Short Takes for 1.8.09

– Canon has released a firmware update for the 5D Mark II which supposedly fixes the black dot issue that everyone who takes long exposure night shots was crying about.  I have updated my camera and it seems to be working, though I never saw the black dots in my images, so I guess no news is good news.

– I’ve decided that I’d really like to grow this site.  So to that end I’m starting to invite other people to write posts for it as well.  My friend Meg asked me today why I don’t use Flickr and so to get the ball rolling she and I are going to write back-to-back posts, me with the con, her with the pro.  Should be fun.  More of this is coming.   The funny thing is that I actually DO have a flickr account, though very little is up there and it’s really just a place to through vacation pictures and it’s under a pseudonym (I know, very tricky).  10 Points to anyone that can find it.

– I finally received PDFs (albeit medium-res ones) of some of the UBS ads I shot a few months ago.  We shot on green screen (or rather green seamless), with a very talented group of 3D guys led by Jack Ehrbar designing and rendering the & and the environment.  I didn’t do the post-production, but even the shooting had to be quite structured to get it right.  Focal length, camera-subject distance, camera height and angle, and lighting all had to be recorded so that we were shooting at them the way they would be seen on the stage.  This way, when they brought them into the render, the angles and shadows and perspective all worked. Pretty neat stuff.  I’m happy to see that they worked out.