re-edit of Nico Rosberg photo

I like this version much better, it was overcast on the day - in fact it had just stopped tipping down

5DmK3 with 24-105L

550D is not well today

Well after eulogising about my filming setup with the 5DmK3 and the 550D today I had a bit of a crappy time with the 550D.

I've not shot a massive amount with the camera and without checking I imagine that the shutter count is around 5000 or so.

Going around the garden shooting some video for some more practice with the 1.8 50mm and a cheapo ND filter the camera locked up and the SD card light was on all the time, I had to remove the battery and switch it all off and on again to get it working.

A quick look on the forums and it looked like a terminal shutter failure requiring an expensive Canon rebuild costing as much as the camera! - but hark wait a mo whats this..... with the kind of mental muscle flexing and cold deduction that Sherlock Holmes would be happy with I decided to not freak out and take it step by step.

Now on my 550D I use an eBay battery grip and an eBay second battery, and it looks like the unit is not reporting the battery depletion?? so out came the battery grip and the clone battery and into the charger went the original and after about 10 mins of charge to get some juice in it I gave it another go sans grip and hey presto, bob's your uncle, fanny's your aunt and so on - it seems to be working again.

hopefully that's the issue dealt with and everything will be fine if there is a bile fulled follow up or not only time will tell.

Video Time - Canon eos 550d, 5dmk3 and the Zoom H1

As the new website is being put together by my buddy Mike and I'm starting to experiment with the video side of DSLR's I thought I'd write about it and eventually post some test videos and links to the work on my website proper.

I have quickly realised that the onboard sound on the 5dmk3 the 550d and well pretty much any camera is dire, so after a bit of research I settled on the inexpensive yet highly praised Zoom H1 version 2, I have to say that is a great and intuitive little device that has great sound out of the box, combined with its ability to take an external mic and headphone monitor - I got it from amazon for £70.

The H1 takes micro SD cards and as most of you already know a decent Micro SD card on amazon comes to about £7.99 for a 16gb Samsung class 6, as far I can tell there is no real point going for the same high end cards you would use in your camera for video or stills as an audio recorder puts very little stress onto the media - recording at the highest possible WAV format on the 16gb card gives me 7.5 Hrs recording time which is fantastic.

The lavalier mic I'm using (actually I bought 2) is the Ultradisk 4033 model and they come with two spare wind covers for around £8 each and when combined with the H1 make an impressive and compact sound recording option for film makers on the move and on a budget.

Right now onto the cameras I am using a Canon 5dmk3 with the 24-105 L as the main camera with sound recording set to off, with a 32gb Sandisk class 10  extreme SD card, again I've noticed no speed issues between the SD & CF cards that some have reported on the forums and this is when shooting either Formula 1 photos or shooting 1080p HD footage.

My second camera is the Canon 550d with the nifty 50mm 1.8 lens,  the latest version of magic lantern is installed to yet another 32gb Sandisk SD card. On top of the cameras hotshot is an inexpensive ebay metal adapter that came in at £2.99 and it allows me to mount the H1 using its tripod thread.

A short (or in my case coiled) cable takes the sound from the H1's output jack into the 550d and I am able to turn all gain via magic lantern off and use the H1's preamp to boost the signal, I also like the way that I am effectively duplicating my audio file if for whatever reason either device corrupts the audio (so far no such issues) but depending on the importance of the film you are making its nice to have the peace of mind of a belt and braces approach.

Now at this point the 550d is a great little run & gun device in its own right but when you plug in one of the 4033 Ultradisk lavalier mics it becomes a formidable interview audio and video capture device.

It's worth noting that the cable on the 4033 lav is around a metre long, which is ideal for plugging into the H1 and sticking it in your pocket if your recording video blogs or review videos for YouTube etc.

I use an inexpensive extension cable again from Amazon that extends the lav cable by an extra 3.5m, this allows you to place the lav on the subject and monitor the levels on the H1 while you shoot.

Apart from the obvious tripods and a reflector to throw a bit of extra light onto your subject during the interview then that's about it for my setup. I do have a Fuji X100 that I can use as a third camera that shoots nice 720p footage but the vast majority of the stuff I have shot so far is on the DSLR's shooting at 1080p at 25fps - mostly at 100iso with a shutter speed of 50.

I also carry an ND filter kit with me to allow me to shoot with a smaller aperture.

I'll link up some Vimeo footage as soon as its ready and a link to my new website when that's done.

I'm writing this on the yet untested by me blogger app on the iPad so apologies if the formatting is wonky.

Silverstone 2013

Here are some of the photos I took at this years Formula 1 race held at Silverstone

Vintage Trouble

Vintage Trouble at the Glee Club 26/06/2013

£12.88 eBay ND filter kit

What can you get for £12.88?

Turns out quite a lot, inspired by my wonderful Haida Pro 10 stop filter I decided to have a look on ebay and see what else was available as after covering the recent World slalom canoe championship I needed something to bring my shutter speeds down in bright sunlight as I was getting silly speeds at F22 at iso50.

After a bit of searching I found this little ND 2,4,8 kit with Cokin style holder in fact you get this:
52mm 58mm 67mm 72mm 77mm Adapter Ring + ND2 ND4 ND8+Holder

I thought it was a lot of stuff for the money and would probably be rubbish optically but it was worth a punt so I placed my order – oh and the free P&P helped too

Two days later the parcel arrived and I was on first impressions very surprised with what I got, every adapter ring was well made and metal, the Cokin style filter holder was made of decent enough plastic and held the adapter rings and filter well.

I was very impressed with how the filters were presented, they are packed in a very well made and practical soft case and again inside this each of the filters are in a plastic sleeve.

Not bad huh?

So how about the optical quality?

Well I have to say they are pretty bloody good, I can't see any marks or poor performance and I will happily use them for a shoot, the three sample images have been resized and auto colour, contrast & levels in PS – What can you get for £12.88 turns out quite a lot well worth a look if your in the market for some very affordable filters that don't have to be treated with too much care because for this price they are easily replaced.
Sample shots:

I'm going slightly mad

went to a lake today and took a photo of some flowers instead?

Some of my Formula 1 Panel images that I've been working on

I know about Triptychs but what are they called when you have 5,6,7,8,9..... sections on one image?

Jenson Button

 Damon Hill

 Michael Schumacher

 Mario Andretti

 Graham Hill

 Alain Prost

Jackie Stewart

Tyretych?

The images above are for your viewing pleasure only and may not be reproduced in any form without permission from me

Penarth

I went to Penarth today to some landscape type stuff, I found it an utterly uninspiring place to go and it was windier than a fat man on a baked bean diet.

I understand that other people might love it but I just don't, the only thing I remember about the place with any fondness was the 1960's style arcade they had, but that's been knocked down to make room for apartments.

It used to have this arcade:

Yeah I know pretty, but when your a kid it was dry and you could play games

These days it's a couple of very overrated restaurants  (I've eaten in them they are O.K at best) with the usual uninterested student service indicative of the UK, a lifeboat station and a derelict pier that's being turned into yet another arts center. and what Cardiff and it's surrounding areas does need is another bloody 'arts' center.

I made this postcard to celebrate my day out:

I've not really got much more to say about it now, apart from the fact that the grass really is greener when it comes to Penarth or should that be the sea is bluer?

Here are some crap photos from my adventure:

Cardiff from the hip

Shots taken at waist level with clicking away while walking through town on a rainy day