November 2005 Archives

Cinefex Magazine 89 -- The Shape of Things to Come. A 19,000 word article I wrote on the visual effects work in the 2002 film, The Time Machine. Author Joseph Francis.

Ocatavio Arizala (Winkytiki) likes to say of his work, it ain't art; just entertainment.

Can't it be both?

I love the care with which he places his models in various settings, and the deadpan seriousness with which he treats the knowingly kitschy material. When I heard he was releasing 350 of his photos in book form, I immediately started looking for it.

German publisher Goliath Books and stateside distributor ImagePod Books had originally indicated that Modern Vixens: World of Winkytiki might be for sale as early as October, but so far I only see it on the German version of Amazon.com. The US release date seems to have solidified as February 2006.

I'm considering it a late Christmas present.

UPDATE 12/23/05
Amazon.com has listed Modern Vixens: World of Winkytiki available for pre-order.

UPDATE 2/14/2006

My copy arrived from Amazon today. Happy Valentine's Day.

At 8" x 6", Modern Vixens: World of Winkytiki by Octavio C. Arizala is a bit too small to be regarded as a coffeetable book, but at over 360 pages, it's a hefty volume, packed with page after page of large color photographs. If you've been to winkytiki.com you'll have a good idea of what to expect inside, but for every photo you know you'll find 5 or 6 more from the same set inside this book.

Arizala is gracious with his acknowledgements, crediting not only the models, but the makeup artists, set builders, and in some cases the locations. My only complaint: instead of providing credits throughought the book, he saves them for the end. This gives the book a simple, uncluttered layout, but if you don't already recognize the models, many of whom are known in certain circles and do have a following, you won't know who they are without looking them up by name somewhere else.

Modern Vixens is a "must have" for fans of this photographer and genre.

Los Angelenos take note: there will be a Book Release Party and Signing - Bigfoot Lodge - 7-10 pm March 18,2006

UPDATE 2/28/2006
Arizala shoots with a Nikon F. His philosophy: "If this brick with a lens was good enough for the boys in 'Nam, it's good enough for you." Personally, if I shot with a Nikon F I would pimp it out like so.

I've been practicing drawing imaginary faces over skulls.

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Here's a book I found useful in this regard:

Forensic Art and illustration by Karen T Taylor

On an Autumn morning in my freshman year I walked into the Art Department at Duke University determined to combine Art and Computer Science into a program that would prepare me for a career in the emerging field of Computer Graphics. There I met a professor named Frank Smullin who had a great influence on me from then until his untimely death in 1983, just two short years later.

The Canon 5D versus the Nikon D200. I know, I know. These cameras aren't intended to compete head-to-head in the marketplace. And yet this is how it seems to break down for me.

I'm looking for a good DSLR. I probably can't go wrong with either one.

I want sharp photography at a high resolution. I also think I'm going to be combining my photography with photorealistic 3D CG (probably from the Maxwell Renderer), so I think that as much as I like the look of shallow depth-of-field, I will, in practice, need deeper DOF. The smaller sensor of the Nikon lends itself to deeper DOF.

But I want to take some moody photographs in baroque, theatrical lighting conditions and combine them with 3D. For that reason, I like the low noise at high ISO characteristics of the Canon 5D.

But the Nikon D200 is half the price.

But the Canon shoots at over 12 megapixels, which is over the magic number (for me) of 4096 pixels wide. Why do I care about 4096 pixels? It's probably just a fetish, but when I used to create 8x10 transparencies of computer graphics for print, 4096 pixels was always the recommended resolution for the 10" dimension. 4096 pixels is also a minimum width for some large movie formats. As a visual effects practitioner I'm sometimes called upon to produce large format work, so for texture maps or backgrounds I like the megapixels.

But at 10.2 MP the Nikon d200 is pretty high resolution, too, and it's half the price. Plus it's got a sturdy build and better weather sealing from what I understand.

But the Canon 5D shoots full frame. Canon has great lenses, and Canon is a monster company on the rise. If they are pushing FF, it probably has a future. Plus the weather sealing is plenty good enough.

But the Nikon D200 has lighter lenses, and the smaller sensor uses the sweet spot of the lens, cropping off the dark, blurry corners.

But the Canon L glass is good, and Photoshop can correct the darkish corners of some pictures that will arise with some lenses at some apertures.

But the Nikon d200 has great lenses too, and more in development. And did I mention the D200 body is half the price?

But the Canon 5D is on shelves now.

But the Nikon D200 soon will be.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

dpreview.com compares the two

Ken Rockwell compares the two

Nikon D200 Review Roundup from Digital Camera Tracker

Canon EOS 5D Review Roundup from Digital Camera Tracker

Nikonians.org thread comparing the two (Nikon-oriented, of course)

Japanese site with similar (virtually side-by-side) photos taken first from the Nikon D200 and then the Canon 5D. It looks like the Canon performs with lower noise at high ISO's. Commentary on this comparison from a Nikon perspective here.

UPDATE 12/25/05

. . . and we have a winner.

UPDATE 1/15/2006

Nikon D200 Digital Camera Reviewed by Bjørn Rørslett

UPDATE 2/11/2006
Rumors are starting to emerge that the next Canon camera is the Canon EOS 35D

UPDATE 10/9/2006
The original math I did was this: Canon 5D at $3300? Or Nikon D200 at $1700? - 85% of the camera for half the price. The real question to ask - once you've spent a bunch on lenses and lights - is, "Do I want to spend $10000 on photography or $11700 on photography?"

I like techniques that push from Maya into Shake some tasks traditionally considered the purvue of a renderer (such as UV mapping) so when I saw Derrick Dressel's NormalLight3D on the highend3d.com forum, I wanted to play around a bit with the general idea of using Shake to light an image of normals.

I didn't develop the idea very far, or write a macro, but I put together a simple Shake node tree that implements the mathematical function, the dot product.

Oozing blood? Scary swamp moss? Maybe just some festive icicles?

This MEL Script maps a particle's position along a curve to a noise function and uses it to control its initial velocity to creepy effect.

Here's a 6000 word article I wrote for Cinefex Magazine which discusses the visual effects work in the feature film, Clockstoppers.

Clockstoppers by Joseph Francis, Cinefex Magazine.