More, New photos | update

Below are some more photos I took the day before yesterday from the keel with the Canon 7d. I have more but I'm going to save them to see if I can get them in the National magazine.

Yesterday I tried using my spare downtube coming out of the nose for a camera mount, but with the 7D out there it just seemed so heavy. I had ankle weights on the back of the keel to counter balance. I took it all apart and I'm glad because by the time I launched there was a slight tail wind.

It would have been some great pics though because I just did a speed run right on the trees at sunset. Oh well, today I might try the same camera mount setup, but with my point and shoot, so it won't be as heavy.

The Doritos commercial is essentially done. I should be submitting it to the contest within the next day or two and then I'm thinking it will take at least 5 days or so for it to show up on the contest site. So stay tuned for that.

Oh, and Stella Artois finally announced who won their contest (not me) - HERE.

Getting ready to launch (see the newer pilot that had just launched to my right).

Getting in my harness after launching

Lookout Mountain Flight Park's ramp, looking towards the end of Lookout Mountain.

Moon in the background.

My favorite way to land - fast on final.

Doritos Video Still Shot

I like to keep you guys up to date on what I'm doing and below is a still shot from the Doritos commercial I'm working on for the 'Crash the Super Bowl' contest.

This contest is huge, you may have heard last year that the Herbert Brothers who entered this contest with their video, was played during the Super Bowl, and was rated the best commercial so Doritos gave them a million dollars! Same deal this year, except if you come in 2nd or 3rd on the USA Today Ad meter you get $600,000 and $400,000 respectively (last year you only got money for 1st on the Ad meter).

I am using Magic Bullet Looks to color grade the footage taken, I did a little split screen on the image below of before (right) and after (left) color grading. You can see it gives a little more professional look and feel to it (it's hard to tell by looking at this small image, click on it to see it bigger).

I also just wanted to add for the techie people that I'm using a trial version of Cineform NeoScene to transcode my video before I start editing. I heard it would make previews in the software run smoother and export easier while maintaining quality - and that's exactly what it does, it is going to change the way I edit! Now I can actually see a preview of what I'm editing instead of jerky still frames! I was a little concerned at first because playing the transcoded file by itself it made any motion in the footage seem interlaced and had these pink lines where motion was, but once in editing it's not there and I export to WMV files from the editing software and it works great

7D First Impressions

It came!

I've had the camera only a few hours, the most of which the battery was charging. But I am really excited about this camera!

I'm happy with my lens choice of the 15-85mm, it seems like that is going to be a good range for me to use for an all-purpose lens. Luckily, I have a nikon to canon lens adapter so my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 will work on it, but I have to be dead on for the focus. The Canon lens' zoom and focus rings were a little stiffer than I was expecting, but I think its just something to get used to.

It isn't a light camera, and trying to use the zoom or focus ring while filming video is near impossible to prevent camera shake. I may invest in some rods and a focus puller. All those accessories add up quick though. Zacuto looks like they make some great products, but buying a kit would be way more expensive than the camera itself! We'll see.

I need to get used to the setup of the manual features but I like the two dials, one for the thumb and one for the pointy finger. You basically press a button for say ISO, shutter speed, or aperture and then use the dials to adjust.

Now on to trying to get the Doritos commercial together and get this camera dialed in so I can film maybe this coming Wednesday. I also got the Zoom H4n to supplement the poor audio quality that is on the dslr's these days, but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet much.

Lost Contest

My new brainstorming team - I might fire them though, I think I caught one of them eating their own poop during a break-time.

Well I made it as an 'honorable mention' but did not place in the top 3 (for money prizes) on the EPA Video Contest. HERE was my entry.

I just received my copy of Action Essentials 2 today, so I should be blowing stuff up in no time.

Get ready for a slew of photographs on this blog from my Canon 7D arriving in the mail tomorrow.

Lastly, I have come up with an idea for the Doritos Super Bowl Commercial contest and will be filming it using the Canon 7D, so watch out other video contesters! My brainstorming team was speechless when I told them my idea, so that's a good sign, but I'm still trying to think of more since you can submit up to 10 entries.

Stay tuned!

Edit: I just received an email from the LG contest saying they won't be posting any new videos (including my "A Leg to Fly On") for a "while" while they process the entries. So hopefully it won't be too much longer before you can watch that one.

New Camera in the mail!

This isn't from the new camera, that's coming Friday, just a shot from this morning.

(Warning: This could be a very boring post to people who don't care.)

After much deliberation between me, myself, and I, I've decided and bought a Digital SLR: the Canon EOS 7D with the new 15-85mm lens (or really like 24 to 138mm on a 35mm camera, so a wide tele photo lens). It should get here Friday.

It was either that ($1,700 for the body only) or a prosumer camcorder (like a Sony HDR FX100 at like $3,100), and I felt a DSLR would better suit my needs between crossing over between hang gliding things and video contests as opposed to something more expensive and heavy.

The disadvantages of course is that it is a bit big for a DSLR, and it is not a 'full-frame', but it's sensor is still large for doing video (this sensor is multiple times larger than the one in my dedicated HD camcorder, the Canon HF100, which is smaller than the smallest square in this picture compared to the APS-C sized sensor that's in the 7D). It can only shoot in 4GB increments of video (or about 12 minute clips). So no hour long interviews with this one, unless I just start and stop it a bunch.

With all the negative stuff out of the way, I'm really excited about this. It shoots 8 frames per second (fps) photographs and most importantly for me - HD video. I won't go into all the specifics, but a couple things I'm excited about is getting away from my depth of field adapter on my normal camcorder which makes the footage have a pretty bad vignette and very noisy bokeh (the unfocused portion of an image) because of the ground glass in it.

With this 15-85mm lens I think I'm going to be able to get some great pics at comps next year and of some Fall foliage while flying this year. Kraig Coombar is sending me an extra nose cone for my glider so I can make a nose camera mount and use this new camera!

The HD video has the option to shoot 60 fps (double what cameras normally do) in the 720p mode, which translates into doing some super sweet slow motions, like foot launches and landings (or whacks).

Yesterday I took a sled run with about 10 other people, felt good. Then I replaced part of the vg cord in my glider and put in a short hang strap because I removed a spacer in my Matrix Race harness in Arizona, and with the hang strap I had, my chest was on the basetube when heads down.
This shows the difference between the frayed cord and the one I was replacing it with. (Don't worry mom, I don't hang by that part).