I was visiting my relatives in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, at the beginning of the month. They had rented a beautiful mountain house there. The nature was beautiful, weather was wild. Clouds were flying over the sky, disappearing and reappearing. Nockberge national park inspired me early morning, when I did my first time-lapse from the balcony. Morning mist and sun rays lighting the valley.

Our house is on the left

Later that morning we went from St. Oswald which is near Bad Kleinkirchheim with a lift on top of Brunnach (1908m), where I did the rest of the time-lapses. Up here is also the Brunnach lake which is used a winter for snow cannons.

Brunnach panorama restaurant Nock-In at height 1908m with Brunnach artificial lake

I used Nikon D200 with MC-36 remote. For one moving shot I used Mizar Optical KD motor mount. I fixed it to the rail with Manfrotto Super Clamp. This shot is slightly shaky ’cause the wind was blowing hard.

Nikon D200, 17-55mm f/2.8 lens, Mizar KD Mount, Nikon MC-36 remote and Manfrotto Super Clamp

12V lead battery and mount remote were placed on the bench next to the backpack

I did the rainbow shot late that evening again from the balcony. I forgot to turned of autofocus so there is some focus searching in the shot.

I used Aperture to process the RAW files, exported them in HD resolution and merged them to movie files in QuickTime. I edited them in Final Cut Pro and color corrected in Color. The music was put together in Soundtrack using ambient loops and bird sounds. I had to remove flicker from the 270º shot. For that I used FurnaceCore (DeFlicker) from the Foundry.

I hope you will enjoy watching the movie.

A day in Bad Kleinkirchheim from Peter Prevec on Vimeo.

I decided to use Vimeo this time because I don’t like the legality politic on YouTube. They turned of on of my videos, television clip that had more than 85% of my own footage. The rest were their TV show presenters. But more on that on some other occasion.

Slovenski prevod vpisa si lahko ogledate na tem naslovu.

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

Replacing the unit wasn’t difficult. You follow instructions and where the failed you follow your common sense. I had some problems with puting the SuperDrive in an external enclosure, as there are no instructions for that, but not much.

Replacing the optical unit is not so difficult

I just have to install all applications again

I want a clean install so I have to install all the applications again. In the future I will replace the disk for a faster SSD, but their prices need to come down a bit.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

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The location next day (July 7th) wasn’t as difficult as the one the day before. We were further down Neretva, where the river is wider and slower. The cliff was next to the road on the other bank. We first did the interviews. As we wanted to have a crane at the top of the cliff we did some preliminary tests on the ground.

Testing the improvised crane

The full lenght of the crane (Manfrotto tripod, Super Clamp, monopod, counterbalance and Canon 5D MkII)

Then we sat in the boats and drove on the other side. The climbing wasn’t difficult as we had some climbing gear to help and protect us (Petzl Jumar).  When we came up we hauled up our equipment with ropes.

Looking at the jump site

Carabiners, ropes and Jumar helped me to the top

I pieced together the crane at the top and placed it on the edge. It was difficult to handle cause I didn’t have a display to monitor my crane moves. The jumps were also sparse so I couldn’t practice the camera movement.

Team on the top (myself Peter Prevec, photographer Predrag Vučković, diver Orlando Duque, cameraman Domen Smerdel and climber)

Domen in position

The crane is positioned on the edge of the cliff

The monopod was Super Clamped to the tripod head, the counterbalance was made of Manfrotto SkyHook, The Pod sandbag and 12V lead battery

Canon 5D MkII on the crane with diver and buoy beneath

Orlando Duque and Lorens Listo from Mostarja did only seven jumps (Orlando five) one of them together so we finished quickly. The next day we did a teaser for the ed Bull Cliff Diving Activation Neretva long clip.

Red Bull Cliff Diving Activation Neretva, Bosnia and Hercegovina

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

We arrived in Sarajevo little after midnight yesterday (July 6th, it was actually the day before, but I didn’t have time to write this post) to record Red Bull Cliff Diving Expedition on river Neretva. This was our third cooperation with world known diver Orlando Duque. We met for the first time in Albania at Red Bull Cliff Search 2008 and then the year after at Red Bull Cliff Diving Exhibition Mostar 2009 (there is no translation for this two posts).

After two hours of sleep we went south to river Neretva, where we put all our equipment in waterproof bags, dressed neoprene suits and rubber boots and went with cars up stream where we boarded the rafts.

Three rafts and Red Bull bouy

We stopped at two locations in the canyon where Orlando jumped. We could climb with him to the top at the first location. The day was hot and this made climbing in neoprene suit and rubber boots very hard and uncomfortable. The water was ice cold and so we needed the suits.

The crew on river Neretva

Red Bull buoy was trailing along

Orlando Duques first jump

Rafts ready for action

Jump sequence

Predrag Vučković in his underwater phase

After we filmed the first location we went on. Rafting the white waters was phenomenal. I thought that it would be scarier, but it was enough adrenaline for the first time.

Every raft carried six people

Beautiful river Neretva

They must had great time filming The Battle of Neretva (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064091/)

Waterfalls in the middle of the river

Second location had very difficult access. The climbers had to put ladders and a small platform for jump to happen. In the mean time we grilled some čevapčiči.

Skipper and his čevapđinica (traditional Bosnian eating place)

After a whole day of wearing wet neoprene boots

God rays

Then we went to our positions and started shooting some jumps.

Domen climbing to the top

Glidetrack, The Pod sandbag, Manfrotto Modo tripod and Canon 5D MkII

Looking at the viewfinder

Stone Crayfish (Austropotamobius torrentium) - the one in front

Last location

The weather went bad. The water was cold and the divers stopped jumping. We put down the equipment and went to the base where we changed clothes.

White waters of Neretva

GPS locations of the trip

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

Tomorrow (Jun 13th) will be Slovenian first match on the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. I don’t like to watch the game to much (I rather play) but I did hang out with some of the players in the national team this spring recording a few commercials for an agency Kompas. You can see some pictures and finished clips bellow.

Coach Matjaž Kek on a hallway in hotel Primus, Ptuj

Valter Birsa and Bojan Jokić training for a game playing Playstation

Camera Sony PMW-EX1 with Letus Extreme DOF adapter and 50mm f/1.4 lens on Glidetrack slider which is supported by two Manfrotto tripods

Playing football

Team captain Robert Koren in Kompas office at Ptuj is prepared to play his part

1kW Red Head diffused through 1x2m Litepanel was used on scene

Lastminute center

Confessional in small church in Vipava valley

Confessional

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

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 gave up the poppy filed idea and went to Slovenian Istra. An the highwat to Koper and over the hill to Dragonja. It was raining for the whole time and I wasn’t hoping for nicer weather. First photos were made under umbrella.

Istrian wines (©2010 Peter Prevec)

I mainly used Nikon D3s body with the new 24mm f/1.4 lens, which quickly became my favourite lens and only thing that is stopping me from buying it is high price (€2.000). It is everything it promises: sharp, fast, sensitive and wide.

Even old Megane looks like a hot rod with the new 24mm f/1.4. (©2010 Peter Prevec)

There was lots of interesting locations on the way, but they were to far apart and we would use too much time between them so I decided to go to small deserted village called Abitanti near Croatia border. On the way the sun came from under the clouds so I stopped a few times to take pictures.

Sun between clouds and earth. - iPhone (edited with Pro HDR, CrossProcess)

Self portrait - iPhone (edited with Pro HDR, CrossProcess)

I stopped by the road, step out, take picture and drive on. The light was phenomenal. (©2010 Peter Prevec)

Sunset after the rain. (©2010 Peter Prevec)

It was after 9 PM when I arrived to the Abitanti village so I quickly set up the cameras to do some time lapse photography. You may think I was too late and the darkness to thick, but the light sensitive Nikons were performing great in night photography with the fast lenses I had.

Nikon D300, AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, ISO 400, f/2.8, exposure 8s, time 21:52 (©2010 Peter Prevec)

Nikon D3s, AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED, ISO 800, f/1.4, exposure 2s, time 21:55 (©2010 Peter Prevec)

Nikon D3s, AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED, ISO 400, f/1.4, exposure 1.6s, time 23:17 (©2010 Peter Prevec)

I hope I will finally write more about the shoot itself in the following days and even post some video clips.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

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)

We stopped searching for the poppy fields (but if you know for one in or near Slovenia let me know) and went to Dolenjska region and did some shots in the wheat fields.

Hiding in wheat (©2010 Peter Prevec)

Caressing the soft wheat (©2010 Peter Prevec)

Another lighting setup (©2010 Peter Prevec)

I”ll go and search for more locations this afternoon to prepare myself and than when the weekend comes… action.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

We went to Sarajevo yesterday (April 22nd) for Red Bull MC Battle. I am surprised by the scenery I drive through and the people I met every time. Let the photographs talk for themselves.

Factory

Sign on the ruins (Store)

Flower shop at the cemetery

Sand separation

Garden decoration

Trash was lying all over the banks of river Bosna (photographed on Earth Day)

Industry

We might get one for the office on the way back

Suburbia life - wood, football, smoke

Chimney

Night tram

All photos were taken from the car with Nikon D200.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tem naslovu.

Joe McNally, professional Nikon photographer was in Ljubljana yesterday (April 20th). This stop was a part of his European tour (Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Germany). It was his first visit here.

Joe McNally

I noticed his way of lighting the subject years back, when I wanted to learn about Nikons new Creative Light System (CLS). That is how I got to his DVD he made for Nikon - Speed of Light. There I first saw that you don’t need big studio flashes for serious photography. I was so impressed that I bought three SB-800 flashes. I added commander SU-800 and SC-29 cord later on and this is beside diffusers, stands, reflectors and various holders the only equipment that you need for professional pictures you find on his portfolio site.

The lecture started at 3pm and ended at 8pm. In this time we tried a few different situations and he showed us how to adjust the system to your needs. The main feature of CLS system is wireless setup and firing of the three flash groups. You normally divide them like this: A – foreground, B – middleground and C – background. You use flash SB-800 or SB-900 only as commander on the camera or you can use special commander SU-800. Joe uses TTL metering for the flash power setup. You start with one group. You over- or underexpose it for desired value and than add flashes in more groups if you need. The camera is always tethered to the computer so he can se the images on the big screen and adjust accordingly. You can see a few setups on the pictures below.

Joe McNally thinks about how to photograph belly dancer Taisha

EzyBox was used here to soften the light on Taisha and five meter long python

He aslo showed us how to use Auto-FP High Speed with shutter times faster than 1/250s

White table cloth was hanged over the door with flash behind it which was triggered with SU-800 using two SC-29 cords. Light comming through the cloth was soft and pleasing to the eye

This was the result of the setup above, soft light wrapping around the two young faces

The lecture was not that much different as those on the Kelby Training site but it was fun and interesting to see the master of light himself in person.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

I spend last week from friday to thursday at Rogla Ski Resort where we were filming Red Bull Double Air project. Marko Grilc, the best snowboarder in Slovenia, will jump over Ross Mercer, world record holder for longest jump with snowmobile, on the biggest jump ever build at Rogla. The project was a secret, so there was quite a few photos I wasn’t allowed to publish during the week.
Day 1(Friday, April 2nd) - I was the only one from the recording crew that went up on friday as we only needed to shoot some time lapses of the big pile of snow that was growing for the jump construction. For that I also used one of the snowcats that had a 14 m crane on it. The weather was very unpredictable and as the fog fell I couldn’t record any more.

Everything started with a big pile of snow

The crane on the snowcat was 14 m high

Snowcat tracks on the snow detail

Day 2 (Saturday, April 3rd) – We all went to Rogla on saturday. We did a lot of time lapses on the first day as the pile of snow became kicker and the landing. The jump was roughly complete by the end of the day and skier Bine Žalohar went and jumped for the first time to test the speed and the angle of the jump. Everything was as planned so the guys began with the shaping.

Filming of Marko Grilc during the construction of the big kicker

Sony EX1 w/ Letus35 Extreme on Glidetrac is to heavy for that configuration (Martin Smerdel, Domen Smerdel, Marko Grilc)

First jump was made by test skier Bine Žalohar right after sunset

Night shaping

Day 3 (Sunday, April 4th) – Shaping continued on sunday. Snowmobile arrived so we could test the position of the small GoPro cameras. We also tried different location for the position of the crane snowcat. We needed to see as much of the jump as possible.

Position checking for the main shoot

We needed to deepen the hole under the kicker

Snowmobile arrived and we checked the position of GoPro cameras

Checking the GoPro cameras material

Ross Mercer, first commentaries

Day 4 (Monday, April 5th) – There was a snow storm on monday. The hotel windows were covered to the top with snow. We decided to do an interview between riders Marko Grilc and Ross Mercer, the head designer of the kicker Matevž Pristavec and the test jumper Bine Žalohar. Later that day the weather settled down so I could go and shoot some panoramas of the jump. Then I added the curves of the jump so that we could send then to Austria HQ, to convince them so they would lend us the helicopter for the main shoot.

Windows in the hotel covered with snow

Snowed in cars under the roof

Snow storm at Rogla

Interview in the hotel - 500W spot, 1000W red head, 2x1m LitePanel, Glidetrack SD, Sony EX1 + Letus35 Extreme, Canon 5D Mark II

Samo Premrn (Canon 5D Mark II), Ross Mercer, Marko Grilc, Matevž Pristavec, Bine Žalohar and in the back Martin Smerdel (Sony EX1 + Letus35 Extreme)

Double Air jump mockup from snowmobile start position

Ross should be 3 m under Marko if the calculations were correct

Day 5 (Tuesday, April 6th) – Riders weren’t able to jump on tuesday because there was too much chest wind and they didn’t get enough speed riding down (needed speed was around 85 km/h) to jump over the kicker. We shot some snowmobile workshop details and had to wake up early to do that. I did a 360º panorama in the afternoon from the landing platform.

Early morning

Planet Kicker

Day 6 (Wednesday, April 7th) – Everything was ready for the double jump on wednesday. Unfortunately Ross broke its handlebar during driving up and down the hill transporting people. He was kind of lucky because this didn’t happen during the jump and he might seriously hurt himself. We needed a few hours to fix it and in the late afternoon they finally managed to jump at the same time.

Final beauty corrections where everybody helped even photographer Samo Vidic

Everything is ready to go, Ross is doing the first jumps

Broken handlebar

The success of the project was not certain, because we didn't know if we could fix the handlebar in time

First jumps with the fixed handlebar

First double jump

They could work on the timing until perfected

They even tried some tricks

Day 7 (Thursday, April 8th) -We got a Red Bull Eurocopter BO-105 helicopter from Salzburg on Thursday. We also did the rest of the interviews for the final film and waited for the helicopter to arrive.

Waiting for the helicopter

Ground equipment - Glidetrack HD, Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye, walkie-talkie, Red Bull and waterproof poncho for lying in wet snow

In the woods I put the Glidetrack on Manfrotto 055XPROB w/ 329RC4 head

Red Bull Eurocopter BO-105 helicopter from Salzburga (you can see Domens legs on the lower skid)

You can watch short web clip here. Longer 12 min version will be available at some later time.

Marko Grilc & Ross Mercer – Snowboard over Snowmobile

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

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

I got the idea watching studio photography tutorials – I think it was Joe McNally, where I saw a rig that enables you to have laptop next to the camera on a tripod so that you can do tethered shooting and see the images at the same moment on the laptop.

Tethered camera and laptop setup

The base for the system is Manfrotto 131DDB Horizontal 4 Head Accessory Arm and Manfrotto 183 Aluminium Table Attachment. The arm has two screws at the ends which I also used in combination with Manfrotto 553 Angle Bracket for Lever Center Column and so I got the option for attaching four heads (if you remove the laptop table of course). I hoped that I could then attach Manfrotto Quick Change Rect. Plate Adaptor directly on the 3/8” screws but it couldn’t be done.

Quick Change Rect. Plates

So I bought some Manfrotto 494 Ball Head with Friction Control which attached to the Arm together with quick change plates. I gained place for another body with Manfrotto Super Clamp MN035, Manfrotto 208 3/8-inch Mounting Plate For Super Clamp and another quick plate.

There is room for five bodies

Now I have a rig that can hold five camera bodies, but there are eight cameras that I want to test. I probably won’t be able to get them at the same time. Canon 1D and 5D I intend to borrow from Samo Vidic, but he is very busy at the moment so I will probably get his cameras not before middle of april, my father has a 7D, I will borrow Nikon D3s and D300s from Nikon Slovenia, D90 from my friend Matjaž, Panasonic G1 from Jure, who doesn’t know anything about it at the moment and 550D from camera store Foto Format. I would like to test all of them with 50mm f/1.4 lens which represents anther problem, as I need four Canon ones, three Nikon and one micro four thirds one.

Rig is attached to the Manfrotto 525 sticks with 501HDV head

While I was writing this post I found out that I can add another body to the rig with some spare Manfrotto parts. Now I have place for six bodies. I also checked with F90x and D200, so there is enough space between heads for the bodies.

Why did I continue this post about firmware update with the rig. I wanted to record everything in 25 fps, so I waited for Canon to release the firmware. I have no excuse any more. I only need to organise to have all equipment together for a weekend. I probably have some time until then and I can focus on the story of the test movie so it won’t be another pet video or video about local scenery.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

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

First one is the new camera with higher resolution, autofocus, automatic exposure adjustment and video mode. Higher resolution (1536×2048 or 3 mega pixels or 2K) enables print sizes up to 6.82” x 5.12”. Autofocus can now focus to distances as close as few inches. No more out of focus business cards or other post it notes in Evernote or JotNot application. I can also scan bar codes now and do other kind of close-up photography. Video mode in combination with ReelDirector app allows simple video editing on the iPhone and that is another function besides photo editing that I don’t need computer for doing it any more. But the real gem is automatic exposure adjustment. I can set the exposure with touching the screen in photo mode. With application Pro HDR I can then make two photos, one adjusted for the bright parts and one for the dark parts. The app the combines then and make one photo with high dynamic range.

High dynamic range image 1 (I used Pro HDR and Cross Process for editing this photo)

High dynamic range image 2 (I used Pro HDR and Cross Process for editing this photo)

High dynamic range image 3 (I used Pro HDR and Cross Process for editing this photo)

The second function is speed. S stands for speed. Not just the speed of the phone with faster processor that can make launching and using the apps faster, but also data connection speed (my previous phone was original iPhone with EDGE connection) which is faster with 3G connection.

The third function is GPS which allows the use of many apps which use location data. Since I got the phone a few weeks back I bought in car navigation application Navigon Europe with maps of the whole Europe. I also bought dash board holder and car charger for the car. I also started to use app RunKeeper to track my fitness activities as  are running, cycling, skiing and more.

Nosilec za iPhone za v avto

The last function which expands the functionality of the phone is its legality. I bought unlocked phone and I can upgrade it as soon as Apple puts out software upgrades. I can also use Push services, which allow me to receive messages from different application even when I don’t have them open on the phone. For instance I can be connected to various chat services like GTalk, Skype, Facebook, AIM and more with IM+  app and when somebody sends me a message the phone alerts me to that so that I  can open the application to reply to the message.

Push on iPhone 3GS

It was not easy yo pay 719€ (976$) for the new iPhone 3GS 32 GB but after a few week of usage I can say that I am not sorry. With this purchase I added to my collection of gadgets the most useful one.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

Update: I change all mentions of iPhone 3G S to iPhone 3GS as Apple did four days after the launch. More about it in this article.

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.

Definitely DSLRs need a few functions from the real video cameras (like peaking for easier focusing and histogram for preciser exposure) so they would fell more user friendly.

Streets at Night series is getting bigger. I hope to get other cameras from Canon and Nikon soon to expand the test. Maybe even try Panasonic GH1.

Streets at Night III – Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

Streets at Night II – Nikon D3s

Streets at Night I – Canon EOS-5D Mark II

You can read more about first two videos here:

Streets at Night I – Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Streets at Night II – Nikon D3s

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej strani.

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

As I came home in the evening I took the camera and a tripod and went out on the streets to do some filming in the available street light. I decided that I will do exactly the same movie as I did a year ago. She same shots, edit, music… And so I went out armed with six images representing the frames. At the end I was caught by the snow, so I had to end quickly even though the camera is weather proof.

Nikon D3s is a full frame camera in a large body with incorporated vertical grip, which bothered me a bit as I am not used to the size of it. Menus are the same as with other Nikon bodies. Manual exposure is, even though there are lots of wrong info on the internets, easily set. You just set the camera to M – manual (M, A, S, P), press the Lv (Live View) button, press the Ok button to show the actual image and you are there. You set the aperture with front wheel, shutter with back wheel, and ISO combining ISO button and back wheel. Easy as riding a bicycle. I comparison to 5D when I got it a year ago. A big battery holds its charge forever (especially if you have two) and the video file sizes were reasonable. 500MB for 3 minute clip which means that I could record around 48 minutes on 8GB CF card (and you can put two inside) in 5 minutes segments as that is the maximum length of the clip which wasn’t problematic for me.

First problems appeared at editing. The camera records video in avi format in Motion JPEG codec. I imported the footage in Final Cut Pro and wanted to set the timeline automatically (as is the option since 6.0 on) but avi didn’t trigger the automatic setup. Then I wanted to use the method I used editing Canon footage. Rough edit, send footage to Color for color correction and then after recompress to ProRes a fine edit. But that didn’t work either. Color does not support avi files!

What now? Obviously I needed to convert the footage before Final Cut Pro import. And so I used freeapplication MPEG Streamclip to convert everything in mov files which my Mac (MacBook Pro 2.93 GHz) did in real time. When everything was in ProRes (LT) the editing was quick because I already had a previous edit. I tracked the title to height limit markers in Shake.

Color correction in Color was simpler, because ProRes is more suitable to manipulate than Canon’s h.264. The footage had more grain but I partly blame resolution for that. Canon records in 1080p and as I downressed  the clip to 720p for online viewing the grain was a little less noticable. Nikon only records in 720p.

There are still benefits shooting DSLR. Lower depth of field, the quality of the lenses, high light sensitivity, small size of the gadget, but I think that these are still just photo cameras with video mode and there need to be a lot of progression to make recording more useable.

Streets at Night II – Nikon D3s

Streets at Night I – Canon EOS 5D mark II

P.s.: If you want to know more about the camera or movie please comment below.

P.p.s.: If you notice something strange in the movie let me know.

P.p.p.s.: I will write about combining the cameras with the Red Bull event in a later episode.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete tukaj.

I decided that I would make a Christmas lights time lapse of Ljubljana for the end of the year. I wanted to do a time lapse from the end of the day ’till complete darkness. Unfortunately I thought of that a little to late, because I could do only up to three sequences a day, if I wanted to show gradually diminishing of daylight.

Planet Prešeren's square

I started on Sunday (Dec 12). I placed the tripod with Nikon D200 a little before 4pm and set a timer to do a photo every 10 seconds. Than I waited until darkness fell around 5pm. This first sequence showed me that they turned on the lights every day at 4:15pm. Later I found out that when the weather is clear the lights turn on 20 minutes later and so I had to freeze longer the first time this happened.

360º panorama of Three bridges

After a week I started to use motor mount for horizontal panning. The head was struggling with the cold and some pans are not as smooth as I wanted. I shortened the time between photos from 5-6 to 2-3 to make slower and smoother pan. And so in nine days in spite of low temperatures and snow I got twelve sequences that ended in the final edit.

River Ljubljanica

How did I get to the movie files? I imported the images in Aperture, did a colour correction and exported them in full resolution. In shake I stabilised the footage where needed and did a white balance through time (images started in the daylight and ended in tungsten light) and did a 16:9 crop. I edited them in Final Cut Pro and did a music score in Soundtrack. If you want to know more about the process comment below and I’ll try to explain some more.

Looking the opposite direction

At the end let me wish you happy holidays and enjoy the movie Hectic Holidays!

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete tukaj.

I finally fixed Manfrotto studio background support system to the wall in the big room*. I avoided the procedure as much as I could, because I live in an old house apartment that has walls made out of concrete and stone instead of bricks that are easy to drill into and that is why it is hard to make holes where planned. But because I’m lucky I made it. Maybe I should start to play lotto. The location on the wall wasn’t the most appropriate. Under it was couch and a bed. But it was the best wall in the apartment. I have enough place to move the camera as far as I can from the background (through the door, pass the washing machine to the other room). Unfortunately I have only one drive set for the rolls (now you know what to buy me the next time - Manfrotto Expan 046), so I have only one roll of paper hung on the wall (I was listening to Tindersticks as I was writing this), but there are dozen different colour ones waiting in the corner.

Improvised studio in the living room above couch and in the bed room above the bed.

There is a 1000W Photoflex light with softbox on a Manfrotto stand in the studio.

First customer in the studio.

Client was so impressed with the picture, that he ordered another one.

Now you know, that there is a improvised studio in Rose Valley (Ljubljana, Slovenia), where you can get pictures for the fireplace. If you would like whole figure photos, please let me know in advance so I can move the bed. See you there.

* Everybody who knows my apartment knows that I only have two rooms. One big and one a little less big.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej povezavi.

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

When I opened the brown box I saw inside wrapped in foam… little translucent box for fake teeth, as Miloš at E.P.L said. Box itself wasn’t that much bigger then the mouse.

Fake teeth box (Designed by Apple)

Perfect packaging. Small, aesthetic, easy to open (if you don’t have motor disabilities). Batteries were already installed. I quickly snapped a few shots with my iPhone.

RTFM

Sexy curves

Round and flat at the same time

I can’t decide yet if I like the design or not. There are some angles that don’t convince me. They probably have to make a compromise between beautiful roundness and flat surface needed for the multi-touch. The thing is if you didn’t already noticed, the mouse has no buttons. Not even a scroller. The whole top surface is sensitive to touch which replaces left click, right click and scroll commands. You can find more on this on Apple site.

Replacing the scroll ball is ingenious, because the ball quickly got dirty and stopped working. Sliding through pages and photos is easy and you get used to it quickly. The only thing that bothers me and I noticed that after I ordered and payed for the mouse is lack of third button. So if you use apps that need the third button as does Apple Shake, I recommend against it. But I also bought it for my museum collection of which I will write more next time, when I’ll also have more information about usability of the mouse.

P.s.: Installation of the mouse is not the most user friendly installation I went through. First you have to pair the mouse to the computer and only then do a System Update which enables the multi-touch functions. All this will be gone as soon as Apple puts out the new system update Mac OS X 10.6.2.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej povezavi.

I got a link from @0blikovalnik for a workshop in Zagreb for directors of photography. I send them my resume and they accepted me (the workshop was free). At this point I have to stress that I had to translate my CV into english and that was not easy, ’cause it was difficult to translate certain phrases. They intended to have two directors of photography speaking at the workshop, Oliver Stapelton and Paolo Cascio, but later they added also Bill Butler. I didn’t recognize the names so I searched for them on imdb.com and I must admit I was surprised when I saw the movies they worked on. Rocky II, Grease, One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest, Jaws, The Conversation, Casanova, Pay It Forward, The Cider House Rules, Payback, Groundhog Day, to name the few. I couldn’t wait for it to start and so soon came the day that I went to Zagreb.

I decided that I wouldn’t take much with me. Only computer and camera but I didn’t want to complicate with the selection on lenses. For a long time I mainly shoot with Nikon D200 with AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4D on, because it is a very fast lens, it is small and light and taking pictures with prime lenses makes you think harder in the process. But this lens on a 1.5x crop factor body (DX format) acts like a 75mm lens and that is good for portraits but not so much for all around photography. That is why I was pleased when Nikon introduced a new wider prime lens this march (2009). Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G. The price at Foto Beseničarju (209,00 €) was the same as anywhere else in Europe, which surprised me. So traveling light was my excuse to buy myself this new lens at the day of my departure.

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G prime lens is a great companion for my Nikon D200 body. It seems as they were made for each other.

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G on a Nikon d200 body

The lens is made of plastic (that is why it weights only 200g) and is made in China, but after one day of use I can say that I’m very pleased with it. I will write about its pluses and minuses later on when I spend more time with it and test it thoroughly.

Triangle - the first serious photo with this lens. On it is a fountain in front of Croatian National Bank in Zagreb (©2009 Peter Prevec)

More on the workshop follows as it ends and I collect all my thoughts. I will only say at this moment that I’ve learned a lot and heard quite some stories even on the first day.

On Friday (Sep 4th) when I posted about my Ars Electronica visit I noticed on my slovenian version of blog that there was some strange text in the permalinks and that disabled the links on the site. After some research on Google I found the solution (reset the permalinks setting), but I also found out about an unwanted user on my blog. There was another user with administrator permissions and it was hidden from my eyes. The only thing that helped me noticed it was the number 2 in the parentheses on the administrators list.

Hidden administrator on my blog.

Because I couldn’t deleted it from WordPress admin panel I had to go to phpMyAdmin in cPanel. The problem was solved. Well not yet, but I wanted to leave my update process for some other time. I was just leaving for Linz and I didn’t have time.
During my staying in Linz I noticed quite a lot articles about a distributed attack affecting self-hosted blogs running anything other than the latest edition of WordPress (Celestial Waste of Bandwidth). My blogs were at version 2.7.1. I used to update WordPress with Fantastico interface at my hosting service at HostGator, because it did an archive at the same time and so I had a backup. But Fantastico still shows the latest version of WordPress as 2.7.1 even thought it has been more than a month from the 2.8 update.
They made it easy to update in the version 2.7, so as soon as I made a backup I pressed the update link. Few seconds passed, update finished and then… blank page. The page was gone. I couldn’t even login as administrator. Nothing. If I uploaded my old files back through ftp, everything reappeared. Then I tried manualy uploading the update files. The page went blank again.
As I tried several things, uploading and deleting the new and old version and a lot of time went by. It started to annoy me. At last I made a new blog, imported all my posts and comments, merged the visitor statistic with my old blog and happily sit back and enjoy the look at my resurrected one year old secured (for now) blog.

Now I am thinking to change the visual theme of the blog to mark the anniversary and resurrection.

P.s.: English version wasn’t hacked and needed only a click to update.

Apple’s ‘It’s only rock and roll’ event ended and one of the new things that we got was iTunes 9. After a long download cause millions of people wanted to get the new iTunes at the same time I installed the upgrade.

I joined the millions to download the new iTunes 9.

My favorite feature must be a new way how to manage apps on your Home screens on your iPhone but I have to wait for Dev-Team Blog guys to hack the new iPhone OS 3.1 which enable this feature, cause you still can’t buy an iPhone in Slovenia. But then I found out that there are Smarter Playlists than before.

I rate my music like this. Five stars – top power songs. Four stars – top easy songs. Three stars – average power songs. Two stars – average easy songs. One star – below average songs. So if I wanted to make a Playlist that would include let say all flavors of Bauhaus (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, Tones on Tails, Dali’s Car and Peter Murphy) and were rated more than one star (not that there are many with this rating) I had to first make a playlist with all the bands and than one that included intersection between this playlist and rating of more than one.

Smart Playlist in iTunes 8

But now in iTunes 9 you can do it with only one playlist with the help of extended rules (button with three dots). First you choose every song that has more than one star and than you add extended rule that they have to be from desired artists.

Smarter Playlists in iTunes 9

Now I can go and delete some playlists.

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

Now I only need to backup disk. Two actually. One Carbon Copy Cloner mirror disk and one Time Machine backup. How can anything go wrong?

Backing up on two drives!

See you on the other side!

We came to Mostar at two o’clock at Hotel Kriva Čuprija 2. I went to sleep at three. Woke up early with intentions to see Mostar in morning light. Old bridge without tourists. Four hours of sleep, early waking and I did it. Yatta! I was lucky that the hotel was 500m away from the bridge.

Mostar in morning light (photo was taken and edited on iPhone)

There was nobody to take my picture (photo was taken and edited on iPhone)

After breakfast we went to work. Sightseeing the location, shots selection, testing camera movement with the Glidetrack system… The location was not tiresome, only the temperatures. 84.2F (29ºC), humidity.

I will let the photos talk, exports for Haya and OBN televisions are finished, so I’ll get back to work editing Red Bull News Cut Web Clip.

Small dot under bridge is a diver but you are probably watching a beautiful pink oleander (photo was taken and edited on iPhone)

Orlando Duque came at 3 pm, cause he was late for a plane and has met with the local divers from the diving club Mostari (photo was taken and edited on iPhone)

Mostar skyline with its beautiful minarets (photo was taken and edited on iPhone)

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))

Minimal configuration includes:

• Canon HV20 camera with SGPro r3 adapter and flip modul (shoot35)

• Rods Support System r1 and FOLLOW focus (shoot35)

• 50mm f/1.4D AF NIKKOR lens

• Røde NTG-2 microphone

• BeachTek DXA-2s Dual XLR adapter

• redrockmicro microMount

• Cokin Z-Pro series filter kits and Net Filter 1, 2 White (Ref. 142, Ref. 144)

• The Pod Pro series sandbag

• Tamrac Expedition 5 backpack

This is the story of Poppy who started his journey on old Linhartova 5 in the garden house of Matija Keše, which stood were there is a big parking lot next to Sloveniales today, on the crossing of Dunajska and Linhartove road. The garden house vas owned by my great granddad Matija and was later on passed to my granddad Matko.

When they bought the location to build there Sloveniales, parking lot or Plava laguna (what would I know), poppy went to dolenjska where my granddads sister Vida and her husband Stane had an old house. Their son Jernej and his wife Blanka brought poppy back to Ljubljana when they build a house in Bežigrad (near Bratovševa platform). I went to visit once, heard about the story of poppy and wanted a piece of history. I brought it home to Vižmarje and put it in a big pot. After it bloom for the first time it looked like it died so I put it in my mothers garden, where we found out that there is nothing wrong whit it. And from that day of every May it blooms and makes very big and very beautiful red flower.

Snemanje filma Mak popotnik (©2009 Milenko Prevec)

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.

First night in London, on the street with complete strangers

Visiting Apple Store was phenomenal. Staff was very nice and capable.

After two hours in the store we got out full of positive vibrations. I was walking around London with heavy black bag all day long, setting alarms in various London stores. Everybody felt my Apple enthusiasm so there were no problems. In HMV they wanted to see what is in the bag. At first I felt awkward, cause I had no invoice for the contents only for Lucky Bag. After demagnetizing the bluetooth dongle I went on. Next day at the airport I had to put everything in the trays so they could watch it under x rays.

The whole Apple experience stayed in my mind and I gladly tell others about it whenever I can.

Five years passes. Pound is weak and there is only 15% VAT in the UK. Technology is cheaper on the island. My girlfriend and I decided to visit our friend in London for May Day holidays and during our stay there I would buy myself a brand new MacBook Pro in the Apple Store. I didn’t want basic model cause I wanted faster processor and bigger disk. So I contacted Euro Apple to find out where can I reserve build to order Mac so I can just pick it up at the Apple Store. No answer. So I asked a friend to go there and ask them. I was not satisfied with the answer. You can only get the basic models in the Apple Retail Store. For everything else you must order it through online Apple Store. But I needed the invoice with my company data on and you can’t order online with billing address in Slovenia. So I forget about doing business with Apple. A friend told me about this store that also delivers computers to Slovenia so I contacted them and in half an hour they told me that the MacBook Pro I wanted is waiting for me at their store.

And so the sunday came. The sun was shining, clouds were flying over the sky. It was a perfect day for getting a new MacBook Pro. When I came to the Micro Anvika store there was already a box with my name behind the counter. I gave them a note with my company data on, envelope full of money and I was on my way. With a smile on my face. I decided that I would still buy accessories in the Apple Store. So we walked to the Regent Street. User experience we got ther was not as friendly as five years ago. People there didn’t even know what they were selling so I had to find everything myself. They even had problems with my company data for the invoice. Packaging the stuff in the bag was also a challenge for then. They did it in second try. We went out as quick as we could not satisfied with the service.  I went behind the corner to visit my spot, when I slept through my first night in London not knowing the Apple experience would change that much in five years.

Five years later (©2009 Irena Toroš)

Yesterday (Apr 15) was the presentation of a new book Poljubi me, miss! (Kiss me, miss!) by Tjaša Kokalj in hotel Mons and I think it’s time that I show you the photos that we made for the portrait of the author.

Tjaša Kokalj - Kiss me, miss! (©2009 Peter Prevec)

Tjaša Kokalj - Kiss me, miss! (©2009 Peter Prevec)

Tjaša Kokalj - Kiss me, miss! (©2009 Peter Prevec)

Yesterday (Apr 7) I finally got the invitation to the presentation of a book called Poljubi me, miss! (Kiss me, miss!) written by Tjaša Kokalj, so I think it is time to show you the photo that was taken especially for this.

Poljubi me, miss! - invitation photo

You can find more about making of this photo in the post  Kiss me, miss! – invitation.

That is how they used the photo for the invitation.

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Stop magazine published a story today (Apr 1) about an upcoming book from Tjaša Kokalj, Poljubi me, miss! (Kiss me, miss!) In the article they used my photo of her which we took especially for the author portrait where you can see the effect of the Stars in the Eyes photographic light.

Stop magazine, April 1st 2009

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