Feature | Fixation

Jon Stapley Feature February 9, 2017October 5, 2023

Fixation Team: Mike McNamara, Senior Sales

In the latest of our team blogs, we catch up with Senior Salesman, Mike McNamara

Mike has worked on Fixation’s sales desk for thirteen years and is therefore a well-known face among regular customers. But his career in photography started decades earlier and he claims to have spent most of his life with a camera in hand.

For our latest team blog we caught Mike for a quick break and chat to find out more about what he does…

Knowing the business

‘It’s important to have good knowledge of everything we sell – the expertise lies in the experience as much as training. To use an example, I worked for Leeds Photovisual at the inception of digital and I think we could claim to be one of the first to start putting laptops in the hands of Picture Desks. That’s going back a bit, possibly as far as 1984, I think.

‘These days you have to cover all the bases to sell successfully. My former studio life means I’ve also handled large format cameras – 5 x 4 cameras and the like. It certainly helps to have knowledge across the entire industry – that way you can understand needs and are better able to compare and advise.

‘Most of our professionals are also enthusiasts. You’d have to be, otherwise the job would be near impossible, keeping your sanity certainly would be. It’s great to witness that enthusiasm and even better to help nurture it. If some of the long-timers happen to come in at the same time, you’ll often see them in the car park arguing about the latest cameras, taking pictures of the signage to make their points.’

Favourite Fixation moments

‘The sales depot we set-up at the 2012 Olympics was something we did very well – it helped that so many photographers already knew us. It was also great fun – wandering down a corridor behind Usain Bolt as he goes for his interview is quite something.

‘One of the best things about working in the industry is that many photographers are characters themselves. We’ll often get to go to an award ceremony and it’s the sort of thing you can go out to and not come back… at least for a while. Photographers like to take talking and imbibing to a professional level. After a recent awards show I ended up in Harrow. Suffice it to say, I don’t live in Harrow…

His own photography

‘For years I was a studio photographer and worked for several big advertising agencies in the early to mid seventies.

‘I had a claim to fame at the time: I was popular as an assistant and thought this was because I was good with all the various formats photographers were using. Disappointingly, I later discovered it was actually mainly because I was one of the very few assistants in town who had his own credit card. Basically, whenever the American photographers came in they’d want to buy a pack of Kodachrome and couldn’t understand why no retailers here would accept a cheque for over £50. So they needed an assistant with a credit card who could turn up with a couple of packs of Kodachrome and some 5×4. That man was me.

‘These days I mostly take photos of my teenage kids. I haven’t used a large format camera for a while, but the new wave of mirrorless cameras has engendered a new enthusiasm for me. It seems that as I am getting older my camera of choice is getting smaller. One wonders how much smaller they can get!’

Contact: sales@www.fixationuk.com; 020 7582 3294 (option 3)

Jonny Helm Feature February 2, 2017October 3, 2023

Chris Breen | Drone Shooting in Zambia

In addition to renting the usual range of professional photo gear, Fixation also offers the DJI Phantom 4 drone to give photographers the chance of a different perspective on their shoots. We recently loaned one to Chris Breen to try on his recent trip to Zambia.

Chris runs a travel company called The National Travel Collection, in which there are several different brands that offer different experiences. One of these, called Wildlife Worldwide, specialises in taking people to see some of the world’s most spectacular wildlife. And, as it turns out, a good deal of that wildlife resides in Zambia.

“I know Zambia very well,” Chris says. “I used to guide there. I was out in Zambia towards the end of last year with a group. That’s what I do – I lead trips, I design holidays, I build itineraries and I go to wild and wacky places.”

Elephant © Chris Breen

As you might imagine, travelling the world’s finest and most beautiful places can leave one with an urge to snap a few pictures, and as a consequence Chris has become an accomplished photographer. He’s always on the lookout for new ways he can get a new perspective on the animals he encountered, and for his trip to Zambia we had a suggestion.

[gdlr_quote align=”center” ]Fixation very kindly lent me a drone to take on the trip. It’s an amazing device – very easy to use and even though I’d never flown one before, I found it simple and responsive.[/gdlr_quote]

The drone in question was a DJI Phantom 4, and we were keen to find out how Chris had fared.

Young Lion © Chris Breen

Thanks for talking to us, Chris. Was your trip to Zambia your first experience using a drone for photography?

Until the middle of last year I’d never used a drone before. I was lent a DJI Phantom 4, and I experimented with it at home before flying it up in the Arctic. I didn’t get a huge amount of flying done up there due to some technical issues, but I did get some quite nice footage over one of the ice fields.

After that I took it to Zambia and got some beautiful aerial shots over one of the world’s greatest national parks.

What was the experience of using the drone like?

It’s an amazing device to fly. It’s very simple, it’s very easy, and for that reason it’s quite liberating in many ways. Even though I’d never flown one before, I found it very simple to use and very responsive. It’s really a game-changer from a photographic point of view. I’ve always enjoyed wildlife and scenic photography, I’ve been doing it for the past quarter of a century, and to suddenly find you can take the kind of images that you would otherwise only get when you’re sitting in a helicopter, which of course costs a lot of money, is wonderful. And to be able to see it on a screen as you’re doing it is exciting, so I thought it was brilliant.

Lion’s Paw © Chris Breen

So it’s easy to fly, easy to use – it’s also manoeuvrable and incredibly stable. I also found that once I got it to a certain height I couldn’t hear it. When you’re out in the wilderness the last thing you want to do is make a lot of noise. In Zambia there are a lot of ambient sounds from the wildlife, so you only need to get it to a relatively low height before you can barely hear it. That enabled me to fly very safely and quietly upriver without disturbing anything. I did some low passes over some hippos on the river and lots of stuff like that – it was really neat. A great trip.

It’s presumably an important consideration of yours to avoid disturbing the animals?

Yes, it’s really important. I don’t want to disturb the wildlife, and I also don’t want to disturb the people who are going there for the peace and tranquillity of the place. That’s crucially important. So I found the DJI Phantom an absolutely brilliant device to work with, and I’m hoping I can work with it again.

Carmine Bee Eater © Chris Breen

What are your plans for future excursions?

I’ve got a number of projects coming up. I’ll be in Mexico at the end of March to do some whale watching off the Pacific coast, and I’m hoping to take one of the drones out with me, which I’ve never done for whale watching before. I’m interested to try the newer DJI drone – the DJI Mavic Pro. From my point of view, as I travel with a lot of camera gear, it’s the fact that it’s much smaller that’s particularly important.

I’m going into the rainforest in Borneo, where I’ve been a number of times before but never taken the drone, and I’m also hoping to take the drone back to Zambia when I go out in mid-September. One of the cool things about that trip will be that I’m going at a different time of year – a couple of months earlier than I did last year – so the landscape will look totally different.

Chris Breen is the founder of award-winning tour operator Wildlife Worldwide. Find out more at www.thenaturaltravelcollection.com

NB. Please note that some countries enforce a ban on the use of drones which are sometimes used by poachers to locate target animals. Please check with the relevant authorities before attempting to fly a drone near wildlife.

Jon Stapley Feature January 18, 2017October 5, 2023

Cameras that changed everything – The Nikon D1

We look back at a camera that kicked off a revolution: The Nikon D1

Today’s young photographers would find this hard to imagine, but in 1999 there was only one serious name in the professional SLR market, and that name was Kodak.

Kodak can be credited with inventing photography – its engineer Steve Sasson created the first digital camera, with a resolution of 0.01MP, in 1975. Thereafter the firm patented many digital technologies, many of which we still see in use today.

However, while Kodak made many great advancements in digital technologies, the same could not be said for its digital cameras. The firm was focused intensely on its film business, and its digital lineup consisted largely of unwieldy and inefficient digital SLRs, all of which came with a five-figure price tag. Other firms, most notably Fujifilm and Nikon were beginning to make movements into the digital realm, but thus far it had been slow going. Many pro photographers, especially in the fast-paced world of newspapers, were thus far sticking with the tried and true 35mm film cameras they were used to.

The point being, while Kodak was dominant in the market in the 1990s, it had left itself deeply vulnerable to a strong, solid competing camera. And at the tail end of the decade, that challenger arrived.

The new contender

The Nikon D1 was first unveiled to the world on June 15^th 1999. It wasn’t the world’s first commercially available DSLR – that was the Kodak DCS100, released in 1991. It wasn’t the first Nikon-branded DSLR either – the Nikon E2 had been released in 1995. However, it was the first DSLR manufactured and released entirely by Nikon – ‘home-grown’, as DP Review put it at the time – as the E5 had been built in conjunction with Fujifilm.

This, coupled with an exciting-looking spec sheet, meant the Nikon D1 was eagerly anticipated by the pro market.

Image courtesy of steves-digicams.com

What made the D1 special?

While the Nikon D1 was by no means the world’s first DSLR, it has been called the world’s first practical DSLR.

What made it practical? Well, first off, the price. On release the D1 retailed at just under £3,000, at a time when competing DSLRs were selling for more than double that. Its nearest rival, the Kodak DCS 620, cost over £6,000. This by itself would be a major incentive, but the D1 had several other key advantages over the DCS 620 as well.

For a start, Nikon managed to build a body for the camera that was not only light and portable, but also durable and tough. At the time, DSLRs were bulky monoliths, difficult to carry and difficult to handle, and while by today’s standards the D1 would be considered bulky, it was still notably easy to use compared to the competition. It boasted a 2.74 megapixel CCD and saw the introduction of Nikon’s DX sensor size.

Another trump card for the D1 was its speed. A burst shooting mode of 4.5fps seems impossibly quaint now, but in 1999 it was positively blistering. This coupled with a maximum shutter speed of 1/16,000sec – made possible by a unique on/off sensor design – and ultra-fast flash sync to make for a camera that could keep up with the demands of pros. The fact that it was compatible with CompactFlash cards for large storage and fast transfer of high-resolution files just sweetened the deal.

There was another feature that to us nowadays seems incredibly quaint, but at the time was a big deal – the Nikon D1 was the first DSLR to shoot JPEGs, at a time when the proprietary file type was the bulky, unwieldy TIFF.

So it wasn’t first. Nor was it groundbreakingly original. But it was tough, it was fast, and that was enough to tempt 35mm users into jumping on board.

Drawbacks

It wasn’t perfect. The Nikon D1’s major malfunction was its battery usage. The Ni-Mh batteries required to power it were not only enormous, they didn’t last very long and quickly lost their capacity to take a full charge. More cripplingly though, once the batteries got low, the camera would continue to shoot but its image processing centre would shut down, meaning it would record only blank frames! Successors to the D1 would fix this, but it was a significant flaw that could have severe consequences for the unaware.

The camera had other flaws too, which contemporary reviews pointed out. Some observed that the camera was easily susceptible to dust incursion, leading to black spots on images. There were also issues with highlight rendition, meaning any image even a little overexposed would be in severe danger of being blown out completely.

Legacy

As mentioned, the D1 wasn’t perfect, and subsequent cameras would soon surpass it by correcting some of its most egregious flaws. It was, however, the camera that got newspapers using DSLRs. The combination of speed, functionality, durability and low price point did what previous DSLRs hadn’t quite managed, and tempted a significant proportion of the 35mm-wielding professional market to cross over, and since then of course they’ve never looked back. Kodak never regained the foothold it had enjoyed in the pro-DSLR market, and since then Nikon has continued to go from strength to strength. All thanks to the humble D1!

Jonny Helm Feature January 18, 2017October 5, 2023

Behind The Scenes | London Uncovered

Peter Dazeley BEM FRPS – known simply as ‘Dazeley’ – is a celebrated London photographer renowned for fine art and advertising photography.

He is delighted to have been awarded The British Empire Medal in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for 2017. The BEM was awarded to Dazeley for his services to photography and charity. In 2013 Dazeley was awarded a Fellowship from The Royal Photographic Society; a fellowship is the highest distinction of the RPS and recognises original work and outstanding ability

In the 1960’s at the age of 15, without any qualifications due to his dyslexia, Dazeley started his working life as a photographer. Through sheer hard work, passion and dedication to his art, after 50 years, he has reached the very top of his profession. Dazeley’s success has given him the opportunity to ‘Give Back’ donating his time and energy as a photographer, to many different charities. He also spends time mentoring and inspiring young photographers.

Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park © Peter Dazeley

Despite his full time commissioned photographic work taking up so much of his time Dazeley still finds time to work on a variety of fine art projects. Recently, in association with writer Mark Daly, he published his latest book London Uncovered (2016); a logical progression from their best selling book Unseen London (2014).

“As a born-and-bred Londoner I had tremendous fun recording my hidden London as it stands in the twenty-first century for my hugely successful first book Unseen London. Many readers of that book told me of their frustration and disappointment in being unable to visit some of the locations, especially those which had absolutely no public access; this gave me the idea to produce a sequel, featuring London’s lesser-known institutions, buildings, homes, shops, museums and attractions that are easily accessible, complete with access details and website information.”

Library at The Honourable Society of Lincolns Inn © Peter Dazeley

Collectively Dazeley’s images form a picture of a London, which is strange, gaudy, grand and inventive – an endlessly fascinating world city with its own unique charm. Beneath the covers of London Uncovered, you will find famous landmarks such as Apsley House No 1 London and The National Theatre alongside unusual museums, remarkable shops, historic homes and lesser-known locations such as the Charterhouse, Wilton’s music hall and the Rivoli Ballroom.

Rivoli Ballroom © Peter Dazeley

As the author of the book, Mark Daly explains: “‘Uncovered’ does not mean the disclosure of a private place, because these buildings and sites are all available to visit without special insider access. The common thread throughout is largely the photographer’s ability to uncover a fresh perspective on a special piece of London. The subjects are eclectic, encompassing buildings, monuments in plain sight and walks, with some places famous and others obscure.”

BBC Worldwide News recently interviewed Peter as he took a tour of some of the book’s locations.
Watch the video here

Old clients lasts at John Lobb Ltd. © Peter Dazeley

We recently caught up with Peter during a break from his busy workload to ask him a few questions.

Is London Uncovered part of a trilogy project?

I didn’t set out to shoot a trilogy, but I am just finishing my third book on the wonderful theatres of London, which has been tremendous fun to do and I’m really proud of it. It will be published by Frances Lincoln in September 2017.

What projects are you working on now?

My publisher and I are in discussion regarding a new project which I will start this year. Top Secret at the moment…

What camera equipment do you use?

London Uncovered was shot using available light and long exposures, to keep the ambience of the locations. My Nikon D810 coped beautifully with mixed lighting and very long exposures. As far as lenses go, I used the Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm ƒ/2.8G ED and Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm fƒ/2.8G ED.

My first book, Unseen London, was shot on a Hasselblad with an assistant, a laptop, a laptop stand, etc. and was very hard work. Shooting on my own with just a Nikon and tripod has completely reinvented the way I work.

You’ve been a friend and customer at Fixation for many years. To what extent do you rely on us for your work?

I have known Barry Edmonds (our Nikon service manager) for more years than I can remember. Way back when he was the genius at Nikon UK, who solved my problems. I am wildly dyslexic and constantly struggle with technical stuff. Barry and Fixation have always been there to help and support me. In this day and age it is wonderful to have a company who will go the extra mile for you.

London Uncovered is available from all good bookshops and can be found online here

Dazeley was speaking to Tim Stavrinou. You can see more of Dazeley’s work on his website www.peterdazeley.com

Jon Stapley Feature December 14, 2016February 28, 2024

Hugo Pettit – Capturing the Ride Across Britain

We talk to Fixation ambassador Hugo Pettit about the challenges of filming one of Britain’s toughest cycling challenges

Our intrepid explorer and ambassador, fresh from filming a surfing expedition to the coldest reaches of Scotland, has moved onto his next challenge.

This time it’s the Deloitte Ride Across Britain, one of the country’s most iconic cycle events. Organised by Threshold Sports, the ride takes 600 cyclists of all abilities from Land’s End in Cornwall to the top of John O’Groats. And for the past six years, Hugo and his team have been there to capture the action.

This year the crew had a more demanding brief – and a more expansive kit bag – than ever before. Fixation kitted Hugo and the team out with a Sony FS7 camcorder, a selection of Canon cine lenses and a DJI Phantom drone, to allow them to capture what for many participants was the event of a lifetime.

We caught up with Hugo, hard at work in the edit suite, to find out how it all went down…

Fixation: Thanks for talking to us, Hugo. Can you tell us about the project – what was your brief?

Hugo Pettit: I worked for Threshold Sports for many years, and what we always used to do in terms of photography and video for the Ride Across Britain was create highlights packages. However this year, with the creation of the agency we’ve started up, we had a lot more scope with the creatives we could use. Threshold had also upped their budget and wanted to do something different to any other event in the country. So our task was to produce a short documentary on the event, which was a really exciting prospect because nothing like it had been done for this event.

People approach this event in different ways. It can be something you do just because you’re good at cycling and you enjoy it, or on the other end of the scale you have people who are approaching form the other end of the scale, where an event like this is the absolute pinnacle of their fitness and the biggest challenge they’ll ever do.

So our new challenge was how do we portray this in in a two-minute video – the most exciting part of this event is that there are just over six hundred people doing it, and the variety is vast. How to illustrate that?

With the help of Threshold, we picked out six individuals to focus on for the film. We tried to make the spectrum of people as broad as possible – first there were two girls who were part of Deloitte, the sponsor of the event, so that covered the corporate angle. We also picked one girl whose sister had passed away the year before, so she was raising money for MacMillan, and had one guy who was your typical MAMIL – ‘middle-aged man in lycra’.

So we had our guys we wanted to focus on. We would usually flit around and capture what we considered the most visually beautiful aspects of the ride, but this time we were following these people, all of whom were of varying shapes and sizes. We felt like we were finally getting under the skin of the event, learning the riders’ differing perspectives on the event and getting into what it’s like to ride it.

F: Tell us about the shoot – how did you approach the task?

HP: We had our team: we had Finn solely on photography, we had Jack who was using a Sony FS7, we had Ollie who was editing, we had Alex on the drone, and myself on the Sony Alpha 7S II. It was basically directed by Finn and I, and we kind of storyboarded the whole thing

It was a mammoth challenge: it’s 969 miles in nine days, so just under 110 miles per day, and they definitely don’t pick the easiest or flattest route. It’s pretty lumpy.

We split the team up into two cars, one of which would shoot ahead and focus on the front of the pack, including the leaders out of our six. The other car would focus on the back of the pack and the slower guys.

Threshold built from scratch this little village of 700 tents for the riders and the crew, with catering, showers, massage, doctors, bike racking, bike mechanics – it was an amazing logistical feat. So every day we wanted to not only capture the race but also the base camp, the pit stops, and the best parts of each day. It was mayhem. We probably spent a week beforehand mapping out the exact movements of both cars. Finn and I have done this for the past five or six years and we know the route very well.

We’d be in constant contact with regard to who we shot, who we missed and what we needed, and then every night we’d go to a meeting point and discuss our day’s shooting. Usefully, Threshold provided each of our six riders and us with GPS trackers, which gave us the ability to very accurately find out where our six people were in relation to us. With the FS7 in one car and the A7S II in the other, as well as the drone in play, we had to be strategic about exactly what we were going to shoot with each camera. For example when the riders got to Cheddar Gorge, we knew that the drone would have to stay there basically all day to get the best footage possible, and we wanted the FS7 placed at the right spot to get slow-motion, beautiful, crisp footage of people climbing it.

F: And I assume, since you had the Sony Alpha 7S II, you were the low-light man?

HP: Yes, exactly. I was shooting with my own A7S II – I love it, it’s brilliant.

F: What were your favourite moments from the shoot?

HP: On Day Nine, up in Scotland, we were up on the moors and the sunrise was absolutely spectacular, genuinely the best I’ve ever seen in my life. We were just driving in the car, taking in this absolutely breathtaking scenery, smiling at all the riders coming past and giving them a jolly wave. We didn’t realise how cold it was outside – it was pretty Baltic – and we did a lot of filming out of the back of the car that day. It was absolutely stunning.

F: And were there any low moments or difficult points?

HP: I suppose just tiredness. We were up at around 5am every day, and didn’t get to bed until 1 in the morning, and when I say ‘bed’ I mean the back of a car. It was exhausting. Finn and I also had the onus of people management – the guys we had on our team are absolutely amazing, but they’re all alpha males. So good people management was important!

F: Are you heading back to the ride next year?

HP: Definitely. One hundred per cent. It’s an event that Finn and I love and would love to do every year. There is no better way of seeing this country – it’s stunning.

Hugo Pettit was speaking to Jon Stapley. To see more of Hugo’s work visit his website

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