There are a couple of items of news for you today including the fact that photo books are now obtainable locally. What these are is collections of your pictures printed out on a variety of sizes of paper and neatly bound in hardcover binding. Photo World in Pick 'n Pay Centre in Hillcrest have samples in various sizes to show, and they are quite reasonably priced.
One very cool thing about them is that they don't require any layout skill because it is all done with a computer program which is available from Photo World for R25, I think it was, or which can be downloaded for free here. You just plug your pictures into the templates provided and take the resulting file down to Photo World. You can also have calendars and postcards printed in the same way.
I had a very interesting morning on Saturday when Jack Fisher and I visited SuperMax in Springfield Park. SuperMax is one of Durban's few professional-level photo labs and has branched out into photographic studio equipment, tripods, and the like, and have opened their own studio. One piece of good news is that the price of studio equipment has come right down and you can now get a kit with two flash heads, stands and related equipment for around R6000. An extra couple of umbrellas, a flashmeter and radio transmitter for the flashes takes the total to something over R9000. Backgrounds are extra and how much you will have to spend depends on whether you want canvas, paper, cloth, or vinyl.
We then visited the SuperMax studio in Kensington Centre in Durban North, and got a lot ideas about how to set up a studio. I also got some ideas which were less welcome when I caught sight of the studio camera which is an EOS 5D, which has a sensor the same size as a frame of 35mm film, and the rather special 24-105mm F4 L lens attached to it.
One of the biggest drawbacks to digital photography, especially if you're shooting hundreds of frames, is the time needed to 'develop' the pictures and get them ready for printing. Max Fowles, of SuperMax, was telling me that there is photo lab software on the way in the few months, which will allow him to accept raw camera files and prepare them for printing. This would save professional photographers a lot of time that they can put to better use shooting pictures for other clients.
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