It's a team effort

As I have said many times here on the GBP Blog, the clients we work with aren't always of the 'shirt and tie' variety. One of the greatest joys of what we do is the range of assignments we undertake. For example, one day I could be on the beach shooting informal portraits, the next I might be thirty metres up in the sky perched on a crane and swaying in the breeze. As I said in yesterday's post, indoor work is all well and good, but give us half a chance to get out of the office and into the fresh air with our clients and we'll take it.

Another quick example from last month, then, which saw me working with a local football club one Sunday morning. Nothing too challenging or remarkable about the job itself, but a prime example of the need for simple yet effective pictures which could be used widely in all manner of marketing activities.

We were very lucky with the weather on this occasion - blue sky, puffy white clouds - all of which worked very well with the team's freshly-washed, colourful kit. In terms of a 'shot list', we had already outlined three sets of images to capture during our time together - team shots (as a whole), player profiles (individuals) and supportive imagery (game action). As is often the case, organisation was the key here; I turned up early in order to meet my contact and make introductions with the team, and the players themselves were already in place, warming up. It was then simply a case of getting everyone into position for the first 'group' shot, followed by individual portraits in quick succession.

Given that all anyone there really wanted to do was play football (i.e. not stand around being photographed!), I kept things very simple. Setting up two cameras - one for the portrait stuff, the other for the action - the D2H was again brought out of the bag for the latter, making the most of its ability to capture the fast-paced action. On this occasion, I seem to recall, it was set to a rate of 4 frames per second and I shot in bursts of 2 frames in succession.

The resulting images from the hour or so that I spent on the sidelines have since been used on the team's website and in the local press, with plans to use them further in newsletters and printed promotional matter.

Why the D2H still holds its ground

First up, a warning - this post is a little bit technical. But only insofar as it allows me to contextualise myself for the sake of my ramblings. Please don't let this put you off; instead, read on to find out why I still whole-heartedly believe older equipment is still capable of standing up to more recent (and blatantly snazzy) technology.

So... A bit of back-history: The D2H was introduced in 2003 and was something of an odd-ball, due to a relatively low resolution of 4.1 megapixels.

'Resolution', for those that don't know, basically refers to a camera's ability to record detail; we are told that the higher the megapixel count (resolution), the more detail can be captured in a picture.

Favoured by sports photographers and photojournalists on account of its ability to capture images at a rate of 8 frames per second, this camera was replaced in 2005 by the D2Hs. At the time that I purchased mine, around the beginning of 2004, feedback for the model had been generally very positive and so I decided it was a worthy addition to my kit bag.

But let me get to the point...

In spite of the marketing men screaming at us that we should buy the latest models, with the highest resolutions and all the bells and whistles, my day-to-day working experience remains somewhat defiant. In practice, for the type of work that I am involved in, 6-8 megapixels is plenty. But wait - I just said the D2H has 4.1 megapixels. Yes, I know that. However, I still maintain that it can hold its own in the ever-lengthening quest for pixel power.

The pictures on the left here show a couple of images I shot some years ago, reproduced on the side of a Renault Traffic van (roughly the same size as a Ford Transit). The actual printed size was somewhere in the region of 6ft by 7ft. From a 4.1 megapixel camera.

Now, many people are shocked when I reveal this to them, saying "But it can't be - that level of resolution would never hold at such a size". In fact, at one point, even I wasn't convinced and I went back through the archives to double-check I had my facts right. Sure enough, they were shot on the D2H. Furthermore, the first image is a crop, showing the central portion of the original picture.

So, how and why am I able to produce this scale on imagery on this camera? Well, of course, it helps that the photograph is correctly focused and exposed in the first place, and that any post production is applied carefully. The next consideration is that of correctly upscaling the image to spec - in this instance, I used a programme called Genuine Fractals, which allowed me to enter the output size and create a larger version of the picture without any loss of quality. All clever stuff.

I was also reminded of this camera's performance capabilities at another recent shoot. I have often maintained that photography is nothing without light - apply either too much or too little, and you will produce inferior-quality images which do not make the most of the technology at your disposal. This picture is also a crop, representing about 1/9th the total area of the full image. Focus is shallow, concentrating somewhere near the middle. Lighting came courtesy of a Nikon SB-800 bounced off the ceiling directly above. And the subject was no more than 8 inches across. You may not be able to see at this size of reproduction, but trust me when I tell you that on closer inspection, the clarity of the sugar dusting and texture of the 'egg' sweets is quite simply breathtaking... And yes, only 4 megapixels. In fact, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between images shot on this and my other higher-resolution cameras.

As I said, I am not easily swayed by the manufacturer's marketing departments, and it is true to say that there is a lot of hot air blown around when it comes to technology and 'advancements'. But here is a cold hard fact - good, crisp, clean lighting will work wonders when it comes to bringing out the detail in all manner of subjects, regardless of the camera used. And experience has taught me that the much-vaunted argument of camera resolution only carries so far.

I have found flash to be particularly complimentary to the D2H - which is why, in the past, it has served very well as the camera to use in studio arrangements. OK, so this machine is getting on for 5 years old now, but it works - works well, works for me, works as far as my clients' imagery is concerned.

What is that old saying, now...? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Quite right.