Some photo tools work well for today and others simply stand the test of time.   For me one of those tools has been the LumiQuest Softbox II.  It’s been used and abused for over 15 years following me from my time as a journalist-in-training at WSU to today at the Yakima Herald-Republic.

And yesterday it was a faithful companion shooting exuberant Harry Potter fans outside Yakima’s Majestic Theatre.  (See gallery here) — Watch video at bottom of post…

Mariah Wildgen, 17, dressed as Harry Potter for the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter film at the Majestic Theatre in Yakima, Wash., on July 14, 2011.

No matter how much I love natural light, I oftentimes find myself wanting to dabble in strobe work.  Not often enough I admit, so I try to break out lights every now and then.

So before the Potter assignment, I broke out an old friend, my LumiQuest and Velcro’d up the head of one of my work Canon 580 EX strobes and tested it out.

My well used and abused LumiQuest Softbox II

My initial though of shooting the Potter assignment was to shoot them on a black background.  So I tested using a single strobe with the LumiQuest attached in the darkened basement of my home.

The best part, I had exuberant kids on hand to help me test.

My son Declan running around in our basement

NOTE: This is how I have almost always used the small softbox: While having the strobe on manual and on a cable or chord.  The softbox is not a ring light and can be a bit too much as a camera mounted strobe with close in subjects.

Now I know there are some LumiQuest haters out there, but I have found the medium soft light and shallow falloff a comfortable friend compared to bouncing or using a complex lighting setup.

The photo of Declan above is a good for instance.  He was running around me in circles.  There was no way I could have predicted where he would be to eliminate the background and just cast him in soft light without direct control.  I just pivoted around following him by holding the chord-mounted strobe relatively in the same place above him to get several shots to choose from.

My younger son, Liam, trying to grab the camera.

This next shot of Liam was just as challenging.  He was basically attacking me on the floor. It was really close-in.

To get precise light control, like in this situation, I prefer to put the strobe in my hand.

As for the Harry Potter portrait above and the ones in the gallery?  I used the LumiQuest to soften the bounce off a nearby wall. I did that because I didn’t have a black background at work to duplicate the tests I did with my boys.  Even with the change of plans, it helped me do my job yesterday and I expect it to help me out for years to come.

There are a few more images in the video I shot for this story.

However, I do expect equipment failures from time-to-time when working with multiple devices and situations.  Over the years, no matter how well I’ve planned for a remote camera’s success, something unexpected usually occurs.  So I plan for contingencies.  Sort of a backup camera for the backup plan.

In the case of the historic B-25 bomber “Maid in the Shade” that was visiting Yakima this week.  I planned for four video cameras: three inside of the noisy, hot and full of bad vibrations (for cameras) bomber fuselage and one in my hands on the ground.

HV20 in the B-25 after it failed to recognize the tape.

I selected three different cameras to go inside the plane because a variety of known issues that could disable either at any time during the takeoff, flight or landing.  I also chose cameras based on their size — the smallest possible.  (A common misconception exists about bombers like the B-25. If it’s a huge aircraft outside, it would be equally spacious inside.  It’s actually very tiny.  Two coach seats in a 737 is bigger than most areas of the B-25.)

Of the three cameras I mounted inside the B-25, two functioned well and one failed because of an unplanned variable — heat.

Cameras: I used 1 Canon HV20 (HDV tape based video camera with wide angle lens), 1 PowerShot 4000 IS point and shoot camera that shoots 1280 HD video (uses a solid state memory card), and 1 iPhone 3GS (it is a solid state hard drive that can shoot standard definition video for about two hours, depending on the battery.)  I used these three because they were available and I thought they could overcome known issues below.

Known issues:

#1 Vibrations:  Excess vibrations can disable video recorders that are tape and hard drive based cameras.  Vibrations can also disable a camera that is attempting to use it’s built-in image stabilization and it cuts out intermittently.  This B-25 was smooth in comparison with other WWII aircraft because it was recently restored, but it does shakes aggressively.  So much so that the crew explained how a bomb instrument mount needed to be re-welded a couple of times in the past year because of the in cabin shake.
Result: the two solid state cameras, (iPhone and the PowerShot) handled the aircraft vibration admirably.

#2 People: People are curious and if a camera is mounted in arms reach, good chance it’s going to get fiddled with or worse.  This B-25 was packed with pilots, crew and donor ridealongs.  With passengers getting up and around during the flight to look out through windows, there was a good chance the cameras would be compromised.
Result: I worked with the crew and talked with folks in the cabin before takeoff to enlist as camera monitors to ensure they did not get touched and/or if they came off because of excessive vibrations.

#3 Mount points with a view: You would assume there are plenty of great vantage points in a bomber to see part of the plane, crew, and the outside in one shot.  Well that depends on #1 and 2.  If your camera has a great vantage point, but is in the way or may come off in flight, then it’s not a good candidate.
Result: With the mounts I had on me, I was able to mount three cameras that I felt would get the shot and not hit the flight deck.

The iPhone 3GS and Powershot SD 1400 IS that survived the flight.

So everything should have worked well because I had the primary issues taken care of before the flight.  The one thing I did not take into account, that ended up killing the HV20 was HEAT.  It was over 100 degrees on the airport tarmac and inside of the aluminum skinned airframe it was sweltering.  Of the three cameras, the solid state memory cameras handled the temperatures very well.  The tape camera… well… the tape got a bit elastic and wouldn’t spool to record.  It gave me a blinky red warning saying the tape was toast.

I learned a lot about the tools that the YH-R has and what I can expect from them in this quick turnaround video.   I have embedded the final video that includes video from the ground based Canon 7D, the iPhone 3gs in the rear gunner position and the PowerShot 1400 IS.  The HV20 video never even took off after getting baked.

-TJ Mullinax

One of my latest Instagram photo posts as it is seen on instagram.com.

Instagram.  OK I admit it.  This little iPhone/iPod Touch app has been my guilty pleasure the past couple months.

For anyone that enjoys taking photos with their phones and tweaking them before sharing them with friends and family, Instagram has recently climbed to the top slot on my phone.

Sure I use other apps for working with my iPhone photos.  A lot of apps.  But this easy to use, easy to manipulate, easy to share app has been the consistent last stop before I push any photo to friends on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or to my own family and professional blogs.

My quick take on what it does: You take a photo either with the app or in another camera app, chose from a short list of camera effects, click ‘share’, fill out the what and where (for the map component), and where you want to send it (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) then send it.

I also love the camera effects that mirror wet photo processing techniques along with a plastic camera look. It’s not a perfect app by any means, but the ease of use, the simple social networking aspects and the ‘fun’ factor make this a top app for me.

Here’s the link to the app.  It’s cheap (free) to pick up at and once you plug in your social networking groups (like Facebook) then you can start quickly sending out photos to friends and family.

iTunes Instagram link

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252?mt=8

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Last note: Instagram has become sorta popular with other people out there too.  Insofar that some side businesses have sprung up for instagram-ers.

iTunes Postagram link

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/postagram/id429264904?mt=8

This is a recent favorite of mine that I have used to send postcards to my wife (Kim) and friends around the US.  I will post later on a project that I am currently using this service to build a gift for Kim.

Let me know if there are any other photo apps that you are fans of!

-TJ Mullinax

Simply put; what people hear in your video can deeply impact the viewer, so it must not be disregarded.  To this day I remember my reaction after watching some spot news raw video of the Atlas aluminum foundry explosion in Tacoma a few years back.

The scene went like this — 1 OK someone is shooting video down a long street at a column of smoke.  2 Hmm, fire and debris shoot up into the sky. 3 I jump back in my seat as the sudden sound of explosion at 12+ db on the computer speakers hits me in the chest unexpectedly.  I watch intently as the cameraman quakes and exclaims ‘whoa!’ 4 photographer darts next to a neighboring building and video ends.

Why it sticks out is that for me, in that moment, I was physically (or emotionally) captivated by the sounds within a video.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that shocking, unexpected or frightful moments make for the best video.  Certainly not. My point is that audio can add another dimension that helps the viewer identify, be captivated by, or draws a person into your story.  It takes effort to pay attention to the audio when working hard to capture video and still moments.

And that’s where this helps me out on assignments when I cannot risk missing an audio moment.

Rode powered shotgun mic with an Olympus digital voice recorder strapped to it's back, atop a Joby mini tripod.

What is this?  Well it’s an audio recorder on steroids.  Normally the audio recorder does a great job for simple interviews or meetings.  Simply press record and let it run, and run, and run, and run… you get the point.  It’s easy, can record for a very long time without fear of it running out of space or battery power.

I usually don’t go crazy with the audio recorder unless of special circumstances.  Yesterday was one of those special gear up days for me when covering the community of White Swan as they buried a young Marine who was killed in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device.

When covering funerals and other sacred events, you only get one shot yet you usually need to be far back from where things happen.  If you are too far back, you won’t get decent audio.

So I put together a quick mic stand from an available Joby mini tripod.  Put the Rode powered shotgun mic on top, then strapped the audio recorder to it’s back.  Before the ceremony I put it about 15 feet away from the podium, discreetly hidden in some grass and behind a tombstone.  I pointed it in the direction of the podium, rifle team and the trumpet player for taps to capture the primary military sounds.  I hit record and walked away, only checking on it periodically.

To it’s credit, I used it for nearly the entire sound track of the Marine’s funeral because my camera audio was going in and out depending on where I was pointing the camera and whether I had it recording or not.

It also avoided the occasional “clackety-clack” sounds of still photographers, Ted Warren from the AP and YH-R’s Andy Sawyer, who were near me and my video camera.  (In the video below, you may hear some audio variances, because at one point someone near the audio recorder started making noise so I had to switch to my on camera microphone)

When I reviewed my audio recorder track, then the video clips, I wasn’t surprised that many audio moments in the raw video were not as clear, truncated or simply missed because I was focusing more on the visual elements.

I was able to tell a more complete account of the funeral because I prepared a second audio recording device.

Thank you weird looking little audio recorder.

A still frame from video shot of Declan with the Canon Powershot during our trip to the Portland Children's Museum on April, 15.

Gordon’s had a lot more experience than me in knowing the value of getting a break for the viewfinder. I too want to just leave the camera, and in my case, the Internet aside to recharge.  However, lately — well the past four-plus years, when I take a break, it’s to be with my little kids.

When the family goes on trips, there’s a lot of experiences that I want recorded because of the three little memory makers.  So it’s a bit hard to just banish the cameras to the locker and end up regretting not capturing something like Ciara’s first steps, or Liam napping out on a train.

So I restrict vacations to portable, multifunctional tools.  An iPhone and a Canon Powershot SD960 IS.

The family Powershot camera that shoots 1280x720 HD video fits neatly in carpenter pants pockets. Tougher than it looks and perfect for trips. It replaced the video camera in the house. Oh, and it shoots 12mp photos too. (Shot with his iPhone 3GS)

I use the iPhone for moments that we want to share immediately with family and the Powershot to capture video and stills for archive and prints.  Yes. I use it for video.

Both cameras fit in my pants pockets without being noticeably bulky and if the Powershot is damaged, it’s not expensive to replace.

These tools give me enough versatility (such as some manual camera control in the Powershot) as well as portability that I can freely enjoy my family trip without worry of missing a moment.  The two devices are more than enough to capture whatever I want, yet remain out of sight, out of mind, when enjoying my vacation.

-TJ Mullinax

Today’s front page photo was tough on me and my camera, all in the pursuit of taking the viewer to a place they have never been (and probably never should be.)

Jesus Benitez of Canam Steel Corp. in Sunnyside cleans up the welds on a steel cylinder at the structural steel division at the facility Monday, April 4, 2011. The company currently employs 154 workers and constructs structural components used in heavy-load applications such as schools and stadiums.

I would strongly recommend against anyone bathing themselves in molten shards of steel.  It’s hot and doesn’t do much for the skin, or most camera lenses either.

Thankfully I came prepared with an already scuffed UV filter to protect the lens and a good amount of heavy welding leather coverings for myself.

The UV filter did it’s job, allowing the hot metal to strike and melt into the glass, elevating what could have been a safe manufacturing photo to one that glowed – quite literally.

The camera, made of magnesium, came away untouched, but the filter is toast.  I hope readers took a second look at that photo because of it’s unusual perspective and action.  If so, the filter wasn’t sacrificed in vain.

Melted metal in my well-worn Tiffen filter

- TJ Mullinax

And, curiously enough, the amount of time the lens takes to clear on its own is related to the need for the camera. That is, the sooner you need the camera the longer it will take for the fog to clear.

There are several tricks to dealing with lens fog. One easy solution that works for me here in Yakima is found in the men’s locker room of the two indoor pools.

A forced-air dryer clears a fogged-up lens. In this case, it's the wall-mounted dryer in the men's locker room at the Yakima Family YMCA. (reenactment by GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

If there is a hair/hand dryer in a locker room simply warm up the lens and camera with the dryer. The fog will be gone in no time.

–Gordon King

Personally I love difficult shots that put the photographer at risk of being in the photo themselves.  Reflective surfaces like mirrors, water, oil, even a subject’s eye can show a photographer or their equipment somewhere in the background.  Another type is when the photographer is remote triggering, or using a timer on a camera and the photographer is somewhere in the field of view (or hiding).  It’s kind of an Easter egg hunt when I run across photos or video that must have a camera somewhere in the shot.

Even though I like the hunt, I don’t ever want to find myself in shots.  Which brings me to yesterday — where I had two assignments that forced me to pay more attention to keeping myself out of the frame.  (Note to readers: the photos below are outtakes from yesterday’s assignments.)

The first assignment was high up in the roof of the Yakima Valley SunDome on a lift.  There wasn’t much room to move around and the workers were facing away from me. The only way I could show their faces working was by extending my tripod with the camera attached and directing the camera back at the workers and undoubtedly myself. It’s a bit of a precarious situation high in the air but the result of putting in the extra effort pays off in the product.

There I am -- in the shot. And my camera was getting pretty heavy after a few shots... (also, I don't seem to be afraid of heights)

After a few timed shots I got what I was looking for and thankfully I only appeared in a few of the frames.  Hopefully when people see the final printed work on this assignment they wonder ‘how did they get that shot.’

The second was covering a dance studio in Yakima. In my experience dance studios have mirrors.  Floor to ceiling mirrors.  Whenever I used my wide angle lens I kept an eye out for me to pop into frame and chose angles that would keep me out of the frame.  Another method I employed was using a subject’s body or object to hide behind when facing a mirror.

I found myself in this one frame so I did pretty well with all the mirrors. The reason I got in there? I had a nice moment occur in front of me and I just threw the camera up to hopefully catch it.

- TJ Mullinax

For anyone who’s made the switch from shooting highlights with a video camera to shooting it with a DSLR probably can understand a few challenges that must be overcome so your end product is well produced.

Now, I don’t want to write ad nauseam about every challenge I faced this past week at the state basketball tournament.  However, there are a few tools that helped me obtain good results while allowing for maximum mobility around the stadium.

Tools that I found helpful:

- Gorrillapod with ball head (that has a quick release camera mount)

- A light small Manfrotto tripod with snap lever legs and a quick release camera mount

- A 70-200mm lens with IS and a camera mount (must have IS in this application)

- Shotgun microphone (it’s nice but for sports with crowd noise, probably not absolutely necessary)

DSLR Video Setup

So what is shown above that makes life a lot easier is having the camera balanced on the tripod and having the gorrillapod attached to the camera body for clean panning.

I want to explain the gorrillapod a bit.

When I am shooing, I don’t want to pick a spot and ignore all the other storytelling moments that can only be improved by being close to the action.  I want to be able to shoot long and tight — right now.  To do that I cut out equipment that’s redundant.

I could have used a tripod with a large panning arm built into the head right?  Yes, I could have.  But I have found that it’s just another thing that always seems to catch on things when moving from shooting point to shooting point AND I need that gorrillapod on the camera anyway when I remove the camera to handhold closer shots.

The gorrillapod helps for handheld positions similar to a steadycam rig, allowing me to bend it into a shoulder brace, arm support, chest brace, or two handed steadycam.  Not to mention prone positions as a tripod. (like on a pole, chair, table, etc.)

The 7D on the GorrillaPod with ball head sitting prone in the 'not safe for humans zone' during a Huey retirement.

Ultimately, I could have used the tripod with an arm, but why?  It does a great job as a multitasker, and I love multitaskers.

This setup allows me to keep one hand on panning the camera and the other hand on the lens to zoom (see image below).

For baskeball, the 70-200 has a decent range that from the right height in a stadium can cover the key well at 70mm and get good reaction shots from players on the bench at 200mm.  There are less expensive lens options but having IS and at least 200mm zoom is essential.

Having a good head on the tripod will significantly improve your panning from side to side and up-down.  My tripod head isn’t the best and sticks a bit, but it works.  When you buy the tripod setup, make sure the head is good for lateral panning.  Some heads stick, some are too tight, and some ball heads are simply too loosie-goosie that the video looks like it was shoot from a boat.

Sports action needs quick, accurate and steady responses to look good.  Choosing a few spots to shoot from, planning out when you are going to move from place to place and watching to clock to give yourself time is essential to getting the best angle on the story.  Choosing light, versatile equipment before you get to the stadium just makes the all that other stuff easier.

- TJ Mullinax

Note: this post is about making steady shots, I’ll write a post about camera settings and video results later this week.

courtesy Andy Bronson

With so many companies that provide methods of sharing your thoughts, your photos and videos, even your location on a moment’s notice, it becomes challenging to consolidate the great stuff you can produce.

In my personal and professional life, I am connected with so many services like facebook, flickr, twitter and the like, that I found myself setting out to integrate them into a single place.

Regardless of how great a particular social networking service is, ultimately, it’s just one place, one piece of me.  I simply wanted a single place online for my family and peers to visit.

Which brought me back to blogs.

Blogging has been around the block.  What spawned from online bulletin boards and usenets as personal online journals, has become a tool capable of integrating and publishing nearly every form of digital media.

And you don’t need to be in front of the old green screen anymore to publish to your blog; a mobile phone is becoming my preferred method.  (This post was edited from my phone)

After spending too many hours trying out different ‘blogging engines’ and services over the years, I found that the great folks at Automattic, I’ve found WordPress to be the easiest, most multidimensional blog software out there.  You can do just about anything you want to do with it because of the thriving community of people developing and enriching it’s capabilities.

I’m not saying it’s perfect though.  It has flaws at times, and there are many other services out there that help people communicate.  I’ve just found fewer restrictions with wordpress than any other is all.

So you want to build a wordpress blog — where do you start?

The ten-step method

In the past, I have written walkthroughs about setting up wordpress on your own domain and also about their free service at wordpress.com, but in the past couple years the wordpress team has created a lot of incredibly simple how-to videos on getting setup.  Now, I love reading technical documentation.  I strongly encourage anyone who wants to learn more about wordpress to read their ten-step setup docs. But for this post, I think their short videos will help you start producing content that matters to you — now.

I went through nearly all their official how-to videos for this post and broke them down to what I think will get you set up quickly.

OK, time to get your blog on.

I recommend that you watch the videos below in chronological order in one browser window and use a second browser window at wordpress.com to follow along creating, setting up and customizing your new web site.

These videos focus on setting up a free wordpress.com account, doing basic settings customization and integrating your twitter, facebook and flickr accounts into your site. I also included a few that touches on mobile publishing and more advanced theme support.  So onto the best videos for wordpress users.  (If you are on a slow internet connection, the videos may take a while to load.)

If you make it through this list below, you will be on your way to creating a one-stop place online for your inter-life. Good luck!

- TJ Mullinax

Part 1 — The Setup

Sign up for wordpress.com account.

Once you’ve signed up, now what? Customize it.

• Getting your theme up

• Change your theme header

• Set your image sizes

• Protecting your site from comment spam

• Set your comment settings

• Who the heck are you? Let people know! (two videos)

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Part 2 — Getting your content out!

This is the fun stuff.  Learn how to publish content and integrate your social networking services.

• Publishing a post

• Proofreading matters!  WordPress has helpers, use them.

• Categorize and file your content so it can be found

• Adding photos, video and audio: (may require a youtube, blip.tv or vimeo account)

• Creating photo galleries

• Creating slideshows

• Show your (or other) Twitter feeds in your site

• Send your posts to your facebook and twitter feeds.  Cut down on the work of getting your message out.

• Using poll questions on your site (requires polldaddy.com account)

• Get your flickr.com photos on your site using the flickr sidebar widget (requires flickr account)

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Part 3 — More advanced and/or specialized tools

If you want to publish from your phone, use themes that are more conversational, or is a photo blog, here are my recommended tools.

• Blog from your iPhone

• Blog from Android

• Make your theme more social with the P2 theme

• Best photo blog theme with wordpress.com — Modularity Light

modularity light