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POINT, COUNTERPOINT
When two people have been working together for as long as Wendy Shattil and Bob Rozinski, it is wise to learn what the other is doing.
In many instances the couple will shoot the same subject at the same time, but they each know to get slightly different compositions and angles to give them the greatest variety of shots. While Bob prepares to photograph a particular animal, Wendy will often help him set up the shot and give him advice, and vice versa.
Sometimes the result can be two completely dissimilar images that tell distinct stories about the same subject. In these two examples, the subject is a wandering grizzly bear and her cub strolling across an Alaskan beach in Katmai National Park, looking for a razor-clam snack at low tide. While Rozinski (at right) chose to pull back and show not only the ursine promenade but also the majestic mountains in the background, Shattil (at left) chose neither. Instead, she used a small Pentax with a wide lens to focus on the huge paw prints left on the sand to illustrate the immense size and power of the animals.
“We try to supplement what the other is shooting as much as we can,” Shattil says. “We generally try to set up our shoots together, and there’s a lot of give-and-take. I don’t think either of us is comfortable shooting with anyone else.”
IN PRAISE OF THE LEAF
The Hasselblad, Leica and Phase One cameras offer leaf-shutter lenses, which may be an option for studio and landscape photographers. You pay a premium in weight and cost, but the vibration reduction and flash-synch speed they afford are critical. A focal-plane shutter consists of two curtains sliding across the sensor for a given amount of time. With a fast shutter speed, one of the curtains can block light during the exposure, which means the light of a strobe will be partially blocked...
TRANSFERRING FILES
When an image is being transferred over a network, the file size is directly related to the elapsed time needed to deliver the image. Depending on the network media, transfer rates vary in speed and availability. The transfer rate is described in either kilobits per second (Kbs = 1,000 bits per second) or megabits per second (Mbs = 1 million bits per second). Remember that there are 8 bits in a byte, 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte and 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte.
Additional factors that slow the transfer rate include latency or delay in the network and slow processor speed of the CPU on either the sending or receiving end.Dial-up: The original method of connecting to the Internet with a modem. Still very popular and used extensively where broadband connectivity is not available. Transfer rates of 9-56 Kbs.
