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Wet walk with the 7D at my favorite lake where i spent most of my summer days as a child. Inspired by a great week and fink in my headphones. This is a personal peace of (he)artwork, hope you like it!
Music: Fink – Perfect Darkness (finkworld.co.uk)

Filmed with Canon EOS 7D (i wish i had brought my 5DmkIII that day with its amazing low light capability!) the 50mm/1.4, 24-70/4.0, 85/1.8 and 70-200/2.8 II. Had a very small lightweight slider with me i ordered at igus.de, and a little manfrotto tripod. Edited in Final Cut Pro 7 (yes i still don´t uses FCPx) color graded with 3 way cc, nothing else (didn´t have magic bullet installed on that machine). The light leaks (i know, it´s almost too much, but i totally fell in love with the way they connect the music and the pictures here) are downloaded from Jesse Rosten´s Blog, also made some on my own the way he describes it. Nice idea, just take the lens off the camera and start lightpainting with LED on your sensor.

Screenshots:

I am lucky enough to have the C300 in my hands for some days. First met this fantastic camera in Berlin when it was presented in Europe. Now i finally got the chance to do some shots. As long as we are on the road with that fantastic baby here are some screengrabs in high res, so you can at least see what comes out of the C300. These were shot on a dogwalk, very low light but as you can see, the pictures are incredibly flat and detailled. As soon as i bring it back next week i will also post some raw footage out of camera, in case you need some stuff to try out color corrections on your own. (Note that the last picture (bottom left) is shot at 12.800 ISO. In high res this looks more like film grain, not what we know from high ISO.)

Download the screen grabs in HIGH RES (3MB)

I had the upcoming Canon G1X for 3 days in my bag, trying to find the time to test this promising piece of gear, coming up by the end of febuary. Canon says this is a “compact camera for the pro”. And honestly, I totally agree!

What i really wanted to have when i was on bali last december was a compact camera, at least almost as good as a DSLR. Who doesn´t :) The Canon G12 was a good choice for pros and motivated amateurs in the past. But the G1X offers even more. Big sensor (1,5″) high ISO (12.800, and still looking quite good at 6.400) speeeeed (6fps) and 14 bit RAW. Just to list some of the great features i found amazing on a compact camera.

Canon G1x Demo in jpg mode, Ray Flash Ring Adapter on 580EXII

Canon G1x RAW mode, edited in Lightroom 4

Canon G1x RAW mode, edited in Lightroom 4

Shot at Canon Raodshow 2012 with Profoto – Canon G1x RAW mode, edited in Lightroom 4

Shot at Canon Raodshow 2012 with Profoto – Canon G1x RAW mode, edited in Lightroom 4

Canon Powershot G1 X specification highlights

» 14MP 1.5″ CMOS sensor (18.7 x 14mm)
» 28-112mm F2.8-5.8 lens
» Optical viewfinder
» ISO 100-12,800
» 3.0″, 920,000 dot swivelling LCD
» Extensive manual control
» 14-bit Raw shooting
» 4.5fps continuous shooting (up to 6 frames)
» 6.8Wh NB-10L battery rated at 250 shots (CIPA standard)
» HDR mode & ND filter

I didn´t want to write another detailled tech review here, i just wanted to give you an overview. And, to keep it short, let me say – you will love it. As i already mentioned, this is a compact camera for the pro, exactly what Canon wanted it to be. I definitely will have this in my bag from now on, as it will give me much much more possibilities to shoot stuff on the way i missed in the past. If you need to have all the details and comparisons, there are a lot of detailled tech reviews online, f.e. this one, including comparisons with the G12 and Panasonic Lumix DMC – http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canong1x.

Flash is some kind of monster to most aspiring photographers and beginners. For some it is more frustrating than doing a tax declaration, visiting the dentist or having a discussion with your girlfriend about how “you spend too much money on camera stuff”. There is so much to know, the technical stuff, the maths – it´s easy to get lost in this chapter of photography. Nevertheless, it is one VERY important section if you really want to be a photographer. It is LIGHT. And photography is WORKING with light. So, if you are one of those people that say “I love available light, I love ambient light, I don´t really need flashlight”, here´s the first step for you: Be honest and stop lying to yourself!

I was once a liar too. I tried working with flashlight, failed, then put it aside. Tried again, failed, and put it aside again. And every time I told myself (and everybody else that didn´t want to hear it) “I love available light … blah blah blah …” I did this until these words smacked me in the face (and thank god they also hit my brain too):

“The only reason you are afraid of flashlight, is because you are afraid of flashlight”.

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As i hear more and more questions about post processing, colors, and how to do it in Lightroom – which by the way is a fantastic, powerful tool – i decided to bring up my own Lightroom-Preset-Post. I will update this set from time to time and bring up new styles from my libary to make this collection grow.

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A photographic documentary by Tasha Bowens.

My friend Tasha Bowens is about to start a very ambitious documentary project on her own. Well, not ALL on her own, she really could need our help. And helping is really easy for you. Here´s the project:

Photo credit to Hugues Anhes

The Color of Food tells the stories of our Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous farmers and the history, fight for survival and beautiful culture that makes up our agriculture.
While revealing the intersection of race and food through the personal stories of farmers of color, this project will also explore the agricultural history and traditional food and farming knowledge passed down within in each community. This photo documentary will also address the movement for food sovereignty and issues with land loss which we see taking place globally today.

These stories and images will be captured with lens and pen, and published in a photo-essay book, posted via photo/video blog, and exhibited at food justice and food sovereignty events around the USA. The documentary will live on and enhance the network within the COLOR of FOOD directory – the global map and directory of farmers of color.

Now, what can YOU do?
READ THE WHOLE STORY AND LET´S MAKE THIS HAPPEN!!!
Spread the word!

Words you can find everywhere on the internet: DSLR cameras changed the way we shoot (and similar descriptions). It also changed the needs of course. What if you want to do some smooth and easy slider/dolly shots. You can choose between small sliders, or good old big fat dollys. What was missing for a long time is a slider/dolly solution perfectly fitting the size of DSLRs. The Good Dolly is a great tool for DSLR as it is not too heavy and big, you don´t need a lot of time (and people) for transport and setup, but it´s big and heavy enough to do really smooth dolly shots. Some first test shots:

And here comes the best thing about it. Not only is it a great slider, it´s also a fantastic table dolly. You can use it on the floor or on a table and set up the curve radius with a laserpointer. Here´s a short clip out of camera (no editing) i did for health center.

Keep an eye at www.thegooddolly.com, it should be ready for sale quite soon!

I´m about to bring my cameras, above all my Canon 5DmkII up there to shoot some videostuff. I think this is the most nerdy project i´ve ever started :-) A RC mikrokopter with RC remote head, GPS, videodownlink, all buildt by myself. It also took me about a year on a RC simulator to be able to fly a helicopter. Who wants to hang a 5DmkII on some RC helicopter not knowing if it will come down… well of course it will come down again, but it should do this in one piece.
However, this project is coming to an end quite soon, and i couldn´t wait any longer to show you at least something … more to come!

very first shots…

Spring is coming slowly and energy is coming back to my body and mind. Finally :-) There´s nothing more important in times like this winter (at least my winter) then finding new inspiration somewhere around the web. And from time to time you find some piece of work that really does inspire you exactly where it should. Sometimes this is a high-end-budget big fat movie, sometimes it´s just a little clip or a nice idea. Today for me it was a short by Paul Joy and Peter Naylor i found on the web. Nice story, and what i really love is the camera work here. Thought i´d post it today, maybe some of you find this inspiring to. For me i would love to grab my camera today, go out and shoot a whole short after watching this. Too bad it´s editing time right now ;-)