Category Archives: Productie

The ultimate Camera app

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You know what the coolest would be? A DECENT camera app for my iPhone.

As a photographer, I love taking pictures. Both with my DSLRs, as my iPhone. Mostly because it’s very easy to grab it, always ready.

We all know that people do create great pictures with just an iPhone, but the standard app is so very limiting. So a great app, with the controls of a DSLR could make a winning combination, beating many point and shoots.

Of course, now you think, what’s the use of trying to create the feeling of a DSLR on a phone? Well, the iPhone 4S is a brilliant device, with the built quality of a Leica. And the most important thing: It has a great camera.

If you check the Slow Shutter Cam, you can see they added quite some manual controls, making sure that you can create long exposure shots, and light trails.

Too bad it starts only at 0.5s Shutter speed, and the sensitivity is in stops, and not in ISO. But it proves it is possible! How great would it be, to have this kind of settings from all the range.

If I look at the great controls at the Nikon F4, and other analog cameras, this could be great. Throw in a way to send a signal to off-camera flash triggers through the audio jack, Manual or automatic controls, ISO and Shutterspeed control, A Lightmeter, Single shot, continues high and low, and a timer, and we have a winner. And you could even go even more crazy and ad manual focus or a Auto Exposure and Auto focus lock. Who wouldn’t want this!

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I’d pay good money for this.

We all know, the best camera out there, is the one you have with you. Sooooo .. App devs… get cranking!

Het Buikgevoel: België weet het

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Wow.

Ik heb eind vorige week in de parkeergarage van het nieuwe Gerechtsgebouw een paar drugsspuiten en attributen gevonden. Ik maakte (as usual) een paar foto’s, en stuurde het door m’n vaste journalist. Deze morgen pakte dan Het Nieuwsblad uit met het verhaal op hun voorpagina!

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Ook stond het op de B1 (de Regio ‘voorpagina’). Hier werd een hele pagina voor voorzien!

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Ook onze Zusterkrant De Standaard bracht het verhaal.

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En toen begon het.

Tegen 14u kreeg ik sms van een vriendin. HBvL bracht ook het nieuws op hun website, ongetwijfeld morgen ook in de krant. Paar uur later kreeg ik telefoon van een fotograaf van Het Laatste Nieuws, waar ik precies die spuiten gevonden heb.

Daarnet kwam het ook op VTM! En heeft ook TVL een nieuwe reportage gemaakt.

Ik ben benieuwd voor morgen! :D

Bushido: The Masterplan

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Iedereen die dit leest heeft waarschijnlijk m’n trailer ooit gezien, maar dus bij deze:

Het project is al efkes dood, in development hell. Ook is ondertussen m’n zus bijna 15 jaar, en al wat te oud voor de rol van Nelke .. or is she?

In 2007 hebben we een paar key-scenes gefilmd. Wat training, paar dialogen van haar kant uit, en de belangrijke openingsscene van haar op de heide.

En meer hebben we eigenlijk niet nodig. Als we het lineaire verhaal eens overboord gooien, en beginnen halverwege het verhaal met een oudere ‘Nelke’ (/Jolien), zou dat toch geweldig zijn. Een jamais-vu voor zover ik weet. In 2006 hadden we al het idee om een eerste deel van de film te filmen, 10 jaar te wachten, en dan verder met Jolien alles filmen. En blijkbaar is het niet meer zo heel dom of raar. 4 jaar later is Jolien al stuk volwassener geworden, en als haar blokskes weg zijn, en d’r haar iets beter gestyld, en voilà.

Het idee is eigenlijk al even in m’n kop aan’t spelen, en nu we de tapes hebben binnengehaald kwam het moment waar ik van weet van: ‘dit kan lukken’.

We hebben toen net genoeg gefilmd, buiten 1 belangrijke scène. De grote aanval op de koets. Toen hebben we het opgelost met 2 greenkey shots, met ik als alle Ninja, en Bert als de grote Japanner, en een foamcore miniatuur.

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Ondertussen ken ik wat meer volk, en is een grote miniatuurkoets niet meer nodig. Een paar balken, witte doeken, MDF plaat, nagelpistool, en we hebben een grote koets. Paar kussens in smijten, en voilà. Zo simpel kan het zijn. Een kleine battlescene, 1 shot, een dubbelgangster voor Jolien.

Het enige grote probleem blijft een volwassen Japanner. (En we smijten het Japans en Nederlands buiten. Engels all the way)

Er zit nog toekomst in.

Ben ik zeker van.

Updates

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Oh right, I opened MarsEdit to start blogging a bit.

So, Blogging ..

Euhm. I worked last night to make the site even prettier. The homepage now has my latest Instagram shot (just as I imagined it should have in 2008.). No, really!

Memory lane:

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It now also features Gowalla. The Find Me page has been updated with new icons, my portfolio has been corrected and updated, and I added a new design page with all designs made in the Student Life. Hm, I don’t know why I’m writing in English now. I think it has all to do with the way I’m thinking at the moment. Ah well.

Bugs!

Anyhow, there is a nasty bug in the header in Firefox 3.5 and lower. Should be okay if you use the regular updates.

In Safari there is a weird bug that the weather forecast is shifted to the right of the page.

In Internet Explorer 9, the skyline gradients don’t work yet. They should work in IE10, so I’m just giving up that legacy support. (+ The sky doesn’t look that bad without them it seems).

Anyhow,

Up next is the video page that needs a bit of work. But not a lot.

Cheers!

And we’re live! (New Site!)

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So the last 6 hours had some major breakthroughs. After working on a client site, I got the right inspiration I was looking for to finish the site. After an hour of designing, and messing with the header positioning, I am proud to show you the latest version of my site!

Content wise, everything is the same, but the entire site has been re-created from scratch, with a brand new design. Since all major bugs are out of the system, it was time to get it online, so I could start and do live testing. (Some unexpected things already occurred, and where fixed within minutes). So if you see weird things, let me know!

The reason I did launch now, was that I saw my site in on other browser, and saw how dated it looked. It just didn’t have the same thing anymore that it once did, so yeah, here is a new look ‘n feel!

Some things To Do:

  • Reinstall Gowalla on homepage
  • Look for Instagram embedding?
  • …

So yeah, it’s 4:12 AM now. It was a long and heavy pregnancy, and a tough birth, but here is a pretty new baby.

 

Goodnight, and enjoy!

The iPad role in traveling

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So I have an iPad, everyone knows that by now. No, not the 2, my original works fine enough thankyouverymuch.

By NF

If I compare my travels from 2 years ago in Ireland to this week in Schotland, I see very different things. When I was traveling Ireland took my MacBook with me, and used that to daily capture my 8 gig of pictures of the day (or more). Also I wrote blogposts just as now, and edited some pictures.

At 4 moments in 2 weeks I found free or unprotected wifi to upload these posts and pictures, and that was it. Also it was rather heavy to have a camera, laptop, etc with me. With no entertainment on it at all (I needed all space for my pictures). In fact, it went that far that I actually had to erase all apps I no longer was using on the trip, and erase large un-used files. In the end I got home with over 200 GB of pictures. In a cleaning spree later on I deleted all except the ones I really liked.

But I evolved, and in the 4 past days, I still have all shots on my camera, and I have gathered a lot less pictures. Less than 300 shots that I would consider as a keeper, where a lot of those are actually portraits and party shots.

And just like that, the iPad is an evolution, and a best companion. I now carry my iPad and a 70-200 2.8 lens, and it still feels lighter than my backpack back then.

Also New, is constant connectivity. My iPad has a 3G connection, and with the prepaid 1gig Three iPad MicroSim Cards I have a rather good connection in the cities while visiting. Also, the GPS is great for locating myself, and with The Cartographer I can cache google maps and use GPS tracking to find my spots for when I enter a no-coverage zone. (and save new spots for future geotagging of my pictures, or nice places and such.)

The Cartographer for now, is an iPhone app, but it does work on the iPad too, and an iPad version will be coming soon!

The iPad is also great to blog, edit your key-shots, and send em off online. Over WiFi or 3G. (and GPS navigation), and of course, stay up to date with RSS and email. And stuff like that. Or play games. All with that 10 hour battery.

All by all it’s an amazing device, giving me the right mixture of work, entertainment, and is the perfect travel companion.

Pages gone haywire

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Since I’m reorganizing my site with a new layout, re-worked pages and updated content, it’s quite possible that pages might go missing, and pages (like the homepage) will look rather messy and stuff.

This will of course be fixed once the new layout goes live.

Also new is that Internet Explorer users also will benefit from the update. The theme should do well with older and new browsers.

In all fairness, I think it will take a few more months until everything is live, but untill then, let me share you a sneak peek!

“Ooooooh”

DIY €35 Beauty Dish

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Since I started model photography, I always wanted to create something better and better. First it was outside with a very open aperture when I got my 50mm 1.8. After my 105mm 2.8 came, I started using that as it was razor sharp, and then .. it started with strobes. Luckily, I got a very old working strobe from my mom, and a more modern one from dad. I got myself a reflector screen, some sessions with a photographer, and my video lighting experience.

Now is that next step. After seeing some DIY Beauty Dishes, I had to have one, or at least, make one, and the quest for a perfect bowl began. I found a great bowl from IKEA in the closet, but I don’t think my dad would approve of my hacking in one of his pasta bowls.

So to the stores I went! I was planning on hitting Blokker first to get some plastic bowls, but in a stroke of luck, I passed by the CASA, and dived in, looking for anything round and/or/ Shiney! Didn’t finding anytihng, I headed to the exit, when I saw this. A huge INOX Champage bowl, including a foot! Right size, right color (shiney silver!), and a possible way to hacksaw the bottom off.

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I used a hammer and a chisel to dis-assemble the already welded foot. With my talent for destruction, this was no problem!

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When trying to drilling the holes, I found that INOX is a damn strong material, so of to my favorite metal workshop it was! (Vleminckx NV in Hasselt!) After a quick bit of magic computer fixing, they made me happy too!

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After all the required holes, a trip to the store it was for some threaded wire and nuts. (M6)

The bowl got attached to the strobe and a tripod (an old one that I once got with a halogen spotlight)

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So quite harsh light. All pictures now in the kitchen are all at the same settings. Now came the part where we finetuned the dish. Because it’s not a usual bowl shape, we get a lot of light loss, but that’s what we want, right?

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It seemed the strobe flashed too wide, so the we moved the smaller dish closer to the source, until there was no more light leaking.

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Great! It’s not 100 uniform, but I really dig the texture.

Time for a self Portrait!

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Not bad for 35 euro eh!

Here are some pics of the finished result.

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