In this video photographer David Robinson hooks an Elinchrom flash to a drone to get some spectacular lighting on his MTB shoot. I don’t think this will necessarily catch on as a trend but hey, it’s cool and different. Thanks to Zach Honahan for sending this in.
DIG – “Split Personality” Mike Manzoori Interview
DIG caught up with the one-and-only Mike Manzoori to talk about his current project with etnies and switching between roles in BMX and skateboarding. A couple quotes I pulled-
“The landscape of videos has changed. ‘Grounded’ was a DV project. The level of video production has been raised since ‘Grounded’. We’ve been flooded with amazing toys that are now affordable, so you can get higher level production quality without spending a fortune… I feel a lot more pressure on me to do good. It’s not just capturing the tricks, but telling a whole story. It’s a lot more fun.”
“…the last few years I’ve been trying to shake the fisheye. Every video, skate or bike, has a lot of fisheye shots. It has it’s place, but it’s nice to leave that lens until you really need it and see what else you can do.”
“Chasing Kyle Emery-Peck” by Terry Barentsen
Exciting video from our buddy Terry Barentsen featuring our other buddy Kyle Emery-Peck
New Podcast
Travis Mortz interview from last year
Kevin Conners interview from last year
Notes:
We start by talking about my hard drive that crashed last year and what we do as insurance against events like that.
Computer Doctors – recovered almost 90% of my dying LaCie hard drive
I’ve done some reading about formatting memory cards and it seems to be split pretty evenly between people saying that cards should be formatted often and people who rarely do. I will continue to keep my “keepers” on the card itself, deleting the nonsense one-at-a-time without formatting the entire thing, and see how it goes. I’ll keep you updated.
Backblaze – the data backup service I use now
Mark Losey – OG BMX photographer
The video of Juice’s tailwhip on El Toro
Nick Tellez photo posted by DIG
The photo Chris Eiland shot used as the thumbnail for the CULT video (*He was not actually shooting from the roof, he was on top of the lockers right under the roof)
Kevin’s instagram with a lot of the photos he’s talking about
The Fiend instagram that features a lot of Kevin’s work
Travis asks if we think that Instagram is a graveyard for our photos
Garrett Reynolds whip, composed and set up by Kevin, button pressed by JJ Palmere.
(waiting for the scan from Kevin) Kevin’s medium format shot of the same whip, decidedly late and with a crucial flash misfire
Jeff Zielinski photo of Ty Morrow from the cover of RideBMX a few years ago (“Behind The Cover” interview with Jeff and Ty about shooting this)
Colin Varanyak halfcab by Kevin, shot on T-MAX 3200
Nathan Williams nollie opp hanger in Vegas shot by Kevin for Etnies (shouts to Povah and Will Stroud). Two Einstein flashes
Shouts to Matt Closson
Garrett pegs hard from his Red Bull video
Garrett’s ender from “Fiending”
“A computer with a lens on it” -Travis
Travis’ entry into the Broc Raiford hop photo contest back in the day
Shot by Travis with a Graflex Reflex (one of the first SLR cameras made)
Dorothea Lange died exactly 51 years from the day we recorded this podcast
Van Homan and Garrett Polaroids shot by Travis at Texas Toast 2014 (shouts to Galactic Seabass for wearing a banana suit the whole weekend down there)
We miss Props so fucking bad.
We talk a bit about how people represent themselves via interviews or social media versus their real-life personalities. Not very related but an interesting topic.
My Lumedyne Action Pack started working again thanks to a new charger… So before you go replacing or throwing out electronics, try a different charger.
We talk about our film processing/scanning habits
Camera Exposure in San Diego
***Don’t use any film labs that have HDR images hanging on their walls.
Travis explains his disdain for immediately reviewing digital images (see: chimping)
We talk for a while about the tendencies of a typical digital shooter as opposed to a film shooter.
***Focusing using Live Mode is easier/more accurate than looking through the lens, in my experience.
The term used to describe zoom lenses that hold a focus point while zooming is parfocal. Not all zoom lenses are parfocal, some are varifocal. Someone started this list of parfocal zoom lenses. Kevin understands that any lens with internal zooming and without image stabilization is parfocal.
We talk for a minute about mirrorless cameras and how it’s not as gratifying to shoot with them because of the sounds of a mechanical camera.
“It’s all about the final image I guess, right?”
Posted in Podcast
“FIT HORROR PICTURE”
Another reason why Tony Malouf is one of my favorite filmers/editors and the entire FIT team is on another level.
Ben Austin
Some photos from Minneapolis-based Ben Austin
Reed Stark with a rail hop to bank in Minneapolis, MN. We met up downtown to cruise around and look for some photo spots one evening with about an hour’s worth of usable light left. High hop, glossy marble bank, no problem for Reed.
Seth Peterson with a decade in Plymouth, MN. We had a small crew riding at a local plaza on a super hot day. I hadn’t planned on pulling out the camera, but Seth started trying a few of these and I had to grab a quick shot.
Jake Demuth, Feeble to Barspin in Minneapolis, MN. Jake and I were riding this flatrail in North Minneapolis as a warm up spot. I noticed that the brick wall at the end of the rail made for uncluttered backdrop, which I knew could make a unique final composition. Jake was down to throw a quick barspin to make use of the setting.
Trey Jones, Air in Orlando, FL. This was actually taken during one of Trey’s runs at the Florida contest series. OSP is one of his local parks, so his lines and airs were fully boosted. The sunny day had turned cloudy, which I wanted to highlight to add a little bit of a darker mood to the shot.
Glenn Dussl, Euro Table in Edina, MN. Glenn and I had been riding the park all day before he started messing around with a few alleyoop airs. He was already tucked over a bit, so he tried leaning a bit harder to get fully tabled for the shot. Shooting in full sun can be a bit of a nightmare but luckily I had room to get the flashes close and pull off the right amount of fill light.
Cody Smiglewski, Footjam Whip in Bloomington, MN. A few of us had heard rumors of this DIY drainage bank spot, but no one knew exactly where it was. A quick Google Satellite search turned up a possible hit that ended up panning out along the banks of the Minnesota River. After cleaning up a bit of the crust and sand, the spot was ready to ride and Cody pulled off the move of the mission.
Push It A Stop 