This book, volume 3, leads on from the earlier versions and spends a good deal of time going over studio work, flash and lighting, portraiture, product shots and lenses. If you think you know all about these things, think again. Scott doesn’t go into deep theory about any of it, but gives practical hints and tips on how to achieve consistently good results. The emphasis is on giving simple information, much the same as you might get if you were right next to him on a shoot.

I think I have got so much more to learn, and am pleased to find books like this that take me on another small step. Much of what the book tells you is actually obvious the moment after you read it – I had a lot of  moments where I smiled to myself and said ‘so that’s how…’

Throughout the book are useful tips and links to online resources, and I found myself downloading things I wouldn’t normally have looked at, including updating the firmware on my trusty D200. I also spent a few hours with the camera just going back through the settings and finding ways to get better quality out of the shots I take. I would think that had I not read the book, I wouldn’t have bothered! I even found myself playing with HDR (High Dynamic Range) images, taking five bracketed shots and using Photoshop to set up the HDR stuff. OK, so I wasn’t on a shoot, and was playing around in my garden, knowing full well the light wasn’t right, but it was a chance just to test out the process. It worked as Scott said it would, and I feel more confident about working with HDR as a result.

I even got out my SB800 flash unit and re-read the user manual. Boy… that’s not much fun in there! However, I found ways to get it working that I hadn’t tried before, and whilst I am far from confident with flash units, I found I enjoyed trying things out. It was a bright sunny day, and I had a perfect chance to take dozens of images to test out things like fill in light, remote triggering and manual control of the unit.

So, thanks again Scott – volumes one and two are perfectly complemented by volume 3. What I need now is a trip to the US to sit in on a seminar, or for you to visit the UK and run some sessions over here!

So up steps the Sony HVR-Z5. Almost identical, but with better optics, more considered ergonomics and additional settings in almost every feature it is a direct replacement and all of the Z1 accessories will still fit. This looked like the right piece of kit, but who to buy from? With almost every site in a google search for camcorders returning some price comparison or review site it is easy to find these things reasonably cheap (OK – £2,500 isn’t cheap, exactly). The thing is, they are mostly offered for sale with the standard one year warranty, and I had hoped for slightly more.

As usual, for all things video we call a select list of suppliers. Today we were delighted with the service from Jeremy at provisiondirect.co.uk. This company has an enviable reputation for great value and excellent product range. We have recommended them to clients looking to purchase kit, and indeed we have made one or two modest purchases there ourselves. Today was the day for buying again!

Jeremy is one of the most knowledgeable and friendly folk when it comes to pro and prosumer video gear. He is often very busy, but when you do get him, he finds the most brilliant pieces of kit for you, and tells you exactly ‘how it is’ with everything. After talking to Jeremy today I was satisfied that they still provide one of the best routes to buying kit, and the value he gives is second to none. So it was that we bought a Z5 with 2 year warranty at probably the most competitive price available. Not content with that Jeremy also added a few extras for us, which was brilliant… unexpected and not asked for. That’s the kind of person you are dealing with – full of information and very willing to help.

It is with great pleasure that I recommend to anyone looking to purchase a decent video camera, lighting, accessories, sound equipment, anything related to video, really provisiondirect.co.uk.

All the more fun then when I found an entire road almost abandoned and had the presence of mind to stand and admire the scenery with my trusty Panasonic Lumix camera. In truth, this sign is but yards from my front door – well, I couldn’t go out very far… it was snowing, y’know.

A quick snap later, and I thought I’d send it off to the BBC picture galleries. I was pleasantly surprised to learn shortly after that the picture was to be used as a main leader on the BBC Essex news website. It clearly made others chuckle as well as me, then.

January 2010 was chilly - welcome to Essex

And as it appeared on the BBC Essex News website:

Welcome to Essex, as seen online

It turns out that when you connect your iPhone to your Mac and iTunes starts, it runs a backup and places some files in your ‘~Library/Applications Support/MobileSync/Backup folder. The problem is that they are SQLLite files and not easily readable in any simple way. This is where I turn to the Apple community, particularly the discussions, and ask for help. Here is the post I made.

I was so pleased with the response – almost immediate and ultimately one of the most helpful. It appears there is a Python script able to open those files and restore the folder structure from the innards of your phone. The thread answers the questions most folk will have, but I thought I’d post here too.

What you need to do is copy the backup folder and all it’s contents to an easily accessible place – I chose a new folder on my desktop. Copy the Python script into the same folder. You then need to change the permissions on that script to ensure that it is executable. You should do this through the terminal, which means you’ll probably need to use ‘sudo’ and ‘chown’ to set the values correctly. Once you have done this you can run the script. You do this by typing ‘sudo’, then the complete path to the script, a forward slash, then the complete path to the folder (you can simply drag the items into the terminal window to do this and the paths will be filled in automatically for you). Finish with a forward slash and then ‘*.mdbackup’.

What this will do is reconstruct the entire iPhone folder structure inside the place you have got the python script and backup folder. Once done you can then set the permissions for the resulting foder and copy to all items inside… you can then access and manipulate the files.

This was, in fact, ludicrously easy – I had help from Alex Blanc who is something of a star with this stuff, but if you know a few basic commands in the terminal you should be OK.

I’ve also uploaded the Python script for you all to download from here in case it goes offline elsewhere. The original is HERE. The one I used (and changed ownership on) is HERE.

This is the stuff of dodgy deals… meet up outside a well known PC shop and hand over cash for a boxed Nikkor lens? One of several available? Well, for £70 it was worth a punt!

The lens itself is very small and light, the aperture ring needs locking at f22 and there is no ‘VR’ or other similar refinements. It looks very much like an old style SLR lens, which I suppose it is. The thing is that this lens takes astonishingly clear images on my D200. So clear, in fact, that I am already wondering why I want to take this off.

When I get a chance I’ll post some pics online, but suffice to say for low light situations you are going to have to go a very long way to better this optic, and whilst there is a more pricey f1.4 available, I’d steer clear – go for the cheaper f1.8. In my opinion it is better (sharper) and with a £200 saving, who could want more?

That said, I did find myself shooting a wedding recently which required me to use a wider lens, so I reverted to my Sigma 17-55 f2.8 which is also a pretty good piece of glass. However, if I had been using two bodies (which would be a Very Good Idea at such events) then I am certain one would be with the 50mm prime all the time.

There are three main windows for the Mac version of the software instead of a single interface. The Viewer displays the image last taken and gives you a file browser window, with some additional controls. It would be useful to be able to pick the size displayed more precisely than relying on full image in the window, 50% size and 100% size. For the want of a little more code, we should be able to pick any size needed.

The main window with the camera controls and settings is very useful indeed, and is where you can take an image without touching the camera – ‘AF and Shoot’ could be excellent for self-portraits, for example, or for situations where you just don’t want to touch the camera at all. The third window is the current status, either waiting for an image or downloading one. Twirl open the small triangle there and you get to see your histogram. Again, I’d have thought this would be more prominently placed and not buried in quite the way it is.

The menu bar has the usual entries, but the ‘Camera’ view is really quite good – giving access to a lot of tools there. The Settings is less full, but does allow you to set the option to see the image in the viewer when captured. Other menus allow rotation of images, save and recall of settings and so on.

Once you have set this software up with the right settings for you, it really is a simple but incredibly powerful tool to have. It is the initial setting up which I have some small issues with. For example, you have to go into the tools menu and select the option to display the captured image in the viewer – I think this really should be ‘on’ by default, after all, it is what I would think most people would use the system for and the ability to preview your images live on a screen somewhat larger than the back of your camera is essential. Why it isn’t set to ‘on’ I don’t know, and this is what I meant in my earlier review when I referred to the software as ‘counter-intuitive’. However, this is really a small gripe and something easily overcome, but it indicates that there is an opportunity for Nikon to further develop this software.

Another slight gripe has nothing to do with the software, as such. Taking a 15Mb RAW file and sending it to the computer for it to appear takes around 15 seconds. Obviously JPEG images arrive far faster, but 1Mb per second seems slow. It may be my connection, of course, but I suspect it is a combination of file size, download speed and software that is at play. If you really can’t wait 15 seconds between shots, you can rack up a load of images (try shooting in continuous mode) and let them arrive when good and ready. Curiously, when I did 15 shots in this way, the speed improved slightly, taking around 11 seconds to appear on screen, with all images arriving in marginally under 3 minutes.Overall, this software does seem to be a worthy tool to have. I am still not convinced that it should be priced quite as high as it is and with the new version of Aperture supporting tethered shooting as well it may be that this software has a increasingly diminishing life span. Having said that, I think there are folk who would rather pay £70 for this than £200 for Aperture, and unless Aperture can match the ability to change camera settings, restore previous settings and do all of the other things that CCP can do, then on balance I think this will stay useful for lots of people for some time to come.

One of these is the colour scheme in the ‘Special Occasions’ Aperture Theme. By default, you get a pale blue colour for any panel not holding an image. It looks quite smart, and the ‘helvetica Neue Ultra Light font is smart too… but I often find I want to change it. The trouble is, Aperture doesn’t let you do so easily.

Of course, if you fancy digging around in the files for the app then almost anything is possible! It’s not exactly easy, and you should always make a copy of the theme and work on that rather than jigger around with a perfectly good one and break it, but all you need is an eye for colour (and design?) and a decent text editor. I use BBEdit, but you can do equally well with the free Text Edit that comes with your Mac.

First things first – what I am about to do is not recommended, and I take no responsibility for how your system runs after you try it Seriously though, work on a back up copy of the theme, and you can always delete it later. Also, it is likely that even if you do change things now, any update to the software could well over write your hard work… this tutorial works with v1.5 of Aperture. Apple have only this week released v2 as an update and it boasts new book themes and capabilities. It seems like a good time for me to play with the current version I have got installed, then!
You find the book themes by control-clicking on the aperture application icon (in your Applications folder) and selecting ‘Show Package Contents’ . Navigate to ‘Contents/Resources’ and scroll down to the folder ‘Book Themes’. It’s probably quicker to type ‘book’ as you won’t then have to scroll – the finder will jump to the items with those letters at the start. You’ll then see the themes nicely lined up. Select the one you want to alter and make a copy of it (by holding down ‘Alt’ and dragging the folder to the bottom of the list). You can see that I have copied my ‘Special Occasions’ theme and renamed it ‘Alternate Occasions’. A word of caution – simply renaming the folder won’t give you a new theme name inside Aperture. It *will* list it alphabetically in the theme browser, but the theme list will show two copies of ‘Special Occasion’. We’ll get round to renaming things a bit later on.

Now you have the copy, open the folder and have a look. In my case, the first folder is called ‘Hardcover’ and everything else is in that. The things you may want to change are likely to be the fonts you can use and the colour of the bocks. For the fonts, look for the ‘TextStyles.plist’ file and open it in your text editor. What you’ll see is a series of XML statements which define the fonts in use, the size of them and the colour/style.

Changing Font Colours

I would leave the ‘Title’ key values alone. these are referenced in lots of other places and changing them here means an awful lot of editing elsewhere. You can also easily change the font in Aperture without needing to edit things here, but these keys control the default settings for the book, so you might want to tinker a little. Changing the default font is simply a matter of changing the key by typing in the name of the font you want to use. I have changed from ‘Helvetica Neue Ultra Light’ to ‘Garamond’.

You can also change the font colour in the last line of the set. These are actually RGB values with a fourth value set to ’100′. RGB values are from 0 to 255 in each channel, with 0 being no colour, and 255 being maximum colour for each channel. Thus, a value of ’255, 255, 255, 100′ would give you white text. Similarly, ’0, 0, 0, 100′ gives you black text. If you have access to Photoshop or any other decent image editor, you probably already have a good idea how these things go. Again, you can easily change the colours of the fonts in Aperture without editing this file, but if you want to set up a new default, set the line as you need it to be.

In some areas kerning may be set, too. If you don’t know about kerning, leave this set as you find it!

Changing the colour blocks

If changing the fonts is not enough for you, how about finding the colour blocks and changing those? Open the ‘Graphics’ folder and look at the files there. The one I am interested in is ‘BlueRect.plist’. open this in the text editor and you will see a very much more simple set of code. All you need to do is change the value for colour, using the same system as above. For example, if you want a pale lilac block colour, set the values to be ’235, 222, 241, 100′. Again, if you use Photoshop you can find these values very easily – use the colour picker tool and open up the colour setting dialogue. Move the target around in the colours and watch the RGB values change. When you have the colour you want, note the values and set them in the text file… easy!

Changing the Theme Name

So far we have been tinkering with the fonts and colours. You have already renamed the theme folder copy and when you make your book in aperture you get the new theme in the list of available books, but the name has stayed the same (despite renaming the folder). You can rename the theme so that it appears as you want in Aperture by simply opening the ‘Localizable.strings’ file found in the relevant ‘.lproj’ folder for your language. In my case, I open the ‘English.lproj’ folder where there is just one file. Open it in your text editor and look at the top of the file for the ‘Theme Name’ setting. Change it as you want and you are ready to go. You don’t need to change anything else in this file for the new theme to work.

Updating the Preview Image

Finally, to make your new theme easy to spot and have a nice icon from within Aperture, open up the ‘Preview.tiff’ file in your favourite image editor and make it look like your theme – change the colours, fonts or whatever. Even change the images to help identify it a little more. Save it back to its original location and you are done.

Restart Aperture

In order for your changes to show you need to re-start aperture. When it is running, try adding a new book and look at the list of options you now have. If all has gone according to plan, you should have your new theme showing in the list, ready to use.

If you combine your new theme colours with the existing ability in aperture to create new master pages then you have the opportunity to create some radical new layouts and over time I hope many people do.

Want to share themes?

Now you know how to edit your Aperture themes, why not provide a few for others to use? If ever there was an application crying out for additional content, this would be it, in my opinion! To get a new theme running, simply unzip it, put it in the ‘Book Themes’ folder and start Aperture. To get things going, have a copy of my ‘Alternate Occasions’ theme. It hasn’t changed much, just a font and colour change, but there is plenty more that could be done to make it more attractive. Over time, as new things change, I’ll update the file here.

AlternateThemeLilac

OK, first, it almost works well and certainly I was able to shoot images and see them on my laptop screen, writing direct to hard drive. I could control the camera settings from the laptop and generally not have to touch the camera at all – good if you want to keep things still, certainly.

However, I have some gripes. Chief amongst them is that this software costs money, and it really isn’t all that good as an application on a Mac. In fact, it probably works better on a PC, since the layout of it was pretty counter intuitive. For example, when you use mac software you generally get a very logical experience. So when you take a photo and send it to your computer you’d expect it to appear on screen right away (or as soon as it ‘lands’), right? Well, no… you have to set a preference so that the image can be viewed. This just isn’t right, in my opinion.

Then you get the issue with speed. Resizing the window takes an age, whether you are viewing a RAW file of 15Mb or a JPEG of around 4Mb. There are only two size options pre-set – 100% (way too big for a laptop screen) and 50% – usable, but not great. At 100% you get scroll bars, which do not move. Where is the ability to set the scale exactly as you want it? Or do we rely on the infinitely slow resize the window and click the button that fits to the size you create?

Moving back and forth between images… ? Be prepared for a wait. A long, long wait.

It was excruciatingly slow and I thought there must be an update. There was – I had downloaded and installed version 1.3, and there was a version 2 ‘Pro’ application as a trial, too. The change og didn’t look impressive – basically added some functions for the D300 and D3 cameras. Fair enough, but I wanted to try it all the same. I downloaded it and ran the installer, which kindly informed me that it had to remove the earlier version before it could continue.

And that’s where it all stopped.

Version 2 wouldn’t even install on my system (OSX 10.5 ‘Leopard’) and just sat there eating resources as it did very little of any use. OK – it could be that it isn’t keen on the current flavour of OSX, and to be fair there is a suggestion on Nikon’s web site that hints this might be the case, but again – if it doesn’t work on Leopard, don’t let it start the installer (there’s plenty of apps that check the system before they install)!

So I am left with a great urge to shoot ‘tethered’ and no ability to do so. And the price for this is around $70, so I shan’t be parting with that money just yet, then.

This software really ought to be free. I can’t imagine anyone using this and thinking it was a good experience, and yet the potential for it is simply massive. As a free download I might live with it (and wouldn’t use it much). As a paid download I would feel absolutely cheated. Its a good job there is a trial period!

So come on Nikon – get your act together on this one. Give us the right functionality, get it working in an intuitive way, and get ALL of the features running at the right speed, please! I’d be happy to help you do this if you need someone to act as part of a focus group of testers – but until then I won’t be giving you any more money (well, for software at least).

Since I consider myself a learner still (and probably aways), particularly when it comes to photography, I really find this kind of book extremely useful. Yes, there are bits that are probably common sense and need not be said, but then again there will be folk will appreciate the information nonetheless. After all, having your common sense ‘confirmed’by an authority such as Scott can only be a good thing!

One immediate action as a result of reading the book was to buy a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens. I love it… so fast compared to even my f2.8 Sigma and the results are tack sharp. Thanks Scott! It didn’t cost a fortune, and I am sure it will be a firm favourite of mine very soon (probably by Friday afternoon, since it will be used for a wedding shoot then).

Reading Scott’s book also prompted me to  go through all of my kit and check out some of the features I know I don’t use so often. One such is the ability to use my SB800 flash gun ‘off camera’ using the wireless connection from my Nikon D200. I love the depth you can get when you move the light around to a different angle instead of blasting right off the top of the camera. Another tip was to shoot ‘tethered’ – i.e. using a USB lead from my camera straight in to my Mac. This needs a piece of software from Nikon (30 day trial) and you’re away. I liked the ability to see the image right on my laptop screen instead of in the viewer window on the back of the camera, but the software leaves a lot to be desired… more on that in another post, I think.

All in all, the two books I now own from Scott are proving to be a goldmine of useful information and I can thoroughly recommend them. The information in the second one about the use of flash is brilliant (no pun intended), and just what I needed to give me the confidence to go off and try stuff out. Buy the book – you won’t be disappointed.

I am now wondering about the 18-200 lens I have written about previously… this new one knocks spots off it at equivalent zoom range, so I might well be looking to replace the older one. Maybe I ought to try the Nikkor 18-200 VR lens… anyone managed to get hold of one for less than £500, and if so, what do you think of it?