xposed

7D 60 fps test video

Just like a couple of excited little kids at christmas time, Clinton the intern and I almost peed ourselves when the new 7D came in the mail last friday. The Canon 7D is a perfect addition to our family because we finally have a camera that matches the footage of our 5D mrk 2 AND can also shoot 60 frames per second. Of course we wanted to test out the 60p capabilities so the rest of our weekend went as follows.

Friday:

3:00pm - 4:00pm... Dance around in joy

4:10pm - 6:00pm... Prepare for senior session and get familiar with the camera

7:15pm - 8:30pm... Shot our first multiple HDSLR senior session

Saturday:

12:00pm - 6:00pm... Shot photography wedding

8:00pm - 10:30pm... storyboard/argue about shots we want in our test video

11:00pm - 12:00am... FIFA Soccer '09 break on the Xbox

12:30am - 4:00am... finish arguing about film concepts and theory whilst storyboarding the rest of the shots.

 image taken from my phone of what clinton the intern wanted one of the shots to look like

Sunday:

3:00pm... wake up

5:00pm - 8:00pm... Clean the garage at the studio and set up lights for particular shots

8:00pm - 8:45pm... inhale amazing steaks that Annie made

9:00pm - 1:45am... shot video

2:00am... caffeine break

2:30am - 5:00am... finish shooting

6:00am... walk into my house just in time to say good morning to my mom who had just woken up

 staying according to script

 jib shot.. the dolly shots were accomplished by standing on a longboard and being pushed by a second person

 
    Originally we had just planned on doing a few simple test shots but of course one thing lead to another and we couldn't keep it simple.  Special thanks to Ian Youvan who came out to annoy us by shooting darts all over the place while we were trying to work and special thanks to Kurt Herron for being my stunt double when we needed two guys to operate the camera. Enjoy!

love,

Roylan and Clinton the intern

song: The Great Gig In The Sky

artist: Pink Floyd

album: Dark Side Of The Moon

Timelapse of Clouds

    Yesterday, Annie yelled to me from down stairs "Roylan! Mike wants you to get your camera, a tripod and the in.. tra.. vlo.. lom.. ator". Clearly we were both really confused.  Mike walked back inside and said "Dude, the clouds are blowing up outside. get your timelapse equipment" we grabbed a 5D, a tripod and our intervalometer.  The first clip is in the front yard taking one picture every seven seconds.  With a 2GB card it came out to a total of 331 JPG's. For the second shot, we popped in a 4GB card and took one picture every five seconds equaling 528 pictures.  As the second shot goes on, you can see the storm abrewin' to the north that caused all the wind to hammer Pittsburg just in time for Kylie the intern's engagement session. I have a thing for clouds and if you don't think this is pretty then you can leave.

love,

Roylan

song: Stokkseyri

artist: Jonsi &Alex

album: Riceboy Sleeps

Primetime!

This was a pretty sweet surprise for a Sunday afternoon! We are being featured on the Fstoppers Blog  with Roylan's last Behind-the-Scenes of Morgan's senior session he titled "Flying Papers". This site is an amazing resource for professional and aspiring photographers and is viewed by thousands each week. We've already received over 1,400 hits in the first 8 hours it's been online. Great work team!

 

Contrasts Photography Workshop

 In the United States, there are 11,000 photography studios, 152,000 full time photographers and 8 MILLION people identify themselves as a photographer. PPA reports that 95% of all photography businesses will fail in the first 5 years.

What separates you from the pack? Will you be in that 5% who succeed?

The Contrasts Photography Workshop can help you get there.

This will not be your typical photography workshop with instructors selling overpriced textures and Photoshop actions. We're going to teach you the nuts and bolts of how to be a better photographer and run a successful photography studio.

Over the course of an intensive weekend we will be addressing the 2 key components of taking your business to the next level:

* improving and streamlining your business and workflow

* improving the quality of your photogrpahy by creating compelling and professional images for your clients.

Funny Photoshop CS4 Crash Reports

 

Had this site sent to me today. If you've ever used Photoshop CS4 you'd know that it's one of the buggiest versions they've ever released. Sometimes it works perfectly on one computer and not at all on the same model across the room. Well, this guy has seen the crash dialog one too many times and began sending some interesting notes to the Adobe Support Team. I can definitely relate to some of these!

Check them out here

An Epic Video - But Not Ours

This. Video. Is. Awesome.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

So this photographer Sean Stiegemeier got a little tired of looking at the bad photos of the unpronounceable volcano erupting in Iceland. He apparently had some time off from work and decided to head over there on his own dime to create this STUNNING video of the eruption. This sort of thing shows the extreme power of the Canon 5D Mark II everyone has been raving about since it came out on the market. Make this one full-screen and make sure the HD is on.

The soundtrack is by the lead-singer for the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. They've got some hauntingly beautiful music worth checking out too.

Free Fx Workshop/Elementary School Photographers

    It all started when Mike took the whole week off to go to sea world but had to cancel. With the whole week open for anything, I logged onto facebook around 2 in the morn and saw that he had posted a new event that invited any area photographer to come out for a free work shop with ice cream. My first thought was obviously "geez how lame and lonely do you have to be to bribe people with ice cream to come hang out with you?" But it still sounded like a fun idea. He posted that invite on Sunday, I think, and the workshop was on Wednesday. You wouldn't think that we would have a good turnout because of such short notice but it was a very successful night. Mike didn't hold anything back when it came to answering questions.  He pretty much revealed every trick and secret that we have so now I wouldn't be surprised if we went bankrupt within the next few months due to everyone putting us out of business. At the end of the day, I think it's safe to say that everyone learned AT LEAST one thing that they didn't know. Hell I work here and I still learned something. I think it's also safe to say that everyone that attended won't eat ice cream again for a while (sadly i'm still working on the left overs).

     Two days after the work shop, Kristina and I were asked to come speak at Meadowlark Elementary School to a few classes of 4th and 5th graders for a career fair. Various professionals came in to talk about what they did; like a pilot, a fireman, a lawyer, etc.  I have to admit some of these kids had some better questions than the photogs that came to the workshop.  Never in our lives have either of us been asked "how do you use math and reading skills in your everyday job?" Kris was also at a loss of words when she was asked what her favorite picture she has ever taken was.  That's a tough question if you've ever taken more than 1 picture in your life. It was a good experience for both of us and it really made my day when I heard some little over enthused chubby kid say "YOU GUYS ARE MY FAVORITE WE'VE SEEN TODAY!!"... thank you little over enthused chubby kid.. you're my favorite.

love,

Roylan

Song: The Honey Tree

Artist: Mostar Diving Club

Album: Don Your Suit of Lights

Inside the life of a SUCESFUUL commercial photographer

Admittedly this will only be funny to some of the hard-core photogs on this site. I think it's funny as hell. Give it a go and let me know what you think. Zack Arias is one of my favorite photographers. You should definitely give his work a look. Enjoy!

Better organization with FollowUpThen

Here's something I wish I would have known about a looong time ago. I ran across this cool site that allows you to forward emails you need to follow up with at a later date. You can choose any time-interval you like and when the time comes it sends you a gentle reminder that contains all of the original email. If you're anything like me then your entire inbox is full of stuff that doesn't need or can't be done right now. Then I have 30 emails and things can get lost in the shuffle. I even email myself things to remember to do later to add to the mess! I've stared using it this week and I'm falling in love all over again. It's free and doesn't even require a login or anything. Check it out and see what you think!

Check out FollowUpThen

Oh no. It's happened. Twitter is here!

At long last here it is: