Recently I went to a medieval event to take some photos. I decided to try out the manual control for video on the Canon 5D MkII. It was quite an interesting change from the usual.
This shot is from a bout between two of the tournament competitors. It was taken from the middle of a short clip recorded at 30 frames per second. The flexability to be able to choose the exact moment to grab the frame is really cool. There is no way I can time my shots to that degree of detail.
On a technical level there were a couple of challenges. The first was that the swords move pretty fast, so I needed to keep the shutter speed fast. These were taken between 1/500 to 1/2000 sec. The second was that in trying to keep the DoF shallow focusing became an issue.
It is a great way to get action shots and they have turned out nice and sharp but it takes a bit of getting used to. I still need to work on editing the footage but it is getting there.
I’m really liking this new “Best Camera app”. This shot was taken as I was waiting to get home in some pretty terrible weather. I was trying for a sepia old style look. Quite happy with the result.
I’ll be trying to make at least one shot per day, most will be going to the twitter stream instead of here. If anyone is familiar with Melbourne then some of the shots will be recognisable.
The next challenge is to continue to find new objects and events to capture. We’ll just have to see how things go.
When Chase Jarvis said that he had helped to design a new iPhone app, I thought I would try it out. Based on the idea that the best camera is the one that you have with you, it is designed to allow the simple iPhone camera to be a more valid artistic tool. After playing with it a bit it seems to excel at that. It will never replace a good SLR but it does allow a lot of creative freedom.
The first shot I uploaded is the one on the left. It was taken with a Canon 5d MKII, so it may go against the iPhone portable camera ethos. But it was stored on the phone and looks good. I was not trying to claim that as a phone shot. You may notice that I didn’t even apply any of the in app filters. It was taken at a photo shoot a couple of months back. The model is the wonderful Kiara.
It looks like a few people liked the shot which is awesome. It is even showing on the most popular shots for a while. So if you are reading this because you have come over from www.thebestcamera.com then welcome, I hope you like what is here so far. This blog is going to combine phone and camera shots.
If you would like to see some more of my work then there is Flickr, Model Mayhem and twitter. These will be updated regularly.
Yesterday was a fun day of shooting. It was another Melbourne Strobist meetup/shoot. I have been to 5 of these now and I always learn something. This one was at a 3 story studio . While the numbers were down the energy was quite good.
These normally work as getting 20 photographers together and 6 or so models and finding a location to shoot. We split off into groups and then find a place to shoot. This time I was shooting in a Gym, outside. against a backdrop and on the roof.
The shot here is from on the roof. The model is Lauren, a dancer and model that we were working with for part of the day. This was at the end of the session and from memory only one strobe was used. It was modified with a beauty dish. I really like the quality of light from it.
It’s great to be able to turn up to these sort of meetups where you get the mix of professional and amateur. Even first timers are able to get some amazing shots. It kinda makes you hungry for the next one.
More information about the Australian Strobist groups can be found here.
It is amazing how you can work in a city 5 days a week for years and still find things to surprise you. I’ve gone on several meandering photo walks throughout Melbourne and always notice something different. New art, strange little alleyways and obscure buildings it has it all.
This shot was taken in Chinatown. It is a suspended ring with lantern style lights hanging from it. Not that unusual when viewed normally, but kinda quirky when seen from another angle. Like the city it’s in.
Next up is some night photography. There have been some shots I’ve been meaning to take for a while now. Long exposures, panoramas and hopefully some creepy lighting. I won’t really know until I try.
So I’ve finally got around to setting this up properly. Still getting the hang of wordpress, going to take a while. I’ll be using this to show some photos and discuss my thoughts on photography.
Yesterday I went around Melbourne taking photos as part of an art project called a million little pictures. This meant that I was shooting with a disposable film camera. First time shooting film and frst time without controls. Somehow this really started t mess with my head. It was as if the process was not complete. Normally it goes look, shoot, review, transf to computer, adjust and upload. Also normally a very short turnaround. This time I can’t even see if they are turning out at all.
When I get the shots developed I put some up here.