Papa was a rolling 7 tonne Daily

It always amazes me how many projects we get involved in which, from the outside at least, seems to bear scant relation to what we actually shoot for a living. Case in point: Iveco had us shoot one of their newly launched Daily 7 tonne models which had just been delivered to uber cool tent hire company PapaKåta. Just in case you were wondering, Kåtas are teepee style tents pioneered by the Sami people of Lapland. This business was started by Richard Monaghan, joint Director of the business, who along with his wife Amanda, needed something special for their own wedding a few years back. “The only company who could supply one wouldn’t travel as far north as York,” Richard told us. The solution was to buy their own, which they later decided to hire out to people in a similar situation. Thus, PapaKåta and the business was born.

The tents look quite cool during daylight hours, but take on a far more dramatic appearance once the light falls. Three hours, a Starbucks grande americano and a wholemeal BLT later, Richard, myself and delightful marketing girl Sally had the shot in the bag.

www.papakata.co.uk

Workflow explained

I had a really good friend of mine on the phone a few nights ago to wish me happy birthday. During the long conversation he mentioned the fact he’d almost become a slave to Photoshop - spending hours trying to match colours, contrast, saturation, etc. This is seldom the case at Chez Cunningham. Now I know we’ve all seen the guru people dragging RAW images straight into Photoshop, but they’re only ever dragging one, not 101. In my opinion, trying to match a large set of images one by one is verging on the impossible.

For those of you with similar issues, here’s what happens here (in its entirety):-

RAW. Select RAW on the camera. JPEG will just compress. With RAW you’ve got a default image of the highest possible quality.

Temperature. Dial in a colour temperature. In most conditions out cameras are set at a manual colour temperature of 5000K. In some cases we use one of the program modes (such as direct sunlight).

Manual. Shoot in manual exposure mode. Using Av and Tv can result in a massive shift in exposure (especially with stray sunlight). If in doubt, use a light meter.

Grey card. If you’re working across an entire day (from dawn to dusk), shoot at least three grey card images.

Shoot the job.

Assign. Once back in the studio, empty the RAW images into a new folder.

Software. Load the whole lot into Capture One Pro 6 software. Now you’re looking at each and every image in a tiled, thumbnail format (not singly). Tweak the colour temperature, tint, exposure, etc. back to where you want it (remember we’re set to manual 5000K), then apply across the batches of images you want to change. Make sure you’ve saved the changes.

Edit. Edit the set down, deleting unwanted images.

Batch Process. Select all, assign a new file name, embed metadata and batch process to JPEG. You should now have two folders: RAW (default) and JPEG (to be worked on).

Ps. Open each of the final JPEG selection in Photoshop. Check for dust and apply sharpening or other small tweaks if necessary.

It’s a rap. Close and save. Done.

This process should give you a set of images pretty damn close to each other. If you’re attempting multilayered shots (e.g. when using lighting), manual exposure and colour temperature will save you hours in post production.

Smoke, noise and 0-60 faster than a Porsche 911

If the weather holds, we’re in for a cracking weekend at Donnington Park in exactly four weeks from now. We’ll be shooting images for Renault Trucks when the FIA European Truck Racing Championship comes to jolly old blighty. If you haven’t done so already, check out this facebook page. There’s a chance to win some nifty trucking merchandise just by clicking the ‘like’ button.

http://www.facebook.com/uktruckrace

And if that weren't enough, news also comes to us that local lad Luke Taylor will be racing this year too. He and the team were making last minute adjustments to his Renault race truck when we popped along on Sunday to shoot this image for Commercial Motor. Luke will be competing in the BTRA Championship which kicks off this coming weekend at Brands Hatch. “You never lived until you’ve seen these things hurtling down the pit straight at full speed,” TTX Motorsport team boss David Taylor told us.

More info at: http://www.pixilation.co.uk/ttx/home.htm

Land Rover’s longest Defender - the D147

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve been on safari, maybe to somewhere like South Africa, and there simply isn’t a vehicle capable of keeping grannie, grandpa, you, the misses and the bread snappers away from the stuff that wants to have you for lunch. Well, help is at hand. Faced with a similar brief, those clever people who make “the best 4x4 by far” came up with this ingenious solution: A Land Rover Defender 110-based, seven door, twelve seat tour bus. And let’s face facts, it’s a tad more dignified than those retched American import things you see scantily-clad women projectile vomiting from on a Saturday night. Twenty five were built, all engineered by Land Rover Specialist Vehicles in Sollihull.

So when it came time to think about a tour bus for Halewood’s Experience centre, the powers that be thought a station wagon based on the South African concept would be just the thing. The centre section came from a donor vehicle, which had already completed a tour of duty with the Sollihull Experience as an off-road trainer. Since the initial build, LRE 3 has been refreshed with a host updated components, the last of which was a 07 MY bonnet. Sadly the super stretched Defender was never homologated, so it’s limited to the privately owned roads around the factory.

Whilst I’m on my Landie soap box, if you own one of the company’s excellent off-road vehicles, or maybe you’re just thinking about it, then why not book an Experience day? Details can be found here:

http://www.landrover.com/gb/en/lr/experience-land-rover/land-rover-experience/land-rover-experience. Or call 0151 448 4023.

Social networking

Wondering lonely as a cloud, I’ve often paused to consider: “what to do with all those images you can’t stick up in the regular web gallery or blog?” Then along came facebook. It’s proved to be a great dumping ground for both new and archived stuff. Click the link below, then the ‘like’ button, and you’ll be updated each and every time the page is updated. Follow the link below and Robert's your dad's brother. Simples x.

http://www.facebook.com/tomcunninghamfoto

Arnie probably won't be back, but Davidson's Volvo will

Got that Friday feeling? Sadly we have here in dimly-lit dungeon of the Tom Cunningham Photographic conglomerate HQ. Rain, rain, and more rain. Anyway, here’s something a bit brighter: On sale today, this month’s Truck & Driver magazine features Altrincham scrap metal processor Jamie Davidson, and his mean as hell Volvo FH16 660 ‘Terminator’. Showcasing the work of legendary Southwest airbrush artist Matt, the truck is understandably heavy on the artist formally known as the Governor of California, or ‘The Governator’, as the US media kindly described him.

From our end it was a bit of a double bubble this one, as the operator and magazine are both clients. This shoot was the product of two visits: one for T&D and one for the Jamie himself. Sometimes we get all technical on you, but here’s proof you don’t need thousands of pounds worth of gear to produce a decent image. For once, the opening double page spread image isn’t complimented with a one of our powerful Profoto strobe lights. Instead I used a small Nikon SB900 flash placed on one of the little foot stands they come with. Fired with a Pocket Wizard radio trigger, it’s just enough to lift the front of the truck out of the shadows. Shot with a Nikon D3X and a 70-200 f2.8G ED AF-S VRII lens (at a focal length of 116mm) the exposure is 160/sec @ f10 (with a 2/3 stop underexposure).

After 13 years with Canon, we've moved to Nikon. Here's why.

Roughly 15 months ago, we were approached by a Nikon UK rep. She wanted to know if we fancied transferring over with a degree of assistance from the company? At the time, the economics of the deal didn’t really work, so the answer was no. But then three weeks ago the opportunity arose again. The upshot is that just under a week ago our entire Canon and Phase One / Contax equipment inventory left and the brand new Nikon kit arrived. In the end it cost absolutely nothing to shift, as a Nikon appointed dealer took the old stuff away and delivered the new. Simple.

Having the opportunity to design a brand new kit list from the ground was also a major plus point. After much debate, we went for two D3x’s, a D3s, five new FX-format lenses (all with VR) and three SB900 flashguns. Having everything on one common platform will also speed up the workflow process. You only realise how completely different camera systems work against you when you’ve been up most of the night trying to match the contrast, saturation and colour of two image files from the exact same job.

Why three bodies? Well there’s two D3x’s and one D3s. Carrying more than one camera (of any description) is never a bad thing; all you need is a shutter jam and the shoot’s over (not funny if you’re thousands of miles away from home and the nearest pro dealer’s in another country and the client’s standing next to you). At 24.5 megapixel, the D3x’s will be the cameras of choice for almost all situations. Someone on an internet forum recently criticised me for the vast outlay, sighting a £2K kit, comprising of one body and three amateur lenses would have done the same job. Not true. Picture editors and designers frequently want to crop into individual parts of the image. You’d also find it difficult to produce a 4-sheet poster at 300 dpi with a lower resolution (Nikon’s D300 and D700 use chips in the 12-13 megapixel range). So why didn’t we keep Phase One’s P45? It’s true, the old P45 back was capable of almost double the resolution of the D3x. But technology has moved on since the P45 was built, coupled to the fact the new Nikons can be used in every single situation. Action is a breeze - a big no-no for the Contax 645. In short, it’s a compromise of resolution verses flexibility. The lower resolution D3s will come in handy for all high ISO, low light situations (shooting in tunnels would be one), where the previous Canon cameras struggled a little.

The simple truth is new stuff always makes the job easier, faster and thus more productive. Tracking shots can be achieved at 30th/sec with a 20 year old manual focus Pentax, but it’s a damn sight easier with a 10 fps burst rate and a Vibration Reduction lens. That said, we should all remember the famous quote: “Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner.”

The world's first automotive mag in anaglyph 3D? We think it just might be...

What seems like a few very short months ago, T&D editor Will Shiers hatched a cunning plan... “We’ll do a 3D special issue!” he boldly cried, from a swivel chair in the middle of Sutton’s most desirable centre-of-a-roundabout office type complex. Brandishing a copy of Nuts magazine (where the attention-grabbing strapline read something along the lines of “like Avatar, but with Boobs”), he’d decided plain old fashioned 2D was ‘so last year darling’. Here follows a diary account of how (we believe) the world’s first automotive magazine was produced using anaglyph 3D images.

Wednesday 15 September

3.20pm. After countless meetings and phone conversations, the T&D editorial team decide to go for the magazine’s November issue as the 3D special. It’s already been put back a month, mainly due to uncertainty over how many images will appear three dimensional, who will handle post production, etc. It’s fair to say that at this juncture, none of us have any experience of handling or producing these types of images. The deadline for everything on the visual front is Friday 01 October.

One of the early test shots

Tuesday 21 September

11.11am. The decision has been taken that I will provide all three features for this issue, the Editor’s Choice lead item plus two others. The lead will be Pollock (Scotrans) Ltd., with Charlie Lauder and Andrew Bilton dropping into second and third slot. Post production is to be handled by David Burder, an expert in the field who also runs a specialist 3D imaging company down in London. From the off David was brought in to convert my 2D images into 3D, but after some trails with Sims Images down in Horsham, we’ve decided to go the whole hog and shoot the lot as anaglyph. “Avoid reds and blues, oh and make sure there’s plenty of stuff in the image,” David tells me.

Friday 24 September

9.10pm. With a decent weather forecast for the weekend, I’ve booked Charlie Lauder’s Mercedes-Benz Actros Megaspace for the Saturday and a Pollock Scotrans MAN TGX XXL on the Sunday. By 9pm on the Friday night the car’s packed and I head for the overnight stop in Dumfries.

Saturday 25 September

8.33am. The easy way to do this is to shoot with two cameras, bolted together 70mm apart, both fired simultaneously, everyone reckons. That’s easy enough done with a pair of cheap DSLRs, but for the high-end magazine double page spreads I really wanted to use the Phase One kit. What to do? Well, I’ve bought a Manfrotto tripod rail normally reserved for tweaking macro photography, which just happens to give me the all important 70mm spread. This way, I can shoot one image to the far left, then one to the far right (as if I’d shot the same image with two cameras instead of one). At this point I’m still not 100% sure I know what I’m doing... Great stuff! The shoot goes well nevertheless, next stop Bathgate.

Sunday 26 September

9.52am. I always knew the location would be critical to pulling this thing off, but just how critical is really starting to sink in. Despite the fact Scott Pollock had requested an 11am kick off, I’d decided to spend the buckshee time digging myself out of the sizable location backdrop hole. Then came a lucky break. Early that morning I found a perfect office park development just off the A8 at Eurocentral. Completely deserted, the builders had long since gone but no one had actually moved in. The glass and steel would give depth to the image and enhance the 3D effect perfectly.

When you’re stood there in the middle of nowhere carefully moving the camera left and right along a rail there’s a quiet voice in your head saying “will this work... ?”. Of course there’s no way of knowing - until it’s too late, that is.

Monday 27 September

7.12pm. David Burder FTP’s the first of the Pollock images back and I prepare to forward it on to an overly-anxious Will at T&D. It’s a nice image, but it definitely lacks a certain punch. There’s still not enough foreground action to make the thing jump off the page at you. We’re definitely picking this whole anaglyph thing up though.

Tuesday 28 September

10.35am. Back in the studio, I decide it’s time the devil made work for idle hands. I’m going to have a go at 3D conversion myself. I mean, how hard can it be? Quite, is the blatantly obvious answer. The principle is relatively simple, working on a process of chromatic opposites, with each eye viewing a slightly different version of the same image.

One thing you certainly notice is a degree of ‘dumbing down’. Just like the Avatar movie makers reported, when you’re shooting for 3D, the process overtakes absolutely everything, including some of the creativity.

Wednesday 29 September

2.27pm. Looking back, this will probably end up being one of the most hectic days in the entire three week period, with test shot after test shot being fired over the FTP wires with Will Shiers at the end of the phone in the T&D office. We make a last minute decision to pull Charlie Lauder’s Merc from the 3D issue, replacing it with an (as yet) unknown Eddie Stobart vehicle. There’s nothing wrong with the bright blue Actros or the way it was shot, but the general consensus of opinion points to keeping it for something bigger than the four pages we had planned in the special issue.

Friday 01 October

9.44pm. I’ve had a brainwave: I’ll go to Truck & Driver’s printers, Polestar, and photograph the web offset presses running. Bugger, they print our mag in Colchester. Never mind.

Saturday 02 October

6.22am. I’m sat in my office with the obligatory mug of coffee and lit Marlboro. Today I’m off to shoot a bloke called Andrew Bilton, who runs a brand spanking new Renault Magnum and brick carrying crane. This vehicle would probably make the mag in its own right, but the added attraction (for us) is the fact it’s got a potentially three dimensional aspect in the crane jib. In varying test shots, what we’re finding is that sometimes a full shift from left to right is way too much movement (much depends on the focal length of the lens). In medium format speak, a full 70-80mm shift is fine, but at 35mm you’ve got to rein it in a bit. The experts recommend shooting up to five images - we now know why for good reason.

Andrew’s Renault was originally planned for a brick and block yard location, where the stacks of construction materials would yield themselves perfectly to our brief for depth. For a multitude of reasons out with our control, that wasn’t to be. With the truck able to go no further than his father’s driveway, it was a stroke of luck that his sister owned the house across the street - and kindly allowed me to stand in her garden for a different perspective!

3.25pm. I’ve made a snap decision to light the vehicle at dusk. I’ve seen plenty of 3D anaglyph images in daylight, but none in the dark. This should be interesting... I started with five images and the rail shoved to the far right. I then bracketed by 1/2 stop either way, then lit the vehicle in 5 separate places (bellowing at poor old Andrew Bilton as he ran round with the Profoto lighting generator!).

Sunday 03 October

12.44am. I’m conscious of the fact we’re now past the magical first of the month deadline with only two of the three 3D image sets complete. I’ve been given the contact details of Eddie Stobart’s PR man from Will, so hopefully they’ll be flexible enough to do a mid week day - and pronto! Another seven or eight days and we will be completely run out of options...

To create one solitary image, I’ve ended up with a mind boggling 75 images from yesterday’s Magnum at dusk shoot, which were then whittled down to 10 (5 left and 5 right). I’ve shot jobs with half a dozen components before, but never 75 to get one picture.

The image I’m left with is by no means perfect, but it’s the first lit 3D effort I’ve ever seen. I am now left wondering whether I could shoot a moving 3D anaglyph from a rig... I reckon it’s not impossible.

It’s now 1.07am, but before I get my head down, I tap an e-mail to Will: “I know it sounds simple shooting five images on a sliding rail, but believe you me, this thing has practically taken over my life! I have no means of tagging the images in camera, so the first thing I have to do is decipher hundreds of file numbers, colour coding them as I go, to make sure each and every component appears in the correct order... ”

Monday 04 October

7.24am. Will’s replied to last night’s e-mail: “Give me a call so we can discuss it. I would

call now but I suspect you're still in bed since you were still doing this in the early hours... ”

For those of you who ask, “when’s it going to be in the mag?”, this diary will probably give you a good indication of why I often say “I haven’t a clue”. We’re thinking about swapping Pollock for something else too... On the production front, we’re finding a difference between images shot specifically with 3D in mind, and images which have to be shot in 3D. Ours, of course, is the latter. Post production is fun, but it’s a weird experience manipulating images with a pair of red and blue cardboard glasses on!

Tuesday 05 October

6.56pm. Pollock stays, but on Thursday I’m snapping Fiona Soltysiak and Mark Dixon - both stars of Channel 5’s ‘Eddie Stobart: Trucks & Trailers’ documentary. An e-mail from the firm’s ever helpful PR man tells me a brand new Scania R-series and trailer will be at my disposal from 9.30am onwards at their Chilled Division depot in Newark. By the the power of t’internet I’ve had a quick butcher’s at the Newark site using Google Earth. The facility is usual well-presented Eddie Stobart-spec’, but the loading bays face north. This could be an issue...

Thursday 07 October

11.12am. You can say what you like about ‘Britain's Best Known Haulier’, but they always know a good, clean truck makes for a decent picture. In fact the same could be said for the personnel. They’ve done a full shift prior to my arrival, but both look clean and presentable, proving knackered old jeans engrained with susie grease needn’t be the truck driver’s only apparel option.

Hurray... it’s a doubled-ended warehouse! We can shoot with our backs to the sun after all.

What we know from the previous shoot is the foreground and background are to 3D photography what a nut is to a bolt. One is completely useless without the other. Newark is a nice cold store, with a clean yard and no crap lying around in the yard. But as I hammer the shutter button I know I’m struggling for foreground action. As it’s a cold store, I’ve got no pallets, no forklifts, no nothing. This one could be a tough cookie.

Tuesday 12 October

7.22am. The 3D Stobart images left last night by FTP but I’m still unsure as to their impact. Without a foreground they didn’t look anywhere near as ‘boxy’ as the previous Magnum shoot. Deputy editor Chris Turner has three stories and the mag’s designer Steve Gale has three image sets. The next time I hear about this will be early November when the mag hits the newsstands.

Thursday 28 October

4.32pm. I’ve just had a text from Will: “The mag looks great!” I couldn’t make it down to Colchester to watch the presses running, but he did. In little over a week from now the issue will be on sale. "Some of the trade ads look good too, especially Scania... " he enthuses. It's typical Scania, I murmur, they've done what they always do, sat down and actually thought it through!

The one that didn't make it

What’s probably not general knowledge is the fact there’s (more often than not) up to half a dozen DPS contenders when we shoot a T&D spread, plus a second or third cover option. So, with no further ado, here’s one example that ended up on the cutting room floor, as it were. It came from the the same set as the similar image used in T&D. The story goes that Ed Will Shiers wanted to run with an image with the reservoir in the background, but in the end was out-voted by Deputy Ed Chris Turner and Design guru Steve Gale. Personally, I would always go for the one with the biggest amount of scenery, but as I'm the supplier and not the client, I never get involved in these types of discussions.

This shoot was actually done in two halves. On the first attempt, Scania driver Joe, Tom and Sarah Greenwood couldn’t start until early one Sunday afternoon. We had some reasonable images, but not the big double page spread (DPS) I thought we needed. So we had another bash, late one afternoon just over three weeks ago just up the road from Chateau Cunningham!

I’m sure we’d all like to thank the idiotic biker who, despite passing us four times in ten minutes on his Isle of Mann TT-style run, failed to see the truck a fifth time and nearly met his maker. Joe’s marshaling traffic, whilst Tom’s frantically running round the truck with my Profoto 1200w strobe as I bark orders from the grass verge! I guess that answers the “why’s there no driver in the cab?” question.

120 Megapixel in a DSLR?

Those of you who read the industry magazines will know a few of this month’s publications are all carrying stories of Canon’s big announcement: the launch of a APS-H-sized, 120-megapixel CMOS sensor (a staggering 13,280 x 9184 pixels). The sensor is the same size as the one we’ve got in the EOS 1D MK IV, but over seven times larger. And before you think slow, Canon claim a 9.5 fps shooting speed.

But the further you dig, the more you realise developing and manufacturing is a world away from selling. One story quite rightly pointed to the fact that two years ago, the very same people (who my dearly departed Scottish-born mother used to refer to as “the wee Japs”), announced a 50-megapixel chip. The thing reportedly made it to medical equipment, but not pro-spec’ DSLRs.

As a footnote to this post, a Canon development engineer once told us (at the German Photokina show), “the current L-series lens range will struggle past 20-megapixels... ” This is the sole reason why we’ve spent the last 12 months acquiring Canon’s newer MKII glass. When the EOS 1Ds MK IV finally arrives, it’s going to be big, beefy and (easily) well over £7K expensive. Our best guess is the still image bit will be an easy enough nut for Canon to crack (if they manage to buffer the huge files), but the now mandatory HD video addition could prove to be slightly more tricky.

The devil’s always in the detail...

All round good egg, longterm blogging guru and not-for-profit Tom Cunningham Photographic PR man Brian Weatherley’s been featuring a few more of our snaps on his excellent BigLorryBlog. The subject this time is tyres, namely the stuff we shoot for Michelin. In the post entitled “How to take a good truck (tyre) photograph No # 3,891”, Brian ponders the potential inadequacies faced by a photographer sent along to snap a trailer tyre. Well just like everything, it’s never as easy as it looks. Being able to read the manufacturer’s logo, the company name on the vehicle, see the full profile and tread of the tyre, etc., it’s an all-round tough gig. So what’s the secret?

The first thing we do is try (as best we can) to get both the truck and the black rubber cleaned. Then we get to work with some tyre cleaner. Over the past 12 months or so we’ve field tested a whole heap of products and absolutely nothing comes close to Armor All Tire Foam (thanks to Michelin's PR company we now own a full case of the stuff). Because the tread is often stuck in the dark recess of mud flaps, the third thing we do is crawl under the trailer and place one of the Profoto heads on the floor (pointing at the inside of the tyres we’re shooting). This gives us a nice bit of backlighting. In all but the luckiest of cases, we’ll do more than one exposure too. With the camera locked down securely to prevent movement, it’s typically around three: one for tyre wall, one for the tread, and a third for the remainder of the image.

Police, camera, action!

I want you to spare a thought for the poor man who, in ignorant bliss, started his portable convenience delivery shift a few weeks ago. After all, it can’t be easy humping the stinky blue liquid-filled necessities around the country. “I’ll stop for a well-earned kip and reflect on the day’s takings,” he tells himself after carefully selecting a quite lay-by near Barnsley. After yanking the handle on the seat, he closes his eyes.

But the state of tranquility is spoiled by some idiot who decides the same peaceful lay-by would be perfect for a photoshoot. But not any old photoshoot. This one involves a truck, it’s driver, oh and a simulated robbery scene. A masked man appears brandishing a rusty old crow bar, a long baseball bat and two deadly kitchen carving knives.

The Police had of course been forewarned, but return minutes later with cries of, “sorry, but our control room is being deluged with calls from concerned motorists... ”. We decided to play this as a positive, and after minimal negotiation, roped one of the officers into the shoot too. No one got arrested and we got the shots. Perfect.

This time it really was horses for courses

When it comes to transporting animals of the large, four-legged variety, they don't come much smarter than Eric Gillie's Scanias - just ask Her Maj The Queen, if you're in any doubt. We've been lining up Eric's son Mick for a T&D feature for absolutely ages. Rain, hail and biblical amounts of snow put paid to any bright ideas for the back end of 2009 and start of 2010, but all good things really do come to those who wait - especially on this occasion. It's a fantastic looking truck to photograph, with heaps of shinny bits and an interior living space to die for.

It seemed like the perfect location to shoot a Kelso-based Scania horsebox. With the local racecourse just minutes down the road, we'd asked Mick to try and swing it with the venue's top brass. But we all got quite a surprise when we rocked up to find the contact meant we could not only shoot at the racecourse, but actually ON the racecourse; luckily the going wasn't at all soft!

Keeping the lights burning

This is the job they said would never happen. After seeing one of these vehicles on the M1 late one evening, we had the bright idea of spending some time with one of its crews. But sometimes we come across assignments which just look, from the surface at least, well, a little difficult. Take one of the UK's largest logistics operations (in this case CEVA), power colossus E.ON, and you've already got two potentially massive red-tape encrusted hurdles to jump. Then we remembered the ever-so-amenable Lindsey Randle, former PR girlie for TNT Logistics and now generator of positive spin at CEVA. With her help a day out with a difference was organised in a matter of days. The MAN TGM 4x4 they use for the job is an interesting enough contraption, but it's a tough gig when you're working with live electricity and a very busy crew. Luckily for us a short delay waiting for a BT engineer meant we could swing in and snap a few staged shots of the truck and its driver Danny Blackwell during lunch. Despite the fact we use heaps of the stuff, electricity has never been one of our strong points - a fact you'll discover if you pick up this month's T&D.

Dust, Sweat, but no Tears

We think it’s high time we brought you more news from one of our more unusual clients, in the form of the TMV 6x6 development program. We took a call from Michael Hodges recently (who heads up top auto agency MPH) to shoot a second round of off-road images for the military vehicle manufacturer. Just days prior to the 6x6M SF’s launch at Millbrook’s DVD exhibition, Michael, expert video cameraman Rob Knowles (who’s expensive, but dusty-looking gear is pictured above), myself and the TMV development engineers hot-footed it down to Millbrook for a spot of roughtie-toughtie action with their latest incarnation of the ‘go anywhere’ fighting machine.
The proving ground’s cross country track is always fun at the best of times, made all the more dramatic by clouds of dust thrown up by the TMV and our Vauxhall Frontera chase car.
The static’s were shot with the Phase One, but for moving images we switched to the new Canon EOS 1D MK IV, using a mix of 50mm f1.2 L, 70-200 f2.8L IS MK II and the 300mm f2.8 L on the front. This has been the first real, under pressure test for the new MK4, to which it really coped well. The focus tracking (as Canon claim) has got better, aided by the addition of heaps more focusing points and improved sensitivity. We’re having less luck with the 5D MKII, but that’s another story completely.

Driver Goes Dutch

Despite what the cover strapline says, you and your misses don’t really have to share the very reasonable £2.85 it costs to lay you mitts on the latest issue of Britain’s boldest heavyweight mag. Personally, I would throw caution to the wind and buy one each. We’re getting sidetracked again. Spotted by T&D's weekend-roaming, luxury car-driving, new baby-toting Ed, Will Shiers at the recent Oswestry Truck Show, it's a case of nice truck, even nicer colour. The owner (Alan Lloyd) tells us he nearly went for a Scania over the Eindhoven offering, but thought the paint code from the R-series (featured in Scania's brochure) was too good to pass over. Works well with the timber theme too. It turned into a seriously cool shoot actually. Typical full on, all day long stuff. M&M’s yard was a joy to work in - set in the middle of a quiet Worcestershire woodland. Having a ready made location is 9/10ths of the potential problems sorted, we always reckon. Here’s one of images you won’t see in the mag (we should do more of this). Shot exclusively with the Phase One P45 it shows what an awesome piece of kit this really is - especially when you see the detail on the printed page. A big hand should go to Mark Cartwright, who unbelievably got to work at 4am that morning to polish the truck for us. It’s no minor miracle that he was still going strong when we packed up late in the afternoon. Thanks Mark!

A stunning FH and the fabulous concept of under wiring... what more could you want, we ask?

For this month’s Truck & Driver cover shot we were in the fabulous location of a Sheffield wire works - seriously. In addition to being the backbone of British industry, there’s something wonderfully creative about places like this. Huge amounts of steel, dangerous chemicals and some serious-looking tackle. We love it.

The MINI Pepper White Volvo FH 480 is the pride and joy of Paul Roberts, the diamond geezer who was also responsible for commissioning top airbrush artist Adam Haden to subtly decorate the truck with a veritable feast of eye candy expertly ripped from lad’s mags like Loaded and Nuts.

Who could resist a Ghurkha curry?

Off to Truckfest this weekend? If you are, be sure to drop by the Truck & Driver stand. There will be members of the Ghurkha Regiment cooking up curries, a chance to win a trip of a lifetime to Ferrari’s Maranello factory with the Truck & Driver/Iveco Driver Choice Awards, and not forgetting the Help for Heroes ‘Pimp My Truck’ project, plus lots more. If you after something bright to stick on the wall, there’s also our very own poster featuring most all of the Editor’s Choice shoots over the last couple of years.

New Cameras - both with HD movie capture

New camera time. We’ve just added two new Canon camera bodies: EOS 1D Mark IV and the EOS 5D Mark II. The 1D Mark IV is a simple progression up from the two 1D Mark IIIs we already own, whereas the 5D Mark II is a bit of a stop gap until the real star of 2010 arrives, the predicted 32 megapixel 1Ds Mark IV. We had a meeting with some Canon people yesterday in Calumet’s Manchester store, who, as expected, knew absolutely nothing. One of them told us: "We only knew about the 1D Mark IV four weeks before the launch… " Our best guess is probably August or September, unless they’re having probing development issues.
Over the coming weeks and months we’ll let you know how we get on with both new additions, in particular the HD movie capture capabilities they both offer. It should be fun!

You Rock - We Roll... meets facebook

Forget 'It’s The Real Thing', 'Splash It All Over' or 'Finger Lickin’ Chicken'. So okay then, what's the best company strapline ever? Easy. Edwin Shirley Trucking’s “You Rock - We Roll”. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Trawling through cyberspace earlier we came across the EST facebook page. There’s some wonderfully-evoking pictures on there, from old tours in far flung locations to the very latest projects with the likes of Beyonce and Paul McCartney. In our opinion, no one else does purple and yellow quite like the lads from the North Woolwich Road.

EST - Check out the innovate ‘Jukebox’ page

EST on facebook

Runway Wrecker

We’re frequently asked how we pick the locations for certain shoots, or indeed how we find them. Often it’s a case of riding round in the car until you find something on the hoof, or simply relying on the depth of local knowledge. This was pretty much the story when we shot Adam Crouch’s unbelievably smart wrecker recently for next month’s Truck & Driver magazine. When asked if he could think of anywhere "big and open", Adam dutifully replied: "Yeah… a mate of mine owns an airfield runway… !" The ‘mate’ turned out to be none other than the sublimely charismatic Dave Walton, so this is how we ended up freezing our proverbials off on an extremely chilly winters evening at Bruningthorpe (where incidentally we also bumped into Mike Cooper and his Panda featured in the earlier post). Not only did we have the entire bottom section of the vast two mile long runway to play with, but Adam and his crew agreed to hang with us until that perfect 20 minute period between dusk and sunset.

As we’ve explained before in the previous iPhone App post, there’s two perfect photography windows in a 24-hour cycle: dawn and dusk. The main trick is to start guessing your exposures a bare minimum of 10 minutes prior to the time spot you're trying to hit. The first shot of this particular dusk series was shot at 19.04, with the main event taking place at 19.24. By 19.40 total darkness had fallen and the game was over. Roughly 30 minutes, 10 shots, and a reasonable range between dusk and sunset. Having studied the times on numerous occasions, we reckon you’re talking six or seven minutes of optimum light as the sun hit’s the deck. This is by no means a perfect shot: maybe a little less lighting and a bit more exposure?

The shots were lit with a simple set up of two generators both chucking out somewhere in the region of 800W, both connected to flash heads and standard dish reflectors. We’ve used a focal length of 80mm to compress the background slightly, but don’t forget this would be the equivalent of 50mm on a 35mm DSLR.