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.

]]> http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/04/08/printed-invitation/feed/ 0 http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/04/01/stars-in-stop/ http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/04/01/stars-in-stop/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:11:45 +0000 PeterP http://blog.domisljije.si/?p=131

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

]]> http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/04/01/stars-in-stop/feed/ 0 http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/03/25/photograph-me-miss/ http://blog.domisljije.si/2009/03/25/photograph-me-miss/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:21:03 +0000 PeterP http://blog.domisljije.si/?p=127

Tjaša and me finally found some time when we were both free on wednesday (Mar 18) to take a portrait of her for her book Kiss me, miss!

Stars in Tjašas eyes

We knew that we will have a quick session, because we already knew what we wanted. Stars in the eyes and black background. I set the lights, made few adjustments and we quickly got the result we wanted. Finally we made few shots with white background.

Equipment – lights: “Stars in the Eyes” light – 750W (key light), PAR 36 pinspot – 6V 30W (back light), bare bulb 200W (directly behind Tjaša); camera: Nikon D200, 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor and Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D; background: Photoflex LitePanel.

Spaceship landing

Light setup

Bulb fixture connections... if anybody is wondering

Naïve victim inside the pentagon

Last corrections

We then went through the photos and picked the best. All I need to do after that was color correction.

I will present final result later. I can only tell you that the publisher was so impressed with the photos that hedecided to publish the photo full page inside the book and ordered another for the cover. Magic stars.

It was 1998 or maybe 1999, when I made the first version of the light which makes a reflection in the eyes that looks like a lot of stars. The idea came from movies, where they used similar lights in theatre stars wardrobes around the mirrors where the stars put their makeup on. My version was not rounded but had five sides where I fixed the bulbs. Light was soft with special reflection in the eyes. This is how the first photos with the light looked like.

First stars in Špela's eyes

Tiny stars in the eyes

The only serious photographic equipment that I had back then was a camera Nikon F90x so I also had to make a stand for the light which reminded me of gallows. I looked something like that.

Light and stand scheme.

The light was very impractical to carry around and preparation for the stand could take forever. Not the most user friendly light. I carried it with me for a long time but not the stand. I got rid of it soon and after some years of not using the light I throw it away too.

When Tjaša asked me to make a portrait of her for her book Poljubi me, miss! (Kiss me, miss!) we decided that the photograph must be something special. I quickly remembered the stars in the eyes and she agreed. I had to make another light. I had version 2.0 in my head for long lime, but there was no time for the upgrade because we did not have much time. So I made almost the same light, slightly bigger and without the big stand cause I bought myself some real stands in between.

The materials cost 33€ and I had bulbs from before (Metalka, 3.840 SIT, 10.9.2003). I build the light over the weekend. I had no problems with the frame. But sadly I bought inappropriate material for it. It had sharp edges, it was too soft and too heavy. I fixed the light sockets. The most tiresome process was connecting the sockets. I connected them paralleled.

Material before the build. Two sides are already cut and screwed together.

The process of connecting the bulbs.

I used reflector bulbs.

I used reflector bulbs so I didn’t have any light spill on the lens. Combined power of the light is 750W. I wanted to use energy saver bulbs with cooler color temperature but they are hard to find and expensive. Maybe for the 2.0 version. I have the plans already. I just need a few parts and I can start building it.

The light preformed beautifully for the portrait of Tjaša Kokalj. The reflection in the eyes was better then with the first version. Stars were bigger.

During this week I will post photos from the shoot so you can see how to use the light.

I met with Tjaša Kokalj, Miss Universe Slovenia 2007, on thursday (12.3.) to take a photograph for her invitation to the signing of her new book Poljubi me, miss! (Kiss me, miss!) which will take place in april. We pick Hotel Bellevue for the location, where they already took the cover photo, by some other photographer (Aleš Bravničar) on the request of her sponsors.

White rose splattered with blood on the floor of Hotel Bellevue.

The book is a crime story, so we decided to take a gloomy photo. White rose splattered in blood in the middle of some old decaying hotel.

Lowest angle possible.

The session went on pretty fast. We have already picked the room. We wanted the lowest angle possible so I put my Nikon D200 with Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D on the floor.

When we found the position of the camera and the rose, we splattered it with diluted red nail polish to make it look like it was splattered in blood. We pour the rest of the nail polish under the flower for the pool of blood. Tjaša hold the round reflector for fill light.

Miss Universe assisting the photographer.

Contrast ratio between inside and outside was pretty high, but I did not want to have no details in the windows (whites), so I made a series of bracketed exposures separated by 1EV (exposure value). Then I made a HDRI (high dynamic range image) and while converting it back to 8-bit image retained details in the highlights. (You don’t know how much easier is to write technical stuff in english than in my native Slovenian language and wrestle with translation of the technical terms.)

As always I will post final image later when we will send the invitations so I don’t spoil the surprise.

There was a lot of posts about  Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera video mode, crushing of the blacks, QuickTime’s inability of showing luminance values higher than 100 and lower than 0. You can read more info about it at  ProLost – 5D crushing News and Full dynamic range video from Canon 5D MkII.

What I wanted to find out was, what can be done to eliminate as much defects and mistakes that Canon choose to build into this camera.

First I would like to say that this camera is amazing in low light situations which means I can shoot at night under the street lamps with no extra lights. You have to be careful though about the noise that appears at high ISO settings.

Few weeks back when we got at work (Baza Media 2.1) 5D on loan, I decided to take it on a test of my own. Before I even read the quick manuals  (Cinema 5D – The 5D mkII Handbook of Facts), I went out to shoot some material. It was already dark outside, so I went to the nearest crossroads and shood some cars passing by.

Streets at Night – Canon EOS 5D Mark II

I got the lenses from Samo Vidic (Only Samo): EF85mm f/1.8 USM, EF16-35mm f/2.8L USM in EF15mm f/2.8 Fisheye. I probably missed the exposure once or twice and I didn’t use Exposure Lock button, because I am a Nikon user and I was kind of lost in the world of Canon.

But the real nightmare began after the shoot. I came home, downloaded the material and started to look at it. Everything skipped. Even during the shoot I noticed that some clips didn’t have smooth motion, but it wss skipping frames. At home all my clips were like that. As it was playing every couple of frames and not the full 30fps. I was frustrated so I left everything as is and only hoped that in two days when we will do some serious testing everything would be o.k.

We went to Kranjska Gora on Sunday, we downloaded the material and everything was o.k. When I later watched the material at home I noticed again the skipping of the frames. ?!? Was it possible that the codec 5D uses for video is too processor intensive to decode and I can’t watch it in realtime on my 4 year old PowerMac G5 Dual 1,8 GHz? I tried to watch the footage on white MacBook and it was playing more smoothly. Better that G5. Interesting. I knew that postproduction of the video will be full of frustrations and waiting to renders to finish, because G5 is still my main Mac.

First I wanted to  check how much I can push the material with color correction. I made a quick rough edit of the material and I opened  Video Scopes. I noticed that values higher that 100 and lower than 0 were not there. The sequence setting were the same as materials (H.264, 30fps).

Parade - Final Cut Pro - H.264

You can see clearly that blacks and whites were crushed. The whole color latitude that camera captured was not showing and that is not good for further manipulating of the colors. What about if I change the sequence settings to ProRes? ProRes is Apple’s codec meant for postproduction and H.264 is meant for delivery. So I changed the settings.

ProRes sequence settings

And I checked Video Scopes again.

Parade - Final Cut Pro - ProRes

Almost the same, maybe the bottom line was softer and showed some more blacks. That was not good enough for me, so I decided to check also with application that was designed for color correction – Apple Color. I loaded the original H.264 sequence to Color. The story was different here.

Parade - Color - H.264

Blacks and whites were not crushed and so there was more latitude for color correction. I could without any problem set the white balance (so the orange color from sodium vapor lamps was not so visible). After I exported the material to ProRes (Color can only export the material to Uncompressed codec or ProRes). the problem with real time playback was gone so I fine tuned the edit. I added the titles in Shake and music in GarageBand. Final clip (32s) was then encoded in Compressor to 720p 25fps which made it 38s long (32s * 30fps = 960fr / 25fps = 38s), which took my old G5 almost 12 hours. I must say that I used best settings and Optical Flow for resizing and retiming.

Finally I can say that I am in spite the problems throughout the process satisfied with the outcome. I must say that there were to many drawbacks to use the camera for any long form project. But if you have something short to do with no deadline, I am happy to recommend this camera. Let me know if it was worth the problems in the comments below.

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej povezavi.

Power Macintosh G4

At the end of last year I got from a friend Jana PowerMac G4 (PCI Graphics) 350MHz processor made in 1999, sold new for $1599. I decided that this Mac won’t go directly on the shelfs of my museum, but will be used instead standing in the corner of the room waiting for my order.

Apple museum in Rose Valley

So I installed Mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther Server to use it also as file server. It had two 120 GB drives in it, so 240 GB is enough for quite some data. I had an old video card in the drawer, Miro / Pinnacle DC30, which made possible to capture analogue signal from VHS recorder. I found drivers for Mac OS X and start searching for a NLE application.

Its not only the worlds most powerful personal computer, it's also the most... open minded. Presenting the all new Power Macintosh G4.

On my current mac I use Final Cut Pro so I wanted to install in also on the old one. But unfortunately hardware and software were too old, so I had to search for older versions of the app. It turned out that the highest version that would work was Final Cut Pro 3.0.2.

Final Cut Pro 3.0.2

I installed the app, hook up TV set and VHS recorder and start looking for the tapes to capture. That is how I found a tape from 2004, which had on a show called Videospotnice, the show that played Slovenian music videos. And this part had in it the Making of a music video Sanje (Dreams) played by Urban, which was made under my directions. You can see below how we did it below. Unfortunately the video is in Slovenian language with no subtitles, but you can look at it anyway and see how silly my haircut was back in 2003 when we record this clip. 

Here is also the final version of the clip and if you want to see the lyrics you can look below and sing along. 

Urban: Sanje (Dreams – not oficial transtation by the author)

Včasih bil nor sem, (Sometimes I was crazy)
na potovanje v novo stanje, (for traveling to new forms)
sam, da premakne se ta že hiba. (I just toneed to get rid of my imperfection)

Pa so prepričal me, (And so they convinced me)
da obstaja, (that there is a chance)
možnost da nogo prtisnem do kraja, (to press the foot all the way)
prtisnem do kraja. (all the way to the end)

In nej zdej pozabm na sanje? (Should I now forget about the dreams)
Pozabm da svet so, (forget that they are the world)
prtisnem se v sranje, (and push my selft to shit)
prtisnem se v sranje. (and push my selft to shit)

In zdej že čutm, da mi že klika, (I can fell inside me)
zadnja stopinja, pot do dotika. (last step on the way to the touch)
Se moj svet mi odmika? (is my world going further away)

In zdej že slišm pametne fraze, (I can hear smart talk) 
slutm, da konec zadnje je faze. (and I sense that it’s the end of final phase)
Dej prosm tolaž me! (Please  comfort me)

In nej zdej pozabm na sanje? (Should I now forget about the dreams)
Pozabm da svet so, (forget that they are the world)
prtisnem se v sranje, (and push my selft to shit)
prtisnem se v sranje. (and push my selft to shit)

P.s.: I hope that Urban will not be too upset with this translation.

0730
I get up and slowly start to prepare myself and equipment. I know that we will not leave at 0800 as planned.

0932
With hour and a half delay we finally leave Ljubljana. We plan to go to Kranjska Gora to test Canon 5D Mark II shooting Marko Grilc and Bine Žalohar jumping at Funpark.

1059 I was the designated driver..

1116
We arrive on location. Problems with parking. Crowds everywhere. Weather is terrible. It snows. We can’t see a thing. All is white. I wonder what attracts people out on a day like this?

1158 Well, photo is more grey than white,, but believe me. All was white. iPhone is not good at making pictures of snow.

1223
We do some reckies on location. Hmmm… maybe we can shoot some nice videos here. We unload the cards in camera and preparing equipment for transport..

1251 Funpark rules.

1255 Weather forecast.

1310 Domen with Sony PMW-EX1, Samo and Canon 5D Mark II, loaned by Foto Format under Nebotičnik, lens 16-35 f/2.8, loaned by Samo Vidic from Bled and Cokin graduated filters.

1316 Domen CSI Kranjska Gora.

1413
Fisheye and falling snow doesn’t go well together. I had to clean the front lens element all the time. Water drops were all over. Unfortunately I had not have my umbrella with me as I did in Albania (in Slovenian Language). 

1414 Fisheye and falling snow - bad combo.

1444
I gave Samo the camera so he can follow them on the snowboard. I am cold. Boys are driving over the rails. Soon the session in the park will be over.

1447 Samo is following Marko Grilc on board.

1509
We are finished. I hope that this means lunch time. Latter on we do some tests in the dark (or so I thought).

1454 Enough for today.

1509 We just need to get to the cars.

1510 Live reporting! (© 2009 Samo Premrn)

1519 Backpack on the back and here we go down.

1549
Pizza Kotnik. Finally warm and dry. Pizza Kras without prosciutto. Strange. And there is a elevator to the toilet.

1542 Toilet elevator. Royal style.

1544 Ground level - restaurant, basement - toilet.

1618 Pizza Kras prosciutto and with sour creme. At least it had bacon.

1652
Pizza place was actually called Pino and the hotel next to it was Kotnik. And now via Ljubljana. I hope that we go straight home, cause I’m f*****. At the restaurant I made some photos with Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 1600.

1609 Watching dailies (Bine Žalohar, Marko Grilc)

1611 Bine Žalohar in deep thoughts

1611 Marko Grilc - heavy head or thumbs up

1808
Finally at home. As I was driving home I found Pink Floyd CD in the car. That really made driving being exhausted a lot pleasurable.

1817 Midomi told me what was the album name.

1738 Al the way I had to be careful so the fuel consumption was not too high so I was driving as a senior citizen.

1809 I will clean up tomorrow when everything will be dry.

Thanks everyone for watching this “live” event. Now I just have to edit this post a bit and add some more photos.

Here you have them. Sequence of all photos that we take with Tjaša Kokalj (Miss Universe Slovenije 2007) for her greeting cards. We didn’t took a lot of them. That is how you do it if you know want you want and what you need.

Photo session sequence (© 2008 Peter Prevec)

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej povezavi.

I swear, this will be the last post about music clip Raging El Niño, but as I promised… something about production of the clip.

After we decided about the script (written by Tadej – The Bananas), I started drawing storyboard. At first I wanted to draw everything by myself, but I noticed that my drawing skills aren’t that good, so I searched the internet for various photos to help me draw more professionally. That is how storyboard came to be.

Storyboard - Raging El Niño

After that, I put all pictures on the music track, so that I could see the duration of clips and that is how I got the first version of the video. (We joked that if the shooting would be a disaster we could use this version for televisions.) I wanted to shoot everything in slow motion so I borrowed from Baza Media 2.1 Sony PMW-EX1, that can do 60fps.

When the shooting was over, I selected good takes and arranged  them according to storyboard. I changed the order a little, because Jure does his hair first and then he gets dressed. 

Then I had to thought out, how to transform the idea of comic look from thoughts to video. But before that to paper. So I made my own printed edition of Raging El Niño the comic.

Raging El Niño - comic book

Loz helped me with title designs, font selection and the titles them selfs (I later found out that this is called  onomatopoeia (the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named). If I forgot to mention anybody up there, I am sorry and please let me know so I can repair the error (the band gave me that list, so it could be imperfect).

Then I could finally start to edit and compose the clip. I did that in Apple Motion, which is not meant for such complicated compositing and the computer was complaining from time to time. This is what the project file looked like with all the layers, clips and effects.

Motion projekt

Every clip was in its own layer together with text. I raised the contrast and saturation of the clips. The computer needed an hour and a half to export the video.

For the end I made a video containing all three versions through the making of the clip. Top left – storyboard, top right – locations and time according to bottom left clip, bottom left – sequence of clips without color correction and effects, bottom right – final movie.

If anybody want’s to know more, let me know down bellow and I will write some more.

This year I wanted to make my own greeting cards for my friends (the ones I made two years before were pretty successful), but I will probably run out of time to make them.

That is why I was very pleased when Tjaša asked me to take her pictures, because she wants to have her photo on her greeting card the same as last year (just the photo would be better).

Improvised studio

She came to my improvised studio. Background in the corner of my living room, sofa, tripod with camera were almost in the other room next to the laundry machine. I really don’t have enough place for a serious studio.

Photo session diagram

The camera was tethered to computer so we could see how we are doing. We took altogether 14 photos.

As soon as the greeting card will be finished I will post the sequence of photos, but until then just a few photos from the shoot.

Squished between doors.

We looked at photos in Aperture on MacBook

Equipment:

Nikon D200, Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 D, Manfrotto 055PROB (tripod), 329 RC4 (tripod head), 2x flash SB-800, Photoflex 1000W softbox, Litepanel 2×1m (gold), Litepanel 2×2m (gold, black), MacBook, Apple Aperture and probably more…

Slovenski prevod vpisa najdete na tej povezavi.

Premiere at Raca is over, on television too, so… here you have it. I hope you’ll like it. More about postproduction of the video coming soon. 

the Bananas – Raging El Niño