NEW YORK PHOTO BLOG / DAVE BECKERMAN

I was out on an assignment tonight on the west side – not to shoot Columbus Circle but to try and get something decent from the Central Park South area at night, and after I had shot two panos for the client, it began to rain.  I quickly turned and setup the camera for this Columbus Circle shot – which I think was 16 images with the 20mm.  As you can see, in a way I’m returning to the format (4×5) and the idea of using the Kolor Auto Pan Giga software to help out with architectural defeat of converging lines and stuff like that.

I can shoot fast enough now, so that I can fire off about 16 shots in less than a minute using the 2-second timer (to prevent camera shake).

Tomorrow I’ll take a look at what I was sent out to try and capture.  That was a bit more vague and I’m not sure if I got it or not – but I’ll often take these assignments if they’re in a part of town where I haven’t done much shooting.

And this is a typical look with the 20mm.  Closer you are to an object, the greater the curvature.  And as you may remember, I upgraded the RAM in the MacPro from 6 GB to 28 GB and voila – makes a huge difference in processing time.  So all in all – to make the move cost me a 3 TB internal drive ($200), the Ninja Nodal Mechanism ($600), Kolor Auto Pano Giga software for stitching ($285) – all of these numbers – more or less.  But basically about $1000.  And a month of learning my way around.  Now to compare it to buying say a medium format camera with a digital back – there are many pros and cons.

I’ll list some of the pros first.  With the stitching mechanism, there really are no boundries as far as size goes.  You can quickly find yourself writing TB sized files.  Another difference is that you aren’t tied to any particular camera.  When I get to it, I expect to use my Infrared Converted DSLR (as an example).  I believe you can achieve many of the same effects as with a view camera – i.e. shifts and tilts – with the software.  I also think that you have more control over the depth of field with longer lenses.

And of course – money-wise – there’s no comparison.

With digital backs, not only are the prices high, but you are buying a piece of digital equipment which means that it won’t be long before the better model comes out.  The same is true with the camera you are using with the Ninja Nodal mechanism – but if anything the prices are coming down for full-frame cameras.

I’ll let you write the pros of the digital back since I have no experience with them other than reading about them.

I prefer this in black and white.

I got down to Grand Central early – but not early enough.  I setup the tripod on the main level – and had taken five shots when two cops came rolling up in their cop mobile.

No tripod use.

Not a flicker of emotion on either of their faces.

Can I just take two more shots, I asked.

No.  Fold it up.

Okay.

Is there someplace I can get a permit to use the tripod.

Yeah.  Down there.  Over in the corner, there’s a small office.  See that guy.

And I start to fold up the tripod and they roll off.

I walk down to the office where I get the same glare from the guy behind the counter.  The glare of here comes another pain in the ass.

I was told I could get a permit here to shoot in Grand Central.

More glare.  Than he says, we don’t have any forms around for that right now.

When do you expect to have those forms?

Hold on.

He goes back to another office.  After a while returns.

We’ve got the forms but there’s nobody with the authority to sign them.

When will there be someone who can sign them?

I’d say about 7 or 7:thirty.

I glare back at him.  Okay.  Severn-thirty.

Yeah.  Seven-thirty.  I can’t say for sure, but he should be in by then.

I had already taken a few shots here and there where I didn’t think I was on any video cameras.  So I close up the tripod and headed back home.

At home, I had enough to work on ’til about two o’clock.  I’ll try again tomorrow, only not that early.

In New York, you spend about half your time getting around the cops to do your shooting.

Click to Enlarge

Pano / 48 images / stitched with Kolor AutoPan Giga / 50mm f2.8 lens /

Click for Larger Image

30 images / giga pano / needs some cleaning up – ghosts with moving people / will probably also take a crack at it in b&w / and did several different setups this morning which I want to look at first… lots of work still necessary – but gives an idea… too big to work on in NIK, so I cut the size of the file in half…

I expect to take my 6 GB of RAM memory and upgrade it to 16 MG which I think is the most that this Mac can handle (quad-core, not eight core).  Anyway – damned tricky to do with all the moving cars, trucks and people.