What better way to break in the new Canon 5DMKII than to take it on a plane/road trip to visit the family down in Tamworth. Two little sisters, one of which who loves watching the footage of herself almost as much as the rest of us do, a bunch of greenery and lots of fun.

The new Canon 5DMKII only arrived on the Friday afternoon and flying out Saturday morning didn’t leave a lot of time for really investigating the new beasty. I’d used one a fair bit on shoots a while back, but since getting a Canon 7D had been using nothing but. I must say, she’s quite the different animal and on first impression, nowhere near as user friendly as my beloved Canon 7D.

Firstly, (and I know I’ve already rabbited on ad nauseam about this on Facebook, but I’m super excited!) I was stoked to see that the Sigma 30mm f1.4 actually worked on the Canon 5DMKII. Not only did it work, but it brought with it a dirty vignette that I’d never seen on the Canon 7D before (Due to the smaller sensor). It was love at first sight. Now I might not be reaching for this lens next time I have a corporate shoot, but in a more relaxed setting (a glorified home movie), this combo kicks some serious goals in my book! To me it’s a nice effect, with a bit of character, that still looks absolutely fantastic in the centre of the frame. All the benefits of a Toy Camera lens without the drawbacks. So yes, very happy there.

The 30mm focal length on the Canon 5DMKII is really nice too. So much so that I am seriously considering saving the pennies for a Canon 35mm f1.4L. I think in the interim though a Canon EF 35mm f2.0 could find it’s way into the camera bag, according to reviews it’s not so bad a lens and f2.0 is a quick enough for most things. As I said, whilst I love that vignette, it’s not going to work for everything.

My little Canon 50mm f.18 II worked wonderfully on the Canon 5DMKII. Seriously that lens blows me away! I took a photo at f10 on that little beast and it was so tack sharp at 100% it just wasn’t funny. If you haven’t got one of these lenses you are nuts! It’s so good for the price, I can’t see myself justifying the $2K it costs to get the Canon 50mm f1.2L. Even though it’s supposed to be that much of a better lens (well for a start, it’s not all plastic!) I’m not sure it could be that much better. The depth of field is lovely, and when it’s wide open at f1.8 you get some nice vignetting and a little decrease in sharpness towards the edge of the frame. It adds a bit of charm (like a fake chimney).

Now, what was seriously impressive, having come from the Canon 7D, which. let’s be honest, is a rather noisy experience at the best of times, was the low light capabilities of this camera. Now I’m not going to crap on at length about this like every other blog has since the camera was released over a year ago, but I will say this – The Canon 5DMKII looks the way you want your footage to look in low light conditions. It’s still going to be noisy if you push it too far, but it seems it can nicely capture what you can easily see with the naked eye in dim light. Now it might be awesome to have the near night-vision capabilities of the Canon 1DMKIV, but it’s not like you’ll be disappointed if you can’t take a shot of something you can’t see in the first place! For the first time I’m pleased with the quality of the video I shoot when the sun goes down, I can’t say I ever felt that with the Canon 7D.

Now it’s really tempting to start comparing the Canon 5DMKII and the Canon 7D to each other on a minute scale, but I just don’t feel comfortable doing that as yet. I’ve only been using it for a week and I really need to give a red hot crack before I go talking smack about it. I don’t want to give the wrong impression because I haven’t dug deep enough in the custom fuctions or just haven’t shot with it enough yet to make a proper judgement. What I can say, is that I feel the design of the Canon 7D’s body and button layout is far superior to the Canon 5DMKII. More on that in a future blog post. . .

Funnily enough I think I only pulled the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM out of the bag twice on this trip and neither of those shots made it into this edit. The 100-400 didn’t even get a look in.

The song in this clip is by one of my favourite acts of all time, Way Out West. The song is called ‘Just like a man’. Off the album called ‘Don’t Look Now’, this track is just superb. I suggest you check out the entire album if you dig the style. It’s an all time classic electronic release.

It was a lot of fun shooting this footage, my little sister Kendra is a ball to hang out with and it’s always fun capturing funny little moments that go one when we’re hanging out. I know this is not the best footage I’ve ever shot, but this was more about getting a feel for the camera and also just making a nice home movie for the archives. I actually tossed up on whether to put it here on the site, but figured I’d been talking it up so I better actually post it! If you enjoy it even 1/20th as much as I did shooting and editing it (You should have seen the stupid grin whilst cutting in the timeline. I’m a sucker for my little sister) then I’ll be stoked.

More soon. . .

The gorgeous little Kendra.

Need an iPhone friendly link? Here ya go!

Want to see it in 1080P? Here ya go!

What would a trip be without a bit of a video to go with it, eh? How will I hold onto the memories once my old and decrepit brain slows and the once vivid colours and easily recalled sounds start to dim and fade? Well, the plan is that I’ll take out my 128 Core Intel Blink6a Chipset driven Mac-3D Hologram interface running OS XVIII Aardvark from the comfort of my nursing home bed and hoping that it still knows what to do with the H.264 codec, watch all these videos, remembering a time when I could choose when to go to the loo and walk where I wanted unaided. . .ahhh, can’t wait!

All that aside, this video was really just a bit of fun to shoot and a walk on the wild side for me, since I never travel anywhere without a tripod. Even though I missed, it, it was an interesting excercise.

There are some really pretty area’s where the lovely Katie’s parents live. The Dandenong Ranges are about an hour east of Melbourne in Victoria and make for some very nice scenery, I could seriously have spent days and days just walking around shooting, it seems everywhere you turn there’s something to lock the lens on. But, since it was a family trip, I had to make some concessions on allocating one on one time with the 7D. . .

I’ve got to say the decision to not take the tripod was interesting. . .and stupid. . .I hated it. . .So many times I wished I had it with me, my shaky hands and wobbling footage driving me up the wall. See if I had steady hands, I don’t think I’d have cared so much, trouble is, I tremble like an 8 day high crack fiend as soon as I pick up the camera. This is where a heavier camera has always been my friend. If you too have trouble getting that steady shot when running around shooting hand held, the best bet I found is to try and keep it moving, that way the shake is disguised a bit more. Or lean on something that doesn’t shake! I think for the home movie stuff it works ok, the landscape stuff. . .eeewww! Man, some of that stuff looks rough! Lesson learnt. . .

Both the Sigma 30mm and the 50mm 1.8 II got a really good run in this video, the tight quarters shooting meant for the kind of shots I wanted these focal lengths worked well. I love shooting portaits with the 50mm on the 7D, I guess it equates to about 86mm on a full frame. Now that I have a 5DMKII to play with, I will have to get the Canon 85mm f1.2 lens as I have really fallen in love with that focal length.

After watching a colleague work with split screens I got inspired to play with some of my own. I did specifically shoot a sequence of shots for the effect, instead of just seeing what would work afterwards, I think that helped. I don’t mind it, but I’m not sold on it. What do you think, win or fail? The implementation could do with some tweaking, the hard borders a a bit harsh, I definitely think that having three handheld shots all wiggling different ways at the same time is a bit much too, a locked off shot would improve things greatly.

Now, one thing I do know it that there is absolutely no consistency to the grade, some black and white, some super saturated, some really warm, some really cold. . .That’s exactly how I was feeling at the time, all colours were created in camera. I didn’t do any post colour correction on this at all. In hindsight, I would have liked to see more Black and White, but hey, I made my bed, and even though I don’t have to lie in it, I will. I’ll know better next time. It’s my goal to be able to grade in camera with as little post as possible, give your settings a bash around and see what you come up with, it can be rather rewarding!

The music is by a very lovely group by the name of ‘The Album Leaf’ and the song is called ‘We Need Help!’. It’s not symbolic in anyway, we didn’t need help, (Well I did, after a bit of celebratory overextension syndrome after my birthday on Good Friday, but that’s a story for a completely different blog! ) it’s just a nice cruisy song, that I thought fitted the feel of the trip.

This was a fun little video to shoot and to cut and would recommend everybody to give something similar a shot. Use your lovely Canon glass and DSLR depth of field to really do a number on the old home video! I’d love to see your results!

Well, that’s it for now, I’m off to Tamworth for the weekend to see my family. It’s another road trip video and no doubt my gorgeous little sister Kendra will break in the new Canon 5DMKII that arrived today very nicely. I can’t wait!

Until then. . .enjoy the vid!

[Show as slideshow]

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!

It was about a four hour drive to Tenterfield. The gorgeous Katie was a little trojan, driving all the way there, while I pointed the camera out the window under the pretense of making a video for ‘the blog’. Well, it wasn’t a complete waste of time and the video above, I’m actually really pleased with. Not because it’s my best work ever, but because it’s the little things that you forget and this will be nice to look back on. I hope you enjoy it!

There’s  full 1080P version on SmugMug, Check it out here! You’ll find the full story and a Vimeo embed after the jump too.

At last I managed to get around to hacking out the rest of this cut last night, it’s been sitting here on the computer, half finished, for quite some time now!

I didn’t get to spend as long in the edit as I would have liked due to time constraints still making themselves known even this close to Christmas! The trouble is, given that it is coming into Christmas, I’d like to go into it with a clean slate and all the home movies edited as I’m sure there’s going to be a bunch of stuff shot over the next couple of weeks. Hell, I still have to edit the video I shot of Christmas last year! Hahaha!

Anyway, it was great seeing the kids and the old man and woman again, they moved away from the Sunny Coast about 6 months ago and it’s been a bit lonely without them. Kendra, the eldest little girl, is a riot and you’ve probably seen her in other vids of mine about the place. She is so much fun to shoot with, loves the camera and loves watching it back even more. She seems capivated by the way she does things, as if thinking “Wow, do I really look like that when I get around?!” I’m sure it feels a lot more graceful to her!

I took the whole camera kit with all the lenses and the tripod. I was hoping to stop and get more footage on the way down, but considering it was close to 40ºC and the air conditioner in the car is broken, poor old Katie didn’t fare to well when we stopped to get the time lapse over the mountains. In the interest of a level status quo for the rest of the trip, I decided car footage would be best!

I made considerable use of the Sigma 30mm when I was down there, this is just a great lens for ‘home movie’ style footage. If the distance between you and the subject isn’t too great, you can usually achieve a really nice depth of field and that really helped with the Bubble blowing footage. That area was really busy, the background was a mess and with a really deep depth of field, taking it all in would have made that footage unwatchable. Sigma 30mm f1.4 for th win!!!

I used the Sigma a little more than the Canon 50mm f1.8 as I don’t have a 52mm Polariser for the 50mm. I am not going to get one either, as I want a Canon 50mm 1.2 or the Sigma 50mm 1.4 eventually and I don’t want to be buying interim crap if I don’t really need it. Regardless, I did use the little 50mm on some of the close up shots of little Olivia’s (the Baby!) face. You’ll notice the really horrible out of focus shot of her getting scared when I sneeze, I know it’s a bad shot, but I couldn’t help but include it, she got such a fright, cried and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Nice brother hey!

I have to say, and it’s pretty obvious I think, the best shot in there is the one of Kendra in the swing. My colleague Brett often questions a shot’s merit by asking me “If you died to tomorrow and this was what was left, this one shot was going to be shown to everbody as an example of your work, would you hang your hat on it?”. Rather melodramatic, I know, but it really does make you think! In most cases, I answer in the negative, thinking, as if I would ever hang my hat on a single shot! But I think I know what it’s all about now. This shot was just a case of right place, right time and I feel probably one of the best, if not the best, I have ever captured. I don’t know if I’m biased becuase I love the subject matter dearly, but there’s something about it that really makes me happy, and that’s what it’s all about I guess.

The music in this piece holds a special significance for me. It was written by my best mate, Marlon Platt, a couple of years back. He laid it down into an iMac, just him and a guitar, using the stock mic, very budget and completely fitting for the project at the time. I asked him for a track that was all about travelling and had that road trip feeling of discovery, fun and the realisation of something great. This is what he came up with and I think it’s pretty darn good! So when it came time to find a track for this video, this one immediately sprang to mind and I think it works here nicely. Marlon is based in Melbourne, still writing music in his spare time and occasionally puts some stuff up on his MySpace Music site, Marlonism. Check it out to see where he’s at these days.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’m not so sure what’ll be popping up on here over the break (All I know is I won’t be getting one!), but keep an eye on the Facebook page for some mobile picture uploads from the new iPhone and whatever else comes about!

Merry Christmas!

Oh and despite the fact that the Poll shows more people prefer Vimeo over SmugMug. I’ve loaded this onto SmugMug first. Sadly for all you pro-Vimeo people out there, the stats don’t agree with the polls! Video’s are getting around twice as many hits on SmugMug as they are on Vimeo. So either the people out there watching videos’ aren’t voting on the Poll’s or somebody else is driving the Traffic to SmugMug. I’ve posted both here for now and will continue to do so for a while yet! Enjoy!

More soon. . .

It was painful in real life, it’s only fitting that it be painful to watch and the second half of this video really is. You wish it was finished, over done, complete. . .welcome to my world!

Planes, airports, people, swollen feet, sore knees, bad food. . .man, it all sucks! This part of the journey was a bit of a melodrama in that we couldn’t manage to get the HVX out of customs in time for our flight. We didn’t check the tripods, since we had taken them as carry on everywhere and then were stopped at security 5 minutes before boarding and told to go back and check them in. While waiting for the guys to try and check the tripods and get them to the plane on time, our man Leandro, typing furiously on his terminal, eyes pinpoints of concentration had almost wrapped it up when. . .Darkness! The entire airport plunges into inky blackness. . .a few sparse screams of shock and fear pierce the immediate silence that follows, as well as my laugh, loud and deep, ringing out across the terminal. . .almost flirting with that fine line between true belly laughter and maniacal cackling. I was close to losing it and it felt gooooood!

Leandro’s voice, quiet and seeming to originate from a point in space hanging somewhere in front of us, says “I haven’t seen this ever in the 10 years I have worked here!”. Of course you haven’t Leandro, because Luis and I, the two cursed amigos’ haven’t come floating through this airport before with no time to spare, camera’s stuck in customs, cancelled flights and tripods that weren’t checked! No doubt Leandro won’t see it again until we are next in town!

But I digress, I doubt you’re here to hear my incessant moaning about how bad the travel was. “You’re doing an international shoot through Brazil and Mexico, so you had a bit of trouble, quit ya whining! Do you realise how lucky you are?!” Trouble is, once I get on a roll, it’s hard to stop the literary diarrhoea!

So what else is there to do when faced with all of this, but to plug in the headphones, crack out the camera and disconnect.

Shooting handheld with the 7D is cool, it’s fun and really spontaneous. I’ve missed that kind of shooting, as because of the rolling shutter I’m locked off on the tripod most of the time. And the rolling shutter sure is apparent, it’s all through this clip, I hate it. Yes, I can remove it, but to be honest. . .for this application, it’s hardly worth it. I’ve used a 5D MKII with some redrock rods attached to it and it takes out that tiny little judder that you get from a rig that’s too light. That little bit of extra weight really helps. I think I will look at getting some of these soon as it will dramatically increase the amount of ‘keepers’ when shooting handheld.

Again the IS on the 70-200 kicks butt in video mode, I love it to death. When you’re shooting handheld it really is phenomenal how much difference it makes. If you jump the camera around a bit, the IS can exacerbate the movements and you can end up with something that could make a person sick, it’s all in how you nurse it through the movement, learning the IS and how to caress it into doing what you want. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no sicko (well I am, but not when it comes to camera’s) but you really do need to be gentle with it, show it some r-e-s-p-e-c-t and it will love you! I should do a post showing the comparison in Video mode. . .I will. . .one day!

A bit of this stuff was shot at around 400 ISO, it’s still pretty clean at that point, I don’t start seeing much noise until around 800-1000 ISO. I know people carry on about how you can shoot at up to 1600, sure you can shoot at up to 1600, but man it looks pretty ugly. The noise seems to be big and chunky in the shadows, not the kind of stuff that Noise Removal software really likes. So I try to keep it below 1000 and with faster glass, that’s usually pretty achievable.

The music in this video is something I randomly found on my computer, listened to, latched onto and absolutely caned. It’s the first track off a mix CD a good friend of mine, who is an excellent DJ, put together. I found it perfect for this journey since it starts all mellow and lovely and takes you on a journey into the darker sides of minimal tech house. A soundtrack to  infuse the soul with metallic invulnerability. I don’t know the artist or the name of the track, maybe if Daniel stops by he can assist me here.

This is not a great example of videography, in fact I almost hesitated in uploading it and posting it, thinking, “No, maybe I should only be putting my best work on the site. . .” emulating the other blogging heroes that you see around the traps. . .In the end I figured, bugger it, this is what went down, sure the shots aren’t the best in the world, but they aren’t meant to be. . .this is my journey, not my masterpiece. . .If you find it as uncomfortable as I did, my work is done!

Click here to watch it on SmugMug in 1080P.

More soon. . .

So finally, here’s a couple of shots I knocked off from Australia to Rio. This video is the first in what will hopefully be a series of short video blogs. It’s all handheld handycam type stuff, I had the tripod with me, but I didn’t want to risk a run-in with security or overbearing airline staff all hopped up on oversalted mini-pretzels.

Shooting sure is a soothing way to pass the time. The only reason there’s not more footage is because I was so dog tired most of the time, I just couldn’t be shagged getting the camera out, but there just wasn’t that much interesting stuff to shoot anyway. It isn’t meant to be an amazing display of cinematography (if you were expecting it to be, I’m sorry! hahaha!), more than anything it is a side-product of boredom and my desire to document what it is that I see. Think of it as a home movie shot with an decent rig!

The Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM owned it in the plane. I would never have even dreamed of putting the old 75-300 on there in that dim light, it would have been completely useless!

The Sigma 30mm f1.4 was great too, most of the stuff I shot with that in the plane was wide open at maybe ISO 200-400. . .

The shot at the start with old mate scratching his eyes and the dude playing with the phone were both on the Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L. I really do like this lens and even though it taps out at 5.6 at 400mm, considering that’s the same as my old 75-300mm I don’t find it much of a hindrance. If anything it helps as I know what’s possible with a given amount of light. It’s boken is nowhere near as nice as the 70-200, but it’s still decent.

I’ve heard many people discount the usefulness of the IS in the canon lenses for video applications. Personally, I found it incredibly helpful and I am so glad that I got the IS model of the 70-200, as I almost didn’t. For handheld shooting I can get a much better shot with the IS on than without, and providing you nurse your pans and movements a little so as not to push it too much, you can get quite good results.

The music in this clip means a lot to me and there’s a very good reason I used it. . .It’s by a band called The Detroit Escalator Company and the Song is called ‘Gathering Light’. The whole album that this song is off (Black Buildings) is just amazing, I have loved it since the moment a great friend of mine Claudia, from the Dominican Republic, introduced me to it around 5 years ago.

It is my travelling music, it allows me to put my headphones in and completely disconnect. Moving through airports and fellow travellers as if I was a ghost, a vaporous entity, invisible, untouchable and completely at ease within the maelstrom of itineraries, people, planes, flights, service staff and screaming children. It’s just such a perfect juxtaposition that my entire perception of the journey is almost left in limbo. A complete obfuscation of the senses. . .

On journeys like this, the ability to be able to plug in and view everything with a vacantly detached curiosity is priceless beyond measure. I hope you find your travelling music. If you’ve got something to recommend, let me know. . .I need it!

More soon. . .