Guest: Thomas Hawk -
Host: Robert Scoble - The Scoble Show

Thomas Hawk
The photowalk.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And we have got some friends along. Dave Alfred from Podtech's along too.

Thomas Hawk
Alright.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Maryam and Patrick are around here somewhere, I don't know where they went.

Thomas Hawk
You are not going to walk into the bay this time, maybe into a pumpkin patch.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, where are we anyways?

Thomas Hawk
Half Moon Bay, it's Pumpkin Festival. It's a pumpkin pass or pumpkin capital of the universe probably. I don't know, I have never seen so many pumpkins at any one place in my life.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
How do we get so lucky with the light?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, you know I don't know.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, I mean its blue sky and if you live in Half Moon Bay, you understand that...

Thomas Hawk
It's a nice day.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, hold on a second, I am going to adjust my audio a little because I am a little too hot.

Thomas Hawk
Alright. So, let's see. What I am going to shoot here? I am going to shoot, I am going to shoot about a 320 ISO.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Hey, you saw these flowers coming in?

Thomas Hawk
Oh! Yeah. Oh! Beautiful look at the sun on these flowers. Look I want to get the pumpkins too but I want to get some of these. These are just beautiful. Look at that! Yeah, these are great for this 135 lens. I want to get the sun right on them look at these, Sunflowers are beautiful.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, they are always out at this time of the year, October.

Thomas Hawk
There you got a big old bumble-bee on this guy. This is where you pull out the micro lens, really. Oh! And look at that! That's a little bee! You got the honey-bee and the bumble-bee. Well, I suppose now is a good time as ever to get out the classic bug on a flower macro. Every photographer has to have at least a couple of those in his photo stream so, now we are going to switch to a macro lens from the 135. This is an EF 100 lens and you can just get really, really close so, we are going to go in here if I can keep my shadow out of the picture and now we're going to get this honey-bee first. Oh! Come on there we go.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Macro's a little bit harder to do than...

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, macro you got to get I mean, got to get in there. Oh! Boy this is, look at that bumble-bee, she is a monster. Well you know the flower's in the wind so its moving and you just got to get it just right. Its really hard to get, but that's a beautiful bumble-bee. Yeah, we are getting them. Okay back up just a little now I want to get close. Well, I am catching back the winds, it's just interesting.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I am going to go behind you here. The tractor is pulling in. So we are going to get you shooting the bumble bee?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
There is a tractor behind you. Bumble bee on a...

Thomas Hawk
Sun flower. The classic bug on a flower shot. Oh! The honey-bee's coming back. Okay, so that's enough of that, we will get something out of that, throw the 135 back on.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Look at that, feel the pumpkins.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, aren't they beautiful?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh yeah.

Thomas Hawk
We are going to get some good wide-angle shots of those pumpkins; we are going to get some good...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Hey there is Patrick and Maryam.

Thomas Hawk
Alright. And of course Robert you live down here too? So this is...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh yeah, this is only 10 minutes from my house.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I have been wanted to come out here -- I drive right by here on the way to work everyday, and I have been wanting to come down here for about three weeks because they have had the pumpkins out for three weeks.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, a little advice for anybody driving down here, drive down on 1 instead of 92.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh yeah. Well, on the weekend particularly.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah. So, here we just got you know like a giant field of pumpkins and that makes for a sort of an interesting shot with so many of them in the shot and the shadows on them is just right.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Is there something you are trying to do to get different depths of field or?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, I mean I'll get a little bit of depth of field on this but I actually kind of want to get more like all of the pumpkins and so sort of the magnitude of it. I will get a little bit of that fuzzy depth of field in the foreground especially and trying to get a little bit from...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
For auto-focusing out on the back.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah. And personally, I have just tried exchanging the neutral density to turn my camera. Yeah, I am still not getting that good a depth of or that shallow of a depth of field because it's so bright out here.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Is that right?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, it is bright. In fact, these will be I think even better in a little bit but I want to shoot into them with the sun to my back...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Okay.

Thomas Hawk
So, should go over here. Okay, watch out there for the truck. Okay, it's a nice John Deere tractor too.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, it is.

Thomas Hawk
And Robert the good news for you here is that you don't have to wear a collared shirt and a jacket.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah hey, where are those (Inaudible) Alright, let me switch back to auto alright. The lighting is changing too much. Okay, so what are you seeing, other than me?

Thomas Hawk
I took a couple of shots of you here. I want to go and get those pumpkins here with the light facing the pumpkins.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Okay.

Thomas Hawk
And maybe even these ones over here instead. There are some interesting things with shadows, that's going on right now with them and with the shadows of the pumpkins in the light (Inaudible) pumpkins are always fun.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, that's true and we got to get some kids.

Thomas Hawk
So, there's a kind of an interesting event in the shadow outside of the sun, you get some. These will be some softer shots. Not quite as harsh with the sun sometimes shooting in the shade is much more preferable to me than shooting in the sun, you can just get such softer feels to photos. I've got a few of those, yeah those will be nice. But now back to our sun; the sun pumpkins

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh look at the kid! Kid photo!

Thomas Hawk
Oh yeah look at that kid. I took Patrick here when he was 5 years old.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh! Did you really?

Thomas Hawk
We got some awesome pictures.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, I took my kids down here a couple of years ago. It's pretty great spot.

Thomas Hawk
Okay, so let's get some... I want to go back to those pumpkins over there, where we were.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Okay. Happy Halloween!

Thomas Hawk
You got to pick me out a pumpkin too. I want to make an RSS pumpkin.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh, an RSS pumpkin, okay I like that.

Thomas Hawk
Happy Halloween. These will be good Halloween shots.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So what are you seeing, what are you trying to get?

Thomas Hawk
I am just getting this pumpkin into a nice decoration, in order to make for a nice sort of Halloween feel to a photo, a pumpkin face here. Somebody spent a little time putting that together.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Now do you carry around or Polaroids or filters?

Thomas Hawk
You know I don't know, a lot of people do and they certainly could help and certainly their time is like I'll be shooting.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Right, now I am taking.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, it will be nice but you know I can still do a lot of post processing in Photoshop and do a lot of work with it, I just -- I have never been a big fan of polaroids and filters I mean obviously, there is time's where they can help but they slow you down too and so.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Well, they make colors richer because they remove reflections.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, they do and absolutely. But I think, you can just do so much in Photoshop, you know, I mean so much of that today, so this is -- see I like, it's just almost off from an abstract sense if you just sort of just look at the stems of the pumpkins. Like there are so many of them, that are just sticking out there. This is why I think a wide-angle lens will be really interesting, so and this is why my sensor gets dirty all the time because this is my third lens change and we are going been shooting for about 15 minutes at best.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
13.50.

Thomas Hawk
Oh! 13.50 yeah. So, we will throw the 24 back on and...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Now we should talk -- in future shows we want to have guests on our shows, right?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, absolutely yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, we are looking for people who are popular in Flicker.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And we are going to try them on our show.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, we will get some more. I talked to Eddy who is a (Inaudible) on Flicker and he is interested in doing one so he'd be great, he has got some really phenomenal work. So, I also sent an email to Debbo Adamer (ph) but I haven't heard back from her, she is another person who is just a brilliant photographer.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I met Rick Samolean, (ph) the other day at a party and he is trying to get me set up with some people too.

Thomas Hawk
Oh! Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there is a lot of people, we will get some people, we just got to sit around and say okay so, now I've got this sort of wide-angle lens thing going, where I am going to get a lot more of the pumpkins but my problem right now is my shadow, so I need to kind of oops! stay out of it.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
You break a pumpkin, you buy it.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, (Laugh). So with this wide-angle I am getting the pumpkins and the corn stalks in the background and that's and my shadow is still in it, so and I try to actually get in here if I can... get down... yeah, this is better now. Now I don't have my shadow... I get in here even a little closer, with this wide-angle lens you can just get so many more of the pumpkins and it looks like just like I field of pumpkins that goes on forever.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah. How wide is that?

Thomas Hawk
24 millimeters.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Which actually I am -- well, you have full frame digital, right?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, I got a full frame sensor on here, so this is one of the -- that's one of the nice thing about the 5D over some of the earlier entry level cams.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Put on a Rebel at 24 is actually like a 28.

Thomas Hawk
That's right, yeah, yeah. Its well this is a full frame sensor so, which is also great for like cropping and stuff because if you want to crop something, you are shooting at 12.8 mega pixels at full frame, you just you got so much more clarity, so yeah, I am very fortunate to have this camera. You know these things are kind of interesting but the sun's not quite right on them, these pumpkins.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Now we are shooting in the, what's called the golden hours the last hour of sunset.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, which is a good time to shoot. Interesting stuff, so I am going to switch back to my 135.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Alright.

Thomas Hawk
Which is why I am also shooting with a lot of hoods on the lenses too because here you got the sun and...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah the hoods are the important accessory plus keeps your fingers away from the lens.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
It's good.

Thomas Hawk
And it also can protect the lens. Who was I talking to, I think, I was talking to Owen from Dig yesterday. He and I play golf, with the Dig guys and Owen had dropped one of his lenses and but he had the hood on it, normally really damaged the hood so, it can protect; it can serve to protect the lens a little bit, so.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, I fell on a lens in a family one time and it had a hood on it and broke the hood and the lens was just fine.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Speaker
Do you use the polarized also?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, Robert just asked the question. I don't really use them myself, they are I mean they are like very helpful and obviously at a time like this too it would be nice to have one but I just don't -- I find I can do a lot of the correction stuff in Photoshop even if it's not perfect and this is changing and I am having to deal with them but I have shot with them before.

Speaker
Camera store sale clerks who are love selling filters.

Thomas Hawk
Oh yeah.

Speaker
And I used to be one of those; because we made a lot of commission on filters. I got paid a dollar every filter I sold.

Thomas Hawk
Alright so, Dave what's the chances we get you to stick your face in the fire shop thing here, fire house thing.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Get Patrick to do it.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, Patrick do you want to get in here?

Patrick
No.

Thomas Hawk
No, alright, here we go. Alright we got some shadows on the face there we have to work with. These flowers are kind of interesting. Now here is what I want you know a nice crisp focus on the flower and a lot of depth of field around it.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Now when you say a lot of depth of field do you want it to blow out the background like I am on this camera?

Thomas Hawk
No, no I wanted -- I want just a really soft, fuzzy feeling around the flower.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Right, so you want a shallow depth of the field.

Thomas Hawk
Shallow depth, yeah, yeah. So, I want to get just the right and I want to get just the right flower, that's not the right flower, this one's kind of interesting here. Yeah, see that's an interesting flower and so I have got this really -- I'll get some really nice yellows and purples in the flower and then I will have this just like fuzzy, green background.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Right.

Thomas Hawk
Which is great.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, you are shooting with lens wide open then?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, you're probably jacking up the shutter speed?

Thomas Hawk
I am shooting right now, that one was (Inaudible). I am shooting with my aperture at 3.5 right now.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Okay.

Thomas Hawk
So, it went 400.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And that's an F2*8 lens?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, this is F2 actually.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
F2.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, so I could go down a little bit lower but that's -- I think that's a good look right there.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Hey, look at the goat behind you.

Thomas Hawk
We have got a goat.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Alright, lots of fun things on the farm here.

Thomas Hawk
Oh yeah, lots of goats. Now let's see what else we got here, oh! Look at this flower, this guy here. My focus is getting confused, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes it's kind of interesting getting sort of underneath flowers and kind of getting them from the (Inaudible) at the backside if you can, maybe like with a blue sky. The under-side of a flower can be interesting.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
You know who takes really great flower shots?

Thomas Hawk
Who's that?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Shirley Powers (ph).

Thomas Hawk
Oh! Does he?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh yeah, I love her photography. She lives near a botanical garden, she just goes over there -- everytime I piss her off, she goes over there so she tries to forget me.

Thomas Hawk
Oh! I think I have pissed her off a few times too. Then she wrote a post saying that I was the worst Evangelist in history so, that's okay Valle (Inaudible) and they said that I wasn't the worst, that you were worse than I was.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I saw that.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, so.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
The two worst Evangelists in history.

Thomas Hawk
And I'm thinking they had Gary Kawasaki who is worse than me too, so.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I suppose it's not bad company.

Thomas Hawk
No.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, you're shooting these, these...

Thomas Hawk
Yeah getting a few more pumpkin shots and you know maybe we will some of these ponies over here with some kids.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah.

Thomas Hawk
When I was in the Journalism School, they taught us to take pictures of kids because they knew at least the parents will buy a copy of the newspaper.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, at least one person and maybe a grandparent too.

Thomas Hawk
Look at these guys; as soon as we get the light off their face... Cinnamon, that pony's name is Cinnamon. Really, I took some shots of some ponys at the circuits that were really great. There was a traveling Spanish Circus that was in Oakland, Arlos Armanos, Cabiero... and they had some great shots.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
So, where are you focusing on, on their faces or...?

Thomas Hawk
I am hitting the -- alternating between the ponies and the two kids that are riding them.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Right. This might be a good chance to talk about framing, a lot of people I notice when they look at my camera and will talk about framing and all that, a lot of people when they frame faces, in the center of the eyes, like its hard to explain that maybe wider; they center the eyes like that.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And then the feet are coming off the bottom of the frame.

Thomas Hawk
Right.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And its always better to focus on a third of the frame down, put the eyes at third of the frame down.

Thomas Hawk
Well, there is the classic one-third, two-third general photography rule, anyways although I put rule.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I noticed that when I had beginners at Camcorder they do that a lot.

Thomas Hawk
Do they?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I hear a lot and you can see how I am moving her right at the top of the frame.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah.

Thomas Hawk
And that looks a lot better; like that instead of like that.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
These kids are having a good time.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Thanks for good images. I will stand back here so I'm out of your light.

Thomas Hawk
That's great, so! So we got some ponies, so should we see what else we can get around here?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Sure. Let me get in front of you again.

Thomas Hawk
Watch out for those pumpkins.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Stepping over pumpkins, it's a interesting skill, to have to walk backwards.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, you probably got that one mastered though.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Yeah, trying to. Yeah a pumpkin overload huh?

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, well, you know the thing is you, you'll take all these shots and then you'll get by ten that you really love and so you take so many different shots of pumpkins but and you would think you would be a pumpkin overloaded but actually you will be surprised, you will get the ones that you really like, so can we go in this barn, or is it too dark to shoot in there?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Sure, let's go.

Thomas Hawk
Alright.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I will turn of my...

Thomas Hawk
Pastor Renee's pumpkin farm.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I had a mutual density (Inaudible) on, run automatic.

Thomas Hawk
So, I am going bump my ISO up in here to 1600, I was shooting at 320 out there because its pretty dark in here so, thought we might get some interesting arrangements and decorative pumpkins, so here is a black cat on a pumpkin.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Scary looking pumpkin. I want to get the pumpkin and put an RSS sign on it.

Thomas Hawk
Okay, there we go yeah that'll work, an RSS pumpkin. Okay, so what do we have in here? Okay, so these are like shooting minutes or stuff which I love to do, its so cool, its almost -- it just creates an entire different shot, probably shouldn't set my camera like that, set it here so, so it doesn't fall but like a lot of these like little faces like on these witches and things like this, when you make that the photo although her nose is broken off, when you make this the photo and you just frame it and you get this tiny little face like that, they can look -- these macro shots can look really cool, so back to the macro lens.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And what's the focal length on your macro lens?

Thomas Hawk
Oh, 100 millimeter.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh! You got the hundred.

Thomas Hawk
Yeah, the hundred EF 100; this is really a great lens. A lot of the professional series lenses from Canon are really expensive. This particular lens is very affordable, I think it's like 350 bucks maybe?

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Affordable to you.

Thomas Hawk
Well, yeah, yeah but in terms of professional lenses when most L Series lenses cost north of a thousand plus, you know this is -- its not an L Series lens as an EF 100 but it takes beautiful macro shots and...

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
And Nikon has a 60 millimeter which is really nice.

Thomas Hawk
And so like this guy here, I mean there is so much artistic detail that goes into these and I am going to get in really close here, it's really dark so I don't know if these are going to come out. You turn auto focus off.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
I am getting good images.

Thomas Hawk
Oh yeah.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
Oh yeah.

Thomas Hawk
This one isn't as fast though.

Robert Scoble - Scoble Show
That's true.