A View From Above
After hearing an interview with the CEO of Sekonic/PocketWizard on the Lightsphere podcast, I realized my PocketWizards had a lot more potential & uses than what I had earlier known, and got inspired to try some different techniques.
PocketWizards were originally created to trigger lights (studio-flashes) in basketball arenas in the United States, and this was also the limit of my knowledge of the PocketWizards untill I heard this interview. So, the revelation was you can also use the PWs to trigger remote cameras! All you need to do is buy a specific cable which connects the PW to your camera T3 socket.
By doing this you can set off a remote camera through a PW transmitter on top of your manually operated camera. When you click the shutter on the transmitting camera and the other camera will also go off.
So that’s all good, but how is this relevant to anything I do? Well, my inspiration came from Vincent Laforet’s blog who wrote a blog on remote camera use in the Beijing Olympics (I can’t find the post, it might have been on his old Newsweek blog). At the Olympics Vincent, and many of the other photographers, rely heavily on remote cameras to capture shots a manually operated camera cannot. Heinz Kleutmeier of Sports Illustrated put remote cameras in the bottom of the swimmingpool for Michael Phelps’ final gold-medal victory. (read the story here)
Coming up to this year’s Colour Conference and Album recording I thought of shots that would be interesting to get. Shots that had not yet been done. I started talking to the TV and marketing departments about mounting a remote camera on the 10 meter TV crane.
The goal was actually to test this setup during Colour Conference, to then use it at the album recording. The tests went well, but unfortunately the camera mount came loose towards the end of the album rehearsal, it made the video footage wobbly and we had to pull the plug on it.
It was a shame, but ultimately the video footage was more important, and we con afford to compromise the video footage. BUT, I got a better mount for the camera for the opening night of the Colour Conference the next night and got the results we wanted.
It was a lot of fun and hopefully this has inspired you to use your PWs in different ways.
Lastly, I want to thank Sebastian Heck and Magdalene Phillips for allowing me to “play” with the crane, and also to Dave Hunkeler for being flexible in operating the crane with the extra weight added to the head.
Technical info:
Due to the lack of remote controls I set the remote camera (a 5D MkII) to Manual mode and decided on a shutter speed that would handle the sweeing crane movement (I think around 1/100th), a low aperture (f2.8) and about ISO3200. The lens I used was a Canon 15mm fisheye. Thanks to Parrish Shah for trusting me with his lens:)
Enjoy some of the setup shots and results below:
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- Opening Item 1
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- Opening Item 2
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- Praise & Worship
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- Bobbie Houston
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- Snapping away
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- Sydney Entertainment Centre from above
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- Dave H operating the crane
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- 5D MkII mounted on crane
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- Ready for action
2009 Travel Schedule
Alyssa (my wife) and I are going to be overseas for parts of 2009 traveling Europe, Africa and a short trip to New York. We will be spending most of our time in Norway, catching up with some quality time with my family and enjoying some of the late European summer.
The dates we will be away are as following:
May 12th - 22nd - Ethiopia
July 15th - October 18th - Europe and USA
We are also excited to announce we have booked a number of overseas weddings during this time, with one in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia in May, and another two in Zurich, Switzerland and New York in July which we are very much looking forward to. You are sure to find more information on these weddings on this blog as things progress.
We have reasonable rates for both interstate and international weddings, and are happy to travel anywhere in the world.
Please contact us for more information about your wedding, whether locally in Australia, or international.
We will not be taking any more bookings for weddings in Australia from July through October this year, but we still have some weekends available in June as well as November and December, but you need to get in quick.
On the other hand, if you are (or are considering) getting married somewhere in Europe or the States in August, September or October this year, let us know by sending us an email, and we will be happy to be part of your wedding day!
(PS! If your wedding is planned while we are away, we will be happy to refer you to someone who we trust to give you a great experience and great quality work! so give us a call on 0406 009 775 or send us an email)
Live Album Recording 2009
This weekend was Part 3 of this year’s Hillsong Live Album Recording, hosted in the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
It was a great night and people were turned away at the doors in hundreds as it filled up quickly!
You can pre-order the CD & DVD here. More photos will come after the release..
Colour Conference 2009
I’ve just got home from a long week at the Sydney Entertainment Center where I photographed this years Colour Conference.
There were two conferences this year, the first one from Thursday till Saturday, and the other from Monday till Wednesday, and in between (on Sunday) was the 2009 live album recording.
Needless to say, it’s been a very busy week for the many people behind the scenes, and I’ve got about 8,500 photos to sort through over the next few weeks.. !!