This Week's Swell

 

Shippies at the height of this week's swell pulse

Surfers around the world were watching and waiting this swell. The biggest Antarctic storm of the year so far has generated a massive swell that has been surfed in Indonesia, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tuesday was our turn to sample its power.

Camping under the stars, waiting for waves
 

So much of surfing is about the thrill of the chase, identifying a storm that could create swell, figuring out were and when that swell could reach landfall. Taking a punt, committing and just go. I travelled up the Shippies with Jessie Peters and Luke Crouch ahead of the swell to be there for it's arrival.

Supertubes on the evening the swell started to pulse. Click on the image to see it larger and for purchasing options

It's exciting to be in place waiting to welcome waves. The points slowly filled with other surfer/campers. There's always a friendly vibe of a shared goal and maybe even a mutual appreciation of a shared methodology- be there, be Johnny on the spot. It's really quite a privilege to enjoy Shippies' beauty. 

Jesse, stoking on the evening camp vibes
 

Fellow photog Lindsay Butler, back from working on the Rigs in the Bass Strait, and hating being on the frontside of the lens

 Best bach on the beach! 
 

Everyone slept lightly, the swell, very literally, started to roar at 1am. Moonlit lines of whitewash pushing further out and along, is it peaking now? Will it last until dawn? Am I parked high enough up out of the washes? 

The mission I came for, pano camera in place
 

No one slept in, that said no one hurried out either, the swell was huge and the tide was only going to get better. I had my own mission, and I was not relishing it. On my [ever growing] Need To Have image list is a series of images from Shippies super dune. It's a daunting dune for a film photographer, but I wanted to take up enough kit that I had everything covered.

Simplicity and muted morning tones, Click on the image to see it larger and for purchasing options
 

 Time to shoot some surfing

 Old mate Dave Gilbert giving the swell some scale

Tom Shand was ripping on his snubby

How stoked would you be with this wall to scribe on!

The swell that made many a camper very happy

That trek up the dune was appreciated, Surfline ran one of my images. 

Cold is Good

Star Trails 

It's cold out, and that's a good thing. A southerly snap often brings crispy clear skies, and as much as a dramatic cloudscape exciting and well, dramatic, clear skies offer up a chance to stretch the camera's [and owner's!] capabilities. While I'm a advocate of analogue photography it has to be acknowledged that digital cameras can create some great effects fast. It's a matter of choosing the right tool for the right job. 

 Last night while you were huddled around the heater 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Star trail images are not that easy to make, apart from living in the very aptly named Land of the Long White Cloud- where cloudless nights are all too rare, you do need some pretty costly toys. An upper end digital camera, a high quality fast wide angle lens, a very heavy duty tripod, an electronic release and a powerful computer that's going to handle 160 high resolution images getting stacked into one massive file. But a welcome side effect of making a star trail image is that you can use the very same files to make a time-lapse like this; 

Here's a star trail that was made last winter; 

                Just click on the image to see it larger

And this is what it looks like framed up in a client's living room...

#Vanlife

#Vanlife

  One of the best ways to spend a Sunday

Just over two years ago I bought my most expensive photo accessory to date, yep a camper van! It's been an obsession for a very long time, the idea of hitting the road and staying on the road, of being able to pull over and make a coffee while you wait for the light to play ball. Of being in remote places and having shelter AND a lot of camera gear....fair to say I had highly romanticised camper van life before committing to the relationship.

Under the stars mid winter northland

It's been a wonderful couple of years of semi regular escapes. The camper van has been everything and more that I thought it would be. And I've been really surprised at how many people have enjoyed my previous blogs and stories on camper van [mis] adventures. There are over 230,000 posts under #vanlife in Instagram, check it out sometime.

 Castle Point, Wairarapa

Last weekend's mission was to the Far North for the big swell that hit, the same swell that went on to push up to Fiji for the WSL Fuji Pro. It's always a buzz to think the same swell line that as hit our coastlines may also been ridden further up in the Pacific I reckon. 

 Last weekend's waves

Shippies has always been a firm favourite for me, it's not just the waves, it's the whole experience. The drive around the reef, the timing of the tides, the huge dunes and the curve of 90 Mile Beach...everything is an adventure.

Shippies 1993, click on the image to see it larger

This image was originally used by Rip Curl in their Search campaign adverts in 1993. At the time it was a huge coupe for a NZ photographer to get a shot used in The Search, which is now regarded as one of the best surf branding exercises ever.

Hey Sparkie!

Photographic Mini Adventures

My partner in crime Ange nailing the technique

Ok Ok, I'm desperately trying not to pun this E-bomb up with calls like a spark of an idea, bright spark or some other terrible fiery call.... there I think I've got them out of my system. Earlier this week I got the chance to try the surprisingly simple photo trend; #Steelwoolphoto. As you can see it makes for a nice dramatic image.

Here's all you need:  

A $3.00 wire whisk, a $4.00 dog-leash, a lighter and some super fine grade steel wool- the type used in painting prep or polishing- you'll find it in the paint section at Mitre 10.

Picking your day is key too, you need a still day with no wind, or a location out of the wind. And of course the time of day; pre-dawn or post sunset are generally the best times to get a bit of after-glow colour in the sky. That said, there's some pretty cool black'n'white night city shots around the web once you start trawling. You also want a location that's non-combustable, it's probably not a good idea to do this in a hay barn or a petrol station, the sparks will fly! [dam-it there's a pun!

Test pilot Daryn McBride in a non-conbustable location, but with just a bit too much ambient light

The photo technique is pretty easy, because you're doing a long exposure the camera has to be on a tripod. The steel wool burns for about 10 seconds, so you simply set the shutter speed for 15 to 30 secs, I metered the available light pre-ignition and then underexposed a stop for the expected shower of sparks. The lens was manually focussed it wouldn't track during the shot. The tripod and camera was set up out of spark range- but there are spectacular shots where the camera is in range and protected with a sacrificial UV filter in front of the lens and wrapped in material so the sparks don't hit the camera.  

Now we're starting to get the light balance right
 

The whisk is attached to the leash chain, the whisk is the holder for the steel wool pad, you simply stuff a pad into the whisk cage and then light it. It doesn't burst into flames, it sort of smoulders, but as soon as you start twirling sparks go flying. It pays to wear clothes you don't mind getting holes in.  

My best selfie- ever! Looking pretty volcanic and chaotic

As we got more confident, we started changing the length of the chain, the speed and direction of the twirl. All effect the final result and it's pretty cool to see variations pop up on your camera screen. I started using my flash, hand held, set on full and manual to give me a single burst, this froze the twirler enough to get a bit more detail in the figure.    

In this one, the chain length was changed during the exposure, hence the double ring of fire

And that's steel wool photography 101, it is a very easy and fun way to have a mini photo adventure with your mates. 

Summer In The Wintertime

New Release 

                 
June is officially the start of winter, but with the cold snaps and wild southern storms we've already had, it felt like winter was well underway before. Winter is a great time for photography, the sun tracks low in the sky to the north which gives photogs angular light, it's exciting chasing storms and getting dramatic cloudscapes.

That said it's hard not to get nostalgic for the amazing summer we just all had, those beautiful evenings spent in the water with no neoprene needed, just a pair of boardies - the after work rinse. Today the image above has been added to PhotoCPL in the Beaches Gallery- a wee ode the summer past. Just click on the image to see it large. And please share it with anyone you think may like it. 

Winter hasn't stopped the waves completely, last week we had a nice run of surfing days, here's a video of one that got away from the crew last friday. 

Being Criticised Is Scary

                   
                    There's nothing like the smell of fresh book in the morning 

          
Getting your hard earned labours of love reviewed is a surprisingly stressful event for any creator. The way that we make books here at PhotoCPL is that you've spent the best part of a year living, breathing, celebrating, internalising, externalising and fretting over every single tiny aspect of every page. It's very easy to lose sight of the end game, which is that fine balance between artistic endeavour and commercial sensibilities. To be really honest the latter is only very loosely adhered to. Both The South Seas and Warren Hawke's NZ Surf books were done with the old Wayne's World adage 'If you build it, they will come', both are projects of passion, with a belief that that passion will be shared with the reader. They really are our babies.  
         
                       

The original image used for The South Seas book birth- not far from the truth

         Last week the latest issue of Pacific Longboarder magazine hit the NZ bookstands with this review.

Both Warren and I shared another sigh of relief...'ahhh the reviewer got what we did!' Actually in this case the reviewer, while still giving the book an extremely positive review, sort of missed the point that the book was about Warren's career as the South Island's most prolific and published surf photographer. But that's kind of nit picking; it's a great review.

Here's the best review NZ Surf- Captured By A Surf Lens has had so far;
                 
            

Warren scored the cover and lead feature of The Press Escape Magazine. No biggie, not scary, just a readership of 182,000 according to the AC Neilsen surveys. And that's why reviews can be so scary, you're putting your baby into the hands of a stranger. They could be in a bad mood, the book doesn't hit a chord with them, you just don't know. But you have to do it if you want to share your labours of love. 

I Love Being In The Water

When I started shooting surf from the water in 1994, no one else in New Zealand was. There had been others, but at that time I became both NZ's best water surf photographer and it's worst.  

It was almost impossible to find out what to do and how to do it, back then surf photographers were notoriously protective of their techniques and formulas. This is why I actively mentor new up'n'comers now. I could say I learnt the hard way, but that's not really how I see it, it remains a fun challenge. If I'm not actually surfing myself, swimming out into the surf with the camera is the next best thing, in fact sometimes I'm frothing more to get water shots than actually surf.  

Swimming about and getting images like this makes it all worthwhile 

From 1994 to 2007, that's 13 years, everything was shot on film. That meant when you swam out you only had 36 frames on a roll of film- you learnt fast to shoot carefully and make every frame count!

Making it count with Former National Champ Blair Stewart on film, in the Pacific 2006

This was a huge reason why water shoots were held in such high regard. In 2007 digital was finally viable for the water, now we all swim out with a memory card that holds over 1000 high resolution frames- gotta love it! 

Current National Champ Billy Stairmand caught with pixels 2015

Of course, there's another reason water shots are held in high regard, it's more dangerous than standing on the beach with a big lens. There's the ever present thought bitey things that might want to take a sample, the worry of housing springing a leak and then there's just the waves themselves. 

Pacific reef pole drive 2004, severed ear lobe, face grate and a dislocated shoulder, I saved the housing though! This is one of the most commented shots in the book PhotoCPL

Every time you swim out you do it knowing that to get in the right place you have to be in the impact zone. It's exciting, it gets the blood pumping but it also means you're probably going to go over the falls or have that sinking feeling of slipping down the mine shaft... what, you don't know what that is, well here's a little video from my last outing. 

Shooting Wide- Really Wide

Why Shoot Wide

A 20 year preoccupation with the whole picture 

I guess I'm known for my surf photography, and maybe as a reaction to close cropped telephoto action shots I've developed a love for panoramic and landscape photography in general. 

The idea of showing the whole playground and then zoom on in to the action just seems to me the right way to tell a story. I bought my first Panoramic camera in the '90's. I wish I had never traded it in. It was a classic 1970's Widelux that used 35mm film and made a photo to the tried and true 1:3 ratio. The 1:3 ratio is very close to our peripheral view, and that's why panoramic images seem so visually appealing.  

          
I had a shocker ever letting this lil beastie go. 

When I shot for the book Beached As Vol 1, the need for a camera that could show the whole scene in one frame hit home hard. I've been lead down a merry trail with many kinks and turns since. I shot most of Beached As Vol 2 on this...

      
And lesson learnt- never ever trade in a camera- keep em all! 

The PTB 617 has been an amazing producer of images, it's the camera that most of my award winning images have been made with like this one below. 

In the ongoing quest to improve my panoramas I went deeply into digital stitching, and it is a really great way of getting panos, no doubt. Here's a digital pano that also won an international award and it has been a super popular seller. 

But I got really frustrated with the limitations of digital stitching, I still will do them, but not as often. The thrill and discipline of getting it right in one frame of film really excites me. It feels more like you are crafting and yielding an image at the time of capture... that said it's harder! 

Here's the latest addition to the family; 

I'd like to say it has been a seamless transition, but the Fotoman 617 is deceptively easy to muck up a frame on. I am getting keepers now,  this is one of my new favourites off it;

This Manu Bay pano also demonstrates another reason film has it over digital- even though I've used a slow shutter to blur the waves, it is next to impossible to digitally stitch a scene like this with waves moving through it. 

So why all this talk of panos, well it's Panoramic comp season again, and my week has been consumed with pouring over which images to submit. This year I've gone for 5  panos that were all shot on film [you probably guessed it after that filmic rant]. 

Should Have, Could have, Didn't

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

The endless dilemma for NZ surfers

This week has been nothing short of stressful. All the reports and forecasts point to a great week of conditions for both Raglan and Taranaki, and I've sat on my hands. In between other commitments and a decidedly huge amount of indecision I've opted to hope for little windows of opportunity around home... it's not really working out too well to be honest. But I am taking solice in that fact I'm not the only one. Every turn of the tide sees familiar faces rotating around Piha's carparks- the endless search for a bank in this big Tasman Sea pulse... perfect wind, just too much swell for around these parts. 

Big Piha Bar

The carpark conversations inevitably turn to where we all should be rather than, after scouring the beach, where we are. But I love these moments too, catch ups with neighbours, fill ins on the latest local gossip and a huge amount of game talk. 

My neighbour Mike Mulcahy on a wee ankle-tapper 

Mikey post Piha pounding

Moments like this make a swim worthwhile every time

I have been amping to try out my new housing set up, I've mounted a Gopro on the top of my camera housing. The plan is to get video of the waves I shoot stills of. Today was the first outing with the new rig and I'm pretty happy with my first go, above. I've added the wave now entitled Piha Thumper to the Wave Gallery

No More Heroes

Andrew Moore’s seminal documentary film about the birth of skateboarding in NZ, No More Heroes, premiered again last Sunday night at the Pt Chev Raza to a packed house...wait, what, how can a movie have 2 premiers!? 

In 2006 the movie was a part of the NZ Film Festival, it was cut to a soundtrack that was only licensed for those showings. Andrew hit a massive hurdle, in fact a deal breaker; to get all the music licensed for a general release was going to cost 100’s of thousands. The film got shelved for a couple of years because it was just too hard. It looked like No More Heroes may just have become a lonely folder on a forgotten hard-drive.  

The Pt Chev Raza was packed 

Enter my partner in crime- the gorgeous Ms Ange Jolly, somehow she caught wind of the film and decided Andrew was getting her help. Together Andrew and Ange went through the crowd funding process and with the amazing support of Flying Nun Records Andrew has been able re-edit No More Heroes to a banging all Kiwi music soundtrack. 

Andrew re-presenting seminal NZ Skate movie No More Heroes 

In true grass roots style, as mentioned, the new premiere was at the Pt Chev Razza, sounds weird, but the venue is actually massive. Over 250 people packed the place, there was literally standing room only- filled to [over] capacity. Many of the participants/interviewees in the docco were there- the evening was a who is who of NZ Skateboarding roots.

Later this week I’ll be interviewing Andy for the next issue of Damaged Goods Magazine- I’m stoked his hard work is now getting the credit it deserves. And what about the actual movie? If you owned a Moonskate, a Trax, a Caster or ever had a roll at Skatopia [RIP] or New Lynn, then quite simply, you need to own this film- it is brilliant. It’ll be on i-Tunes in a few weeks. But in the meantime you can get up-dates on the No More Heroes Facebook page HERE 

PhotoCPL Site Facelift

If you are reading this then you are navigating around the all new PhotoCPL website- Thanks for visiting! 

The PhotoCPL website has been in place since 2008, man, have there been some changes in those 7 years. But this new one is by far the biggest overhaul of the website yet.

What's new? PhotoCPL is now responsive; so now whether you're viewing on your monitor, tablet or phone the site will adjust to that format for the easiest possible navigation and ease for you. 

We've made the images higher resolution. This is a tough one for us photographers to balance, we all want to show our images in the highest possible quality, but at the same time not so high that they can be ripped off. To make the images on PhotoCPLlook really good on screen for you we've gone XL on the picture size, but added a centred light CPL watermark. We think we've got the balance about right. Of course the watermark is not there on a final order. 

What do you think? We think we've done a pretty good upgrade, but at the end of the day, and because you are a PhotoCPL client, no one has better insight than you, after you've visited the new site I'd love to know your thoughts about how we can make the site better yet.

Show and Tell: It's the all common request I know, but you guys have been awesome in sharing and recommending PhotoCPL, please don't stop!  Just about every website page has a full set of social media buttons to the left/ centre of your screen, and this newsletter has share buttons at the bottom. Believe me, your actions are most certainly appreciated. 

So, please enjoy the new PhotoCPL site, and again thanks - Craig

The Real Resolution of Film

This is a repost of an in-depth comparision of analogue film verses digital capture from istillshotfilm.org, of course with the name of the source like that you can guess which side of the argument the the author is on....but it is also the side I'm on. Both forms of image capture have their place- use both. 

What Is Resolution?

Ok, so most people equate resolution to the number of Megapixels, especially when comparing digital camera qualities, but this is not entirely accurate. Image resolution is basically the amount of detail an image can show. It is the quantification of the degree to which two lines next to each other can be visibly resolved, or discerned from each other. If a camera, film or lens can produce an image where you can see clearly defined edges of the smallest details, the resolution is said to be high. 

So, Megapixels then become a kind of unit of measuring resolution in digital images. Resolution is determined by the size of pixels present in the image, and the more the pixels, the smaller they are. However, naturally, this has to take the size of the area in question as well. Plus, there are other considerations as well, such as the image processing algorithms and interpolation of pixels, which we will discuss further shortly. 

Film resolution is measured in lines per millimeter, and these lines comprise pairs of a dark and a light line, also known as line pairs per millimeter. Since film records details naturally, there are no algorithms and computer interpretations to mess things up and the details you see are extra-ordinary, especially with medium and large format sheet film.       

Sharpness and Detail

Film naturally records the finest of details in a given scenario, which means you get coarser textures as well as finer ones. Digital sensors are less responsive to fine details, however, but are extra sensitive to the medium level details that they can see. These are exaggerated by boosting the contrast which results in a highly sharpened image which is intended to make up for the lacking in detail and to give a false sense of sharpness in the resulting image. This is one of the reasons film images look so much better to the eye; the natural way it records the coarser details rather than heightened contrast is how our eyes naturally respond to visual stimuli as well. 

RGB Resolution 

Except for Foveon sensors, all digital sensors are black and white, covered with red green and blue dots. This means that each pixel does not have complete R, G, and B information, with each color only covering one-third of the sensor. This translates into one-thirds of the resolution for each color, which means that the megapixels states by camera manufacturers for their products are grossly exaggerated. 

Since each pixel only has one-third the color data needed to be resolved, digital cameras use something called the Bayer Interpolation firmware which helps them interpolate, or guess at the values in between the pixel locations of each color to come up with brightness value for any given color. So, if a camera states it can resolve at 25 MP, it can usually only resolve at half, or sometimes even less than that, and the rest is a result of interpolation algorithms and smoothing over. 

On the other hand, in film you have full R, G and B resolution at every point and get endless amounts of color information and details throughout the image. So you get the same resolution for different colors being recorded, and the resolution you stated is the resolution you get in the results.

The Real Resolution of Film

So, when we take all this into mind, what is the real resolution of film? It captures way more detail than any digital camera can, but this detail cannot be conceived in any measure that can be easily compared with digital. When we zoom into a quality shot taken with film and digital both, we can see the differences clearly; with film you get the finer details of textures that digital will smooth into oblivion while maintaining sharp edges to make us think the image is still sharp.

A DIGITAL CAMERA WOULD HAVE TO BE 156 MEGAPIXELS TO GIVE YOU THE SAME KIND OF DETAIL AS 35MM FILM. 

And of course, this is just 35 mm; with medium and large format you get even more detail, and the larger you keep going the possibilities keep skyrocketing. With medium format 6x6 film you get 56 x 56 = 3,136 sq mm, which is 282 megapixel.

Large format 4x5” would be 95 x 120 mm, which is 11,400 sq mm, and 1026 megapixel, with full RGB data at each pixel. With 8x10 sheets or 203 x 254 mm you have 51,562 sq mm and 4640 megapixel, which is insane.     

Output Method

While film itself might have a high resolution and an ability to capture endless detail, what we end up seeing is limited to the quality of the output method. Recently most people have started scanning their film digitally, and the scanner will only be able to resolve the details up to its DPI or dots per inch rating. The film may have a lot more detail to show, but this cannot be resolved by the scanner. 

That being said, the scanners can resolve the fill RGB information available for each pixel and can resolve as well as the film can up to the finest detail that they can respond to. A lot of people tend to compare digital scans to digital cameras when comparing resolution, rather than comparing film, which results in a declaration that digital has caught up, or that digital is better. The quality of the scans will no doubt depend on the quality and abilities of the scanner, and if outdated low quality scanners are used, the results will not be that great, just as a low quality monitor will display you 25 MP camera results in a poor light.  
Some other factors to consider :

Output methods are not the only thing that affects the quality we see and get. Lenses have their own lines per millimeter resolution ratings and play a huge role in whether or not you can tap into the resolution potential of the camera. Another factor to consider is your own ability. Your skills as a photographer need to be highly refined in order to capture the amount of detail possible with film, and should also have the skills and resources to make quality prints/ scans from these exposures. If you’re making comparisons between film and digital, these factors need to be taken into account, and your equipment, subject matter, exposure settings and other factors influencing quality should all be controlled so that the details and resolution can be truly compared.

What we can take away from this is that the real resolution of film is endless. We can try to quantify it, but the amount of detail it can capture can only be seen through the various methods we use for output, that is scans and prints. With the advancement of scanners we have seen that film resolution just keeps better and better, with the scanner unlocking more of the recorded detail. The possibilities are endless, and while we talked about how the resolution doesn’t make a great picture, it is kind of helps to push our limits and see how much better it can get.