RED Scarlet update December 09

1259645774Almost exactly a year ago I posted some information about the RED Scarlet Camera. Since that time there have been a number of “announcements” from the company but most of them have said more or less the same thing. “The cameras are delayed , but here is some more computer generated graphics of something that might possibly look like the camera when it finally arrives”. I would imagine that Jim Janard and his crew at RED have had to re-think a few elements of their designs in an attempt to combat the surprising success of Canons DSLRs in the video field.

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Snow Photos 101 – Part 3 – Introduction to flash photography

Flash photography can seem like something of a dark art to begin with. Pop-up, hot-shoe mounted, remote, fill and bounce; there are many ways a photographer can use flash to control the exposure and look of a photo. It is more complicated than ambient light photography so before you begin experimenting, make sure you have a good understanding of all the basics of exposure; shutter speed, aperture and ISO. In ski photography, flash is used in two key ways. Firstly, as a substitute for ambient light for instance shooting rails at night, or tree skiing on a cloudy day. And

Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA review.

This past Autumn I was in Mexico on holiday. I took my newly purchased Canon S90 camera with me and was having a great time snapping pics with that little thing. The quality of the shots coming out of that tiny thing was really blowing me away. I wasn’t traveling with a laptop computer so my photos remained on the camera’s memory card. Unfortunately, on the fifth day of my trip, my camera was stolen while I was in a restaurant. This was the first time I have ever lost photos and I was truly gutted, more so than I ever thought I would be. I didn’t give the camera a second thought, but all I could think about was all the photos I had just lost. When I got back home I started to look into some possible solutions to this problem in the future. Sometimes it’s just not practical to travel with a laptop, so how do you keep your photos safe?

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Snow Photos 101 – Part 2 – Which Camera and Lenses Should I get?

Continuing on with my Snow photos 101 section, by far the most common question in my in-box is “what camera or lens should i get?”. You can view the equipment that I use HERE, but this doesn’t mean that you need all of this to make some great ski or snowboard photos. Lenses A professional ski photographer will own lenses that range from a 15mm fisheye all the way up to a 300mm telephoto lens. Different shooting situations require different setups and they aren’t necessarily all carried at the same time. By far my most used lens is my 70-200mm

Snow Photos 101 – Part 1 – Exposure basics & Composition

Readers of SBC Skier in Canada this year will have seen my series of ski photography tips. I have decided to put together a new section on my blog which initially starts off with the beginner tips featured in SBC Skier and then moves on further to more advanced information for readers looking for a a little more in-depth info. Every few weeks I will add a new section to the tips until I have covered the things that most people ask me about. Hopefully by the end there will be a good collection of information for people to reference.

Record breaking start to the winter

Since the beginning of November Whistler has received 493cm of snow, and it’s still falling. This has smashed the previous record for November with 10 days still to go. Originally the mountains were due to open next weekend on the 27th but with the heavy snowfall early in the month, Whistler Blackcomb pulled out all the stops to get some lifts turning for everyone a few weeks early. Thanks for all the hard work guys! A couple of days ago I headed up the mountain with Jeff Thomas from Poorboyz, Mike Henitiuk, TJ Schiller and Riley Leboe as they begun

External monitor use with the Canon 5dMKII, 7d and 1dmkIV

This post is sort of a prelude to a review that i’ll be writing in the next couple of weeks. Recently the folks at IKAN sent me one of there v5600 to test out while I have been shooting some video with my 7d and 5d. When I started to take down some notes I realized that there are a few things to be said about using external monitors with these cameras and some of them are characteristics of the cameras and therefore independent of the type of monitor you are using. I found myself trying to figure out what

Max Hill – SBC Skier Cover

A nice surprise in my mail box this morning. I knew about this for a couple of weeks but today was the first time I have seen the finished product. This is my 8th cover but my first one in N.America so i’m really pleased with this one. Max Hill is the man on the cover and the shot was taken last April in Whistler, BC. I had the idea for this shot about 3 years ago but that year at the time we didn’t have the snow for it. Last year there was plenty in the spring time so

Winter Is Coming – How to do slow motion with the Canon 7d

I hadn’t taken the time yet to try shooting 60fps with my Canon 7d. But it started to snow heavily in Whistler village this morning and as I watched out of the window it looked like the perfect chance to try it out  I put the Canon 85mm 1.8 lens on the 7d and opened my front door to get a few shots. I had mistakenly thought that creating nice slow motion shots with the footage would just be as simple as dropping the 60fps clips into a 30fps timeline in Final Cut Pro. Actually that’s not the case though.