FroKnows Goes SXSW 2011 Follow Along

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3/20/2011 10:47 AM Dallas time, we just passed threw Dalls on our way to nashville. There will be no SHOW today but I will try and get into the chat room to answer questions and interact while were on the road.

9:11 AM SXSW Time – I have been up for a little while now prepping for the day. Greg and I will be spending all day down on the streets of SXSW interviewing people about their DSLRs asking questions and just having fun. If you are in the area def look for the FRO and the Orange I shoot RAW shirt will be on today.

7:00 PM Austin Time – we just check into our room after driving from 1am until now. Yes that is a long long haul and were both very tired. We are going to grab some food and venture into the city. We have a lot of work to get done.

4:01 PM Texas Time – We are about 1hr30min from our hotel in Austin and we are getting excited. We can not wait to get down to SXSW to make some videos and ask people some questions about BlackRapid.

In the meantime here is a picture from the car with my Green I Shoot RAW shirt on for St Patricks Day

11:14 AM Texas time – yup we are in Texas now.

7:00 AM Arkansas Time – We are in Arkansas and the sun is starting to come up. We have been driving all night well Greg has been driving all night. I have not exactly been sleeping as I haven’t been able to fall asleep. Walt has been sleeping soundly in the back seat for the last 3 or so hours.

Well no we are hitting some traffic, hopefully it wont be to bad.

1:34 AM Nashville Time – We just left Nashville after an AMAZING show by Sinai. I used the D7000 for the whole show mostly shooting photos and for a few min doing some video.

We set up our second D7000 on a super clamp which was attached to a steel beam. We ended up hanging the camera upside down as it made it much easier to see the back of the screen. The video will be rotated in post and should work out well.

For those of you guys who are curious about batter power. The D7000 shooting wide from upstairs recorded 3 different clips for a total of 51 min while only using 25% of the batter. That is pretty impressive in my mind.

Greg also was shooting with the Nikon D3s which he tried using the 300 2.8 AFS with. He said that was a little hard to try and get focus right but it did generate some cool videos. I also looked over a few times and Greg has on the 105 macro doing some killer tight shots.

I stayed downstairs in front of the stage rotating between the 14-24 and 24-70 Nikon. The 70-200 was a little to long for the venue that we were in today.

I am sure some of you want to know how I felt about using the D7000 instead of the D3s. Well I love my d3s beyond belief and personally i wont be trading it in anytime soon for the D7000. I did fight with the D7000 a little bit when trying to hit my focus during wide angle shooting. I also noticed that when shooting vertical my face was hitting the multi selector and changing my focus.

I will say there was one of those shots that could have been great that ended up being out of focus. Nick just finished a solo and was center stage when he decided to go into a full on power jump. I snapped off three images. The first one was focus at least I think so from the back of the camera and the second which had the peak action missed focus and hit the background instead. I was shooting with the 24-70 at that time. I will def show you both images and see if it was my fault or jut one of those things that an happen.

Thats all I have for now, we are on the road looking for a waffle house because the guys are hungry.

10:11 AM Nashville Time – Cooking with FroVader will be seen in its entirety sometime soon. In the meantime here is a still grab from the Video. FroVader made Waffles for everyone at the hotel.

8:58 AM Nashville Time – We arrived last night around 11pm to our hotel. A few of the guys did go out last night but I stayed in to take a few pictures of Walt and Ari counting merch for the shows.

I think i have made the decision to really force myself to shoot with the D7000 which I do have a grip for. Like I have said in the past you have to focus on either shooting photos or shooting videos not trying to do both at the same time. In this case I have had to deal with, do I shoot video with the D7000 and shoot stills with the D3s? Or do I let Greg shoot all the videos with the D7000 and I focus on shooting the D3s? Or do I stick it out with the D7000 and just focus on shooting as it doesn’t matter what camera you are using because you can get amazing shots with any camera you have.

I have been spoiled with the quality of the D3s but like i keep saying the D7000 does hold its own. The main thoughts in my head have been what if im using the D7000 and I get the greatest picture I have ever taken. But it really doesn’t matter, if its the greatest picture I have ever taken than thats all that matters, it doesn’t matter what I captured it with. I will say I wish there was a wider 2.8 DX lens similar to what the 14-24 gives us on FX. I just feels that there is nothing wide enough to give you those amazing shots on DX.

8:09 PM – Getting work done while driving is just amazing. The sun has gone down on day one of the journey and the night has just begun. We hopefully will get to go out with the guys tonight and have fun.

We have been shooting all day with the Nikon D7000 both photos and video and it really does handle very well. There is always that dilemma in my head that says shoot the D3s grab the D3s but I am here to use the D7000.

The colors and clarity of the pictures on the camera do really look amazing. And I know from tests verse the D3s that its a worthy camera.

You will get to see what we create while we are out here in the weeks to come.

[UPDATE 3/15/2011 7:41 PM] So I just spent the last 4 hours trying to figure out why I could not get internet tethering working. Turns out that there is something in the menu system labelled “Internet tethering on and off” yea it was off lol.

[UPDATE] 3/15/2011 ]10:57 am] Got the mobile hot spot working from gregs phone and were trying to do some skype calls from the road. So far having fun keep checking the twitter feed above.

[UPDATE 3/15/2011 05:30] Leaving for SXSW, catching up with the band on the PA Turnpike somewhere.

That is right, we are packing up all our afro picks, wigs, I shoot RAW shirts and camera gear and we are heading to SXSW. We will be following our friends in SINAI and documenting our journeys with two Nikon D7000’s and our other great NIKON gear.

Our goal is to come back with a ton of killer footage and photos captured with the D7000 to create a mini tour documentary. We definitely will be trying to make some cool videos along the way to bring home for you guys.

The one major question is how many waffle houses will we stop at on our trip.