This months edition (March 2010) of Photo PRO magazine features a master class interview with UK Car Photographer Tim Wallace. The article covers Tim’s working attitude towards his clients as well as some interesting background information on previous projects with clients such as Aston Martin. Tim talks openly about the approach he takes to his work and you also get a seek into the sort of equipment he favours on different shoots as well as lots of details and technical tips on lighting.
The new Hasselblad H4D featuring revolutionary True Focus functionality.
Fit for purpose
“As the weeks progress and we edge forward into a new year we are starting to hear more and more about the latest offering from Hasselblad, the H4.
So what’s all the hype about and can things really be that different as it seems only recently that the H3 was launched. Well indeed to understand the H4 in some ways I feel we must look back to the current H3 and the press that it received not only for its quality and accuracy but also for being the turning point where Hasselblad closed the platform and took total control of the system. I purchased my H3 DII in February last year after testing several alternate solutions including Phase One and also Leaf so in some ways my feelings and review of their equipment could be seen to be hopefully quite useful as I’m not a camera journalist who just got one for the afternoon and shot his mates car out of the office window, I’m the end user, the customer, the working photographer! Sure I work at a reasonably high level as a commercial photographer with high end clients such as Aston Martin but at the end of the day nobody would drop thousands on the table without doing their homework first. I give seminars each year and one question that rears its head a lot is whats the best model of camera I can buy, this is of course the million dollar question if you mistakenly perceive that its the camera in your hand that will produce a great photograph and not the correct sequence of firing brain cells behind your eye, also referred to sometimes as ‘your imagination’. Sure a quality camera is important even if like me you believe that you could give Ringo Starr a baked bean tin and he’d still get a decent tune out of it… My point here is that I did then and do now fail to understand why the big uproar about Hasselblad closing their platform from accepting other makers digital backs etc. At the end of the day it would be foolish to invest in a £8k SLR body and then shove a £200 lens on the front and have the brass to complain that image quality was not as good as you expected. I think the point here is that I did not buy a H3 I bought into a system that has excellent support, offers me the backup to continue to work anywhere in the world whenever I need it and indeed one that can actually start to guarantee quality and more importantly constancy through the ‘capture’ element of my work flow. So in a nut shell my thoughts on Hasselblad are that they currently, for me, deliver the best solution for my work, the Hasselblad I shoot on and all the other bits that bolt on including 5 lenses are over the last year faultless and do not have me wondering if they will fail in any given situation, peace of mind you could say, or indeed ‘fit for purpose’ and I work as a photographer because of two basic reasons, first its my passion and second it’s my business, anybody who approaches business with any less of an attitude may indeed think life is great, at least for the first year, but they will soon realise that unless like me your lucky enough to find something that your really passionate about, and also learn to balance that with a hard sense of business and money, you will inevitably fall by the wayside with a nice but useless box marked ‘my favorite prints’. My H3 will inevitably be switching to the new H4 in the coming months as the benefits that the H4 offers me will further allow me to concentrate on the subject in front of me and give me the peace of mind that the only thing I need concern myself with when packing for a shoot is that the batteries are charged up, and that’s the way that I like it. The best camera is the one in your hand and mine just happens to be a Hasselblad through considered choice for my particular role, it is very much fit for my purpose, no voodoo or smoke and mirrors, just a reliable good quality system that helps me create great images and continue a successful business.”
Tim Wallace – Photographer
APL – What’s it all about?
Hasselblad has introduced two new cameras to its H System of medium format cameras. First comes the H4D-60 with a 60MP sensor. It features the ‘True Focus’ AF system that can measure the movement of the camera when recomposing after focusing to ensure that focus remains on the target – a system Hasselblad calls Absolute Position Lock. Along with the H4D-60, the company has also launched the H4D-50 with a 50MP sensor, replacing the H3DII-50. The H4D-60 will start shipping from November 2009 and the H4D-50 will ship in the first quarter of 2010.
With the release of the new H4D-60, the first H4D camera and most recent addition to the Hasselblad H System, Hasselblad marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of medium format DSLRs. The H4D-60 will feature True Focus with APL (Absolute Position Lock), making auto-focus substantially easier and more accurate for photography professionals.
As part of the celebration honoring the first manned lunar landing and the first lunar photography, camera manufacturer Hasselblad is announcing another first, the launch of the H4D camera series. The first model in the new series is the H4D-60, featuring a 60 Megapixel medium format sensor.
“We are thrilled to be able to announce the introduction of the H4D,” says Christian Poulsen, CEO of Hasselblad. “This step represents the natural evolution of our H System and of our photographic strategy in general. As part of our efforts to inspire 35mm photographers to step up to the quality found in high-end DSLRs, the H4D series is built upon the successful H3D platform and features our revolutionary True Focus technology. The H4D also comes bundled with our new Phocus 2.0 imaging software.”
True Focus and Absolute Position Lock
“True Focus helps solve one of the most lingering challenges that faces serious photographers today,” he continues, “true, accurate focusing throughout the image field. Without multi-point auto-focus a typical auto-focus camera can only correctly measure focus on a subject that is in the center of the image. When a photographer wants to focus on a subject outside the center area, they have to lock focus on the subject and then re-compose the image. In short distances especially, this re-composing causes focus error, as the plane of focus sharpness follows the camera’s movement, perpendicular to the axis of the lens.”
The traditional solution for most DSLRs has been to equip the camera with a multi-point AF sensor. These sensors allow the photographer to fix an off-center focus point on an off-center subject, which is then focused correctly. Such multi-point AF solutions are often tedious and inflexible to work with, however, and do not really solve the problem, claims Poulsen.
“Photographers have grown accustomed to using auto-focus systems in their day to day work and we see increasingly higher numbers of focus points advertised in each new wave of AF products. The term ‘multi-point auto-focus’ is a bit misleading, however, for cameras with sensors larger than APS,” claims Poulsen. “Due to the physics of an SLR-camera, the off-center focus points that are offered are all clustered relatively close to the center of the image. To set focus outside of this center area, the photographer is still forced to focus first, and then shift the camera to reframe, with the resulting loss of focus as a result.
To overcome this problem, Hasselblad has used modern yaw rate sensor technology to measure angular velocity in an innovative way. The result is the new Absolute Position Lock (APL) processor, which forms the foundation of Hasselblad’s True Focus feature. The APL processor accurately logs camera movement during any re-composing, then uses these exact measurements to calculate the necessary focus adjustment, and issues the proper commands to the lens’s focus motor so it can compensate. The APL processor computes the advanced positional algorithms and carries out the required focus corrections at such rapid speed that no shutter lag occurs. The H4D’s firmware then further perfects the focus using the precise data retrieval system found on all HC/HCD lenses.
“This technology takes AF to an entirely new level, correcting for the vertical and horizontal focus-shift that results from the rotation of the camera around an axis close to camera,” says Poulsen, “In simple terms, True Focus allows the photographer to concentrate on their composition, to focus on their creativity, while True Focus takes care of the other, more mechanical focus.”
True Focus on the H4D can be set to work at a half press of the camera release button, or via any user button programmed to AF-drive when the camera is in manual focus mode. This, the first release of True Focus, only corrects the horizontal and vertical positioning of the camera, and does not correct for any focus-shift which results from larger lateral movements of the camera during recomposing. The True Focus technology and APL (both patent pending) mark a significant milestone for Hasselblad’s high-end DSLR strategy and represent the result of many years of development work.
Faster Software, Shorter Learning Curve
The new user interface in Phocus 2.0 drastically reduces the learning curve for high-end imaging. The average photographer will be up to speed in less than 15 minutes, claims Hasselblad CEO Christian Poulsen. Functionality has not been lowered, however, with Phocus 2.0 matching or bettering the speed, functions, and usability found in Lightroom, Aperture, and Capture One.
“We’ve increased speed, increased functionality, and dramatically increased the speed at which photographers can learn to use this advanced software,” says Poulsen. “In less than 5 minutes an amateur photographer can learn to work with our images. In less than 10 minutes, learn how to setup for production of high-res files for Photoshop. In less than 20 minutes learn how to shoot tethered as a professional studio photographer. The new version of Phocus is just another step in our efforts to make complex functionality simple to use, allowing photographers to focus on their shooting.”
This philosophy lies behind a range of the features found in the H4D, including Hasselblad Natural Color Solution (HNCS), which achieves consistent color reproduction using a single color profile, and digital lens correction (DAC) which perfects each image captured through the HC/HCD lenses, by removing any trace of distortion, vignetting or chromatic aberrations. It was also the key motivation for what will surely be the most attractive feature in the new H4D, Hasselblad True Focus, explains Poulsen.
When you push a car past 180mph, the world starts to get awfully fizzy and a little bit frightening. When you go past 200mph it actually becomes blurred. Almost like you’re trapped in an early Queen pop video. At this sort of speed the tyres and the suspension are reacting to events that happened some time ago, and they have not finished reacting before they’re being asked to do something else. The result is a terrifying vibration that rattles your optical nerves, causing double vision. This is not good when you’re covering 300ft a second.
Happily, stopping distances become irrelevant because you won’t see the obstacle in the first place. By the time you know it was there, you’ll have gone through the windscreen, through the Pearly Gates and be half way across God’s breakfast table.
It has always been thus. When Louis Rigolly broke the 100mph barrier in his Gobron in 1904, the vibration would have been terrifying. And I dare say that driving an E-type at 150mph in 1966 must have been a bit sporty as well.
But once you go past 200mph it isn’t just the suspension and the tyres you have to worry about. The biggest problem is the air. At 100mph it’s relaxed. At 150mph it’s a breeze. But at 200mph it has sufficient power to lift an 800,000lb jumbo jet off the ground. A 200mph gust of wind is strong enough to knock down an entire city. So getting a car to behave itself in conditions like these is tough.
At 200mph you can feel the front of the car getting light as it starts to lift. As a result you start to lose your steering, so you aren’t even able to steer round whatever it is you can’t see because of the vibrations. Make no mistake, 200mph is at the limit of what man can do right now. Which is why the new Bugatti Veyron is worthy of some industrial strength genuflection. Because it can do 252mph. And that’s just mad — 252mph means that in straight and level flight this car is as near as makes no difference as fast as a Hawker Hurricane.
You might point out at this juncture that the McLaren F1 could top 240mph, but at that speed it was pretty much out of control. And anyway it really isn’t in the same league as the Bugatti. In a drag race you could let the McLaren get to 120mph before setting off in the Veyron. And you’d still get to 200mph first. The Bugatti is way, way faster than anything else the roads have seen.
Of course, at £810,000, it is also jolly expensive, but when you look at the history of its development you’ll discover it’s rather more than just a car . . .
It all started when Ferdinand Piëch, the swivel-eyed former boss of Volkswagen, bought Bugatti and had someone design a concept car. “This,” he said, “is what the next Bugatti will look like.” And then, without consulting anyone, he went on. “And it vill have an engine that develops 1000 horsepower and it vill be capable of 400kph.”
His engineers were horrified. But they set to work anyway, mating two Audi V8s to create an 8 litre W16. Which was then garnished with four turbochargers. Needless to say, the end result produced about as much power as the earth’s core, which is fine. But somehow the giant had to be cooled, which is why the Veyron has no engine cover and why it has 10 — count them — 10 radiators. Then things got tricky because the power had to be harnessed.
For this, VW went to Ricardo, a British company that makes gearboxes for various Formula One teams.
“God, it was hard,” said one of the engineers I know vaguely. “The gearbox in an F1 car only has to last a few hours. Volkswagen wanted the Veyron’s to last 10 or 20 years. And remember, the Bugatti is a damn sight more powerful than any F1 car.”
The result, a seven-speed double-clutch flappy paddle affair, took a team of 50 engineers five years to perfect.
With this done, the Veyron was shipped to Sauber’s F1 wind tunnel where it quickly became apparent that while the magic 1000bhp figure had been achieved, they were miles off the target top speed of 400kph (248mph). The body of the car just wasn’t aerodynamic enough, and Volkswagen wouldn’t let them change the basic shape to get round the problem.
The bods at Sauber threw up their hands, saying they only had experience of aerodynamics up to maybe 360kph, which is the effective top speed in Formula One. Beyond this point Bugatti was on its own.
Somehow they had to find an extra 30kph, and there was no point in looking to the engine for answers because each extra 1kph increase in speed requires an extra 8bhp from the power plant. An extra 30kph then would need an extra 240bhp. That was not possible.
The extra speed had to come from changing small things on the body. They started by fitting smaller door mirrors, which upped the top speed a bit but at too high a price. It turned out that the bigger ones had been keeping the nose of the car on the ground. Without them the stability was gone.
In other words, the door mirrors were generating downforce. That gives you an idea of how much of a bastard the air can be at this speed.
After some public failures, fires and accidents, and one chief being fired, they hit on the idea of a car that automatically changes shape depending on what speed you’re going.
At 137mph, the nose of the car is lowered by 2in and the big rear spoiler slides into the slipstream. The effect is profound. You can feel the back of the car being pressed into the road.
However, with the spoiler in place the drag is so great you’re limited to just 231mph. To go faster than that you have to stop and insert your ignition key in a slot on the floor. This lowers the whole car still further and locks the big back wing down. Now you have reduced downforce, which means you won’t be going round any corners, but you have a clean shape. And that means you can top 400kph. That’s 370ft a second.
You might want to ponder that for a moment. Covering the length of a football pitch, in a second, in a car. And then you might want to think about the braking system. A VW Polo will generate 0.6g if you stamp on the middle pedal hard. You get that from the air brake alone on a Veyron. Factor in the carbon ceramic discs and you will pull up from 250mph in just 10sec. Sounds good, but in those 10sec you’ll have covered a third of a mile. That’s five football pitches to stop.
I didn’t care. On a recent drive across Europe I desperately wanted to reach the top speed but I ran out of road when the needle hit 240mph. Where, astonishingly, it felt planted. Totally and utterly rock steady. It felt sublime.
Not quiet, though. The engine sounds like Victorian plumbing — it looks like Victorian plumbing as well, to be honest — and the roar from the tyres was biblical. But it still felt brilliant. Utterly, stunningly, mind blowingly, jaw droppingly brilliant.
And then I reached the Alps where, unbelievably, it got better. I expected this road rocket to be absolutely useless in the bends but it felt like a big Lotus Elise.
Occasionally, if I accelerated hard in a tight corner, it behaved strangely as the four-wheel-drive system decided which axle would be best equipped to deal with the wave of power. I won’t say it’s a nasty feel or dangerous. Just weird, in the same way that the duck-billed platypus is weird.
You learn to raise an eyebrow at what’s only a foible, and then, as the road straightens out, steady yourself for Prince Albert’s boiler to gird its loins and play havoc with the space-time continuum. No, really, you come round a bend, see what appears to be miles and miles of dead straight road, bury your foot in the carpet and with a big asthmatic wheeze, bang, you’re instantly at the next bend, with your eyebrow raised again.
From behind the wheel of a Veyron, France is the size of a small coconut. I cannot tell you how fast I crossed it the other day. Because you simply wouldn’t believe me. I also cannot tell you how good this car is. I just don’t have the vocabulary. I just end up stammering and dribbling and talking wide-eyed nonsense. And everyone thinks I’m on drugs.
This car cannot be judged in the same way that we judge other cars. It meets drive-by noise and emission regulations and it can be driven by someone whose only qualification is an ability to reverse round corners and do an emergency stop. So technically it is a car. And yet it just isn’t.
Other cars are small guesthouses on the front at Brighton and the Bugatti is the Burj Al Arab. It makes even the Enzo and the Porsche Carrera GT feel slow and pointless. It is a triumph for lunacy over common sense, a triumph for man over nature and a triumph for Volkswagen over absolutely every other car maker in the world.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Bugatti Veyron 16.4
Engine 7993cc, 16 cylinders in a W
Power 1001bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 922 lb ft @ 2200rpm
Transmission 7-speed DSG, manual and auto
Fuel 11.7mpg (combined)
CO2 574g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 2.5sec
Top speed 253mph
Price £810,345
Like any commercial photography business a client portfolio is vital to allow prospective new clients, advertisers and agents to both view and access your work for new and upcoming projects. Whilst we always meet our clients face to face and discuss our work over a more traditional physical portfolio we like to be able to leave behind a digital version that can be referred to if the need should arise. Our virtual portfolio offers our clients just this and can be viewed here at http://www.commercialphotographerportfolio.co.uk
Tim – “Like any good photographer its essential to have a collection of your work at hand in a physical format to show your prospective clients, everybody still likes the ability to touch and feel the quality of large prints, however once you’ve left the agency your portfolio normally follows you out of the door and for me in an age of technology it’s just sensible to have an online copy that people can refer back to if they needed to. I hold an increasing number of seminars for both professional photographers and students entering the final elements of their degree courses, and I always hear about great work people have done but rarely get the chance to view it as they simply don’t invest the time into showcasing their work effectively.
Years ago when I first started out a very famous picture editor once sat me down and said your only as good as your last picture, indeed people must remember your images after they have seen them, think about them and want to go back for a second look. I pride myself on being creative and drive myself to shoot work differently to the mainstream, in truth I think its been the driving force behind more than half the commissions we have taken on over the last few years. Being an individual matters these days and whilst it can be very disconcerting at times to swim away from the pack the rewards are there if you persevere. I’d also like to point out that no pixels were harmed in the making of this portfolio…lol”
This week saw Ambient Life Photographer Tim Wallace complete the second of a two part project ‘Little Miss Innocent’ for Hasselblad. The ‘Fashion Kills’ shoot is centred around the contrast between beauty and the controversial use of animal fur through the fashion industries history.
All of the work was shot in a single day using the Hasselblad H3 DII digital camera that Tim uses for high end commercial work, and features models
Zara Ann and Frankii Wilde who are both well known for their work within the vintage fashion industry.
Tim – “This is a project that has been in the back of my mind for nearly two years now and after a chance meeting with Zara I decided it was time to get the project underway. Zara and Frankii are both fantastic models to work with and have just the right look for what I’m trying to capture. Of course it’s always difficult to work on projects that are controversial but I think it’s important from a photographic point of view to produce work that can challenge the viewer beyond the single meaning of a photograph.
Sometimes people will go to any lengths to get ‘The shot’. Enjoy this short video, shot at Voss point in Norway where BASE jumping is totally legal under Norwegian law and is supported and regulated properly to ensure the highest safety standards possible.
Its worth remembering that in BASE jumping there is a saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, BASE jumping is maybe not for you….”
Providing our clients with media presentations is nothing really new at Ambient Life, we’ve been doing this for some time however we would like to now demonstrate one of our new High Definition ‘HD’ versions. For this we’ve picked a sample of just some of the work that photographer Tim Wallace has shot of Aston Martin over the last year. We hope you enjoy the show and please don’t forget to click the ‘view in HD’ mode in the bottom right of the screen below.
Enjoy the work of Car Photographer Tim Wallace with Aston Martin
Today we have officially launched our new even more tasty Ambient Life. We have added some new sections to our website and have also spent some time improving other area’s to make them quicker to use and more enjoyable for you! Last year we were pretty much busy 110% all through the year with lots of exciting new clients joining Ambient Life as well as new and challenging projects. 2009 also saw a massive jump in Tim’s commitment to his seminars with demand growing and new locations being made available such as the Winter live shoot seminars that we did at the Land Rover headquarters at Halewood near Liverpool. As we head into 2010 we look forward to continuing to work with some truly amazing people and hopefully continue to create work that keeps our clients, and their customers, feeling ‘Inspired’!
Some of the tasty highlights!
Syndication page for marketing and publishing clients ‘NEW’
Dedicated new area for all our Seminar, Road Show and Live Shoot events ‘NEW’
Dedicated Car Photography pages with behind the scenes information and opinion ‘NEW’
The Commercial Pro Book a new online version of our client portfolio ‘NEW’ area.
Features and client news in our famous ‘The Hype’ area.
Why choose Ambient Life? ‘Updated’
Who is the real Tim Wallace? profile page‘Updated’
Land Rover 2010 Seminars
We are pleased to officially announce the dates for our ‘live shoot’ photography seminars with Ambient Life photographer Tim Wallace to be held with Land Rover at their two centres in Birmingham and Liverpool. The events are being supported and co-ordinated by Calumet UK.
Land Rover – Solihull April 20th and 21st
Land Rover – Halewood October 12th and 13th
Following the success his live shoot seminars with Jaguar Tim was asked to conduct a series of ‘live’ seminars with Land Rover at their main centre in Halewood, Liverpool and also the Land Rover site at Solihull in the West Midlands. These events follow a similar format but involved a ‘live’ shoot this time working outdoors in a purpose built areas located near the main centres. The shoots are split into separate area’s and concentrate on the setup from scratch of a professional lighting arrangement for shooting a Land Rover on medium format digital Hasselblad equipment as well as 2 other area’s for action based photography. The media sample below was put together after a 4 hour shoot on site at the location to promote the events with Calumet. The new ‘Go Beyond’ 2010 events are now based on a more focused group event over 2 days rather than 1 to give those attending a very in depth and broad sample of this environment. Details and booking is available through Calumet.
Calumet Events Information
Booking Page
There are many ways to welcome in the new year but for us this is probably one of the best starts to 2010 that we could have hoped for, with the launch today of the One-77 Aston work that photographer Tim Wallace shot in a series of new global advertisements by Hasselblad featuring this exclusive £1.2m Aston Martin.
This new prestigious car from the Aston stable derives its name from its high price tag of £1.2m and the exclusivity of their only being 77 examples built. It’s not hard to imagine the remarkable attention to detail that the designers from the Aston Martin Centre at Gaydon in England have lavished on its conception and it was very much in keeping with this tradition that photographer Tim Wallace was chosen to shoot a series of work to be used by Hasselblad and Aston Marti(AMOC) during 2010.
Tim- “The One-77 is a truly remarkable car and although I spend a great deal of my time around this type of vehicle, and very often Aston Martin’s, I was still impressed over by both its beauty and design, the famous Aston saying of ‘power, beauty, soul’ certainly applies here. The shoot was commissioned by Hasselblad in Denmark and was to show both the car overall and some of the close detail captured using my Hasselblad H3 DII camera for the advertisements that would run a strap line of ‘Getting Down to Details’. The actual shoot came at very short notice with only 2 days to prepare as Aston had only one model available and built to work with and as you can imagine the car was very much in high demand around the world for events and shows as it was just at the stage of being officially unveiled and launched by Aston. All the work I did was shot at Aston’s Design Centre in Gaydon and I managed to get a few hours with the car so that we could complete a range of photographs that hopefully do the car and the camera justice.”
The Hasselblad advertisements will be running in the Aston Martin AMOC Book for 2010 and the work that Tim shot is being exclusively shown on the main global Hasselblad site along with a sample of just some of the work shot.
Photographer Tim Wallace is the driving force and creative thinking behind Ambient Life.
An award winning photographer he is probably best known for his commercial car and advertising work.
Tim works with many well known brands and clients such as Aston Martin, Land Rover and Kenwood in the US, and has recently been named as one of the ten photographers to be selected by Hasselblad for the quality of his work and creative vision to represent their new 'Pro Team' to be launched in 2010.
