Chris Cameron Marine Photography Blog

Experiments in HDR

2012-01-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

I had played around with High Dynamic Range photo manipulation a bit quite a while ago.
I was using Photomatix Pro and while the results were interesting I found them a bit gimmicky.

A few weeks ago I came across a reference to Trey Ratcliff's site stuckincustoms which made me aware of the updated version of Photomatix Pro.

This version is much easier to use and is capable of much subtler results than I was able to achieve with the version I had.

So I have been playing around with HDR and really enjoying the results.

Nat Geo fantasies realised

2012-01-06T01:25:00.000-08:00

I always loved flicking through National Geographic magazines as a kid. Imagining myself shooting amazing things in exotic locations.

While this was only for an afternoon it was a very nice reminder of those fantasies.

ETNZ 2011 book available from Blurb

2012-01-06T00:59:00.000-08:00

Emirates Team New Zealand 2011 photos by Chris Cameron, Mark Lloyd and Hamish Hooper |

A busy year

2011-12-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

2011 has been an awesome year for me.
So much going on. Not only with Emirates Team New Zealand doing both the CAMPER VOR campaign and the America's Cup World Series but also with other clients. Barcelona World Race in February, a few Yacht beauty shoots and continued work on a few books. Here is a taste of the images I can make public.

2011 roundup - Images by Chris Cameron

Helping clients understand files

2011-10-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Although understanding has improved hugely amongst clients as to what they require in the files I supply them there are still many who do not seem to understand some of the terms or processes they are referring to when asking me to supply photo files.
Here are some of the questions I have had in the last couple of months that have made me realise some clients/designers either assume I know what THEY are doing or THEY don't know what they are doing...

a) The jpeg you sent is 1mb, I need a 5mb file
b) It needs to be big enough for X by Y cm
c) I need the RAW file
d) can you convert the file to CMYK for us, when we converted it it didn't come out right.

So first thing is file size which should answer questions like a and b.
Let's define a few terms
My cameras record 4,288 x 2,848 pixel images. (4,288 x 2,848 = 12,212,224 pixels or 12.3mp)
Different image uses require a different number of pixels or dots per inch. Typical examples are computer screens (web) which uses 72 ppi, newspapers which are 200-250 dpi, high end magazines are typically 300-330 dpi and billboards may be only 15 dpi or as little as 2 dpi. So you can see that my files of 4,288 x 2,848 could produce a web page 60 inches x 40 inches or a magazine image 14 inches x 9 inches or a billboard of 23 feet by 15 feet with no alteration of the file pixel dimensions.
I supply most of my clients with jpeg files produced by exporting a version of the processed RAW file from photoshop lightroom.
This jpeg file is produced by taking the original file and putting it through an algorithm that looks at ways to reproduce the image in a manageable file size by applying a user specified trade off between quality and file size.
Part of this algorithm represents large areas of the same colour using far less information than requiring the file to allocate the same colour value to several thousand individual pixels. This wastes space.
The upshot of this is that detail requires more information and thus larger jpegs result.
In simple terms, a photo of a piece of white paper would result in a far smaller jpeg than one from a photo of a newspaper page taken with the same camera.
So question a) shows me the designer hasn't opened up the file and looked at the quality and dimensions to see if it works for their layout because they don't understand what a Jpeg really is.
Question b) requires the missing variable of dpi. ie I need the image to be 20 x 15 cm @ 300dpi.

Of course often I send the full size file, all 4,288 x 2,848 pixels of it and it is still not enough for the use the client has in mind. I get back a request like "Our designer needs a bigger file than you supplied" This is often after I have already explained this is the file in the dimensions produced by the camera. So the designer knows the image needs to be extrapolated up in size. My question is what sort of designer doesn't have photoshop and doesn't know how to enlarge an image using 'Image Size'?

Question c).
A RAW file contains all the information the camera recorded about the colours the camera saw when I pressed the shutter. That is 12 bits of information per pixel. When I see the image in Lightroom I may tweek the colours (temperature, tint, exposure) based on experience and because I was there when the photo was taken so I know what it should look like or what I want it to look like. It is also likely I have made other alterations to the image. I may have cropped the shot, straightened the horizon and removed dust spots. These alterations would be lost if I gave the client the RAW file as it came from the camera. It is called RAW because that is what it is... the raw material the image is made from. Not the finished product.

Question d).
CMYK
The Red Green Blue (RGB) colour space is used by computers and other types of screens to view images. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black)(CMYK) is the colour space used by printing presses to put ink on paper. Different print presses and paper combinations require different specific pofiles to convert an RGB file to a CMYK file that will be used by the press to put the correct amount of ink on to the paper type specified by the client.
This isn't a generic "convert to CMYK" process some think it is. The conversion should either be done by the printer or by the designer using a profile supplied by the printer.

Eyes playing tricks?

2011-06-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

First foray into Cinemagraphs.

Click here to open Cinemagraph

Look Ma no hands

2011-03-02T01:42:00.000-08:00

Gotta love working with people with a sense of humor.
Here chopper Pilot Tim Furguson of Helipro in Wellington makes a mundane behind the scenes shot a little more interesting (and terrifying).

Have been in Wellington for the Barcelona World Race yachts passing through the Cook Strait for the last couple of weeks.
Tim and Ned at Helipro have been absolutely fantastic.
They are seasoned pros at aerial yacht photography which makes the job so much easier.
Helicopters have to be the best way to shoot yachts. Versatile, fast comfortable and (usually) keep me and the gear dry. An hour in the air easily beats five or six hours on a boat.

AC45 prototype arrives

2011-01-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

The first AC45 was transported from Oracle's build facility in Warkworth to the old Team New Zealand base in the Auckland Viaduct today.

Got a tip off from a friend and so was able to be on site to see her arrive on a Boat Haulage truck around 4pm today.

Apparently Oracle intend to put her together over the weekend in time for a shake down sail on Monday.

looking forward to seeing her rigged and ready to go.

Perfect grip solution

2011-01-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

I think I have finally nailed the perfect compromise when it comes to a small light weight clamp for strobes. This is something I am happy to have in my travel case. Doesn't take up too much space and is easy to use and pretty versatile.

It is made up of three main items; A Manfrotto Nano clamp, a small
ball head and a plastic cold shoe with a threaded bolt.

Secondary Items are a velcro cinch strap and a small piece of tubing (or Rod).

The ball head is screwed into the 1/4" hole on the top of the Nano clamp as if it were up the wrong way, then the cold shoe is screwed into the base of the ball head after discarding the knurled nut that came with it.

A Nano clamp will open up to 35mm, so it will clamp to a standard inside door, not too bad considering. What I came up with to attach to larger objects is where the cinch strap and tube come into the picture.

I wrap the strap around the object (I can connect two or more if required) loosely enough to fit the tube between the object and the strap with a little slack. Then by clamping around the tube through the strap I attach the rig while tightening the strap by pinching it together. Obviously only works with objects you can get all the way around.

I now have two of these as part of my lighting kit. The Nano clamps are not cheap. No gain without pain?

ETNZ 2010 book at the publisher

2010-12-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

Emirates Team New Zealand 2010 by Photos by Chris Cameron | Make Your Own Book

Nice Surprise, another cover

2010-06-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

Noticed the new Seahorse cover along side a Scuttlebutt e-mail but took a while to register it was one of my shots of Audi A1 powered by All4One from the Cascais MedCup regatta in May.

The shot looked familiar but it has been cropped from a 12 MP horizontal file so I didn't recognize the image initially.

Will have to wait till I get the sales reports to find out which Agency supplied the image to Seahorse.

Brutus

2010-04-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

No complaints about the photo boat at the Louis Vuitton Trophy held in Auckland last month.

This beast was my office through out the regatta. Acres of space, tons of grunt and friendly, intelligent non smoking drivers.

A very stable comfortable and dry platform to shoot from. I was even able to use the 600mm while underway.

Brutus is the diving tender to Ulysses. Owned by one of New Zealands wealthiest men.
The drivers were really nice guys. Kevin, who is a deck hand and Chris, the captain on Ulysses.

Now we have been this spoilt any thing else will be a disappointment.

Water Proof (?) housing

2010-03-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

This week I have been playing around with a new home made water proof housing I built from a Pelican 1300 case.

The handle is a piece of a broken carbon fibre main sail batten from an America's Cup Yacht that I rescued from a skip at Emirates Team NZ.
Yet again I was trying to save weight and money by doing it myself.
An Aquatech or similar housing for a D2x can range from US$2000 to US$6000. This setup has cost me around NZ$200 (US$140). Of course it is limited to what it can do. I wouldn't consider taking it diving, but it is perfect for the sorts of shots seen above.
Testing has been pretty successful with the only leak being about 1/2 a teaspoon that managed to force it's way past the lid seal when the case was forced below the surface while doing about 12 knots. Not too surprising.
The camera is triggered by a Nikon IR remote unit through an acrylic window built into the top of the case. The window was turned from an Acrylic bar by an engineer friend who put a thread in so a standard nylon plumbing nut can be used to tighten the outside flange against an o-ring.

Above you can see the remote in a bag taped to the top of the handle so it points at the trigger window on the case.
I have used Rainex on the lens port to try to keep the water from settling.
It doesn't seem to be working as well as I'd like but it just may mean I need to make sure to wash the salt water off after each dipping.
It takes a bit of practice and a lot of blind firing to get a good shot.
Thank God for digital.

Light stand lite.

2010-01-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

I have been working on this stand for a while now. Have been using the prototype for a couple of years in the field and was considering commercializing it in some way.
However today on the Strobist blog a very similar design by Swedish Photographer Peter Karlsson with an almost identical simpler version has put paid to the idea of patenting the concept.
So in the interest of sharing and giving back I will put my own design out there for people to copy if they want.
Like Peters stand it uses the light weight tent pole concept of thin tubes held together with bungie cord. Mine has spreaders to separate the legs. The flash is attached to a Kaiser cold shoe flash bracket that rides up and down the stand on a tube over the three legs. This stays in place purely using friction created by the legs being under tension.

So the flash can go from the top down to the first leg joint.
To go lower I just pull out the lowest leg sections and let them lie on the ground.

The prototype uses hobbled together hinges made from various model plane bits and pieces.
One end of the spreader slides up the leg to bring the three legs together then the three leg sections can be pulled apart to break the stand down.
This prototype is made from carbon fibre tubes used in kite construction and will support a flash at almost two metres and weighs just 250 grams.
Collapsed it measures 69 cm.

The next version I intend to make will be a five section leg so that the collapsed stand will fit in my Pelican lighting case.

Power Octopus

2009-08-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

One of the main impetus for my inventions is saving weight and volume of the gear I need when traveling to regattas around the world.
At the moment I am traveling with two camera battery chargers, an AA charger and the adapter / charger for my MacBook Pro (Another plus side to running an iPhone was no charger).
This requires several cables and hence requires adapters for the different sockets encountered around the world.
The Apple charger has a very nifty system of inter-changable slide in adapters to easily convert the charger from one socket type to another. This system uses the standard figure 8 style socket in the charger so it will also take any of the small computer / jug style cords supplied with most hardware.

The little octopus (Tritopus?) I have made is three male jug cord ends into one female jug cord socket.
So now all I need to travel with is two or three Apple plugs and the Octopus.

I couldn't find a socket at any of the electronics or electrical supply stores at home so ended up recycling a socket from an obsolete appliance.
A bit of careful soldering and Voila. The rubber cover over the socket was a lucky find in the local electrical supply store, not entirely sure what it was meant for but it works perfectly here.

On a safety note. If you intend to copy this idea, I take no responsibility for any damage to you, your equipment or you burning down a hotel / home etc.
All the appliances I plug in will take 110/115 or 220/240 volts and draw less than 500mA.

Copa del Rey

2009-08-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

I was shooting the Copa del Rey regatta in Mallorca last week.
A nice event with over a hundred boats competing, great weather, though for pictures I would like a bit more breeze and some heavier swell. Can't sweat what you can't control.
It was the first regatta for Neville Crichton's new mini maxi, the NZ registered Alfa Romeo III. So that was the main focus for me.

Some of the usual frustrations though from things that should be better but are almost always an issue.
Photo boat drivers who don't understand what it is we do or the importance of being in the right place at the right time. We invariably end up explaining and training for the first half of the regatta. A bad boat driver is akin to having legs that can't do what you want them to or won't do what you ask them to.
The driver of the boat I was assigned to at the Copa del Rey was particularly bad in this respect being of a certain age and temperament that doesn't take direction well at all, not to mention drinking beer and smoking cigarettes all day.
Where do the organizers find these guys?

There were also too many amateur photographers meaning photo boats crowded with guys who are all elbows and size 11s and girls with long hair who insist on standing just up wind when the best action is happening. I understand regatta organisers need to show the sponsors they have the media numbers to warrant their investment but really, 13 on a eight metre rib does not make it easy to make your event look as good as it could.
At least it was a decent boat, powerful enough, not too wet and no stupid obstructions.

Apart from these niggles I was pretty happy with how things went. I got some shots I was happy with and have already made a couple of good sales.

Welcome

2009-08-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

Hi there and welcome, not sure there will ever be anyone interested enough to visit but thought this might be a way to vent my spleen when the occasion requires or share some of my experiences chasing boats with a camera.

As well as a photographer I am a bit of an inventor. I have designed and built various bits of kit to make my photography easier or to add a new element to my creativity. Being a New Zealander I would rather spend a weekend building something I need than spend a days earnings on an off the shelf equivalent. Its just the way we are.
So it is my intention to share some of those here as well.

I welcome any questions or feedback on this blog or on my photos.
Not sure how prodigious the posts will be but I will endeavor to blog whenever I think I have something interesting enough to add.