I think we all remember where we were on that day. I had just returned to the UK and was in a meeting room with a team from our US investors, as news came in. Disbelief turned into dismay, dismay turned into distress, distress turned into despair. Websites, phones, email, all went down, but gradually messages came through. Friends and work colleagues were accounted for, but relatives were not. A nation would never be the same.

New stories still emerge, a decade later. We must learn from them, from then, and from now. Anger all too easily turns to hate, and hate to harm.

Love must be nurtured where it can be found. Never dropped, never broken, never abandoned. It is, as life itself, all too precious.

Visiting the forest just a couple of weeks on, you are greeted by an eery scene. The colour has disappeared from the forest. Blackened trunks stretch for as far as the eye can see. But most breath taking of all is the way that new life is bursting forth from the forest floor. Green shoots as far as the eye can see.

The designs of nature are amazingly resilient. Their ability to pick up and carry on, even after the most destructive of events is awe inspiring. The forest didn’t even pause to dust itself off before it picked itself up and carried on… [View the slide show.]

[Shots taken with a LUMIX LX5. Processed in camera. Imported via Aperture.]

There are no colour masks or effects used, just some minor contrast and saturation adjustment, and the occasional vignette effect. It really looks like this. Most eery… View full screen.

The big event of the year was, of course, South by South West – The largest digital festival on the planet. Once again, a great set of British Businesses set off to Austin, Texas, on the Digital Mission, to network, learn and share. Many familiar faces in the opening minute of the video. Oh, and I got to see Fenech Solar, before then even released their first album. They are slightly massive now!

Yes, there’s a photo of me holding a snake in there. That was at Teen Tech – a brilliant event pulled together by Maggie Philbin, encouraging young folks to get involved in science and technology. Would love to see more businesses involved.

Then there’s Tom Watson (blog) and Cory Doctorow (blog) at the protest against the Digital Economy Bill (now act…) – that was an eye opening bit of parliamentary process at the end of the last government. And the Twestivals (I attened both Farnham and Reading this year) – and of course speaking at Digital Surrey.

Quite a few events at Gum Tree and eBay’s offices this year – thank you for supporting the community guys! Speaking of community, TVSMC has settled into a steady circular of events in the Thames Valley and beyond, with the wonderful Lloyd Davis (who also came ot SXSWi), and electric dress maker Debbie Davis dropping in.

All sorts of other things. Lots of speaking engagements (which I loved!), Gigs (great to have the bass out again), TEDx, RSA events. The two stand-out events of the year in the UK for me were Herb Kim’s Thinking Digital conference in the North East, and Scott and Drew’s Like Minds in Exeter. Two amazing, and very different, experiences.

Social Media in the Business space has gone from strength to strength. Speaking at Dell’s Social Media huddle event caused me to reflect on how much things have matured. Collecting not one, but two awards for Redcatco’s work with TheBlueBallRoom and DHL was a major highlight of the year. Meanwhile SocialOptic’s first service, Milestone Planner, has flourished, starting the year in Beta, and ending the year with customers across 3 continents, a phenomenal growth curve, and sharing the stage with Google, Microsoft and IBM. Not bad!

Here’s to 2011! Have a good one!

It’s been a little while since I blogged about my photography toys… Erm… I mean tools [shaky keyboard]. I’ve cycled through a large amount of kit recently, shotting several thousand photos over recent months, from the top of the BT Tower to Bletchly park and many things in between – even a demo video for Milestone Planner. But… Photokina is almost upon us. For photogeeks like myself, it’s several birthdays all at once, with the big manufacturers falling over themselves to announce new gear. It’s also a bit of a wake, as bagfuls of kit become “last years model.”

A few products are announced before the show, so on Tuesday I found myself gathered with fellow London photographer-bloggers to hear the latest and greatest from the good folks at Canon. I saw the new Canon PowerShot G12, very nice, the S95 (I loved the S90, the S95 is even better), and the 60D. Ah, 60D, wherefore are thou 60D? You come to steal the hearts of those who would by a 7D, but have not the cash, and to tempt the wallet of the would-be 550D purchaser. After playing with the 60D, and looking through the features, I literally got my credit card out. No joy. It’s not available for purchase just yet. A long few weeks to wait first.

What’s so good about the 60D, and why does it tempt a 5D Mark II owner like myself? Very simple: I’m in the market for a second body, something a bit smaller (and less valuable!) to have on standby. The 60D isn’t a cheap DSLR – Canon cover the bottom end with their 1000D and the 550D (which I have on loan at the moment – more on that soon). It isn’t top priced either. If you want to spend big bucks in the semi-pro space there is the 7D, or for big big bucks, the 5D mark II.

So, the 60D snuggles neatly in the middle of the range. It has a similar sensor to the 550D, with the addition of the 7D’s filtering system and a lightweight, non-alloy body. That later feature seems to have annoyed some, but for me it’s a plus. Carrying a camera all day makes weight a big issue. It’s, smaller, lighter and cheaper than the 7D. The 60D has some neat tricks up its sleeve that the 7D doesn’t. They are neat tricks that make it very interesting for a photo-blogger:

• The settings dial has a lock button – you press the button to enable the rotary switch that sets Av, Tv, Auto, etc… If you are constantly thrusting your camera in and out of your bag, this is a shot saver. It’s so easy to knock the dial. On the 1D (my pro body) there is no dial to knock – you press and hold buttons to switch modes, but on most mid-range bodies (nearly all makes) settings are usually controlled by a dial that is all to easy to knock out of position, loosing you the shot you were about to get. Lock button = win.
• Pop out screen. But a pop out screen that can rotate 180′ and flip over to the side of the body, as it is side-hindged. That means you can self-shoot and still see the screen. Very useful for video bloggers and weird shots (not just party folks!), or grabbing a shot of yourself in front of that movie star ;). Win #1. Win #2 is that you can flip the screen in toward the body when you put it away, so that the glass is tucked away, with the back of the screen facing out. No more scratches on the viewer screen. Excellent! The screen is 1,040k – very high resolution.
• Takes SD cards (with support for SDXC). I like compact flash cards, for their speed, robustness and the fact they don’t get so easily lost. BUT using SD cards means you can use an Eye-Fi directly (which the newer Canon models recognise and have menu control for). The enables you to shoot and upload straight to Flickr or elsewhere on the web directly from the camera, where is an open WiFi access point. I did this for the shots at BT Tower on Wednesday. Great workflow – publish in real-time, with no wires. The 60D also enables you to edit the images on camera, including raw processing. Very neat.
• Takes the same battery as the 5D Mark II. That means I can re-use/pool my batteries. The 5D Mark II battery is a serious beast. I usually don’t take a charger with me on shoots or trips, the battery lasts the duration, so no need.
• Good weather proofing (better than the 50D), here it is shooting in the rain. See how wet that is? No problems.

Now, it isn’t the 7D. It shoots at a slower 5.3 frames per second and the ISO range is 100-6400 (with a high mode of 12800). BUT you can buy LOTS of beer with the cash difference between this and a 7D (at the moment street prices for the 60D aren’t out, but it’s going to be in a different bracket to the 7D. There are some other neat little features, like an electronic level on the display, and creative filters and selectable crop size.

Sorry if I’m sounding a bit gushing. As I said, I got my credit card out. For someone who shoots and edits on the go, who wants a semi-pro DSLR, this is a formidable piece of kit. It certainly got my attention! The wonderful Ilicco asked which to get – the 7D or the 60D. Not so simple answer: If you are budget constrained, the 60D is for you. If cash is less of an issue, and absolute top quality is king, the 7D (or 5D mark II). I’ve got the top end covered with my 5D mark II, so the 60D is looks a very interesting potential second body / travel companion.

Shots from the Canon meet up

myprinting.com isn’t your usual printing outfit. They focus on photographic wall panels in canvas, acrylic and aluminium, as well as photo books, calendars and posters. I decided to give the Aluminium Composite Panels a try (they also do foam-core panels, handy for marketing work), as I’ve not had the chance to try metal-back printing before.

The ordering process was remarkably easy and dealt with all the things that are usually an issue when you try and turn your digital images into physical things you can hold. Once you’ve uploaded your image file you can check the aspect ratio is suitable, and zoom and crop the image. It will also warn you if the image isn’t high enough resolution for the print size you have chosen, which is handy if you don’t want to mess about with DPI calculations! To give an idea of sizes, the acrylic panels go up to 120cm x 90cm. I found the UI pretty slick and easy to use, and the store also sells a range of frameless mounting solutions, so you can order those at the same time.

Once I signed up there was a friendly registration email, some discount offers and an order confirmation for my 30cm x 20cm Aluminium Panel. Shortly afterwards I received a dispatch notification with a tracking link, and a couple of days later a DHL parcel was waiting for me in the morning. All as it should be!

I have had issues with packaging with on-line print services in the past, but there were no problems here. Big reinforced corners, bubble wrap and a cardboard outer had kept the photo safe on its journey. Not too much packaging, and not too little! Perfect.

Photos of photos are always a bit tricky, but hopefully you get an idea for the product. The print is on an aluminium/foam sandwich, so absolutely solid, and the colours a rich, with a slightly textured finish. With an invisible mount, these would be perfect for a modern gallery display, or for marketing displays. The overall feel is polished and professional. Definitely not a budget affair. The print is of this picture, which I took a couple of years ago with my Canon 30D (a 3504×2336 pixel file). The printed image looks better than it does on screen, and gave me what I was after: something ‘organic’ which colour-keys into the room it is going up in.

Thank you to the myprinting.com folks for kindly providing the print for this post – you can read more reviews and info on their WordPress blog http://myprinting.wordpress.com, and they are on Twitter as @MyPrintingUK.Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some holes to drill in a wall… :)

Many thanks!

–

Measurement and efficiency were some of the themes for 2009, and I’m sure they will be for 2010. Through Homecamp I learnt about monitoring home power use, and with Redcatco we got even better at measuring things and making business cases.

In 2009 I experienced my first ever SXSWi, which meant heading to Austin, Texas, with Chinwag and the Digital Mission crew to meet with lots of new and familiar faces from the digital industry.

And I got to see a few bands while I was out there too, including The Webb sisters, for the second time in the year!

A fair amount of the year was taken up with psychology study – reading, experiments, write ups and an exam. Probably the highlight of all of that was attending the CAPP conference, hearing some very well grounded, but inspiring lectures, case studies and talks. I ended the year with a First in cognitive psychology, so it feels like the hard word paid off.

The summer was an eventful one. Although a lot happened in the spring, Redcatco social media work started to build up over the summer, and I seemed to be speaking and doing social reporting at more and more events. I even bumped into this chap…

There was still time for fun side projects, one of the most memorable was the Twitter Cook Off, watching a chef judge a set of sandwiches via Twitter, as you do, and listening to Caalie relay the results to Nicky and Maggie Philbin.

I was involved in quite a few NESTA
related events over the year, and also a couple of Reuters ones. The meant that I got to work with some bright, fun people, and chase political leaders around London. A very different perspective from the Cabinet Office events I helped with earlier in the year. This was also the year of the Digital Britain report.

The 1pound40 event at Reuters was one of the highlights of the year, although presenting at SMiB09, Online Information 09 and the Dell B2B Huddle was close to top of the list too.

The number of meet ups seemed to grow over the year, and I added to the mix by kicking off the Thames Valley Social Media Cafe, inspired by the model Lloyd Davis pioneered in The Tuttle Club. One of the evening highlights was the Cozytweetup that ended up with a candle lit picnic in St. James Park, before everyone was moved on, in a very friendly manner, by the police.

During the summer our eldest son managed to break his arm not once, but twice. Oh, and he burnt the other arm just for good measure!

VannFest was, as the previous year, the highlight of the summer. And for the record, I didn’t get a tatoo… Although did this photo of me ever cause a saga! I’m assuming it was the QR code on the T shirt ;).

VannFest wouldn’t be VannFest without a picture of some sky candles…

There were quite a few business trips during the year. Too many to mention, although the visit to Bonn, Germany sticks out in my memory. Amazing place:

Very oddly I appeared in a Vodafone advert in Germany, both on-line and in posters. You’ll have to look closely, but you’ll see me on the screen of the phone, next to Robert Scoble (remember what I said about those faces at that dinner!)

Over the course of the year my photography set up evolved, with some new cameras and lenses. I started to shoot some video – having been won over by the Canon 5D Mark II.

I squeezed in a photo walk or two, including a memorable afternoon with friend and Flickr super star photocillin.

And Canon let me try out some amazing gear, at just the right moments during the year, including the largest lens I’ve ever handled. The photo doesn’t do it justice – that’s a full size camera body on the lens in the picture there. It takes two hands to lift and gets comments everywhere – including during the Legoland fireworks, where more than one young lad said “I want one of those!”. Needless to say, it captures some amazing images.

Seeing real-time Time-Slice photography in action at the Canon Pro Solutions Exhibition was a definite peak camera-geek moment.

The expanding photography set up meant the chance to shoot some memorable pictures at various places around the planet, as well as Sara’s amazing body painting art.

I read lots of books, not just psychology ones, including reviewing quite a few, and featuring in some too.

Oh, and printed one of my own…

Back at home, the apple and pear trees and the vines were fruitful, the kids grew up some more and the recording studio remained sadly unused – something I hope to fix in 2010.

In the autumn I got to watch two of my favourite bassists play, at the same time! Michael Manring and Steve Lawson played together in London:

And I even managed to edit together this video for the bass guitar blog:

That wasn’t the only music in the year. Later in the autumn I went up to Birmingham and photographed and interviewed behind the scenes at the UB40 Live Loud and Local gig:

In November Kate showed quite how much interest a fox on the underground can create! By then I’d also set up SocialOptic with Jim, something which will be very much at the centre of 2010. With November on the scene, I dived in and took part in Movember – growing a moustache to raise awareness of men’s health issues, including prostate cancer. It opened my eyes to a few things I will write a lot more about in 2010.

To round out the year, snow arrived. Followed by more snow, and lots of it! The roads were chaos, so I holed up in the home office and click-clacked away to close of projects, ready for a clean start to 2010.

As the snow subsided, visitors arrived, and finally the family managed to squeeze in a break down to the west country.

Including a morning on the beach in Devon, before heading home for the New Year…

I’ve raved about the PowerShot S90 before – it’s a very high quality and very small camera in a very competitive market space these days. I purchased the SX200is for times when I go without a Digital SLR, like these shots at the movember party. The S90 is a notch above the Sx200is, in terms of both price and features, but it turns out it isn’t a straight forward comparison. Firstly, playing with the camera in the darkest corners of LEON, here is a mix of shots taken with my 5D Mark II and the S90:

Some shots from Canon Tuttle (on the S90 and the 5D Mark II of course)

It lived up to my expectations. Remember, the shots there are a mixture of the S90 and a big DSLR that is almost ten times the price. Yes, you can tell the difference, and no, I’m not trying to compare them (click through on a photo and look at the additional information on the right hand side of the Flickr page to see which camera took which) – Just saying that you can use the two together or substitute when needs must – it isn’t always easy to carry the 5D Mark II around all evening during a party.

The S90 is quite a bit more compact that the SX200is, and better in low light. It goes up to 3200ISO compared to the SX200is’s 1600, and the aperture range is f/2-f/4.9  versus f/3.4-5.3 – remember, small is good ;). Combined, that’s a quite a bit of extra range in the dark. What I’d loose in going to the S90 is the hyper-zoom capability  - the SX200is has a lens that is equivalent to 28mm-336mm, while the S90 reaches to 105mm. A 105mm zoom is none too shabby, and is more that enough for most photography. However, 336mm is an insanely long zoom, and one of the things that attracted me to the SX200is – I can’t travel with a zoom lens that large for my DSLRs, but the SX200is fits in my pocket. I can’t say I’ve used that level of zoom very often, but it does come in handy.

The S90 fixes one of my minor niggles with the Sx200is – it has a motorised flash that only comes up when it is needed. Only a cosmetic thing, but a nice touch. The s90 also has an extra dial around the lens, which is configurable for fast one-handed adjustments. It is one of the features that really grabbed my attention. The two cameras seem to share the same lovely 3 inch wide-view LCD display, and both support video – the S90 also adds in stereo sound recording. And here things get a little odd. The S90 doesn’t record HD video, or support 16:9 (wide screen) video – unless you count 480p as HD… to be fair, 720p is probably over kill in this format, but the lack of it might put off the ‘box ticking’ buyers, which is a real shame as this is a great camera.

Now, I’m going to let you into a secret: I looked at the new PowerShot G11 as well. I’d ignored it, because quite frankly it looked like a bunch of kids had gone nuts with mecano. It’s got dials and buttons EVERYWHERE. It’s another step up in price from the S90, but still a 10.4 Megapixel camera (the Sx200is is 12.4  - there really isn’t much in it). However, it shoots in RAW mode, which means more chance of rescuing borderline photos in editing back on the Mac/PC. The lens is 28-140mm equivalent, giving a bit more zoom. It’s quite a lot bigger, and double the weight at 12.5oz /355g, but it’s an all together more serious camera. The screen is a little smaller, but flips out and angles, and there is a hot shoe connector for an external flash. It also has a built in view finder, which I actually found quite fun, compared to holding a camera at arms length and looking at a screen.

You’ve probably figured out by now that there are some subtleties to picking out a high end digital camera, you need to think carefully about your budget and what features are most important to you. The S90 nicely slots into the range – if I was after something very high end, like the PowerShot G11, but in a much more compact form, then the S90 looks the business. For a compact camera with full DSLR features, I’d now give the G11 a serious look. All those dials and knobs make it very fast to operate. It is quite big and chunky, but there again it really is pushing the envelope of what a little digital camera can do and is a fraction of the size of a DSLR, even the diminutive 1000D. The PowerShot range now goes in almost every direction from waterproof to bullet proof (almost).

Do remember in all of this, that I’m a bit odd in a) doing lots of candid photography in dark venues (that doesn’t sound good does it? :) ) and b) my general refusal to use a flash. All of these cameras have very nice built-in flashes which will get you great shots. Flash just isn’t my style. I’m still very happy with my SX200is, its extended zoom range, HD video support and it’s good looks will keep it in my kit bag for a while to come!

Thank you to Canon for coming out to play, and supporting Tuttle. It made for a great morning!

The team behind the effect

I met the Time-Slice Films team at the Canon Pro Solutions Exhibition, and recorded this intverview with Tim Macmillan. The company was established back in 1994 by Tim, who originated the effect in his days at Bath Academy of Art, using film-based cameras and manual compositing. A far cry from today’s rig, here’s the interview:

The set up at the show

Time-slice films are at the leading edge of 2D/3D animation, with an impressive portfolio that includes work for the BBC, ITV, Capital FM and a host of other household names. These are a few stills (taken with a Canon 5D mk II and aloaned 35mm F/1.4L  prime lens at the show – nice one Canon!):

The set up at the show consisted of 55 Canon 450D’s, with stock lenses. The set up is modular and can scale to a much larger number of cameras, and the rail tracks can be configured to almost any shape. Keeping it less than a 120′ arc is essential to reduce post processing (more than that and you have to edit the cameras out of the shot). Each camera has to be aligned, zoomed and focussed. A bit of a job! You can check out their gallery of film clips shot at the Canon show here.

Adverts Film and Wildlife

I’ll leave you with this piece from Time-Slice Films, produced for Cat Clothing, which includes both Time-Slice(R) shots and high speed video:

Cat Clothing from Time-Slice® Films on Vimeo.

I’ll blog on some of the specific products over the next week or two, but first a few highlights:

Good news for Canon 5D Mark II users in Europe – it sounds like we can expect a firmware update in the new year to give us 24p & 25p frame rates. If that means something to you, you’re probably dancing in your seat. If it doesn’t, just take it that it is good news and will be something to look forward to early in 2010.

1D Mark IV. The 1D keeps its crown. The body feels a little vintage – surprised not to see more new buttons on it – but the innards have been bought bang up to date. It now has video, catching up and overtaking it’s siblings. Hold down the shutter button for machine gun sound effects (10 frames per second), and it would probably lock focus on a speeding bullet too (45-point AF system). It’s definitely not cheap, but it really is top of the range and top of the technology curve. Should be hitting the shops in December.

Canon 7D. Want one. That’s all. Yes, it’s a crop sensor, but if you are doing both photography and video, as I increasingly am these days, then the simple switch to toggle between the two modes, together with the start/stop buttom and the ability to shoot 720p as well as 1080p, make it a joy to use. The focus functionality felt better than the 5D mark II as well (as it should from the spec sheet – 19-point cross-type sensors). Oh, and 8 frames per second shooting. Nice. It isn’t going to display by 5D Mark II, but would be a really nice back up, given the built in flash and built in speedlight controller.

The surprise of the show for me was the 70-300mm DO IS USM lens on the fellow in the shot of the 7D. It isn’t as big an aperture as I normally like (at f/4.5-5.6), but it is VERY compact for such a long zoom and great quality – I assume this is down to the DO (diffractive optics).

The new Canon Powershot S90 looks like a mighty fine product. Think every thing I said about the SX200is as a pocketable alternative to a DSLR (going without a DSLR), but a good few steps up. F/2 aperture (nice and wide :) ), 28mm wide angle lens with 3.8x zoom. Very compact, very easy to use with it’s function select and rotary dial around the lens, and a worthy pocketable alternative to a DSLR.

Lots of steady-cam type set ups for the EOS DSLRs on show, and a veritable see of LED based lighting that was low heat, low power and VERY bright.

Oh, and this…

But I’ll tell you about that in the next post… In the mean-time, a massive thank you to the Canon team for being wonderfully welcoming and helpful, and to the 1000heads team for being the social media stars that they are!

We all need things to aspire to. There is no person that is perfect. There is no place that is perfect. We stand astride the great river of life, caught between two banks. We can not choose where the tide takes us, but we can paddle in the right direction, for all that we are worth. We do not know where that might take us, or the difference it will make, but we can, at the very least, try.

John Wesley said this:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

Well, the 5DII went back to its true home quite a while ago and since then I’ve been shooting with a 1Ds, a 40D and an old 5D (mark I). Now seems like a good time to reflect back on having the 5D Mark II and what I remember of going Full Frame and Becoming a Videographer.

Looking back on the 5 Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo (shot, +2, looking into a mirror, a couple of months back).

The odd thing that really sticks in my mind was the battery life – it was brilliant. I normally have 2 or 3 batteries when I cover a long event. For the trip I had just one. In over a week of using the 5D it only got charged every other day, as I dived into my hotel room to change into evening clothes, then unplugged shortly after as I headed out. It didn’t get charged over night, as I only had one adaptor. Despite all that, it never even got close to having a low battery. Stunning.

Low light performance. This gets talked about a lot, and I mentioned it in my posts at the time, but it is a fact: the 5d Mark II seems to create light where there was none. I’ve used dozens of cameras from different manufacturers. Never experienced anything like it. With my love of night time photography and shooting events, it is a killer feature.

The size – it is not a full body – I’m playing with a 1Ds right now, boy is it a monster (and I love it in its own sweet way), but the 5D is big enough to get you into the press enclosure without being laughed out, and compact enough that you don’t end up looking like rambo.

The full frame sensor made my 70-200 IS f/2.8 L series lens a joy to use – a perfect zoom range for what I do. The 24-105 f/4.0 L IS lens I had on loan was a great walkabout lens, and ideal for shooting video (the image stabilisation a big plus).

I was stopped several times each day by people enquiring after the camera, “is that a Canon 5D Mark II?” Who knew there were so many camera geeks in the world! When I was shooting in New York a photographer brushed Julia to one side and started to ask questions about the video and image quality. It wasn’t so much Benjamin with a 5D Mark II, as the 5D Mark II with Benjamin. Anyway, my ego survived, and I got some great photographs to show for it.

There was just one thing holding me back from rushing out and buying one, and that was the lack of manual control in video mode. That’s now fixed in the latest firmware. Oh dear!

This is me, camera in hand, with its little SXSW press tag on. Videographer – Photographer it says on it. It does make me scratch my head and set one eyebrow lower than the other, quizzically. I wouldn’t really describe myself as a journalist. Yes, I’ve been paid to write articles for a publications, and taken photos that have too, but I’ve spent my career at the other end of the process, ‘creating’ news. Either way, my perspective on the whole process has altered dramatically over the last year or so, and that change was crystalized this last week.

I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an activist. However, I do care about the conditions we live under. There’s nothing especially noble about that, it just makes good logical sense. Living under oppressive conditions isn’t conducive to happiness.

Almost a year ago was the first WordCamp (there’s another one soon). It threw together a spectrum of people, from technical geeks to traditional newspaper editors. We discussed and argued about the differences between blogging and “the press” and how new technology is changing the process for everyone – a light bulb started to go on in my head. Then, a few months ago I sat and listened to Clay Shirky talking about the role of journalists in the local press holding local politicians to account. The light bulb went on a little brighter. Journalism, even just the act of recording things, creates accountability.

You might have heard about Peter Gabriel’s “witness” charity. Yes, that Peter Gabriel. “See it. Film it. Change it.” is the organisation’s slogan. It is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns. You can listen to Peter Gabriel’s moving talk about his reasons for setting up Witness in this TED talk (warning: adult themes).

Earlier this year, a piece of legislation was passed in the UK, which makes it illegal to take a photograph of a police officer, military personnel or member of the intelligence services, which “may be of use for terrorism”. That’s a very vague definition, and open to interpretation by the police – who under Home Secretary guidelines can “restrict photography in public places”. The law is part of the Counter Terrorism Act. In these days of Google’s streetview, it is hard to see how this law really adds to our safety. What it does do, is to restrict our ability to be witnesses. That became all the more important in the last week.  That light bulb I mentioned is now flashing, red.

Ian Tomlinson is now a name that should be familiar to you. He died during the G20 protests. The Guardian ran a piece on his death as did the BBC. The Guardian posted an update today, which mentions something called “Kettling” – something I’d not heard of it until the G20 protests. It is a strategy used by the police to contain the protesters, which consists of surrounding the crowd and then not letting anyone go. No arrests. Just detainment. But it wasn’t just protesters. A number of passers by were held, without any charges, and with no access to toilet facilities or water, for hours. Take a peek behind the media head-lines and read Roo’s account of what happened to him On the ground at the G20 protests. I met Roo at HomeCamp, trust me when I say he isn’t a trouble maker. You can read Steve Lawson’s account  on his blog: G20 protests – a change is gonna come.

The fact is, everyone needs to be accountable. Us. The police. Our politicians. Photography and videography has an important part to play in that process. If your mobile phone has a camera or a video recorder, you can be a witness. If you do that in London right now, you could be detained or arrested. That’s not right. Local photographer Simon Taylor has lodged a petition on the Number 10 site. It has been mentioned in the British Journal of Photography and you can go directly to it here. As Roo says: This is why we need more photographers at public events.

Try the VisualDNA shop Beta:

It is a big thing moving from photography to video, but the 5D II has really opened my eyes to the posibilities. Traditional handycams just left me cold, and there was no way I could justify spending 10,000′s on a pro-video set up. But with the 5D you really can get great footage from day 1, and without the need for post-processing – important to me, because that is one of the things that makes video production so time consuming, I’m shooting events live and can’t spend days editing before getting things uploaded.

Entering the world of the videographer means understanding pulling focus, if you want cinematic shots, and thinking about movement as well as framing. It’s a big jump, but a fun one. Using the 5D is a very different experience than running about with a miniDV camera, there’s more to think about, but it is also a very rewarding experience.

While I was at South by South West Interactive I spotted Tim Vetter across the floor. He was shooting vox pops using the 5D Mark II and his unusual home made rig caught my attention. Here’s an interview I did with him, shot on the 5D of course, and uploaded in Blip.TV:

And for reference here’s the same clip in Vimeo:

A Canon 5D Mark II Video Set Up from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

To my eye the video looks a little better in Vimeo, but there again, lots of people have told me that Vimeo doesn’t play on their machines.

Tim’s obviously thought about his set up a lot, and his DIY rig gave me some food for thought. Personally I’m more than happy with the built-in sound (I have a sound engineering background and I’ve mostly been using an external stereo condenser mic from my studio). Using the 50mm lens and the 24-105 f/4 lens with image stabilisation got me very good results during the show, even shooting hand held (JetBlue managed to loose my monopod on route – the joys of international travel)!

So, back to cropped frame sensors. A couple of things happen:

• Not all the light from the lens gets though.
• The focal length is scaled up.

The first means that not all of the light coming into the lens gets used (as some of it spills outside of the area of the frame). Canon turns this to their advantage by making some more affordable (and lighter lenses) – the EF-S lenses. It also means that you get less vignetting, since the edges of the lens, where you get light fall off that causes the darkening of the corners, don’t get used.

The second feature means that everything ends up a “zoomed in”. If, like me, you’ve never used a 35mm camera or a full frame camera, then you probably won’t notice. It does mean that some of the photography tips might be a bit off (a 50mm lens acts a lot more like an 85mm lens, so you have to ‘adjust’ accordingly). For 35mm traditionalists, it drives them a bit mad. For the rest of us, it means a smaller lens will get us closer to the subject than with a full-frame.

There is a lot of snobbery about frame sizes. The purists view full frame sensors as the only ‘true’ cameras, and point to lower noise and better light sensitivity for the big SLR beasts. That’s not always going to be the case, given the different generations of technology. These days there are bigger things at play.

So, how is full frame land for me? I have to say, I’m loving it. People have asked how it is loosing the ability to really zoom in tight on a subject. Answer? Wonderful. Why? Because all my lenses are wider – I can get more into the frame and stand closer to the subjects. If I want to get a longer lens, I have an EF 2x extender, which turns my 70-200 lens into a monstrous 140-400mm. The high ISO of the 5D Mark II means that it is more than fast enough to make up for the couple of stops of light I loose in using the extender. I’m using my 85mm for portraits, rather than my 50mm – which is now much more useful for capturing the scene. The 70-200mm L-series lens I have was too tight, now it is getting a lot more use.

Using the 5D Mark II, it feels like it is much more sensitive to light than my 40D, even at the same ISO settings. I’m putting that down to the full frame size. The 5D also has a “peripheral illumination correction” setting, which is a very grand way of saying that it reads what lens you are using, then digitally corrects for the vignetting. Personally, I like a bit of edge fall off – it adds some interest to conference shots, which can otherwise be a bit bland – so I’ve switched the feature off. However, it is very useful to have it there, and it works very effectively (it is calibrated specifically for each lens).

As I mentioned before, I’m loving the feeling of a larger viewfinder too. As you can probably tell, I’m very sold on full frame photography. Not for the technical specs (although I am blown away by the 5D Mark II’s image quality – as it everyone who sees the shots), but because suddenly my lenses feel right. That makes sense, as they are EF lens (designed for full frame use). Moving up to a 5D means leaving the EF-S lenses behind – actually, I have them on the back up body I have with me. I can’t say that I’ll miss them though. Oh, and do I miss the flash? With the 5D’s sensitivity, I don’t think so!

Then I got to unboxing something very special…

This is what I’ll be using to photograph the Digital Mission to South by South West. A HUGE thank you to the folks at 1000Heads and Canon for getting this beast into my hands in time for the trip. Getting hold of an EOS 5D Mark II is like getting hold of gold dust, so I really am very grateful!

Initial impressions of the 5D Mark II? Well, the body. Very sturdy – and looks all the better for not having a pop-up flash (my 550EX flash will be coming along to Texas). Putting a lens on and firing it up took my breath away. I’m of the generation that started with a Digital SLR – I’ve never used 35mm film. So, forget the technical arguments about full frame cameras versus cropped frame for a minute, and imagine the difference between looking out at the world through a port-hole and looking out at it through French windows. That’s the best description I can think of.

Pretty much everyone who has seen the camera today has asked about it – even when I was on the train in to London. Lots of interesting conversations. I’m really pleased with the shots I got this afternoon – I’m looking forward to some good subjects. Anyway, I better go and get some clothes packed for this trip, or I’ll just be wearing the camera… In the meantime, here’s what one of my sons says about it (filmed on the 5D of course):

Nathan – on the 5D Mark II from Benjamin Ellis on Vimeo.

That’s shot handheld with an 85mm lens, and transcoded (recompressed) by Vimeo to host it… There will be much more in my flickr stream and the digital mission blog as the week goes on. South by South West here I come…

One of the secrets to getting good at photography is to carry your camera everywhere, and that’s pretty much what I do. However, there are times where lugging around my trusty red rucksack with a full Digital SLR, a couple of lenses and a flash, just isn’t practical.

Then there’s the impact of whipping out a full sized SLR camera with a big lens. Seriously, last week at an event I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the speaker (I’d asked his permission before he started talking). I would probably have caused less disruption if I had drawn out a firearm and waved it about whilst shooting at the ceiling. Some people are nervous of cameras, and REALLY nervous of BIG cameras. Sometimes, small is good.

So, back to that Canon PowerShot SX200 IS. I ignored it at first, even though it was shiny-new-not-even-available-in-the-shops-yet. I was distracted by the small, sexy IXUS 100 IS - there was even a red one, what did you expect me to do?

Then I picked up the Powershot. I looked at the screen, which felt strangely like looking through the view finder of my DSLR. It is big, clear and fast. Then I fiddled with the very familiar dial on top and set it to Aperture priority mode. Ooo… Nice… Then I took a couple of shots. Ooo… Really nice.

It has got a 12 X optical zoom (equivalent to a 28-336 mm lens on a full frame camera, which is about the range I carry in the lens set with me when I’m using my DSLR). The sensor is 12 Megapixel with ISO up to 1600, and Canon’s DIGIC 4 chipset handling the image processing.

You can put the Powershot into auto mode and use it as a (very clever) point and click – it has face detection and scene detection with really good image stability – or you can twist the dial and go all Tv/Av/M and make like you have your DSLR with you, tweaking the settings to your heart’s content. The aperture is wide for a compact camera, so you can even get shall depth of field for arty portrait shots.

Here’s the clincher for me: it supports 720p HD Movie recording, complete with an HDMI output ready to plug into an HD screen. Something my current DSLR won’t do! This thing is ideal as a complement to my full bodied DSLR when I want something I can just slip in to my pocket. Very neat. It is also a nice step up for someone moving from the point and click world towards a full on digital SLR. I’ll be recommending it to a few folks.

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That beasty is a Canon PowerShot D10. Now, if you don’t like its looks, don’t worry. That’s a clip on cover, so you can change the appearance if the camouflage isn’t to your personal taste (although it was a popular choice with people I’ve shown it to – I think that relates to the next bit). Love or loath the looks, you have to respect this little camera’s capabilities!

Yes, you are seeing right. There it is, hanging in a bowl of water. No protective cover. No magic. It is waterproof up to a depth of 10m (which happens to be about the deepest I’ve ever dived to). Let’s see that again shall we?

It will happily take shots – although you’ll probably want to find something more interesting than the inside of a bowl to shoot. The snake in the picture is the D10′s lanyard, which attaches to special fixings on the case. This isn’t your average camera, so it doesn’t have your average camera strap. The chord and fixings are robust enough to use in rock climbing, skying and diving. But what happens if it gets dropped? Let’s give that a try too shall we?

Now, here’s a little confession. I’m not great at timing shots. This one is from about the 6th attempt to time it right. I was feeling bad about dropping it so many times, right up until the moment someone had the idea of filming it falling down a set of stairs (a set of stairs which had The Hoff walking up them a few minutes before). And after all that?

Well, it was ready to take snaps. The lens and buttons use sealed-in-gas to ensure that there isn’t any condensation when moving between different temperatures (it will work down to -10′C). It is a 12.1 Megapixal camera (much higher resolution than my last D-SLR) and its has a 3 times optical zoom with image stabiliser.  Oh, it shoots VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second too.

A very impressive piece of technology I’ll be recommending to my skiing/rock climbing/canoeing/diving friends. They can email me the photos – I’m keeping warm in my office!

I’ll be writing more on the other models, but if you are impatient, check out Machines that go Bing. A big thank you to the 1000Heads team – Canon can!

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Have a good one!

1. Bring extra batteries, memory cards, your cables, and chargers

A definite must. Once, to my shame, in the rush to get from one event to another, I forgot to put the memory card back into my camera after I uploaded the shots. Easily solved by having a few space memory cards. I have also had a (high-end) memory card fail on my. Given the price of memory these days, it is very wise to have a good few spaces. Likewise, extra USB cables can earn you a beer (I’ve rescued many a BlackBerry user who had a flat battery). Extra batteries are a little more pricey, but always worth having at least one set if you can.

2. Get out of auto mode.

Not much to add to this one. Even with a great camera, the lighting at most venues means that you won’t get a good shot on auto mode. It will just pop up the flash, blind everyone, and leave you with a flatten shot and a cross audience. Even with a camera phone, you’ll get better shots my playing with the manual settings, once you know what you are doing.

3. Be unobtrusive. Casual shots are better.

See above. Getting good pictures, but ruining the event for everyone else isn’t a win. I like the advice Tris gives in his post: “Be the wall.”

4. Pay attention to the background.

The number of good shots I’ve lost to some clown in the background, or a chair/chart/whatever sticking out of someone’s head! Stop. Look. Then shoot. Easier said than done though ;).

5. Try not to use the flash.

Actually, my rule is don’t use the flash. I have top quality flash equipment, but I use it in the studio for product and portrait shots. Not for events. That said, sometimes I do have some fun with the internal flash for the occasional special effect shot, but not during the main event.

6. Pay attention to the lighting.

Use what there is. Some organizers put spots with gels around the place. Sometimes the venue has a nice window. Perhaps the presenter walks in front of the projector. All good opportunities.

7. Set the white balance.

Personally I shoot in RAW mode then fix this afterwards, but observe any pro videographer – you’ll see the grey card come out and the white balance adjusted. If you are not sure, just play with the white balance and some test shots and adjust until it looks right (white).

8. More is better.

As long as you aren’t interfering, get lots of shots. Discard the not so good. The very best shots are often a combination of skill and fluke.

9. Zoom less, walk more.

I like this tip. I need to live it more. As Tris points out “They say that zoom lenses have made photographers lazy. I don’t know about that, but if you move around, get closer, bend, twist (it’s only your body, come on) you often find you get a better shot.”

Prime lenses are always going to let in more light (bigger aperture), give a shallowed depth of field and get you more shots. Jut get used to moving around.

10. Have fun.

I like this tip. But I like this one even more:

Bonus 11. It isn’t the camera or the lens, it’s the photographer that counts.

One of the nicest complements I have had was during an attack of the green eyed monster – I was observing another photographer who had a VERY nice rig. “Ah yes,” said my friend, “but you’ll probably get the nicer shots.” Ah, the artist’s ego – easily soothed. In support of point 11 though, some of my nicest shots have actually been taken with my Nokia N95′s camera phone.

Happy shooting!

Even if you are a design neanderthal like me, you will recognise the work and its brilliance. There is a big difference between solving a problem (engineering) and solving it elegantly (design). So much to learn…

Embedded Video

Tags: tip

I haven’t see a complete round up of the talks (there were a lot!). The venue (Wallspace, St. Pancras) was absolutely stunning, the food delightful and Vero’s organization seamless.
I’ll write up my presentation on FOAF and Dunbar’s number (’6 degrees of seperation now 3′) and get it up on slideshare (to join this lot) just as soon as I’ve caught my breath. In the mean time there’s a nice mention here  (thanks @edent!).

The tag for the event was smclondon08, which should enable you to find the relevant blog and microblog posts, QIKs, and flickr photos.

As ever, my photos from the day are up and and tagged here on flickr. Feel free to add tags, faves, notes and comments, if you are a flickr user. If you aren’t, why not sign up for a flickr account, it is free….

Wonderful as meeting absolutely everyone was, the highlight for me was seeing Ben (aka ihatemornings) singing his twitter song. “you’re no-one if you’re not on twitter“. Don’t worry, you are someone if you aren’t, but you’re missing out on meeting new people like this lot (my photos from the very dark night):

That would be the Tamrac 9 rucksack that adorns my back these days. It looks a little better out of it’s wrapping:

The back is home to a very padded compartment that even fits my 17″  MacBook Pro, and inside of the front is somewhere for my Canon DSLR to snuggle, complete with a selection of lenses:

The top also houses a zip-up compartment big enough to fit a flash, filters, batteries and the like – including little pockets to store memory cards.

You can find the Tamrac Adventure 9 on Amazon, or dig around on eBay.

Oh, and I went for a red one. Obviously.

First these two pictures from my week in the US last week.

The first seen by the roadside as I was driving along:

Forget this wireless stuff – I want HI/FI Internet in my hotel room! Bigger pictures and better text, right?

Next up, from a tradeshow I attended:

“Everyone’s included… everyone everywhere… Private function.” FAIL.

And lastly, thanks to Wulf for reminding me of my misplaced faith in the use of technology for good:

Everyday our eyes are fooled by a few clicks.

Just click on any of them to see the larger version. If you really like them, I have them as RAW and very high resolution JPEGs. My feet were sore when I returned, but I discovered more of London and the value of a tripod (some of the photos are VERY long exposures)!