed picture, I’m only shooting the ambient light slightly under exposed, probably not even a full stop. By adding a flash, slightly above the ambient light levels, you maintain the soft light feel of the overcast sky but you add direction to the light creating more pleasing shadows and sparkles in the eyes.

This might not be a spectacular dramatic technique but it helps to keep a rather natural soft feel to the portraits.

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.

I can’t really remember why I started my Confessions of a Photographer videos on YouTube, nor can I remember why I stopped doing them. But I’ve had so many request to take it up again, that I decided to try to free some time to do some more Confessions videos.

Here’s the behind-the-scenes video of my test shoot with the Pentax 645D. Filmed by Pieter and Andy.

View on YouTube

Hope you enjoyed it. Let me now what kind of videos you would like to see in the future.

The biggest attraction in digital medium format to me is the image quality. Sure, the huge file sizes can come in handy but the dynamic range and the depth in the images are even more important to me. I’m sometimes frustrated with the lack of range and gradual transitions in standard DSLR images. But on the other hand I find that the ergonomics and slowness of medium format, often slows me down to much to shoot in my style for a majority of the jobs I do. And then there is the price tag of MF. So I only rent a digital MF camera if the job really requires the image quality and comes with the budget for rental and spending more time on the shoot.

But things are changing in the digital MF world, and because I like the image quality so much, I keep an eye on the evolutions. Pentax announced the 645D so long ago and kept postponing the release so often, that many thought it would never come. But it’s here now. The specifications look very interesting and promise a medium format camera that handles like an ordinary DSLR. So when I was asked by Shoot Magazine to test the Pentax, I jumped to the occasion.

All medium format camera’s work well in studio or another controlled environment but I wanted to see how the camera handles in a real world location shoot. It was also a last minute thing so we improvised a fashion/portrait shoot in the snow. Lien volunteered to model, Andy assisted and Pieter walked around with a video camera (yes, there’s a behind-the-scenes-video). I wanted a challenging environment and that’s exactly what I got, maybe even a bit too challenging as it was terribly cold. It was just unbearable to work for more than 5 minutes at the time before taking a 15 minute heating up break in the car. So we had to improvise and working really fast. I was curious to see how the Pentax handled such a situation.

First impressions count, so here they are: Even though the camera came without a manual and I’ve never shot a Pentax before, I was shooting within a couple of minutes. The shape of the body may look a bit weird but is very ergonomically and surprisingly light yet sturdy. All the buttons are where you’d expect them to be and I could even operate them with big gloves. Pentax Belgium delivered the camera with the relatively light and compact 55mm 2.8 lens which is like a 40mm on a full frame DSLR.

The viewfinder may not be as big as some of the other MF camera’s but it’s still a lot bigger than your average Canon or Nikon. The LCD screen is also pretty good. Some people say the LCD-screen on a MF camera is unimportant because you’re supposed to tether it to a computer. I don’t agree. I like to shoot tethered whenever possible but sometimes it’s just not practical and then I like to have a decent LCD.

The autofocus is fast and accurate with several focus points. That’s a pretty normal feature in DSLR land, even the entry level camera’s have decent autofocus but not all medium format score very well in this discipline.

The buffer is big enough to keep shooting at a normal pace while the camera writes the images to the card. Dual SD card slots instead of CF, seem a bit of an odd choice to me, but hey, why not? The downside of the buffer is that it has to be emptied completely before you can go through the images. I found out that 10 seconds can seem really long when your genitals are freezing off.

Another downside is that the flash sync is only 1/125 while some MF camera’s can go to 1/500 and higher. It may seem like a small thing but I know shooters who switched to MF only for the faster sync speed.

For this kind of work, I’d normally shoot a longer lens but the Pentax 55mm lens pushed me towards more creative angles and compositions. It seems to distort very little but this isn’t a lens for headshots off-course.

When I looked at the picture on my computer later, the first thing you notice is how big 40 megapixels really is. Even for high end commercial jobs, 40 megapixels is often not a must for the end result. But more pixels, means more options when retouching. But like I said before even more important than the image size, is the image depth and the Pentax certainly didn’t disappoint. Even at high iso’s the noise levels where pretty acceptable and the colors are crisp and clean.

Conclusion: I’m pretty impressed with this camera. It’s a nice combination of image quality and usability. When my work shifts even more towards bigger commercial jobs and pure portraiture (and less reportage style work), I will strongly consider going the medium format way and the Pentax would stand a good chance. I hope to test out some other MF-systems in the near future so that I can compare them to the Pentax.

The behind-the-scenes video is coming very soon!
EDIT: here’s the video

Today is one of those day that I can’t seem to get much done except for getting a new snorkel for scuba practice. I have a lot of things on my to do list but I have no assignments planned for today and no very urgent deadlines. I had enough sleep but can’t seem to find the energy to answer my e-mails. And if I answer one, I get five back which makes it very tempting to forget about my inbox for today. I did a lot of work this weekend, so I shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a day off. But still I feel bad if I do nothing at all.

Yesterday I made the picture below when I was on the road. In fact, I drove up and down the whole road three times to get the shot since that road is way to dangerous to pull over and shoot some pics in the middle of the road. But it got me thinking …

For a very long time, I been feeling the urge to do a documentary project. The 50/50 project I did over a year ago, was maybe not completely documentary, but it came close as it’s a good rendering of my life at that time. I’ve been looking for a new subject, but I had to dismiss each and every one because it didn’t interest me or it practically impossible in my situation.

So yesterday I made that picture very close to my home and today I started thinking: what if I would try to document my village, Steenokkerzeel? On first sight it may not be very interesting. Unless you’re a plane spotter there’s not much to see. But on the other hand, it’s probably just as exotic to someone from abroad than a Massai village is to me. There must be interesting stories lingering around in Steenokkerzeel.

I live in the village, so I don’t need to travel and just by doing what I normally do, I meet people and I see things. So if I just take my camera with me more often and look better, I can make pictures. And on days like this, I can just take my camera and go for a photo walk for a couple of hours if I need a little break.

I’m not sure if I’ll find this idea interesting enough in the long run, but why don’t I just give it a try for some time. There’s no rush, no deadline and if I don’t like it anymore (or find a better idea), I’ll just quit.