iPad Workflow

For shooting football I mainly use an iPad for moving images quickly. The Workflow is quite simple and effective. The camera bodies are connected to the iPad via WFT-E6s and configured to work with ShutterSnitch. I have the cameras set up so that I can select individual frames to the iPad.  ShutterSnitch recieves the images and performs a couple of automated tasks, including a basic caption, renaming & copying to the camera roll.

Eventually….

It has taken a while, but I have found a second WFT-E6 at a sensible price, which now means that I can shoot with both bodies and wi-fi the images to my iPad. I cannot believe how expensive these things are new, and as I mainly use them at football, nearly £500 each was to expensive to justify.

In most situations they are overkill, the Eye-Fi mobi pro cards did the job, unless there was a lot of wi-fi interference, which on match days there frequently is. As you can probably imagine several thousand supporters, plus TV & the such like all using WiFi means that the airwaves are congested. Not a problem on most news stories, when there are just a few photographers & journalists about, however I do like the fact that I can send images direct from the camera to the picture desk, with as little or as much interaction as I wish.

It is also great when doing corporate shots, so that the client can see images as they are shot (subject to me checking them on the back of the camera first!)

Ready for Work

Having purchased an iPad Pro a little while ago, I am now pleased to say that it is ready for work, I have used it once on a news job last weekend, but now the case & the screen protector & iOS 11 are now installed it is ready to be used in anger.

New Card Reader

Having had a Lexar USB3 CF Card Reader for some time, I felt that it was time to explore another option, now that I  have a USB3 PCI-E card in the Mac Pro and have been getting fed up plugging & unplugging the Lexar every time the laptop goes in the field, I have decided to leave the Lexar at home & use a Delkin Card reader in the field.

First tests seem encouraging. I also like the fact that the lead is hard-wired, which cures one of the problems with the Lexar, which is that it can become separated from it’s lead, either in the bag or whilst transferring files.

Can You Tell What it is?

Arrived home today to find a parcel had been delivered, I wonder if you can tell what it is?

Yep it is an adjustable stool. Quite expensive for what it is, but it does at least enable the seat height to be adjusted up to 18 inches, which should be high enough to photograph over the top of advertising hoardings that seem to be prevalent at football matches these days.

New Toy Time

Having had an android tablet for a little while, I decided that an iPad mini would do the job better because there doesn’t appear to be any good iptc software on android that matches photogene. So a wifi & mobile networked iPad seemed the best route. Having had a play over the last couple of hours, I think it & I will get on very well.

About Time

Huawei E5330

Having recently upgraded to a smart phone it only seemed sensible that I upgrade from a rather dodgy “3” Dongle, which works more less as and when it feels like it, frequently showing zero signal which connected & sending images, then minutes later showing full strength signal whilst dropping the connection, so a cheap mifi is the order of the day, meaning that I also am not tying up a valuable USB port whilst wiring images.

My Workflow

I have been asked by several newbie photographers in the last few weeks and months about post capture work flow and compression of images, in readiness for wiring.

Images: Files Size and Compression

Having cropped, adjusted the levels and sharpened you image, the next most important element is to compress it to a size that is feasible to wire to your Agency or Newspaper.

Image Captioning

Image selection prior to wiring is critical, take time to choose the images that best tell the story that you are covering. Images should be sharp, and accurately exposed.

On occasions you will find that papers will use muzzy poorly exposed images, if the content is strong enough. There are occasions were perfect high quality images are not possible to get, shooting through shop windows, car windows, or shooting by available street lights at night means that images are going to be very noisy and very probably a bit soft.

What are Histograms?

Sample Histogram

Histograms are not widely understood, but taking a few moments to learn about them can improve your photography significantly. Histograms can show you immediately whether your images are overexposed, underexposed, or just right, and help you to make any necessary changes when re-shooting a scene.

Post Capture Workflow

I have been asked by several newbie press photographers in the last few weeks and months about post capture work flow and compression of images, in readiness for wiring. Whilst Image Compression is dealt with elsewhere in this blog, I shall cover some of my practices for image processing.

Image Size, File Size and Compression.

Having cropped, adjusted the levels and sharpened you image, the next most important element is to compress it to a size that is feasible to wire to your Agency or Newspaper.

Firstly lets define a couple of terms that we will use through this page, just to save some confusion later on.

• File Size relates to the amount of hard disk space a compressed image will occupy.
• Image Size relates to the number of pixels in the image, by which Photoshop will determine the image size in Mb ie 3504×2336 pixels is approximately 23.4Mb.