Time and Light

High School Musical

2012-01-23T21:24:00.001-07:00

Another year, another musical. This time, The Music Man. Hadn't seen it before and it was a hoot! The kids did great.

Still loving the Nikon D700 even though its a 5 year old design. Coupled with the Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8D, capturing performances is a dream.

And I challenged myself to use Manual mode for the entire show. It worked well for me. It is about the same as using exposure compensation in Aperture Priority mode, possibly a little easier. I expect AP mode might bet better in cases where the light is very localized and differs from one part of the stage to another and your subjects are moving a lot. I wonder how this will translate when shooting the dance competitions coming up...

Gingerbread

2012-01-16T22:20:00.001-07:00

EV's gingerbread house rose to a new level of sophistication this year. I'll let the photo speak for itself. To view larger, click the image.

52 Photos Project

2012-01-10T21:08:00.001-07:00

My resolution for 2012: A photo a week. Here is entry number one--a macro shot of EV's little algae eating friend, Simon:

I don't really have a macro lens. This was taken with the thrifty fifty f/1.8 and a set of $20 macro extension tubes. You have to set the aperture on the lens, no autofocus, manual exposure, etc. This is old school. I've found that with moving subjects like this, the secret is to set the focus and then move the camera closer/farther away to get the subject in focus..

Video Review: Golden Age Projects R1 Mark III Active Ribbon Mic

2012-01-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

Another quick video, this time a review of my new ribbon mic featuring a recording of DD on violin!

Video Lighting: Post Processing

2011-12-11T22:32:00.001-07:00

To learn how to do this better, I made the following for my enthusiastic and kind YouTube friends:

The Hiatus: A Creative Learning Time

2011-11-28T21:40:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted much here lately. Or on the social sites, for that matter. The primary reason is that I've been quite focused on learning DSLR film-making and all the things that go into that. Since July, I've been focused on a short film that stars EV (with appearances of DD and me as well, of course). So that means I've been learning skills in four main areas: Story writing, camera operation, film editing, and audio production. And while I have a lot of space to learn in each of these realms, I think the time is right to start recording, publicly, some of what I've learned and my ongoing explorations.

Story Writing: This is probably the most challenging of the four for me and the one where I've spent the least amount of time so far. But EV and I came up with a very simple story for our first short film and created a story board. The value of a story board became very evident while planning things out. It provided help in punctuating our shooting schedules, which is quite important when the main in your film is a first-time actress and has a somewhat limited attention span (though, still impressive for a 10 year old). It also helps quite a lot when it comes to scoring the music--you can describe the feel or mood of each scene in a short word or phrase to your musicians, in this case DD and EV. This helps them to find or create material much more easily and so far I'm very happy with the results.

Camera Operation: First, I used a Canon 60D to capture all of the footage for this short. I also used the Magic Lantern firmware to optimize the camera for filming and used the Technicolor Cinestyle picture style to ensure we captured the most possible color and detail. More on these geeky details in later posts, but there's been a lot to learn in this realm, to say the least. This demands a whole new set of skills on top of exposure and composition that I was fortunately able to use from my photography experience. When you're taking 24 photos per second, the game changes pretty significantly. For example, camera support is hugely important, especially since a DSLR is not very ergonomic in terms of shooting video.

Film Editing: Cutting the clips together has proven fun and mostly intuitive. But color correction, color grading, and workflow are areas where I've learned a ton, and have a whole lot more to learn. I'm working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. These applications are incredibly deep and on top of that, seem to have a significant number of quirks. The main thing I've tripped over and am still working to figure out is the order of things. I assume that cutting the clips together is first in line. Then color correction. But this is where things start to get a little more complicated when moving between Premiere and After Effects. Should I use the dynamic linking on a clip by clip basis? When I attempted that, Premiere started to get very confused and started swapping one clip for another with no rhyme or reason that I could figure. So I settled on importing the entire Premiere project (which is a single sequence) into After Effects. But then once I finished my color work, I'm still not sure how others take that back into Premiere to add the score and do the final rendering/exporting. So I just brought the After Effects composition back into the same sequence in Premiere and put it on a new video track above the original cut. That doesn't seem like the best way to do things so I still need some input on that from someone that's done this before. Amazingly, I haven't seen much written or said about that topic on the Internets.

Audio Production: Wow. This happens to be another hobby that I've dabbled with previously and this is a whole 'nother realm to explore and learn. And it goes without saying that doing this well is demanding both in terms of the skill of the engineer, but also somewhat gear intensive if one hopes for high production value. Fortunately, I have a decent shotgun microphone and non-portable preamp/audio interface for working here at home. So on top of all the other learning, I've also been spending a LOT of time on recording the dialogue and especially the music for the film. I'm reasonably happy with the results when I consider that many people make careers of just this one aspect of film production.

So here's the first in a series of posts to come. It is a bit of a departure from pure still photography but I suppose that sort of thing happens when explores a creative interest.

More Color

2011-10-03T21:32:00.000-06:00

From the little trip up the canyon last Friday, I also saw this.

Aspens and Timing

2011-10-02T19:42:00.000-06:00

Took the long way home from work in hopes of photographing some of the colors in Big Cottonwood Canyon and it seems I timed it just about perfectly. The maples are starting to fade but the aspens are at their peak.

Bryce Canyon Sunset

2011-08-24T21:46:00.000-06:00

It's been a long while, friends. It has been an eventful, very fun summer. And I've also been working on film making. EV and I are making a short film that we can hopefully finish before too many more weeks.

One of the events that's kept me away from the blog is a trip to Bryce Canyon. And the park did not disappoint--one of our best little vacations, ever.

Just Fledged

2011-06-18T16:31:00.000-06:00

The birdhouse on the garage attracted a bluebird couple earlier this spring and the chicks (is that what you call a baby bluebird?) fledged this morning. EV sighted it first and then named this one "Peachy". Me: "Why Peachy?" EV: "Because its cute!"

Cake Decorating

2011-06-17T22:24:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty amazed that a 10 year old decorated her cake like this for her birthday. The unicorn was purchased, she made most of the other decorations with marzipan.

Wildflowers at Sunset

2011-06-15T23:14:00.001-06:00

DD suggested I take a shot of this evening's sunset so I ran into the house, grabbed the rig, and set it in front of a patch of pink wildflowers. Here's the result, one horizontal, one vertical. Still trying to decide which works better. I should have tried one in a square format...

Tonight, While Taking Out the Trash

2011-06-10T22:13:00.000-06:00

We have a red-tailed hawk nesting in one of the trees near our home and while taking out the trash this evening, it soared in the evening breeze. The new Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 did a nice job.

The Final Promo Video

2011-06-04T22:26:00.000-06:00

It seemed like we had to tweak for a long time to get this just right--when you're aiming for a specific outcome (i.e., book Cary), you put in plenty of time thinking various angles. Hopefully we didn't over-think it. So without further ado, here is the final promo video:

Winter Into Spring

2011-05-08T21:49:00.001-06:00

When we made the trip down to the Salt Lake Valley yesterday to look for aquarium gear, we were feeling confident that summer was pretty much here. This after about two weeks of spring. But up here in the mountains, we're still seeing a little bit of winter as if it is trying dearly to keep its hold on us.

Somehow this shot embodied the seemingly ongoing struggle between the seasons.

Spring at 6000 Feet. Finally.

2011-05-06T22:10:00.000-06:00

Sunset this evening had some nice color, contrasty but somehow diffused light, and no wind. Lovely combo.

Ceili at the Roundhouse

2011-03-29T22:18:00.000-06:00

For those that don't know (I didn't before DD educated me) a Ceili is a traditional Irish music and dance party. I had the honor of helping with sound and photography at the recent Ceili at the Roundhouse in Evanston, Wyoming a few weeks ago. When I wasn't running mic stands, mics, cables, etc. between two different stages, I pulled out the camera and captured some shots of the performers.

The evening shows on Friday and Saturday included some big names in the "traditional music" world like Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, Vassen, and De Dannan. Fascinating to get to meet each of them and work up close, especially during sound checks. So glad to be a part of the crew!

EV's First Multi-track Recording

2011-03-26T21:14:00.005-06:00

EV and I are working on a short film and as part of that, we put together the little piano/drums vignette. This was her first shot at multi-track recording and she was quite delighted with the results after she gave it a go.

Manila HDR Vertorama

2011-03-21T22:57:00.002-06:00

I heard Trey Ratcliffe say something interesting the other day in regard to HDR image processing: If you're using Photomatix, convert your source images to JPG using Lightroom otherwise Photomatix will do the conversion and do it badly. So this is my first try with his suggestion...Hmmm. I'm not seeing a huge difference yet.

Manila Streetscape 1

2011-03-19T21:19:00.000-06:00

And while we had the camera on the tripod, we aimed it down 26 floors to the moving lights below:

50mm, f/11, 30 seconds, ISO 100

Manila Skyline 2

2011-03-17T22:10:00.001-06:00

This time a panorama of the Manila Skyline at sunset. No HDR trickery this time, just good solid long exposure. Click to see the larger version.

Manila Skyline 1

2011-03-16T21:46:00.001-06:00

Recently made a trip to the Philippines for work and took along the Canon 60D with the 50mm and 20mm Nikkor lens. My hotel room happened to be on the 26th floor which provided a pretty decent view of Makati in Manila, the financial district. I did not get a lot of time to get out and photograph so I took advantage of the little time I did have in the evenings. HDR panorama shot is forthcoming. Here's a single frame, long exposure to kick things off:

20mm, f/8, 30 seconds, ISO 100

When shooting through glass like this, I just had to make sure I had all of the lights off in the room to ensure we didn't get any reflections on the glass.

Snowboarding Video

2011-02-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Did the annual trek to the Canyons to capture video of the Guest boys huckin' themselves off the jumps. Lots of lessons learned and I really need to get my skiing skills in line so that I can ski along side them. Working on that...

What it Looks Like from the Top of an Olympic Alpine Ski Jump

2011-02-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Went with little E on her class field trip to Utah Olympic park which was the venue for sledding and ski jumping back in the 2002 winter Olympics. They've made a pretty impressive museum to complement the bobsled track and ski jumps. And while the sledding is super impressive to watch (sort of a blur and rumble races by...) the thing that struck me most was the view from the top of the alpine ski jump.

Alpine ski jumping are the jumps where the athletes attempt to jump as far as possible vs. freestyle jumping where they pull off as many acrobatics as possible before landing. According to our docent, alpine ski jumping is the second safest winter Olympic sport right behind curling. Evidently the jumpers are never more than about 10 feet off the ground. Regardless, the view from the top of the jump was pretty intimidating.

Back to the Landscape

2011-02-20T21:23:00.001-07:00

I've been having a blast with learning video. Things are coming along little by little with the new Canon 60D and post production.

I've learned, however, that the Nikon D700 is still the clear winner when it comes to still images. I'm consistently struck by the additional texture that the full frame sensor provides, even when it trails the Canon 60D by 6 megapixels.

Here are a a couple of side by side shots to illustrate. I'm not really equipped, in terms of lenses, to produce the exact same image with both but notice the difference in detail and apparent clarity:

Nikon D700, 20mm, f/16

Canon 60D, 50mm, f/8

Of course you'll need to click through to see them in detail.

And technicalities aside, the landscape has been pretty stunning lately with the fresh snow.