Author Archive

A short film is in the works, ABANDON DEEP SPACE NINE (Star Trek genre)

Posted in Captain's Personal Log, Music, Photography, Science Fiction, Video on February 19, 2013 by William Hooks

180px-Terok_Nor_orbiting_Bajor

275px-Starfleet_Academy,_late_2300's

DEFIANT-in-wormhole_highWeb

DS9-with-starships_Web

USS-DEFIANT_WebI just completed writing the VO for the introductory clip today. We’re assembling talent and the script is progressing.. warpspeed.

Sample poster for upcoming documentary, OCCUPY LA (2013)

Posted in Photography, Photojournalism, Video on February 16, 2013 by William Hooks
A disabled Marine and an Occupy staff member are interviewed about their experiences at the encampment, west side of City Hall

A disabled Marine and an Occupy staff member are interviewed about their experiences at the encampment, west side of City Hall

Post-trip interviews being scheduled for inclusion in the documentary

Posted in Captain's Personal Log on February 9, 2013 by William Hooks

ImageImageImage

It’s finally raining and snowing here in southern CA. I want to go back to the mountains…tomorrow. Or sooner.

Current versions of ETERNAL GRANITE poster ads

Posted in Captain's Personal Log, Photography, Video on February 9, 2013 by William Hooks

Current versions of ETERNAL GRANITE poster ads

3 more to follow…

My newest posters for the upcoming documentary

Posted in Photography, Travel on February 5, 2013 by William Hooks
Little Lakes Valley, Eastern Sierra, CA-December 2012

Little Lakes Valley, Eastern Sierra, CA-December 2012

Eternal-Granite-Poster2_Web

Eternal-Granite-Poster-1_Web_Joann

Sequoia National Park, CA, October 2012

Sequoia National Park, CA, October 2012

It was great fun creating these, and there will be several more to come. I hope that you enjoy them as well….

Some additional details:

Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6 software
Nikon D600, various Nikkor lenses (Sequoia NP)
Canon DSLR (Little Lakes Valley)

It didn’t rain in southern CA yesterday, but…..

Posted in Photography on February 1, 2013 by William Hooks

Nikon D600, 24-70mm f/2.8, ISO 200, 10 sec f/5.6

Nikon D600, 24-70mm f/2.8, ISO 200, 10 sec f/5.6

Lightroom 4 editing

Lightroom 4 editing

Laura Shodire_Mild Proton Storm_web

Laura Shodire_Strange Rain Near Home_Web

Raining protons!

Raining protons!

Proton rain at home...

Proton rain at home…

More thoughts about the Nikon D600 FX camera

Posted in Photography, Photojournalism, Reviews, Studio Portraiture, Video on February 1, 2013 by William Hooks

After several months of intensive use, these are some of my comments about the D600:

It continues to impress me with its overall versatility, good build quality, audio and video features and (actually) more resolution than I often need. One of the times when I find the 24MP files especially useful, though, is when required to crop heavily for print formats. I find that in most of these cases, the shoots cannot be rescheduled. Although I don’t have power aperture as on the D800/D4, it can be approximated by using a lens with an aperture ring.

While in a -15deg F snow camp in December, I was happy to observe that the battery functioned normally (!)

My experience with the camera has led me to use the battery grip moderately often, but in the field the ability to take a much lighter body and not sacrifice FX and feature set has been a huge advantage. Among the features I seem to be using most are in-camera HDR, timelapse, bracketing, and rapid switching between DX and FX format without the need to change lenses. Almost anything that avoids lens changes in the field is seen as a benefit for me- less to get inside the camera, faster operation, being able to push ISO and other attributes of the body to make the most use of each lens.

The menus have become even more intuitive with practice, and I have very few complaints regarding them. The control layout seems excellent to me…..

Los Angleles TIMES photo essay

Posted in Captain's Personal Log, Photography, Photojournalism on January 26, 2013 by William Hooks
A brief recent history of the TIMES

A brief recent history of the TIMES

I visited the editorial and printing facilities of the TIMES last week (while they’re still functioning), and this is a posting which summarizes the trajectory of the newspaper in the past 30 years.

My standard Nikon setup for photojournalism

Posted in Photojournalism on January 19, 2013 by William Hooks

My default setup includes a Nikon D600 with battery grip to incorporate a spare battery and make vertical shooting easy; I use a 24-70mm f/2.8 G Nikkor, allowing up to 24MP JPEG images in FX mode and smaller but very usable files in DX mode- where this lens approximates a 36-105mm f/2.8 zoom in coverage angles. Focus is in manual mode and I employ my RedRock Micro follow-focus ring on the lens to make focusing smoother- my hands are large, and it’s less work to grab it instead of the smaller-diameter lens ring.

The AF illuminator light is cancelled and beep is turned off, to be unobstrusive.

I carry a Nikon Coolpix S9100 which provides up to 20 seconds of recording for audio files per still image (for video, simply speak around the camera to engage the stereo mic) so that manual note-taking is almost completely eliminated. Because it doesn’t allow 24 FPS video, I set both cameras to 30 FPS to simplify video editing.

Flash is usually deactivated with both cameras. If I need flash for some reason, I’ll usually attach the SB-700 to the D600. The continuous frame rate of 5.5 FPS is usually adequate, and with these settings the buffer is most often sufficient for a burst of images.

Returning to part-time work as a radiologist after 14 month hiatus… and savoring winter

Posted in Captain's Personal Log on January 6, 2013 by William Hooks

Later this month, I expect to return to the universe of shifting electrons around on monitors and interpreting medical imaging studies. As much as possible, I hope to be able to continue enjoying my film-making and editing while moving on to new projects. Meanwhile, the winter’s in full swing and I intend to enjoy every time out there!

To all who follow my site- welcome to 2013 and may we all do better than last year, hopefully moving toward creating a society of which we can be proud for those yet to come.