Need an iPhone friendly link? Here ya go!

Want to see it in Full HD 1080P on SmugMug? Here ya go!

Just so you know! You can watch the above video in 720P HD without leaving the site by making the video full screen and selecting the HD option from the control bar.

Man, this was fun! Fun to shoot and fun to edit! After a month or so of chopping away at commercial gigs, this was just some good ‘ol fashion candy coloured, idealistic fun!

It’s nice to take a step back from everything sometimes and just shoot some stuff that feels good. It’s a good time of year for it too. Around the end of April the temperatures are starting to drop a little, the skies are starting to clear up and with the diminishing rainfall, there is little silt washing down the rivers into the ocean, leaving it crystal clear. It’s this fortuitous combination of meteorological phenomena that makes this time of year such a lovely time to shoot.

All of this footage has been shot over the last 2 or so weeks. A mixture of the Canon 5DMKII and the Canon 7D. Canon 5DMKII for the lower light sunset stuff so I can keep shooting a little later and Canon 7D for the blue sky daytime stuff, basically because I have polarising options on the Canon 7D that I don’t have on the Canon 5DMKII. . .yet.

Did I mention it was fun shooting this?. . .Yes. . .Where were we?

I shot this with a mixture of the usual suspects. . .that being, the increasingly insufficient bag of lenses that I lug around, detailed greatly elsewhere on this blog. Man, I’m hanging to get some new glass for the Canon 5DMKII.

The new Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L didn’t get too much of a run here, with this kind of footage, I really missed the ability to be able to whack a polariser on the front. Likewise being without ND grads really limit this lens as a landscape type of lens for me. If I could filter it, I would be absolutely stoked! I had been using the Tokina 11-16 f2.8 ATX on the Canon 5DMKII. By itself, it works passably from 15-16mm, but with the polariser on you get a bit of hard, unflattering vignetting at the edges. So whenever I needed a wide polarised shot, I turned to the Canon 7D. I could have fixed this with a dedicated Wide Angle lens for the Canon 5DMKII, but this solution will work well for now. I don’t mind running two camera’s and would rather keep doing this so I can invest into other glass first, instead of buying another wide angle.

There are a couple of Canon 5DMKII shots in there with the Sigma 30mm f1.4. I just scaled them up a little to remove the darkest of the vignette, I’m sure you’ll spot it/them in there, it’s quite noticeable. Funny that in that OOF background, there is a ring of slightly more in focus detail inherent in the fringe of the vignette. It’s weird and kind of takes away from the perception of depth. I’m not sure if you can see it here, but it’s there. . .trust me (I mean that in a totally un-facebook, not creepy way, honest!)

The Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L was great for the yachts on the water at Mooloolaba, but I have since taken to leaving it at home more recently. The camera bag was growing in weight and considering I wasn’t using it every time I shot, decided to see how I would go without it, relying only on the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM. I can say, my back really appreciated not having it in there, but I did miss it a couple of times for sure. Especially when shooting from up high on the cliff in Coolum, it would have come in great handy there. The Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM’s bokeh at f2.8 was pleasant though, and it was nice to be limited on focal length for a while. It makes me walk more and in the process, see shots I might not have come across.

The music in this clip, Revtone – Love Movement (Ulrich Schnauss Remix) is off a compilation, Global Underground 030 – Paris – Mixed by Nick Warren, one of my favourite DJ’s. Ulrich Schnauss has a very typical sound, very atmospheric and it was playing in the car while I was cruising around shooting some of this footage up at Coolum. When I heard it, I immediately knew that this would be the soundtrack to this footage. Cruisy, beautiful and not in a hurry to get anywhere. It would allow the shots to just hang there for a couple of seconds extra, allowing the eye to really roam around the image.

Usually I burn shots, 1-2 seconds and out, and I did start doing that at the end because it was too monotonous, but this time I wanted to more reflect the feeling I had when I was shooting it. Which was a whimsical kind of relaxed concentration. . .Very Sunshine Coast!

My own criticisms. . .This clip is about two minutes too long. At 2:30 it would have been a corker. In, out and left me wanting to see more. Trouble is, this one is a bit of a dual purpose clip. I intend to utilise this for other applications and wanted it to be a bit longer than what I usually cut. There are some shots in there that hang a little too long and it loses momentum somewhere in the middle. A little editing of the song might not have gone astray here, but there is only so long I can spend on these things. At the end of the day, this is not a show reel (Which I am working on at the moment) or anything, just a collection of footage shot over the past two or so weeks.

Things to look out for. . .

• Some very nasty aliasing on the sunset shot across the bay from the Canon 5DMKII. One was so bad I couldn’t include it. perhaps I need to wind the sharpness down as detailed in various places around the net.
• Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC HSM Vignetting. What’s your thoughts on that? Fan or hater?
• Glidetrack love. . .and love it is. . .I really do love it. (In an entirely not creepy way. . .)
• The video’s stupid title. . .watch that. . .it was late and I was strapped for ideas. . .I think in German it means “Flying burger sausage”. Perhaps not.
• The second last shot, a little noisy (ok, alot!). . .That was Canon 5DMKII with the Tilt Shift on at 6400 ISO. With some noise removal it might have come good. For me, it’s better having a noisy shot than no shot at all. I’m not going to a 35mm print for theatrical distribution so it’s not going to cause me much trouble.
• The last shot. This was my first attempt at a proper night timelapse of the stars. It’s not an amazingly interesting shot, it was after all my first crack, taken from my front yard and a test more than anything. I just really wanted to use it here, since it was something different. I’ve become quite inspired, as I’m sure many other have, by Tom’s work, over at Timescapes. That guy is seriously one of the most talented out there, more so than any of the other DSLR ‘pioneers’ out there. Check him out, you’ll be glad you did.

Anyway, that’s enough crap from me, it’s late and I’ve proven myself unworthy of continuing to type at this keyboard.

I hope you enjoy the flick, if there’s anything I missed, just flick me a comment!

More soon. . .

I’ve always regarded tilt shift lenses with a sense of awe. The things they are capable of are quite astounding really and to actually get your head around it is quite difficult at first. But once you’ve got the basics sorted, it quickly becomes apparent just how much you’ve been missing out on by using conventional lenses. The Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L is one of the newest additions to the Canon Tilt Shift line up and this, my friends, is a seriously cool lens!

There are focal planes flying all over the place, perspective correction techniques galore and enough dials, nobs, twists and turns to make you queasy. So when I’d decided that the Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L was for me, I did a lot of reading about the net, trying to prepare myself for what I knew was most likely to be a confusing exerience in the beginning.

To be completely honest, a lot of what I read made zero sense. The perspective correction I understood, but the whole focal plane thing was so confusing to me, it took a good couple of reads for it to sink in. I’d seen all the miniaturised stuff that people had shot around the place, it looked cool but seemed a limited application. I had no idea what the actual uses of the effect could be and when I found out I was quite surprised. I’m not going to regurgitate everything I learnt here, but if you’re keen to take a look at some interesting reading on the effect, check this article out.

But I digress, this isn’t supposed to be a post about the basics of tilt shift photography. . .it’s about the lens. . .so without further adieu. . .

Pulling it out of the included little Canon Duffel bag, the first thing I notice, is that this thing is large and pretty heavy. Taking the lens cap off, the huge exposed convex elements on the front make me think of two things – Uncomfortably large repair bills if I ever ding the front of that lovely L series glass and the disappointing realisation that I won’t be able to put a filter on the front. I love my polarisers for landscape shooting, so this is a bit of a sad moment. Holding it though, it’s evident the build quality is as you would expect for an L lens and when it’s mounted on the front of the Canon 5DMKII it looks like a serious piece of kit, kinda tough. . .I like that!

Now at F4 it’s definitely not the fastest lens on the shelf, as a result of that you’d expect that you’d have to sacrifice that lovely depth of field we’ve come to expect from fast lenses on these large sensors. This is somewhat true, but not entirely true at the same time. The tilting ability does allow you to do some pretty crazy things with depth and where and how it’s displayed. being able to adjust the focal plane, selectively focus on or apply blur wherever you like in the frame is a very cool function. You’ll get more apparent depth of field or boken with this wide angle than with any other, this much is certain. This more than makes up for the slower speed of the lens. The minimum focus distance is also dramatically reduced when utilising the tilt effectively. How close, I’m not exactly sure, I’m not a numbers guy, what I can say is that I was able to achieve focus on something so close that when I actually looked to see how close I was, I was too close for comfort and concerned about damaging the front element. Got to watch that one.

Man this thing is sharp! Like seriously, deliciously sharp. Now I was always a fan of my Tokina 11-16 f2.8 on the Canon 7D, and it also did a passable job on the Canon 5DMKII at 15-16mm despite not having been designed for it, but the Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L eats it alive. Fantastic stuff! I’m not much of a pixel peeper, but even at full 21MP on the Canon 5DMKII viewing images at 100% it’s tack sharp. You do see a little softening and vignetting at full shift towards the edge of the frame, but this is to be expected at such an extreme viewing angle. Even wide open at f4, it’s sharp, but by the time you’re down around 8, it’s really impressive. So for the sharps it’s a massive win!

One thing I found really fantastic was the almost imperceptible barrell distortion. I read a review somewhere before I bought it that said there was slight barrel distortion. If it’s there, I can’t see it. . .Lines seem perfectly straight, it all looks great to me. For a lens largely suited to architectural photography, it would have to keep distortion of any kind to an absolute minimum.

Worth mentioning, is that this lens is manual focus lens. There is no auto focus at all. Now for some people I can see this is going to be a pain in the butt. However, ever since having a dodgy 7D that couldn’t focus to save itself, I manage quite well using the Live View and zooming in to check focus. It’s not difficult and for super sharp shots and video, it’s not a bad practise to get into. The focus ring is nice, smooth and has hard stops.

Now at this stage, I begin to look back over what I’ve written and it sounds like this is a shameless plug for Canon. It’s not. This is my honest opinion of this lens. To me, it really is this good, and for the price it had bloody well better be!

What I found to be a huge creative positive to using this lens was that I was no longer restricted to certain framing conventions and tripod heights in order to avoid any perspective distortion. Now I know this can all be done in post, but I’m an in camera guy. Stretch it in post, or do it optically through L series glass on location with no loss of detail – for me it’s a no brainer. Also, perspective correction with DSLR video and it’s limited resolution is not even an option. So now it’s just a matter of setting up your shot at whatever tripod height you want, get your perspective true and then shift away till your hearts content to re frame your shot without introducing any awkward converging lines.

For a lens to give you so much more creative control and freedom is rare. It has given me so many more options when I shoot, so many creative choices, that it’s really exciting. It gets me really motivated to shoot and go out and see what this lens can do. It can create really nice text book shots but the possibilities for throwing out the rule book completely and creating some really abstract effects make this a really versatile lens.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! The Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L is a great wide angle lens before you touch any of the cool tilt shift functions. When you take into account the possibilities they add, it’s a clear winner in it’s class.

The video below and the images here are just a collection of test shots, all have been shifted, some tilted. I’ll post some more examples sometime soon with more detailed explanations.

Until then. . .:)

The Canon 550D - The 7D's little brother!

So it was that Canon announced to a mostly suspecting public that coming soon to store near them would be the latest addition to the Rebel Line, the Canon 550D or Rebel Ti2. This little beauty certainly does look the goods on paper and with it’s free and easy attitude towards video it’s sure to be a hit with all the boys and girls! What’s it’s deal, I hear you ask, well it’s basically a mini 7D. It’s a Digic IV processor, 18MP APS-C Sensor with pretty much the same video modes and frame rates (1080P @ 30, 25 & 24P, 720 @ 50 & 60P, 480 @ 50 & 60P). Am I excited, you betcha!

Let me tell you why. . .

Check out the Press release here for all the information, I’m not going to bother to regurgitate it all for you, but rather add some thoughts to ponder.

If the 500D had of been this camera, I don’t think I would ever have brought a 7D. . .end of story. . .Now I love my 7D, heaps and heaps and heaps, but I only brought it for the manual video controls, useable 1080P mode and $1000 price difference to the 5D MKII. At the time I was shooting mostly video and considering I really only needed those things, the 5DMKII, despite the luscious full frame sensor, seemed overkill for my purposes. So I jumped at the 7D as soon as it popped it’s head up, but now the 550D is on the horizon I’m looking at my neglected 500D on the shelf and wondering if I could maybe finally get my 7D auto focus looked at by Canon using the 550D as a backup. That my friends is a very alluring thought!

Now having said that, I’m sure there are a couple of things that the 550D will have that will really irk me. Going back to having only pre-set white balances will be agony. I shoot almost exclusively with a manual Kelvin white balance, adjusting it for nearly every shot. This is just me, it’s the way I like to do things. Having this ability for the first time on the D90 was a godsend. Losing it when I moved to the 500D killed me. Getting it back when I got a 7D was like slipping into your favourite old shoes. The prospect of going back to that with a 550D as a back up camera is almost a deal breaker for me. Once you get used to it to Manual Kelvin, it’s nigh impossible to go back.

I’m also left wondering if the noise apparent in the 500D image will be any different with the 550D. The 7D eats the 500D alive in this respect and to be honest, I’m not sure why. I see people making reference to the 2 processors, but I’m not sure how this makes a difference. I thought the two processors were there so you could crunch through 18mp stills at 8FPS. I’m not an expert on that though so I should stop pretending to be!

So am I going to get one? At this stage I’m not sure. . .but to give you an idea my 500D is now sitting on eBay, with I might add, a spectacular marketing video that I shot special for it! All I know is that no matter what happens, it will be missed and remembered dearly. . .the first HDSLR that I ever owned! *sigh*

More soon. . .

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. . .

All it takes is a little sun and. . .POP!

Directors Log – Date Unknown – Day Unknown

A day of shooting around 16 hours in length may have affected my ability to function normally, think straight, post well. . .but Mexico is amazing!!! And when the sun is shining, the shots fall onto the high speed compact flash card like drops of honey from the hive!

I’m scattered, tired and stoked! It was a really hard day today but worth the effort 20 times over. We managed to get some shots we were really happy with that will be fantastic for the job.

Getting here to Cancun after our untimely stopover in Sao Paulo was just as painful a trip as every other piece of international travel I’ve been associated with since I departed Australia, but I won’t go into that to much. The pain is just too near!

Upon arriving and taking a drive around the place, I was blown away at the American flavoured commercialisation of this place. It’s literally like a little American city in Mexico and quite unbelievable really. Then again it should come as no surprise as the beaches and coastline are so beautiful! The colour of the water, I’m almost loathe to admit, is even more astounding than that of my beloved Sunshine Coast. It’s so blue and so green it looks like an over-photoshopped postcard to the naked eye. . .astounding!

However with inconsistent sunshine and occasionally a totally overcast sky, it’s proven to be rather troublesome.

Today was full on. . .Sunrise from the beach, pool shots, golf shots, massages, spa’s, more pools, shopping. . .We did it all! I’d write more about it, but my eyes are so heavy they are closing as I write this. Considering it’s another 5am start tomorrow. . .I think it’s time for bed. . .

Much love and 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. . .

This is what we've been waiting for. . .blue skies and sunshine!

In the filtered pre-dawn light, warning lights flashed brightly on the dash. Luis turned the key in the ingition, the starter motor chugged to life, but refused to start the car. Again and again he tried, but each time the engine just emitted a tortured whirring sound before lapsing into silence. It was 6am and having joked endlessly about worst case scenarios, funnily enough, this one never came up. It’s always the way. . .

After pushing the car down random streets for 15 minutes, unable to even start it by pushing, we gave up. Ready to throw in the towel and miss the Sunrise shoot, which was looking bleak anyway, we parked it in a random car park and were grabbing stuff out of the car ready to walk back to the hotel and call it quits when I thought I might take a look under the bonnet.

Often I wonder why the hell I do this. . .I know NOTHING about cars. . .I look under the hood and it makes about as much sense to me as Norwegian television. . .bugger all! But I opened it up none the less, maybe just to see if the engine had actually been removed, in which case I would have been able to successfully diagnose the fault. I wiggled the Spark plug leads, pulled the accelerator cable and tapped a couple of things with my fingers. Luis turned it over and, Hey Presto! It started first time! We had overcome the first hurdle of the day and felt pretty damn good about it!

A sunrise shoot on the lake yielded less than I would have liked. Cloud cover ruined all but a tiny portion of the sky and the shots were not as good as they could have been. I managed to get some OK ones, but nothing that you would call great, which was diasppointing, as the location really had the potential. It started raining while we were shooting, and the shots that were working stopped doing so because you could see rain drops on the water. . .I’m sure we’ll still get a little out of it though.

We stopped by the main bridge and golf course to see what we could get, but the overcast sky was killing us. The golf course yielded little and concerns over the outcome of the shoot were starting to weigh heavily upon us.

The weather looked terrible and we had pretty much written the day off. Packing things up we headed for the project site to see what it looked like so we could get an idea of what we would be shooting when we booked the helicopter. The site looked good but we ended up having to climb a couple of sizeable mountains to get the shots we needed. Not bringing water was a bad move, jetlag was kicking in and just as things were looking quite ominous, a break in the clouds starting dominating the sky back over Brasilia and we knew that we had to get back there fast.

The sun was shining when we got back into the city and we shot like madmen, running all over town getting everything we could while the sunshine and the blue skies lasted. At last we were getting shots we needed, that we were really happy with and that ticked all the boxes. It was stinking hot and without sunscreen, we didn’t realise how cooked we were until we actually stopped to look at each other. Bright red, haggard and scattered we kept going until we couldn’t go anymore. The 7D was singing though, absolutely loving the 70-200 and just raking it in.

Finally at about 6pm, a full 12 hours after kicking off we called it quits. With more than we’d hoped for in the can, we retired back to the hotel to have a rest wait for the sunset. Unfortunately the rain rolled in and put the kybosh on any hope of a sunset shoot, so we spent the time going through the rushes and dumping the cards.

It was a successful day, very hard work, but worth every second. I’m hoping for a clear sky tomorrow morning so we can really smash a sunrise and have nice weather for the aerial shots. Fingers crossed gang. . .

That’s it from me, it’s late, I’m buggered and with a 5:30am start on the cards again, it’s time for bed. . .

More soon. . .

"When my baby, when my baby smiles at me I go to Rio. . .De Janeiro!" Sadly, this song skittled around the inside of my sleep deprived head the whole time I was at Rio airport.

“Sorry sir, it says here that your bags have been sent to Sao Paulo instead of Rio.” A Delta employee explained in halting English. Can anybody say icing on the cake?

It took me back to watching a clip that my colleague Brett cut once. He used a quote from the Dalai Llama that said something along the lines of, “And when you realise how perfect everything is. . .you will throw your head back and laugh to the sky”. I did just that. . .what else could I do?

So after managing to wrangle my way through customs with the 7D and all the lenses, which they took great interest in, telling me to make sure I took it all with me when I left (I guess as a precaution, just in case I felt like leaving my beloved camera behind for no good reason) I jumped the next flight to Brasilia and feeling totally over it and completely exhausted found a whole row of empty seats and passed the hell out. I needed it.

Luis, my client, a cheerful Spaniard with a great sense of humour, picked me up from the airport and off we went for a quick tour of downtown Brasilia before checking in. After a quick shower to reboot, we met in the lobby and broke down what we needed to achieve whilst here in Brazil. It all looked good to me, but did I mention the weather was bad? Well it is. . .overcast and crummy. . .awesome!

We went out for a bit of a location reccie and ended up shooting a bit and found some spots that will yield some really nice shots. The architecture in this place is fantastic, the city was completely planned and there are these huge wide open park areas all through the city, it’s really nice.

Finishing up at dark, we went out to for a brilliant feed at a Brazilian steakhouse, sorted tomorrow’s schedule and went back to our rooms. I couldn’t help but smash out a time lapse off the balcony. . .4 second exposures. . .150 of them @ 25fps. It works out to 6 seconds of footage and should be ample.

Trouble is, I can’t dump this card, because all the powerboards, cables and adapters are in my bag. . .that’s still in customs. . .in Sao Paulo. . .Awesome!

Anyway, hopefully they arrive tomorrow. . .

Sunrise shoot at 6am. . .if there’s a sun to shoot that is. . .I’m praying for clear skies, if you’re a friend to me, please do so too!

More soon!