Peter Belanger

I’ve always thought it would be cool to photograph the cover of Macworld magazine using an iPhone as my camera. When the new iPhone 4 was released with the 5MP camera, the editors at Macworld were excited to see if it could be done. What better way to showcase the phone’s new camera than to have an iPhone take the photo of the iPhone on the cover?

Normally when I shoot the cover of Macworld Magazine, I use a Phase One P65+ which is a 60 MP digital camera. It has twelve times the megapixel count of an iPhone 4. This was going to be a very challenging task for the iPhone. My goal was to photograph the cover using only the iPhone and any available app for the iPhone (I couldn’t use Photoshop on my Mac!)

For the most part, my strategy for photographing the cover didn’t change from how I normally would photograph with the Phase One digital camera. I still had my normal set with lots of lights, flags and stands. I did have to change my light source from strobes to tungsten lights because the iPhone can’t sync with studio strobes. I did end up making my own camera mount for the phone to go on my tripod (monopod). I hadn’t seen one that would do exactly what I needed (even if I did I didn’t think it would  ship to me in time) so I picked up some parts from the hardware store and rigged one myself.

Normally when I photograph the cover I use my Mac to add the iPhone’s screen, clean up dust, scratches and any other imperfections. I wasn’t going to have that same control on my iPhone so I had to ensure the photo looked good and close as possible to final in-camera. During the shoot I would send the image files over to the art director at his computer so he could drop the image into layout. We needed to be sure the scale and crop was perfect.

The iPhone’s Retina display was truly awesome. I was really able to see the detail in the photo as I was shooting. It made me wish Apple produced all their desktop monitors this way. The final photo was dust-free and looked great. I was extremely impressed with the detail that the iPhone was able to capture. For post production I used two iPhone apps: PhotoForge and Resize-Photo. PhotoForge was used to remove a slight green cast from the photo. Resize-Photo was used to increase the photo from 216 dpi to 290 dpi in order to meet printing requirements. One app that I wish had been available when I was photographing the cover was Camera+ 1.2 with separate touch exposure and touch focus.

Also check out the Editor’s Desk inside the magazine were Jason writes about me and my process for creating this months cover.

The digital version of the magazine is out now on Zinio. The printed version should be on newsstands soon. See what you think:

http://www.zinio.com/browse/publications/index.jsp?productId=6564920

Recently my vacations have been very water based. I think my kids might be part fish, they never want to leave the water. We were in Lake Tahoe this past  weekend. Usually, my camera gear is stranded on the beach as I spend most of my time in the water. I could get high end underwater gear but this is a vacation not work so I wanted something small and fun.  Therefore, I ordered an Aquapac 104 Phone/GPS Case from L.L. Bean ($30) for my iPhone. For the most part, the case worked great. My iPhone didn’t get wet or damage. The material that the case is made out of gives a slight softness to the photos and videos, which I didn’t mind.  At the end of the day, you really need to clean the Aquapac case with soap and water to keep it clear. 

When I was out of the water I was able to take photos and video without a problem. Once the camera was in the water I couldn’t get the iPhone screen to respond to my touch. I’m not sure if this would happen in warmer water like Hawaii. The water in Lake Tahoe is ice cold. In order to take video I started recording before going under water and that worked fine. I used iMovie on the iPhone to edit the movie. It’s amazing that the whole thing can be captured and edited right on the iPhone. Above is a quick movie I made with my kids.

You can see the video on Vimeo or Youtube

http://vimeo.com/13491167

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCBnbHhbGOU

I’ve been wanting to try out a Steadicam for my Canon 5D Mark II for awhile now. I wasn’t sure which kind to get and the more research I did the more confusing it became. I finally concluded that the Merlin Steadicam was the best fit for what I needed.

I’m a strong believer in renting something before you buy. Everyone that I spoke to said that a Steadicam was something that needed lots of practice and it wasn’t something you could rent for the day. I went against my own advice and bought the Merlin Steadicam. When the Steadicam arrived I thought I was going to pull it out of the box and start filming (duh, see above about the warnings regarding practice).

I spent most of the day learning to balance the camera. Setting up the camera was much harder than I thought. Once I got things configured I went out and started filming. My assistant Michael and I tested walking, running, panning, and walking on stairs. Things were looking good, but we wanted to test something that combined all the challenges at once. We found a block-long flight of stairs to test on that would work perfectly. We needed something to track as we were testing, so of course I volunteered to ride my bike down the stairs as Michael filmed.

I was very impressed with how smoothly things looked considering we didn’t have much practice. If this had been filmed without the Steadicam the movie would have been extremely jumpy and unwatchable.

The purpose of the movie was really an exercise to see how the Steadicam would perform in a difficult situation with very little training. I was very happy with the results and am excited to see how much better it will look once we REALLY figure things out.

You can also watch the video on youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbiVNb7I65Y

Photographing my kids for Halloween is fun, but isn’t without challenges.  One of the biggest issues is that it is so dark that the camera can’t focus. Another challenge is that the kids move so fast—running from door to door—that it’s hard to get them in focus! In the past I’ve used manual focus with a higher aperture which worked okay. I’ve also used the flash pulse to light up the scene so the camera can focus. This also worked okay, but overall I wasn’t that happy with it.

This year I used my Surefire flashlight to light up a scene so the camera could focus and it worked great. What I like about the Surefire flashlight is that the light only stays on while the button on the back is pressed. When I let go of the button the light turns off instantly. This makes it easy and fast to turn the light on just long enough for the camera to focus. It is no surprise that this precision flashlight is what police officers carry.

It was convenient to be able to hold the light just under the lens and point it where I needed focus rather then have it mounted on the camera. Without the flashlight the photo above would have been completely out of focus. And for the record, I chose the photo above as an example simply because no faces are visible. I have more interesting shots, but not with usage permission of all the trick or treaters.

http://www.surefire.com

Recently I had a shoot that called for a dreamy, cloudy effect. I decided to use dry ice rather then a smoke machine because dry ice smoke stays lower to the ground, which would highlight the products better. It sure makes a project interesting when you have an uncontrollable, organic element in the photo.  At several points most of the floor in my entire studio (not just the set!) was covered with the fog—very surreal.

On the technical side, the dry ice effect doesn’t last very long and we had to come up with ways to prolong it. The dry ice becomes especially activated when placed in hot water. At first we used the hot water from the tap and it didn’t fog up very high. We found that boiling hot water really made the fog go into overdrive. We rented 3 large coffee carafes and used them to make gallons of boiling hot water. Next time I might even use a 4th carafe. They are power hogs and kept blowing a fuse, so we had to put each one on it’s own breaker.

Most of the time we placed the blocks of dry ice in bowls on the floor, which created a really nice, billowing, San Francisco fog look. I found that to give the fog some more shape it helped to pour it out of buckets. The fog looked great but it disappeared fast.

Overall, the dry ice and it’s fog doesn’t get things wet (hence the name dry ice). But because of the method of keeping it in hot water, sometimes when we poured the smoke from the buckets we also poured a little water on the floor. Luckily the fog covered the floor and the puddles were not visible.

Now that I’m using the Phase One P65+ I’ve noticed that my non digital 150 isn’t as sharp as it once was. I was using the Schneider APO-Symmar L lens 150/5.6. I’ve upgraded that to the Schneider APO-Digitar M lens 120/5.6.

I did a very quick test on a flat surface. The digital lens does much better with sharpens and retaining detail in the highlights. I photographed at f-16 rather than the optimal f-8 or f-11. I wanted to test the lens how I would be using it, which is mostly f-16 – f-22.

Here are some photos from a recent editorial photo shoot. I’m always happy when I get to incorporate my Profoto 8 ft. reflector.

I’ve posted the Macworld cover time lapse video on YouTube. It’s the same video just another avenue for viewing. The main difference is you can now watch the video from any mobile phone that supports YouTube, such as the iPhone.

After working on the latest cover for Macworld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a small amount of time. The only drawback of time lapse is that since half a day goes by in 30 seconds, the  whole process seam so easy! Lots of details were left out of the design process (like the cover meetings and rounds of layout options). I began to photograph the design process after the layouts had already been narrowed down to just three cover designs.

On the technical side, for the time lapse video, I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm-70mm zoom. I chose the 5D because of its great image quality with high ISO’s. Canon’s sRAW1 gave me the flexibility of a RAW file with the file size of a jpeg.  The actual Macworld cover was taken with a Phase One P65+ digital back attached to a 4×5 Sinar X camera with a 65mm lens. 

Many thanks to Rob Schultz for allowing me to invade his office and literally shoot over his shoulder.

The music was used with permission by The Brokenmusicbox. You can see more of their music at http://www.myspace.com/tbmb

The air conditioner for the server room was finally installed today. It may not look like much, but it’s going to make everyone happy. For those of you that have been in my studio, you know the servers made a lot of noise—I had to keep the door off the room because the servers were so hot. Thanks to the air conditioning, the door could be reinstalled. What a difference! Now it is nice and quiet in the studio.