CAMERA CRAFT

Studio Workshops  –  Live and Interactive via ZOOM
•  2023 Dates TBC

This workshop can also be time-shifted for anyone unable to attend on the days it is presented, or time zone is too offset to comfortably attend in real time.

This advanced workshop presents a comprehensive overview of contemporary digital camera craft. It is about refining and perfecting our work with Medium Format, Mirrorless, DSLR, and Technical digital camera systems, including focusing precision, camera, sensor and lens profiling, pre-visualisation, and innovative techniques. The aim is to significantly increase our camera craft expertise while resolving technical errors and uninformed misconceptions, thereby ensuring the finest quality digital captures. Specific topics that have been covered in this workshop include:

The Camera
•  Medium versus small format camera systems
•  Stability and movement – tripods, gimbals, geared heads, gyro stabilisers
•  Camera flare, lens flare and lens hoods
•  Tethered capture, live view, and smart phone monitoring
•  Cleaning sensors and lenses, weather and dust protection
•  Camera craft philosophy and aesthetics

Measuring, Seeing and Interpreting Light
•  Spot metering versus incident metering
•  Calibrating light meters: hand-held and in-camera
•  Determining your camera’s effective dynamic range
•  Working with filters: ND, Graduated, Polarized
•  The Zone System – calibration and creative applications
•  Lighting phenomena, composition and affect

The Lens
•  Auto focus calibrations and manual focus refinements
•  Generating MTF curves: measuring and evaluating lens-sensor resolution
•  Custom lens profiles: colorimetric, geometric, and focus shift
•  Depth of Field, Tilt and Hinge distance, and Hyperfocal distance skills
•  The creative and practical advantages of tilt, shift and swing
•  Bokeh and the aesthetic properties of lenses

Specialisations
•  DNG camera profiling
•  ICC camera profiling
•  Exposure Stacking – controlling the camera’s dynamic range
•  Focus Stacking – controlling the camera’s depth of field
•  Panoramic solutions: stitching slides, nodal points, and panoramic heads
•  The Art History of pictorial design through a lens

Attendees work with their own cameras, tripods and other accessories during the workshop. Medium and small formats are catered for, including Mirrorless and DSLR cameras, scanning and multi-shot camera backs, technical cameras, aerial and other specialist camera systems. The workshop is based on practical experiments and in-depth investigations including the creation of custom camera profiles, auto-focus lens calibrations, shift lens depth of field calculation/application, and creative focus stacking. The course will also inform the selection, evaluation, and acquisition of new equipment, while video conferencing and remote desktop software enable detailed investigations of each participant’s camera based workflow. Test forms and calibration files will be distributed well ahead of the workshop along with the necessary pre-production required for our collective experiments to progress smoothly on the day. In particular video conferencing uniquely enables each attendee to simultaneously share their testing and findings in their own working environment.

The workshop is also supported by a resource rich website including detailed course notes, videos, and test forms.

Updated 26 November 2022