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I hear a brand new Nikon camera is on its way. Besides using my Contax 645 when Im in the mood I use and love my Nikon D700 which has now had 3 new shutters replaced since I brought it the the camera was released. I simply love that camera! It runs on 12 million pixels which some say (mostly inexperienced photographers) is that all but as yet I’ve never had any client say they want more.

However Nikon theres only one thing I want for an improved camera and the reason behind it…………

First of all I have a passion against shooting tethered or shooting connected to a wire. Clients want tethered so they can see what you are shooting and can checkup on you however I loathe the idea of shooting connected to my computer as I lose my flow as I have to direct models as well as tripping over cables and wondering what the client is seeing. Ah the days of film when photographers were photographers and it was only the photographer who knew he had the shot in the bag! Now were technical camera operators with the art director exclaiming oooh and ahs and yelling great “you’ve got the shot…………… shoot more!” Another 200 frames later once you had got the shot you sigh to yourself KNOWING your gonna have to go through the whole bloody lot again that evening editing down to That Shot you had in the first place. Digital makes you shoot more which is not always good and you can lose the energy for the next shot as the excitement and spontaneity from shoot can go out the window.

My intermediate solution as can be seen in the video if you look carefully is that I shoot by HDMI from the camera to a very portable mini monitor. The art of shooting this way is I can control what the client sees as there is a little two second time lag between the camera and monitor which gives you plenty of time to just grace your finger over the shutter button so the image doesn’t show up on the monitor if you think its duff. That way you only show what you want them to see. Its amazing how quickly they get bored of looking at the monitor as they have nothing to fiddle with unlike when shooting fully tethered to the computer they are jumping backwards and forwards looking at the images comparing them for that tiny little blemish which can be sorted out in two seconds in post anyway. Another personal bug is I have with computer tethered is I lose the image from the camera card as the computer ends up storing image files for you. When on location you have to consider security and its easy to have your computer snatched and you lose your hard earned images, I know of three incidents of this happening. NOBODY is going to steal my camera from around my neck as Im a big bloke with my images files tucked away safely on my little 16 Gig camera card, you will more likely have a face full of camera first (cameras can make great knuckle dusters as I discovered when in Russia once but that is another story)

My solution Nikon! Give me a camera with bluetooth which simply sends out a small preview image so the client can watch on their very own iPhone or iPad. I could even have old iPhones ready in the bag for dishing out if you don’t have your own. It sounds so simple to me but its like the quest for that perfect camera bag………..theres always something not quite right with the bag you already have and the search goes on.

Shot in Los Angeles in the summer of 2007 at one of the  great mansions in the Hollywood foothills Leilani in one of my favourite shoots of her. This set comes from a set of seven sets we did that day while on a 10 day road trip.

Daniel Lloyd

Shot in Marbella this one of Dannies first photoshoots.

Zoe

again shot in Marbella Zoe shows how to wear a swimsuit.

Another model another boat! This is Simone taken from a Bikini shoot in the Mediterranean. Big white boats on the shady side from the sun give out this beautiful soft white glow which bounces back at the model.

Nikon D2x and 28-70.2.8 lens

Claire is a bit of a sports woman originally coming from Aberystwyth and I know we are going to see alot more of her in the future.

This image was shot a few weeks ago for a Missimo casting when a TV crew followed her into the studio on the excuse of filming a TV modeling documentary. Little did I realise it was really for channel 4 Big Brother in the studio….. sneeky guys!