I was so impressed with the results of using a rig I created this post to be not only a stabilization primer, but also a product review.

The Importance of Camera Stabilization

Unless you’re going for a Blair Witch Project look and feel, camera stabilization is a critical part of any professional-looking production. If you carefully watch TV or movies, the camera is almost always moving-usually with great subtlety. The gentle camera movements mimic small shifts in body position and natural movements of our head and field of vision when we’re looking at the world. As a result, footage shot, say, on a tripod, often feels lifeless because of the lack of motion. However, abandoning the tripod results in too much camera movement which pulls the viewer away from the story.

”Rolling shutter” (Link: ) is an effect most dSLR producers are working to correct with their newest cameras. But, for now, it’s responsible for the wobbly building or disjointed-looking helicopter propellers you’d see on video shot with all but the newest dSLRs. If you’re not familiar with what rolling shutter is and why it occurs, read this article on Wikipedia. While a stabilization rig can’t solve the problem of the ghosted helicopter propellers, it does smooth camera pans and eliminate the sudden movements that cause the frame to wobble.

The Captain Stubling was a great solution to my need to hand-hold my camera without making my audience sick and with only minimal rolling shutter. The result was more dynamic and watchable footage.

Can’t I Fix It In Post?

Even with major advances in post-processing, there are downsides to “fixing” shaky footage or rolling shutter in post. The picture loses some of its sharpness in the stabilization and correction process. And, the process can be slow requiring you to budget more rendering time for fixing rolling shutter than for other effects.

Ultimately, when shooting stills, video or capturing audio, your goal should be to get the best quality in-camera to make for a more efficient workflow and a superior end product.

What To Look For In A Rig

Though I haven’t exhaustively tested all stabilization rigs our there today, I’ve checked out quite a few and gave RedRock Micro’s Captain Stubling a thorough test with a variety of cameras and lenses. Here are some tips on choosing a rig, from my recent experience with the Stubling.

• Size (and weight) matters: Most of the success of your stabilization experience lies in finding a good balance between the size and weight of your camera and the size of your stabilization rig. If you’re shooting with a heavy full-frame body and a beefy zoom lens, you’re going to need a heavier rig with more points of contact against your body than a featherweight micro 4:3 camera and a light prime lens would.

For Wasatch 100, I was looking for a lightweight, nimble rig, to make it easy for me to hike to and shoot various transition locations during the race. I used the Captain Stubling setup primarily with the Olympus E-5 and the 14-35mm f2 lens or the slightly smaller 12-60 mm lens. While the E-5 is lighter than the average SLR body, the 14-35 (28-70 35mm equiv) is a beefy lens. Together, the weight of the camera and lens closely approximates most SLRs with a professional-quality wide-angle lens. In this setup, the rig solidly balanced on my shoulder. I found it more comfortable to mount the right handle pointing down instead of up (as is recommended by RedRock Micro) as it gave me a more solid platform when using the follow focus setup.

Note: You can see my configuration for the Captain Stubling in the video below.

The Captain Stubling seems ideally suited for shooting with an SLR body and a wide-angle zoom lens, though it felt comfortable with a lighter PEN camera body and lens as well. In addition, the rig itself is very light and can be quickly disassembled to pack in a camera bag or backpack for use in the field. One note, whenever I reassembled the rig, I’d have challenges with the camera’s mounting support slipping along the parallel support rails. After a few minutes of use and retightening the knobs, the platform was very solid even when jogging along a mountain trail to keep up with a subject.

• Flexibility and versatility counts: With the variety of camera makes and models on the market today, it pays to purchase a rig that can adapt to your ever-changing camera arsenal. The RedRock Micro platform is one of the products’ best attributes as each product is really, at its core, a modular group of components. As your needs change, you can purchase components a-la carte to support a larger zoom lens or strip down to only the essentials for a “run and gun” shoot with a smaller camera.

From this perspective, the Captain Stubling bundle will satisfy most needs, though I did run into a few issues with the stock setup. First, my longer lenses use a tripod collar to move the tripod support point off the camera body and onto the lens. With the Captain Stubling, if I mounted the camera on the tripod collar for a more balanced setup, I couldn’t use the follow-focus because the height of the collar moved the lens out of reach of the follow focus knob. To me, this wasn’t a critical flaw as I didn’t expect to shoot hand-held video with longer lenses with any frequency, but it would be nice to be able to make this configuration work for the few times I need it.

Second, when shooting with the PEN cameras, the micro 4:3 lenses were much smaller in diameter than the smallest focus gear, which meant that I couldn’t use the follow focus feature with the Micro 4:3 lenses. As more compact still cameras come on the market, I hope it will justify the creation of a smaller set of gears for use with these ultralight cameras.

• Accessorize: The versatility of the Captn’ Stubling platform becomes even more apparent when you begin to look at adding accessories to enhance your shooting experience. Whether it’s the follow focus (very highly recommended) for tracking your subject smoothly or mounting a short, shotgun mic on the rig, or even a small LED light for shooting events, being able to build upon the base platform is a great benefit for improving the quality of your finished footage.

I’ve found the addition of a stabilization rig, like the Captain Stubling, to be a tremendous boost to the quality and professionalism of the video shot with my Olympus dSLR and PEN cameras. Given the number of options currently on the market, I encourage anyone to spend time evaluating different rigs before committing your hard-earned cash to one vendor. For me, the modularity and flexibility of the RedRock Micro platform and the Captain Stubling worked very well. If you frequently shoot with longer glass and require a heavier stabilization rig, or need a lightweight bare-bones rig for travel or shooting in the backcountry, you may be better served by one of their other dSLR mounts or bundles. Either way, adding a stabilization rig to your production process brings a much greater level of professionalism and polish to your dSLR video shoots.

As part of this change, Adobe has removed the Fill Light, Recovery and Brightness sliders, replacing them with Highlights, Shadows and Whites controls. In the new system, Exposure behaves far more like a coarse correction for overall image Lightness. I typically use it only when the image is perceptibly over or underexposed. From there, I jump to the Shadows slider to set the darkest point within the image. From there, I turn my attention to the Highlights and Whites sliders.

Highlights and Whites; Shadows and Blacks

Although the two controls initially feel a bit redundant, splitting control over the lighter pixels in your photos offers some distinct advantages. The Whites control is ideal for setting the brightest highlight in the image (the whites whites) and the Highlights controls pixels within a range of approximately 70-90% brightness. I say approximate because Lightroom now adapts the range of the controls to the content of the image.” Having intelligence built into the controls is a wonderful thing and I find the new system to become intuitive with a little practice.

Returning to the Highlights and Whites sliders, I often find myself adjusting them in opposing directions, typically with the Whites on the positive end (brighter) and the Highlights toward the negative (darker). This improves contrast and detail in the highlights of your photos without making your image darker-the traditional downside of performing this type of correction using a Tone Curve.

Shadows and Blacks have the same relationship, with Blacks targeting the darkest pixels in your images and Shadows roughly corresponding to the 10-25% brightness range. Collectively, the five sliders in the Basic panel (Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Whites) give you more points of control along the tonal range, making it a breeze to bring your images to life.

2012 Processing Value (PV)
Perhaps the most important, and most easily overlooked, improvement is the updated image processing algorithms. These mathematical equations, called Processing Value (PV) in Lightroom-speak, are used to convert your camera raw files into digital photographs. You can think of the PV as the recipe for performing the baseline processing of your files. From there, your image corrections are overlaid. One of the key ways the PV contributes to image quality is in the ways image detail is separated from digital noise. The more effective the PV is in separating these two components, the better your photos look. This is one of the primary reasons why your pictures look better in Lightroom 4 than in previous versions of the application.

When you open Lightroom 4′s Develop module for the first time, you’ll notice a small exclamation point in the lower-right corner of your image preview. This indicates the availability of an update to the photo’s processing value.

Clicking on the  icon allows you to quickly update the currently previewed image or all images visible in the filmstrip. Generally, you will be best served by upgrading to the most recent processing value, however, I suggest first performing the update on a few images to get a sense of how the newer processing value affects contrast, noise and color within photos taken with your cameras.

Changes to the PV are most easily viewed in high ISO images, photos with smooth gradients or images with subtle detail. To get a sense for how LR’s Processing Values have changed over the years, I recommend performing this simple experiment.

Jump over to the Develop module and single-click on your image preview to zoom to 100% view. Scroll the right panel all the way to the Camera Calibration tab at the bottom, then select between the 2003, 2010 and 2012 options in the Process pull-down menu.

In this image below, taken at a high ISO, note how much smoother the noise pattern is in the 2012 version than the 2003 and 2010 PV.

2003

2010

2012

Update: 5/1/12

Adobe has released Lightroom 4.1 RC2 on the Adobe Labs Web site. In my testing yesterday, it appears to fully preserve the Tone Curve settings from images in LR3 catalogs. I’ve also found it to be much faster than LR3 as well. I’ve seen several forum posts about some users feeling LR4 was slower than LR3.

You can download the update from the Adobe Labs Website.

—End Update—

Over the weekend, I learned of a bug in Lightroom 4 that affects some catalogs migrated from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 4. Changes to an image’s Tone Curve are not always carried through to the new version and may be reset to the default values. In my testing, I found that images where the preset for Strong Contrast or Linear had been selected in Lightroom 3 had been reset to Medium Contrast in Lightroom 4. Manual changes to the point curve were unaffected.

Adobe is aware of the bug and is working to fix it as quickly as possible. In the meantime, be sure to retain a backup of your Lightroom 3 catalog (always a good idea for any upgrade) and consider testing Lightroom 4 with a limited number of images before committing wholly to the upgrade.

Earlier this week, Adobe Lightroom 4 was officially released to the world. With it comes big changes, some visible to the user, others behind the scenes. Collectively, this is one of the most important releases to Lightroom and solidifies Lightroom’s position as the go-to all-in-one application for managing the chaos of a digital photography workflow.

Rather than provide a comprehensive overview of the new features (there are plenty of those already written) in the coming weeks I’d like to focus on a couple of workflow improvements that may go under the radar and, as a result, might be missed.

So head over to the Adobe Web site to download a free 30-day trial of Lightroom 4. While you’re there, be sure to glance at the top new features in this version and then tune in here for more detailed information.

I’ll kick of my analysis of Lightroom 4 next week, with a series of  articles on the new Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom’s processing engine. In the meantime, have a great weekend playing with Lightroom.

Beginning with the passing of my mother and gradually becoming more acute with the birth of my son, I’ve been feeling a need to capture the simple, yet profound, moments that define one’s life. These aren’t necessarily the big events (birthday parties, vacations, etc.), rather the simple moments-the smile from a grandparent seeing their grandson, your spouse engrossed in a book on the weekend while the light streams through the windows or a candid laugh from your best friend at a cafe. These are the emotional memories that we often think of when we’re feeling nostalgic. Why not try and capture them with your camera?

Here are three tips I’ve found helpful when documenting my life.

1) Have a camera at the ready: It sounds obvious, but after years of taking mental pictures (no camera at the ready) I’m finally getting better at keeping a camera nearby, particularly around the house, to grab a quick shot when a photographic situation presents itself. Because of their small size, I’ve found the Olympus PEN cameras to be a fantastic companion. When I travel, I slip the PEN E-PM1 and the svelte 17mm f2.8 lens in my briefcase. Only slightly larger than a point and shoot, the superior image quality and full manual control allows me to shoot in any situation without ever feeling limited by my camera.

2) Keep it simple: It’s easy to geek out on equipment and spend too much time thinking about gear instead of light or photos. Challenge yourself to grab one body and one lens. Limiting your gear choices is a fantastic way to push yourself creatively and improve your ability to improvise by making a great shot with the gear you have. Lately I’ve been shooting around the house with the Olympus PEN E-PL3 with the 12mm f2.0 lens. It forces me to get close and think carefully about the relationships between my subject and the background. All the photos in this post are taken with this setup.

3) Shoot now, edit later: It’s easy to let that self-critiquing voice creep into your photography. You know, the one that tells you the light’s no good or the subject really isn’t that interesting. Fight back by shooting photos anyway. Push yourself to find an interesting photo in poor light or strive to find a compelling composition when the background is cluttered.

By shooting regularly, you’ll more often find your creative groove and get better at seeing the less obvious, yet remarkable moments that make up our lives. This process not only helps you appreciate the moments that makes up your life unique and special, but gives you the opportunity to capture them and share these moments with others.

In some ways, re-reading the article long after its original publication is beneficial as we can look at how the two featured news outlets, The Faster Times and True/Slant, have weathered the ongoing recession. True/Slant was acquired by Forbes, and Lewis DVorkin, the original CEO of True/Slant, is working on integrating his entrepreneurial approach to online journalism into Forbes’ online properties. The Faster Times continues to publish and, according to Quantcast,  is averaging 280K monthly visitors worldwide.

To me, the approaches outlined in the article illustrate the ways we need to rethink the ways the creation and distribution of content are bought, sold and marketed. It gives me hope to see that both examples were successful in their own way.

The A-list sources are the most thought-provoking sources of content. Those people who have the vision of where we’ll be in five or ten years and can articulate the ways this will influence the visual arts, business, culture or the economy. Although these sources don’t write as often as other sources (they’re often busy building the future), their words are gold-and should be treated as such.

The B-list sources help to fill in the blank spaces between today and the future the A-list authors are articulating. These typically aren’t news outlets per se, rather sources discussing the most important trend, developments and insights affecting our world right now.

Because the b-list is a broader list, there tends to be a lot more chatter than the A-list sources. For that reason, I tend to give the B-list a more cursory read through, jumping into only the articles that hold the most promise.

For me, the system that works well is to have RSS subscriptions to the A-list sources in a folder on my bookmarks menu in Safari. This way, I can quickly glance through the list to see who’s posted new material and jump in when I have a few spare minutes through the course of the day.

My B-list sources are managed by Google Reader. Right now, my favorite source for culling through this material is Flipboard on my iPad, though I’ve used Net News Wire for a long time. Flipboard provides more of a magazine-style layout making it easier to glance through article titles and headings. Net News Wire gives a list of the blog titles and hides previously read articles and is a better choice for managing a large number of subscriptions.

Either way, you’ll want to develop a system that allows you to get the information you need without spending too much time sifting through extraneous posts.

Recommended Reading:

To help you get started, here are a few A-list and B-list sources relevant to the Agile Photographer discussion. My B-list in particular tends to be more multimedia-focused, so adjust to your own tastes.

A-list:

Clay Shirky

Anil Dash

Robert Cringely

Eric Reis

ASMP Strictly Business

O’Reilly Radar

B-list

Stu Machwitz

Read Write Web

Motionographer

Create Digital Motion

Silicon Alley Insider

A Photo Editor

Fast Media Magazine

At last night’s presentation in Fairfield, the mood at the social hour before the presentation was gloomy with several photographers bemoaning the loss of architectural, annual report and commercial work. Fortunately, the mood felt more cheery and optimistic following the presentation and their questions indicated to me that the presentation offered ideas and highlighted opportunities they feel could implement and use to grow their businesses.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve become increasingly interested in building a community of photographers and other creatives wanting to continue the conversation by sharing successes, offering questions and highlighting resources. To get the process started, I’ve created an Agile Photographer LinkedIn group. If you’re interested in joining, please drop me a line on LinkedIn and I’ll approve your request. While I’m the group moderator, my hope is to establish connections between photographers across the country who are rethinking the way photos are licensed, photographic services are positioned and are working to take advantage of new publishing platforms to be strategic partners with our clients, rather than simply content providers. I hope you’ll join the discussion.

Next stop on the tour-Yale with the Connecticut ASMP chapter!