Those of you who follow this blog will remember that a couple of weeks ago I sold my beloved 70-200 2.8 L IS lens.  The lens that has shot the majority of my ski photos for the last few years.  I replaced it with it’s smaller and lighter brother the 70-200 f4 L IS.  Having spent a couple of weeks using it now I thought I would confirm my initial suspicions. I LOVE this lens.  As I sold my old lens I have no way of doing any direct comparisons but if that’s what you want to see then check here.

At first I just couldn’t believe how small and light this thing felt compared to my old one.  It weighs 760g compared with the 1470g of the 2.8 version but it feels even lighter and is fully half the diameter.  The difference in the weight of my pack feels considerable and everything fits inside much better now since i don’t have to carry the frustratingly large hood for the 2.8.  Below is a shot taken with this lens just yesterday in Whistler along with a 100% crop of the skier in the shot (Riley Leboe).  Just take a quick look, it holds plenty of detail.  So far no regrets, I have also picked up an 85mm 1.8 lens to fill the short tele large aperture gap that I had by selling the 2.8 and i’ll put that to the test very soon too.  For now though, this is my new favorite lens!

Well as some of you know, I am originally from the UK.  For a country that doesn’t really have any skiing of it’s own, there is a large and talented ski scene there and several great magazines.  I often shoot stories for a magazine called Fall Line and this month I have an article about summer skiing in there with the added bonus of the cover photo too of rising UK star James Woods.

This is a quick post but while the weather is bad here i’ve been working on learning some new skills.  I decided to learn how to make 360 degree sperical panoramas.  Here is a link to the first one that I tried out, click and drag with the mouse to view the room.  Created using 8 photos.  6 photos from left to right to make up 360 degrees , and then one photo straight up and one straight down.  Stitched together using a program called PTGui with a bit of time and patience…..  Shot with a Canon 5dMKII ( though the resolution if it is overkill, the full frame is important) and a Sigma 15mm fisheye.  You need to make a few modifications to your tripod setup though so the camera rotates around the lens’ nodal point (or no-parralax point depending on who you ask)

Always good to have new skills to fill in your spare time, you never know when this will come in handy.

Ok guys, you asked for it…..  I’m always getting people wandering about the gear I use so  without further delay here is part 1.  A quick video to show you my lighting kit in my Pelican 1610 case.  Below is also a list of whats in the case and some photos too. Bonus!

Whats in the bag – Part 1 – Lighting Case from Dan Carr on Vimeo.

In the case:

  • Elinchrom Ranger RX
  • Elinchrom Ranger “A” head
  • 4 x Nikon SB80DX
  • 4x Vivitar 285
  • 4X Pocketwizard Multimax
  • 4X Dual flash brackets
  • Umbrella holders, mini ballheads and other lightstand accessories
  • Many miles of cables and splitters and spares cables.
  • Gaffer tape and flash gels

One off shots in magazines are nice, but i’ts even nicer when you get a collection of shots together for an article.  Last month Fri Flyt , one of the major ski mags in Norway, ran a few of shots of mine in an article about filming in Whistler with Theory-3 media.  The article was written by a good friend of mine, Andreas Amble.  Check out his blog here.  He is also a very talented graphic designer.  Check out Theory-3s movie “The Journal” in all good ski stores or pick it up online from the website linked above.

Today Poorboyz productions released the official trailer for their new movie Everyday Is A Saturday.  With the most comprehensive list of athletes ever featured in one ski movie this is a guaranteed hit.  For the last few months I have spent a lot of time with the crew up here in British Columbia shooting rails, backcountry jumps and lines.  Let me tell you right now, this movie will be ridiculous!  Check out a few behind the scenes photos below, click for larger versions


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