Last weekend was quite a sunny one for once and watching the kitties
enjoy the heat in their own special way urged me to do a little short
about them. There's a certain amount of things I managed to get them to
do but they are really like kids, they have a short interest span and
then they go off do their thing.
I shot this
with canon 5D MkII and a 24-70mm L lens, edited with final cut pro only,
and a lot of love, a bit of magic bullet look and garageband bits and
pieces. The audio was recorded separately with a zoom recorder since the audio from the camera was way too low and not clear enough.
Oops, 'been a while since I last posted. I've had a few big changes in my life lately hence the absence of any activity on this blog for a couple of months...but during that length of time I got to use Lightroom, which for a long time I considered as a sort of very light version of photoshop and kind of unworthy of being invested in.
It's actually saving so much time on my workflow, it's unreal ! I mean it wouldn't be relevant on all my shoots but for the ones that need little work on but rather a quick selection and - very importantly - a fast way to get the same action replicated on all the pictures without having to open them all...that's just a brilliant tool. The other 2 good things about Lightroom are that you can always go back to the original picture, even after quitting the program, saving you the hassle of having X copies of one picture, and you have some funky presets that I love to play with.
Here are collages of 3 of them...helps creating a mood and unity in your selection :
These are my 6 days in the French Alps, in a nutshell...3 gorgeous days, 2 miserably rainy days where we had to take a walk and visit the Grande Chartreuse monastery to avoid boredom in the chalet, and 1 snowy day!
I took a few videos too, managed to make a montage out of it. My brother, living in the region, flew (paragliding..) twice during that week. I wanted to mount my action camera on his ankle to get another angle of the flight but unfortunately it was out of battery, didn't have the spare one so I guess that's just going to be a static view from the ground :-( I played with a few Magic Bullet filters on this one...hope you like it and hope you like the song too (that was a birthday present from my bro, fab cover, one of those that are "better than the real thing" :-)
Armed with my trials and failures with the "heavy" G11 and its unsuitable partnership with the Hama bikepod, I was quite hopeful to see a good marriage in the Q3 and the Bikepod.
The Q3 is light and upright, its new HD version is actually slimmer and lighter than the regular Q3, and its video quality isn't bad for a piece of equipment that is marketed as an audio recorder before anything.
Strangely enough the HD video with sound took less space on the 2gb card than the 640X480 format of the G11...I managed to get around 10min more ! that's not a good sign, is it ?
I leave you the surprise of the picture quality while cycling with the sample footage below but just on the general shooting quality of the Q3, though I was impressed with the sharpness of the images (and the auto focus when a close object came within range), it really fails to estimate the right exposure even in basic situations like the one I shot, which was just a very sunny morning. It underexposed the whole scene by at least 1 stop, 3 towards the end when I was in shade. Since it did tilt toward the sky with the shocks on the handlebar, that's probably where it started to get the exposure based on the top part of the video.
The lens is approx 50mm (I actually found no documents or anything to confirm this, which is mad, all it says is that you have a digital zoom and the aperture is 2.8 which is pretty cool btw) and so I was quite disappointed not to have a wider lens that would be allow me to show the whole scene.
Anyway, I've been waiting about a week before posting this because I was quite gutted that Plan 2 didn't work either.
I guess like Lorna commented in the other post, the best option is to get a liptick cam on a helmet and forget about the video / photo option combo.
For a long time now I've been wanting to do a video of some of my cycling journeys. The road is full of unexpected encounters, happenings and intriguing behaviours !
Despite having spent lots of time capturing Talbot street's best and worst of Dublin inhabitants (in a black and white 35mm series) and Grafton street (in medium format and with fully aware and consenting victims), I've never considered to have the spirit of a true street photographer like these guys or this one. I guess I care too much about people's feelings...
There's something about a street video - though - that makes the exercise more appealing to me, as the maker. We get to see the lines of motions, how they cross each other, how the city is living.
Anyway, I naively thought my first post on my experience of bike video would go beyond the technicality of the recording to observe the street life ... and it's time for me to go back to earth and just document the experimentation phase first.
So here we go, in a nutshell, a review of Hama bikepod, video recording with Canon G11,and the state of Dublin Roads (especially after the heavy snows) ...
When I found out that Hama had released a bike mount for cameras for less than 20€, I jumped on the opportunity without thinking twice. Reviews were good, though not extensively demonstrated... Well, I had acquired a G11 that is pretty small, my Giant mountain bike is quite a standard one so it was all planned to fit in fine !
Needless to say I was already looking forward to the fun videos I could start making while cycling and the great shots I'll get too but my naive expectations were quickly forced to land back to earth when I did some quick fitting tests. Turns out the combination of the G11, the Hama mount, my handlebar (same sleek metal as on the picture above...) AND the war-like state of the roads make it all just the wrong mixture : The G11 seems to be too heavy for the mount, should I ride my bike on any surface that anything but smooth, whether I put a damp sponge between the mount and the handlebar for extra grip or not.
I started recording a vid from Charlestown to Dublin (my 2GB card only lasted until Glasnevin !) on one typical overcast morning, that was quite an ordeal...
Vibrations from the rough road surface on the handlebar made the camera point down slowly but steady... worst but less sneaky, the many unavoidable potholes and manholes made the camera behave like a gentle flower under an extreme sun ... Poooff ! Pointing down at the wheel...
Have a look at the first few minutes...that's my treat !
So there's no way I can use Hama Bikepod safely without turning it into a real custom made or DIY project ! By the way...the video quality of Canon G11...not that impressive either, especially the auto exposure.
Coming soon...a plan to make this work and a test with the Zoom Q3 (HD yeay!) ... and in the meantime all suggestions are open, especially regarding what type of fabric or "thing" to use between the handlebar and the mount. Right now I'm thinking velcro on handlebar &mount, poor bike ! Tks for reading.
