bill_wadman

<p>Hey everybody. My friend Dan Gottesman and I have recently launched our new Photo Q&A podcast called “Ask Bill & Dan”. Think NPR’s ‘Car Talk’, but for Photographers.<br>

The show is ad-free with each weekly episode designed to be quick and fun. Two questions per episode and about 10 minutes per answer. In-and-out in a half hour or less.<br>

In the first five episodes we’ve covered topics such as third-party lenses, online backup solutions, setting up an office headshot lighting kit, tethering, photo monitor buying advice, and the best way to sell your dad's Leica gear.<br>

So if that sounds like something you might enjoy, go take a listen.<br />You can find 'Ask Bill & Dan' on iTunes, in your favorite podcast app, or visit http://www.askbillanddan.com/ to listen & ask questions.<br>

Thanks for reading.<br>

Bill Wadman</p>

<p>Thought you all might enjoy a blog post I wrote about a recent shoot I did as promo for a web series. On set video and walk-through of the compositing and retouching.<br>

http://www.ontakingpictures.com/2011/08/hot-mess-shoot-behind-the-scenes/<br>

Hope you like it.</p>

<p>Hi Tim-<br>

<br /> Actually I think you misunderstood some of what I was saying in the video.<br>

<br /> I did have a couple of assistants on the shoots, but they were in a "hold this light over here while I shoot" sort of capacity. I do all of my own shooting and all of my own post production.<br>

<br /> And while I would agree that I have no formal training in photography, I wouldn't say that I have limited Photoshop experience. I've been using Photoshop for about 15 years since version 3.0 as an Art Director in advertising. That said, much of that time was spent using it as a design tool rather than for retouching photographs. Plus I find that people that are self-taught think a bit more out of the box.<br>

<br /> Other than that, I'm glad you enjoyed it and hope you send it to friends who might like it as well.</p>

<p>For those interested in post-production/compositing sort of stuff, I gave a lecture a month ago on the making of my <a href="http://www.williamwadman.com/drabbles/">Drabbles portrait series</a>. I've posted a 45 minute video lecture on the creative process of making the series as well as get-you-hands-dirty layered photoshop document stuff. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.vimeo.com/16627418">http://www.vimeo.com/16627418</a></p>

<p>Hope you guys find it interesting. Spread it around. Thanks.</p>

<p>-bill wadman / www.williamwadman.com</p><div></div>

I agree that it's a bug, but I think the problem is actually that the OS or Lightroom is reading that file (caching or metadata or something) when it tries to rename, so it shoots back and error.

For what it's worth, I got a box of 55 from ecamerafilm.com this morning (1/28/08) and it's got one of those yellow/orange "Product being discontinued" stickers right on the front. The box expires Nov 08.

 

I really hope everyone at Polaroid is on the same page.

Edward-

 

You're more than a little condescending in your comments, how about being a little nicer next time. ;-)

 

I'll be more specific:

I'm not an idiot or a newbie who's new to photography.. And I scanned 8 different frames on 4 different rolls of film, some portra 400, some portra 800, and some scala slide film, all with similar results. I understand that the quality of the negative matters and I was aware of any deficiencies in their focus/exposure while making the scans. I was also looking at 6000x6000 pixel scans at 100% on screen so print quality is not what I was looking at, although they will be printed when I'm done, probably 24x24".

 

As someone pointed out.. the shadow noise I thought was due to the epson scanner is most likely just grain in the film. But that means that the Epson did about as good as the Imacon in pulling the max detail out.

 

Also, as Roger mentioned, I used the labs profiles as a starting point to getting what I wanted. And I do believe their profiles were done by shooting color charts on different films and then sampling white/black/gray. So they should be a pretty darn good starting place to neutralize the orange in the film base. I then adjusted them to taste, and spent a fair amount of time in post when I got home.

 

Roger, thanks.. I just meant that the noise should appear smaller in medium format in relation to whatever you're shooting.. so a face in 35 might take up 1cm on the film, on 6x6 it might be 3 or 4cm and thus the grain on a persons face would appear smaller, assuming the grain is the same in the two films. Also, yes you're right about the overexposure. The shots I'm working with were a one shot chance to shoot a hero of mine, and the light was very contrasty (in from the window on one side) So I pushed it as far as I felt comfortable while not killing the highlights.

 

thanks everyone.

I'd like to add that I played with noise ninja on the scan today and ended up with a much more visually neutral noise in the shadows.

 

And Roger, you're right, I'm just surprised that there is that much noise in 400 iso 120 film. I guess I tend not to shoot high contrast stuff most of the time. ;-)

Hi everyone. Wanted to share a little experience I had..

 

I'm a portrait photographer and planning on entering a few shots of mine in a

competition. Both Portra 400NC shot on a hasselblad 500.

 

At home I've got an Epson 4990 Photo which I used to scan them originally. The

shadows looked more noisy that I expected them to and I was having a hard time

getting the color balance just right.

 

So I rented an hour on an Imacon 949 yesterday and rescanned them at about

6000x6000px. And I must say that while they are higher-res scans and are

superior to what I got at home, they're not THAT much better. The color is

better but I give more of that credit to the custom profiles for the film that

people had created on the machine. I didn't notice that much improvement in the

shadows (and yes I played around with the shadow depth slider).

 

This isn't a rip on the Imacon, it was certainly a better scan, I just wanted to

say that I expected it to be a night and day difference which it really wasn't.

I guess this says good things about the epson for about 2% of the price. ;-)

 

Anybody else have similar experiences?

 

-bill wadman

365portraits.com

I've written a flash/php photo portfolio application for people with

there own sites who want an easy but good looking way to post photos.

 

You can see an example of it here:

http://www.billwadman.com/photography/

 

and read all about it and download it for your own use here:

http://www.billwadman.com/photofolio/

 

I figured all of you might be interested in it.

 

Have a good one.

 

Bill Wadman

bill@billwadman.com