Not Quite CSI, but close.

April 30, 2008 | Lance, Personal Blogs

Well I was contacted by Phillip Sanfilippo of the Miami Dade Police Department a few weeks ago requesting that I come help teach a workshop on digital photography for law enforcement I had visions of CSI:Miami. I thought I was going to be working with Horatio, Calleigh , Natalaia and their team that I have spent the past couple of years watching on TV. What could I possibly teach these guys? They had high tech everything. I quickly found out there is a big difference between TV and real life!

Well it was a little different , in a good way. The students that were from a variety of departments were normal people eager to learn about how digital photography will enhance their jobs. One of the specific things I was demonstrating was how to cope with the lose of the use of Polariod film eventually for the collection of fingerprint evidence off of objects.

The equipment I was using was a Phase One P45+ with the Mamiya 645AFDII and 120mm Macro lens on a re-purposed Polaroid MP4 copystand with new fibre optic lighting . This provided to be an excellent tool for capturing the highest quality detail from the forensic evidence. From my calculations on some objects we were able to do a 7000dpi 1:1 reproduction!

They provided me with imprint samples and various types of fingerprint evidence to use in the training. (definitely not CSI-Miami evidence)

Here is a sample of the a fingerprint captured from a spoon.

It was a great day and hopefully what I had taught these folks will assist them in solving some crimes.

I was awarded a certificate of appreciation and now have a MDPD shirt as well!

Miami Open House Event May 7,2008

April 28, 2008 | News, Lance, Personal Blogs

Please click below link for invite to our May 7 event in Miami. We will be demonstrating a full color work-flow from image acquisition , viewing and output.

Hope to see you there!

L

Wow! 1,014 Megapixel Pano.

April 28, 2008 | Lance

Recently I had the opportunity to meet Ignacio Gurruchaga of District Lab / in-dependent at one of our events here in our Miami location. Ignacio is both a photographer and high-end printmaker/finisher. His lab has a large 50″ lightjet and specializes in museum quality acrylic mounting by appointment only. In the front of his lab he has a gallery space where he hold exhibits for photographers he prints for. In the back of his space is his lab. On all of the walls you will see examples of work he has produced and also a collection of prints that were generated by old negatives of various formats and glass plates. Most of these were images of Cuba from many years ago. It was like walking through a museum.

One project that caught my attention was one that he did for Art Basel this year . He took a 360 degree pano of where his is lab located to capture all of what goes on around it. He has a few neighboring business (an auto body shop and concrete plant to name afew) and a homeless man. This one particular pano (as pictured) is comprised of 26-P45 files stitched together. Once this file was created he printed out 26 - 50″x120″ panels and placed them in the interior of his exhibition space , called in-dependent.It is truly breathtaking the amount of detail and of course the subject mater that captures the personalities of the people and the characteristics of the businesses.

One final note is that this was all produced within a few days from capture to print.

You can view a smaller copy of this pano that is on display at our Miami offices.

For more information regarding this print or other services that Ignacio offers please email him at IG@disctrictlab.com and check out in-dependent.com .

Thank you for the print Ignacio.

L

Our recent podcast appearance

April 23, 2008 | Lance, Personal Blogs

I don’t know how I let this one slip, but a little more than a month ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Scott Shepard for his weekly radio show and podcast Inside Digital Photo.

Download the podcast, or read on for more information.

Continue reading Our recent podcast appearance…

Old San Jaun PhotoWorkshop

April 22, 2008 | News, Lance, Personal Blogs

Capture Integration is excited to announce their support of the GetDPI Digital Imaging Workshops. Lance Schad of Capture Integration will be traveling along to their next workshop in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they will be photographing primarily street and travel photography . Continue reading Old San Jaun PhotoWorkshop…

Napa, CA

April 22, 2008 | Chris

My wife and I recently took a vacation to California with our good friends, the Whittlesey’s. We spent several days in San Francisco and then drove up to Napa to tour some of the wineries. Here is a link to the web page we created: http://web.mac.com/clawery/iWeb/Site/Napa.html

Shooting with Mamiya 645AFDII & P30+

April 21, 2008 | Tips & Tech Support, Chris

Over the weekend I was shooting for an old client of mine.  We were shooting small products for their catalog and web.  We were cooking through the shoot when we came to a group of 10 products that were all similar shape, but different colors.  I had my assistant just quickly drop and I would shoot away.  I started quickly popping through them, but at the end of the 10 items, realized that my C1 Pro had shut down.  I was amazed that all I did was re-launch my software and watched my files pop in to C1 Pro.  I didn’t loose any of the shots!

Procedure to Setup & Troubleshoot Fuji 680III

April 18, 2008 | Tips & Tech Support, Doug

We’ve prepared the following guide for users of Phase One + Fuji 680III systems. Anyone who uses these systems and has comments or additions are encouraged to send them to doug@captureintegration.com. If you’ve found while searching for an immediate mid-shoot fix skip to the last two sections for common problems and their solutions. A downloadable 1-page PDF is available.

Begin with Completely Disassembled, Powered Off System

Lens removed from body
Digital back removed from V-Plate and Body
Camera body off
Battery for digital back removed
AA Battery holder for camera body turned off and empty
CR123A Batteries for camera body bottom removed
9V battery for OneShot box removed
V plate adapter removed

Inspect the Following Electrical Contacts

Lens to body contacts
digital back to body
AA battery holder to body
AA batteries to AA battery holder
CR123A batteries to body bottom
9V battery to OneShot box
multiport on digital back
lens sync port (on camera body)

Assemble System

Attach lens to camera body.
Insert AA batteries into AA battery holder. Roll them after they are in place to ensure they are seated properly.
Attach AA battery holder to body and turn the battery holder on.
Turn the camera body on to the multi position. The LCD on the camera body top should now display a full battery icon (it may also flash an exclamation point; that is okay). You should be able to fire the camera body using the shutter release on the body.
Turn the camera body off and turn off the battery holder.
Insert 123A batteries and roll them after they are in place to ensure they are seated properly.
Attach the V-plate onto the camera body.
Attach the digital back to the V-plate (battery should not be in digital back).
Insert the 9V battery into the OneShot box
Attach the multishot box to the camera body RC port, the lens sync on the camera body, and the multiport on the digital back.
Turn the AA battery holder to on and the camera body to multishot
Insert the digital back battery. If the back does not turn on automatically, then turn it on.
Reset all the settings on the digital back via “Menu > Configuration > Restore Def. > Rest. Defaults”
Check that the Green light on the OneShot box is illuminated.
Either insert a CF card or firewire cable. Only use 15′ firewire cables, and only into the REAR port of a Mac Pro.
Set the shutter speed on the body, then match that shutter speed on the OneShot box.
Fire the system from the OneShot box.

Common problems and their solutions

Mismatched shutter speeds. The shutter speed on the OneShot box and the camera body must be the same.
Drained batteries or batteries that are not seated. There are three CR123A batteries in the bottom of the body, 6 AA batteries in the
battery holder attached to the side of the camera body, a battery on the side of the digital back, and a 9V battery in the OneShot box.
Lens with electronic issues (try another lens)
Software error without restart. An error occurred in the software, and the user restarted the software but not the digital back

Other Troubleshooting steps

If Capture One ever displays an error message turn off the digital back, restart the software, and turn on the digital back. If the digital back displays an error, you should only need to turn the back off and back on.
Try changing the power source setting on the digital back: “Menu > Configuration > Power Source” to “battery” to use the power from the battery rather than the power from the firewire cord.
If there are problems tethering the back to the computer, delete the cache folder from your hard drive while the back is disconnected and capture one is closed: “[Your User Folder] > Library > Caches > Phase One” .
If the body fires, but the back produces an error try changing the latency setting. “Menu > Capture Setup > Shutter” to “Long Latency”. Remember to return this setting to “Short Latency” when not actively troubleshooting.
An alternative way to fire the system: with OneShot box connected to digital back multiport and lens sync (but not to R.C. connector on body) fire from the camera body once to wake up the back. The back will wake up at the END of this first exposure. Then the green light on the back will start blinking and you will have 5 seconds to trigger the true exposure.

ZINK Instant Printer

April 16, 2008 | Lance, Personal Blogs

I am a big tech/gadget head and am always coming across cool little items. I thought that this one may interest a lot of you folks that come to our site. Continue reading ZINK Instant Printer…

RSVP for Our May 7 Event & Get a Free 16×20 Print

April 10, 2008 | Landing pages

1) Come to our Miami Beach photo get together

2) Take a tour of The Color House

3) Submit your digital image to be printed

Solve Your Color Calibration Problems And Meet Your Fellow Photographers

5/07/08. See a P45+, Eizo 24″ & LightJet Print in a Unified Workflow

RSVP Below for our Miami Beach Photo Get Together and put your color calibration problems behind you May 7, 2008 at 6:30pm above The Color House (map).

Come at 6:30pm to meet your fellow photographers and try high-end gear from Phase One, Mamiya, Profoto, Canon, Apple, Hasselblad, Cambo, & Horseman. Stay for our 7:30pm presentation. Then schedule a follow-up for one-on-one education. It’s time to finally solve your color calibration problems! Call 305-534-5701 for more information.

RSVP for our May 7 get together

April 9, 2008 | Landing pages

Solve Your Color Calibration Problems And Meet Your Fellow Photographers

5/07/08. See a P45+, Eizo 24″ & LightJet Print in a Unified Workflow

RSVP Below for our Miami Beach Photo Get Together and put your color calibration problems behind you May 7, 2008 at 6:30pm above The Color House (map).

Come at 6:30pm to meet your fellow photographers and try high-end gear from Phase One, Mamiya, Profoto, Canon, Apple, Hasselblad, Cambo, & Horseman. Stay for our 7:30pm presentation. Then schedule a follow-up for one-on-one education. It’s time to finally solve your color calibration problems! Call 305-534-5701 for more information.

Multipop Device works with Hasselblad H1, H2

April 8, 2008 | Tips & Tech Support, Doug

At a customer’s request I checked to see if our Multi-Strobe-Pop device would work with the Hasselblad H1/H2 body. In short, this setup will work if you 1) tape over the communication pins on the digital back and 2) disable”Magazine Exposure Lock” (custom option #6) on the body. More details after the jump.
Continue reading Multipop Device works with Hasselblad H1, H2…

Mac Computer Performance

April 3, 2008 | Tips & Tech Support, Doug

I came across this digest of mac computer benchmarks today. For the uninitiated the benchmark used here was GeekBench which measures raw processing and memory power. Hard drive speed, graphics card performance, and other factors which come into play in the real world are not taken into account with this benchmark, so for instance the MacBookPro and MacBook score similarly even though real world performance may differ. Even so, this provides a useful point of reference which will correspond best to the speed a computer can process raw files to TIFFs.

http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2008/04/mac-performance-april-2008/