"We want really nice, big, juicy raw files of our speakers, the panels, the breakouts and all the rest of our corporate event stuff for the three days of the conference but we also want to be able to upload ample selections of images in almost real time in order to share them on our varied social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). So, we want you to also be able to deliver small (1,000 pixel) jpegs from each session to our social media guy ---- who is in another city. The best possible scenario would be to shoot a session until you know you have good stuff and then to head to the media room to upload the images while the session is still.....in session."
I read the manual for the GH5 and found that I could customize how I use the card slots. I have identical 128GB V60 cards in every SD card slot. The #1 card is set to receive raw files while the #2 card slot is set up to receive much smaller Jpegs and video files.
I pull the #2 card out of the camera once I feel a session is well covered, stick it in my laptop and upload all the new Jpeg files to a Smugmug Gallery dedicated to my client's event.
The social media guy checks the gallery for new stuff and incorporates the images into the social feed.
Finally, a rational, real world reason for the existence of dual SD card slots on modern, reliable cameras!
Redundant back up? Naw, this is not rocket surgery...
Imagine if you had a communicating camera which was in constant session with your laptop or phone, and allowed you to press a send button on the camera to route the JPEG immediately to a destination of your choice. Wouldn’t that be even better? The technology isn’t hard, but sadly, no camera manufacturer seems to think it would be useful in solving their customers’ actual problem: getting pictures to where they can be useful. They all seem to be stuck in solving the problem of just recording an image.
ReplyDeleteBaseman, I'm afraid I don't understand. The GH5 camera, using the Lumix software, can be set to stream all the shots to a mobile device like an iPad or a phone. If my client was resident in the same space as the Hotel's wi-fi network I imagine I could stream the images directly to his iPad and he could use them immediately. The ability to select file size is limited with VGA being too small and the next step up being a bit too large but the ability to stream the images is already there. Just not reasonable to do it with one of the big dinosaur cameras without expensive accessories...
ReplyDeleteI can also send batches of images from the camera to the phone...
upon reflection I think my solution is more elegant for most uses because by uploading all my files to an intermediate sharing server like Smugmug.com I am able to upload bigger files more quickly and also, via a link, share the files with more than one person at a time. In today's scenario the social media associate, his supervisor and the marketing director can all look at the images from different geographic locations and approve/disapprove dissemination. If I have a fast enough connection to the web I can also upload full size Jpegs for an additional layer of back-up.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct Kirk, "This is Brain Science"....
ReplyDeleteI thought I would chime in here. Actually the EyeFi cards can do exactly what has been suggested here. I used to use one before Wifi was added to cameras when I was travelling so I could grab images onto my phone in some remote coffee shop on a South East Asian island and send them to friends and family.
ReplyDeleteAll you would have to set-up would be the setting that if you "locked" the image, it would use a wifi connection (in the building for example) to upload them to an online location.
Of course today, with phone apps available one can simply connect to the camera and use a phone to transfer these types of medium file size jpegs to any number of locations. Unfortunately, unlike the Eyefi cards I think the camera can't be used at the same time... I think. But, no need to pull the card, open the laptop etc. Just grab a phone select the images to pull to the phones memory then upload them.
I don't have the GH5, but I think what Bassman wants has existed for a long time. What I dont know is if you can do what ODL said with the GH5. Selection, is the key difference.
ReplyDeleteYou can connect your GH5 to a smart phone using wifi, then get all the images copyied to a folder on the smart phone. Then using Smugmug app, you can have smugmug auto up load from that folder to a client folder.
What I don't know is if using 'protect image' or lock, can only selected photos be uploaded. This would then allow you to shoot and upload in real time.
Isn't this what Samsung was on its way to before folding its hand? Mirrorless, handheld cameras designed to echo the 35mm SLR shape, but with built-in cellphone connectivity? Basically, little TV cameras capable of streaming still images or live video in real time to a remote destination?
ReplyDeleteI remember when I opened up the box, charged the battery, and turned on my Canon G3 in the year 2000. "Wow!", I said. "It's a little TV camera!"
And it was: a continuous live feed to its tiny, swing out screen...continuous autofocus...all waiting to be chopped up into individual still images and recorded to a card. Getting from there to a real time feed into the cellular network is not an engineering challenge worthy of two decades. The only thing really wrong with the concept is the plight of the editor at the receiving end. An overwhelming flow of stuff in need of constant monitoring to find the worthwhile shots. The chain of events still needs the on-site photographer's combination of judgement and luck to isolate and grab the best possible moment. Otherwise all the football stadiums would be ringed by remote cameras operating autonomously and all the sports photographers would be out of work.
I'm with Bassman on this. I think what everyone else is suggesting is too complex. What I want is to have a camera app on the phone that when turned on provides the same capability on the camera that I get when using the phone as a camera. That is I can select a picture when in playback using the camera and have it uploaded to Facebook, SmugMug, wherever... without having to fiddle with the phone or card. All this needs is better software on the camera and a better camera app on the phone.
ReplyDeleteWhile we're at it, could I also have better camera integration with my computer? Like the ability to connect up my camera to the computer, and then edit my menus for the camera when it's in use. Lots of in-depth help could be provided on the computer to help make selections, and then my in-use menus would be so much easier to navigate as all the crap I'm not interested in would be missing, and my choices for settings on other things I only adjust once would likewise not need to be shown. One day...
Peter Wright
As Peter said ... I’m conversant with the existing solutions. Indeed, I regularly post to my blog and Instagram while traveling by transferring images to my tablet, editing (or not) there, then sending them on to wherever. But the need to stop shooting, connect the tablet to the camera, transfer the images I like to the tablet, then disconnect from the camera, connect to the Internet and transfer the images to another app and then to some destination is needlessly complex. All the pieces exist, waiting for some customer-focused camera maker to make it work smoothly, and in a way that enhances a photographer’s workflow rather than taking you on detours.
ReplyDeleteSimply: if I’m on a shoot and know I want to post some or all of the images to a specific gallery on some website or folder on Dropbox, I predefine it somewhere on either my phone, laptop or camera. Then every time I like a picture, i press “SEND” on the camera and it’s done. Unless I set it to ALL - then they all go without intervention. No need to go find my laptop, go to a press room, etc. Just press SEND. Oh, and while you’re at it, make sure that the wireless tech you are using is the fastest you can buy. After all, the camera body costs more than most laptops.
I think the use case Kirk is talking about goes along a million times better on a laptop. Things I have trouble with on phones and tablets:
ReplyDeleteSelecting multiple objects
Typing in passwords
Navigating tiny mobile is
I visualize the problem not as sharing a picture, multiplied by a few, but rather as
Make a new gallery
Configure it for appropriate privacy
Fiddle with it more
Get a shareable link to it
Share that link via the preferred media
Select a bunch of pictures
And finally upload them
The sharing part, the only part a mobile device does well, is the least of it. But then, I am an ancient Unix and VMS guy. Vt100 4evah mourn ya til I join ya
David and Peter. The difference is using the camera while making the selection / uploads. The EyeFi cards worked automatically while most apps want to take over the camera while you are selecting pictures.
ReplyDeleteSo in an ideal world one would have agreed with the client where these files were to go, this is set-up on the EyeFi card ahead of time. While you are shooting when you know you have a keeper you simply "lock" the image and the EyeFi card starts to transfer the image using your phone as a hot spot (when you have data).
That way you never have to "step away".
Personally I don't use it anymore as I don't do events. As i mentioned I used to grab them onto my phone and send them to family when travelling. I use the Olympus app for that now. It is however quite a neat solution to sending images on the fly if you dont want to step away from the action for too long.
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ReplyDeleteTo continue on with my version of the saga (which may not seem elegant in all quarters) I ended up returning to my laptop in the middle of each session in the main auditorium. This meant that I left the auditorium and walked 50 feet to the conference room the meeting planners had set up as a temporary HQ for the show. I grabbed the "B" card with the small, compressed Jpegs on it and put it into the SD card slot on my MacBook Pro. I pulled the images (without editing) into a folder on the desktop and then ejected the card. I did not upload directly from the card in case I was needed before the upload completed. I wanted to kept continuity with the process I had started. Once the files were in the folder I uploaded to the one master gallery I had set up for the client on Smugmug. In most instances I had between 120 and 200 3.5 megabyte images per upload session. I could do it this way because the social media expert at the company was very competent to be able to select the images he needed from the stack and post process and caption them. Most needed just a touch more brightness (we try hard to preserve highlights....). The social media guy could narrow down his selects in the gallery more easily at a big workstation than I might be able to hurriedly on a phone screen. Or a laptop in a poorly lit room. My experience is that it's hard to quickly upload that much data quickly on a mobile device.
ReplyDeleteThis method allowed me to shoot without hesitation and without having to stop, select an image on a small screen and then transfer it and then upload it. The trade-off is the manpower requirement to make the selections and fine tune them. In total yesterday I uploaded about 975 files over the course of the day and then another 280 once I got home from the company's dinner at Lamberts (great BBQ brisket, even by Texas standards). The social media guy was able to make selections on the fly and usually had stuff up on Twitter and Instagram before each speaker's session was finished.
I can't imagine having to split my attention as I shot. Or curtail my usual method of shooting for fear of overwhelming my phone.
Today we only uploaded 580 files but we were only there for the first half of the day.....
Still not sure I'd want to do that on my phone. Next time, though, I may just stream to a new, higher performance iPad.
In some ways I think the slow, provided wi-fi networks in hotels are also a roadblock to efficient uploads.
In the end, it was great to have them uploaded to Smugmug so they could be shared across the company by the SMG. And, if I go run over by a dump truck on the way to the bus stop at least the client would have reasonably decent files already up in the cloud and ready to go....
The more I think about it "focus" on shooting when shooting and "focus" on uploading during a break is preferable mainly because you are concentrating on the task at hand and deferring doing the unneeded task.
ReplyDeleteTask management moment becomes more important than a given creative moment or a given logistical moment. Time studies have shown doing one task at a time gives more time overall for the higher priority tasks.
Ugh, process methodology vs Kewl photography stuff.
Wouldn't it have been simpler just to call MacGyver?
ReplyDelete