On the beach
February 4th 2012 08:46
So, today's adventure was a beach shoot. Following promo girls around a surfboat competition. Will try to complete the video tomorrow, but here's some details.
Prep
Had a quick look at some previous videos people made, and they had GoPros (or something very similar) stuck to the boats, showing waves washing over the rowers. Interesting shots.
I first encountered the GoPro when it was used to film horse-riding scenes in the Australian movie "The Cup". But now everyone uses it! Go to your local camera shop, and you'll see a wall of them. It's notably used in the Discovery reality show The Deadliest Catch, all over the fishing boats. It's used by motorbike riders, surfers, skiers...
Well, I chickened out. Had a serious think about bringing along my waterproof GoPro, and approaching one of the crews to ask if I could attach it to their boat. But then I thought -- if they lose that camera, that's $250 down the drain, and I hadn't tested how waterproof or steady that mount really was. So, yeah, chicken shit.
Main prep note -- had to seriously reduce the equipment I was taking, so I could travel light.
Time
The event allegedly ran 8am-4pm. I was booked 11am-3pm. Was actually there from around 10am-4pm, following the photojournalist mantra that you should arrive early and stay late.
If I really cared, I should have been there from 5am, to catch the sunset over the ocean.
The shoot
Girls arrived a little late. Lucky I got there independently and early.
One of the girls helped me a lot. She went out of her way to try to do interesting things for the camera, and consented to some of my dodgy requests. "Adjust my underwear while I'm walking? OK -- sigh -- if you really think it'll make good video. Run around like an idiot kicking water at the other girl? OK, fine. Just for you."
Asked the girls to take their sunglasses off during the last half hour (they refused to earlier). People watching the video want to fall in love with the models, and sunglasses act as a barrier.
One thing camera people should do is be prepared to put themselves out to get a shot. That's one quality that distinguishes pros from amateurs. "Lie down on the ground, embarrass myself and get my clothes dirty, so I can get a good angle of feet walking past? Yeah, I'll do that. Shoot at night time next to the only light in a jungle with a million bugs crawling on me? No problem. Crouch in a cramped position for 20 minutes? You didn't even have to ask."
It was with this sort of thinking in mind that I decided to wade into thigh-high waves, in my shoes and jeans, with my iPhone in my backpocket narrowly escaping a watery death. Walked home in wet clothes, and it took me an hour to shake out the beach from my socks, but I got the shot, and it'll probably live longer than I will.
Gear
-- Zacuto Z-finder and EVF. Didn't use the EVF.
-- Plastic bags (to act as rain jacket), and lots of microfibre cloths to clean sand and sunscreen off equipment.
-- Heliopan variable ND. A life-saver. Discovered after the shoot, though, that it didn't want to detach itself from the UV filter that was already on the lens. No matter how hard I tried to twist it. Will have to buy lens wrenches to remove it. Annoying.
-- Canon 24-105L (my favourite) and Canon 70-200L (because I thought there would be tele shots). In hindsight, it was the best choice from what I had, but the 70-200 wasn't nearly long enough. I chatted to another photographer on the beach, and he had 600mm with a crop-sensor camera, and a 1.4x teleconverter in his pocket just in case.
The models responded better to the 24-105, because I was right there with them and could talk to them -- not hiding, stalkerish and distant, 10m away.
The random people they interacted with responded better to the 70-200.
-- 12 batteries. Used about 4 over the course of 6 hours, and didn't turn the camera off very much in that time. So, each battery lasted about 90min.
-- Had four 32gb CF cards, and one 16gb. Used about 40gb I think. So ended up with about 2 hours of footage, divided into over 1000 clips.
Most of this footage is complete shite! Just had the camera running in case the girls did anything interesting, but they invariably seemed to do interesting things just when I had the camera turned off. So many moments lost forever...
Prep
Had a quick look at some previous videos people made, and they had GoPros (or something very similar) stuck to the boats, showing waves washing over the rowers. Interesting shots.
I first encountered the GoPro when it was used to film horse-riding scenes in the Australian movie "The Cup". But now everyone uses it! Go to your local camera shop, and you'll see a wall of them. It's notably used in the Discovery reality show The Deadliest Catch, all over the fishing boats. It's used by motorbike riders, surfers, skiers...
Well, I chickened out. Had a serious think about bringing along my waterproof GoPro, and approaching one of the crews to ask if I could attach it to their boat. But then I thought -- if they lose that camera, that's $250 down the drain, and I hadn't tested how waterproof or steady that mount really was. So, yeah, chicken shit.
Main prep note -- had to seriously reduce the equipment I was taking, so I could travel light.
Time
The event allegedly ran 8am-4pm. I was booked 11am-3pm. Was actually there from around 10am-4pm, following the photojournalist mantra that you should arrive early and stay late.
If I really cared, I should have been there from 5am, to catch the sunset over the ocean.
The shoot
Girls arrived a little late. Lucky I got there independently and early.
One of the girls helped me a lot. She went out of her way to try to do interesting things for the camera, and consented to some of my dodgy requests. "Adjust my underwear while I'm walking? OK -- sigh -- if you really think it'll make good video. Run around like an idiot kicking water at the other girl? OK, fine. Just for you."
Asked the girls to take their sunglasses off during the last half hour (they refused to earlier). People watching the video want to fall in love with the models, and sunglasses act as a barrier.
One thing camera people should do is be prepared to put themselves out to get a shot. That's one quality that distinguishes pros from amateurs. "Lie down on the ground, embarrass myself and get my clothes dirty, so I can get a good angle of feet walking past? Yeah, I'll do that. Shoot at night time next to the only light in a jungle with a million bugs crawling on me? No problem. Crouch in a cramped position for 20 minutes? You didn't even have to ask."
It was with this sort of thinking in mind that I decided to wade into thigh-high waves, in my shoes and jeans, with my iPhone in my backpocket narrowly escaping a watery death. Walked home in wet clothes, and it took me an hour to shake out the beach from my socks, but I got the shot, and it'll probably live longer than I will.
Gear
-- Zacuto Z-finder and EVF. Didn't use the EVF.
-- Plastic bags (to act as rain jacket), and lots of microfibre cloths to clean sand and sunscreen off equipment.
-- Heliopan variable ND. A life-saver. Discovered after the shoot, though, that it didn't want to detach itself from the UV filter that was already on the lens. No matter how hard I tried to twist it. Will have to buy lens wrenches to remove it. Annoying.
-- Canon 24-105L (my favourite) and Canon 70-200L (because I thought there would be tele shots). In hindsight, it was the best choice from what I had, but the 70-200 wasn't nearly long enough. I chatted to another photographer on the beach, and he had 600mm with a crop-sensor camera, and a 1.4x teleconverter in his pocket just in case.
The models responded better to the 24-105, because I was right there with them and could talk to them -- not hiding, stalkerish and distant, 10m away.
The random people they interacted with responded better to the 70-200.
-- 12 batteries. Used about 4 over the course of 6 hours, and didn't turn the camera off very much in that time. So, each battery lasted about 90min.
-- Had four 32gb CF cards, and one 16gb. Used about 40gb I think. So ended up with about 2 hours of footage, divided into over 1000 clips.
Most of this footage is complete shite! Just had the camera running in case the girls did anything interesting, but they invariably seemed to do interesting things just when I had the camera turned off. So many moments lost forever...
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