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FYI: Newer Home Lights Have to Warm Up to Full CT

If you're forced to use available consumer indoor light fixtures and they're the newer coiled bulbs, this info may help you if you're not already aware.

Well, I got educated about some of the newer home light fixtures recently. I'm still using a stockpile of the older globe-type bulbs so I didn't know the following about the newer lights. Apparently the newer energy efficient coiled bulbs for home use have to literally warm up before reaching their full color temperature intensity, unlike the older instant-on type that I'm familiar with.

I was shooting some interior shots near a big sliding glass door with fading late afternoon daylight but still plenty to use as a primary flood source. I asked someone to flip on an array of fixtures right above the table where the subjects were and immediately said lose that because it was closer to the subjects, too warm and would have conflicted with the daylight spilling in. As I said, the daylight was fading & it was darker than I would have liked but that was my key because it was a flood & was better than the warmer overhead lights, so I thought.

Shortly after we were done, someone flipped on those overheads again and after about 30 seconds they had reached their full intensity. I noticed how much whiter and cleaner they were and looked very close to 3200K. The daylight was good but the overheads would have been the better choice to light the area I was shooting. It was just irritating knowing the lighting could have been better on the faces but I'd never seen consumer bulbs that had to warm up. I looked at the bulbs' specifications and they were just under 3200K at 2700K. So, it may have just been that specific brand but if you encounter these types of bulbs and they initially look too warm, let them stay on for at least 20-30 seconds to see if they get any brighter. If anybody has any further info or experience with these newer fixtures, let's hear it. Thanks
forum topics

Flipout LCD Panel Repair

I have a consumer DV camera for home use but I'm sure the mechanics & design of the flipout LCD screen are the same or very similar to a pro system. Shortly before it completely went out and the screen was fully deployed, the image scrambled & froze. But when opened half-way or 45 degrees or less, it still worked fine but would go out if you extended outward beyond that point. It could also still do the 180 to flip the screen outward and then back into the camera's body while viewing it. Shortly after though, it completely went out when deployed in any orientation.

Before I open the body or screen bezel to try to fix it, can anyone explain what I can expect to find and what to avoid to prevent further damage? Are these screens powered and supplied with a picture by an integrated ribbon cable, spring loaded pins, friction points or what? Thanks.
forum topics

ABC 20/20 Scene Color Issue Part 2

Below are stills pulled from a 20/20 episode that aired on 7.18.14. As you will see at the related links below, this is another incident of inconsistent color balancing that appears to be at the same location but at least not in the same scene as before. It's bad enough to happen at all on a top rated network show but to happen in the same scene like the previous example? They were probably chasing daylight & just didn't re-correct as the light cooled between OTFs or came back for pickups & didn't take setting notes from the first time. I just can't understand how this is allowed to go to air without someone catching it in the chain of custody, especially in post, and fixing it.



COOL - appears around 1:30 in Act 3
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/mis...ylist=23210165

WARM - appears around 3:55 in Act 4
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/tee...ylist=23210165


Another 20/20 CT Incontinuity
http://www.b-roll.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29143

ABC News Blown Out Video
http://www.b-roll.net/forum/showthread.php?t=29246
photog blogs

Orange is the New Choice

I'm sitting at a crossroads again. I say, again, because before I became most of what I am now (a news photographer), I dabbled and showed some promise at being a writer and/or a still photographer.

Still photography will always be a hobby (wait, what?) and I have no regrets there, but writing, now that would have made for an interesting alternative.


This past weekend, my lovely wife and I visited the Robert Berman Gallery for a reception and showing of a man who actually is a still photographer.


Sorry for the blurry shot (Ha-ha, not really, I like blurry shots), but that older guy in the middle of the frame is a photographer. That's Murray Garrett.

Murray Garrett made a career out of being a celebrity photographer. I don't think you'd call him a papparrazzi. My understanding is that he was mostly invited into the lives of stars in order to take pictures.


Invited because he was a classy guy who wasn't out to make anyone look bad. He had integrity and I assume discretion about his subject matter.


Well, seeing the work of Murray Garrett reminded me how much I missed my own modest artistic endeavors.

Work days have been filled with less opportunities to shoot. I still love my news job and being assigned to the political beat, I'm even happier than I was when every assignment was a new adventure. I find the work is more of a challenge and my focus is actually required.

In the course of my day, I have little time to point and click and even less time to string together a sentence or more.

But there's hope.

Tthere is potential in my life to carve out more of an opportunity to do those things which I had put aside.


Having squandered decades of time on trivial matters (raising a family and earning a living), I find myself in the very cool position of having enough (for now) of most of what I need.

My bills are paid and I seem to even have a small, but glorious amount of time. So, the questions regarding who I want to be, could possibly finally diffinitively maybe be answered.

That's what I'm thinking about this morning.

Every time I've found myself at this particular crossroads, I made the decision to follow the route that was lined with steady pay, good benefits and surprisingly few holidays off.


In my opinion, my choices have been pretty spectacularly awesome and have worked out mostly in my favor.

(Say what you want about my orange tie, I chose it because I knew it would make my wife happy.)

Well, that's enough rambling for one morning. In my melodramatic way, I was just trying to get the idea across that I'm feeling the urge to do more writing. Not just blogging, not just dabbling at screenplays, but honest to goodness dedicating my life to being a writer (slash) news photographer instead of a news photographer (slash) writer (slash) everything else that I do that makes it more difficult for me to be a writer.

I described my life as being at a crossroads.  A precipice metaphor might be the better image.

The seventeenth of October is not just a date on the calendar.
 
 
 
 

photog blogs

Getting on-air when you’re hired behind the scenes

It’s a dilemma faced by many on the hunt for a reporting or anchoring job.  Do you take an off-air position as a producer or work on the website to get your foot in the door?  Or do you reject any opportunity that doesn’t involve doing your dream job?

Talent coach Nick Dalley says there are variables to consider.

“Does the ND see such a transition in the cards at all? Does he/she have something personal against non on-air people becoming on-air  — that is, has it been tried before with unsuccessful consequences?” asks Dalley.

WTVA news director Dave Beech says producers can become excellent reporters. Photo by Christina Jones.

WTVA news director Dave Beech says producers can become excellent reporters. Photo by Christina Jones.

Dave Beech is news director at WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi.  He says working an off-air job first can be a bonus.

“I have always found in my career that reporters who start off as producers, for two or three years, make the best reporters and the best producers start off as reporters ,” said Beech, “A really good producer has that reporting background and the really good reporters have that producing background. “

Another variable is the candidate’s approach to the job, according to Dalley.  Are you the type of person who is willing to go over and above consistently so as to make yourself attractive?  That may mean coming in early, staying late and illustrating qualities that will make you seem seem indispensable.

That’s what Christina Garcia did when she was hired as a Web producer at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Her background was in print journalism at the University of South Alabama, but she had interned at WKRG in Mobile and got the job at WLOX in 2011.  From that moment on, she tried to learn every job in the newsroom to make herself a more valuable employee.

“While I was working as a Web producer, I would put in extra time on my weekends, I would go out with the reporters, I would sit and watch the anchors and I would sit and learn everything I possibly could,’ said Garcia.

Garcia is now anchoring the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts, and Dalley says her path is one other job candidates can walk.

“Keep your axe sharp. Meet the talent coach. As a talent coach, it’s always impressive to me to have someone come up and ask for five minutes of feedback. I rarely refuse if it’s at all possible,” said Dalley.  “Short of this, ask people who did get coaching what the coach went over in the session. Ask for coaching from the ND or the EP.  Sometimes five minutes can be very effective.”

Dalley says it’s also important to keep lines of communication open with the news director — make sure he or she knows of your aspirations.

“Overall, I think it’s a good idea to have a strategy,” Dalley said.  “… give oneself a time-limit to achieve benchmarks. If the goal isn’t being reached, it may have nothing to do with the newcomer, it may have to do with things that are completely out of his/her control.  At the point it’s apparent that the goal just can’t be reached at this particular station no matter what, it’s time to move on.”

Garcia was so busy that Dr. Nancy Dupont, who contributed to this post, had to talk to her while she was putting on makeup for the 6′clock show with meteorologist Mike Reader.  WTVA producer intern Christina Sallis also contributed to this post.

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Clique to Enlarge

image
Witness for once the scrum undone. A wretched stretch of loiterers, sporting recordists and slot-makers, all poised to pounce should an overpaid athlete drop from the ceiling, or a free buffet open down the hall. Mostly though, they just sit there, trading batteries, alibis and fart jokes. A love of lanyards is their dominant trait, sarcasm their native tongue. They travel alone or in pairs, dragging their contraptions from sidelines to half-court to the locker room. After the hunt, they gather in noisy hordes, the clatter of their prattle giving every rent-a-cop within two square blocks a sudden and insistent case of the runs.

They are ... The Ploparazzi.

That's right: I just made up a word. But what else do you call this gallery of rogues? Lens Grifters? Paid Knockabouts? Licensed Wisenheimers? They all fit, but don't judge these jokers by the cop of their squat, for the scabs on their elbows have better war stories than you. After all, these jaded souls have witnessed the joy of victory and the agony of defeat - often while nursing their own saddle sores. (Hey, YOU sit cross-legged under a basketball hoop for two hours with a boat anchor on your shoulder, or dodge a cross-eyed running back as they tries his bet to spread your skeleton across the end zone.) Better yet, plant your keister on the couch and watch the world through the snipers' eyes, for not only have they provided fodder for countless newspapers, magazines and SportsCenter, they've vexed Presidents, humbled heads of state and slathered indelible images across the human consciousness.

Not bad for a bunch of guys (and gals) in cargo shorts.

(Thanks to AP photog extraordinaire Chuck Burton for this way cool panoramic of news crews waiting to interview the coaches of the ACC. Click and enlarge to see who YOU recognize. Look, there's Jelly in the middle!)

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