I recently took a trip to the hipster heaven called Iceland to take in the glorious scenery with three good friends. For this trip I took along a piece of gear I’d recently found in an old drawer: my father’s old 35mm Pentax film SLR. Now, I want to share a few good reasons why this old film SLR was the ideal camera for this trip.

2) Film is timeless

When were these photo taken? It could have been in the 1960s, or it could have been last month. Film is not susceptible to editing trends that place a photo at a specific point in time (like the digital cross-processing of the early 2000s or the Snapseed/Instagram filters of today). Instead, photos taken on film will look current as long as film continues to be around.

1) Shooting film makes you shoot for the story

Usually when I travel, I take hundreds of pictures a day with my DSLR. Why? Because I can (and it costs me nothing). This, however, is not the case with film–I ended up taking just 5-7 pictures a day. This was not just due to the price I was paying per photo compared with digital; instead, I made the conscious decision to only take photos that I knew would be film-worthy (moments and scenes worth remembering). As a result, I got a much more impressive series of shots than I did with my DSLR, and the 50-odd frames I took in Iceland resulted in many print-worthy pictures.

And yes, shooting film also makes you literally focus on the highlights while shooting, since you want to avoid blown-out photos at all costs.

3) Film SLRs are relatively small and light (and tough!)

Compared with their digital counterparts, manual film SLRs tend to be relatively lightweight and reasonably sized. My normal travel kit, which includes a Nikon D750, 24-70mm F/2.8, 70-200mm F/2.8, 16mm F/2,8 Fisheye, and 58mm F/2) weighs as much as a small child. My Pentax P3N with a 40mm F/2.8 pancake lens weighs 620 grams. This is significantly less than just the body of a Nikon D750 body only (755 grams), not to mention a Canon 5D mk III (855 grams). This, coupled with the SLR’s small size, makes the camera an easy fit into most camera bags and does not add excessive weight to your carry-on luggage.

The Pentax P3N with a 40mm F/2.8 “Pancake” lens compared with a Nikon D750 with a 24-70mm F/2.8 lens.

In addition, the 35mm SLRs around today have withstood the test of time, and the simple mechanisms hidden within can be expected to function for many years to come.

4) Shooting film is actually not (ridiculously) expensive

Any way you look at it, the per-shot cost of film is going to be more than digital. But when you factor in that you will probably be shooting much fewer photos than with digital and the upfront cost of film equipment is much less, the cost can be quite reasonable. Here is a sample of the normal film+development+scanning rates in Finland:

• One roll of B&W film: 6€ ($7)
• Developing + scanning the film: 16€ ($18)
• Total cost of 36 pictures, including developing and scanning: 22€ ($25) 

If you shoot two rolls of film on a trip, you will end up spending around 44€ ($50) on film and processing, coming out to 0.61€ ($0.70) per image.

Pentax P3N with Pentax 40mm F/2.8 lens. Total cost: 119€.

Here is what my Pentax kit cost:

• Pentax P3N (P30N in Europe): 30€ ($35) (but free for me, since it was inherited from my father)
• Pentax 40mm F/2.8 lens: 89€ ($105) (from Cameraventures.com)
• Total: 119€ ($140).

That’s about as much as a point-and-shoot digital camera. Also, if kept in good condition, film equipment will hold its value much better than digital gear, so the true cost of ownership for film gear often ends up being close to zero (if you end up selling it at some point).

I think this a worthwhile investment to explore new photographic experiences.

Note: If you’re planning on shooting a larger amount of film in the near future, you can do what I did: partner up with a friend and buy a B&W film developing kit (around 80€) and a negative scanner (around 120€), which will bring the per-image cost nearer the cost of film.

5) Shooting film makes you a better photographer.

Let’s take a trip back to a time when cameras had exactly one mode: M. These were the days when everyone worth their substance had their exposure charts memorized and when filters were things you screwed onto the ends of lenses, not Photoshop plugins.

Sure, some film photographers have a tendency to unfairly rip on the DSLR generation, but I have to admit that shooting film has (slightly) helped me understand their arguments. Being forced to slow down and think about what and how I’m shooting has affected my photographic life in a good way. As a result, I spend more time composing frames, my knowledge of exposures is better than ever, and I tend to “spray and pray” less while “waiting and clicking” more. I’ve found that this new (old) type of photograph is a tedious process that I–surprisingly–really enjoy.

Conclusion

The post The Best Travel Camera appeared first on Helsinki Portrait and Advertising Photographer.

Last fall, in preparation for a wedding fair for my wedding photography business in Helsinki, I wanted to create something out-of-the-ordinary that would attract attention to my booth. A friend of mine suggested a type of vintage camera that visitors could look through. Vintage camera with a mini slideshow inside? Sounds like a plan!

Step 1: Acquire Camera and Screen

Now that I had an idea, I just had to figure out how to make it happen. The first step was to find a usable camera. I wanted something with a big enough viewfinder so that visitors didn’t have to put their eye right up to it. I found a Kodak Duaflex II twin lens reflex (TLR) camera locally for 25€, and it was perfect.

Once I had the camera, I had to figure out how to get a screen inside it. At first, I contemplated a thumbnail LCD screen–but screens like this would require some additional wiring for an HDMI port and then a separate computer  to run the slideshow. But I realized a smartwatch was the perfect fit for the Duaflex’s 1.63″ viewfinder.

After a quick search, I found a used Samsung Gear 2 smartwatch that would do nicely. It came with a charging dock that would fit in the camera. And I picked it up for a measly 35€.

Step 2: Disassembly

Next, I had to figure out how to fit the watch into the camera. The wonderful thing about old cameras is that they can be fully disassembled within minutes using a single screwdriver.

Three minutes later:

After test fitting the Samsung Gear, I ditched some of the interior pieces while trimming others. I also needed to drill two holes in the camera’s body: one for the tripod and one for the micro USB cable that would be powering the watch.

The partially reassembled camera, with trimmed pieces and drilled hole for the USB cable.

The smartwatch in its place. It was a nice, tight fit for the Gear 2 with the charging dock.

The USB charging cable coming out of the camera (the hole has been insulated with Sugru)

The partially reassemble camera, still waiting on the viewfinder mirror and hood.

Another view of the partially reassembled camera.

Step 3: The Finished Product

The view through the viewfinder

I installed the viewfinder glass, mirror, and hood, and then loaded the smartwatch with a handful of tiny pictures (320 x 320 pixels) and set it on a tripod to test it out. Here’s how it looked:

Mission accomplished! At the bridal show, I ended up setting the camera up in the middle of my rustic-themed booth with a sign that said “Come closer and look in the viewfinder” (in Finnish, since the bridal show was in Helsinki).

It was a hit! People came up to check it out out of curiosity and stuck around to look at the other pictures and chat about wedding photography. Now that that mission has been accomplished, I can focus on my next project: figuring out how to do the same thing, but replacing the watch with a mini projector.

The post DIY Project: My Vintage Camera Slideshow Creation appeared first on Helsinki Portrait and Advertising Photographer.

Our modus operandi is similar for each shoot: first, Adam creates an arrangement and records the piano track. Then, we load up the piano on a trailer and place it in the chosen location (the piano is a 100-year-old antique we got for free, from which we removed the soundboard and hammers in order to minimize weight). Once the piano is set up, the track is played through a bluetooth speaker and Adam finger-syncs along. My Nikon D750 with a Nikkor 24-70mm F/2.8 lens is set up on a knock-off Steadycam, and we take between 6-10 takes of the track from various angles.

This time, however, we ran into some issues. As soon as we started the first take, the shutter failed on my D750. Now, the D750 has had its share of shutter issues, but my copy was relatively new (less than 1.5 years old and under 65,000 shutter actuations) and I had not had any issues with it so far. Unfortunately I didn’t have my backup D750 on hand (I made the mistake of packing light for this shoot), and Adam was leaving the next day for a 4-week trip so rescheduling was not an option.

So I did what anyone would do: I took my 2-year-old LG Nexus 5x phone out of my pocket and duct-taped it to the Steadycam.

My LG Nexus 5X ghetto-rigged to a Flycam Nano

The phone shoots 4k video at 30fps, which (on paper at least) beats my Nikon D750, so resolution quality shouldn’t be a problem. I downloaded a camera app (Open Camera) that allows exposure locking so that the constantly shifting automatic exposure wouldn’t be an issue. From there, we proceeded to shoot the video. The cold killed the battery (and Adam’s fingers) quickly, but we managed to finish 6 takes before the phone died. Here is the resulting video:

It’s fair to say we were pleasantly surprised with the outcome–apart from the very wide depth of field, I don’t think the result is easily distinguishable from a video shot with a DSLR (or mirrorless) camera. Of course, the situation was pretty ideal for shooting a cell phone video: we were outside, with plenty of light, on a fully cloudy day with minimal shadows. Still, this result would have been impossible even five years ago.

What a trip: we had big plans to shoot @aatami.herd’s new video in a snowy field today. First, we drove 40 minutes to find some proper snow. Then we realized we forgot the piano bench. Luckily we found an old stool in an abandoned barn. But then right when shooting started my DSLR stopped working. No worries though–I left my backup at home, so we just shot the whole music video on my phone. Also, it was cooold and Adam’s fingers were like ice blocks. But the show went on, I believe we may have shot the first proper piano music video on a phone in history. Exciting times.

A post shared by Aaro Keipi (@aarokeipi) on Dec 21, 2017 at 7:56am PST

All in all, I learned two important lessons that day: first, I need to always take my spare DSLR body along, no matter how familiar the shoot would be. And maybe even more importantly: if all else fails, I’ll always have a backup’s backup in my pocket.

Cell phone on a stabilizer: the future of video recording?

The post When a DSLR fails: shooting a music video with a cell phone appeared first on Helsinki Portrait and Advertising Photographer.

In my mind, the process of creating a compelling composite image is as close to painting as a photographer can get: it allows you to create almost purely from imagination, not being constricted by physical locations as with traditional photography.

Last summer, I had a shoot with a few friends while we were staying at a cabin over the weekend. This was a low-key, just-for-fun shoot in some creepy woods near the cabin. Here’s another shot from that day, which I uploaded to Instagram:

Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit. Last weekend we had another #cabinphotoshoots session. This time, the goal was a creepy shoot in the creepiest woods, which are next to an abandoned farm a couple km from the cabin. . . . #creepy #theimaged #agameoftones #metsässä

A photo posted by Aaro Keipi (@aarokeipi) on Jul 27, 2016 at 4:01pm PDT

For this shoot, the model was lit with a Nikon SB700 through a semi-transparent reflector on her right (this is a handy trick if you happen to find yourself without a softbox but with an assistant who can hold the flash and reflector). Here’s the image before any compositing:

As you can see, this version looks quite a bit different from the finished composite. While editing photos from a shoot, I have the tendency to ask myself: would this work as a composite? Or, would adding some other elements make this a more interesting picture?

For this picture, the answer was clear (in my mind) right away. I needed a bear.

When you have an idea for an image and need a specific picture to make it work, there are several options. If you have a budget, you can search on traditional stock photo sites (such as iStockPhoto or Dreamstime); if not, you can check out some royalty-free options (such as Unsplash or Pexels). Since this was a personal project and my budget was precisely 0€, I skipped the paid options. And since I had a very specific image in mind (a bear standing on its hind legs photographed from the side), I couldn’t find an appropriate image in the limited catalogues of the royalty-free galleries. In this case, I delved into the third choice: Google image search. After a few tries, searching for “grizzly bear hind legs” came up with some promising choices (the highlighted photo was the one chosen).

Now, it wouldn’t be good to use a photo found from Google without permission (even if it is for a personal project). Thankfully, the photo I found had a watermark, which I used to track down the photographer, Kirsten Phillips, through a combination of Google and Facebook sleuthing. She responded through a Facebook message and was kind enough to send me the full-resolution file in exchange for giving her credit when the photo was published. Here is the full-resolution photo Kirsten sent me:

Now, the bear’s posture was perfect for the picture, but the lighting and colors didn’t quite match. Nothing a bit of Photoshop can’t fix. First, I flipped the bear horizontally, then used a layer mask to get rid of the background and cleaned up the grass strands on the bear’s legs. I also changed the angle of the bear’s head so that it would be looking down at a bit more of an angle. Here is the bear added to the original image:

I still had to get rid of my handy assistants and match the bear to the background. Instead of attempting to clone them away, I copied the area to the left of the model, mirrored it, and placed it behind the bear. After a bit of touch up, the image looked like this:

The only thing left was to color- and light-match the bear. After numerous adjustment layers (mainly curves and solid color overlays), I had a finished image:

Overall, the process took several (aka way too many) hours. But I’m happy with how the final, out-of-the-ordinary image turned out. In case you want a bit more of a taste, here is a short time-lapse style video showing all the different layers involved:

Model: Ruut Uusitalo.

The post Bringing a Fairy Tale to Life: Creating a Convincing Composite Image appeared first on Helsinki Portrait and Advertising Photographer.

The idea behind the shoot was to showcase the new Lexus NX in a variety of beautiful Finnish landscapes. My goal was to give the images a sense of adventure and movement. After doing the requisite location scouting prior to the shoot, I picked up the keys to the Lexus NX and had 24 hours to make it happen.

The locations varied from run-of-the-mill to somewhat haphazard. Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot from one of the trickier spots we shot in:

Trying to stay dry during yesterday’s shoot. : @roopekatajalaakso . . @Lexus_finland #carphotography #lexus #nx300 #lauttasaari #carswithoutlimits #nvkviikonkuva

A photo posted by Aaro Keipi (@aarokeipi) on Jul 12, 2016 at 3:27pm PDT

Driving the NX onto the pier was super sketchy. Since the pier was about 4 inches wider than the width of the SUV, the Lexus was less than a tire’s width away from becoming a rusty write-off. Thankfully, though, no Lexus representatives were around to stop us from attempting this, and after a few sweaty minutes, it was mission accomplished…well, at least until we had to back it out.

And here is the unedited image taken from the ladder:

Pretty different eh? Since my original idea for this shot involved a foggy, peaceful lake scene and the conditions did not play along, I had to turn to my friend Photoshop.

The image of the car on the wooded road was much less adrenaline-pumping to set up, but required another type of challenge: we lit different parts of the car individually with the goal of compositing them later in Photoshop. The idea behind this type of light painting is to accentuate certain curves or details, giving the final image a slightly enhanced-reality feel. Here’s one of the light-painting shots:

And the final image again:

One goal in all the images was to have the car look like it belongs with the background while still being the focus of each image. Here’s the picture in the field, before and after:

For the other picture by the seaside, the city behind the car added a bit too much noise to the final image. Here it is before:

And after a ton of masking and brushing:

Hope you enjoyed this! If you have any questions about the process or details, please leave a comment.

The post Behind the Scenes: Shooting the Lexus NX for Lexus Finland appeared first on Helsinki Portrait and Advertising Photographer.

One morning last December, I woke up and noticed that a dream of mine came true: I had taken a picture that went viral. A picture I took at a friend’s wedding had been shared by UNILAD on Facebook with the caption “Best wedding photo ever.” It had over 300,000 likes and was gaining hundreds by the minute. Unfortunately, they also added an instagram-worthy filter to it, but I figured I shouldn’t complain–the exposure was worth it (by the way, you can check out my weddings-focused website here: www.aarography.com).

The photo, minus the instagram-worthy filter

First, a little backstory: The bride in the picture was an old friend of mine, and when she contacted me about shooting her wedding, she mentioned having a couple of swords that she wanted to use in some of the pictures. The wedding took place in Luray, Virginia, a place not really known for its medieval castles (I’m based in Finland but travel to the U.S. a few times a year for weddings). The wedding was fantastic, and we got this fun shot of the bridal party “fighting” the wedding couple. As a surprise to the couple, I added a royalty-free castle and dark sky into the background of one picture with the help of Photoshop. The edit was done quickly (in less than an hour) and I didn’t pay much attention to details, treating it as a bonus to the wedding couple, and they loved it. The video below shows a breakdown of the layers used in the editing process

 A few days after delivering the picture to the happy couple, I posted it on imgur.com since I figured it might give some people a chuckle. A few hours later, my heart jumped to my throat when I found out that the picture had over 100,000 views and was going viral. So it began. The next few days were a blur as I constantly checked out which corners of the internet my picture had reached. This was the start of a wild ride, and now I’m going to share a few lessons I learned from the experience.

Lesson 1: Once an image is online, you can’t control where–or how–it spreads

The next couple days were a whirlwind of tracking where the picture spread…I watched as it reached 9gag, The Chive, a bunch of random Russian sites, and, of course, being filterized and shared by UNILAD on Facebook, a page with 14 million fans.

A google image search of the picture reveals dozens of hits

This was all exciting, but one thing was missing from all of these shares: a photo credit. I had taken a picture that was being viewed by millions of people–but it was doing me no good. “Typical,” I thought, “These are the kinds of things you read about on Petapixel.” But, then I sent UNILAD (the page with the most views by far) a message through Facebook–and to my surprise, they added a link to my Facebook page within minutes. Props to them for that, though shame for not crediting me in the first place.

Lesson 2: The Facebook likes start rolling in, but all is not well

As soon as UNILAD added the credit, my Facebook page started getting new likes. This was very exciting, as my page had been stuck around 600 likes for a few months (and, as we all know, more likes is always better…or so I thought). I soon realized, however, that my new fans were from all over the world, with a surprisingly high concentration in middle eastern and western Asian countries (Egypt, India, Bangladesh, etc.). These were people who were not likely to bring me any business, and judging by their profiles, the majority of these people were being paid to like pages on Facebook. So I did the unthinkable and started deleting fans from my page, reducing my overall number of likes and blocking most of the questionable countries in the process. I did this to make sure the interaction on my page stayed significant, as explained in articles like this one. This culling left me with just a few hundred new likes that I judged to be legitimate.

Facebook page fan insights for Aarography, after cleaning up suspected “paid” likes

Lesson 3: You have to leverage virality

A week after the image was posted, I had a ton of reputation on imgur, a couple hundred legitimate new likes on my Facebook page, a few vague requests for gigs, but nothing really solid to show for it. After a bit of brainstorming, I decided to contact media outlets in Helsinki to attempt to gain local visibility that would hopefully translate into sales. I got in touch with three Finnish entertainment/news websites, gave them a brief summary of the story and hoped they would run with it.

Screengrabs of articles in Finnish media

And run with it they did. Within two days, all three (plus one more) had written stories about the picture, and the stories were shared close to 10,000 times on Facebook. Best of all: all the media outlets credited me, many had a link to my website, and some even included an interview. All of this helped drive people to both my website and my Facebook page, resulting in an over 30x daily increase in visitors to my website (peaking at 1,400).

Lesson 4: Virality may not translate directly into sales–at least not without some work

All that being done, the effect wore off pretty quickly, as seen in the screenshot below.So it’s true–the Internet is a fickle mistress. Surprisingly, in spite of all these new visitors, the number of inquiries coming in didn’t increase significantly. So I determined that either the system was broken, or there must be something more I can do.

The Aarography at a bridal show in Helsinki (bridal shows here are a bit more relaxed compared to those in the U.S.). Notice the print on the left and the screen featuring a video of the picture’s editing process.

So to combat my lack of significant inquiries, two months after all of this happened I entered my first bridal show, armed with a decently-sized print of the picture in question. Thankfully, I received a lot of attention at the show–it seems half the people in Finland had seen the picture (though this is not necessarily a difficult thing to accomplish in a country with 6 million people)–and I ended up booking a few big weddings as a result.

Conclusion

The whole process was an emotional rollercoaster, with ups and downs as I tracked how far the picture spread (mostly without credit) across the world. All in all, the photo ended up on dozens of sites worldwide, racking over 350,000 views on imgur, 396,000 likes and 17,000 shares on Facebook, and over 10,000 shares on articles about the photo in Finland. Eventually, I also scored about 900 new legitimate Facebook likes on my page, with the majority coming from my geographic target market.

In spite of these ridiculous numbers, though, the long-term benefits of this viral picture remain to be seen. In my photography business, I have tried to live by the two-fold advice I remember reading a long time ago on Chase Jarvis‘ blog: take better pictures and show them to more people. A viral image takes care of the second half, but–as I found out–it may not be the big break you would expect. It seems there’s just no substitute for consistent, hard work. Now I’m back to trying to take better pictures and figuring out how to get more of the right people to look at them.

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