I've been interested in doing some in car video work for some time, and in the past I've experimented with a Canon Legria FS-200 and a Camzilla mount(you can check out that post here). Recently I came across the ReplayXD line of cameras, in particular, the ReplayXD 1080. After checking out some footage of the Poteet and Main streamliner at Bonneville, and a number of other videos on the web, I decided that I had to have one of these cameras.
I've now had the camera in my possession for a little over a week, and have yet to put it inside a race car, instead I've been testing it out in my daily driver, a VN Calais. The results so far are fairly promising, with the Camzilla clamp and ReplayXD 1080 combination proving very stable (on a road car at least). I've put a couple of videos up on YouTube, which are most likely not going to be of much interest to anyone, but they give you an idea of the cameras capabilities. (That said, I have yet to start tweaking the advanced settings, which may yield some further improvement)
The video above is also a drive through of the roadworks currently in progress to widen the Kwinana Freeway from Leach Highway to Roe Highway. The road works to date seem to have focussed on moving the traffic away from work areas, starting with narrowing the lanes to provide room to work safely on the side of the freeway itself, and lately there has been work to modify the on and off ramps to move traffic away from where work will be done on to realign those ramps to suit the new freeway width. So far, I have to say, the traffic is flowing remarkably well in both directions, with a permanent 80kmh speed limit in place until the road works are complete, during the peak times, the traffic is moving just as well as it did before the roadworks commenced.
The last video on this page is taking the ReplayXD 1080 away from it's comfort zone. I had the camera in the Camzilla clamp, resting on the wall of the Hankook Tyre Snake Pit at the Perth Motorplex. Between taking photos of the burnouts, I would move the camera to suit what was going on out on the pad. Night performance has always been the biggest challenge for a POV camera, and using the camera as a handicam makes it even more challenging, so this is a chance to see what could reasonably be expected to be the worst footage you'll get out of one of these cameras. All up, I'm quite happy with this purchase, between the clamp and the camera, I have less than $450 invested in the setup, thanks to the strength of the Aussie dollar in recent months.
Find out whats going on inside my head and in front of my lens with the High Octane Photos blog.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
I Have A Dream...
...and for now, that's all it is. The dream involves a black MA70 Supra that I have sitting out the back of my house, a 1JZ-GTE and 7 miles of salt. My rather long term plan is to develop the car into a F/BGCC car, in laymans terms, a 2.01 - 3.00 litre blown gas competition coupe, or in other words, a turbocharged, stretched bodied car, running petrol. This is one of those plans that will take years to come to fruition, as it's rather ambitious, especially now that Mikah is on the scene.
Before I get anywhere near that, I plan on running the car as a /BGC car, which basically means it would have a much more stock appearing body on it. And if that is to come to fruition, it in turn means that I'll probably have to pack the car into a trailer before the Westernationals one year, and send it towards Lake Gairdner, for the DLRA's SpeedWeek event, flying out myself just after the Westernationals in order to catch up with the car and head out to the salt.
Mind you, before I even get anywhere near that point, the car has a little panel damage, mostly front end damage, that needs to be fixed. Once the front end is fixed up, I can put a new windscreen in the car and start work on turning it into a race car. Having only ever driven on the salt in the Cadillac so far, I'm planning on putting this beast together as a fairly tame number in it's first incarnation, in order to get to grips with the low levels of traction available on the salt, hence my plan to run the car in a much more 'stock' class to start with.
Before I get anywhere near that, I plan on running the car as a /BGC car, which basically means it would have a much more stock appearing body on it. And if that is to come to fruition, it in turn means that I'll probably have to pack the car into a trailer before the Westernationals one year, and send it towards Lake Gairdner, for the DLRA's SpeedWeek event, flying out myself just after the Westernationals in order to catch up with the car and head out to the salt.
Mind you, before I even get anywhere near that point, the car has a little panel damage, mostly front end damage, that needs to be fixed. Once the front end is fixed up, I can put a new windscreen in the car and start work on turning it into a race car. Having only ever driven on the salt in the Cadillac so far, I'm planning on putting this beast together as a fairly tame number in it's first incarnation, in order to get to grips with the low levels of traction available on the salt, hence my plan to run the car in a much more 'stock' class to start with.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Cars and Guitars
Well, that was a very busy, and rather enjoyable, weekend. The Easter long weekend coincided with ANZAC Day in Australia this year, seeing two of the regular end of season events at the Perth Motorplex on the same weekend, the Hankook Tyres Burnout King on Good Friday and the Holden vs Ford drags on ANZAC Day. Between those two events, the Motorplex hosted a concert on Easter Saturday, headlined by ZZ Top and Rose Tattoo with support from local acts Datura and The Joy Evelation.
The Holden vs Ford and Burnout King events are pretty much a regular feature on my calendar these days, but the opportunity to see one of my favourite bands in action at one of my favourite venues was what had my attention over the weekend. I'd been in discussions to organise media accreditation for myself for some time, and finally got the good word on Saturday morning. Having not shot a lot of concerts before, this was always going to be a challenge, and something that I was really looking forward to.
This was the first time I'd experienced 'the pit', that part of the venue between the stage and the crowd, a little over a meter wide, where the accredited photographers can find some space to work. Many acts choose to limit the time that the pit is open to photographers to a couple of songs, and this concert was no exception. While this may seem to restrict us a little, I think it also helps, as in the case of ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons seemed to be paying attention to the shooters in the pit during those couple of songs, and there are definitely a couple of keepers in my shots from that time.
After the time in the pit was over, I headed back into the crowd to hang out with Kate, and switched to a longer lens to grab some more shots, mostly with two, or all three, members of ZZ Top in the frame. Another part of the challenge in shooting concerts, is that almost 100% of the time, flash photography is banned, meaning you're relying on constantly varying stage lighting, which can be good and bad, sometimes at the same time. While there are often some cool colour effects, you're always chasing the right exposure settings, and when you get it right, there's certainly a sense of achievement to go with it.
On the subject of gear, I shot the whole night with my Canon EOS 1D Mk III, using a Canon 24-105 f/4.0L IS lens for most of the night, and switching to a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L (non-IS) lens for the latter portion of ZZ Top's set.
I don't think I ever doubted that I'd enjoy shooting my first concert, and it's certainly something I'll be keeping an eye out for the opportunity to do it again some day, hopefully sooner rather than later.
The Holden vs Ford and Burnout King events are pretty much a regular feature on my calendar these days, but the opportunity to see one of my favourite bands in action at one of my favourite venues was what had my attention over the weekend. I'd been in discussions to organise media accreditation for myself for some time, and finally got the good word on Saturday morning. Having not shot a lot of concerts before, this was always going to be a challenge, and something that I was really looking forward to.
This was the first time I'd experienced 'the pit', that part of the venue between the stage and the crowd, a little over a meter wide, where the accredited photographers can find some space to work. Many acts choose to limit the time that the pit is open to photographers to a couple of songs, and this concert was no exception. While this may seem to restrict us a little, I think it also helps, as in the case of ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons seemed to be paying attention to the shooters in the pit during those couple of songs, and there are definitely a couple of keepers in my shots from that time.
After the time in the pit was over, I headed back into the crowd to hang out with Kate, and switched to a longer lens to grab some more shots, mostly with two, or all three, members of ZZ Top in the frame. Another part of the challenge in shooting concerts, is that almost 100% of the time, flash photography is banned, meaning you're relying on constantly varying stage lighting, which can be good and bad, sometimes at the same time. While there are often some cool colour effects, you're always chasing the right exposure settings, and when you get it right, there's certainly a sense of achievement to go with it.
On the subject of gear, I shot the whole night with my Canon EOS 1D Mk III, using a Canon 24-105 f/4.0L IS lens for most of the night, and switching to a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L (non-IS) lens for the latter portion of ZZ Top's set.
I don't think I ever doubted that I'd enjoy shooting my first concert, and it's certainly something I'll be keeping an eye out for the opportunity to do it again some day, hopefully sooner rather than later.
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