Why my Lytro Illum ended up on eBay

We looked up at birds and created planes. We went from smoke signals, to letters, to telegrams, to phone calls, to email, to cell phones, to satellites and video calls. We went from film to digital. We went from the darkroom to the computer screen.

The imagination and innovation of the human species seems only limited by the technology we have developed thus far.

For many years, poor Charles Holland Duall (the US Commissioner of Patents 1898 to 1901) was reported to have said at the turn of the 20th Century; "Everything that can be invented has been invented"... A pretty narrow minded and dumb thing for a person to say. Especially a person who makes his living from people inventing new stuff!! This was later proven untrue. Duell actually said; "In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold".

Two blaringly opposing statements. One incredibly wrong, one incredibly right... And how right he was... In the end.

...What's my point?...

Well, somewhere around the middle of 2014, a little company named Lytro announced their newest creation. Lytro had previously gained a small cult status in the photographic/nerd world by inventing a little funny shaped low resolution camera. Not impressed yet?... This camera could take a picture, then have the user focus AFTER they had snapped the image.

What?!?!?! How can this be possible? Honestly, I'm not 100% sure of the science. But it worked. Picture quality however, was a bit shit.

Fast forward a few years, the beautiful design of the new Lytro Illum was revealed. It looked like something Captain Kirk would use after he'd talked one of his alien bedchamber companions to pose for a couple of nude pics. A beautiful design that promised the world!

With a 40 MegaArray sensor (yes, "Mega-Array") and a constant f2.0 lens with 28-250mm equivalent zoom, I hear you all 'Ooo-ing' and 'Aaah-ing' and rightly so. Quite an amazing spec list. My best Nikon zoom lens with a constant aperture is only f2.8 and 70-200mm. Pft. Pathetic.

Hopping back quickly to that 'MegaArray' thang. Does it mean 40 whopping megapixels?? Technically yes... Un-technically, no. The best way I think of this, is to imagine the sensor inside the camera is not flat but 3 dimensional. So image data is being read on multiple surfaces at the same time. However, you take that beautiful data and place it on your computer screen and we're back to flat 2d again.... Boring!

Boring it is not. All that data is still there to be accessed, with the right software. However, if you are looking at just the flat 'traditional' style image, it's the equivalent to a 4 megapixel shot. So where did the other 36 MegaArray-Pixel-Things go?

Fire up the Lytro software and suddenly, you can move around your still image, shifting the perspective and adjusting the focus. Cooool! With a bunch of groovy presets, you can record a short 'animation', bringing your image to life.

I had such high hopes for this technology. I got on the pre-order list and committed to a $1,500 price tag to be one of the first to get this optical marvel in my hands.

When I finally received the camera... On my birthday! (how's that for perfect timing), I carefully removed it from the beautiful packaging. The camera was so well crafted. The right mix of heavy quality with portability. It looked f'in cool too! I charged the battery, updated the firmware (as recommended) and popped in an SD card. I focused on a nearby object and hit the shutter. A satisfying 'crunch', confirmed my shot had been taken. There it was on the rear touch screen. I tapped on different parts of the screen to shift focus. Super awesome... Or was it? In my opinion, the Lytro Illum sensor is just too small (I would guess it's the equivalent to a micro 4/3 sensor). I'm not talking about the number of megapixels, I'm talking about the physical sensor size. As you may or may not know, a larger sensor equals a more pronounced depth of field. Some techy stuff known as 'Circle of Confusion' governs this. So to really see an exaggerated manipulation of the depth of field, you needed to use the widest aperture and zoom in as close as possible.

But wait, zooming in narrows the focusable area considerably! Just like with a regular camera and lens, DOF (Depth of Field) will be more pronounced with a longer zoom. So that means that anything more than a couple of feet behind the main object being photographed, cannot be placed back into focus with a tap on the screen.

My imagination had already outgrown the camera... Bummer.

Please don't get me wrong, this is amazing technology. Stuff that Sci-Fi dreams were made of just a few years ago. I see amazing developments in this area of photography in the future, however we're just not there yet.

I would have loved to have kept the Illum, just so I could have it in the future. When this technology grows into something that can be used in a more practical fashion, it would be like owning a Superman Issue 1 comic book (I hear that's a big deal in nerdville), or a '69 Mustang, or the very first Polaroid camera. But I just could not bear to see $1,500 sitting on a shelf gathering dust.

There are definitely applications for the current model, just very limited. If you visit the Lytro website, you can see some fantastic examples of what other artists had created before delivery began to the general public. Some of the results are truly beautiful.

So for now, I will have to revert to focusing my image correctly as I take it and wait for an updated version of the illum, or for another manufacturer to bring something to the table. However, by the looks of things, I might not have to wait very long!

Sony (you may have heard of them) have supposedly filed a patent a couple of years ago for a lightfield sensor. In addition, they have seemingly solved the problem of the lost resolution!

No official word yet from the electronics giant when they plan to do anything with this, or if they plan to do anything at all... Fingers crossed though.

If this is the case, you can definitely put me on yet another pre-order waiting list.

Rusted Jalopy Photoshoot

 

A hot sweaty day in March (yes... March... This is Miami); The Shireen's Favorite Things crew made the jaunt from Miami Beach to Fort Lauderdale for a photoshoot at the man-cave of quirky metallurgist /welder / engineer, Marlowe Buelvas.

Marlowe is the creator of Rusted Jalopy, a small but fascinating space lurking unassumingly inside a Florida warehouse.

If it's made of metal, Marlo can fix it, or better yet, make something awesome from it.

As soon as you enter the workshop you are met with sculptures and trinkets of all kinds. Unique lamps, welded works of art, retro posters and classic cars... This was going to be an awesome place to shoot!

Shireen got herself spruced up, whilst I unpacked my gear.

Now, I once read a quote that went something like; "If you think you need three lights, you need one... If you think you need two lights, you need one... If you think you need one light, you're correct". I live by this. 'One' is my magic number when it comes to lighting for photography. Multiple setups are very difficult to manage in a fast paced shooting environment (which these always are). Having to meter, reset, change the angle etc etc of two or three lights is a pain. And if your model decides to take a step to her left or right, you have to start all over. On this occasion, however, there was so much texture and character, I knew I would have to step up my light count.

What? My setups consisted of:

• A key light (Profoto B1 with a 5ft gridded Octabox).


• A rim light (Einstein E640 with a long throw reflector)


• And a spot light for details (another Einstein E640 with a 10 degree grid attached).

("Why Profoto and Alien Bees?", I hear you ask. 1. Profoto is F***ing expensive and as I mentioned above, I usually only use one at a time. 2. I love my Einsteins, had them for years and I can use them perfectly in combination with the B1 by just switching on the slave sensor function).

Why?

• The 5ft Octa with grid provided a large but directional light source. Minimal spill and lots of contrast. This allowed me to keep the backgrounds dark and moody.


• The rim light with the long throw reflector is a small light source so can be easily hidden and the efficient power boosting properties of the reflector meant I could place it far far away from the subjects.


• The second E640 with grid was to add a very specific splash of light onto whatever was the focus of the shot at that time.

Where?

The four setups below show how I used all of this flashy goodness...

Quick tip: This one is from many bad experiences... Buy yourself a spare Profoto B1 battery!! When it dies, there's no option to plug your B1 in to an outlet. Aka, shoot is over until you find a way to charge the battery. I always have my Paul Buff Vagabond Mini Lithium batteries with me. Quite awesomely, you can charge the B1 from those packs. Sounds dumb, but it works in a pinch.

 

Here is the final blog on ShireenSandoval.com and WSVN.com!!

 

[video width="960" height="540" m4v="http://blog.jameswoodleyphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/BTS-Rusted-Jalopy-960.m4v"][/video]

Shireen Sandoval Blog - Bagghy - Behind the Scenes

"I fell in love in Paris, was awe-inspired to write in Rome, found the true meaning of history in London, was mystified by the magic of Moscow and bewitched by the beauty of Brazil..."

Read the full blog "A Window to the World" at www.ShireenSandoval.com, or www.WSVN.com.

 

 

 

Behind the scenes on location in Surfside, FL.









 

Gear used in the shoot:

• Nikon D3


• Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens


• The Sun!

Where you would usually see me with a studio light of some sort (my personal favourite, the amazing Profoto B1), I decided to let the beautiful Miami 'winter' sun do all of the work for me. At this time of day (around 5pm), the light is beautiful.

Commercial Womens Fitnesswear Shoot

Sunday... 4am... Eyes open... FML.

That was the worst part... Oh, and the sweat. I'll get to that.

Why was I voluntarily disturbing my slumber at this ungodly hour? A sunrise shoot of course.

'Ilo Gear', a local Miami owned and operated womens fitness wear line had commissioned my sleepy self to shoot 4 athletes doing their thing, whilst looking beautiful, in Ilo Gear's vibrant threads. Had they seen my morning face before signing the contract, they may have reconsidered and called animal control. Fortunately, my early morning bloodshot eyes are reserved only for a lucky few.

Being a Virgo, I had painstakingly packed all my gear the night before and left it on my big wheeled cart next to the front door so that minimal brain power was required before sun-up.

In the Pelican 1650 case was:

• 
  
  3 Einstein E640's (my strobe of choice)


• 
  
  2 Paul Buff Vagabond Mini Lithium battery packs


• 
  
  My Nikon DSLR with a range of glass covering most focal lengths


• 
  
  Pocket wizards (Flex TT1, Flex TT5, Power-MC2's)

In the grip bag (sounds like what I did a lot in my teens):

• 
  
  Some heavy duty stands


• 
  
  Sand bags


• 
  
  60" and 45" soft silver umbrellas


• 
  
  2 'Long Throw' reflectors


• 
  
  22" Beauty Dish


• 
  
  A large softbox


• 
  
  2 strip boxes

To move all this hardware; a 'Rockin' Roller Multi-Cart'... This I struggle with now because on my first day of ownership I beat parts of it with a hammer trying to fix a 'defect', because I didn't read the instructions... Me man. No need paper (beats chest)... Now it flops around and is generally a bit shit... Totally my fault though. I'm sure it's a stellar product before being bludgeoned.

I already knew I was only going to use half of the kit, but I feel more comfortable having the extra gear to hand if inspiration suddenly strikes and I want to mix things up.

There were two segments of the shoot; first in the early light was the yoga model. She would flex her shakra during the golden hour whilst I snapped away. Second, in the harsher sun, three runners, well, running.

My yoga model's downward dog would be lit by a single strobe and my big soft silver 60" umbrella. The natural light was soft at 6am, so I didn't want to add a harsh modifier and remove too much realism from the image. The runners, on the other hand would be lit by two strobes, each with a long throw reflector attached to mimic the very hard and bright mid morning light.

These long throw fellas are just awesome! They're big, shiny and I can fit my whole head inside... What more could you want?!

From previous shoots I had learned that mixing ambient and strobe light is very easy, but with a fast moving subject a new problem presents itself.

My Einsteins have a pleasantly fast flash duration, the sun does not. When shooting at the usual highest sync speed (for most, 1/200), it just isn't quite enough to fully freeze a fast moving subject.

Your options are two fold:

A. Ensure that all angles of your subject are at least partially covered by strobe light, preferably at a stop or two above the ambient light to counter act any motion blur or ghosting.

B. Use Pocket Wizard's awesome 'HyperSync' mode.

Here is an example of ghosting from a previous shoot of mine with NFL linebacker, Nic Harris.... It's cool in its own way, but not always the look you want to achieve.

The side of Nic lit up my strobe (left side) is nicely frozen. But the side lit by the sun (right side), has some serious motion blur. So essentially, the right is recorded at 1/200 of a second in the camera, as for the left side, the slowest would be 1/2,000 (which is the flash duration of the Einstein E640 at full power)... Big difference!

So to get around this problem (as much as possible) I placed one strobe in front of the models, and one behind. I placed each far enough away so that the difference in exposure would be minimal as the runners moved closer to the front facing light. This is where the long throw reflectors came in! They allowed me to place the strobes far away for very powerful precisely directed light, and based on the 'inverse square law' (I'll let my good friend and educator Mark Wallace explain that one here if you're not familiar - It's a bit 'sciencey').

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/f5BIvSBjvLg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Option B... HyperSync!! A godsend to the outdoor action shooter!! This mode, on newer Pocket Wizard models (see a list here) essentially allows you to go beyond the usual sync speed restrictions of 1/200(ish) shutter speed, and head all the way up to a possible 1/8000!! Action stopping heaven! All of the issues I was just whining about incessantly... Gone!

But nothing is perfect. here is the caveat. You have to use full power on your strobe or you will get 'banding'... Yuck. Why is full power bad? Because you can probably only fire off one shot at a time instead of machine-gunning the shutter with a fast recycle time on your strobe at low power. So your timing must be impeccable. And you're going to be resetting the shot potentially dozens of times until you catch it just right.

There is a possible solution to this problem which I have not yet experimented with, however I am planning to in the near future. It's called 'SpeedCycler'. New blog on this in the near future.

As the day moved on, in typical Miami fashion, it got hotter and hotter. Working in direct sun, carrying a hundreds pounds of gear, in South Florida, in the Summer, is not an easy task. If you don't have water, you're done. This is where the sweat came in. Anyone who has tried it, will know what I mean. When I was done, I ran fully dressed into a nearby fountain to cool off.

At 11:30am, it was a wrap.

My models had done an amazing job. And one of them had freakishly managed to not sweat a drop the entire day.

You can shop Ilo Gear merchandise at: www.ilogear.com

My yoga model was the awesome Liza Scott. Check out her fitness site at www.lizafit.com

Profoto Air Remote TTL-N for Nikon: Finally here!

​

A month or two ago, I wrote about 'The Lighting Game Changer', the Profoto B1. A monolight that had studio power, but with all the features of TTL. Essentially, everything a sports shooter could wish for!!

Perfectly exposing fast moving subjects would now be a breeze. And with super fast flash durations of upto 19,000/s and upto 20fps burst mode, freezing action would be just as easy!

All finally seemed right in the world. But then as I read down the list of specs, I saw the usual problem I faced with new lighting tech. The Profoto B1 currently only had a TTL remote available for Canon cameras. Urgh!

I'm a Nikon shooter. There's really no rhyme or reason to it (despite how many times I am asked). You tend to just make a choice when you're starting out, and for the most part, stick to it throughout your career. But this TTL thing was becoming a bit of a bummer.

So imagine my delight when this morning I got the long awaited email from Profoto saying that the Air Remote TTL-N (for Nikon) finally had a release date! September 15th! Right after my Birthday!

Here is a link to download the PDF brochure. Check out the specs. Before you do, try to find a napkin to tuck into your collar so that you don't drool on your shirt... Not sexy.

The Profoto Air Remote TTL-N for Nikon release date is currently set at September 15th. The TTL-N Air Remote is already listed for $395 on pre-order, but the Profoto B1 monolight is already available as a single unit for $1,995, or the two light location kit with specially designed backpack for $3,950.

By no means cheap, but this is technology that would have been almost unthinkable just a few years ago. I can't wait to see what people are able to achieve with this setup.

Visit Profoto for full info.

New Product: Profoto B1 TTL Studio & Location Monolight

The Lighting Game Changer - Profoto B1 TTL Studio & Location Monolight

Small, quick and simple light, or big, powerful and ‘slow to setup’ light… These are the choices of photographers when it comes to illuminating a shoot. (Or, just use the sun of course. But that’s frickin boring).

The trusty on camera speed light is uber portable and gives the 99% accurate gift of TTL. Just point, shoot and enjoy. Get creative by removing it from your camera and with some fancy techniques you have the power to create professional looking images that would not be out of place on the cover of Vogue.

The downside?… Power. A severe lack of it.

You can’t blame them. 4 x AA batteries and a teeny tiny bulb is only ever going to give you so much.

Then there’s a studio strobe. Big and meaty. Capable of emiting blinding bursts of light with power ranging generally between 250 to 2400 Watt Seconds. Bam!! Put someone 50ft away and you can still give them a generous splash of the bright stuff… But, the Goliaths of illumination are fully manual. Whether your weapon of choice is trial and error or careful measurements with a light meter, they take plenty of time to, A. Setup in the field or studio, and B. Adjust to the correct power output.

All seemed lost… Until now….

The new Profoto B1 TTL monolight is quite literally, a game changer! Imagine the ease and flexibility of a speedlight, with the clout of a studio light. That’s what you get. The B1 is fully self contained. It has a built in battery (that can be removed and replaced in seconds) and full TTL metering. If that weren’t enough, you also get 1/19,000 flash duration and 20fps! Holy cr*p balls!! (if you don’t know what that means or understand the significance, Home Depot have an awesome line of flashlights for you).

I shoot a lot on location and I luurrve my Einstein E640’s. For $500 they cannot be beaten on features, reliability, power and ease of use. But there is still that annoying setup time, especially in the varying light levels of a sunset or a sunrise. You set the power, squirt off a few shots and then you need to meter again. Now, with the Profoto B1, TTL will take care of all that and allow you to fire one of your assistants and continue shooting with ease because your light output will adjust itself… Cue angelic heavenly choir music.

At just under $2k, with another $330(ish) for the TTL remote, these are not prices to be laughed at. BUT, these lights are Profoto. These lights are bullet proof. These lights are unique, new and revolutionary technology. Personally, I think that $2k is a steal.

The only problem, for a sensible Nikon shooter like myself, as usual they are behind with the release of the TTL technology. Why they release the Canon versions first and leave the rest of us drooling, I will never know.

Can you find one right now other than pre-order? Nope… Is it worth the wait? Yup.

My kidney is currently on eBay. Feel free to bid and help me with my B1 purchase… Thank you muchly.

Do you like Twitter? Me too!… Do people like me enough on Twitter? Nope!… Like me more on Twitter and feel your life get a little better! @BritFloridian

(Benefits of clicking ‘follow’ based on a survey of one people).

$2 million Leica Lens

So. It’s fricken huge, it’s made by Leica who already make really expensive camera gear, it has a 1600mm focal length, weighs 132lbs & I could easily fit my head into the fat end… This, is the lens you cannot buy.

Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar, shelled out a cool $2,064,500 for luxury German camera brand, Leica, to custom build this mammoth piece of glass.

If he felt so inclined, he could also add Leica’s 2x teleconverter to bring the focal length to 3200mm. Which, if my calculations are correct, will allow him to almost see Uranus.

Do I want one? I don’t think so. I’d rather buy an island somewhere. I can’t exactly see Leica’s large community of street photographers drooling over this one either. It’s certainly a “I bought it just because I could”, kinda thing.

Enjoy it sir!… If you can lift it.