CamRanger: An Essential Tool For Capturing Creativity

When I first heard of the product in October of 2012 in New York City at PhotoPlus Expo I was immediately intrigued.

I don’t actually own a laptop, so tethering to an iPad tablet has been a long awaited process with trial and error. My first experience was with the Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card; a memory card you place in your camera, the card transmits a wireless signal and supposedly you connect to that signal source, boom, your tethered. Except it didn’t really work. Even set to low-res JPEG, transfer times were grossly long. Also, conflicting signals would constantly kick the connection. Among the many times I tried to make it work, it actually performed as it should, twice.

When I saw the CamRanger and all it could do, I was severely skeptical. However, I couldn’t help the excitement. I pushed for Outdoor Photo Gear to stock the product and as soon as the demo’s arrived I grabbed one and went to work. What I found was not only a flawless tether and transfer but also a multitude of options and control. I’ve had it for nearly 6 months now and it’s become such a crucial piece of gear that I’ve had to actually rely on it, both for capture and client.

HARDWARE

It’s all a very basic setup. The physical CamRanger is a palm size white dongle that connects to your camera via USB cable. That device then creates a wireless signal which your iPad, Android, Laptop or PC can connect to and there is no need for an existing internet connection. The free application, which CamRanger offers with the purchase, provides complete control of your camera and I mean complete control. The device is provided with a padded black satchel to carry or clip the device to your belt or tripod. The CamRanger runs on a rechargeable and replaceable battery, which will run 12 hours of usage before requiring a charge.

SOFTWARE

After registering the software with the dongle, the app opens to a very clean interface, with extreme ease of use. On the right, my camera settings, I can switch into live view or focus and even fire my shutter. On the top menu I can easily switch to bracketing, focus stacking and even time lapse, all with one touch. Diving deeper into options, the ability to rate images and even make notes has become a really exciting feature for clients. Transfer time is quick, If your shooting RAW + JPEG CamRanger will only download the JPEG and transfer time can run about 3-5 seconds. If you shoot in Continuous, simply turning off the feature “Auto Thumbnails” will prevent the build up of images downloading. However, the images don’t actually download to your iPad, they are simply “streamed” right from your memory card. With that said, it’s more of a viewing and control platform than tethering system, which I’m perfectly fine with. After all, who would really want to re-touch a set of images on their iPad with their finger? Not me. 

ON LOCATION

I was hired to shoot a cover feature for a Louisville publication called NFocus Louisville. They wanted to put a unique aesthetic on Louisville’s theater and arts community and wanted a massive group shot, but not your traditional group shot. Knowing the dimensions of the large format cover and weighing in options, I threw out the idea of shooting the actors and their “characters” from directly overhead on a theater floor. With the help from creative director Gunnar Deatherage we formulated a plan and scouted Whitney Hall at the Kentucky Center For Performing Arts. 

During the scout, I was sort of taken aback by the fact I was walking on the stage of which I had seen a number of touring Broadway shows. The stage was huge and lighting was plentiful. Luckily, they had a great staff who led us on the few catwalks hanging over the stage, some 60 feet over head. However, the catwalks were not completely overhead, so we made arrangements to use a combination of a lift and boom stand on the stage floor. I wasn’t completely confident that we could make it work, but one thing I did know is that I could fire my camera remotely with ease and could see the results in real-time.

The day of the shoot, we arrived early to setup. I began explaining what I wanted in the image with Terry, a staff production and lighting engineer. I described my gear list and we came up with the brilliant idea of rigging my camera to one of the lighting poles which could be lifted directly overhead. I was ecstatic and that is exactly what we did. With the help of some gaffers tap, metal rods and a few security lines including the Vulture Equipment Works A4 camera strap, we rigged the camera to point straight down. Lastly, I secured the CamRanger to the camera and set my focal length to 35mm as Terry lifted it 60 feet.

I switched on the iPad and set the CamRanger to live view, we went to every 4 corners and marked position with white gaff tape. This would be where the actors and actresses would lay. As long as they we’re inside the “zone”, they would be properly framed. Once the camera was rigged Terry brought up the house lights to 90%. Although it was flat light, it was more the enough to fill and provide a well lit shot. I fired a few test shots with the CamRanger app and everything was displaying as it should, I tweaked a few settings including ISO and shutter then “radioed” over to Gunnar to escort the subjects in. I headed up to the catwalk overhead to get an idea of posing.

As we began situating the group into their positions, we’d have to carefully move people around to make clothing, shape and their character pose work with the next person. We wanted it to resemble a child who had laid out his or her action figures on the ground. Not perfect, but organized. Once everyone was set I traveled back down to the stage floor and began snapping away.

You could hear the shutter fire every time I touched the “Capture” button in the CamRanger app. I switched to Continuous Mode, again right from the app, and rattled off a series of bursts to guarantee I had an image. The shoot wrapped to applause and the publication was floored and very happy with the results!

I went back to Whitney Hall for a second shoot the following week and struck up a conversation with the production head, Peter Bell. He was the one that suggested shooting from the catwalk and we shared a laugh as he said; “Well, I didn’t know you had this fancy technology to shoot from your iPad!”.

As I shook his hand and walked out, I smiled to myself and a warmth of pride came over me.

OVERALL

With any type of photograph you may be attempting to capture, this is a wonderful tool to guarantee you’re getting the shot right. I’ve showed the CamRanger to many photographers and every photographer that has used it or has seen me use it in action, has purchased one. I foresee it becoming one of those “essential” accessories in every photographers bag.

If you’re a photographer and have any questions regarding the CamRanger system, feel free to email me at info@claycookphotography.com

THE ART OF FASHION

I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Art becomes art at art in art. Say what?

When NFocus creative director, Gunnar Deatherage brought his idea for the August editorial, it really took me a while to really figure out what he was thinking. Even after storyboarding the entire shoot I was still nervous about it all. 3 of the 4 images would potentially be composites and that really frightened me. I knew I could do it, I just wasn't confident enough with my lighting and composition to make sure it actually looked right.

The concept of the editorial would be a woman who enters an art gallery and is then consumed by art, her own art and then becomes that very art. We wanted to express this through extensive makeup and Photoshop trickery. It would’t be an easy project in the least, but trial by fire and setting yourself up for failure is the absolute best way to learn, you won’t forget it.

I did some prep and bathed in knowledge as much as I could, pre-shoot. I was ecstatic and especially excited to work with Ms. Lauren Franck of Heyman Talent Agency once again. It would be a very long day and I knew that Lauren would be up for the job.

Our location was the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, otherwise known as KMAC. The first set would start with Lauren staring a painting and the shot coming directly from behind, full body.  The lighting at KMAC is actually pretty prominent, but I was running into the issue of making the image dramatic, so for over an hour I played with different light setups, using boomed softboxes, grids and even bouncing hard light. I eventually landed on good ole’ ambient light. I wanted the first image to have a sense of “dull” rather then excitement, there need to be something that caught the viewer, but off putting, leaving them with wanting more.

The second set was one of two composites, Lauren being pulled in by a painting resembling herself. Another example of tough lighting, I ended up bouncing one light from the sold white ceiling, I liked it right from the start so rather then playing, I stuck with the setup. I used a white diffusion panel on the actual art piece to make the post work a lot easier around the finer details. Looking back, I should of done the same with Lauren’s head, but you learn from your mistakes! That shot came easy, we moved onto the toughest set of the day. 

Lauren would be “taken” by a gold statue of herself.

We couldn’t switch in and out of the gold makeup so we had to plan the sets accordingly and really map out our day. I only had one camera so I had to use multiple tripods and leave them securely in place. We moved a large white riser in the middle of KMAC and I setup a one-light scenario, I wasn’t really happy with it but I rolled with it. I composed my shot and with Brooke Duvall’s assistance we had Lauren mock a “terrified” look. We then taped off the wall in the background to mark of the point of contact between Lauren and Brooke for reference when we posed Lauren on the riser with the gold makeup. It took quite a few shots and I didn’t know if we had it or not. I carefully removed my camera from the tripod ballhead and taped off the tripod.

Onto the next set, a beauty shot of Lauren slowly becoming gold which would be composed in a abstract fashion on the second image in front of the frame. The makeup took roughly two hours, I burned time by catching up on a few phone calls and Facebook messages. As we moved into the beauty set things were warming up and we hit a stride. Lauren rocked out a gamut of amazing images and I sent her right back into makeup to get painted in the full gold skin.

Another hour passed and we headed back down to the riser and had Lauren setup right where Brooke was once standing, we compared hand placement to the tape on the wall and went for it. However, because of Lauren’s height, posing correctly and maintaining positioning with the tape on the wall was not an easy feat. It took a grand amount of time just to make things looks right. I didn’t like the fact that there wasn't a safety net incase it didn’t work. By the end of the set, I knew it was all a gamble.

We changed looks and Lauren got her new gold skin touched up. At this point I was pretty worn out. It had already been a long day, but I was hitting that point of exhaustion. Fortunately, the last set would be the easiest. We setup the white riser in a blank corner and had Lauren stand up straight, I asked Gunnar to hold a boomed softbox overhead and within 30 minutes we had our shot. My favorite of the day. The entire team pulled weight and it was a great collaboration of amazingly creative people. It was a true honor to share the museum with everyone that day.

As with every publication, there is a pretty strong deadline. I immediately got to work on these images. The post work wasn’t easy at a all and I’ll be honest, we got lucky. With the third set, only ONE image out of the 40 we may of shot worked in combination with the other. 

Another challenge was creating a creative art piece from a beauty image. Me being a graphic designer was excited to get to that part of the process, but half way through I just wasn’t feeling anything I was doing. I fully admit being my own worst terrible critic and several of the drafts may of been better then the final composite, but in the end the halftone overlay worked for the overall image.

I'm constantly judging my work and pushing myself to be better and better. Did this fall short of MY vision? Perhaps… but I know it made a lot of people turn their heads as the response has been phenomenal. I’m always one to takes risks, this was one I won’t forget.