[Arkady]

We were (finally) issued the D2x bodies two months ago and the recent deployment to Iraq to cover the Referendum vote was the first run-ashore for the new kit. In addition, our new portable editing kit has been upgraded to Sony Vaio VGN-A317M laptops, more of which later.
We fully expected that with a 100% jump in MPi values, that a corresponding jump in Memory card size would suffice; not so. The 80-ish NEF files capacity on a 512 CF card was not realised on the 1Gb Sandisk Extreme III cards issued with the cameras - only 50 or so NEFs could be captured and many less than that with the NEF+JPG option selected.
We have now put in for 4Gb cards. I carry a Smartdisk 40Gb Image tank, but am lothe to use it unless really necessary as the Nikon Transfer interface doesn't recognise files stored on this piece of hardware. The facility to write File Info direct to the RAW file itself instead of as a sidecar file (as with PS CS2) is very useful and saves loads of time in editing.

Image quality is very good with the new camera (as expected), though I still want to get into a studio under controlled lighting conditions to see what I can really get out of it. In the field, it performs very well, the longer battery life is an especially welcome improvement - I never used more than one battery per camera per job, whereas with the D1x I would cheerfully use 4 batteries per body in the course of a two-day shoot. The battery life indicator never went below 3/4 full, even though I would shoot approximately 300 NEF images per body per day. This means that the solar battery charger may now be consigned to the spares box instead of being carried on routine 3-day jobs.
As we're still using older-generation lenses (my 80-200 f2.8 is particularly stone-age in appearance these days!) it's difficult to guage any improvement in AF performance, but with the 17-35 2.8 and the 28-70 2.8 it's as good as it needs to be.
The flash interface with the SB-800 is very good with the balanced fill-in facility working much better than the D1x/SB800 combination. I find that I'm using much closer to metered values now, whereas before I would underflash by 2 1/3 as a matter of course.

The Sony VAIO has been a grave disappointment though. So many glitches and hangs resulted from conflicts with the proprietry Vaio software, that in the end I had a friend re-format the hard-drive and put a basic Win XP-Pro build on it instead. I now have what is in effect a Dell in a shiny case.
The other team photographer who has just deployed to Kashmir in support of the relief effort there has not done the drastic 'slash and burn' and is still having major traumas, with the Blue Screen of Death appearing at will almost every time he tries to do anything in Photoshop.

I look forward now to the (hopefully soon) issue of the new, smaller NERA satellite comms system. The current M4 system in use is very robust and reliable, but fits into another laptop-sized bag. The new kit is the size of two mobile phones with the same connection speed. Nice. With weapons, body armour, helmets and other military kit as well as all the photographic kit, it's getting a bit tiresome, especially as I keep going to Iraq - it's bl00dy hot there you know!

[digitalfailure]

Hmmmmmmmm,


I'm not sure you should be posting about such things on here


Not without a picture or two anyway so we can have a good gawp at the goddies

I'm shocked at the sony dodah not playing ball, I was considering one as my next toy upgrade. might stick to my trusty dell instead.

Now go get pics of the toys........

[Warspite]

I think you will find this with alot of laptops and many desktops from branded manufacturers - they cram so much useless gimmick programs onto their products that the things become a nuisance, especially during startup. I did exactly the same with my Sony Viao laptop, put a proper installation on the machine using standard install CDs, and now it flys, also has alot more free disk space.
Even my Dell laptop has quite a few useless utility programs on it as standard, although not to the same degree as the Sony

[Arkady]

[quote=digitalfailure] Hmmmmmmmm,
I'm not sure you should be posting about such things on here
QUOTE]

Ummm... OK
Here are some quick and nasty images of my basic kit - D2x taken on my other D2x:











One thing to bear in mind: the two Joint Media Operations Teams represent the forward edge of military photography (and video, but who cares about them?). When we make reccommendations to manufacturers, they do act on them as the potential sales losses would be catastrophic.
The British Army uses Nikons. Because of that (we lead the Defence School of Photography at RAF Cosford in the W Midlands, in terms of purchasing power), so do the RAF and Royal Navy. Because of that, the US military all use Nikon, as do the rest of NATO, the Australians, Kiwis etc. Almost all UK and US Police and Law Enforcement agencies use Nikon.
UK Armed Forces lead the way in terms of photographic imaging in the defence arena and because of that, other Nations take notice of what we do. Despite our relatively small numbers, we wield enormous influence, as we have to cover all avenues of photography, from simple PR (groups, parades and portraits) to macro and photo-micrography (defects and SOCO), War photography and Surveillance work. And we have to be able to teach it as well.


Note the green cloth tape holding the battery cover onto the SB-800's auxiliary battery unit - we found that they fall off at the slightest knock and feedback to Nikon will result in a re-design (we've been told).

The LowePro Dryzone DZ 200 backpack is pretty good also with the caveat that the single fastex clip (center-top of the bag with yellow tape on it) is insufficient to hold the outer flap closed: the strap comes loose. We've asked for two clips and thicker webbing to prevent it loosening with heavy loads.
The other team photographer has just sent his back with a broken waterproof zip. We found that when gunged up with the sort of fine, floury dust encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, the silicone lubricant dries up and jams the zip. We've asked that they make them stronger also.
And in case you think we're being picky, bear in mind we're only talking about jobs lasting 3-6 weeks. If it can't last that long, what's the point?
We may also specify a concealed pocket to contain a 9mm pistol and four clips of ammo for jobs where we don't wear uniform - that's yet to be decided and probably won't happen.

The Freecom 20Gb Mini HD attached to the laptop will be replaced in due course with a LaCie 250GB HD for added storage capacity - this one just holds my MP3 files so I can listen to 70's punk music while I work.

[Warspite]

Very nice setup, interesting to hear about what you do and the stuff you use

I actually thought you worked for Reuters or something similar before reading this

[Arkady]

I transmit direct to PA, Reuters, UPPI, and Getty Images (and it's affiliate, AFP) when I work. They used to give a full credit, but I noticed that on the last job (Iraq Referendum) the byline just says Getty or AFP. Not best pleased about that and it resulted in a snotto-gram to Hugh Pinney at Getty.

[dod]

How do you decide who get's the contract, open tender? Canon must be desperate to get on the good side of you guys.

[Steve]

Great write up and insite into your work and how you use the equipment. Thanks for that!

I am curious on your workflow Arkady, not detailed but what software you use to get the photos from the camera all the way through to PA, Reuters or Getty etc. I am guessing with the amount of pictures you take and the the time restrictions you work under that you have now got it honed down to a fine art?

Any info you could supply would be very interesting.

[digitalfailure]

Thats a better effort, it's nice to see the bits and bobs being talked about :icon_cool

just out of interest, how many army snappers are on the team and how do you get into that?

RAF cosford isn't that far from me.......how do i sneak in for a few lessons? :naughty:

[RobertP]

Very interesting reading. Thanks for sharing.

I would have imagined military photographers taking intelligence pictures of something boring instead of covering news stories.

[Arkady]

There are 38 Army photographers currently serving in various posts, not all of them in image-gathering roles.
Myself and one other form the stills element of the Defence Media Operations Centre (DMOC) based at RAF Uxbridge. This comprises two deployable teams and a headquarters staff. Each team has one stills phot and a Video cameraman or ENG.

Our job is essentially the same as a civilian news photographer - go in get the images and get them out to the wire services ASAP.
We currently use the NERA M4 satellite communications system, which connects at about 64kbps - same as old dial-up on your PC.

I import images via Nikon View from a Sandisk USB 2.0 card reader and assign basic File Info (what, where, when, who, why, by whom, Copyright Info and contact details) at the same time to the RAW (NEF) files. Doing the same after import using Photoshop would leave the file info as a sidecar file: using Nikon View embeds it in the file itself and it carries over when the image is subsequently processed.
Once all the files are imported, I use Photoshop CS2 for all subsequent processing. Open the file in Adobe Bridge and do a quick edit in RAW mode: the best thing about CS2 is the extra options in RAW. I can leave white balance and all sorts of other stuff on camera default settings and fine tune them in CS2 later. I can also apply batch processing to all images once I'm happy with the adjustments.
Open the image and do levels and sharpening. In-camera sharpening is left off, I do all sharpening post-production in the lightness channel only.
Then I save the image as a TIFF, crop and re-size for transmission, then save again as a JPEG.
This conforms with practices agreed with the Imperial War Museum where all our images are sent after three years to form part of the National Archive.
RAW - TIFF - JPEG (negative - large (fine) print - small (coarse) print, if you want to look at it another way).
The transmission images are then emailed (oh yes!) to the wire services and are sent free of charge. For the sake of fairness, I send to all the wire services simultaneously, as well as the MoD Press Office in London and to the HQ(Land) Picture Desk at Wilton, nr Salisbury. That covers all bases, military and civil.
If I'm lucky, they remember to use my name as a byline, though this time Getty Images forgot and so all stuff sent out by thier affiliate Agence France Presse went out under a AFP byline, not mine... ho hum.

While not as potentially quick as possible using the new cameras, it serves our purposes well enough. As long as I have my images on the wire services the same day, I tend to beat the local competition.

We use email now, as it's the easiest means of transmission. When we used Mac laptops, I used a program by Hermstedt that was a drag-and-drop ISDN postbox affair and was blindingly quick. They do make a PC compatible version, but because we still send via SatComms, it really makes no odds and I now just send everything as an email attachment through Outlook. One image per email, measuring 12" along the long side at 175 dpi and saved at about JPEG 9 or equivalent to a 60-second transmission using a 56k modem. That is good enough quality for newspaper use in the UK.

To become an Army Phot you must first serve at least five years in 'teeth arms' - infantry or similar. The Army's view being that it's easier to teach in infantryman photography than to teach a photographer to be an infantryman. This means that we are able to deploy with any unit (including SF and airborne units) without further training.
Once your minimum five years are done, you must then pass a selection board comprising the Army Master Photographer and three other serving Army Phots. Questions such as 'Why the f*** should I let you be a phot?' are typical. You must provide a portfolio of images to a reasonably high standard and demonstrate a passion for photography above all else. Many try to join thinking that it'll be a useful skill to leave the army with. No-ooo... sorry.
Once accepted you must pass a one-week selection test during which you are 'beasted' around Wolverhampton with a Billingham bag full of Nikons and a task sheet and an impossible series of deadlines. There are also 'social'tasks to be performed. One man failed selection for failing to attempt the Group Karaoke singing - as he was subsequently told: "if you can't make a fool of yourself in front of friends, how will you stand up in front of a buch of generals and control them?" Or as in the case of my colleague, the Prime Minister, six generals and all the EU Defence Ministers...
Once that's over, you go back to RAF Cosford for a six-month course. It's a distillation of the BA Hons degree course, City and Guilds and Higher Diploma courses with added stuff that's military specific. All in six months. You don't sleep much and weekends are unheard of.

But once all that's over and done with, it's still the best job in the army.

[Arkady]

One other thing that might be of interest: talking to Jerry Lebens who writes for Black and White Photography mag and also to Phil Goldsmith at Calumet, it's rumoured that pretty soon there'll be only one major manufacturer of 'proper' digital cameras.
Most folks will buy a decent camera-phone as soon as they hit 4Mpi, all other compact digi cameras will be dead.
In 5 years, say, the market for Pro-spec cameras will have shrunk as only pro's and rich amateurs will buy them.
That means that there'll only be room for one manufacturer to survive as market-share and profits dwindle. And since all major Military and Law enforcement use Nikon, any bets on who'll be last man standing?

To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...

Canon users, how many do you own?

[Warspite]

Originally Posted by Arkady

To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...

Canon users, how many do you own?

ROFL - have to say I feel a bit intimidated now

Brilliant info, I'm not going to imply that your job sounds easy cause I know it isnt, but it certainly sounds like it has its moments.

[Steep]

How many do you own Arkady as opposed to have the opportunity to use?


Interesting idea about camera phones killing off compacts. To a certain extent I can see it happening if camera phone quality improves enough with the rise in pixel count, but I think you/he are wrong about the death of the low end slr. Once you get into slr territory you're talking about hobbyists and keen amateurs as opposed to snappers and I can't see them being happy with a camera phone. As long as there's a hobbyist demand I think there will be choice, market forces will see to that.

[RobertP]

Originally Posted by Arkady

To put it even more in perspective, one Phot section 'not too far' from Hereford has 130 D100 bodies on the shelf just to teach with. Another 25 D1x bodies and lenses from 17-35 up to 600mm for each of them.
My own section has eight D2x bodies and 20 D1x bodies as reserve. For the two of us...

What happens to all the 'obsolete' kit? Army surplus auction?

This is all fascinating stuff. Hope you are not giving away any official secrets here - don't want to upset us taxpayers with tales of excess spending :icon_eek: