Join the michaels team in this recorded version of a Facebook Live Broadcast at Whitehart Bar in Melbourne as we put the new Fuji and Hasselblad Mirrorless Medium Format Cameras in a head to head shootout on a cocktail photography project.
Script
(John)
Hey, it’s John Warkentin and Paul Daniels.
We’re at Whitehart, behind Michael’s Camera.
We’re going live on Facebook and we’re doing the Fuji GFX versus …
(Paul)
The Hasselblad X1D.
(John)
It’s a head-to-head photoshoot. We’re going to be shooting cocktails. So, we gave you a little bit of a preview taste of what we’re up to earlier, but unfortunately, we had a bit of an audio problem, so, I want to give a little bit more of an introduction as to what we’re up to.
Please, in the comments, if you’re watching live; let us know how we’re doing with sound and video. We’re running a dual camera system.
I’ve got Harry on a 5D Mark IV, who is doing the tight shots. Harry is right over there! [Points at the camera]
I’ve got David over here, running the television switcher.
We’ve got a whole bunch of Black Magic devices. We’ve got their ATM-TV Studio, we’ve got the (HyperDeck Mini), doing a hardware recording of this; and we’ve got the Black Magic Web Presenter, which is taking care of making the stream ready to be streamed out to Facebook.
So, everything is all hunky-dory there, and we are now broadcasting.
So, today’s mission is a little bit of fun with medium-format mirrorless.
So, I’ve got the Fuji GFX 50 in my hand. Is it, the 50S is what it’s called?
(Paul)
Yes, 50S.
(John)
Ok, 50S. We’ve got some (ProFoto) flashes. We’ve got a hard light source way over to the other side here. (Don’t worry about showing that.)
We’ve got a soft box over here. So, we’re gonna give some soft light on the front of our cocktails. Maybe I didn’t say that! We’re shooting cocktails!
We’ve got hard light sort of rim-lighting the background.
We’re going to work with relatively low depth of field.
We’ve got both cameras actually at ISO 400 for this.
We’re going to be predominantly working at about f5.6.
We’ll play around with shutter speed a little wee bit, as we blend ambient light with our artificial light, with the (ProFoto) kit.
(Paul)
It’s pretty dark in here, really. So, we’ll see how we go.
(John)
And, we’re gonna just have a little bit of fun with these cocktails. Unfortunately, we’re working so we can’t be drinking them, but somebody else will be enjoying them.
(Paul)
Can’t we? No, I’m pretty sure we can.
(John)
Oh, we can? Oh, good, good! We can!
(Paul)
This will make it much more interesting as we go along.
(John)
And, of course, I’ve got to tell you all about where we’re at. We’re at Whitehart Bar, which is a sort of funky, built around steel structure and shipping container.
(Paul)
It’s really industrial, isn’t it?
(John)
Yeah, it’s got a great industrial vibe. It’s got some greenery. It’s got an amazing drinks menu of craft beers. We’ve got cocktails. Justin is probably around here somewhere. (Taylor) is right behind me. Here’s (Taylor) [gestures to the man behind the bar] He is working on the winter list. The winter cocktail list, because it’s winter in Melbourne.
So, we’re gonna (get) some drinks that’ll warm you up. And, as I was saying in our earlier video which you might not have been able to hear thanks to the audio, we highly recommend you come to Whitehart because it’s right beside Michael’s Camera. It’s in our old parking lot, as a matter of fact. Get yourself primed with a winter cocktail. Get yourself into the buying mood, and come on over and have a play with these objects of desire.
(Paul)
Yes!
(John)
These are very, very, beautiful cameras. I’m holding the GFX 50s, and I’ve got the 120 mm (that’s about a 90 mm effective I believe, in 35 mm terms).
(Paul)
That’s correct, yeah, that’s right.
(John)
And, um, so this is the macro lens, which is image stabilised. Now, I know this looks like a real chunky thing in my hand, but it’s not that heavy and it feels good. We’ve got the optional vertical grip here, got the lens hood mounted. This is the flash controller for the Pro Photo kit, [points to a device mounted on camera] and we’re basically ready to roll with this. We’ve already tested things out, we’re good.
Now, Paul, give me a little rundown on what you’re running with the Hasselblad.
(Paul)
Ok, what I’ve got here is the, actually far more beautiful, Hasselblad X1D, and, um, equipped with the 90 mm lens, which is actually the equivalent of 75 mm in full-frame. So, slight disparate in focal length here, but, you know, we’ll make up for it; should be fine. And, once you’ve finished playing with that, I’ll have a go with this, and we’ll see what the results are like.
(John)
So, our plan is, as every cocktail comes out, we’ll grab a few shots with whichever camera’s got the flash mounted, and then we’ll quickly move the trigger over to the other camera and we’ll try to rinse and repeat. And, we’ll keep these cocktails coming. We can play with a couple of different setups, but we’ve got everything at the bar here all sort of ready. We’ve got lots of props, and we’ll sort of work with what we’ve got, and run through.
The bar is about to open soon too, so, we might have customers showing up, but we’ll hopefully, not delay everybody too long.
So let’s get rolling here! We’re ready for our first drink here!
[Camera pans out, Paul moves away from the bar]
So, I’m going to run a little bit with the Fuji. So, I might as well just, while we’re at it here, I’ll see what we can get.
[The bartender, (Taylor), is making a drink and talking about the cocktail he is making] (Sound is not so great for him, so I’m leaving this out as “non-essential” conversation. If you would like it transcribed, I can do so)
[Shutter sounds from John and the Fuji]
(John)
Well, I might as well use the vertical grip while I’m at it here.
[Shutter sounds and flash light]
(John)
Now, Paul, if you want to just grab our spare documentary camera, that should just be in aperture priority, and shoot a couple of documentary stills, as anything is rolling, so that’s not going to need any flash.
I’m just hoping that we’ve got enough light here, with the spill, to get a couple of shots as we sort of go.
Oh, that’s not too bad, that’s good.
So, once we get this drink ready to roll, we’ll get it into position. Basically, over here [gestures to bar front] and I’ll try to have a little play with some background elements, and we’ll see what we’ve got.
[(Taylor) the bartender is mixing the drink still]
(John)
So, as (Taylor) is saying, he’s got some ginger syrup here.
Oh, a cherry liqueur, that’s sounds really good. That’ll warm you up for winter.
[Laughs]
(John)
Let’s get a shot of this shot glass here.
[John leans in to take close up shots]
[Shutter sounds and flash light]
[(Taylor) is explaining the ingredients to another drink]
(John)
Woah, egg! How exciting!
(Now, I’ll just get you – I know you don’t want to yell or anything – but I’m wearing the mike, unfortunately, (Taylor), so if you yell up, you might come through.)
Project! Exactly!
[(Taylor) uses the cocktail shaker to combine the ingredients]
(John)
That’s a bit of a workout there, (Taylor).
(Taylor)
Gets you looking good. Or better than I would otherwise!
(John)
Ah, you’re looking good. How many of those can you do in an hour, is the question? Rinse and repeat!
(Taylor)
Far too many!
(Taylor)
I’ll give you a little taste here.
[(Taylor) fills a glass with ice]
(John)
How are we doing on viewers, guys? We got a few people in the stream
[Voice answers “Eleven” from off camera]
Eleven! Eleven people are watching you live, (Taylor)! How good is that?
(Taylor)
Hello, people!
[(Taylor) is shaking up another cocktail]
(John)
I’m just temporarily just bring this in a little bit over this way.
[Adjusts stationary camera]
[Shutter sounds]
(John)
Now, as I am running with the GFX here, might just want to make a little bit of a quick note: As I am shooting, I don’t have auto review on, and I am not 100% certain how to get auto-review on! Have you, is there a way to have it automatically pop up so you can chimp after you’ve shot?
(Paul – from off camera)
Yeah, absolutely, there is, but I’ve just got it set so you can, so you have a choice of actually making a review when you want to. Just hit the Playback button.
[Camera shows Paul gesturing]
(John)
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing, yeah. Yeah.
Ooh, look at that! Okay! I think we’ve got a drink ready to shoot here.
I’m going to, now I’m going to place this over here.
[Adjusts glass on bar top]
I want to just have a little bit of fun with this, and this. Got that in the background. [Adjusts bottles and drinks]
[(Taylor) mentions something about caramelised ginger]
(John)
Now, I am going to try and get myself right and tight here, don’t want to block my light too much.
Here we go.
[Focus sounds. Shutter clicks]
Now, keep in mind I’m shooting with a fixed focal length lens here, so, I’ve got to frame with my body.
Ok. I’ve got a couple shots. I’m just going to get Paul to come in here with the Fuji for a sec.
(Oh, you can just set that one down over here, Paul, that’s fine.)
(John)
I’m going to shoot a horizontal one first, here. Now, the focus is working quite well here. I’m happy.
[Focus sounds. Shutter clicks]
Now, I’ll get you to shoot a few here. Let me grab that.
(Paul)
You hold that. Here we go.
[Paul picks up the Fuji and takes some photos]
(John)
So as you can see, the grip on the Fuji is a little bit different than a lot of the grips that you’re used to on the big brand SLRs, digital SLRs, in that your shutter is not at the top. It’s kind of mid-way through. It’s very comfortable in the hand.
(Paul)
And ergonomically, that’s really nice to rest your thumb against. So it sits, takes all the weight.
(John)
I’m just going to raise this light up, just a little wee bit more, so we’re not blocking it with our bodies. And I’ll just angle it down a bit. There we go. Get it in, right tight here. Just going to move these chairs.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks from the Fuji]
(John)
So, how are we looking there? We might be able to show the back of the screen if we get it over to the frame here so Harry can see. So, just working with that. Yeah, that’s good.
[Fixed camera zooms in on Fuji back screen]
(John)
Now, what if you can… see if you can get it framed with a little bit of that strobe right into your, into the background here.
Keep in mind we’ve got the strobe way over there.
[Camera comes in closer to Fuji back screen]
(John)
How’s that? Are you able to show on the back of that? Oh, that’s good. Ok!
(Paul)
Ok?
(John)
So, keep in mind now, it’s a fairly long focal length lens. It’s equivalent in 35 mm terms is about 90 mm. So, just tuck in tight here and see if you can get a little bit of the actual flash into the frame. That’s what I want to, sort of, see how that works with this, because that was when I shot the original shoot here about 2 months ago, I was using Canon equipment, and I was shooting, it was obviously at night time, and I was shooting wider open. But, I was having a lot of fun with the Canon lenses at the time, placing the flash into the frame, and thus getting a little bit of lens flare and whatever.
[Paul takes some photos and shows John]
(Paul)
That’s a bit hot still. I think I will tone this one down a little bit. Can I hand that back to you for a second?
(John)
Yeah, I’m just going to change my drink position a little wee bit here. I want to get just it looking right up that little swizzle stick here. I’m going to go, I’m going to get this in the background a little wee bit more here. Just like, a little bit of colour, and let’s see what we’ve got.
There we go. I’m going to get back as far as I can here.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Ok. Oh, I like that! Now, I’ve got a little bit of the flash in my shot here. I’m just going to make sure I’m in focus.
(Paul)
And the front lights ok now?
(John)
The front light is fine. Yeah, yeah.
Now, I think I might add, these are mirrorless cameras. I can get my review in my viewfinder, which is quite exciting.
(Paul)
Yeah, that’s very useful, isn’t it?
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
(John)
Ok, now, I’m a little bit crooked on that, but I got a bit of flare in there and I’m kinda liking what I’ve got. Have a little play here.
And how are you going, (Taylor), on your next drink?
(Taylor)
Ah, if you’re ready for me to start, I can begin.
(John)
Yeah, get rolling. That’s good. We don’t want to delay anything here.
(Taylor)
No problem at all.
(John)
What do you say; you swap the flash over to the Hasselblad, Paul?
(Paul)
Let me give it a try.
(John)
Yeah. We’ll still play with that and we can change the framing a little wee bit if we need to.
[Takes camera from Paul]
I’ll just go put this over to here.
[Camera is watching (Taylor) mix another cocktail]
[Quiet conversation about backlight]
(John)
I’m just going to move the backlight so we can get it a little bit more in the frame.
(Paul)
Yeah, perfect.
[Paul takes some photos]
[Quiet shutter sounds]
(John)
I think just bring her down just a little wee bit here too. See how this goes.
No, hopefully, I haven’t changed the intensity too much, but I’ve just brought the backlight in a little wee bit here, so we can have a little bit more in the frame. Oh, you had a filter on there, did you?
[Paul removes a filter from the lens of his camera]
(John)
Oh, there we go.
[Focus and shutter sounds]
So, now we’ve got, basically the same identical settings, with… oh, you’ve got your battery doors open there…
(Paul)
Oh, that’s handy, isn’t it?
(John)
Yeah, yeah, ok.
(Paul)
Interesting. It gives you quite a different look.
(John)
Ok, yeah?
[Paul shows John the review on the Hasselblad]
(Paul)
Essentially, a much flatter looking image on the screen.
(John)
On the back? [Acknowledges]
Well, we’ve got RAW files on these, so we’ll have lots to play with.
Actually, as a matter of fact, I haven’t actually, I didn’t confirm we had a RAW file setting on the Fuji, but I’m sure we do.
(Paul)
Oh, no, I set it up.
(John)
Oh, you set it up? Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s right you did a reset. So, yeah, we should be good to go.
(Paul)
See, let me just show you that view.
[Holds Hasselblad back screen up to fixed camera]
Can you see the LCD on the Hasselblad is a much flatter looking image than the one you’re getting off the Fuji? A little bit more realistic, perhaps?
(John)
Ok! Let’s, I’m just going to pop this guy over here.
[Moves one of the drinks on the bar]
And, we’ll get ready for the next one.
So, (Taylor), what is our next drink that you’re getting prepared here?
(Taylor)
Now, the next guy is a litchi, mint and rhubarb (___). We’re using mint, gin, litchi and lime juice, and then topping it with crushed ice and rhubarb bitters.
(John)
Oh, ok. I’m just going to grab the documentary camera and take a couple, just, stills as you’re doing that as well.
We’re sort of cheating here. We’ve got another Canon camera, just to take some run-of-the-mill stills as we’re shooting. Just to get the whole process all denoted here.
[Focus and shutter sounds]
[Fixed camera zooms out and refocuses on (Taylor)]
Ok, we’ve got some ice there. That’ll (__) you up.
Just want to make sure I get a little shot here.
[Shutter sound]
Give a go, see if we’ve got enough spillage just to get anything half decent illuminated, just in this setting here.
[Paul moves over to take a photo of the other drink in different lighting]
(John)
Right. I’ll just rotate the soft box over, just to give you a little bit more. There you go, that should give you a little bit of light.
Even if we underexpose a few of these things, these files on the medium-format cameras are, there’s an awful lot of latitude in a medium-format file. So, if you underexpose, even at ISO 400 where we are working at, there’s an awful lot you can do in post-production with these files. So, we’re not that concerned as we sort of move around and mix lighting. It was just a matter of getting these drinks out here and getting some information in the camera because we can do a little bit of magic in post-production. As a matter of fact, we do a lot of magic in post-production.
So, we’re just sort of working with what we’ve got here.
(Paul)
Ok, so let me just, um, give you an idea of what that looks like.
[Fixed camera pans around]
[Camera face is out of focus]
(John)
Ok. That’s good. Ok, then.
[Fixed camera focuses on back of Hasselblad camera]
So, what I might want to do here is… Oops. Let’s get that out of the way here.
Might just change a little bit of my background colours for this one.
Let’s get these guys out of the way here.
Ok. Let’s go ahead and see what we can do with this guy.
I’ll get your light changed around for you, Paul.
(Paul)
Thank you very much.
(John)
So, there we go. That should give you a bit.
Now, we’ve got a bit of ice on this one. If we maybe move this out, we should be able to get a little bit of a path straight through. We should have a little bit of light coming right through on the ice here.
(Paul)
Actually dark enough a little bit, I still think it’s a little bit hard, so…
[Paul takes some more photos]
(John)
So, now, with the Hasselblad, Paul is running just a little bit wider. That’s a 90 mm lens, so its effective focal length is probably around, what, the 75 range, yes. Yeah.
Ok.
[Looks at images on Hasselblad]
(Paul)
Yeah, I don’t mind that. What do you think?
(John)
Yeah, that’s kind of cool, yeah. You’ve got a nice line leading off there, and I like the way that… I’m sorry, I’m describing something you can’t see.. but maybe if we turn the camera around a little bit, maybe we’ll be able to see this.
[Paul holds up Hasselblad review screen to fixed camera]
We’ve got a little, nice hot line along the galvanised steel bar. So, we’ve got a few things that we can look at.
(John)
Now, you know what I might like? You got a Whitehart menu by chance, handy?
I might want to just put one up, propped there… No? Ok.
I just like these. I like this. I’m just going to move this into the foreground here; just like that; maybe just quickly, through the trigger onto the Fuji. Let me just leave the scene here…
[John leaves the view of the fixed camera]
[Conversation about the images on the cameras]
I’m just going to grab the trigger here.
[More conversation about the images and going to show Justin]
Let’s just grab the trigger though, so I can continue shooting.
See what you can do. If you just flip yourself into an auto-exposure mode, you might be able to do something with that other cocktail in natural light, a little wee bit.
[Conversations happening off camera]
[Fixed camera watching (Taylor) making another cocktail at the bar]
(John)
Then, I’ll shoot this a bit and then we’ll go back.
Oh, this is going to be nice here.
Ok.
(Paul)
Let’s turn that flash back on. Are you on? Yeah, good.
(John)
Should be. Yeah.
Ok. Let’s get a view.
Ok, here we are.
[focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Now, that life of the product photographer at the bar quite often is a little bit of the life of a contortionist.
[Laughter]
So, as we’re working here, let’s just see how we’re coming up.
[Looks at review screen]
Ah, that’s quite nice. I like that. Let me just get this into the background element here. Napkins. Let me get this out here on the edge. Think I want to get a little bit of red in the background. [Adjusts items on the bar]
So, I’m just sort of playing with, uh, what I’ve got here for props.
Knowing that I’m sort of shooting into that light.
So, I’ll get back as far as I can.
I might just move this light, just pull it back a little wee bit. Yeah, get him back just a bit more.
There we go.
Ok. There we go. That’s nice. That’s nice.
[Focus sounds and shutter clocks]
(Paul)
Take one more shot, John, and then I just want to stop the lens down just a little bit. Just because, um, where are we… Try that. It’s just a bit harder.
(John)
Ok. Now, when I’m focusing, I’m basically working with the garnish as the main sort of topic for these drinks.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Let me get those straws here.
Now, let’s see what we’ve got.
[Reviews images on camera screen]
There we go. Now, I could possibly – I don’t know if you can see this, Harry – but I am going to try and level myself up a little bit, but that’s kind of the look I’m getting; got this light coming through.
[Holds Fuji review screen up to fixed camera]
Most likely in post-production we’ll warm these files up a little bit, make them look, you know, sort of a “winter” tone; but I think we’ve got the RAW capture here.
I could be a little bit more level with my framing, but again, as I said; it’s the life of a contortionist.
I’m just going to move the fruit basket back a little bit, so I can get a little bit light coming through here.
And, I’m going to try and nail this one, one more time.
Then I might let Paul just sort of see if can repeat with a little slightly different look with the Hasselblad.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Tell you, they’re looking very nice in the viewfinder.
And, I’ll just frame it horizontally as well.
[Focus sounds and shutter click]
Pulling back about as far as I can here. Having no problems at all with the autofocus. Working brilliantly.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
(John)
Very good exposure here. Everything I need.
[Shows Fuji review screen to fixed camera]
We’ll just sort of show back here – I don’t know if Harry, you can bring that in on the camera there.
[Fixed camera focuses on Fuji review screen]
But, that’s what we’re capturing. We’ve got lots of colours. Got basically what we need to do here.
(I’m not too sure, is that focusing for you?)
(Don’t worry about talking here, you can talk.)
(Harry)
That’s good!
(John)
That’s good. Harry talks!
(Harry)
It’s good! Hi, ya’ll.
(John)
Ok, I’m just going to pass the flash back to Paul here. There we go. You trigger up.
(Paul)
Thank you.
(John)
You can shoot a few of those.
Now, what I’d like to do here… so that’s that…
I’m just going to quickly put myself up to about 3200 here, just to see how ambience is working with this.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
That’s not too bad. Yeah.
(Paul)
May I go ahead?
(John)
You go ahead, you work with the flashes.
(Just going to move this filter out of the way.)
So, if I just rotate between 3200 and 400, I am able to just quickly go from an ambient setting – I’ll actually go down 1/3 of a stop for that - so I am just shy of 3200 here, and I can work with the ambient here.
I’ll get in a little bit closer. So, what we’re trying to do is make the most of our timing here, with our drinks as they are coming. So, we’ve always got one left over.
(And I’ll just get in nice and tight here.)
[Paul is taking photos of the drinks on the bar and John is kneeling, taking photos of a drink that is off camera]
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
(I probably could have opened up a bit more, but I’m still at 5/6)
So yeah, that’s nice. That is nice. (I’ll just rotate the drink a bit here)
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
[Conversations in the background about cocktails]
Now, I’m just going to change my background a little wee bit here.
I apologise if I’m not talking enough. Normally I talk a lot when I’m shooting, but I’m concentrating here!
So, I’m just trying to get the most, a good number of looks here out of these drinks as they keep coming out of the bar.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
So, again, I’m not worried about high ISO at all with these cameras. They’re very clean files. So, again, these are just shy of 3200. So, getting a good look here while Paul continues to use the flash at lower ISO – at ISO 400 again, Paul, for you? – Yeah ok. So, that’s good.
So, I’ll move over to the flash shortly on this cocktail.
What’s this one called, (Taylor)?
(Taylor)
This one is called the White Thorne. It’s a take on a classic cocktail, the Black Thorne, which is gin and sweet Vermouth, and Pedro (___) sherry. So I’ve used (Fino) sherry, white Vermouth, and then gin and slow bitters, just to give it.. uh. so trying to turn a classic cocktail the opposite colour.
(John)
Oh! So, the thorn we want to drink versus step on.
(Taylor)
Exactly.
(John)
Ah, very good idea. We don’t want to be stepping on thorns.
(Cannot hear that comment)
Oh, that looks great. Ok, good stuff.
Now, I’m going to go… let’s swap back the flashes, and you can grab – what happened to our drink with mint? Oh, it’s still there! – so you can push yourself up to 3200 with the ambient and go work over there for a sec, and I’ll work here.
(Paul)
Jolly good.
(John)
Yeah, because it seems to get the best of both worlds.
Change whatever you want for props, Paul, just make anything. Grab.
Ok, I’ll just get back to 400 here now.
(Conversation with Paul about the props)
This is sort of the way a working photographer is going to go, you know. The drinks keep coming, you’ve got to get as many looks as possible. You try to make one signature look, and sort of work with it, change your props.
[Telephone ringing]
(John)
Ok. So. Let’s get the flash turned on again here.
Ok. Now, let’s get this guy. I might want to bring him. I’m going to get … [grabs items from the bar]
I’m going to try and shoot this from a little bit higher point of view this time here. See what we can get.
Oh, yeah, that’s looking nice. I’ll get in tight here.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Get back a little bit further.
Now, the ProFoto flashes are brilliant to use in this environment. You get a lot of power out of them, and a very, very fast cycle time. So, just a pleasure to use.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
(Talking to himself about framing and length)
I might just rotate this. I just got a really nice shot of half of the glass here, but it didn’t have the garnish in it.
Now, what is that garnish? It’s a little?
(Taylor)
That’s a rose petal.
(John)
It’s a rose petal! Ok! So, I want to make sure that rose petal is in. The garnishes are very important on these.
(Taylor)
It seemed appropriate for something named after a thorn.
(John)
[Acknowledges]
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
So I’m sort of working with about ¾ of the glass here, for these shots; and I’ve got some nice out of focus highlights. I might just take my aperture down just a little bit. I’m a little hot here. Let’s go there, that’s… ok… hang on a sec here…
[Harry is saying that the viewers are already asking for their drinks]
I’m actually just taking the ISO down a little bit, as I struggle with this camera. [Laughs]
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Ah, that’s nice. Let’s get a horizontal shot of that.
[Audio drops]
[Audio returns]
(Taylor)
… Orange peel garnish for this (___) as well.
(John)
Ah, excellent.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
(Taylor)
You might have seen that didn’t really work. [He attempted to set something alight]
(John)
Yeah, yeah, I want to see if I can, hopefully, I can get this in. Just got to change my ISO a little bit here so I get that flame.
[Focus sounds and shutter clicks]
Oh, I think I captured our flame. How are we doing here? [reviews images on his camera]
Oh, that’s interesting. I got a bit of flame there.
It should warm us up!
(Taylor)
So in that is venison fat-washed bourbon. I render the fat from the venison, wash that through, and leave it for 24 hours in the bourbon, then Monte Negro – which is an Italian (Amarro) and barrel-aged old fashioned (bitters).
(John)
To our viewers, we’re only running one live microphone and it’s on me, so, normally I’m the guy who talks too much, so… it’s, we’ve got an awful lot of technology at play here, and as far as microphones go, we’re only running one today.
I think the next time we do this we’ll probably run multiple microphones and then we’ll run a sub mix into that. But, again, we’re trying to kill a lot of birds with one stone here, and unfortunately, good audio on me is about all we’ve got. We’re lucky we’ve got that because we had a couple of audio mistakes earlier in the broadcast. But anyway, we’re rolling here.
I’m going to just pass the flash back. Oh here, let’s change cameras!
You go ahead and shoot with that, and I’m going to try some ambient because I haven’t shot with the Hasselblad yet.
(Paul)
I’m really beginning to think that you’ve got the advantage here because I’ve been able to get tight in with the macro, I’m running into close focus problems with that. Until Hasselblad actually bring out a macro…
(John)
Well, they have one that’s announced, correct? It’s supposed to be…
(Paul)
Well, sure enough, but it’s a little way away yet. You can, of course, use Hasselblad H lenses with an adaptor, so there’s a perfectly good macro lens.
(John)
In the H line. Which of course we can use the same lenses on the Fuji as well because there’s an adaptor for those same lenses, correct?
(Paul)
Exactly, yeah.
(John)
We should get that in, and have a play.
(Paul)
Oh, we certainly will! Anyway, I’ll have a play with this.
(John)
So, I’m set up for ambient light here. This will be, basically, the first time I’ve shot with a Hasselblad yet!
Ok, let’s have a little go here.
Oh, viewfinder… ok… there we go…
Now, that’s certainly a different viewfinder experience here.
I want to just work with the two drinks, kind of lined up here. See what we can do.
[Adjusts drinks on table]
Ok. I see what Paul was saying about focus here, I’m struggling.
[Shutter clicks]
Oh, it’s a very different experience working with these two cameras.
I’m going to bring this other drink in a little bit closer here.
[Adjusts drink on table]
Let’s see if we can get this leaf… Ok, focus and recompose…
[Shutter clicks]
Wow. There is no doubt about it; you’re working a bit faster with the Hasselblad. There is a large blackout period in your viewfinder after you press the shutter. Let me just do it again here. I’ll just sort of give you an indication and I’ll time it.
Wait a second. I’ve got nothing in my viewfinder now.
What has happened here? I might need to confer with Paul.
I might have locked up here. I’ve got nothing in my viewfinder now…
Oh, there we go.
(Paul)
Oh yeah, there she’s come back again. Just a bit of pressure on the trigger will bring it back. It’s a slower thing to work with; you have to be much more deliberate with it.
(John)
Yes. Ok, ok. Let’s get back here and I’m going to try and shoot again; get another shot with this.
Ok, yeah, so you’ve got to hold down a little bit. It’s good that I’m using this, as I said, this is my first shot with it. We did an unboxing a couple of weeks ago, and Paul did the shooting that day.
Now, I’ve got to try and get this … yeah… I might be too close for focus… oh, there we go.
There’s no doubt about it, from a focus point of view, this is a different experience between the Hasselblad and the Fuji.
My first impression here is that you’ve got to work at a much slower pace here, with the Hasselblad. The Fuji is just basically ready to roll. Obviously, the end result is the picture, so we want to make sure that we get brilliant pictures with both here.
[Shutter clicks]
But yes, a very different experience.
Now, I’m a little underexposed on these, but I don’t want to change the settings too much here from what Paul already had set up.
So, let’s take a look… How is Paul doing here?
So, Paul is shooting vertical. Bet you have a bit of both drinks in the same frame there, Paul?
(Paul)
Sounds right.
(John)
Yeah, that’s always fun to work with a little of depth perspective with these drinks.
We’ve got ice here; we have beautiful glasses; we’ve got a few background elements; so yeah, we’ve got quite a lot to work with.
(Paul)
[Reviewing his images on the Fuji]
Not quite what I want.
(John)
I think in the setup for the Fuji we can probably put some gridlines in the viewfinder. I think I would really, my levelling would be better if I had a couple of vertical lines in the viewfinder.
(Paul)
That’s absolutely true, yeah.
(John)
I just thought that maybe I was the one shooting everything crooked! But both Paul and I are suffering from the same thing here.
Doesn’t matter, you can always level in post-production; but it is nice if you can shoot it level originally. So, it’s just one of those things.
[Paul shows John his new images]
Oh, there we go. That’s beautiful!
So, yeah, we’ve got some good props here.
(Paul)
Let’s bring that in…
[Shows Fuji review screen to fixed camera]
(John)
Now, let me see if I can get something with ambient here as well.
[Shutter clicks in background]
[Camera pans back out]
[Shutter clicks]
Ok, that’s not too bad.
I might try with flash on the Hasselblad now.
(Paul)
Ok, let’s do that.
(John)
So, we’ll just swap that over.
(Paul)
So, let’s just turn this one off. I don’t want to be blowing anything up. There we go.
[Removes flash trigger from Fuji]
Now, you’ve to remember, you can’t go quite as tight.
(John)
Yes, yes. Ok.
Now, we need to get our settings back here. So, what do we need to change?
I’ll hang on to this. [Takes Fuji]
(Paul)
Ok, let’s change things here. Ok. Thank you very much. Oh, it’s nice and warm.
(John)
Oh, good, good. Oh, that’s nice. Looking very good, Paul. I think we’re having a lot of fun here. I’m just going to see whether I can get a shot of this thing…
(Paul)
Dial the ISO back a bit.
[Shutter clicks from Hasselblad]
(John)
There’s no doubt about it; the Fuji is a much faster-responding camera, but for someone who is used to shooting with a digital SLR, it’s still a world of difference when it comes to speed. You know, I just want to quickly grab a shot here and I’m, there are some things I’m waiting for…
So, there obviously are some trade-offs. We get the beautiful high-resolution files, but we’ve got to work at a little bit slower pace.
(Paul)
Just a little slightly slower pace, but that’s ok. You can encompass that. That’s what we always used to have to do.
(John)
Now, keep in mind I just took the trigger off here, so I just shot some very underexposed pictures. I’m just going to flip up to about 3200 here and see what we can get just for ambient.
But, because those pictures were so underexposed, we might have a fair bit to work with when the time comes, so we’ll see how we’re going here.
Oh, I just want to confer with David.
David, did we go live on the HyperDeck recorder as well for this?
Oh, yeah, we’re recording, good, good. Excellent.
[Fixed camera pans around to David and the switching desk]
Oh there we go, we’re showing David here. There’s the man behind the scenes.
So, hopefully, you’re enjoying these live broadcasts.
Oh, that’s great! Fabulous! [Referring to the new drink that (Taylor) just placed on the bar]
Almost looks like (Taylor) is getting ready to get into the bottle there.
[Laughter]
[Camera quickly pans to (Harry) who is nodding vigorously)
(John)
Here, now, let me have a little play with this with the flash. So if we’re all ready to go… Ok.
(Paul)
Ok. Yeah, you got that?
(John)
Ok, you’re set first in ambient. Maybe rock back and forth a stop on ISO there.
(Paul)
I’ll give it a try.
(John)
You should be able to go.
Well, now we’ve got a set of three drinks here!
This is good. We’ll play a little depth of field here.
Let’s see what we’ve got.
Ok, so here we are, we’re at 90th of a second, at 5.6, ISO is 400, the battery is responding. Trying to get focus… there we go.
[Shutter clicks]
Why don’t we just throw this guy off to the side and see if we can get a little bit of … oh yeah…
[Telephone rings]
I’m focusing on that… is that an orange rind we’ve got on the top of that, (Taylor)? Yeah, must be.
Let’s focus on this orange rind.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Let’s go for vertical here.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
I must admit, I’m struggling with focus a little bit on the Hasselblad.
(Paul)
A bit close, probably.
(John)
Well, it could be that as well, but also because I’m backlit, it’s a glass object, and these are tricky things to focus. You know, I’m not going to try and tell you that using a 35 mm camera with my Canon 85 mm is easy, that thing for every 10 shots you capture, about 9 are out of focus anyway!
It’s just one of these things. You’ve got to, you learn the equipment, you figure out what you can do here.
I just want to see what they’re looking like on the back here.
[Camera is showing (Taylor) working on another drink. John is out of picture.]
(Paul)
[Out of frame]
John, I’m just going to swap across to an ambient shot that I’m… so actually, that’s beautiful. That’s worked very nicely.
Well, let’s show them these ones.
(John)
Ok.
(Paul)
I’m just going to… you first.
(John)
Now keep in mind, once we get this Facebook, get this shoot all finished here.
There, so there’s our ambient.
[Holds Hasselblad review screen up to fixed camera]
Now, it’s highly backlit, but we should be able to do some work with it.
(Want to bring it in a bit closer here?)
[Camera zooms in]
Don’t worry about talking, Harry. That’s alright.
(Harry)
That’s alright. A bit closer. Oh, it’s turned off.
(John)
Oh, the screen turned off. Ok, here, sorry.
(Harry)
Sorry, viewers. Beautiful.
(John)
But we’ll share these photos in the comments sections, because, of course, these Facebook videos have a timeline, so every photo that we’ve shot we can put into the timeline. And, we’ll share some RAW files as well.
(Paul)
This one can go with the ambient shots.
[Paul holds up the Fuji review screen to the fixed camera]
(John)
Ok, go ahead and explain that one here. I’ll get over to the side here.
(Paul)
That close enough, Harry?
(Harry)
A bit closer, please.
(Paul)
Ok, there we go.
(John)
Now, I’m just going to get back. I really liked what we were working with, our framing here. I want to get a couple more shots before I lose our setup.
So I’ll get horizontal in here.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
I’m going to pull back as far as I can before I hit the lights here.
[Camera is focused on (Taylor) preparing another drink at the bar. John is out of picture.]
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
(John)
Now, on the Hasselblad, you’re certainly not blasting off a whole bunch of rapid-fire shots. Your cycle time is, it’s looking to me, it’s about a second and a half, or two seconds between shots is about the best you can get here.
[(Taylor) uses the cocktail shaker]
Going to get right over, and see if we can get this flash in the frame a bit here.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
See what we’ve got.
[Reviews images]
Now, I’m very crooked, but I’ll see how I go. I’ll just get one more here. See whether if I can…
[Focus beep and shutter click]
Now, I really would like a little guideline while I’m using these things, but anyway, that’s all good.
I think we’ll move the flash over to the Fuji now, and I’ll let Paul get to work with a couple of flashes, and he can change his frame.
Ooh, we’ve got a pink drink coming up here.
So, I better turn off. There we go. Pop that off, there you go.
(Paul)
Ok, I’m just going to come back with this a little bit more.
(John)
Yeah. Now, I want to get my ISO back up here, so I can shoot some ambient. So, I need to get into my settings. What do I do, Paul?
(Paul)
No, you’ve actually got a dedicated button, just on the top here. There’s ISO just there. [Points at button on top of Hasselblad]
(John)
Oh, ISO. Ok.
(Paul)
So, if you just have a press of that, then you should … might be just having a write to itself…
(John)
Oh, ok.
(Paul)
So, a little bit quirky, this thing.
(John)
Ok, we got the display up here. There’s ISO. Ok.
So I’m just going to up to 3200, and it will probably be ok for ambient at that. Was that where you were?
(Paul)
Yeah, that’s what I was using.
(John)
Yeah, ok. I just want to get a couple of shots here.
[Shutter click]
[Conversation in the background between (Taylor) and Paul]
Yeah, so ISO is just over here, just on the knob. Oh is it back down?
(Paul)
Yeah, that’s interesting. Ok.
(John)
Hmm, ok. Keep in mind, like a lot of videos that we do here, it’s a little bit of a trial by fire. I’ve got a bit more mileage of on the GFX than Paul, but Paul’s got a bit more mileage on the Hasselblad than I. But, again, you know, if you own these cameras and you had a chance to use them on several shoots, you’d be in a bit better position than us. But, uh, we just kind of wanted to see – could we just pick these cameras up and put them to work?
Oh, oh, we’ve got some flaming here! Flaming rosemary!
Ok, let’s get a shot!
Got some smoke. [(Taylor) has set something aflame at the bar]
I tell you, this is where you really wish you could get a little bit more action out of the Hasselblad.
[Shutter clicks]
[(Taylor) is burning rosemary with a blowtorch]
Ok.
[Someone sniffs deeply in the background]
Oh! I’ve got a couple! Ok, I’m happy!
I don’t know if Harry can see that or not... But I’ve got a bit of flame there! We got (Taylor), looking good!
(Taylor)
Smells good!
(Paul)
Does smell good!
(John)
Yeah!
Oh, brilliant. We’ll be able to do lots in post-production with these.
(Taylor)
I’m happy to re-flame some more rosemary for you if you’d like.
(John)
Beautiful! Beautiful!
Ok. I’m going to just grab a couple of these guys and put them down here to our ambient table.
[Moves drinks to side table]
And then we’re going to work with this. I’m going to move that around. Let’s get this guy here.
[Adjusts drinks on the bar]
Let me see what I can do here while you’re doing that.
[Shutter clicks]
Ok, now I’m just working with ambient here.
[Shutter clicks]
I got the blowtorch in this frame. Hopefully, that’s good.
[Shutter clicks]
[(Taylor) sets another piece of rosemary aflame in the drink]
Yeah, go ahead, get in there.
(Paul)
Oh, ok.
(John)
Ah yes. Ok, that’s not too bad.
I must admit, I think everything I am shooting when I am in vertical mode here, is crooked.
Normally, on my cameras, I set up some grid lines in the display that really help me; but of course, we’re bending over the bar here, and it is just one of these things.
But this is the life of a commercial photographer, you know, you’ve just got to get your hands in there and get dirty.
(Paul)
Yeah, a bit of a flaming action.
(John)
Yeah.
[Shutter clicks]
[Focus beep and shutter clicks]
[Rosemary in drink is smoking]
[(Taylor) looks pleased]
Ah, looking good! Got some smoke, the backlight is nice.
(Paul)
Oh, you like it? And it’s nicely backlit.
(John)
See if you can show that on to the camera here.
[Paul brings Fuji review screen towards the fixed camera]
Looking nice!
Good stuff.
[Fixed camera zooms into Fuji screen]
(Harry)
Bit closer. Beautiful, that’s it. Yup, yup. Thank you.
(John)
Ok! Now that’s good.
Oh, I’m going to just want to get a shot here of these guys.
[Focus beep and shutter click]
Now, one thing I would like – I’m not too sure if… Paul, was there an option of a real time histogram in the viewfinder on the Hasselblad?
(Paul)
Ooh, that’s an interesting point. We’ll have to have a bit of a delve into that.
(John)
Yeah, I certainly I’ve used it on the Fuji, and I do like it. But, yeah, we’ve got some good stuff here.
Let’s just get in here; I want to have just a little more shoot of this collection here. This is kind of like; we call this the Winter Cocktail Flight down here.
What would they, they might be a few dollars though?
(Taylor)
Well, that’s just um, more than three.
(John)
More than three! [Laughs]
(Harry)
Sorry, John, I’ve got a question for you… which one is mine?
(John)
Ah, well, if you want to start diving in there, get in, Harry!
[Laughs]
[Focus beep and shutter clicks]
(Taylor)
That’s a raspberry and green matcha tea cocktail, with white rum and Chartreuse.
(Paul)
Sounds excellent.
(Taylor)
And rosemary on the top just to give it that smell, that aroma.
(Paul)
Oh that reminds me of juniper.
(John)
Let me just uh… [Adjusts drinks on bar]
(Taylor)
Oh yeah, that’s a very similar aroma to Juniper.
[Shutter clicks]
(Paul)
Yeah, nice.
(John)
I’m liking the look of what I’m getting with the Hasselblad, but there is no doubt about it – I’m struggling to get the shots off at the rate I need to for a commercial shoot.
(Paul)
Yeah, it’s not as easy to work with. I’m sure they’ll develop it with firmware upgrades, but at the moment this is a much more practical solution I think. [Gestures to the Fuji GFX]
(John)
No doubt in my mind.
So, yeah, we can’t say who the definitive winner is. We need to, you know, the proof is going to be in the pudding. We need to get these files, you know, but there’s no doubt about it – if you’re into a running gun product shoot, like we’ve presented ourselves – this was our challenge today, you know, how fast could we do this? Can we do it live on video? – from a usability standpoint, the Fuji is doing quite well, and there’s no doubt in my mind, if we had thrown in a top-tier Canon digital SLR here, even maybe a 50 MPX 5DSR type camera, we’d probably be cranking them off even a bit quicker.
Now, with that stated, my go to lens on the Canon format has been this 85 mm that I love, the f1.2, and you ALWAYS struggle with focus on that. So, with the good, the speed of the digital SLRs, the old Canon and Nikon, some of those lenses struggle a little bit.
I’m finding my focusing is very good on the Fuji today. I’m struggling a bit with the Hasselblad.
Oh, we got a bit more flame here! I’ve got to get a shot of this!
I must admit though, I’m having a heck of a lot of fun here. I think it was a great idea to come to Whitehart today to do this shoot!
I want to test every one of these cocktails in a non-working environment. Or at least, a non, you know, working at the store environment today!
[Laughs]
But, (Taylor) is doing a great job with mixmastery over here. He’s getting quite a workout.
(Taylor)
Finally!
(John)
He’s, uh, using every barman’s tool that we all dream of. He’s got flame throwers, he’s got ice machines, he’s got strainers, he’s got... he’s got everything!
Oh, this is good; let me see if I can get this!
[(Taylor) is pouring a drink through a strainer into a cocktail glass]
It really is a leap of faith on the Hasselblad when you’ve just got to grab that found moment.
Hopefully, I’ve got some here.
Though, I tell you, holding this Hasselblad is incredible! It’s so light!
Ooh, ok, this is good. Let me see if I can get in here.
[John moves up to the bar]
So, we’ve got the template. Come on, focus.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Might be a little overexposed here.
Let me get my ISO down… oh, no, that’s good, that’s good.
[Focus beep and shutter click]
I’m probably in your shot there, Paul.
(Paul)
No, you’re good.
(John)
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Ok, that’s fun.
(Paul)
Ok, I’m just going move that one. [Adjusts drink on the bar]
(John)
Yeah. I tell you what I think is going to be good here, I don’t know, do you want to stand on a chair, Paul, with that, or I will?
(Paul)
(Can’t hear what he says – something about the end one)
(John)
Yeah, I know, I’m just thinking a little bit of vertical height could help me. I’m a bit height challenged, as usual.
(Paul)
It might be a bit (___).
(John)
I’ll let you get one more off there.
(Paul)
I’m just going to pull the flash back a bit.
(John)
Ok. Yeah, I haven’t touched the flash. We’ve just got full manual control over it. Oh yeah, well that’s a good display. I’m going to take a shot of that, just so I just record that.
[Takes a photo of the ProFoto flash display]
I’ve used the studio ProFoto quite a bit, and these are the battery powered versions, very, very similar.
Ok, let’s just do a quick change of battery.
Oh, you changed your battery already, you back on?
Ok, well just pop the new battery in.
[Audio goes out]
[John is speaking, but there is no audio]
[John looks happy and he picks up a cocktail]
[Audio still out]
[Audio turns]
Changing battery on the main sound camera.
[Stephen comes over and gestures at the new drinks on the bar]
(John)
I know, I know! That’s why I want to get up here.
Here, let me trade cameras with you for a sec here.
(Paul)
Yeah, you’re good.
(John)
I want to get, I’m going to stand up.
[Stephen says something about turning something towards (___)]
Oh yeah, yeah! We’ve got lots of heroes!
These drinks are heroes, Stephen!
[Laughs]
Now, ok. [Climbs onto chair]
We’re good.
[Focus beep and shutter clicks]
Let’s see how we’re doing here. Just kind of wanted to get high up here to get a shot.
Now I need a little bit more ISO on that, just to get… let’s go up to 800 a bit here. Might just… just going to change my positioning here… [Adjusts drinks on the bar]
I’m going to put him over here a little bit. [Moves one of the drinks off camera]
You feel free to snap off some ambient there, and you should be good to go, Paul.
(Paul)
Yeah, ok.
(John)
Let me just get this as a background element here, and uh…
[Camera turns to face Paul as he shoots]
(John)
If I was to use a bit of citrus, (Taylor), as an element here, would I go lime or would I go lemon?
(Taylor)
Ah, you’d go to lemon for that cocktail. In fact, a bit of apple wouldn’t go amiss.
(John)
Oh, let’s put an apple beside here then. That’s good.
(Taylor)
Since apple is one of the main components of that little guy.
(John)
Perfect! Ok!
(Taylor)
And this is, and I’ll sort of yell into the microphone a bit – is a dark walnut, apple, and (Zubronka) sour. It’s got an apple juice, lemon juice, dark walnut bitters, which is the Whitehart “W” you see on the top there, and (___).
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
(John)
Ok, how are we doing there on these shots?
What I’d really like to get… I’m blocking most of that… going to crank up my ISO a little bit more here and get that…
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Ah, that’s good, that’s good. Ok.
So, I’ve had to crank my ISO up a little bit here, because I’m kind of blocking a lot of the soft box, but now I am going to vertical and I like my framing…
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
I just want to work with that “W” – the Whitehart “W” that’s in the middle of that.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
There we go, that’s not too bad. I might want to just change our apple location.
[Adjusts apple on the bar]
Let’s just rotate this.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
The Fuji... oh, that definitely, that’s good.
Now I’ll get in a little bit tighter here. I like my framing, but I just want to get that edge out of the picture here.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Ok. [John climbs off the chair]
There we go. So, that’s why, the reason I wanted to stand up there, I wanted to really work with the top of this drink. So, that’s what we’re getting. We’ve got apple in it, I’m just working with the stacked napkins here… and there’s our cocktail.
[Shows image up to fixed camera]
So, I think we’ve got ourselves a nice shot with that.
Now, I might want to hand the camera back to Paul. He can work with the Fuji a little wee bit.
Keep going flash here.
I’m going to go ambient.
I think, really, we’ve sort of figured it out. The Fuji and flash is a good combo, and may the Hasselblad for ambient?
(Paul)
Nice work.
(John)
Yeah, yeah.
(Paul)
Let me just, I’ll just pull your chair back out.
(John)
Yeah, yeah. Don’t call the work safe people.
(Paul)
We won’t tell them.
(John)
We won’t tell them that we’re standing on a chair.
[Laughter]
(Taylor)
He was standing on a chair!
(John)
Oh no! [Laughs]
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
There we go.
Now, I cranked the ISO up a little bit because I was losing light because I was blocking most of that, so you might want to take her back down to 400 and change and whatever.
But, that’s what the nice thing is; the Fuji has got direct access to your key parameters: Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. So, from a pure manual shooting point of view, it’s a very pleasurable camera to work with.
I might just sort of work over here a little bit. I’ve got…
David’s got our B-roll camera here. He’s just reframing.
Careful, Harry’s lost a little bit of gaffer tape on his wire, but that’s alright.
I’m just going to shoot into here a little bit. I want to get this, a couple of ambient shots of these cocktails, just…
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
There we go.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Should be talking while I’m doing this, but I’m kind of concentrating on this camera.
I must admit I just love the feel of the Hasselblad in my hand! It’s a very, very comfortable body. The weight is nice. All you wish for is just faster response.
So, let’s hope that Hasselblad can do a firmware update on this, or in its next iteration, it can be the performance demon that we just really want.
There is, it’s a real tough comparison between the Fuji and the Hasselblad because the Fuji is just such a fast performer.
Yeah, I’m just going to bring this in.
Keep in mind, we’re spoiled these days in the digital age because of course, we’re used to just, you know, blasting these things off like a machine gun. If this was film, maybe medium-format, you know, we’d be winding this thing, we’d be staging everything. We’d only get like, twelve or so shots on a roll.
And of course, we wouldn’t get to see the results until we actually went back to the lab. So, it would take another hour or so. Or maybe our own darkroom.
We might have been using Polaroid backs to get proofs.
It’s like our skyscraper of drinks shot here, this could be kind of fun.
Come on, focus for me there, come on.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
Minimum focusing distance, I am struggling here. I want to get in tighter, but I just can’t. It’s not a macro lens; it’s an unfair comparison for the Hasselblad versus the Fuji because we do have that beautiful 120 mm Maclo, right? Yes.
I’m going to see if I can shoot up a little bit here.
[Kneels down]
Come on; focus, please, please focus.
[Focus beeps and shutter clicks]
There we go, ok.
Have we gone through the complete list? [Asks (Taylor)]
(Taylor)
That’s the list, yeah.
(John)
Ok. Well, I think maybe Paul and I should just sort of have a little bit of a roundup here.
Want to have a seat, Paul?
(Paul)
Yeah, sure.
(John)
You come over here. Let’s have a little talk about what we’ve…
(Taylor)
Why don’t you have a drink?
(John)
I think we could. I think we could. I must admit I’m rather drawn to this… [Picks up a drink]
(Taylor)
That’s a Tokyo City Sour. It’s a take on a New York Sour, but using a brown sugar and (___), along with a rye whiskey, and then red wine, a pinot noir flavour.
(John)
Well, that’s got most of my favourite food groups in it!
(Taylor)
What, alcohol, alcohol, and booze?
(John)
Well, and New York, and I need to go to Tokyo! Paul has spent some time in Tokyo, and I spent some time in New York!
(Paul)
And, what have we got in this one? [Holds up pink drink]
(Taylor)
That one is raspberry matcha tea, white rum, and a green Chartreuse, and then obviously with the rosemary and lemon juice.
And topped with ginger beer.
(John)
Now, where’s Stephen? Stephen, do you want to join us?
(Paul)
Cheers!
(John)
Cheers!
[Touch glasses]
(John)
Everything is good! Ok!
So, I’ll have a little taste here.
(Taylor)
You have to say it’s good.
(John)
Hey, listen, that’s fantastic.
Now, this is the reason why sometimes being a professional photographer is fun! You know, you get to sample the wares.
[Paul nods]
And I think we’ve had some great support with the staff here at Whitehart.
It’s been a real job to get all this technology moved, even though it’s just from next door.
Dave has done a wonderful job of handling our video switching.
We hope you’ve had a chance to join us here on Facebook live for our first photo shoot, shootout!
And it was cocktail photography, Hasselblad X1D 50c versus Fuji GFX 50s.
And they’re both 50 because of their megapixels, and love it or hate it, everything in cameras is still marketed on the megapixels.
We’re of course, over here at Whitehart Bar, which is right beside, on Lonsdale Street, off Whitehart Lane, beside Michael’s Camera.
So, we think it’s a match made in heaven! We’ve got artisan cocktails, and beers, and friendly staff, a beautiful architectural masterpiece of steel and containers. There’s some art on the brick walls. Sometimes there are projectors going.
Whitehart is a heck of a fun place, and every week or so, there’s a different food truck here, and we’ve got… what is the food truck we’ve got in right now? It’s barbeque again, is it? I can’t remember. Anyway, I think it’s barbeque.
So, we really love having Whitehart right next to Michael’s Camera.
The staff comes over here. It’s our local.
So, now, let’s get into what we’ve learned with the cameras today.
(Paul)
I really thought you were saying let’s get into the cocktails.
(John)
Oh, well, yeah, we’ve got to get into those as well!
[They both sip their drinks]
Right off the bat, the feel in the hand of this Hasselblad is incredible.
This is a camera you just want to shoot and shoot and shoot with.
[Paul agrees]
However, it lets you down because you can’t shoot and shoot and shoot because it’s just not performing that fast. It’s a difficult unit to love because it’s beautiful, the weight is great, I’m sure the pictures are going to be fabulous. We know they should be. I’ve had a little test with our original box opening day. Paul took a picture of me. I think it was the first one on this camera.
(Paul)
Yeah. Pretty much, yeah.
(John)
Or it might have been a picture of Matt. I can’t remember. But anyway!
The pictures are very good.
Oh, Stephen are you going to join us?
Feel free! Come on here, grab a drink!
[Stephen joins them in picture]
(Stephen)
All went well, John?
(John)
I think it very well. This is Stephen, the proprietor here at Whitehart.
[Stephen asks which camera to look at]
And so, Stephen so graciously let us come over here, shoot his drinks, partake in his environment, and let us do a live broadcast. So, we really thank you for that.
(Stephen)
Fantastic! You’re very welcome! Very welcome! And, yes, absolutely! You’ve seen the team behind the scenes here? [Points to the Whitehart team behind the scenes]
All standing by over there!
(John)
Better just quickly change the ISO here while I take a shot.
(Stephen)
That’s the crew. There they all are. Hi there!
[The Whitehart crew says hi and wave]
And the one who gives us the direction, David. [Focuses on David, who waves]
(John)
Oh, he is a member of the team.
(Stephen)
So, in the bag?
(John)
Well, we’re just going to give a little bit more of a roundup of our cameras.
So, we’ve had no problem using the Hasselblad with the flash system. The ProFoto lights have been working perfectly.
(Paul)
Absolutely fine.
(John)
I don’t think we had a misfire at all.
(Paul)
Not at all.
(John)
We just ran them in manual mode. Matter of fact, the whole shoot, basically, was in manual mode. This is the way most pros work with this.
We were using the autofocus, of course, though; and there’s no doubt about it, because this is not a macro lens, I was struggling a bit with autofocus. I think the autofocus performance, possibly, on this camera, not quite up to the standard on the Fuji as well.
The proof will be in the pudding when we take a look at the images.
Now, Paul, give me a rundown, how are you feeling about the Fuji?
(Paul)
Oh, I just found this an amazingly easy camera to use, certainly in comparison to that I’m afraid. As much as I want to love this thing, because ergonomically the build and everything is just beautiful, yeah. Practically, this [gestures to the Fuji] was a much better thing to use.
So, I mean especially, as we were saying before, you’ve got a decisive advantage in having a macro in this setting because you want to get tight in on things and get that nice selective focus; so that just works perfectly.
And, the whole way the camera works; the autofocus, everything is very responsive; works beautifully with the flash, easy to use. So, really, I am really happy with this.
(John)
I think if I had these two cameras sitting in front of me, and it was just me working alone, I had the choice, I think I would have shot the whole shoot on the Fuji.
I just struggled to use the Hasselblad today. I’m sure the pictures are going to be beautiful, but I struggled with it.
(Paul)
I still think, in a different sort of setting, if you were travelling, or you were doing landscape work or something like that, this would still be a very nice camera. [points to Hasselblad] to use.
(John)
Oh, no doubt in my mind, and of course, take a look at the size!
(Paul)
Yeah, exactly.
(John) [Holds up Hasselblad next to the Fuji]
If we just hold this up. Now, of course, we’ve added a few options. We don’t need to have the grip on the Fuji, and of course, we do have a macro lens which is a little bit larger; but, yes, this camera [the Hasselblad] this is the beginning. Let’s think of this as maybe, you know, the beta. Obviously, they don’t want us to think of it like that, but I think in the next iteration of this Hasselblad, it’s going to be a very brilliant camera. But for the, if you were shooting with the Hasselblad as if it was film – I know it’s digital – but if you had the film mentality, you were working very slow and methodical, I think that the Hasselblad is not going to let you down.
But for what we were doing today, where we were on a timeline, and we needed to get these shots, just cycle to cycle time, I struggled with the Hasselblad, and I didn’t struggle with the Fuji.
So, yeah, that’s where I stand on it; and I think, you know…
(Paul)
I absolutely agree with you, yeah.
(John)
I’m really itching to get these files out of the cameras into the computer and we’re going to share them with you!
Hopefully, we’ll be able to share some RAW files as well, so that you can pop them into Light Room and have a play.
Both cameras, RAW files, work with Light Room, so you’ve got no problem there.
And of course, these cameras can produce an in-camera JPG for reference purposes as well.
So, yeah, thank you for joining us on this, our first live shootout!
Not only is it a live shootout of a couple of very exciting medium-format mirrorless cameras, it’s a remote shootout because we’re over at Whitehart Bar, which is beside Michael’s Camera, but keep in mind we had to move everything from the store over to here. And of course, we’re using a multi-camera broadcasting system, going to Facebook live. All thanks to the Black Magic devices.
So, we’re using the Black Magic web presenter to produce our stream. We’re using the Black Magic HyperDeck to record this, so we have a full HD recording of the stream, and then, of course, we’re using the Black Magic ATM-TV studio to do the switching.
And, as we grow with this system we’re going to be adding more cameras.
Today we were running two cameras for the feed. We’ve got Harry over here on a 5D Mark IV, with a 24-105 IS lens, and the 5D Mark IV has dual pixel autofocus. It’s been doing a great job. That camera’s got the wireless mic hooked up to it, and of course, we only ran one mic today, so I do apologise. I know we kind of struggled with audio. We’re going to have to get more wireless mics in next time.
And then, of course, the second camera was a little Panasonic Lumix G7, which also runs full HD streaming out of its HDMI port.
And, so that was what enabled us to do a two-camera live stream.
And David was over here, manning the computer, and handling our switching, and directing us. And of course, directing us was a real challenge, because of course, we’re just meandering all over the place as we were doing the shoot.
But, anyway, we hope you enjoyed it!
We hope to share all of our results, and we hope to see you at Whitehart, and at Michael’s Camera!
And, I think it’s the best of both worlds!
We’ve got beautiful winter cocktails here at Whitehart, and of course, we’ve got all sorts of cameras and things for you to purchase, and just view, over at Michael’s.
So, we’re going to sign off now, and thank you so much for joining us!
A big hand to everybody at Whitehart! A big hand to (Taylor) for getting all our drinks ready! A big hand to (Taylor)!
And thanks to Stephen for having us over here!
And big thanks to Michael’s Camera for letting us take our photo shootout on the road, over to Whitehart.
So take care, we’ll see you next time!
Bye for now!
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