I was hired by Harvard Business Review to photograph Muhtar Kent who is the CEO of The Coca-Cola company . I thought I’d post about the process of an editorial shoot from start to finish instead of just showing the photos.

The art direction for the shoot was to photograph Mr. Kent at the headquarters building in Atlanta. The editor asked for two portraits. One was to show some architectural details of the building. “Maybe with a bank of windows or something in the background.” The other shot was to incorporate something with Coca-Cola branding. The name, the Coca-Cola red, a bottle, etc. After that I was free to grab anything else I had time to which, on a job like this, means anything I can grab with the extra thirty seconds I have to work with. An editorial shoot is usually a few hours of standing around and a few minutes of taking pictures. You’ll regularly spend more time emailing with the editor then you will clicking the shutter release of your camera. I was also instructed that while they wanted a mix of vertical and horizontal images, they used a lot of square crops as well so the images needed to work well 1:1. The full process after the jump.

Once you get booked for the job you begin the scheduling process. Sometimes the client has handled that part and you’re told when and where to be. A lot of times though the scheduling is handed off to you. You’re given a contact name, number, and email address and the deadline the photographs need to be on the desk of the editor. Photo editors typically have a million things going on and the more you can handle for them the better. As the CEO of a massive international company, Mr. Kent spends much of his time circumnavigating the globe so scheduling a shoot in Atlanta between his trips and still hit the deadline was challenging. I ended up having a 24 hour window to complete this assignment and meet the deadline. He had just returned from Turkey and was leaving for China the next day. Luckily for us, the folks at Coca-Cola were extremely helpful and accommodating. We were slotted for an 11:15 am shoot and we could arrive at 10:00 am to scout and set up.

In addition to scheduling you also need to begin your research on the subject. Also ask the editor if there is a specific topic getting covered in the story. There are times the photos need to illustrate the article and there are times you just need a strong set of portraits. For this shoot I was just concentrating on portraits. I did my research on Mr. Kent and found out as much as I could about his history, his work, hobbies, etc. It’s important to have this information because it gives you insight into who your subject is, what their temperament may be, how to pronounce their name (very important detail here), and most importantly it gives you things to talk about during the shoot. You have to build rapport and trust immediately on jobs like this and knowing a few key things about your subject allows you to ask pointed questions. I knew he was just returning from Turkey which is where his family is from and where he first began working for The Coca-Cola company. I then did a little research on Turkey. I watched interviews with him to see his temperament and how he looks on camera. This all leads to questions to show your subject you care about who they are and you are genuinely interested in them. They’re not just another guy in a tie in front of your camera. It also let’s you start pre-visualizing the images you want to create days or weeks before you create them.

My conversation started something like…. “I hear you just got back from Turkey. I know you were born in New York but Turkey is where your family is from and you started working for Coke there. Did you get to see family while you were there?” “I watched your interview last year with so-and-so and you were saying your outlook for the company was such-and-such. Seems like you were right and those goals are getting met now.” “You’re going to China tomorrow? Wow! You must live by your own internal clock, etc, etc. That market must hold huge potential. I’d love to see China. I hear it’s a fascinating place to go. I’ve been to the Middle East a few times now and love the region. I’d love to explore more into Asia.” That led to Mr. Kent asking where I’ve been in the region which led to me getting to share a bit of what I do with my life. If I’m feeling comfortable with the client I’ll ask a pointed personal question because A) I am really interested in hearing their opinion and B) I don’t want to just be seen as a guy who read a wiki on the man and I’m just regurgitating it back to him. So I’ll ask, if I feel I can without pushing bounds, “I know you’re a family man, how do you handle the balance of a crazy travel schedule and family life?”

These questions fill the space. They build relationship. They gain trust. I love my job because I love meeting new people who have stories to tell. Too many people want to complain and gripe about “big business” or “corporate America” but the people who lead these companies are usually fascinating characters who have great stories to tell. Finding someone who holds the responsibility of an international company, travels the world as a day job, and manages to love and provide for his family is someone I want to know and learn a thing or two from. So… blah, blah, blah. Job is booked, scheduled, researched, pre-visualized, etc. I needed to get to the Coke HQ and find a bank of windows or other such architectural detail, something that visually communicates the Coke brand, and hopefully pull something off of my own. Walking into the job I knew I wanted to shoot Mr. Kent against a white back ground with a beauty dish. It was this job that set the lighting for my Faces & Spaces personal project.

Dan and I arrive in the lobby at 10:00am to set up for the scheduled 11:15 shoot. We were told beforehand that 11:15 was approximate and conservatively set on the early side. We may have to wait around a bit. Our contact, Steve, met us and escorted us around the lobby area and up to the executive offices. I could photograph pretty much anywhere I wanted to except the roof. (yes, I asked) The first thing I wanted to know was where would Mr. Kent be coming from for the shoot and where did he need to be next. This let me plan the shoot linearly so that we could navigate a few levels of the building and not tie up any more of Mr. Kent’s time then we needed to.  Once I had the lay of the land I started test shots with Dan.

I tested the light in this spot and took note of my settings. These would be my starting points once Mr. Kent was in place. I knew I was at least an hour, if not more, from actually shooting there so the light in the lobby would be different by the time I got back there. I just needed it roughed in. We were allowed to keep our gear there while we set up in another part of the building for a different look. This rig is an AB800 with a 22″ white beauty dish (with sock) on a C-Stand. (The rig in the first photo of this post).

Next we went to the area near the elevators that Mr. Kent would be coming downstairs in. I could have shot in the executive office but I felt it wasn’t my best option, it seemed “typical”, and we would have spent more time traveling between one place several floors up to another place in the lobby. Also remember I wanted to get my shot and once I started shooting I’d only have about ten minutes to get the job done. No time to be waiting on elevators.

Coca-Cola had just celebrated their 125th anniversary and there were a number of little Coke bottle details around the building. I was drawn to these decals on some glass doors.

Dan started the ever-so-fun stand in process. Since I left my AB upstairs, I decided I’d either shoot available light here or use a small hot shoe flash in a 28″ Westcott Apollo softbox. I ended up using the flash. I needed to find the right angle that framed Mr. Kent well, showed the bottles, and have as clean of a background as possible. If I blew the bottles out of focus too much they’d be lost as an element but if they were too sharp then they would be distracting. I shot every angle from inside to outside. I really like the reflections of the outside in the glass but I knew that it might not print well. Maybe it would work. Maybe not. I didn’t have enough time to shoot two different angles here so I went with the safe route. I knew that on a monitor it’d be fine but once it goes to print you can lose detail and contrast so I decided the safe route was the best route.  These are some of the angles I tested with these doors.

We were all set and were soon told that the interview Mr. Kent was in was running long and he’d be down “soon”. That could have been five minutes soon or an hour soon. You never know. As we were waiting Dan spotted some large frosted glass doors and wondered what it would look like if we backlit them with the shape of the Coca-Cola bottle in the shot. Around the lobby were a number or recycling containers shaped like Coke bottles as well as some 125th anniversary plexi decorations. We either had five minutes or an hour so we ran around like chickens with their heads cut off to see if we could pull the idea into a usable photo.

I feel there was a shot to be had somewhere but I needed another light, some glass cleaner, a boom, and fifteen more minutes to really dial it in. I had none of those things so we ditched the idea, re-set the window decal shot just as Mr. Kent stepped off the elevator. Good thing we didn’t spend any more time on that. Fired off my test shot as he stood in.

Since I was worried about reflections I had Dan hold a large Impact reflector with a black cover on it behind my head to kill the reflections from outside. An aperture of 3.2 on the Canon 85mm got me to the right mix of the decals being out of focus but still retain their shape. I went ahead and shot the reflections but then I ended up getting in the shot so I only shot two frames and moved on. I had used nearly half of my time once this look was done and needed to get moving to the next spot. This is what the same scene looked like without the reflector.

We walked from there to the upstairs window location. I had my 24mm on one 5d2 body and an 85mm on the other. I didn’t want to waste a moment switching lenses so I kept both bodies on me with each lens I needed. The 24 was going to include more of the environment and expand the perspective.

I then switched to the 85mm to compress the perspective for a second option of this location.

There wasn’t a single clean white wall in the building and I still wanted my white background shot. So we took the black cover off the large reflector and I had Dan hold that behind Mr. Kent. We pre-staged a small flash on a short stand at this location so all I had to do was get the window shot and then move Mr. Kent and the main light about five feet forward and have Dan drop the short stand behind him and hold the reflector in the background.

The above was shot with the 24mm. Once I pulled the 85mm up it compressed the background enough to get this shot.

THAT what the shot I wanted the whole time. A strong business portrait on a super simple background and in black and white. Lucky for me the editors at HBR liked this shot as well. This is how the story ran…

From my research I figured Mr. Kent was going to be a breeze to work with and he was. He accommodated all of my requests and the folks working with him could not have been kinder or more professional. They allowed me to do my job without breathing down my neck or making demands. It was a great shoot.

To summarize.

• Research • Pre-visualize • Get there early • Plan your shoot as though you have zero time • Take care of the editor’s request first • Do what you can to get your shot too. It sometimes ends up being the one the client runs with.

If you have any questions let me know in the comments.

Cheers,

Zack

ETA- A number of people have asked in the comments below about why I didn’t shoot this job with the PhaseOne or the Einsteins. When I do a magazine assignment there’s usually an agreed upon time that the publication has exclusive use of the images. Sometimes I can share photos as soon as the magazine hits the stands. Sometimes it’s 30 days after publication. Sometimes longer. Then there’s the whole “Oooo, I’ll get around to blogging about this shoot at some point.” That “some point” might be six months later.  So… I shot this before I got those lights or that camera.

Had another shoot for my faces and spaces project today. This is Jan and she’s adorable. She is a very talented artist working at her craft each and every day. She has more hustle then most artists I know who are still in their 20′s. That’s some of her work on the wall above. Her house is filled with art and she makes an amazing cup of green tea. Jan asked me several times to filter my lens to get rid of all her wrinkles but in my professional opinion she’s beautiful just the way she is. All of us could only hope we have so much grace as we move on through life as she does.

This is a personal portrait project focusing on subjects 70 and older. If you or someone you know lives in the Atlanta area and would like to be a subject for this project please email us at studio [@] zackarias [dot] com. Shoots typically take about thirty minutes and I’ll travel to you.

The reason I started this project is two fold. I was showing my portfolio last year in New York and some consistent feedback I received was I needed some more age diversity in my book. Most of my work for the past eight years has been working with musicians so the “age” of my book are subjects 30 and under. Second, two photography regrets I have is that I never got a great portrait of my grandfather nor my dad. If I close my eyes I can see the portraits I would shoot today if I could but unfortunately I’ll never have an opportunity to make those portraits. This project is sort of my way of giving families images of their elders that I wish I would have shot of my own family.

Lastly, some of y’all have asked how I shoot for this project. Here’s a quick shot of my set.

The set up here is an Einstein as the main light in a PCB 22″ white beauty dish. That’s hanging out on a 40″ C-Stand with an arm acting as a mini boom. That flys right over my camera and we put a 25lb sand bag on the stand just to make sure it doesn’t go over. The background is a large pop-up scrim/reflector that is A clamped to a stand. It’s lit with another Einstein with a PLM reflector on it. Both lights live in the 1/4 power range. The PLM reflector gives a nice wide coverage on the background without spilling onto the subject. That pops the background to white. For this project I wanted a consistent set up that had a small footprint. I can set this up in just a few square feet of space and it gives me a consistent look no matter what location I’m in. For the spaces shot above I took the dish and pointed it to the back of the room and ceiling. I typically shoot the spaces part with natural light but we just didn’t have enough here due to it being a very overcast day so this one had to be lit.

Walking through the door we have three cases. My ThinkTank Airport International bag with camera gear. A ThinkTank Logistics Manager with all the lights, cords, grip, and two small light stands. Finally the beauty dish has it’s own bag that also holds the pop-up reflector. The C-Stand is just on it’s own. It’s a beast.

You can see more of my Faces & Spaces images on my 500px portfolio. I use 500px as a holding area / dumping ground for images that either do not fit on my main site or for projects that aren’t completed enough to make it on my main portfolio page.

Cheers,

Zack

PS – The only thing stopping you for doing a personal project is … Oh yeah. There isn’t anything stopping you from doing a personal project.

Meg and I are hosting our first ever live critique night at our new studio in Decatur. A few years ago we started doing critiques online. You can see our 14 episodes on blip.tv.

Now that we are in the new space we are going to start doing these as a live event. We don’t want to make this a drab academic experience so here’s the deal. Bring a chair and the drink of your choice and show up at our studio this Saturday, February 18th at 7pm. Drop your beer in the cooler and drop your web site / flickr page / thumb drive / etc in the critique box. Meg and I will start randomly pulling sites or thumb drives out of the box and giving critique.

Our critique is not the stuffy, bokeh magnifying, type of critique. It’s as if you came over to our place, pulled up a chair, grabbed a beer, and we just honestly talked about your work. Oh wait, that is exactly what we are going to do.

Here are the rules ::

1. You can’t take it personally. Even if we laugh at your photos. We are here first and foremost to help and that means we aren’t going to just hand out pats on the back and pump up your self esteem. Honest critique is needed by all of us in order to grow. It is always my goal to point out strengths and weakness. I will always let you know my strengths and weakness as well as a critic of work. We all have to grow. None of us have this all figured out. Just remember that.

2. You can’t explain your work until after the critique. You could show a mediocre photograph and then tell us the saddest story in the world about the photograph and suddenly we want to like the photograph. A picture stands on it’s own or it doesn’t. Let your work speak for itself. We can have a discussion about your work after we’ve had our say first.

3. You aren’t guaranteed a critique. We have no idea how many folks are going to show up. That’s why it is a bring your own chair sort of event. If 10 people show up then we’ll get to all of you. If 100 people show up, well, you know that would be impossible. Sitting in on the critique is always a good learning experience though. You don’t have to put something in the box to attend. You can rubberneck if you want.

4. Bring a chair. Our floor is concrete so you might want to grab a folding chair from home.

How it will work ::

We’ll have a projection up for everyone to see the work and we’ll just start picking sites and going through them. I speak to the work as a working photographer. Meg speaks to the work as a member of the general public. She could not care any less about lenses, f-stops, softboxes, etc. She’ll tell you how she “feels” about your work. Whether she would want to hire you or not. If she laughs at your work (when one is not supposed to laugh at it) take note of that right away. Others are doing the same. We don’t filter ourselves here too much, if at all.

We will be recording this for the blog. Some have asked if we would do a live stream but dealing with this live is a pain and something I’d rather not deal with. We’ll screen capture the critiques and post it later.

Open call to Photo Editors, Art Directors, Creative Directors, and Art Buyers ::

This is going to be a regular event at our studio. If your job is that of looking at photography everyday we’d love to have you be a guest critic. Anytime we have a guest in for critique then my work goes in the box as well! If you dish it out you have to be able to take it as well.

We’re looking forward to this because instead of dropping critiques on people and then getting follow up via email that no one sees, you’ll have the chance to ask questions and have a conversation about the work in person. It’s also going to silence the haters who say that we’d never say the things we do to someone’s face. Oh yes. Yes we will. It’s going to be fun. We’ll all have some laughs and get to the heart of the matter of growing as photographers. It’s going to be good. I hope you can make it.

Any questions? Let me know in the comments.

Cheers,

Zack

Big thanks to Heather Hamilton for tweeting, “The overload of photography rants r getting on my nerves. While I agree with some , I just think our time can be better spent. Like shooting.” There’s been a flurry of new gear announcements lately and I’ve been guilty of talking about gear this week instead of using gear this week. Michael Friberg pretty much summed it up well. Heather was the voice (twoice?) I needed to hear today to fire the Internet, get off my ass, and go shoot. Isn’t that ultimately what it’s about? Thanks Heather.

I saw the gentleman above through the window and had to, had to, had to, get a portrait of him. Everyone was more than willing to let me photograph them today. No one turned me down. Must be that big ass camera. Today was a good day.

“I’m an inventor and I also can rap my ass off. I need a good manager. Danny East. Tell ‘em not to bury me!!!”

Hell yes. I love to see hustle in all shapes and forms.

These street portraits were all shot with the Phase One IQ140. I am still learning this camera and going out on the streets and working in various lighting conditions gives me a good idea of what it can and can not do. I do miss my x100 though. (It’s in the shop) [sticky aperture] poo.

GO SHOOT!

Cheers,

Zack

I’ve recently moved to a digital medium format system and I thought I’d blog about the process of choosing a system and why making this jump was worth every hard earned penny to do so. But first, let’s enter the way back machine. If you are fairly new to photography and DSLRs have been your entrance into this industry then this an important part of the blog post. Bear with me. All of it after the jump. (If you don’t see the video above just hit refresh. Not sure what’s going on with the embed code)

History ::

When I started in photography (1995) the industry was still ruled by film. 35mm camera systems were the main stay for amateurs, newspaper, event, and sports photographers. They were fast, nimble, and affordable but they were the smallest format any “pro” would typically use. Much of the professional world shot medium format. If you were shooting weddings, portraits, or editorial work you were pretty much expected to be shooting medium format. The difference in image quality from a 35mm piece of film to medium format was huge. If you were going to be a pro outside of the newspaper/sports world you were going to own a medium format system. It’s as simple as that.  Sure there were exceptions to this rule but not many. For many in the industry medium format was the “small” format if you were used to shooting 4×5 or larger.

Back then the price canyon between a 35mm pro kit and a starter medium format kit was three to five thousand dollars. The Hasselblad and Mamyia RZ systems were at the top of the chain and it trickled down to things like Pentax and Bronica. My first “real” medium format system was a Bronica ETRsi system that I got with a student discount for about $4,000. (I could probably get the same system on ebay today for a few hundred dollars.) Dropping well over $10,000 on a basic medium format system wasn’t all that big of a deal back then. I’ve worked in studios with Sinar large format systems that were $75,000 worth of kit and up.

Digital came along and I knew sports photographers getting second mortgages on their houses to buy some of the first Kodak DSLRs. One friend of mine got a “hell of a deal” on a used camera for $16,500. When I was working at JCPenney, they had not one, but two Kodak DSC460′s that retailed in the neighborhood of $35,000 each. Nikon “revolutionized” the industry with the D1 when it was introduced because it was “only” $5,000. Suddenly digital was affordable for the “common” pro photographer. Note – Some of the folks getting the mortgages were shooting for $200 day rates for the wires.

I say all this to say that if a $2,200 camera body to you today is, in your mind, the pinnacle of quality and “really expensive” you should spend some time looking at the recent history of photography and realize how “cheap” that camera actually is comparatively. I’m about to start talking about a $25,000 camera system I just bought into that a few years ago would have been $50,000 or more. Ten years ago it wasn’t even on the map.

My path to a digital back started about four years ago when I met fellow photographer Drew Gardner. I saw some prints of his work and they were breathtaking. He was shooting with a Phase and I talked his ear off about it. Then I saw Joey L’s prints of his work and it was undoubtedly medium format and again, from a Phase. I knew I was heading in that direction but I had not shot with a medium format back. The good folks at the Mac Group let me borrow a Mamiya DM33 system for a week and that was the camera that convinced me I had to move up. The image quality off that chip was unlike anything any DSLR I owned had ever produced. It was the closest thing to medium format film I had seen in the digital world. The tones, dynamic range, color, sharpness, and shallow depth of field the larger sensor produced made my 35mm system feel like I was shooting with a flip phone.

I tried to whet my appetite for medium format by going back to film last year. That was fine but it sucked for anything on a deadline and I was spending a lot of money on film, developing, shipping, and scanning. $100 here. $300 there. It was adding up for nothing more than personal work as my paid work was 95% digital and needed quick turnarounds. Hasselblad let me demo a CFV 39 to mount to my Hasselblad 500 but it just didn’t meet up to the Mamiya I had been loaned. Then I started printing my portfolio again at 11×14. My photos hold up okay at that print size but I printed a few MF images and the difference was night and day. I think the last nail in the coffin was watching Peter Hurley’s “Art of the Headshot” DVD. Watching him rock that Hasselblad was it. I’m pulling out all the stops and going medium format digital. Done and done. (BTW – If you haven’t seen Peter’s DVD I highly suggest it mainly to watch how he interacts with his subjects. He’s a master at that!)

Why Digital Medium Format? ::

Reasons #1, #2, and #3 :: Image Quality :: I can’t properly convey how gorgeous these digital files are. It’s not just the amount of Megapixels that matter. The size of the imaging sensor comes into play in the final quality of the photo. I’d rather have a 20 megapixel medium format camera than a 30 megapixel 35mm based DSLR because the physical sensor is much larger. The larger the sensor the higher the quality. You’re going to see some web sized compressed jpgs in this blog post. They only hint at the quality of the actual file. Don’t start with the “I see noise in the blue channel” and “I see CA on the third eye lash from the left”. When you see these in their full glory on a good monitor or in print they blow the doors off any Nikon or Canon I’ve ever shot. I do want to say that geeking out too much on 100% crops is akin to buying a new lawn mower then getting on your hands and knees to inspect the blades of grass after a fresh cut. Notice that the 100% crop views are but a postage stamp compared to the whole of the image. The native files coming out of the IQ140 (40 MP) are about 18×24 inches at 300 dpi. I do not condone pixel peeping and measurebating but here we go…

So the images straight from the camera are pretty dang sharp. The devil is all up in these details. I hate looking at my 35mm based images at 100% when editing. I can nail the shot but at 100% they just fall short in the details. Not so with this IQ140 back. The larger sensor is both a blessing and a curse. It shows you what you got right and what you did wrong. There are three main things that affect depth of field. Aperture, focal length, and camera to subject distance. There is a fourth aspect and that is film/sensor size. The larger the sensor the shallower the DoF. Jumping from a crop factor to full frame DSLR you’ll see a bit of change in DoF. Going full frame DSLR to MF you see it even more. Focusing is critical with this camera. Super critical. The DoF at 2.8 is sometimes too narrow. If you don’t nail the focus you see it. Check out this shot of Dan sitting in for a test shot on yesterday’s shoot…

This was shot with the 55mm 2.8 lens at f3.2. The 55mm is “about” a 35mm focal length in terms of full frame DSLRs. So it’s a bit on the wide angle side of things. Notice how I got the far eye in focus but the near eye is going soft. I’m at a decent distance from Dan with a wide lens. A DSLR with this set up at f3.2 would have held both eyes. I can’t show the full shot with the client from yesterday but I can show a crop…

You can see that I got close in this shot but not close enough. A magnifier for the viewfinder is suggested and is the next thing on my list to get for this camera. The PhaseOne 645DF is an autofocus camera but it has one focusing point. It’s not like our DSLRs with multiple focusing points. Focusing and recomposing is hard to pull off at these narrow tolerances so I typically just manually focus. The viewfinder image is so large and so bright that it is far easier to manually focus with this camera than it is with a 35mm. That said, it is a basic skill that I’m having to learn again. My first few days with the camera had me wondering if I made the right choice to make this switch. I was blowing focus all over the place. The more I shoot with it the more I’m nailing focus. Hasselblad has a feature called “True Focus” that tracks camera movement as you focus and recompose. I’ll speak more to that when I talk about why I chose the Phase over the Hasselblad.

Reason #4 :: Slowing Down :: I have talked about this before when I started shooting some film again. I want to physically slow things down as I shoot. It’s just so damn easy to fire off frames with a DSLR. I can make myself slow down but it’s like trying to drive a Porsche slowly. You have to really think about it. Putting a heavier and slower camera in your hands gives you no choice but to slow down. I want to be more methodical. This camera does that for me.

Reason #5 :: Sync Speed :: One of the main reasons I wanted to get back to medium format is one of the same reasons medium format was so important in the film days as well. That would be sync speed. When 35mm systems were stuck at 60th to 125th of a second sync speeds medium format systems would sync at 500th of a second or better. Electronic shutters got a lot better and 35mm systems got up to 250th of a second but they still couldn’t touch the leaf shutters in medium format. This PhaseOne camera combined with the IQ140 and the Schneider leaf shutter lenses allow me to sync at 1/1,600th of a second. SIXTEEN HUNDRETH OF A SECOND! Are you kidding me? That’s insane. And that isn’t some sort of hyper syncing trickery. That’s just plain ol’ flash sync. Full power lights at 1/1600th is legit. The Phase One has the fastest sync speed of MF cameras out there and that was a big reason I chose it over Hasselblad. More on my choice in a minute.

Two caveats to the fast sync speed though. 1) You need pretty fast flash duration flashes to get to that speed. I’m finding my Einsteins in “action” mode hold up just fine for this. My standard ol’ Alien Bees do not. The exposure is over before they get to full power. 2) Standard Pocket Wizards can’t handle 1/1600th. My PW’s get me to about 500th and then I lose the flash from there. I got a set of the Profoto Air transceivers and they do the trick. The PW flex and mini’s won’t work as well from my understanding. Profoto rules the roost at these sync speeds. It has something to do with [technical jargon]. There are two reasons to go with this kind of sync speed. One is, of course, to kill ambient light. The second is to freeze motion. I mean really freeze it. I did an editorial shoot a few weeks ago of a musician. He always ends his shows with a big jump so we shot some jumping images. The next photo is of this subject jumping. Again, I can’t show the full image (hasn’t gone to press yet) but I can show some crops. A 100% crop of a 250th of a second image show motion blur even with flash firing. The motion is stopped much better at a faster shutter speed.

Reason #6 :: “That Look” :: There’s this, something. This feel. This “look” to film that digital has never quite nailed. One reason I love the 5d so much is that it’s the first DSLR I’ve used that gets in the neighborhood. This Phase One hits it for me. Part of it is the dynamic range these cameras have. They have far more ability to capture a larger range of tones from highlights to shadows. The highlight retention is astounding as well as the ability to hold on to details in the shadows without falling apart or getting too “loud” in the noise department. Between the gorgeous shallow DoF and the dynamic range, large sensor photography can’t be beat.

Reason #7 ::  “Then I spent 400 bucks on this just to be like ***** you ain’t up on this!” – Kanye West. :: Buying a medium format system is not a status symbol for me. I’m not making this post just “because”. “And I can’t even go to the grocery store without some ones thats clean and a shirt with a team.” [Meg's Editor note :: I have no idea what that last sentence is about. It's grammatically awful but Zack says some of you will get it.] BUT… that said… When this camera gets pulled out on a job everyone wants to know what in the hell “that thing” is. I can not tell you how many jobs I’ve shot where my client owned better gear than I had. It’s not vanity or showing off. Not for me it isn’t. Imagine you’ve been trying to fix something around your house. You and your friends all gather around with some hand tools to do this repair. You get frustrated or realize that as much as you like to be a handyman you need a pro to get this task done. The contractor shows up with tools you’ve never seen or have only heard about or are locked up in a cage at Home Depot. That contractor jumps in and knocks out that task and makes whatever was broke better than when it was new. They “could” have done it with your tools but they had some pro ass tools to do some pro ass work. He wasn’t the cheapest contractor in the phone book but he did a great job with tools you, the customer, wouldn’t know how to turn on.

That is sort of what it’s like pulling the Phase out on jobs. No more hanging out with your D700 while the client talks about buying his wife the new D4. It’s a pro camera for pro jobs. I’m not shooting $50 bands anymore. I started there. Doesn’t mean I need to stay there. That sounds “smarmy” and I don’t want it to. I don’t want you to think I’m just rolling deep. YES this camera was as much as a car but… so is my 35mm kit. Take note that making this move was a tough decision and one that I’ve been working toward for at least four years now. Note that I have a new camera but an old car. I have a new camera but some old shoes. I have a new camera but furniture that I pay cash for instead of financing. You can buy a new car and have a decent camera or keep pushing your old one and have a better camera. I remember assisting Joe McNally about five years ago. As I helped Brad Moore unload Joe’s Suburban I was doing photo math in my head. Photo math isn’t figuring out reciprocals. It’s figuring out how much money another photographer has in gear. I quickly figured that Joe had more money in Lightware cases alone then I had in all of my gear combined. That was just his bags. Then I realized Joe had been pushing that button on a camera since I was in diapers. He didn’t start with a Suburban full of Lightware cases. He started with a camera and a lens. Whatever gear you have now, no matter how “measly” it seems, will not be the same gear you have 10, 20, 30 years from now if you continue that long in photography.

Ok. So rambling post to say that when you show up with a medium format rig your clients take notice and know that you aren’t the next hot new AMWAC with a BestBuy camera ready to shoot some awesometastic available light portraits. #sarcasm #toungeincheek #justkidding #donttakeitpersonal #smileyface #movingon [Meg's Note :: Good job for getting out there and even TRYING Mom's! Golly. Stupid boys with their stupid acronyms.]

Why I Went With Phase One ::

Choosing which camera system to go with was no easy task. I figured I wanted to put $20k to $25k into a system a few years ago so that’s what I prepared for. Prices have been coming down a lot since I first started researching these cameras. Once I was ready to go there were a number of other options available to me. The backs I started researching then were now showing up at half the price on the used market. It really got overwhelming. I looked at the four main systems on the market. The Pentax 645D (starting at $10k body only), the Mamyia/Leaf DM series (starting at $10k full kit), The Hasselblad H4D (starting at $14k full kit), The Phase One IQ series (starting at $22k), and then the used market (starting at $6k’ish).

Friend and long time reader of this here blog, Michael Sebastian, and I have had several conversations about film vs. digital in the medium format world. Michael was holding on to film with a cold hard fist. He has some DSLRs but he is very, very, very, particular about image quality for his projects and DSLRs just didn’t cut it. I raised an eyebrow when he told me that he bought into the Pentax 645D system last year and sold me a good bit of his 120 film. If Michael freaking Sebastian is selling film because the Pentax is “there” then the Pentax deserves a look. The Pentax looks to be a very nice system. I think it was designed specifically to draw the attention of DSLR shooters. It has multiple AF points and can shoot JPG. It’s the only MF camera on the market to have those features. Along with a $10k starting price for the body it’s a pretty attractive camera. What killed it for me was the lack of leaf shutter lenses. The work Michael creates doesn’t have a lot of need for flash. My work does and Pentax’s 125th sync was a deal killer for me.

Then I began to research the Hasselblad H4D system. It’s a gorgeous system. Awesome glass. Beautiful body. 800th of a second sync. There is much to like about the Hasselblad system. I think of all the MF bodies out there right now my favorite is the H4D body. I was looking at the H4D-40 that starts around $20k for a kit. By kit I mean body, back, and 80mm lens. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve researched this camera.

Next up is the Mamiya/Leaf series. Basically Mamiya, Leaf, and Phase One are all owned by the same company. The Phase One 645DF body is a rebadged Mamyia 645 body. Leaf backs have been married specifically to the Mamyia brand. Mamyia digital backs are Leaf backs. Phase has rebranded the body and keeps their name on their backs. Mamyia/Leaf backs are very nice. From all the research I’ve done it seems people shooters prefer the Leaf images over the Phase as far as skin tone and so forth. I guess I can’t measurebate on the high level because I know a lot of people shooters with the Phase backs and their work is great as well. It’s probably wrong for me to say this but I think of it as  - Leaf is to Toyota as Phase is to Lexus. Both are stellar performers but the fit and finish of the Phase warrants the higher price tag it usually carries. To tell you the truth though, if I was shooting a Mamyia DM40 back right now I’m sure I’d be just as pleased with my decision.

Last but not least (actually more) is the Phase. Drew Gardner told me to “just get a Phase.” I know he’s a spokesperson for them but there’s a reason he is… because he wouldn’t shoot anything else. I knew Phase was at the top of the food chain so I spent a lot of time looking down the chain from there. It really got confusing as I looked into all of these cameras. Kodak vs. Dalsa sensors. Sensor vs. Sensor+ technology. This vs. that. It gets very technical and, unfortunately, many of the people who buy MF backs are ALL ABOUT the technical and talk about it until they’re blue in the face. I like the spec sheets as much as the next guy but I refuse to post 400% crops of 5d vs P65+ backs. Speaking of $30,000 cameras, it’s especially difficult to look at some of the work that some folks are producing with these cameras. Let’s just say… It’d be like watching some fool load lumber and bags of cement onto the top of a Porsche 911 at your local home improvement warehouse. It’s sad. On camera flash of grand kids in the living room shot with a $30,000 camera kind of bad. $30,000 point and shoot. Awesome. Anyway…

I was so confused and overwhelmed I realized I needed some help. Luckily for me there’s a company in Atlanta called Capture Integration. These folks know medium format inside and out. It’s what they do. They have pretty much every camera I was interested in both new and used. I called them in November and made an appointment to check out their cameras. Steve and Will spent a lot of time with me. I shot every back I wanted to except the Pentax. It pretty much came down to a P30+, P45+, or the IQ140. Once I laid eyes on the screen of the IQ back I knew I was done for. My main point of contention with all of these cameras, and I mean all of them… their screens suck. Phase, Leaf, and Hasselblad. My first color cell phone had a better screen than some of these cameras. I don’t understand why they have sucked for so long but they have. The IQ finally addresses the mortal sin of a shitty screen on a $20,000 camera. It’s a great screen. Still nothing like an iPhone 4 but it is light years ahead of what they used to be. Most people with MF backs shoot tethered and the number one reason they shoot tethered is because of how useless the screens have been. When I shot with the DM33 I was surprised by how low in resolution the screen was. It was fine for checking the historgram and that’s about it. Not only does the IQ series have the best screen, it has the most robust build quality out of all of them. This camera has to last for years to come and the lenses need to last for life. The Phase is the most solid of them all.

When it came time to pull the trigger I went with the IQ. I really wanted the IQ160 [Meg's Editor Note :: It's probably the closest to an IQ of 160 that he'll ever get... heh heh] as it would have given me an even larger sensor but it was time to jump and I had saved my money and I’m happy as can be with my decision. If you think of the IQ series like BMW’s then the 140 is a 3 series, the 160 is the 5 series, and the 180 is the 7 series. I have one more lens to eventually add (a portrait lens around 120mm  - 150mm) and I’ll be good from that point. I’ll have my wide, a standard, and a telephoto. I don’t need any more than that. I don’t need a zoom. I don’t need a super wide or a super telephoto. Maybe something a bit wider but the 55mm is really nice. It’s like my 35mm lens which is my favorite for the 35mm system. This is my portrait rig and what a rig it is. The good news is since it takes older Mamiya glass, I can pick up a non leaf shutter lens for just a few hundred dollars. The leaf lenses on the other hand…. They run $4 to $5k each. [bites knuckles] Yeah, first phone call after I bought it was to my insurance agent. I think eventually I’d like to have a back-up. That would probably be something like the kick ass deal Capture Integration has on a Leaf 22 kit for $5,700. That’s body, back, and lens. I’d take that over the new Nikon D4. No seriously. I would. David “Strobist” Hobby would too. He recently went medium format as well. Read his thoughts here and his follow up here.

FAQ’s I’m expecting ::

Do you still need DSLRs? – Yes. Absolutely. Even in the film days a pro had a solid 35mm kit on hand. While this camera is amazing at what it does… it’s amazing from ISO 50 to about 200. After that I’m reaching for the 5d for better ISO performance. If a job came up that I needed to move fast and shoot quick then DSLR. No question. But when it comes to portrait work or any kind of job that I can have control over, then it’s Phase One from here on out. I wish every portrait in my book was shot medium format. Moving forward all of my portraiture and commercial work will be shot on the Phase.

Would you shoot this at a wedding? – Hell yes I would. Remember, medium format ruled the land in the wedding world once before. Is it the best camera in the world for the reception? Nope. But I’d have no issues shooting ALL the portraits with it and the details and probably the getting ready shots (depending on the light). In my research I’ve found a few wedding photographers shooting digital MF now at weddings and it shows. Just sayin’. Anything that would give me a better picture, a better print, and shut Uncle Bob the @#$% up about his new Canon Mark X would be a camera I took to a wedding.

What about the x100? Still love that? - Yes! I still say it is my favorite digital camera ever made. Mine has finally caught the sticking aperture disease and is on it’s way to the shop and I can not tell you how excited I am about one day seeing the X-Pro1 in real life. I’m wondering if I’d sell my Canon gear if the X-Pro1 is as good as I hope it will be. OMG. OMG. OMG. Can’t wait for that camera to drop. Anyway…

Why don’t you just rent instead of buying such an expensive camera? – Great question. Rental is an option but the back alone is $500 a day. $75 for the body. Another $150 or so in lenses and you’re at $725 a day for a kit. In ten days of rental you could purchase that used Leaf kit mentioned above and have money left over. Also add in your time or the time of an assistant for driving to the rental house to pick up and return. Buying into medium format is expensive. So is renting.

How big are the files? – Full size jpgs run 25 to 30 megabytes. The RAW files average 45 or so megs each.

How do you like Capture One? - It’s a little buggy from time to time but daaaammmmmnnnnn you can’t argue with the results. It’s a serious piece of software that I don’t yet fully know the ins and outs of. Once I get more comfortable with that workflow I’ll report back on that. Lightroom 3.6 can handle the Phase RAW files and I’ve used that for a few images but Capture One does give the best quality.

Are photographers today only able to pay for this by teaching workshops? – This question came in during my appearance on The Grid. I’m proud to report that it wasn’t workshops that paid for this camera. Photography paid for this camera. Most workshop teachers aren’t shooting medium format, and most medium format shooters aren’t teaching workshops so that sort of kills that question.  If you price out a nice 35mm Canon kit with pro bodies, the three main L series zooms, and a nice fast prime you’re sitting on $17,000 worth of gear. Add in a few Profoto lights, pocket wizards, bags, and other misc items and you’re sitting on $40,000 worth of gear before you know it. If you wanted a cheap profession to get into you picked the wrong one.

How forgiving are the files? - VERY. Check this shot out. I was out and about shooting for the last GOYA shootout and totally blew this exposure. I figured it was gone.

I pulled it into Capture One, drug the exposure slider down and presto…

I’ve never been able to recover a shot that simply before. Not that, you know, I’ve ever blown exposure before. I just did this to show you an example.

What about the Leica S2? – What about it? Ok. Yes. That’s another medium format camera on the market, and yes – their glass is unreal and all that, but I have shot with the S2 and I didn’t like it. I just don’t see it having the longevity that the Phase/Mamiya system has nor does it have the support around the world the Phase/Mamiya system has. Look at the workhorses in the rental houses and that will give you a good idea as to what system to invest in yourself. It is a great camera and has a following but after putting it in my hands at an event once I wasn’t sold.

Do you shoot tethered on location? – I have once so far. We have taken an older 15″ MacBook Pro and converted it to a dedicated tethering machine. We replaced the main hard drive with an OWC solid state 60 gig drive. Then we replaced the optical disc drive with another hard drive for storage using another OWC product. The final parts and pieces I’m waiting for are some things from Tether Tools.

Why are you shooting on a tripod more with this camera? - A) The focus has to be spot on and I’m not as comfortable hand holding and focusing just yet. I also like that it slows me down and makes me think through the shot more. B) The camera is big and heavy. Shooting available light slower than 250th of a second on the shutter is not something I suggest with this camera. Remember that it’s an ISO 50 – 200 camera. While it can shoot higher it really sings at the slower ISO’s.

Is this the future? – Meh. I don’t know. I won’t say that it is but as the prices fall we’ll be seeing more and more of them. I met a photographer this week who got started in the 40′s. He shot a 5×7 camera because he couldn’t afford the 8×10 camera. He said, “You shot 4×5 if you were cheap.” The Rollei 6×6 came out and it was very slow to be adopted and quite expensive but also a very small format. He remembers the days when the 35mm was laughed at. If you want to know the future look to our past. Digital was WAY out of the reach of most working photographers for a long time. Now I complain about how much I spend on film. It comes… It goes. But medium format used to be $50k to get into. Now it can be had at a fifth of that price or less.

Is it really that good? - Do bears poop in the woods?

For those of you in the Atlanta area keep an eye out for a medium format night at the studio. I’ve talked with Phase and Capture Integration and they’re all about bringing some cameras and lights to the studio for a night of shooting. We’ll make some sets, ice some beers, and shoot a bunch of pixels.

I’m sure y’all have questions I haven’t thought of. Hit me in the comments with them.

Cheers,

Zack

I’m still working on my Faces and Spaces project. Today I had the pleasure of photographing Thad Taylor. Mr. Taylor is a photographer as well. He got his start after WWII and the stories he has to tell! In fact, I’m going back to see him soon to record some of his stories. The experiences he’s had are relevant to our times today as photographers.

I really appreciate everyone who is helping me with this project. Basically it’s a portrait project I’m doing for personal work. If you or someone you know is over the age of 70 and lives in the Atlanta area please email dan [at] zackarias [dot] com and we’ll set up a shoot. The shoots typically take about thirty minutes and I’ll drive to you (them). As this project goes forward the people I’m getting to meet get more and more interesting. Personal work is a great way to build a new portfolio but it’s also a great way to build your own character as a photographer.

The face shot above is from my new PhaseOne IQ140 back on the PhaseOne camera body with the Schneider 80mm. You could extract your subject’s DNA from these files. I can’t believe the level of detail this camera is able to capture. The 5d came into place for the “place” shot though since that was shot at ISO 1600. DSLR for the ISO. Phase for everything else. I’ll blog specifically about the Phase soon enough.

Cheers,

Zack

Our new studio is officially open! We had a great opening party this past weekend. Big thanks to everyone who came out. Was Cousin Dan not the most amazing show you’ve seen this year? Thanks to Ben Helfin as well for spinning his amazing collection of vinyl.

Now that we are officially open I wanted to let you know that we’ll be having regular events here in the new space.

The first event will be a live critique night February 18th at 7pm. Bring a chair, a beer, a box of tissues, and your work. We’ll have everyone throw their web site / flickr page / thumb drive / etc in a hat and Meg and I will randomly start pulling them out for live critique. We will be screen capturing this for the blog. It’s going to be a good time. We promise not to leave you hanging. I think doing this live instead of at our dining room table will bring the level of critique and conversation up. Critique nights will be a BYoB and BYoChair kind of event as there’s no telling how many will show up. Think of it like a night at the Laser Show at Stone Mountain just completely different.

In addition to critique nights we’ll be having a series of events with guest photographers and shooting/lighting hands on demos. I’ve moved to the Phase One system and I’ve talked to them and the good folks at Capture Integration about doing a medium format night of shooting here at the studio. We’ll set up lights, cameras, subjects, etc and you’re welcome to join us for a night of pitchers and pictures.

All events will be announced via Twitter / Facebook / G+ and our mailing list. Sign up on our mailing list here. Expect to see something happening here every four to six weeks as the schedule allows. All events will be open to the general public and will be free of charge to attend. If you have an idea for an event you’d like to see or a guest you’d like to hear drop it in the comments below.

Upcoming blog posts – Why I had to move to a bigger space (with more photos) and why I moved to medium format.

Cheers,

Zack

It’s been awhile since I’ve won a GOYA shootout! It took going up against some teenagers to finally win!

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Thank you to everyone who participated. As I stated in the original post, if I won this contest then two commenters would each win a $25 B&H gift card. I’ll be randomly selecting two of you and emailing you with the card!

Caleb, the birthday boy, came in third place with “cell phone guy”…

A lot of folks said they would have liked to have seen Caleb’s image straightened. We’ve looked at it both ways and I could go either way with it. I like the bit of an angle that matches his body but I like it straight as well.

Grayson came in second with the “trash bin guy” shot.

I’m proud of these two boys for getting out there with me and shooting for this challenge. It’s a lot of fun if you’re the competitive type. Thanks to everyone who took the time to give your critique. We’ve all read them line by line!

Cheers,

Zack

My oldest son, Caleb (pictured on the right), just turned 13 yesterday! We have a real teenager in our house of four boys now. I can’t believe it. Caleb only took a passing interest in photography until he got on Instagr.am. You can find him there as @carias. He and his cousin, Grayson (pictured on the left), are both getting into HDSLR video as well. They are currently taking a 15 week Final Cut class at Cue52 so for Caleb’s Christmas/birthday present he got a Canon T2i with a kit lens so that he and his cousin can continue their video work and dive into photography a little deeper. Aside from getting Caleb a membership to Kelby Training, he and I are spending time going over the fundamentals of exposure, composition, and light. (#proudpapa) We figured what better way to get out there and put this into practice than do a GOYA shootout! Each of us had to find our own photo, edit our own photos, and do the post production on them. No one got any help from the others.

GOYA is my little term for “Get Off Your A$$” and go shoot. We used to do these on a more regular basis but life and work got in the way. Damn life and work. So Caleb, Grayson, and I hit downtown Atlanta yesterday with our cameras to shoot something in motion. Caleb picked the theme. It started with “people in motion” then we found lots of pigeons, cars, water, and other moving nouns so it became “Verbing Nouns”.

Here’s how this works. Below are three photos. Photographer #1, #2, and #3. You choose your favorite photo and use the poll code box to vote. The winning photographer will get a $25 B&H gift card. Also, if any of you leave a constructive critique of any or all of our photos I will choose one of you to win a $25 B&H gift certificate as well!  Here are the photos…

Update :: Voting for this shoot out has ended. You can see the three photos we entered and the poll results after the jump…

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Photographer #1 ::

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Photographer #2 ::

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Photographer #3 ::

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(voting has ended)! If I win (which I usually don’t) then I’ll give two commenters a $25 B&H gift card. You’ll have to have a valid email address to win. Don’t put your email address in the comment field. Just in the name/email/web area when leaving a comment. I’ll see your email address in the admin section of my blog.

I’m asking for your critique because I want Caleb and Grayson to hear real world feedback on their photos when you, the viewer, are detached from who shot what. Don’t hold back on us. Tell us what you like and why you like it as well as what you do not like and why. Without critique, we’ll never grow as photographers.

Caleb was photographer #1. I was photographer #2. Grayson was photographer #3.

Cheers, Zack

PS – I had a hard time choosing mine. I had it narrowed down to two so Meg tossed a coin to see which one I entered. Let’s see if that worked. (ETA – It worked!)

I’m still seeking subjects for my personal portrait project based in Atlanta. It’s called “Faces & Spaces” and I’m seeking subjects 70 years or older for this project. This is the General. He’s 94 and served in an Army artillery unit in France and Germany in WWII. The best part of this project of mine is not the photographs I get to make but the people I get to meet. The purpose of this project is to expand my portfolio to subjects beyond musicians. I’m not selling these for stock or commercial uses.

If you or someone you know who is 70 or older and lives in the Atlanta’ish area and would be willing to be part of this project please email my studio manager { dan @ zackarias . com }. I need about six more subjects to finish this project. I’ll drive to them and they and their family get images from the shoot. I’m typically need about 30 minutes for a session. I shoot an environmental portrait and then something like this…

What a face right? He is that kind in person! Such a wonderful man. You can see more from this project on my 500px collection.

Cheers,

Zack