MASTER PHOTO>DIGITAL magazine
Sample Editorial
Members receive MASTER PHOTO>DIGITAL magazine on a regular basis, as part of their subscription to the Master Photographers Association. Regarded as one the best professional photo imaging magazines in the UK, MASTER PHOTO>DIGITAL is an inspirational read. It's editor, David Kilpatrick, has been actively involved with the photo industry for many years and is a hands-on tester of much of the equipment reviewed.Here are some sample articles.
Kate Cooper - successful Fellowship panel
The first time the MPA magazine featured Kate Cooper was for her stunning
‘studio still-life light table’ single product shots, created
in the smallest of workspaces using very simple backgrounds and off-the-shelf
items from supermarkets and hardware stores.
With a small investment in tracing paper, black and white foam boards, masking
tape, clamps, glass, and the products themselves, Bailey-Cooper Photography’s
real money has been put instead into high end digital SLRs from Nikon, a
purpose-built small studio, and the legendarily expensive and excellent
flash system by Broncolor.
The
studio is a 4.5 x 3m annexe to their home, and serves for portraits as well
as still life. It is small but efficient. Kate decided on the black food
theme after first considering a white portfolio, but worrying about muddy
reproduction. The project has taken a year and involved double the number
of black food products, with Kate buying large quantities of sweets to search
for perfect specimens.
Each shot was taken with the camera tethered to a laptop computer, providing
a much larger review image than the rear LCD screen. “I still took
the images over to the main system and viewed them large on a calibrated
monitor”, Kate explained, “and then I would spot something which
needed changing”.
Kate’s method for lighting a transparent or reflective subject against
a dark background can be described easily enough. Using a one metre square
softbox she masking-taped an opaque black foamboard on the centre leaving
just a narrow strip of light round the edges. The softbox, with its black
background panel fixed centrally, faced the camera. This was equipped with
an effective lens hood and French flags (more black foam panels) to mask
any of the rim light from flaring into the lens.
Catalogue studios normally have a choice of black painted and white painted
workspaces, and for this type of shot, the black studio would always be
picked. The Bailey-Cooper studio is light, so black panels were placed all
round to enclose the setup.
With reflective subjects, the camera may appear as a reflection, so real
care may also be needed to cover everything except the lens with a black
cloth. Again, the black foamboard sheets did the work. Some frontal fill-in
light may be needed on the subject, and this was sometimes created using
a white reflector – foamboard again, bought over internet! Kate also
used two small box-lights placed either side of the camera lens.
Accurate
proportional modelling lamps, preferable tungsten-halogen and perfectly
coincident with the flash source, work better than larger incandescent bulb
type modelling for such small set-ups. With top-grade lighting in place,
the next requirement is the perfect subject. Kate has an eye for photogenic
products, but still had to sort through a whole load of blackberries to
find the right example.
“The worst one for me was the black pudding”, she told us. “I
am a vegetarian and I have a phobia about blood – I cut myself when
doing the first black pudding shot and fainted, hitting my head when I fell.
So the black pudding looking like a devil with horns on the fork was my
response…”
Liquids were poured using guides, or inserted into surgically clean bottles
without a single droplet astray; syrup drops or falling peppercorns had
to be formed and caught with precision timing. Paul acted as assistant,
keeping his finger over the teapot spout then letting go when Kate gave
the word.
Even the smallest speck of dust is highlighted by this lighting on small,
black subjects and the digital image must be examined at 100 per cent, precisely
retouched. Kate hates retouching – “I like to get everything
perfect in the camera”, she says. So she used cans of compressed air
to blow every tiny speck of dust off each setup, no easy task next to a
main road with building work going on nearby!
Kate presented the square images on 20 x 16 black mounts with a fine white
keyline, and for her Fellowship judging specified exactly how the two rows
of images should be laid out.
Sigma Lens Tests
JOHN
PARRIS, Scotland’s newest Fellow, has worked with Nikon and Canon
from the start. He was in the market for a second 24-70mm, having already
got one Canon ƒ2.8 mainstay, and needed a good wide-angle for the full
frame of his Canon EOS 1Ds MkII. He had the 10mm Nikon lens previously for
his Nikon DX-format kit, and was missing the extremes of wide and fisheye
range.
So, MASTER PHOTO>DIGITAL arranged a trio of Sigma lenses – the
12-24mm EX DG ƒ4.5-5.6 full frame ultrawide zoom, the classic 15mm
ƒ2.8 EX fisheye in its new DG digital optimised form, and the highly
regarded 24-70mm ƒ2.8 EX DG.
John’s reaction after fitting and using the Sigma lenses was one of
surprise. He had no idea they were so ruggedly made and solid feeling, or
that they looked so professionally well matched to a camera of the 1Ds MkII’s
size. He also found the HSM ultrasonic focusing every bit the equal of Canon’s
original, and in the case of the 24-70mm, an optical performance which matched
his much larger and less easily handled Canon lens.
It would have been very easy to get John’s initial reaction because
it was pretty ecstatic – given the prices of the lenses relative to
the ‘marque’ equivalent – but instead we left him to use
the lenses for a couple of months. It is important when field testing to
have time to discover the weak points of equipment as well as the wow factor.
John’s verdicts:
John found the 24-70mm to be optically comparable to the Canon model he
was used to, and really liked the image quality - if he didn't already have
the Canon lens, he would seriously have considered the Sigma, but the lack
of HSM on this model was considered a drawback. The 24-70 demonstrated the
traditionally "pleasing" bokeh Sigma's EX lenses consistently
deliver, and with the right use of depth of field and differential focus,
this is an excellent all-purpose lens. Deployed on the full-frame 1Ds Mk
II, the 24-70 is in its element.
The 15mm wide, being right in the range of lenses John was looking for,
is now part of his arsenal. Having never used fisheye on a full-frame DSLR,
I was very impressed to see the results he got with the lens himself, and
noticed only slight softness in the extremities. Obviously with the creative
options afforded by the 15mm, John provided several examples from recent
weddings including the one shot used as the cover for the Scottish Wedding
Directory Venues magazine. With the low cost of the 15mm, one would expect
that not only should professionals be unafraid to have a Sigma lens on their
camera, it seems like a missed opportunity not to have this inexpensive
but specialised kit on hand when it offers new possibilities for the social
photographer.
The 12-24mm was the one that got the most enthusiastic response, however.
The quiet HSM motor and versatile range of operation, making it suitable
for everything from landscape and portraiture to interiors resulted in it
being used extensively, with particular praise given to the geometry - only
very slight distortion in the form of slight stretching of images. Already
highly regarded as a lens generally, John added the 12-24 to his collection
without hesitation.
© 2007 David Kilpatrick, MASTER PHOTO>DIGITAL magazine