First Person Shooter Project »
Join me in the PIT as I photograph of Monsters and Men for 3 Full Songs – First Person Shooter Project
This is your chance to join me in the photo pit for three songs as I photography Of Monsters and Men. I am not sure if this has been done before but I attached my Contour Roam to my D4 to capture one clip of what I see in the pit for three full songs. This is the first time that I have filmed a shoot of this nature from the pit.
Three songs is the going time frame when you are shooting shows if you are not with the band. For those of you who have never ventured into the pit this is a first hand look as to what goes on. You will see how fast the lights change, how tight the quarters were in this particular pit and see how I work with others in the pit. There are so many variables going on at any
given time from the lights to the sounds to the crowed to the band. You have to be calm in the moment, feel it and than capture it.
I wanted to create a video for your guys that went beyond the norm and ventures into more advanced teachings. I know some of you may not understand some of the concepts I am talking about in the video but I know you will in time. I am starting to mix it up a little more on the site, we have had almost two years of basic photography and now its time to mix in there some more advanced teachings for those who are interested. (more…)
Of Monsters and Men First Person Shooter
As I continue with the First Person Shooter Project I bring you this photo and video from the Of Monsters and Men show. This is just a taste of what is to come from this first person shooter segment.
Being that I knew I was going to have three songs to shoot I decided to let the video run the entire time. The idea is to show you what I was able to capture in the three songs I was allotted. This will give many of you a feel for how little time three songs is.
This image was captured with the Nikon D4 and the Nikon 16mm 2.8 fisheye shot at 6400 ISO and processed in Adobe Lightroom 4.
For not having a lot of light I am very happy with what this image looks like. I decided to shoot with the 16mm at the start of the show because I felt that would be a good change to captured the entire band in one photo. The idea for me is to run through as many lenses as possible to give myself as many angles as possible in three songs.
Stay tuned in the future for the full three song set with all the images I captured.
If you have not heard their debut album you can check it out in its entirety right here on Spotify.
Click Here to see a larger version of this image
On Stage with Matisyahu – First Person Shooter Project
As I continue with the First Person Shooter Project you get to see me on stage at a recent show with Matisyahu. This time around I had two cameras running, the Nikon D7000 as a static shot on the side of the stage and the countour cam on top of my D3s capturing the first person angle.
All I can say is this was one of the hardest shows to shoot due to the lighting, I will elaborate more on that in the future. When that is the case you have to get creative in order to get something usable. There are always a few options, you can pop a flash but that wouldn’t have been a good idea and rarely is a good idea. Or you can start to get creative and try to seize the opportunity when it arises.
In this case the opportunity came when Matis went out to the barricade and the lights came up for a quick second. I was not prepared with the right lens on but you will see I quickly made the change and a decision. The split second decision I had to make was should I walk out onto the middle of the stage to try and capture Matis with crowd holding him up? As you will see in the video I went for it, check out the video to see what happened next.
Click Here to see the FULL Res Image
Photographing the Q102 Jingle Ball
The Q102 Jingle Ball comes around to town each year bringing the current days musical acts to play. I used this opportunity to further the First Person Shooter Project which allows you to see via a video camera on top of my camera what I am capturing images of.
As you will see in the first part of the video I am breaking down concert photography tips for you from the venue. Remember these tips just don’t apply to concert photography, they are tips that can be used in any situation you may find yourself in.
Please follow my during the day as I break down all aspects of this photo shoot from the gear I am using to tips and tricks from the pit.
Here is a list of some of the acts I was photographing.
Playing this years concert were Avirl Lavigne, Big Time Rush, Flo Rida, Kelly Clarkson, LMFAO, Demi Lovato, Gym Class Heros.
Click Here to see all the images from this shoot
Deconstruct This Image #001 – Skateboard Photo
Last week I posted an image for you guys to deconstruct without knowing anything about it. I asked you guys to tell me as much detail about how it was taken down to the shutter speed and even the focal length. Though this is not easy to figure out it is a great excursive to get your mind thinking about what goes into making an image.
There were a lot of guesses that this photo was taken with some off camera flash. It turns out that I did not use flash at all even though it really looks like I did. This shot was taken somewhere after 1pm on an overcast day with the sun peaking its head every so often. I was using the Nikon 70-200 VR II and ended up shooting this photo at 70mm because the skater got much closer to me than I first expected. Normally I would like to have shot at 200mm to compress the background as much as possible.
You also get to see a “First Person Shooter Project” view of the exact moment I took this picture. Be sure to check out the video above to see the video of this photo in action.
Nikon D3s Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR II
1/1000th at F4 ISO 1000 70mm No Flash
Shot RAW Not Cropped
Raw Edit of the WEEK 55 – Avril Lavigne
Each week I want to bring you fun files to play with for the RAW Edit. This week I was showing Adam some of my photos from the jingle ball (which will be part of my First Person Shooter Project) and he talked me into letting everyone edit one of my Avril Lavigne Photos. This was my second favorite one as I am keeping the first one for myself.
You will get to see a short video clip of what I was looking at when I took this photo that I captured with the ContourROAM. CLICK HERE to see more about the First Person Shooter Project. You will get to see Avril walk form the back of the stage to the front than for a split second put her boot on the monitor while you hear me snap off three shots and than she moves on.
How would you edit this file, would you crop it even though I think the composition is ace? Feel free to crop, I fully encourage you to if you feel it would make for a better image. Would you stay color or go black and white or split tone? Lets see what you would do with this and don’t be afraid to try a fun second edit.
CLICK HERE to access this weeks RAW FILE.
Unedited Image
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ContourRoam First Person Shooter Photography Project
I picked up a ContourROAM action camera from Allens Camera a few weeks back because I had a really interesting idea. I thought it would be a very cool idea to somehow wear this camera while doing photo shoots.
Originally I thought I would use the helmet strap attachment around my FRO to capture what I was photographing. Than I came up with the idea that I would use the hot shoe of my camera to hold the ContourROAM to give you my point of view while photographing.
The next step was to figure out how I get the camera to go into the hot shoe so I could easily take it on and off. I had to pick up some accessories from Allens to make this happen. First I needed a “Cold Shoe with a 1/4-20 Converter to screw into the camera and than slide into the hot shoe. The first issue I faced was camera did not sit up high enough so it was hitting my forehead when trying to take horizontal images. I picked up a second “Cold Shoe” along with a Stoboframe Flash Mount Adapter which gave me the height I needed.
With this set up my plan is to give you guys a first person shooter look at my photo shoots. For many of my shoots I can not man the second camera to capture me photographing. With this ContourROAM I can now record and photograph at the same time giving you the ability to see exactly what I was looking at when I captured images.
If you would like to check out the ContourROAM and other accessories for it please CLICK HERE to go to AllensCamera.com.
