Best Practice

[NickT]

Hi Guys
I posted this on my blog but thought I'd share it here as well:

Best Practice

I've been digital for a while now, about 10 or 11 years. That's a long time kids. Back then it was pretty new territory and things were, well challenging. The gear is a LOT better now but in my studio we still do things a certain way and it seems to work. I thought I'd outline some of the processes we have in place to ensure that stuff works. Now this is a pretty bold claim but I can honestly say that I have never lost a file or screwed up a job due to equipment/software failure. (Note to self, knock on large bit of wood). Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of software/hardware issues over the years but the systems I have had in place have always meant that we could work through them. I admit I don't always follow these rules to the letter especially considering that the gear is pretty stable these days, but if I'm having a bad day I fall back on my systems. What follows are examples of how I do it and what has worked for me, they are rules in my studio and I hope you can find value in one or two of the ideas. I should probably put a disclaimer in here about try at your own risk etc.. etc..

Oh I should mention that this is Hasselblad and Mac centric, I do shoot Canon/Nikon as well but 90% of the time I'm shooting Hasselblad tethered to Phocus, and it's to a Mac, sorry PC guys I'm one of those Mac zealot types.

O.K here's a typical workflow.
Before the client arrives, I set up Phocus with the relevant shoot folders and choose the "Standard" setup. This gives me a blank canvas if you will, so that I know all settings are zeroed out. I also set up a job name in the "Job Info" tab and set the sequence number. If I'm really on to it I'll also set up a few keywords but I suck at key-wording so this doesn't always happen.  I then re-start the MacPro. Why? Two reasons. First off on Mac preferences are saved when you quit an application so by quitting Phocus I have saved my prefs; nothing worse than setting up a program "just so" and then losing all those settings with a crash (more on crashes in a sec). Second my workstation is on 24/7 mainly so that automated backups (the only backups in my mind) can run at night. I find my computers get a bit umm, emotional after being on for a long time and a restart sorts them out. I have the latest version of Phocus - 4.9 (O.K joking there) and Photoshop as "Log in Items" so that a restart always sees those two programs launch. To repeat, a restart get's me an un-emotional mac, saved prefs in Phocus and both programs that I need (Phocus and Photoshop) ready to go.

Next thing I'll power up the camera but NOT tethered. I'll snap off a quick frame (there is always a CF card in the camera) and that tells me the camera is happy. Once I see the preview on the camera LCD I'll tether up. I use a heavy 10 metre (that's 470 ft) Granite Digital firewire cable from the BACK port (it might be an urban legend but I think the front FW ports on MacPros are suspect) to an unpowered FW hub on the tripod/studio stand. From the hub I run a lightweight (60 cm) cable to the back (to reduce strain on the port).

Once I see "controlled from Phocus" on my back (takes about 2 secs) I'll shoot off a frame and make sure it pops up on the monitor. Then I wander back over to the workstation, turn on the highlight warning (I'm high-key guy) and I'm good to go.

On crashes.
I run a bunch of alphas/betas on my Workstation and often on live jobs, (silly I know but the best way to test)  so I get more than my fair share of crashes; when I'm not running alphas and betas I have a Phocus crash maybe once a month (I shoot on average 3/4 days a week). If your system does go down, disconnect and restart both camera and computer, (you never know which one caused the problem) also I always have the clock running in the menu bar (with seconds) so I can tell if the system is running.

Help you?

[sns7000]

Thanks Nick. All well thought out excellent ideas that I will be adding to my workflow.

[Dustbak]

Geeezz!!!. You have almost exactly the same preparation as I do! And with that I mean almost really exactly.

The only exception is that I don't always fire up the camera first. Indeed it works for me, especially setting up Phocus and than restarting Phocus is what I do. As well as rebooting the Mac which I almost always do first.

I also work mainly from out of Adobe Bridge and use the image processor. By now I have a vast amount of 'action recipes'.

[Dustbak]

Many of the things I do have grown upon me. The restart before a shoot I have learned after having been forced to shoot a portrait for an editorial with an old beaten up Nikon D100 because I could not get my back to work. I tried everything but due to the stress on location I forgot to reboot which was all that it needed! This was long ago and since than it has become standard routine.

Yes, Alfa's & beta's do tend to make your equipment crash a lot more often I test beta's during actual work as well. I believe it is where it most counts, what use do you have for software that is only tested under relaxed and controlled conditions? It needs to be rock solid when it counts which is when the pressure is on. It might be silly but personally I see limited risk and I also try to contain that as much as possible.

Thanks for sharing Nick! It is helpful hearing from other people what their workflow is.