I finally decided to upgrade my one year old MacBook Pro. I replaced SuperDrive for anothe disk. I ordered OptiBay from USA. For 200€ (99$ unit, 70$ shipping, 60€ customs) they send you an adapter for the disk that you put inside the Mac in place of SuperDrive which you can put in a external USB enclosure.
Package contained disk adapter, screwdriver, USB cables, USB enclosure and CD with manual
Last Thursday (May 27th) I finally started to get equipment for my big DSLR test. First I got D3s in D300s bodies with AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED, AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G, AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4D IF and AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lenses from Nikon Slovenia.
First batch of cameras (bottom right is Canon 550D with 50mm f/1.4, that I got from Foto Format) - iPhone (edited with Pro HDR, CrossProcess)
I knew that there will be to little time during the weekend so I went location scouting in the afternoon. I still had an idea about a poppy filed so I followed directions from my friend Nataša to the nearby field. There were a lot of poppies but the surroundings were horrid. Small village on one end and billboards on the other. This was clashing with my idea of a lost lonely girl in the nature.
Poppy field I (©2010 Peter Prevec)
Poppy field II (©2010 Peter Prevec)
I finally managed to get four Canon and two Nikon DSLR bodies for this weekend so I can compare their video capabilities as I mentioned here and I build a special video head adapter for this occasion that can carry six bodies at the same time.
I planned to get Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, 5D Mark II, 7D, 550D and Nikon D3s, D300s. I need also 50mm f/1.4 for every camera to test them all with the same lenses but I am still one short for Canon, so if you know someone that can lend me one please let me know, or else I will use f/1.8 for one body.
My friend Maja will be my model for the test and we went to do some preliminary photography tests searching for poppy fields in Slovenia. I heard there are poppy fileds at Mengeš fields, but the poppies were scarce. We finally find them hiding in a wheat field and we did the first shooting.
Lovely Maja in the poppy field (©2010 Peter Prevec)
I used Nikon SB-800 through umbrella for the lighting (©2010 Peter Prevec)
The wait is over. In the early hours of this day Canon released firmware update 2.0.3 for Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which enables recording at 25 fps, as it was until now the only Canon camera that didn’t have this option. Included in this update is also a function for manually adjusting the sound recording level, a histogram display for shooting movies in manual exposure and changes the audio sampling frequency from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz.
Shooting with less than 30 fps was the most wanted function since they introduced the camera and the wanting became even stronger as the introduced other models of camera bodies (1D Mark IV, 7D, 550D) that had this function. The loudest proponent for 24p and 25p was definitely Stu Maschwitz on its blog ProLost. There was a lot of blog posts this morning about the upgrade and there is an explosion of cats and dogs test videos on Vimeo recorded with the new firmware. Philip Blooms blog has some more serious movies as he had the firmware in his hands for quite some weeks.
What does this upgrade changes for me? Nothing directly or better, nothing at the moment. It is true that I am preparing for the large test of different DSLR cameras. I planned to record with Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 7D, Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon D550, Nikon D3s, Nikon D300s, Nikon D90 and Panasonic G1 at the same time and have made a special rig that has the option of holding five camera bodies at the same time.
First package
Finally I got the new iPhone 3GS. New for me that is, because the model it self is 7 months old. Anyway. New toy for me. The old one died of heavy use. I had a hard time buying it it because I had to got to Trieste to get it. And because the stores are not open on Mondays in Trieste. And because I found out about it on Tuesday. You still can’t get iPhone in Slovenia. But let us leave the shopping for a moment (If you see me on the street stop me and I will tell you all about it) and lets focus on the new functions of the iPhone 3GS.
iPhone 3GS, finally in my hands
This is my third video in Streets at Night series. I got Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and lenses EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM from photographer Samo Vidic. I shoot the clips the same as before (Streets at Night I – Canon EOS-5D Mark II, Streets at Night II – Nikon D3s). I edited in h.264 sequence as is the native codec of the camera. I converted the files to ProRes with export to Color. I wanted to make orange snow white. Color orange came from the street lights even though I set the white balance to 2500 K. When I color corrected the shots to make the snow white I probably made the noise more visible as this is the noisiest of the movies. Nikon has also the advantage of better looking digital noise.
Canon EOS-5D Mark II has the least noise so far, but I also didn’t do much color correction then. I wanted to see the settings I used then because Canon writes on the card besides the video file small thumbnail which is actually a .jpeg file with EXIF info. But unfortunately there is no info about ISO setting or white balance, but at least I found out about which lenses and apertures I used. It would be nice to have the same information with Nikon video mode.
Unprocessed frames from the clips look like this (click on the image if you want to see it at full resolution).
Canon EOS-5D Mark II, ISO and exposure automatic, 50mm lens, which is strange as I only had EF85mm f/1.8 USM, EF16-35mm f/2.8L USM and EF15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
Nikon D3s, 24-70mm f/2.8, shutter 1/50s, WB 2500 K
Canon-EOS-1D-Mark-IV, 24-70mm f/2.8 at 46mm, f/2.8, ISO 6400, shutter 1/50s, WB 2500 K.
Last thursday (Jan 7th) I got a loaner Nikon D3s with 14-24mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8 lenses from Nikon Slovenia. I wanted to check if it fits into our workflow at work (Baza Media 2.1) using Sony EX1 cameras for recording Red Bull events, so I took it with me to Beograd at Red Bull Street Style. But before the real test I wanted to repeat the story from a year ago when I got a loaner Canon EOS 5D mark II.
Nikon D3s, 14-24mm f/2.8, 24-70 f/2.8, 80-200mm f/2.8
One week after the whole world Slovenia finally got its first shipment on Apple’s new Magic Mouse. Kind employees at E.P.L. have renounced theirs so I got one with the first batch.
Magic Mouse came in big brown box… What?!? No Apple design? No, no. Don’t be afraid. This was just a transport box inside which was the real packaging for the shelves.
Big brown transport box
Yesterday afternoon (Sept 4th) not much before 4pm I finally received a call from my distributer that my version of the new Final Cut Studio has arrived. Because the clock already chimed the end of work, we decided that I pick my copy at his home. After I got the DVDs I immediately departed for Linz to attend Ars Electronica. I wanted to get there as soon as I could so that I could catch some of friday night events. Unfortunately there was heavy traffic on the road and so it happened that we stopped on the highway on a red traffic light in front of Tauern and Katschberg tunnels. That is why I decided that I take the mandatory product photos in the middle of a traffic jam. Luckily I had lots of equipment with me as I want to record a lot of video material at the festival.
Before I found out that I am standing in front of a red light (©2009 Peter Prevec)
Taking pictures while driving... if you believe! (©2009 Peter Prevec)
There was no end! (©2009 Peter Prevec)
I finally got it! DVD with a new version of Mac OS X. 10.6 Snow Leopard. And that before America woke up. he, he
Next week I am going again on a trip to ex Yugoslavia shooting for Red Bull. From Monday (July 6) to Wednesday (July 8) I will be in Mostar (BiH) and from Thursday (July 9) to Sunday (July 12) in Dubrovnik (CRO). Our equipement at Baza Media 2.1 incorporates two Sony PMW-EX1 and Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which means that I won’t be needing my HV20 w/ SGPro adapter. But I decided that I reduce my configuration so it would fit to instead of big Pelican brief into small photographic backpack so I can take it with me anyway and shoot something for the blog if I found some free time.
HV20 w/ SGPro minimal configuration (click on the photo and look at the flickr notes for more info))
After nearly five years I was again in the Apple Store on Regent Street in London.
Apple Store Grand Opening
I was there for the first time at the grand opening 20th November 2004. The first Apple store in Europe. I arrived at Oxford Circus in London on Friday evening around 10pm and got in line as number 178. We immediately became friends with the boys from the surrounding, and later trusted one another to the extent that we looked after each others equipment when someone had to use a toilet. The night was cold and long. Sidewalk was freezing. In the morning the last hours passed slowly. Shortly before 10am employees of the nearby Starbucks served us with coffee that Apple kindly ordered for us. Than Apple staff started to came cheering and encouraging us when they walked past us towards the entrance. At 10am they opened the doors, let us inside, where they cheered us some more. Again, we got in a queue, because the first few hundred were eligible to a Lucky Bag, a black bag whose contents were unknown. It cost £ 250, but its contents were in excess of 500 pounds.
From September 26 it is possible to translate between 35 languages including Slovenian at Google Language Tools. Our turn on localization of big companies services has finally come.
But this is not the only news (if I can say it is news regarding the date) that surprised me yesterday (Nov 28). For quite some time I am pissed that Slovenia is not supported enough on Google Maps. Especially on the iPhone. You can see streets on the map, but if you try to search for the same street, you don’t get any results. Driving directions also didn’t work. And then they updated the firmware to 2.2 One of the enhancements to maps was display address of dropped Pins. So I said to try it out.
On Monday (Nov 17) I finally got my Glidetrack from England Scotland. Lightweight camera track/dolly system. I ordered it the week before and soon after complications with shipping a 2,5kg package to Eastern Europe were over, it was on its way. They had stated shipping costs to USA and Europe as £26, but soon after my order was placed, they told me, that they got a message from postal service that shipping to Slovenia will cost them £120. After short search for other options they found new service for £48, that is £22 more than I already paid for, and that they want to meet me half way. So only £11 extra. I am very grateful to the team at Glidetrack.
Glidetrack w/ videohead Manfrotto 503
I wandered a litte, how to test the system. I can’t shoot anything at home ’cause I have all my equipment at work. And so it came. We had to do a piece on Damjan Kozole, film director, for Dnevnik. We had decided to put some more effort in recording the piece, ’cause he is from the world of film.
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