Cornhole Kids

Back from a nice, hot vacation in New England, here’s my ode to bags. Shot with my 60D with a fader ND. This is my first real edit of the summer. My last being my Cribs entry for work, which was shot with a FlipHD for fun.

Pulling the camera out was good for me, and I’m ready for more. I’ll be shooting a battle of the bands next week for a coworker, so hang in there!

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A Day at the Races

I’ve always been a fan of horse racing. The “sport of kings” as they call it. Spending so much time with horses for most of my life, I have a huge respect for these equine athletes and their trainers. Every year I find myself excited that the Triple Crown is coming, kicked off by the famous Kentucky Derby.

We have a lot of great racing here in California, but most of it is down south. To be a part of the fun, we decided to take a trip across the Bay to Berkeley’s Golden Gate Fields. They have live racing Thursday through Sunday, and live simulcasting of special races. What a perfect chance to enjoy the sunshine, drink some mint juleps, and try my hand at sporthorse photography.

Using a borrowed Canon 70-300mm lens and my 5D, I was able to get some decent tight shots of the horses out on the field. Next time, I’ll bring my 60D to get right up in there.

As this was a party for the Derby, there were hats. Lots and lots of hats. Being able to sit in the stands and get some shots was pretty great.

At the end of the day our group gathered together for a fun shot of all of us.

I shot a lot of video as well, I’ve yet to work on it. I forgot my monopod at home and quickly realized this was a huge mistake. Trying to keep the image stable at 300mm was tough, even with the lens braced against the rail in front of me. I’ll take what I learned back to the track this weekend when we head back to watch the Preakness.

Take a look at my Derby Day set on Flickr for some more shots.

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Mammoth II: Princes

Ah yes, Mammoth. Our annual trip to the land of awesome. A trip where I have grand plans of shooting non-stop and making an epic video. And I usually fail. Once again, I didn’t shoot enough and had to rely on footage of our friend Jamie acting like, well, Jamie. Then again that’s usually not a bad thing and great for a lot of laughs. On this trip I even have a little cameo in the video. New friend Daniel took over my 60D while we were at a party. He got some really great shots, pretty much everything at the beer pong party was shot by him.

This edit was the first thing I’ve worked on since 2010. I was super distracted at first and didn’t know if I’d get down to business. After pushing through it I got back in the groove and I’m stoked. Can’t wait to shoot this weekend in Tahoe. Hopefully this time I’ll finally shoot enough to have some more options.

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Holiday Fort Party

What do you get when you mix children’s clothing, an adult-sized fort, and a bunch of booze? A sleepover with footie pajamas and movie watching.

We had a blast this Saturday night hanging out, snacking, watching movies, and eventually singing karaoke until 4am. The best part was when we all got sleepy at about the same time. We were like little kids, all shook up and excited, trying to stay up all night. Then in one moment we were all on the couch or under the fort asleep or almost there. Great times with my pals, and a great way to celebrate the holidays a little early.

And if you’re interested in where “onesies for funsies” came from, check out the originalI Rock Onesies video. My onesie was the red penguin flavor in the video.

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Beth’s Birthday Blast

Great friends, a surprisingly warm day, and a shit ton of cameras. That’s how I spent my Sunday afternoon. Celebrating my friend Beth’s birthday, we brunched and boozed and headed into the streets for a photowalk. I had my brand new 60D in hand and got a chance to test it out. This video has been heavily color corrected, I punched up the saturation for a quirky look. I plan on using some other footage I shot that day to give more of an idea of what it looks like straight out of the camera.

Hands down the first thing I noticed was the weight and girth of the 60D vs. the T2i. I felt like I was getting smoother shots because the weight kept my hand more steady. Battery life seemed ok. A almost fully charged battery lasted me the entire 4 hours we were out. I wasn’t shooting the entire time, a lot of stop and go, but by the end of the day I had only lost one battery bar. Note to any other T2i/550D users looking to upgrade: the batteries of the 60D are the same as the 7D and 5D, they are not the blocks we use with the T2i. I will be ordering some backup batteries soon.

This was also the first thing I’ve shot with my new Zeiss Planar 50mm 1.7 lens. LOVE the lens. I’m still getting used to focusing, but it’s 100% better than with the Canon 50mm I have been using. I’d like to shoot a better lens test to show what the thing can really do. For under $200, it was a very wise purchase I think.

There are plenty of other things I don’t even know about yet on this camera, I hope to get testing soon. I still need to set my white balance and will TRY to create a video for it. New job/holidays/life in general have been getting in the way of my HDSLR life.

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