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Category Archives: Camera gear
Motion Picture Camera
Also posted in B&W, Cinema, New York, Summer, Travel
Tagged Museum of the Moving Image, NYC, Queens
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Proof of Concept
After seeing the Betty Goodwin: Work Notes exhibit at the AGO (over 80 of her personal work books on display, documenting her life’s work), I became inspired to start making notes of my own work for personal reference. In this example, I was attempting to capture the feeling of hot coffee in the morning. While the experiment itself is rather unexciting, the diagram of the physical space outside of the frame gives meaningful context to the complexity of the shot. I believe that it makes the photo far more interesting, especially for a personal exercise.
Toronto 2010
It was a beautiful day to spend on Toronto Island, and we found a quiet patch of beach to take some city shots from. With some gear help and advice from my buddy Brian, we set up the camera with two ND8 neutral density filters, an ND4, and a circular polarizer (on top of a UV filter, which at this point was probably unnecessary). This allowed us to take a 30 second exposure on a sunny16 type of day (that Brian has some crazy ideas). The polarizer let us see the bottom of the lake, and the long exposure smooths the waves and removes any moving vehicles. Gives an HDR type effect without the multiple exposures. As for composition, I think I got lucky with this one. Last shot of the day. The rest were rubbish.
Happy Feeling about 24-105L
(This photo was very sharp before iweb put it’s grubby hands on it, and now it’s back to being sharp with wordpress)
So as I mentioned last time, I picked up a canon EF 24-105mm F/4 L IS USM lens for my photo jobs with TIFF this year. My specific role was to be at the dinner and receptions, and as you might expect, this is in rather low light environments. You want the photos to be sharp, but you don’t want extremely shallow DOF, especially for candid group shots.
It really came down to this lens or the EF 24-70mm F/2.8 L USM, without IS. I must say that especially for these sorts of jobs, I’ve been making full use of the 24-105mm range, and I don’t know if I would have been as happy with only having 24-70mm. And while the 24-70 gives you an additional stop aperture wise, the 24-105 gives you up to three stops of shutter speed stabilization. For most of the evenings I could shoot at 1/30s @ f/5.6 for razor sharp shots, and as low as 1/8th handheld, no flash for acceptable sharpness. I won’t get into a real in depth review, because this lens has been out for a really long time, and there are numerous far better sources already. Needless to say, this is quickly becoming my favorite lens.
Photog @ TIFF 2009!
With the help of a friend of mine, I was able to score a photo gig taking pictures at the dinners and after parties during the Toronto International Film Festival. Though I won’t be able to share any of the shots – since the rights will belong to TIFF – I thought I would at least share what gear I’ll be using.
Most of the events will be indoor, and in low light situations, so I’ll be mainly shooting with my 40D, and new 24-105 F/4 L IS as an all around lens, with shoe mounted 580EX II. (not likely to be able to do much off camera stuff. Bounce bounce bounce!). I’ll bring along a fast prime (50mm f/1.4) as well, just in case. Double battery pack in the grip, and some extra batteries for the flash, along with a few flash gels to colour match the lighting.
I’m pretty excited, and a little nervous, but I know it’s going to be good fun, and some great experience.
(Shot above: Taken with Canon XTi, and old 28-105mm. 1/200s, f/5.6, ISO 400. Strobist: Canon 430EX II high camera right into umbrella @ 1/4 power)
Tagged 24-105mm, 40D, 580EXII, Camera gear, Canon, TIFF
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