Can you use the Canon G9 for a Fashion Shoot?

Oh yes…

This is a very interesting video by Photoshop Retouching & Photography Tutorial Videos. However it does not surprise me that much as I used the G9 for some art nude, but just shows how versatile this little point and shoot is, as a backup for a photojournalist or as a stand alone camera.

The adage its the photographer, not the camera springs to mind!

The retouching is also interesting to see as well, although I try to avoid it as I am a bit of a purist

Click here to watch the video 

Enjoy…

Solo Photo Book Month

Over on Musings on Photography they have started  a SoFoBoMo due to start on 1st April-ish 2008 which lasts for a 31 day month. The idea is you make a book (of photo’s) in a month as an intense mini project, it can be a Scribus PDF book, a printed book from a print house like Blurb or other formats of ‘book’.

What better way to get to know your G9 and all its functions, and you may even bump into other G9 users as well. Its also quite interesting to see how some photographers are gearing up for the month project as well.  For more information read bellow

Perfect Composition in Portrait Photography with a G9

Portraits, are a good subject area to learn with your G9 the large LCD screen makes composition a snip, the Live view shows pretty much what you are going to get and hopefully you can have another go if your model is willing or the image is not quite what you wanted.

Portraits are also one of those subject areas news and documentary photographers need to master as looking in the national papers recently, there seems to be a very high percentage of images that are portraits which is strange, considering how much in the world is not getting shown in the way of wars, famine, joys, accidents, climate change… (and I could go on)

The magic of the portrait is the gaze back to the viewer and it has kept many fine art practitioners busy over the centuries, so you will be following in good shoes and for a twist you can also take a look at environmental portraits, macro, abstract, etc.

The grid view on the G9 can either be a hindrance or a blessing as an aid to your work, some people will find that to much information like the grid lines, histogram are in the way and distracting. while others will like the way the grid helps them frame the composition and keeps lines from converging in the background in environmental shots, so try different combinations to see what you prefer. You could even save the settings in the custom control C1 or C2 if you use them a lot (See G9 Resources for some help if you need it)

The thing is there are rules to composition that you can follow, but then you can also break them to make for interesting views, so it’s not a thing you can get wrong; but you will be the judge, if you like it then its good.

Photographers Under Attack!

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TAKE PHOTOS EVERY DAY.

WHAT IF ONE OF THEM SEEMS ODD? 

Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photos and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras. If you see someone doing that, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

The Metropolitan Police website

Well that was the strap line on the back cover of the London paper today and I predict a lot of stories coming out of it about photographers just trying to enjoy their hobbies, but now being constantly stopped by police, especially in a tourist hotspot like London.

Type in CCTV on Flickr (15,439 results) and see how many images you get or try the same on an image search Google (3,130,000 results) hmmm…

I doubt very much terrorists are going to be using Nikon D3 or Canon MkIII ds to do this kind of target research but more likely to use an average Joe tourist type of camera, the problem is the non-photographing public have no way of knowing one from the other and G9 users, best take care as it is such a discrete styled camera, even their add shows a compact camera as well as mobile phones, however with the mobile phone its how many they have that makes them suspicious, not the phone itself.

My personal feelings on this is that it makes me feel like a second rate citizen, like I have been accused of doing something wrong when I haven’t and my human rights have been infringed, heck I have even photographed CCTV cameras in the past, for aesthetics and as a statement about the times we live in and issues we face.

Check out the resources for the photographer in the sidebar and download and print the UK Photographers Rights PDF

Art Nude with the G9?

Last week, I mentioned in my post on the G9′s Sweet Spot that I would try the G9 during an Art Nude shoot. Well I nearly ended up forgetting to do that!

The studio time was a bit rushed, as it was one of those days that seemed to conspire against me and it was not how I like it to be when I need to be creative. After the shoot, things did not get better either!

The model Lucie was on time and early and was the only ray of hope I thought I was going to get on the day, models are notoriously known for being late!

The session was just a lighting test for a more complicated shoot, Lucie used to do a lot of ballet and I had wanted to do a shoot on this theme for a while and the purpose was to show the dedication, muscle tone and demanding fitness that a dancer has to have. The background was just a plain gray backdrop but I didn’t quite know how I was going to light it, but knew what I wanted, and as this was a test shoot I was using my Nikon D2x, with the final images to be shot on a Large Format 5×4 (has a negative size 5inch x 4inch, sheet of film and is loaded one sheet at a time, like the Victorian days, where the photographer would hide under a black cloth to see the image) film camera.

Surprisingly the lighting was easier than I though to sort out and Lucie was able to keep jumping in the same spot tirelessly for nearly an hour and hardly out of breath, all I needed to do was press the shutter at the right moment to catch her in mid leap and frozen with the flash which seemed to be a bit more of a challenge.

Time flew bye, and Lucie was briefly naked so I could see how the light would pick up her muscle tone and I had already told her we were done; she was getting dressed when I turned around to see my G9 on the equipment table, looking all lonely and remembered that I was going to give it a try.

I called Lucie back, and asked if she could do a bit more and luckily she didn’t hesitate or moan at my request.

Triggering the Flash Heads in the studio with a G9

As there is no Sync lead socket to fire the studio flash heads, I just switched on the cell slaves, which means as soon as a high intensity of light (from a flash) the studio flash heads fire (this means you don’t have to have a lead to every flash head, running from your camera) so all I did was drop down the Flash power to minus 2 stops on the G9, set it to manual exposure mode and matched the aperture to the light reading I was already using for the D2x, and it worked and I took a couple of frames of Lucie in a classic art nude pose sat on the floor.

Using the G9 did not make it feel ‘pervy’ in any way, the large LCD screen on the rear made it very easy to show Lucie the results and the screen is better than the D2x as it is more colour accurate,not as contrasted and larger, that said it probably looked quite rain-mac flasher.

I quite like the images it made too, the 12MP on a small sensor when shot at ISO100 made a image that looked like fine grain film when I viewed it at 100%

The images showed a little too warm out of the camera but that was also true of the Nikon, and the G9 was set on (AWB) Auto White Balance as we were rushing to get out before the building shut, I forgot to set it too flash

Well, I will have another go next time, maybe start the shoot with it….

As I said previously, my troubles did not end there, I decided to upload the images to my Flickr account and forgot to set the ‘Safe Viewing’ filter on their uploadr tool as that is normally the level I use for Flickr, as I did not normally upload nude works, but have decided to use it for online backup of my images and forgot it was there!

Later in the evening, when I went to check the LifeSpy blog and I realised what I had done, as nude images of Lucie were running down the sidebar in my Flickr feed. I logged into my account to find an email form Flickr telling me they had received a complaint and had put my account into moderation!

My Flickr stats reported 1,220 views on that day.

I am now waiting for them to re-assess my account

but I have posted the images here but you will have to click the read more for the rest of the post

Please, don’t repost this article unless the images are hidden with the disclaimer bellow….Act responsibly, not everyone likes or wants nudity!

Disclaimer

SEXUAL CONTENT WARNING

This website/blog includes erotic art content of a sexually explicit nature. If you are under 18 years of age, offended by adult material, or it is illegal to view sexually explicit material in your community, please leave now.
BY ENTERING THIS WEBSITE YOU CERTIFY:

→ I am at least 18 years of age.
→ I desire to receive and view sexually explicit erotic art material, and do not find it obscene.
→ The sexually explicit erotic art material I am viewing is for my own personal use.
→ I will not show this sexually explicit erotic art material to minors.
→ The receiving and viewing of sexually explicit erotic art materials does not violate the laws and standards of my community, town, city, state or country.
→ I accept responsibility for my own actions and release Gary Austin and his agents from any liability.
I CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING STATEMENTS ARE TRUE AND I WISH TO ENTER

All models are consenting adults over 18

Setting up snap shooting mode on the G9

How to Set up snap shooting mode

Last week during my post on the ‘Bomb threat in Derby’ I mentioned about having my G9 set at hyperfocal distance in a “Custom Control so it is always available to me.” I have given the details on how to set it up and a whole range of options for you to choose bellow, to set the G9 up for your style of shooting using custom colours etc.

This makes the Canon PowerShot G9 very fast from power up to pressing the shutter; (about a second) reaching for my G9 and powering it on at the same time means as soon as it is at my eye, its ready to shoot as it does not need to focus, and yet the pictures appear very sharp and in focus, this is how street photography, reportage, war, documentary and landscapes were often done with manual focus, film rangefinders, like the Leica.

Note I say ‘appear’ very sharp and in focus, and that is because there is actually only one plane of actual focus! The rest is down to depth of field from the given aperture and its relation to the point in focus.

In the days of film, most interchangeable lenses had hyperfocal distance scales and Infra Red marker (IR light focuses at a different plane to daylight, so a set mark was often found on the lens to re adjust the distance, I will be doing a separate article on this for the G9) to aid in this matter and was often used a lot more than it is now, mainly because digital lenses seem to have this scale missing from their lenses.

This is even rarer in a point and shoot, but the G9 can be set up for hyperfocal shooting and IR shooting too thanks to the people behind DOF Master.com and I suggest you have a good read of their website page if you want a better understanding of what hyperfocal is and does.

The actual distance you set on the G9 varies depending on the sort of shooting you do. You might want it shorter if you do Landscapes and want more detail in the foreground for example or shoot candid’s from across the table but around 10 feet seems to be good for most people/subjects. The aperture you use also makes a difference; a higher f number will give more depth of apparent sharpness than a low f number.

Another factor to consider is the lens length, the longer the lens the shorter the hyperfocal range will be. Setting the G9 at its widest zoom gives the biggest scope for a given aperture and widest hyperfocal distance but you could zoom out the lens and set it as a custom option if that is what you need.

The distance you set and F number combination gives you the hyperfocal ability, which means you can set the G9 how you want for the style of shooting you do most and save it as a custom setting (C1 or C2) for a better understanding of how the focus and aperture affects the nearest point in apparent focus to the furthest go to DOF MASTER.com  and select the G9 from the drop down menu. (The focal length for the G9 is 7.4mm at its widest setting)

As an example my set up is 9 feet and set at f4.5 which gives me 3.84 feet to infinity. In practice this works out as a simple guide that anything more than arms length (and a bit) is in apparent focus, it is also easy to estimate! At f2.8 this is under 5 feet to infinity. I can alter the Aperture to adjust exposure using the Control dial on the back with my thumb

Setting it up