Recently I was hired to do shoot behind the scenes video footage for a NOS Energy Drink commercial. The commercial was based around the driving skill of 2009 Formula Drift Champion Chris Forsberg. For those not familiar with drifting, it is a judged motorsport that calls for drivers to control a high horsepower car while it slides sideways at high speed through a marked course. It is similar to rally racing, but is done on a closed course and judged on execution and style rather than who finishes the course fastest.
So the other day I ran into an old friend that does some work with Contour Cameras. He mentioned he had seen some of my videos and wanted to equip me with some of the latest and greatest POV cams on the market. I gladly accepted and looked forward to seeing what these cameras could do and how they compared to my Sony XHR-MC1 POV camera. The street price of $329.95 made these a lot more user friendly than the Sony- which cost about 10 times more than one of these cameras.
A few days later I had a knock at the door from the UPS man with 3 pretty large boxes for me. I was FLOORED when I opened the boxes and saw TONS of goodies from Contour Cam. Here is what the spread looked like:
So I just finished a new blog posting about the new Profoto D1 monoblocs. I give a bit of behind the scenes info on a shoot and lots of technical lighting info. Take a look and let me know what you think!
So after some late nights of working, the first blog post for Profoto is done. This first post focused specifically on the the old vs new zoom reflector and the Softlight reflector.
This post is a very controlled side by side comparison of the lights and light shaping tools.
Wow, time flies when you are busy… Thankfully things have calmed down a bit, and life in starting to get back in order. So many things to post, so here are the highlights of the past month.
Old vs. New
So while I was at RMR filming the Genesis being built, Cole went to the swap meet in Huntington Beach and came across these gems:
Old Camera Gear
Okay- so maybe just the ones on the right… What are they you ask? Well the camera is a Kodak Vigilant Six-20. Some of the info:
“medium format camera was manufactured between 1939-1949 and originally sold for US $38 (about US $560 in 2007).”
Some more photos:
Quite a contrast from my new Canon 5D Mk II.. More on that later…
Once again- quite a contrast between that and my Sekonic L-358 meter. I have yet to try them out side by side, but from what I can see, the GE meter is still in working condition, just like the camera. Thank you Cole for such an awesome purchase… I can’t wait to load it up with 620 film and shoot some interesting pics.
OK- now for the new toy- the Canon 5D Mk II. Wow is all I can say- for so many reasons: razor sharp photos, 1080P HD video, HUGE file sizes and being able to see down to people’s pores when you take photos. It is seriously amazing… One major gripe- the old 5D battery grip does not fit this cam, and the batteries are different too. Oh well, get to drop $400 on new batteries and a battery grip- but one problem… The batteries are not available anywhere… :( I feel awkward shooting vertically with my hand twisted all around- yes, a stupid complaint, but once you are use to having the vertical grip, its hard to go without it.
Here are some shots from a recent shoot for Hyundai of the cam in action:
Here is the first video I put together using the 5D Mk II and a 70-200 2.8L- IS. Nothing special, but the video I am putting together as we speak will show some cool depth of field and crazy fisheye shots.
Speaking of new video- another piece of gear that I got to help out in the video making process.. Sony HXR-MC1
Got a chance to use it at Formula D Long Beach and testing at El Toro. WOW this thing is awesome. Full 1080 video and it records onto Memory Stick Pro cards. I will splice some of this video into the new cut as well.
Ok- time to get back to work. Hopefully I will not neglect the blog like I have been…
I can’t wait to load it up with 620 film and shoot some interesting pics.
