Didn't get to shoot much today, had to handle a lot of image editing from photographers and work here in the Main Press Center. However this evening I was able to shoot the press conference for two time gold medal winning snow boarder Seth Wescott.
Seth won the gold twice now for Snowboard cross - out of the two years it has been an Olympic sport. The press conference was a normal presser - but he was cool enough to let me take him outside in the light rain for 2 min. for a quick lit portrait behind the bay here. Awesome to work with and totally fine with getting a little wet.
Seth was lit by a single 580EX II strobe with a 1/4 CTO gel and Omni-Bounce - shot on a Canon 1D MkIV @ 6400 ISO. The blue lights from the International Broadcasting Center made for a great rim light and a splash of color.
The beauty of using speedlights, being able to shoot quickly, even in the rain, without causing any trouble or hauling a lot of gear around like big strobes.
Tomorrow should be an early start, but more shooting hopefully and if I get a chance, I will start working on my multimedia project about Canadian fans.
After getting back to the MPC from shooting the Finland - Russia women's Ice Hockey game last night, my editor gave me a last minute assignment - a portrait session with the first team USA gold medalist, Hannah Kearney. I left the MPC and made my way up 6 blocks to the Team USA House on Seymour.
Hannah was super cool, totally happy and excited about her win in the moguls skiing. However, she has been swarmed since her win with press, interviews and excitement from her Gold medal win, so not much time to make some pictures and only a press wall or the lobby of the Team USA house as available portrait locations.
I ended up borrowing a 50mm f/1.2 and a Canon 5DMKII from my editor Ruaridh, this was a perfect combination with a 580EX flash off camera with a 1/4 CTO warming Gel. USA Staffer Garrett Hubbard was an awesome lighting assistant holding the flash off camera for me [I returned the favor after]. We only had about 3 min. to do the shoot before she had to get another interview - but the setup was great and Hannah was a lot of fun to work with. The medals are really cool, each an individual piece of artwork unique to every medal.
Days have been pretty long - going to bed at 3am, waking up just a few hours later and hauling around a huge pack of gear the entire time, but this experience has been awesome so far and continues to get better.
As the say, the best camera you have is the one with you. I've only had the G11 for two days now, but its proven its worth as a camera I'll always keep with me. Coming back from work today at Silvio's photoworks, I did not have all of my normal gear in the car - but I had my G11 on my belt.
As I witnessed a police car speed past me hell for leather, I knew something big must have happened. I turned around and took a lucky guess at where it was heading - PCH and Diamond Ave.
Unfortunately, Evan, a 14-year old boy, was hit by a pickup truck that according to witnesses ran a red light - the kid luckily was only struck by the side view mirror and is in stable condition, but was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. As a photographer still for the Easy Reader newspaper, this was a newsworthy situation as there are currently debates about red light cameras and the danger this intersection is for the high school students who cross it daily, before, during and after school. These kids were just riding their skateboards to McDonald's - but one ended up getting hit by a driver. The driver tested negative for alcohol during a field sobriety test. "All zeros" as the police said.
The G11 was the only camera I had, but it held up well working in low light and less than optimal conditions - I am not sure if the paper is going to run the images and a story, but the files themselves certainly hold up well enough for print.
It's been said a million times before, but the best camera you have is the one you have with you, it's really quite true.
Just got the new Canon PowerShot G11 point and shoot camera as an Christmas gift.
I wanted to have something with high-quality files, good low light performance without flash, yet still compact for shooting feature pics while working at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver this February.
While the G11 is only 10mp, unlike the 14.7 megapixel G10 - the designers of the G11 seemed to have looked at the features that really mattered, not just the megapixel race. Canon brought back the flip out LCD which has been around since the G1 - but disappeared a few generations back.
As a whole, the camera feels quite snappy [pun intended] - its quick and responsive with intuitive controls.
The controls on top are well laid out, with a dial for ISO from Auto up to 3200 as well as multiple shooting modes [P, Av, Tv, M], and an exposure compensation dial. I see myself shooting with this camera mostly in aperture priority, no flash, setting my ISO and my exposure compensation depending on the situation - if I am looking to expose for the foreground in a backlit situation or create a silhouette.
A backlit portrait at 3200 ISO, better than I expected from a point and shoot.
The other feature I have enjoyed is the "quickshot" mode, its fast, snappy, to the point - the idea being you don't miss the shot. You just use the optical viewfinder [or hip-fire it], it focuses quickly without flash and gets the shot
The movie mode, though not HD [a major disappointment] has good color and quality, even when recording at night. I'm interested in learning more about multimedia, until I can get a more powerful rig, I hope to use this to make cool movies just for fun as an exercise in this.
A solid Macro Mode has been fun to use so far - but also quite sharp - even at 3200 ISO
Photographed close up, in "Macro Mode" at 3200 ISO
Detail of noise, or lack thereof, at 3200 ISO, hand held, 50% quality.
A candle at the dinner table:
50% Crop of that candle:
The camera features a remote port to connect a pocketwizard cable release as well as a hot shoe that supports my Canon 580EX II. There is also a water housing available from Canon - I hope to try these out soon.
While it shoots RAW - it requires Photoshop CS4 to open the files, or using Adobe's DNG converter as a workaround to open - so looks like I will have something else to buy unless the DNG conversion works well.. ugh.
More macro action at the dinner table.
As a whole, I'm excited about the potential of the camera for shooting feature pictures in situations when a full DSLR is just not appropriate or allowed - my dad said the layout reminds him of his Leica - you could carry it anywhere, people would not think it is as powerful as it is, maybe the G11 can get close to that too.
