The new camera shine has rubbed off the Canon 5DMKII and I’m now quite partial to shooting with both it and the Canon 7D on the same shoot. It’s not always practical, but there has been instances where using the tilt shift and the macro on the 7D, as well as the overcranking capability have really added to a production. Having the two bodies effectively gives each lens another look and use due to the crop factor of the Canon 7D. So very happy on the front, now if they’d just bring out a full frame 7D with all the Canon 5DMKII audio perks, I’d be pumped!

Anyway, enough about that for now, here’s a quick rundown on what’s coming to Highdefedition.com over the next few weeks. . .

The LumoPro LP160 Review
A new all manual speedlight from Midwest Photo Exchange in the good ‘ol US of A.

The good folks at Midwest Photo Exchange (lovingly known as MPEX) were kind enough to supply us with one of these beasty flashes for review. I’ve been using it exclusively as a slave, which fires by way of it’s amazingly sensitive optical trigger every time it see’s another flash, but there are three other methods of triggering it, hotshoe, PC and a mini jack. So far I’ve been really impressed with it’s simplistic operation and considerable power. It produces a flash almost as bright as the Canon 580EX II, it’s just about a fraction of a stop less. It’s a huge improvement over it’s predecessor and once I’ve had a little more time with it, I’ll be putting a story about it here. If you just can’t wait, check out the MPEX web store for yourself, I’d have to say at this stage, for the price, you can’t go wrong.

Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM Lens Review
A great inexpensive prime lens for your full frame or crop camera.

I just got my grubby little mits on one of these this week, by way of a not-so-great experience with Australian retailer, Dirt Cheap Camera’s. Negative experience aside, the lens is very nice and a great upgrade from the tried, tested and much loved Canon 50mm f1.8 II that I had. For the price it’s very hard to justify the extra expenditure to go up to the Canon 50mm f1.2L, I should have some nice footage to illustrate that.

Filmtools Car Mount for the 5D & 7D
A 3 suction cup car mount rig – One sucker for the body, 2 suckers for the triangulation kit to stop the shake.

This is not set in stone yet, I am looking seriously at getting hold of one of these, but cannot source one at the moment, due to their being no stock. It’s unfortunate as otherwise I would have had it weeks ago and would have been able to elaborate on it in this very post. I’ll keep you posted as things develop on this front. Make sure you keep an eye on the twitter feed and the Facebook page for the good news.

That’s about it for now guys, I did say it would be a quick one. . .if there’s anything out there you’ve had some fun shooting, throw us a link on Facebook or Twitter and show us what you’ve been up to. . .If you haven’t got anything to show, get out and bloody shoot something!

Until then. . .

Now let’s be realistic, this was a totally self-indulgent w#nk! Hahaha! In fact that’s what this video should be called!

Got an iPhone? Check the Video out here!

SmumMug in 1080P? Check it out here!

I was bored, ok? This was shot when I was stuck in the hotel room in Sao Paulo after we had been delayed and missed our flight out of Brazil to Texas, all those months ago during the Brazil and Mexico Shoot. I cut and uploaded the second travel video this day and after that, pretty much had nothing to do except shoot myself doing what I had been doing for ages, sitting in the window watching the rain fall down from the sky and cascade down the glass. Riveting stuff, why not shoot it?

Funnily enough, it did prove to be quite a challenge, and there was much trial and error, particularly with the shallow focus and having to get the shot right, before running over and getting in place. To be honest, my acting wasn’t as good as I thought it would be either, way too contrived. . .lucky I didn’t have a speaking part.

I used the Sigma 30mm f1.4, the Canon 50mm f1.8 II, Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS USM and the Tokina 11-16 f2.8. The 70-200 was probably my favourite of the four, positioned right up against the far wall of the hotel room, wide open and loving the dim light at a low ISO. I can’t help but start wondering what a 5D MKIII might have looked like and how soon it will be tempting me.

The music here is by a group called Way Out West. They are absolutely phenomenal artists, just two lads in fact, Jody Wisternoff and Nick Warren. The song is called “The doors are where the windows should be” and it just sounded exactly like I felt at that time; Mellow with a dash of skitter.

It’s short and rightly so, the subject matter didn’t really lend itself to lengthy epic, rain, me and a window. . .even 30 seconds is too much. Sadly that’s all the Sunshine Coast has been offering up the last week also! Just rain, rain and more rain! There hasn’t been much shooting going on that’s for sure. When there has, I’ll be back on the case and pumping out content on here like there’s no tomorrow.

More to come soon! Oh and Happy New Year guys and gals!

This is what we came for! The last day turned it on and we finally got what we needed! Smiles all around!

I think I can safely say that there is nothing quite like quiet reflection. As I sit here in the comfort of my office on the Sunshine Coast surrounded by normality, the last day of the shoot in Mexico seems so distant that the craziness of it all seems almost diminished.

However it doesn’t take too much pondering before the road train of memories slam into the forefront of my consciousness. I’m whisked back to the hot, intense, fateful, final day of the shoot where the planets aligned to give us some of the best results of the trip.

The day started at 5am. Bleary eyed and feeling like a piece of petrified excrement, I stumbled into the shower to try and wash away the pain. This was the last day, I was running on empty, overworked, tired and stressed. My body was having a tough time getting used to the different food too, so I wasn’t really able to give it what it needed to repair. I say it every time, but next time I’m going to have to schedule a proper rest day to give myself some time to recover. I know film crews often work 16 hour days, but that’s a film crew. . . .I was a one man band. Locked and loaded I went to meet Luis, who politely informed me that I did indeed look like I felt. I like to think that his empathy was lost in translation.

Sunrise shoot was on. Having scoped a nice arch the day before, we decided to shoot first light and sunrise there. After about ten minutes playing with the arch, using different lenses, filters and everything else I could dream up in my lucid state I got bored and headed to the waters edge. I had been taking the spreader off the tripod for all the shooting I had been doing in the sand. Mostly to keep the it free of sand and working smoothly, but this day, the lower heights achievable without the spreader really made the new 525MVB worth every penny! I shoved the sticks so wide and deep into the sand and got that thing as low as it could possibly go where the waves were washing up on the shore without saltwater splashing onto the camera. I have never been able to achieve this shot as successfully in the past, always having to shoot handheld and getting incosistent results at best. With a blue sky overhead and a sparkling white sand beach before me things started to work really nicely. . .I smiled as I watched back the clip on the LCD the tiredness seemed to lift from me. Done! It was pool time!

The pool was pretty nice to look at, the weather was perfect. No clouds, no wind, bright sunshine coming from just the right direction. Consequently, it wasn’t too hard pulling good shots out of there. With a circular polariser, some Cokin filters to get it looking just right and a bit of 60P love for the caustics, we had another win. It was amazing how well things went when the weather came to the party. In high spirits we left the pool by about 8am to get to the next location.

After smashing down a quick breakfast it was time to shoot the shoot the Chef, a lovely young girl named Maria, doing her thing. With the sun glaring over her left shoulder, her face in pitch black shadow, I longed for my wonderful purpose built reflector that was tucked safely inside my HVX Case about 7,000 kilometres away in Brazilian Customs. I was slightly concerned, but not to be deterred, I managed to procure some tablecloth’s which whilst not ideal were much better than nothing and Oscar, a friendly hotel employee, came to the rescue, holding them in nice and close just out of shot. His arms would have been caning by the end the poor bugger! Thanks Oscar, you saved us there brother!

Straight after the Chef it was off to the the waters edge to shoot some watersports, low on time and resources it was quick and dirty, handheld from a boat. It was a real shame because I had a really great setup planned which consisted of land based shots from across the shallow bay on the 100-400, but we just didn’t have enough time to get it done before we had to go into town to get the helicopter. I shot the Tokina 11-16, the Sigma 30mm and the Canon 70-200, which again, absolutley killed it with the stabiliser. I was very surprised to see it working it such challenging conditions, I mean I won’t pull a 7 second perfectly stable clip out of it, but I will definitely get a nice 3-4 second shot out of it, which is enough for my purposes.

Towards the end of the 30 minutes in the boat, I ran into a little trouble. Staring at the back of the camera, riding up and down the swell, going faster, slower, doing power turns, back and forth. . .My stomach started doing backflips. I don’t normally get motion sickness, but I went down hill fast and when the Jet Ski came to get me to take me back to the beach, I couldn’t get on the bloody thing fast enough. Back on land I headed straight for the room where I was sure I was going to lose breakfast. I was swaying and feeling like death, imagining the terrible ramifications of me not being able to finish the days shooting, wondering if I had food poisoning or something because I felt that ill.

I drank about 2 litres of water, took some Panadol, had a Berocca and readied the gear for the trip to the helicopter, trying very much not to think about being airborne.

The aerials went without a hitch. It appears in Mexico they do not share the same laws about minimum altitudes over built up areas. One shot we almost touched down on the 3rd green of the Golf Course before heading back up as fast as we could. I had the wrong lens on for it, but the look on the golfers’ faces that were playing their approach was possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen. To say they were freaking out would be a massive understatement.

The weather played nice, the water looked great and we got everything we needed.

Following the Aerial shots it was back to the car and then back to the Golf Course, all the while Luis was on the phone trying to pin somebody at Delta to the wall and get my HVX back to us before we left the next morning. He didn’t have much luck. The HVX looked like it was staying in Brazil for a bit longer. I began to wonder if I would ever see it again.

A nasty band of cloud obscured our sunset and the Golf Shots didn’t quite work out as we’d hoped. It was 5:30pm and time to head to the Restaurant for our final shoot, Dinner, Teppanyaki to be precise, for 6. Maybe it’s not so Mexican, but hey, it looks damn good in 60P . Unable to get power for the lights, (which were working very poorly anyway with the 240V globes on 110V power! Oversight on my part! Woops!) it was the fast primes that saved the day. The Sigma 30mm f1.4 was a dream, the Canon 50mm 1.8 II saved my butt and the 70-200, although pushing the ISO a little too far still pulled a couple of nice shots. It was so crazy in there and not lit so well that I shot mostly handheld at 60P just looking for nice moments. As a wide the composition didn’t work, it was just too functional, so close-ups were the order of the evening. We wrapped at about 7:30pm, not by choice either, but because people had complained. Not that we were shooting a video in the place, but because myself and Luis were wearing shorts. . .don’t ask, I don’t know, and I didn’t even care. . .I was just stoked to be finished. . . .

It was over. . .done. . .complete. . . .We headed back to our rooms and nearly died. . . .It was a great feeling!

After dumping the cards we readied for a couple of celebratory drinks and some dinner in Playa Del Carmen with a friend of mine from Australia, Rob. We didn’t feel like doing anything but passing out into oblivion. It turned out that we didn’t end up doing that until 6am the next morning! Wrap drinks were just a bit too much fun! I still now do not know how we did it, but we did. It was fantastic!

I set my alarm for 8am so I had time to get up, pack, shop for some presents, leave at 9:15 and and be at the airport by around 9:45 to catch my flight at 11:45. There were two slight problems with this scenario. Luis was confused. My flight left at 11am, not 11:45am. We didn’t find this out until we got to the airport. . .which we did with only 1 minute to spare because we both slept through our alarms and woke up at 10am. . .with only one hour to shower, pack, get to the airport, through immigration, security and onto the plane. . .I can’t believe I made it. . .With a chaperone through immigration, security and everything I took all my bags to the gate, and checked them there. It was unbelievable!

The rest is history. . .Sure I missed the next connecting flight, left a bag in customs, went back and got it and got put on a another flight, but I still made it home on time to the waiting arms of my lovely lady at Brisbane Airport. . .Let me tell you, after all of that, not much in the world felt good, but that sure did!

It’s now a week later and a very tired and slightly more worldly HVX arrived at my door this afternoon. She looks like she’s been through the ringer, that’s for sure! Man, if that wasn’t a mistake taking that away! Hahaha! Until this afternoon, I hadn’t seen it since I checked it in Sydney! Too funny! I’m just glad it made it home and didn’t become some Brazilian Customs Officials’ early Christmas present!

The footage is all set to go, I will be posting some of the final stuff up on here but I need to wait until Luis has done what he needs to with it. He needs to unveil it to his clients before I can go showing the world in HighDefEdition! Hopefully that won’t be too far away!

Anyway, I think I’ve well and truly crapped on enough about all of this. It does feel good to actually report on what went down properly for at least one day.

In closing, all I can say is that it sure was crazy, but I can’t wait to do it all again!

Until then. . .:)

Looking to escape the southern winter cold, a seething, roiling mass of people all funnel into the Sunshine Coast at this time every year. It’s school holidays, and for us locals that means for the most part we don’t venture out, preferring to avoid the madness and leave the clogged streets and long lines to the blow in’s.

For these kids though, who are lucky enough to live right on the beach at Marcoola, their secluded little stretch of sand doesn’t attract too many tourists and provides hours of fun when school isn’t on the program.

Now this clip was more of a quick test. I shoot the 500D locked off on a tripod most of the time and after the Fiji trip and watching Brett go absolutely psychotic with the 5D MKII handheld and seeing the results, I decided I would give it a go.

Brett has this full on approach to ‘getting the shot’ when shooting people. He gets right up their faces, into the action, where I would normally hang back and be a little more reserved, preferring to give them some space. I realised that because I wasn’t really getting in there, I was missing classic moments and my shots were at times lacking in excitement because of it. So enter this test at Marcoola Beach.

I went down there with the tripod to grab some general wides, as it was a lovely day and I’d been down there for about 5 minutes when a girl came down with her little brother and 2 sisters. So after a brief chat with the eldest sister, in which I assured her I wasn’t some dodgy lecherous old man and offered to show her my Blue Card (A card provided by the government that says you are allowed to work with Children), she agreed to let me film the little tackers going nuts and having a great old time.

I discovered the joy of shooting children (that sounds a lot worse than it is hey? ) when my father had a little girl about 2 years ago. She was pretty much the cutest most amazing little thing to ever walk the earth (I’m sure there are other Brothers/Dad’s out there that feel their little princess deserves that title. . .I’ll fight you for it! ). She loved the camera and I found her to be great subject matter for all manner of fun little clips. I loved shooting them but I think I mostly shot them for her, as she would watch them over and over, mesmerised by the fact that she was on TV. I got a real kick out of that. But I digress. . .

I started off pretty far away, on my long lens, the old Canon EF 75-300 f4-5.6. After getting a couple of shots with that, I whacked the Canon 50mm f.18 II on there and not being in close enough, decided to get some handheld stuff of the waves. I was just about to pack it up, when they started playing in the sand, digging and drawing things. So up I trot and after asking nicely if I could get right in there, did exactly that. Hand held and just trying to get in and get amongst it. . .There was sand and crap flying everywhere, but it was great fun and I was pleased with the shots. They definitely are a lot more lively than they would have been if I had of stayed locked off on the long lens from 20 metres away.

So did I learn a valuable lesson? Absolutely! I’ll definitely be doing more of this again soon.