digitalphotopro18012020

Blackmagic Design’s URSA Mini Pro G2: 120 Frames Per Second In 4.6K digitalphotopro.com

Capturing The Icons of

Activism

Black & White Michael Kenna's Memories Of Home Photographic Haikus In Monochrome Filmmaking Today FEBRUARY 2020

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EDITORIAL WES PITTS Editorial Director TERRY SULLIVAN Editor KRISTAN ASHWORTH Managing Editor

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 Vol. 18 No. 1 digitalphotopro.com

Contents

DANIEL BROCKETT, MARK EDWARD HARRIS, WILLIAM SAWALICH Contributing Editors ART & PRODUCTION CAROLYN V. MARSDEN Art Director

Departments

ALLYSON PREBLE Graphic Designer

8 EDITOR’S NOTE 10 NEW PRODUCTS 64 LOOKING FORWARD

Portfolios 16 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HAIKUS OF MICHAEL KENNA

SALES & MARKETING

16

(617) 706-9110, FA X (617) 536-0102 SCOTT LUKSH Media Solutions Director ALEXANDRA PICCIRILLI Senior Media Solutions Manager

A master photographer shares how he creates exquisite black-and-white landscapes

CLIENT SERVICES clientservices@madavor.com

By Mark Edward Harris / Photography By Michael Kenna

RYAN GILLIS Audience Development Analyst

26 CAPTURING THE ICONS OF ACTIVISM A new photography book showcases activists, both famous and lesser known, who took the crucial step to get involved

By Theano Nikitas / Photography By KK Ottesen

TIM DOOLAN Social Media and Marketing Manager SHAWN DANIEL, TOMMY GOODALE Marketing Associates ANTHONY BUZZEO Content Marketing Supervisor SARAH MACDOUGALL Content Marketing Associate

26 Printed in the U.S.A. Digital Photo Pro (ISSN: 1545-8520)–Vol. 18 No. 1–is published bimonthly except monthly in November and December by Madavor Media, LLC. Executive, editorial and advertising offices: 25 Braintree Hill Office Park, Suite 404, Braintree, MA 02184, (617) 706-9110. Periodicals Postage Paid at Boston, MA, and at additional mailing offices. Single-copy price–$6.99. Annual subscription in U.S., Possessions, APO/FPO–$24.97. Canada–$39.97; other foreign–$39.97, including postage and taxes. Payable in U.S. funds.

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Email us (editorial matters only) at editors@digitalphotopro.com or visit our website at www.digitalphotopro.com Copyright © 2020 by Madavor Media, LLC. No material may be reproduced without written permission. This publication is purchased with the understanding that information presented is from many sources for which there can be no warranty or responsibility by the publisher as to accuracy, originality or completeness. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering product endorsements or providing instruction as a substitute for appropriate training by qualified sources.

EDITORIAL SUBMISSION: Digital Photo Pro assumes no responsibility for solicited or unsolicited contributions and materials. Otherwise, insurance for such materials, in transit or in our possession, must be the responsibility of the writer or photographer. Digital Photo Pro does not accept or agree to the conditions and stipulations printed on delivery memos, packing slips and related correspondence as they are presented without prior notice accompanying submission materials. Exceptions to this disclaimer of liability on the part of Digital Photo Pro must be prearranged, executed in writing and signed by both parties prior to the shipment of materials in question. SUBSCRIBERS: Any obligation we owe to you, including delivery of your magazine, is contingent upon you providing us with your correct mailing address. If the Post Office notifies us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation to you unless we receive a corrected address from you within two years of the Post Office notification. BACK ISSUES are available for one year prior to the current issue. To order within U.S., send $9.00 plus $4.00 postage and hand-ling (Canada: $9.00 plus $5.00; International: $9.00 plus $10.00) for each issue to Back Issue Dept., 25 Braintree Hill Office Park, Suite 404, Braintree, MA 02184, or go online and visit the eStore. No orders processed without proper funds and specific issue information.

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JASON POMERANTZ VP, Circulation Strategy

34 AS I FOUND IT

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A year-long photography project helped a photographer deal with losing his mother to dementia

TONI EUNICE Operations Coordinator

Text & Photography By Russell Hart

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42 BLACK & WHITE FILMMAKING IN A

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COLORFUL WORLD Is the monochrome look relevant in 2020?

By Daniel Brockett

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Contents

60

Equipment 50 HANDS-ON REVIEW: BLACKMAGIC DESIGN’S URSA MINI PRO G2 The author puts the updated cinema camera to the test by using it in a real-world project

By Daniel Brockett

60 AUDIO ASSIST: A FIRST LOOK AT THREE INNOVATIVE AUDIO PRODUCTS

By Daniel Brockett

50

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ON THE COVER: KK Ottesen captured this powerful portrait of Marian Wright Edelman, an advocate for children's rights and disadvantaged Americans, for her recent book, Activist: Portraits of Courage.

digitalphotopro.com

Adobe Announces Photoshop Camera App, Details On Photoshop On The iPad & Creative Cloud Updates At Adobe MAX 2019, Adobe announced Photoshop Camera, a new mobile app, plus news on Photoshop on the iPad, and a slew of updates to the apps in the Adobe Creative Cloud service, the company’s subscription-based set of online applications and services.

Wireless Video In Production How To Organize Your Digital Archive Professional photographers find that the ongoing management of their digital archive is one of their most important administrative duties. Find out why in Amy Touchette’s blog post at digitalphotopro.com/blog/ how-to-organize-your-digital-archive/

Have you heard the siren song of wireless video? What exactly does the phrase “wireless video” mean in the context of video production? Find out more about this somewhat amorphous term in contributing editor Daniel Brockett’s blog post at hdvideopro.com/blog/ wireless-video-in-production/

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Editor’s Note When I think about black-and-white photography, I wonder if the next generation will be as excited about the topic as I've been and continue to be.

Personally, I believe working in black and white helped me develop my artistic vision as I was shooting, developing and enlarging my own images since I was 11 or 12 years old. I then continued to do so through high school and college. Such a hands-on approach gave me insight into the great masters of the past as well as photographers working in the present day. I also learned valuable lessons on how to set the proper exposure for specific effects and how to frame my composition in-camera so I could enlarge it to produce a more compelling image.

I even experimented with solarizing, 8 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

With film companies reviving negative film stock, will it mean we’ll be seeing more photographers with sheets of negatives, contact sheets and loupes?

dodging and burning to manipulate the print. (And you’ll think of this when you read the stories on both Michael Kenna’s and Russell Hart’s work in this issue!)

However, in this age of digital photography, I wondered if there was any interest left in black-and-white photography as well as photos shot on film. Do millennials or those in Generation Z care as much as this Gen Xer? Then, this past summer, a press release from Fujifilm answered my question, at least to a degree. The news story, entitled “Fujifilm Announces the Return of Black And White Film with the Introduction of Neopan 100 ACROS II,” indicated that the revival film stock would be available in 35mm and 120 formats (first in Japan, with

other markets to follow, based upon demand). The press release also noted that the company was responding, in particular, to younger photographers: “Thanks to consumer feedback, particularly from millennials and Gen Zs, who have become the new film enthusiasts, the market is changing once again.

To meet the needs of this new market, Fujifilm is reviving ‘ACROS II.’” So, yes, as Bruce Springsteen once sang, “Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” Perhaps even black-and-white film!

Enjoy!

— Terry Sullivan Editor editors@digitalphotopro.com

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Less than two months after Nikon announced the news that it was developing the Nikon D6, which will become the new pro flagship DSLR for that company, Canon announced that it's developing an update to its flagship pro DSLR: The new model will be the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III DSLR, which will be the successor to the EOS-1D X Mark II, introduced in early 2016.

Because this is a development announcement, Canon couldn’t provide all the specifics, such as availability and price, but it did give some details: • The new flagship will have superior performance to the previous version, shooting up to 16 frames per second (with AF/AE tracking) and a RAW max buffer that will be five times faster than the 1D X Mark II. • AF algorithms will improve using artificial intelligence-like technologies

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and have a wider dynamic range than its predecessor.

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Canon also said it was developing a higher class of EOS R full-frame mirrorless cameras.

Additionally, Canon introduced two new lenses: the Canon RF 70200mm F2.8L IS USM Lens and the RF 85mm F1.2L USM DS. The new Canon RF 70-200mm lens has a bright ƒ/2.8 aperture across the zoom range. Other features include: • Two Nano USM motors, providing an even greater level of high-speed autofocus for still-image shooting and quiet and smooth autofocus for video shooting.

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• The optical image stabilizer should provide five stops of compensation.

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• A customizable control ring that allows photographers to adjust exposure compensation, shutter speed, aperture or ISO. • Includes one aspheric lens and one UD lens, along with BR optics that help to reduce chromatic aberration.

There was no availability or pricing for the new EOS-1D X Mark III DSLR. The two lenses should be available now.

The Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM List Price: $2,699 The Canon RF 85mm F1.2L USM DS Lens List Price: $2,999 Website: usa.canon.com

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>> For the latest product news and in-depth coverage of new announcements, visit digitalphotopro.com/newswire

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 11

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Fujifilm Introduces X-Pro3 Mirrorless Camera

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This past fall, Fujifilm introduced a camera that seemed to reinforce the reason why the company has kept the name “film” in its name all these years: The new camera is the Fujifilm X-Pro3 mirrorless camera, an interchangeable-lens camera that many have been waiting for and is based in large part on the company’s X-T3 mirrorless camera.

The new X-Pro3 comes with a 26-megapixel APS-C CMOS image sensor but still keeps the old, retro rangefinder look about it. But at a press event for the introduction of the new model, Fujifilm execs said that this is the type of camera that will get you to think like a film photographer, again.

In part, this is due to several unique features on this camera, some of which were on the previous model, the X-Pro2. For example, take the high-quality hybrid viewfinder: It lets you use the viewfinder as an electronic viewfinder or like a rangefinder-like optical viewfinder.

This feature was on the previous model, but there are new features as well: For example, the LCD only folds down to see the live-view image or to review your images and video. In other words, it doesn’t swivel like many mirrorless models. This, Fujifilm says, makes you slow down and think like a film photographer instead of always reviewing your images. It will be interesting to see if this approach gains traction.

The new X-Pro3 includes other enticing features, including: • An X-processor 4, quad-core imaging engine.

• An ISO range of 160-12,800.

• 4K video capture (30 fps).

• Impressive HDR modes.

• Unique multi-exposure modes, which include Photoshop-like blending modes.

• A special-edition “Dura” finish in silver and black.

• A variety of film-simulation modes, including a Classic Negative Film Simulation mode, which the company says “is designed to simulate color negative film.”

• And a powerful autofocus-range limiter, great for street photography.

The camera should be currently available in black as well as in Dura silver and Dura black.

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Because it’s a drone targeted for consumers, its lightweight form factor makes it much more likely to be a safe drone, according to experts, says DJI. The new model, which costs $399, comes with a variety of photography and video features, including: • The ability to shoot video at 2.7K video at 30 frames per second or 1080p at 60 fps, and photograph 12-megapixel photographs using a 1/2.3-inch image sensor.

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ARRI’s new Orbiter ultra-bright, tunable and directional LED fixture

ARRI's New Versatile Cinema Lighting System

In late fall this past year, ARRI gave a live-streaming online presentation, introducing a number of new products as part of a powerful new “lighting platform.” The main product highlighted in the presentation was Orbiter, which ARRI calls “a new LED…ultra-bright, tunable and directional LED fixture.”

The company describes Orbiter as “the most technologically advanced luminaire ever produced for image capture and color fidelity. All systems in Orbiter are completely new and have been designed with versatility in mind.”

During the livestream event, ARRI demonstrated Orbiter’s new six-color light engine, which it said delivers “a wide-color gamut and outstanding color rendition across all color temperatures along with industry-leading, smooth dimming from 100 to 0%.” The Orbiter also has changeable optics, which ARRI says “can transform into many different types of lampheads including projection (profile), open face and soft light.” Other features include a fast processor, ample memory, expanded connectivity, a built-in array of sensors and weatherproof housing.

Additional aspects of the new lighting platform include: • ARRI Spectra: a six-color, wide gamut light engine.

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Huangshan Mountains, Study 56, Anhui, China 2017.

The Photographic Haikus Of

Michael Kenna A master photographer shares how he creates exquisite black-and-white landscapes

By Mark Edward Harris | Photography By Michael Kenna

S

ome photographers circulate their

work via magazines and newspapers (although more and more those entities exist solely online, as websites and social media channels). Others, who have chosen the world of commercial photography, distribute their images as ads, in marketing or branding campaigns, which range from traditional print to many diverse forms in digital platforms.

But for the master landscape photographer Michael Kenna, who was born in Lancashire, England, but now is based in Seattle where he produces ethereal photographs that often portray hints of humanity in timeless natural landscapes, the path is a bit different. Instead, Kenna shares his lyrical work through fine-art exhibitions and more than 20 books, including his latest, Beyond Architecture (Prestel Publishing), Oiseaux (Editions Xavier Baral) and Rafu (Nazraeli Press).

Digital Photo Pro: How did your passion for the art and craft of photography develop?

Michael Kenna: I don’t think there was ever a decisive moment when

passion and enlightenment about photography suddenly enveloped me.

Rather, many factors, experiences and decisions, great and small, brought me to the life path I have been on for the past 45 years.

I was born and brought up in what might be described as a poor, workingclass family in Widnes, an industrial town near Liverpool. Childhood experiences obviously have a great influence on one’s life, and as a boy, even though I had five siblings, I was quite solitary, content for the most part with making up my own adventures and acting them out in the local parks and streets.

I liked to wander to the local train station and collect tickets and train numbers and would spend a lot of time on my own in the nearby St. Bede’s Church, soaking in the atmosphere.

Of course, I went on walking and biking adventures with my siblings and friends, too, explorations of empty factories, graveyards, ponds, sports fields, bridges, all locations that I’d later find interesting to photograph. Even though I didn’t use a camera at the time, I suspect this period was ultimately more influential on my vision than the

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 17

Kussharo Lake Tree, Study 12, Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan 2008.

time I later spent in art and photography schools.

That time at St. Bede’s must have been influential since early on you considered becoming a priest.

During my younger years, I served as an altar boy at St. Bede’s. I really loved being part of the great rituals of religion, assisting the priest at baptisms, funerals, weddings and the Latin mass.

When I was almost 11 years old, I went to a Catholic seminary boarding 18 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

school, St. Joseph’s College in Up Holland, to become a priest myself.

The seven years there taught me many important lessons, and there were certain aspects of this religious upbringing that strongly influenced my later photographic work, such as discipline, silence, meditation and a sense that something can be unseen yet still present.

In retrospect, the education was excellent, although the career guidance there wasn’t very strong once

I decided that I no longer wanted to pursue the path toward priesthood.

When did photography enter the picture?

I always seemed to have an aptitude for drawing and painting, so I went on to study at the Banbury School of Art in Oxfordshire, where I was exposed to photography as well as many other creative mediums.

From there, I specialized in photography for three years at the

London College of Printing, where I was trained as a commercial photographer. I studied photojournalism, fashion photography, sports photography, still-life photography, architectural photography...all sorts of photography, with many different cameras and formats. Running parallel to this, I also photographed the landscape, which I suppose was my passion. At the time I had no idea that I could and would eventually make a living in this area.

What were your jobs before you were able to make a living as a fine-art photographer?

While I was a student, I worked every summer, Christmas and Easter holiday from the time I was of legal age, which I think was 15 in those days.

The jobs varied considerably. I was employed on building sites, on a sewage farm, as a groundsman’s assistant in a sport complex, in a car factory working nights on an assembly line, nights in a bakery. I delivered mail for the post office. And in a local pub, I worked behind the bar.

I needed money to survive. My final job during the summer right after graduation was at The Heiden Hotel in upstate New York making beds, cleaning the pool and cutting the grass.

It gave me my first taste for the U.S. What was your first job in the world of photography?

After the summer in the U.S., I worked for The John Hillelson Agency on Fleet Street in London. They represented amazing photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Rene Burri and Robert Capa.

Every morning, photographs would come in from the Gamma, Magnum and Sygma photography agencies. My job was to take these around to all the London newspaper offices and try to sell them.

I was pretty pathetic at the job, but it was an amazing education for me. From there, I became the printer for Anthony Blake, a fine, all-around commercial photographer in Richmond, Surrey,

where I was living.

That was enjoyable and extremely educational. I then became his assistant, and my first task of the day was to take his two black Labradors for a walk along the nearby River Thames.

The dogs’ names were Hassel and Blad!

We traveled a lot, particularly in France, and I learned a great deal about how to be a professional photographer. It was a great time in my life,

but eventually, I made the big decision to move to the U.S. Whether in the U.S. or any other part of the globe, do you go out to shoot with preconceived ideas and then try to find subject matter to match them?

Or are you exploring with an “empty cup,” so to speak?

I don’t have a standard or even consistent way of working. Of course, the

Hillside Fence, Study 7, Teshikaga, Hokkaido, Japan 2004.

longer you do something, the more likely you are to know a bit about what you’re doing.

Fortune favors the prepared mind and all that. I might take minutes in a location or [I might take] days. It depends on what I find and connect with. In my humble opinion, there’s no one right way to photograph anything.

My cup is both empty and full at the same time. I don’t know how I will photograph something, yet I have a wealth of experience, which inevitably informs the way that I work. I 20 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

rarely make any elaborate preparations before I go to a location.

I walk, explore, attempt to discover and photograph. I search around for some sort of resonance or spark of recognition. I think that approaching subject matter to photograph is like meeting a person and beginning a conversation.

How does one know ahead of time where that will lead, what the subject matter will be, how intimate it will become, how long the potential relationship will last?

I try not to make conscious

decisions about what I’m looking for.

Certainly, a sense of curiosity and a willingness to be patient to allow the subject matter to reveal itself are important elements in the process. There have been many occasions when interesting images have appeared from what I had considered uninteresting places.

The reverse has been equally true.

One needs to fully accept that surprises sometimes happen, and they’re not always good surprises.

I personally don’t believe that

complete control over outcome is necessary or even desirable. The unpredictable is sometimes more interesting and lasting. Often, I return to the same places over and over, searching, repeating, knowing that there’s more potential than I first realized. As the great photographer Eugéne Atget taught us, nothing is ever the same. Options are endless. Of course, there may be an obvious perspective, but it’s important never to be satisfied with that.

It’s one of the advantages of working with the silver process: I never know when a good photograph has been made. I therefore use doubt as a way to wander off into alternative compositions by selective focus, different speeds of exposure and unusual perspectives.

I like to think of photography as a slowly developing journey with infinite possibilities. I look for what’s interesting to me out there in the three-dimensional world and translate or interpret that scene, so it becomes visually pleasing in a two-dimensional photographic print.

I search for subject matter with visual patterns, interesting abstractions and graphic compositions. The essence of the image often involves the basic juxtaposition of our human-made structures with the more fluid and organic elements of the landscape. I enjoy places that have mystery and atmosphere, perhaps a patina of age, a suggestion rather than a description. I look for memories, traces, evidence of the human interaction with the landscape. Sometimes I photograph pure nature, sometimes urban structures.

But at the end of the day, I much prefer a full cup of tea to an empty one.

And perhaps that tea at the end of the day is sencha (Japanese green tea) since you seem to have a particular attraction to Japan?

My first visit to Japan was in 1987, and I was hooked immediately.

There are many characteristics of the Japanese landscape that resemble and remind me of my homeland of England.

Japan is a country of islands, surrounded by water. It’s a place that has been lived

and worked in and on for centuries. It’s geographically small, and spaces are quite intimate in scale. I feel there’s a powerful sense of atmosphere that resides in the Japanese soil, and, as I like to photograph memories and stories, I feel strangely at home wandering around this country.

There’s also a wonderful reverence for the land, sometimes symbolized by the ubiquitous torii gates, which mark the entrances to Shinto shrines. The shrine is often the landscape itself, an island,

rock or group of trees.

If one spends time in Japan, I think it’s impossible not to be influenced by the Japanese aesthetic, the kanji characters, the simplicity of artwork, the reverence of a Buddhist temple. For a number of years, I’ve been working predominantly in Hokkaido, particularly during the winter months, when the landscape [is visually] transformed by layers of snow and ice into a graphic sumi-e painting.

®

Santa Cruz, California

Ile de la Cite, (Merci HCB), Paris, France, 1992.

In those paintings, it’s where the artist uses a minimal amount of black ink to convey the subject matter...

I generally prefer suggestion over description, black and white over color and winter over summer.

For me, Hokkaido is a paradise on earth, a constantly transforming visual haiku. The starkness of Hokkaido’s winters accentuates an awareness of the elements and one’s immediate environment. The reduction of 22 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

sensory distractions—leafless trees, absence of color and eerie silences— all encourage a more concentrated and pure focus on the landscape.

In addition to the Japanese aesthetic, what and who are some of your other influences? You mentioned Atget a moment ago.

I’m a product of a European tradition, and I adored the early masters, and still do, including Eugéne Atget, Bill Brandt, Mario Giacomelli and Josef

Sudek. These photography giants, along with the Americans, including Ansel Adams, Ruth Bernhard, Harry Callahan and Alfred Stieglitz, have greatly influenced the way that I see and photograph.

I suppose they are all romantics at heart, particularly the Europeans, all concerned with photographing a feeling as much as documenting external reality.

With all these photographers, I actively searched out places they photographed, their camera angles and

Philosopher's Tree, Study 3, Biei, Hokkaido, Japan 2009.

techniques. I’m a great believer in the saying attributed to Isaac Newton: “If I have achieved anything, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

There are a few master photographers you've actually had the opportunity to work with, in particular with Ruth Bernhard.

Perhaps she was the strongest influence.

I worked as her printer and assistant for almost a decade in the ’70s and ’80s. At that time, I thought that I knew a lot about printing, as I had printed my own work and that of other photographers. However, Ruth

gave me new insights into her own singular style, where the negative “was” the starting point.

She would radically transform an initial straight print into a Ruth Bernhard print. This might involve tilting the easel to achieve a different perspective, softening the focus to create an evenness of tone, making masks to burn and dodge, using different chemicals to change the contrast or color of the image.

She essentially refused to believe that the impossible wasn’t possible, and there were no rules that couldn’t be broken.

I cannot overestimate her influence on both my life and work. Ruth often

said that she regarded her role of teacher to be far more important than her role of photographer. As a young photographer trying to navigate in the extremely puzzling world of art galleries, publishers and commercial agents, Ruth was a guiding light.

“Today is the day” was her mantra, and her determination to live in the present, to appreciate every moment, to always say yes to life, has left an indelible impression on me.

How did you develop the idea of recording landscapes with extremely long exposures?

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 23

Shosanbetsu, Hokkaido, Japan 2014.

I’ve always believed that what we see is a tiny fraction of what’s there.

I think it comes from that early religious upbringing I mentioned. The light on the altar represented a presence that was invisible but which I believed in.

I find that I’m still interested in the suggestion of what could be, rather than what’s actually visible to our eyes.

I began to work at night in the mid-’70s, and I suppose this was the start of my fascination with long exposures. Photographing at night was exciting because it was unpredictable. I didn’t immediately 24 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

have control over exposures, and it was a surprise to see the results every time I processed the film.

During time-exposures, the world changes—stars trace through the sky as our planet moves, planes, boats, cars leave behind their own white lines on the negative, clouds will slowly add density to specific areas of the frame. This accumulation of light, time and movement—impossible for the human eye to take in—can be recorded on film.

Real becomes surreal, which is

endlessly fascinating to me.

What equipment are you working with?

My usual analog setup is pretty basic: Two Hasselblad 500C/M camera bodies, a metered pentaprism and a waistlevel viewfinder, two film backs (for 100 ISO and 400 ISO film), five lenses ranging from a 40mm to a 250mm, a Gossen Luna-Pro meter, which I use chiefly for night exposures, a lightweight graphite tripod with a ball socket head, some red and neutral-gray density filters,

Copse and Tree, Mita, Hokkaido, Japan 2007.

and many cable releases, as I tend to lose them in the dark.

These cameras have become old friends, familiar and easy to be with.

Essentially, I measure the ambient light, use an appropriate neutral-density filter to make the exposure longer when desired, calibrate the Reciprocity Failure factor of the particular film I’m using, and Bob’s your uncle [there you have it], as they say in the U.K.

I believe that every photographer, every artist, should choose materials and equipment based on their own vision.

I don’t believe that non-digital is better than digital, or the reverse, for that matter. I admire many photographers, regardless of the process they use.

Having said that, I cannot say that I've ever fallen in love with a digital print. A silver print, on the other hand, is very hard for me to resist.

What's it about the analog approach that keeps you loading film into your camera rather than digital cards?

Are you making your own prints?

I continue to make all my own prints on Ilford Multigrade papers in my traditional wet darkroom from my

original negatives. I believe this to be an important and enjoyable part of the creative process.

One of the many things I love about it is that each print ends up being unique. I find it’s impossible to make two prints exactly alike, due to burning, dodging, chemical variations, toning and so on. Perhaps the process will eventually go the way of the dinosaurs, but while it’s still available, I’ll continue to enjoy every second of this magical, alchemical process. DPP For more on Michael Kenna’s work, go to michaelkenna.com.

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 25

Gabrielle Giffords

ous m a f h t o ts, b s i v i t lved c o a v s n i e t s e a to g owc h p s e t k s o l o a ruci hy b c p a e r h g t o t k ho oo A new p known, who t er sen and less KK Otte

y By tograph o h P | tas no Niki a e h T y B

Photographer and author

KK Ottesen’s most recent book, Activist: Portraits of Courage (Chronicle Books, published October 2019, 7 x 9 ¼ in, 300pp, hardcover $35), contains the words and portraits of 41 American activists. The photographs represent activists, ranging in age from 21 to 94, who have been engaged in a broad range of issues from a variety of perspectives. It's why in this volume, which presents first-person interviews alongside the black-and-white portraits, you’ll not only find longtime icons—Harry Belafonte and Angela Davis, for example—but also new faces, such as Indivisible co-founders Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg.

The project grew out of Ottesen’s longtime interest in activism and the roles people play in an active democracy. “In recent years, as the discourse has frayed and with all the crazy stuff that’s happening, I thought about the importance of the people who stand up to put things back on course,” she says.

More specifically, she wanted to understand what compels someone to act.

“What kind of individual stands up and makes other people uncomfortable?

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 27

Sister Megan Rice

Most of us are hardwired not to stand up but to be nice and polite,” she notes.

It wasn’t just why people took action that drove her curiosity but also how they overcame the innate challenges of doing so.

And, she adds, the “point of the book is not so much about the individual causes but the individual decisions to take some action.”

Her hopes for the book? “To get people talking,” Ottesen says. “To show what it takes to move forward—pushing for policy changes or even opening a 28 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

dialogue.” And to inspire others as much as Ottesen’s subjects have inspired her.

“I may not agree with the person, but I understand their choice. And we’re not doing enough of that.”

The Challenges Going into this project, Ottesen already knew some of the challenges she would face. Her first book, Great Americans, published in 2003, was a “snapshot of the country in a moment of time.”

Through research, she found people in all 50 states who bore the same names as

American icons. As she traveled around the country, she met, interviewed and photographed Eleanor Roosevelt, a fullblooded Apache; Greta Garbo, born in Italy, a divorced cancer researcher living in Kentucky, and many more. She asked each of them what it meant to be an American and found that “the way they said things was so incredible... you could not make up this group, and that’s what you hope for, a great mix of people.” And that book and experience gave her a solid background to continue creating these wonderful stories.

But, she cautions, “Any time you move a big project into action, it’s all on you. Without your pushing, it doesn’t get done.” From conception to finding a publisher, you’re on your own, she explains. Perhaps the trickiest part of bringing Activist: Portraits of Courage to life was getting in touch with the people she wanted to interview and photograph.

To make connections, “you keep your eyes and ears open. Sometimes you send an email, and occasionally someone responds.” She compares the process to tacking a sailboat—going back and forth, working your way further and further along. It may not be a straight path, but eventually, you get where you want to be.

Some of it is serendipity, but it's also networking and reaching out, which helps make the necessary connections.

“It helped that I was doing profiles for the Washington Post Magazine,” Ottesen says. In fact, a handful of the profiles in the book were originally published in the Washington Post Magazine and were, as she puts it, “a calling card.” One of them even ran as the cover story in the summer of 2017, which later helped her present the idea for the book to publishers.

Still, even when connections are made, there are issues to contend with. Ottesen had been trying to meet with Angela Davis for two years, and even when the interview was approved, something happened and the meeting fell through.

“She’s someone I had an enormous personal interest in for a long time. So I sent one last Hail Mary email right

John Lewis

before the book was due.”

The last-minute email worked: Davis’ business manager arranged a meeting for Ottesen with her. But it meant the photographer would have to reschedule a flight to California. Instead, she hopped on a bus to New York. Ottesen says that at this moment during the project, she was nearly out of money, but the bus was cheap enough for her to get from DC to New York, and she didn't want to miss this opportunity.

The Subjects There were some obvious figures Ottesen wanted to include in the book: “You start with some of the names like Angela Davis and John Lewis, who you’ve known about for years and have been an inspiration.”

But she felt it was equally important to include others with “a different angle,” such as Pete Souza, who had served as White House photographer

for President Barack Obama and President Ronald Reagan. (For both, Souza's photos documented their day-today activities, instead of photographing them from a personal point of view.)

But for Souza, says Ottesen, the current administration is a different story.

“He was so appalled at what he was seeing [from the Trump administration] that he felt he needed to say something.” Which Souza does on his Instagram account and in his book, Shade (which is a collection of some of those Instagram posts). In both, Souza presents photos from his years working for President Obama but writes captions that criticize Obama's successor, President Donald Trump.

There are other figures in the book, as well, who offer a different angle on activism. Take Bonnie Raines, and her late husband, John, who broke into an FBI office in 1971 to acquire and reveal documents proving that the government

was illegally spying on communities and activists. They were never caught, but their identities did become known 42 years later. However, it was beyond the statute of limitations. “You need whistleblowers in a democracy,” Raines explained to Ottesen during her interview for the book.

Such interviews require a lot of research, which is a large part of Ottesen’s preparation for her interviews. “I always do as much research as I can before I meet them,” she says, which she believes is what allows her subjects to be themselves, as much as possible. “To strip [away] the formalities. To have an exchange and get to know the person.”

Generally, she prefers to interview her subject prior to the photo session because “it gives you time to watch them for a while—the way they move, their expressions,” and this observation provides a better sense of what to expect when she takes out her camera. And although

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 29

Pete Souza

she starts out with the same set of questions for everyone, “a lot changes in the moment, and it evolves from there.

Something may not be very interesting, so we’ll go down a different road.”

The conversation continues while she’s photographing, so “there’s not a lot of posing.” While Ottesen pays attention to the light and the position of her subjects, her main focus is on encouraging people to be natural. “With both photos and writing, I’m not after efficiency,” so she tells them not to worry about their mouths being open or awkward poses because “we’re going to throw those images out.” She adds, you can’t get them to be themselves without that.

Key Moments During The Project Ottesen says there were certain portraits during the project that were particularly emotional and memorable.

When photographing gun control advocate Gabby Giffords at her home, Ottesen asked her, “What do you want to convey?” Giffords, who was injured 30 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

in a shooting while serving in Congress, had her fist clenched at the time and said, “Hope, hope, hope.” That moment, Ottesen says, was “so powerful, so brave and so moving.”

Another key moment was her session with Congressman John Lewis: You can see the power of memory on his face when Ottesen photographed him in his office as he recalled being beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan on the Freedom Rides in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Ottesen says she learned that in 2009, one of those KKK members—now in his 70s—came to Lewis’ office to ask for forgiveness and was comforted by the Congressman.

Ottesen also photographed Belafonte for this project, in his apartment.

“He’s blazingly eloquent,” Ottesen says. And with his more than 70 years of activism, “he’s living history,” she says. Ottesen captured his expressive nature as he talked about meeting W.E.B. Du Bois, having lunch with

Eleanor Roosevelt and being a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. By connecting and continuing to have a conversation with Belafonte, Ottesen found that she was able to capture a very personal and meaningful photograph during the photo session.

And, in fact, part of what makes so much of this book moving and accessible is this notion of intimacy, which Ottesen says even applies to the scale of the volume. For instance, Ottesen wanted to avoid producing a large coffee table book. Instead, she produced a book that’s the “size where you can hold it in your hands,” she says, “and interact with the words and the images.”

Ottesen’s Traveling Photography Studio To photograph portraits of the figures in this volume, Ottesen needed to create a traveling studio of sorts. Key criteria included portability and being able to scale her gear to the spaces available to her.

For example, when photographing

Angela Davis

Harry Edwards

Pete Souza, she might use a seamless backdrop and have plenty of surrounding space in her Washington studio. But the next day, she may be taking a portrait of Congressman Lewis and setting up lights in his office, which means she needs to take care not to knock anything over while putting up a backdrop and positioning lights. Then, she may need to fly across the country to photograph Giffords in her home, which means Ottesen may have to explain to airport security that the strange-looking device is actually a Profoto D2 studio strobe, not a weapon.

For camera gear, Ottesen relied on her Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens, employing the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens for tight shots.

For lighting, she’d set up a Profoto D2 or a pair of Profoto B1s. While she tended to prefer the D2’s light output more than the B1’s, the latter is smaller and more convenient for travel and shooting in small spaces.

She generally used a transparent umbrella as a modifier and took advantage of the Profoto Air Remote to adjust lighting. She’d occasionally position an additional light between the subject and the backdrop to achieve more separation of the two.

Although she didn’t often have the luxury of shooting in a studio for this project, when she did, she shot against a seamless backdrop. She wanted the backgrounds to be dark, to elicit the same general feeling but not be exactly the same. She had more of a background choice when shooting in studio, but for traveling, she packed a black fabric cloth.

Depending on the space, she draped or clamped the fabric over a door, using gaffer tape to attach it to a wall or hang it from light stands. Dark seamless or cloth provided “the simplicity of being able to concentrate on the subject” rather than a distracting background that would draw attention away from the person. And she chose black for

Harry Belafonte

her traveling backdrop because “you don’t have to light it, and it doesn’t show wrinkles as much” as lighter colors.

And cloth folds up easily.

Not surprisingly, Ottesen chose black-and-white for all the book’s photos. “I love black-and-white, especially for portraits. You filter out so much of the [visual] noise, and it allows you to focus on the person, their face lines, their eyes, their expressions.”

A perfect case in point is her portrait of Lewis. “You can see the worry line in the middle of his forehead. You

get pulled into the vortex of his memory; it gives me the chills. It’s one of my favorites.”

Although she shot everything in color since the Washington Post generally prefers color, Ottesen converted the portraits to black-andwhite using a combination of Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex Pro. “There’s too much information in color. I love the simplicity of black-andwhite and the ability to concentrate on a person’s face and movement.”

DPP

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 33

My Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ties

34 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

As I

Found It A year-long photography project helped a photographer deal with losing his mother to dementia Text & Photography by Russell Hart

When

my mother’s dementia became so severe that she could no longer stay in the rambling New England Victorian where she had lived for 40 years, most of that time with my father, it fell to me to empty and sell the creaky old manse. Once my mother was out, I essentially moved in and spent the better part of a year sifting through a dense environment created by decades of hoarding, deeply compounded by the Yankee habit of saving too much from past generations.

The house contained thousands of cardboard boxes, often several nested inside a larger one, stacked up in layers against the walls. In the attic, these stacks created a virtual maze.

Despite my mother’s ceaseless accumulation, a lot of what she left behind in her boxes was neatly ordered, though in ways that might have made sense only to her—a system she was

no longer able to explain. Much of it had been heavily annotated, often on index cards or Post-it notes as old as their invention, in her tiny, precise handwriting.

She was obsessive-compulsive, a behavior that dementia cured.

The task was the most emotionally difficult thing I have ever done. As a way of mitigating my sadness and solitude, I took pictures. At first, I photographed the gorged interiors of the rooms, broadly and closely, and continued as each room was emptied of its life. In the vastness of what my mother had squirreled away were hundreds of cardboard “trays”— often boxes she had sliced the tops off with a utility knife—in which she had arranged groups of related items, most of which had outlived their usefulness. I also began to photograph these collections by the light of an attic window. Toward the end of my

clearing out the house, these assemblages took over the project.

Photographing what I found in these boxes, which I didn’t rearrange in any way, was simple in concept but surprisingly complicated in execution. I set up my solid old Polaroid MP-4 copy stand, which has a long rail that allows more “working distance” than most such models, directly in front of an attic window that was formidably high on the house, unobstructed and north-facing.

I oriented the stand with the rail on the far side from the window so it wouldn’t cast a shadow on my subjects; this way, they would also be lit gallery-style, from the top. I mounted my 24.6-megapixel Sony Alpha a900 DSLR on the copy stand, and because my mother’s trays and boxes were quite variable in size, I chose an A-mount Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8 T* zoom for the work.

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 35

Fail To Block Hart Suicide. For all his adult life, my father carried in his wallet a newspaper clipping about his own father’s 1949 suicide, which happened when he was 22 years old. After my father died, my mother removed the clipping from his wallet and carefully placed it in an empty candy box, just as you see here. She put the candy’s cushioned insert on top of it, then on top of that enclosed a note explaining, presumably for future generations, the clipping’s history.

These Are 34 1/2”, Too Short

36 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

This meant that with the largest boxes, even if I had to crank the camera to the top of the rail, I had the option of zooming to a shorter focal length in order to fit the whole subject into the frame. The zoom also allowed me to shoot from a lower position (closer distance) at a shorter focal length (more wide-angle) in order to create a sense of being “inside” the box, with its interior walls more visible and tapering toward the bottom. The Zeiss zoom is perfectly rectilinear at its wide end and eye-popping in sharpness throughout.

Though the window light was fairly consistent and had the soft character I wanted, it still produced strong shadows and high overall contrast because the interior itself was dim. I often used a white fill card, placed on the side of the subject opposite the window, to help open up shadows. But my main method of contrast and shadow control was to use High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI)—shooting a series of identi-

The house contained thousands of cardboard boxes, often several nested inside a larger one, stacked up in layers against the walls. cal frames of the subject at different exposures, then combining them with Photoshop’s File>Automate>Merge to HDR Pro command. (Other apps offer HDRI too, of course.) Though HDRI is now usually associated with special effects obtained essentially by overdoing the technique, at its best, it’s a very

The Freezer Before I Defrosted It

effective way to capture and control the full brightness range of a contrasty subject, as long as it’s static. More about that shortly.

After leveling the camera (using a bubble level) and making sure the subject was square, I typically shot seven or nine RAW frames of the subject at different exposures: one “on,” three under and three over; or one “on,” four under and four over.

These brackets were usually separated by increments of .7 stop and were changed strictly with exposure time to avoid differences in depth

of field between the frames, which would have been impossible for the HDRI software to resolve.

My exposure times were long, given the low sensitivities (ISO 200 or under) I chose to ensure good image quality and the small apertures (ƒ/16 or smaller) I chose for adequate depth of field at such close distances. They often extended, at the far end, into several seconds and beyond. I always shot with the mirror locked up to minimize image-degrading shake and was careful to wait between each exposure for any vibrations to die down given

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 37

Rus’ Wedding Ring (Given Christmas 1950)

that the camera was often high up on the rail. A blurred bracket also might have created a problem in combining the images.

When I sat down at the computer to process the frames for HDRI, I first looked at the most extreme exposures to decide if I needed to keep them in the mix. If there was enough shadow detail in the second-most “overexposed” frame and/or enough highlight detail in the second-most “underexposed” frame, I’d sometimes knock off one or both ends of the series. This meant I’d end up using five or six frames instead of seven, or seven or eight instead of nine. I found I got the best results by not giving Photoshop any more frames than necessary to capture full detail across the entire brightness range of the subject. I processed the RAW frames in color, ending up with a single Photoshop-format color file; this way I only had to convert one final frame to black and white.

After obtaining one file from the many, I ran the image through DxO 38 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Optics Pro software. Along with correcting for any lens aberrations, this software features perspective controls

The task was the most emotionally difficult thing I have ever done.

As a way of mitigating my sadness and solitude, I took pictures. that allowed me to fine-tune the squaring up I’d done in-camera. Many of the boxes ended up more perfectly square

than they were in real life!

Next, I converted the file to black and white, using Photoshop’s Image>Adjustments>Black and White command.

Why black and white?

Aside from saving me the need to correct for the window light’s blue cast, it made up for the fact that the contents of the trays and boxes were a hodgepodge of colors. I didn’t want an individual item’s color to give it a gratuitous prominence; I felt that color was a distraction from the idea that these items had been sorted into meaningful groups. While it might seem an obvious nod to photography’s own past, I also thought black and white made it clear from the outset that these images were about memory and history—a record of a past life and, ironically, of life’s impermanence, through sentimental objects. The Japanese have a phrase for this idea, mono no aware, which means “the pathos of things.”

In converting the color file to black and white in Photoshop, I almost

“Pleating” Pins, Size 16, Extra Fine

Grammie’s Treasures, With her Typed Index

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Straw Baskets with Oasis Inserts

always used the control’s color sliders to adjust tonal relationships: a red element that might be rendered too brightly in the black-and-white conversion could be darkened by pulling down the red slider; a blue element that might be rendered too darkly could be lightened by pulling up the blue slider. After the conversion, I’d usually go into Photoshop’s very useful Shadows/Highlights control (Image>Adjustments>Shadows/ Highlights) to adjust the overall balance of bright and dark areas.

Despite the benefits of HDRI and Shadows/Highlights, most of the images’ real tonal control began when I opened up the Nik Viveza plug-in in Photoshop and used its “control points” throughout the image. (The Nik Suite is now marketed by DxO.) Viveza is basically like old-fashioned dodging and burning in, which of course you can do “manually” in Photoshop, except that it provides much more control. In addition 40 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

to letting you adjust brightness (density), it gives you local control over contrast, shadow detail, color

The work is also a study, by implication, of an obsessivecompulsive mind, yet more generally of the hoarding behavior that seems epidemic in our society. saturation and color balance among several other things. These changes can be made globally in addition to

locally. In fact, before making any local adjustments, I sometimes used Viveza globally to increase overall contrast; I often raised the contrast higher than I would have with Photoshop’s regular contrast controls, then “filled in” by increasing Viveza’s Shadow Detail slider. This gave me more punch than I could otherwise have achieved, without blocking up shadows. I also increased Structure globally. Structure is a very useful, slider-based Viveza control that improves the sense of texture and clarity.

I found myself placing scores, often over a hundred, and sometimes even several hundred, Viveza control points in a given image to make the local adjustments I wanted. In fact, at times, I had to make myself stop, or else an image would end up looking compressed in its tonal scale!

I’d place a point in the middle of an area I wanted to fix, use the point’s main slider to set the circumference of

State Quarters for the Grandchildren Project

the circle that controls the size of the area affected, then proceed to adjust the other sliders. These changes were almost always more than just to brightness. When a dark area was lightened, for example, it usually began to look a little flat, so I’d also increase the contrast within that area. Try doing that in the traditional darkroom when dodged shadows start to look weak! It’s challenging to do in Photoshop.

After applying a lot of control points, I saved everything, then reassessed the overall image back in Photoshop. Sometimes I made further global adjustments, either with Photoshop commands (typically Highlights/Shadows) or again in Viveza (using Contrast and Shadow Detail). Then, I applied another round of control points. I often took an image in and out of Viveza many times before I was satisfied. Given that the plug-in essentially masks on the fly, it saved me days of layering work.

As a final step, along with sharpening to size, I went back into

Photoshop’s black-and-white converter and added a slight bit of warmth to the images. The payoff of that warmth, those big files and the careful technique and labor-intensive local work, was large prints that some viewers have likened to platinum/palladium contact prints in their sharpness and tonal scale. The prints’ image area is 16x24 inches, on a heavy 17x25-inch sheet of Moab Entrada matte-finish paper; they’re made on an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer (which is still going after all these years).

This body of work, which you can see in two full portfolios at russellhartphoto. com in the Archive section, has elicited a more positive response from viewers than any of my other recent work.

I’m a bit mystified by this. Aside from editorial and advertising work, these images are the most documentary I’ve ever made in years of fine-art work that has always tilted toward the pictorial.

At the same time, they’re the most personal work I’ve ever done, which is ironic given their documentary nature.

It seems that what started out as an exercise in coping with loss produced photographs that transcend their particular personal and family meanings; the photographs apparently connect both to notions of memory and to the experience of anyone who has dealt with the decline of parents in present-day America and perhaps knows how dementia destroys identity and history.

The work is also a study, by implication, of an obsessive-compulsive mind, yet more generally of the hoarding behavior that seems epidemic in our society. All that said, I don’t want viewers to come to these photographs with too much information or too many preconceptions. I made them so that viewers would be able to “read” their contents in detail, for what might be gleaned about my late mother’s life and personality.

DPP

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Black-and-White Filmmaking in a

Is the monochrome look relevant in 2020?

By Daniel Brockett

Black and white is a tool that, when used effectively, can set the mood in a film. It can also give projects a visual style and feel that can't be obtained from shooting color. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nice is that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easier than ever today to experiment with different monochrome styles or "looks."

42 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

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rtsy. Pretentious. Old fashioned. Boring. Period look.

Outdated. Rich. Simple. Silent movie.

Horror. Film noir."

In the world of film and television production, those are some of the adjectives you’ll generally get when you mention the words “black and white.”

What’s intriguing to note is that often the types of responses you get depend on the age of the person talking. (Of course, the responses also depend on how much media a particular group consumes.) In general, younger audiences have much less association with black-and-white footage, and it may appear as a novelty to them.

Audiences a bit older will have some recollections of watching black-andwhite television when they were a kid.

This is the category I fit into. As a kid in the 1980s, I had a 13-inch black-andwhite television in my room, while my Black and white effectively sets the mood for the cynicism and violence of such genres as film noir.

44 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

family had a massive 19-inch color set in the living room. If you go back to an older audience, they may have experienced a lot more black-and-white television and have seen black-and-white films in the theater.

But why do filmmakers continue to experiment with black and white?

One reason is that it can appear more visually powerful than color footage— which seems counterintuitive since color is obviously how most of us see and experience the real world.

Is Blaack and Whitee Still Relevant in 2020?

From a commercial viewpoint, black and white has been synonymous with “art house, obscure and novelty” for quite some time. If you are a commercial filmmaker and mention the words “black and white” to your executive producer or distributor, you may see a look of fear and dread come across

their faces. That’s because black and white can be a tough sell commercially for audiences who have never experienced it. Or even if they have, many audiences regard black and white as a dated effect.

But you shouldn’t discount black and white. That’s because it can be a viable artistic choice and, for certain projects, black and white can look exquisite and make a connection with an audience in a way that a color film or project never can.

In 2011, the French film The Artist, which was filmed entirely in black and white, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won five, including best picture. In the 1990s, Schindler’s List was released almost exclusively in black and white, although it had limited sequences in color as well.

That film went on to become a modern classic.

In this still from a Western, black and white sets the mood for a confrontation that will happen in this space.

In this still from a short film about decay and its effect on life and the living in comparison with the dead and memories, black and white conveyed a mood that was impossible to achieve in color.

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An abandoned trailer in the desert becomes much lonelier in black and white.

Besides Academy Award winners, many other smaller and lower-profile projects have been produced in black and white over the past few years. So, the answer to the question “Is black and white still artistically relevant for film, television and online content?” is “yes.” However, that’s with some qualifications.

genre of the film? Does it help tell a better story?

If it does, then go for it. But if you aren’t sure, discuss it with your team or your distribution apparatus, client or even your audience, if that audience is online.

Another key point that you’ll want to remember is this: Film, television,

Bu ut why do filmmakers co onttinue to experiment with bllack k and white e?

Still, how can you tell if you should tell your story in black and white?

Ask yourself these questions: Who is your audience? What’s the subject matter? Also, look carefully at your script and story—does black and white improve the story, style or 46 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

digital cinema and digital media creation is a collaborative process. It means that it’s best to at least involve the portions of your team that will be directly affected by shooting in or at least finishing in black and white (more on shooting versus posting in

black and white later in the article!).

Hoow A Monochrome Production Caan Affect The Crew As you can see below, choosing to create a monochrome film affects many roles. That’s why you should really think of black and white as a directing, producing and even writing decision as well.

But once the writers, producers and director are all on board with shooting or ending up with a black-and-white project, how does this decision affect the crew? Consider the following roles and how they’re affected: Gaffer: The gaffer-team function is tied to the cinematographer, and their job is to deploy the lighting that the cinematographer needs to realize the director’s vision.

So, when lighting for black and white, which means once you take color out of the equation, you're telling

the visual story simply with black, white and various gray tones. That means contrast and contrast ratios become much more significant in a black-and-white film.

Wardrobe: Yes, your wardrobe choices can look dramatically different in black and white. And that means you’ll need to shoot wardrobe tests, along with lighting, hair and makeup.

So, those powerful colors that you might have relied on for a character’s identity or personality go out the window, which means you may need to rethink some various aspects of your project.

Hair And Makeup: A lot of what will make hair and makeup a creative part of the process on a color film will be lost on a black-and-white film. You just won’t be able to see the subtle tones and gradations in hair color and skin tones.

It’s why it’s imperative to shoot tests.

You don’t want your characters to

inadvertently end up looking like pale extras from a gothic horror film— unless you are, in fact, making a gothic horror film.

One good thing about shooting a monochrome movie these days: Depending on how your black-andwhite project is shot and lit, you’ll have a lot of latitude and dynamic range—more than filmmakers did a few decades ago with blackand-white-film stocks. It’s smart to exploit that latitude, if it suits your story.

Production Design: Sets and props will look quite different in black and white. Be sure to test these as well.

Make sure that your location or sets look how you want them to look.

That means you’ll want to work with your production designer, art director and props department to ensure that they all buy in on the vision of shooting in black and white and can offer you choices that will work.

Postproduction And Visual Effects: Depending on how you decide to end up in black and white, whether that's shooting in black and white or first using color but monitoring in black and white and converting the color images in post, your editorial team and visual effects/motion graphics team will need to work with you to make sure that your end result is what you and/or your client expect.

Planning is key: You’ll need to partner with your editor and visual effects team to make sure that whatever process you’re using will give you the desired look you’re going for. There are a lot of subtleties and nuances to shooting in a black-andwhite project, many different looks and feels that you can experiment with. It’s essential to plan all of this out with your team, even if your team is just you and an editor or you’re producing, filming, directing and editing yourself.

A prisoner awaits his fate in a Middle East prison cell. I shot this in color but converted it to black and white using Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16.1.

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 47

Methhods Of Producing Bllackk-And-Whitte Media There are many different ways to arrive with a black-and-white end product, but let’s just cover a few of the simplest and most obvious:

end result will be unmistakably filmic; it will have all of those film characteristics that many of us know and love.

Shooting film, if you have the right concept, can be a very viable way to end up with that look you’re seeking.

Shooting With Film: For the most authentic look, you might consider shooting with black-and-white film.

It may seem more expensive than shooting video, but it may not be much more if you consider how it’s used. For instance, you can rent film cameras now for bargain rates.

But be sure you factor in the following: buying film stock, developing it and transferring it to video to edit— all of which can be expensive. But there are still plenty of rental houses renting the cameras, both 35mm and S16/16mm.

Unless you have experience with motion picture film, though, you’ll need to hire a DP and ACs who know how to shoot with film cameras. The

Shoot In Black-and-White Digital Video: Believe it or not, there are cameras available that only shoot monochrome/black and white.

High-end cameras like the RED Monstro are available with a monochrome sensor. For a lot of technical reasons that we don’t have room to cover, the Monstro Monochrome camera actually has measurably better image quality than a regular RED Monstro color camera.

Of course, the RED isn’t an inexpensive camera, even to rent, but it does represent what’s probably the state of the art in black-and-white native acquisition.

At a more down-to-earth cost, there is the Fujifilm XT-3, a mirrorless, high-quality 4K-capable hybrid

camera system. One of the Fuji’s strongest selling points is that it includes film simulations of famous Fuji film stocks, one of which is called ACROS, a black-and-white film stock.

The X-T3 offers a “monochrome adjustment” function to faithfully reproduce warm and cool tones, which were conventionally achieved using specific photographic papers and developers.

This function, available in the standard “monochrome” as well as the “ACROS” mode, provides smooth halftones, deep blacks and beautiful textures to broaden the scope of monochrome expression.

Shoot In Color And Convert To Black and White In Postproduction: This is probably the most common method, and with the quality of modern digital cinema and mirrorless cameras, it has become an even more viable option than in the past.

Post-production tools have become more sophisticated, and shooting in

Night scenes are often devoid of much color anyway. This moody sequence of soldiers doing a house-to-house search became more ominous in black and white.

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Scenes like this one of a heavily backlit group show how important shooting with the widest latitude and dynamic range is when shooting for black-and-white.

customized, then rendered out.

Personally, I like DaVinci Resolve: It offers very sophisticated node-based image manipulation with a lot of fine control over many different curves. It’s just about the perfect application to

affect how the black-and-white conversion looks in your final image. In the days of shooting black-and-white film stock, cinematographers would often play with yellow, orange and red filters to vary the contrast ratios within

various Log and RAW formats gives you a very clean digital negative, which you can affect in hundreds of ways to give you the exact look and feel you’re going for.

The best part about this option is that if you shoot in color and decide later that a few scenes or even the whole project just seems as if it will work better in color, you still have that option. Shooting black-and-white film or with a digital black-and-white camera doesn’t give you these options; once you’ve shot the project, you’re married to black and white forever.

Fo or the most authentic c look, yo ou might consid der shooting wiith h black-a and d-white film m.

Post-Production Processes To Obtain Black-And-White Footage: There are several ways to achieve a black-andwhite effect in post.

The easiest method is to apply a color correction to a clip and desaturate the image to monochrome. Depending on the look you’re trying to achieve, this may or may not suffice. Software plug-ins like Red Giant’s Magic Bullet have black-and-white presets that can also be applied to clips, tweaked and

create your look for your project. Also, be sure to try duotones and Sepia tones.

Keep in mind that gradations and grayscale have a tremendous influence on how the viewer will perceive your black-and-white footage. Just as when shooting film, applying color filtration will have an effect on the tonality of your black-and-white images. This is a good time to shoot tests and have some fun with colored filters. Each application of a color gel or filter will

the grayscale between the black-andwhite points. There’s no wrong or right answer here; this is your time to play around and concoct an original look for your black-and-white footage.

Goo Foorth And Play One upside about the digital video era we live in is that it’s so easy to play with the looks of the footage you’re shooting. So for your next project, go forth and experiment.

DPP

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Hands-On Review:

Blackmagic Designâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s URSA Mini Pro G2 The author puts the updated cinema camera to the test by using it in a real-world project

By Daniel Brockett

50 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

Blackmagic Design introduced the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 in March of 2019, which was a significant update from the original URSA Mini Pro, which was announced two years earlier, in March 2017.

Here’s a brief description of it from Blackmagic Design's website: “The URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 is a nextgeneration digital film camera with updated electronics and a high performance 4.6K HDR image sensor for shooting at up to 300 frames per second. You get a Super 35mm 4.6K sensor with 15 stops of dynamic range, built in optical ND filters, interchangeable EF lens mount that can be swapped for optional PL, B4 or F mounts, Blackmagic RAW and ProRes recording to dual CFast or dual SD cards, and an innovative USB-C expansion port for recording directly to external disks.

In addition, URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 features a massive set of external broadcast style controls, backlit status display, foldout touchscreen monitor and more!”

The UMP G2 includes additional features as well, including a variety of shooting resolutions, including 4.6K (4608 x 2592), 4K DCI, UHD, 3K Anamorphic, 2K DCI and 1080; high-speed frame rates, including Blackmagic RAW (8:14.6K full—up to 120 fps); UHD Windowed (up to 150 frames per second) and HD Windowed (up to 300 fps). The camera also includes the ability to shoot ProRes 422, up to HQ codec. It has a built-in four-position ND-filter wheel, with clear two-stop, four-stop and six-stop ND filters. It comes with autofocus (when using compatible lenses, iris control, a 4-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen, a highly accurate time-code clock, an SDI 12G output and dual XLR audio inputs).

Plus, on the main products page of the website, the new model is described as “three cameras in one” because, the site says, it combines high-end digital film quality with the features and controls live broadcasters want. And just below that, the website refers to the camera as also being “ideal for any kind

of work from high-end feature films, television shows and commercials, to independent films, broadcast news, and even studio and live production.”

After doing my research, I believed that Blackmagic Design was positioning the UMP G2 as an all-around professional digital camera. But that was just an educated guess—to get a better sense of this camera, I’d need to do two more things: Do some hands-on tests with the camera and look at pricing.

Top: You can tell the URSA Mini Pro G2’s interface was carefully designed. For instance, controls are placed in convenient locations for shoulder-mounted shooting.

Bottom: The UMP G2 features 12G SDI input and output as well as TC input, perfect for multiple-camera shoots.

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But to do the latter, I’d need to consider how I wanted my UMP G2 configured for the work I do.

Configurations & Pricing Let me break down the camera configurations that I received and give you a realistic picture of how you'd probably want to configure the camera if you were going to buy it: 52 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

• Camera body ($5,995): The camera body includes a flip-out 4-inch LCD, an EF lens mount, an owner’s manual…and that’s about it. The remainder of this list comprises accessories you’ll pay extra for.

• URSA viewfinder ($1,495): The high-resolution viewfinder includes a full HD-OLED display

Top: Cinematographer Tony Peck puts the URSA Mini Pro to work at the finish line.

Bottom: The location for our test shoot with the URSA Mini Pro G2 was the finish line of the Catalina Crossing Paddleboard U.S. Championships in Manhattan Beach, California.

and true glass optics.

• URSA VLock battery plate ($95): V-Lock-compatible battery plate for attaching third-party batteries to URSA cameras.

• Microphone mount ($135): This is a shock-and-vibration-isolated, professional microphone mount.

• Blackmagic URSA Mini SSD Recorder ($395): Record Blackmagic Raw or ProRes files onto standard 2.5 inch SSD Media with your URSA Mini Pro camera.

• Blackmagic URSA Mini Shoulder Kit ($395): The kit includes a shoulder pad with built-in rosettes, rail mounts, integrated tripod quick-lock release and top handle.

• Blackmagic URSA handgrip ($199): Side-hand controller for URSA Mini Pro with record start/ stop, iris and focus buttons built in.

Standard rosette and LANC for attaching to the side of the camera or relocating it to the front of the camera with the URSA Mini Shoulder Kit. So, the UMP G2 with all these extras will actually cost $8,709, about $3,000 more than the camera-body price.

The UMP G2’s outside panel displays most of the timecode, exposure and card status info you need at a glance if you're shooting with the flip-out LCD closed.

Putting The UMP G2 Through Its Paces Now, the specs and list of features are impressive, but to get a sense of what the UMP G2 can do, I wanted to use it on a project. It's the best way to find out how it will perform in action.

Luckily, as a producer and cinematographer, I had various projects in the works. So, I decided to put the UMP G2 through its paces by taking it on a client-paid shoot to determine how good the new camera is. My reasoning?

It’s simple: Although it’s always tempting to talk about numbers and specs when it comes to cinema gear, there’s nothing like taking a brand-new camera out in the field—under pressure and in challenging conditions—to see how it performs. And where it belongs in the world of cine camera gear.

Now, I didn’t have a chance to use it on a feature film or on broadcast news. But I did use it on a non-profit

The URSA Mini Pro G2 EVF impressed us with its clarity, brightness and sharpness.

When we configured the UMP G2 with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II lens, it was even heavier than when we configured it with our standard lens.

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The menus on the UMP G2 were clear and easy to understand, which made navigation a breeze.

We shot mostly UHD Prores HQ, although you can see there are a lot of other choices as well.

project: The event we covered with the UMP G2 was a paddleboard race, called the Catalina Crossing.

During this event, we filmed interviews and shot b-roll of the event.

We captured top paddleboard racers as they crossed the finish line in Manhattan Beach, California. All in all, I felt the shoot offered challenging conditions on every front— requiring handheld footage, shots from tripods with long-lens shooting in extremely bright, harsh sunlight conditions with wind and ocean noise as well as tons of people and lots of white, reflective sand.

First Impressions During The Project I received the review unit from Blackmagic a few days before the shoot, which meant I was able to rig it up for shooting and just tried a few quick shots around the office before packing it up for the big shoot. My 54 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

first impressions were good: The camera seemed to be very well built.

But the UMP G2 isn’t a light camera.

Just consider the following and how much the camera and various accessories weigh: • Camera body with two CFast 2.0 cards and V- Mount battery plate: 5.2 pounds • Shoulder mount kit: 3.4 pounds • Handgrip: .67 pounds • Viewfinder: 1.5 pounds • Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 IS II lens: 1.8 pounds • MaxOak 177Wh V-Mount battery: 2.4 pounds All in all, the total camera package weighed almost 15 lbs. (Although, to be fair, my Canon C200 set up weighs just a couple of pounds less.) What’s important to note, though, is weight in cine cameras has its advantages and disadvantages:

• Pros Of Shooting With Heavy Cameras: For shooting shouldermounted footage, heavier cameras are better since their mass allows you to produce much smoother, less-shaky movements. You also have the ability to hold longer lens shots steadier simply because you won’t get the micro jitter that plagues small, lightweight cameras.

• Cons Of Shooting With Heavy Cameras: The disadvantages to a heavier camera when shooting as a one-man band is that carrying a heavier camera around tires you out much more quickly. Add in a backpack for a water bottle, snack, spare batteries and media, and a 20- to 25-pound pro tripod, and you could easily be lugging around 50 to 60 pounds’ worth of gear.

During our shoot, we found a lot to like about the camera.

We shot almost exclusively with the Film to Extended Video LUT and achieved good results in post with a variety of LUTs.

For instance, the EVF is excellent.

It’s super bright and clear, with good color. For $1,500, it looks as good as other EVFs that cost a lot more. The menus are clear, simple and easy to navigate. We also found switching between regular shooting and slow motion was a breeze.

But the camera had shortcomings as well. For example, there was no waveform monitor, only a histogram, and the record button on the handgrip was difficult to find by feel. They also positioned the XLR inputs facing up instead of placing them at the back of the camera. I also found the autofocus is pretty limited for moving subjects— it’s slow and takes a long time to lock onto the subject.

I also had a hard time balancing the rig, especially using my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II lens. The shoulder pad moved a little to allow you to shift the balance point, but it

didn’t move enough. Plus, you have to unscrew two screws each time you want to move it, which isn’t convenient jumping back and forth with lighter and heavier lenses.

Assessment Of Resulting Footage We shot with Blackmagic RAW for a few clips just to test it out. We then switched to Prores HQ, since this footage was supposed to slot on with a lot of other footage that had already been shot and was edited in FCP X as Prores. We also shot footage at 120 fps and even higher frame rates. It’s impressive that this camera is able to shoot at up to 300 fps!

Overall, the footage looked very good. As expected, the Blackmagic RAW images in Resolve seemed to yield better sharpness and slightly lower noise than similar Prores HQ clips in FCP X. We shot Blackmagic RAW at 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1 compression

ratios and, predictably, in really bright sunlight, there weren’t a lot of recognizable artifacts or compression signatures we could see. Rolling shutter wasn’t much of an issue: We put the camera on a tripod, panned back and forth with some light poles on the pier, and saw very little skewing or JELLO vision.

Our footage was taken on a very bright, sunny day, which meant we didn’t have a chance to increase the ISO to see how it performed at higher gain settings. But we tried it out back at our office.

The URSA Mini Pro G2 doesn’t have the same dual-native ISO of the Pocket 4K and 6K cameras. For me, I was comfortable shooting the camera at a maximum of ISO 1600. (In comparison, we’ve shot the Canon EOS C200 several times at ISO 2500 and even 3200 before seeing objectionable noise creep into the image.)

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The Highs, Lows And Bottom Line After using the UMP G2 on our project and taking it through its paces, here’s my general assessment of what I found: The Highs: • It’s well-built and robustly constructed.

• It comes with the best menus of any camera I’ve ever used.

Simple, clean, easy to navigate and find settings.

• Excellent electronic viewfinder (EVF).

• Exceptional slow-motion capabilities. In fact, I’d rent this camera just to shoot slow motion.

• RAW, with multiple compression ratios, and Prores LT, 422, HQ, 444 and XQ. In short, you have an excellent selection of codecs to choose from.

• The Integrated recording unit that uses SSDs is slick: Every camera on the market should have this feature.

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• Beautiful, very natural image, with great color science.

• Nice integration with accessories.

Blackmagic makes and sells the EVF, V-Mount and Gold-Mount plate, shoulder mount kit, handgrip and SSD recorder, all at a reasonable cost. They’re also all wellintegrated. There’s no third-party confusion that you end up with when using other camera brands to obtain the same accessories.

The Lows: • No Waveform Monitor. Histograms are for stills and close to useless for digital cinemas with no scale or IRE to expose skin tones correctly at a glance, although you can at least get an idea with Zebras.

• Audio XLR inputs are located in an awkward location.

• No cold shoe on-handle in shoulder mount kit.

• The 4-inch LCD screen only

The URSA Mini Pro G2 features an internal scratch microphone for when you can’t hook up an external shotgun to record scratch audio.

flips out 45 degrees, instead of 90 degrees and folds against the body.

(You might try out the G2's selfie mode, if you shoot alone and want to adjust settings or lighting. ) • Shoulder pad barely allows forward or backward movement to balance for many different lens and battery combos. When you do need to adjust it, you need a screwdriver and have to loosen and tighten two screws.

• Using the handgrip, it isn’t easy to feel for and find the record button.

• Mediocre in low light. The maximum ISO I’d use is ISO 1600. I found ISO 3200 was too noisy.

• Needs extended ND: The internal NDs only go to ND 6, which isn’t enough for sunny days at the beach or snowy days.

• It’s heavy!

• The autofocus takes a long time to lock in and focus. And it’s not continuous. It’s limited, unless you’re shooting static or slow-moving subjects.

• When the LCD screen is pulled away from the body to use, SD and CF card slots have no protective door to cover the unused slots.

Not ideal for operating in sand, dust, rain, etc.

the G2 responded beautifully to the good lighting we used in our project.

But I also shoot a lot of documentaries, which are often shot in poorly or even atrociously lit scenarios or in scenarios where there’s only a little light. So, for us, lighting the scene up just isn’t an option.

Value: Whenever I test a cine camera, I ask myself if it represents a good value.

I also have to ask how this model might

I wasn’t crazy about the audio input XLR location. It’s functional, but it drapes the XLR cables over the rear of the camera.

help me in marketing my work. And since I work mostly in the Los Angeles market and for my work-for-hire as a director of photography, I always have to face facts: Trying to sell an ad agency, PR or marketing firm or the studios that you’re going to shoot with a Blackmagic camera can be an uphill climb.

The Bottom Line: Performance And Value Performance: If you use a fast lens, set the UMP G2 at ISO 1600 and light your scenes or shoot in well-lit environments, your footage should look quite good. But if you regularly shoot in very low-light environments, the UMP G2 may not be the best choice for you.

I’m always torn by cameras like this because to make good-looking images, you need to light them, period. And

KIT OPTIONS AVAILABLE

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Certain features, like the excellent EVF, simple menus and class-leading slow-motion capability, make the URSA Mini Pro G2 a contender against its competition.

That’s because Blackmagic Design cameras aren’t nearly as well known with clients as RED, ARRI, Sony, Panasonic or Canon cameras.

On the other hand, some clients don’t care what you shoot with (which was the case in this instance) just as long as the results were professional and the images looked and sounded good, which they did. But many clients—PR/marketing/corporate/the studios—do care which camera you use.

Still, it’s just one of several factors to consider.

One of the most important, of course, is price. The UMP G2, configured the way I needed it to be configured, costs close to $9,000 with all of the accessories I’d need and want to make it work for my shoots. However, I do have an alternative. Most other camera manufacturers in this segment offer multiple cameras in this general price range.

Consider the following: Panasonic offers the VariCam LT for just a little 58 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

more and the AU-EVA1 for a little less. Sony offers the PXW-FS7, PXWFS7 MKII and soon the upcoming PXW-FX9, for a couple of thousand dollars more. Canon offers the C200 at roughly $500 more for the basic camera package, except the EOS C200 includes the top handle, handgrip and a few other accessories that are extra on the URSA Mini Pro G2. Canon is still selling the EOS C300 MKII, as well, for just a little more than the URSA Mini Pro G2.

So, if you want a camera in this price range, you do have quite a few options.

My point is, there are a lot of candidates for professional digital cinema cameras in the $6,000-to-$10,000 space.

But Blackmagic does have one ace in the hole: The URSA Mini Pro G2 has the ability, with the right Blackmagic accessories, to transform into a live event or broadcast camera, something that none of its competitors are designed to do.

The URSA Mini Pro G2 was designed with this in mind. So if

having an extremely versatile camera is important to your work, then the G2 is worth considering.

Overall, we were impressed with the URSA Mini G2 since it does a lot of things exceedingly well, including its superb slow-motion capability and its menu system that’s a joy to navigate.

There is an additional way the UMP G2 is unlike its competition: Blackmagic Design makes one of the best software suites for editing your URSA Mini Pro G2 footage: It makes DaVinci Resolve 16, and the company even gives you a free copy of the Studio version with your purchase of the camera. No camera manufacturer makes a good editing program along with its own lineup of pro digital cinema cameras.

If the limitations mentioned can be worked around in your workflow, the URSA Mini Pro offers an excellent value, robust build quality and a great image. It’s a cine camera I’d consider as seriously as any of its competition.

DPP

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There were several new audio innovations that were introduced this fall at IBC 2019, a media, entertainment and technology trade show.

Audio Assist: A First Look At Three Innovative Audio Products

For this edition of Audio Assist, I’ll focus on a few innovative audio products that premiered at IBC 2019, which is an annual media, entertainment and technology show that takes place each year in Amsterdam.

For me, it’s a welcome change to see audio gear getting some attention since it sometimes feels as if audio gets lost in the never-ending tsunami of video technology and all the new cameras, lenses and lighting that are introduced into the market. It’s probably the reason why it appears that audio lags behind video in new product introductions and new innovation. But I think these three new products prove that there are some exciting innovations taking place in the world of audiofor-video category. In fact, I think all three include cuttingedge features while still remaining relatively low cost and accessible for production out in the field.

By Daniel Brockett

Zoom F6 Multitrack Field Recorder The new Zoom F6 is an ultra-compact, multitasking field recorder, with a powerful new feature: 32-bit float technology for distortion-free dynamic range.

The F6 allows for up to 14 tracks of simultaneous recording, at a very reasonable $649 price tag. Like many other pieces of new audio gear, this Zoom recorder is a great value.

But it’s in a very competitive space: High-quality audio recorders keep improving just as prices on those new models

60 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

continue to drop. So it’s a very good time to be looking for new sound gear.

No matter how you need to use it—for sound, for picture applications, recording live music or even when recording ambient sound for VR and AR applications—the F6 has the modes, resolutions and media support to handle your audio workflow in an efficient and relatively easy way.

But as I just noted, the headline feature on the F6 is its 32-bit float resolution and dual-path A/D converters. This relatively new technology on this product, especially at this relatively low price point, means that the F6 has immense dynamic range to cover the audible spectrum with ease.

In short, that means digital clipping is no longer the challenge that it was with older, 24-bit or 16-bit audio recording technology.

Higher bit-depth recording means a lower-noise floor, with lower levels of distortion. Practically speaking, the increased DR means that needing to be very careful when you're riding gain is pretty much a thing of the past. (We’ll be sure to test this when we get this model in to review it.)

The Zoom F6 is the first of a newer generation of mixers: It’s a recorder that offers an incredible feature set for an incredibly low price while retaining great quality.

Recording Media And Multitrack Modes: The F6 allows you to use SDXC memory cards for recording up to 512 GB of storage space. Use the MP3 format if recording just a stereo mix and extended recoding time and minimal file sizes are important. Use the BWF-compliant WAV format for uncompressed audio quality and industry-standard file compatibility; you can run the F6 in six-track mode (six inputs recorded in 24-bit or 32-bit float) or 14-track mode (six inputs recorded in 24-bit and 32-bit float, plus a stereo mix). Or you can select the Ambisonics mode to capture four channels of Ambisonics-compatible audio and have two channels to spare for traditional mics.

Ambisonic Recording Capability: The F6's Ambisonics mode offers precision A-to-B decoding and balanced gain linking, enabling you to capture professional, spatial audio for VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and more. Even while using the first four channels for Ambisonics recording, you can utilize channels 5-6 for other signals, such as boom and lav mics. You can download the free Zoom Ambisonics Player software to access easy-to-use decoding and editing functions for 360-audio.

Full-Time Code Capability: The F6 can be powered on all day or shut down during shooting breaks, and it will maintain reliable sync with video cameras, master time-code clocks or additional audio recorders. Accurate synchronization is made possible with the F6's high-end time-code features. A 3.5mm TRS mini-jack is dedicated for time code I/O and a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) boasts super-stable time-code accuracy to ±0.2 ppm.

The Zoom F6 right-side panel offers a dedicated 3.5mm TC input/output, headphone jack with volume knob, power switch and three XLR inputs.

What Makes It A Game Changer?: While the F6 undoubtedly has a lot of interesting new features, what makes it significant is that it’s the first multi-track recorder in its price range to offer 32-point float-point audio. In real-world, day-to-day situations, the huge dynamic range capability means that you don’t have to work so hard to ride gain, and if you accidentally let your levels record too hot or too low, the audio will still be usable and will still sound good. Plus, add in the robust internal time-code capability and Ambisonic recording capability, all for under $700, and you have a product that redefines what a lower-end mixer/recorder is capable of.

digitalphotopro.com January/February 2020 | 61

Shure TwinPlex Microphone Designed for broadcast, theater and speech applications, Shure’s new TwinPlex TL46 omnidirectional lavalier microphone features an interesting twist: The lavalier, which has an invisible super hydrophobic nanoscopic coating, includes an interchangeable sweat and moistureresistant frequency cap to prevent "sweat-outs." What does this mean? In plain terms, this lavalier will be very useful in sports, reality TV, documentary or any situation where microphones on talent are subjected to lots of perspiration, which with normal lavaliers can result in the microphone shorting out or the diaphragm being clogged with moisture, resulting in a loss of high-end frequencies and a reduction in overall audio quality.

The TL46 features a paintable 1.6mm diameter cable that resists memory effect and kinks, while the dual-redundant ground in the microphone’s cable serves as a secondary shield for longevity. The TL46 lavalier also includes three flat-response frequency caps and two presence-response frequency caps, allowing the user to tailor the microphone’s overall frequency response to their taste.

Shure’s dual-diaphragm design yields twice the surface area of other subminiature microphones for a pristine, natural response and robust low frequencies.

Shure makes great microphones, but it has generally not made many inroads into television and film with its lavalier microphones, unlike Sanken, DPA, Countryman and other popular lavalier microphone brands. The TwinPlex might be the start. It's available now for around $400.

In addition to its rugged construction and moisture resistance, the TL46 offers user-selectable frequency response caps.

Tentacle Sync Track E 32-Bit Float Point Audio Recorder The Zoom F6 is certainly an exciting new 32-bit floatingpoint audio multitrack recorder. But what about a 32-bit floatpoint single-track portable recorder that’s smaller than most wireless lavalier transmitters?

Tentacle Sync, the company that makes the Sync E Bluetooth time-code boxes, has developed the Track E, which uses powerful 32-bit floating-point technology to maximize the dynamic range in recordings. So, what’s important about this is that if your audio was recorded at too low of a level, it can be raised in volume without raising the noise floor. Also, 32-bit floating point means that no digital clipping will occur.

In terms of size, it’s almost as small as the Sync E. That means it can easily fit just about anywhere, even on the tiny hot-shoe on most mirrorless cameras. The Track E also allows mobile operation as a recorder for a clip-on microphone, eliminating the need for a radio link.

Bluetooth Sync: The Track E offers synchronization over Bluetooth based on Tentacle Sync’s already-proven wireless TC sync technology. After the initial syncing process, the Track E devices will run independently with less than one 62 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

The Track E marks Tentacle’s entry into the portable recorder market space with the smallest, lightest 32-bit float point recorder available.

frame of drift in 24 hours. This means that the Track E will be very useful for recording sound in environments where regular wireless transmitters might not work very well, areas with a lot of UHF or RF noise in the air, for instance. I own three of the Tentacle Sync E boxes and have found them to be simple, reliable and easy to use. Hopefully, the Track E will follow suit and be as easy to use.

Pricing hasn’t been released yet, but if the Track E is anything like the Sync E, which it should be, then it should cost around $300 per unit or less.

DPP

LookingForward

The Wedding Photography Issue

Text and Photography By Terry Sullivan

I captured the four images on this page during an engagement party for my nephew and his fiancée. To obtain the shots of the happy couple as well as my wife, son, daughter, father, brother and others at the party, I tested out two lenses—the Sony FE 35mm F1.8 and the FE 85mm F1.4 GM—on the Sony a7R IV full-frame mirrorless cameras.

For me, these photos reflect some of the changes taking place in the field of wedding photography, which happens to be the theme of our next issue.

One change taking place is how camera and lens technology continue to improve: These images were captured without an external flash because both the image sensor quality and lens quality on all pro 64 | Digital Photo Pro digitalphotopro.com

gear continues to progress. Plus, Sony, like other manufacturers, includes powerful on-board image stabilization that lets you handhold shots at slower shutter speeds.

Add to that the fact that the cameras capture very impressive video, too.

We’ll explore how this and other new gear and technology continue to offer photographers more ways to capture important wedding moments.

Another aspect we’ll report on is how the nature of wedding photography itself has changed. For instance, wedding ceremonies continue to evolve Back in the 1980s or 1990s, I don't recall attending many engagement parties. But these days, you’ll most likely have one, and the photographer will be

there shooting photos and video. But there are other key wedding moments photographers need to be aware of, as well. For instance, last spring, The New York Times ran an article entitled “An Emotional Photograph Is There for the Taking,” which described how a “first look”—or the moment the wedding couple first sees each other on their wedding day—is becoming a special (and nearly essential) part of the wedding day. And it's a moment in which the only other person present is the wedding photographer. We’ll look into other trends in the world of wedding photography as well as profile the best wedding photographers in the business.

So stay tuned!

DPP

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