Monthly Archives: February 2009

  • Traveling with an HD video camera and depth-of-field (DOF) adapter

    0

    Last month I circumnavigated the globe in three weeks. It was a lot of fun.

    Against many people’s advice I chose not to bring a still camera. I captured all my memories with a Canon HF100, a small consumer-grade hd video camera that records to high-capacity sd cards. I used a depth-of-field adapter, a device used to force a shallow depth of field upon camera sensors too small to naturally achieve it, and a 50mm Nikon Nikkor-S f1.4 lens to achieve “film-like” quality with the recorded video.

    Here is my footage from Beijing.

    I’m rather pleased with the end result. The video’s graininess and color saturation emphasize the dream-like nature of the trip. The varying degrees of blurriness are the result of an improperly calibrated adapter (i should have rtfm before embarking on the trip) but the aesthetic doesn’t bother me very much. It was shot in 24p cine mode. The adapter btw is a total hack and was purchased from a nice guy in washington state.

    This was my first time traveling with video equipment. Between the fist-sized camera, adapter, lens, dozen 4gb – 16gb sd cards, and a super-compact tripod, my entire rig took up an extremely small amount of space. Surprisingly, I never used the tripod. I sanctioned off part of my backpack with cardboard to give the camera and sensitive parts a safe home and made sure to only place soft things (clothes) up against the cardboard shield.

    The most difficult part was keeping dust off the lens and moisture out of the adapter. It was sub-zero the majority of the trip with falling snow and frozen fingers. I should have brought a thin sheet of plastic to drape over the camera when using it outdoors in snow. I also should have brought some form of compressed air to clean the lens. I also found myself having to constantly remove the DOF adapter from the adapter to align the ground glass plate. I should have tightened it before the trip.

    Moving pictures with audio are capable of so much more than still photography. The story is inherent and the viewer can be controlled much more easily (not that I had anything in mind when shooting). My next trip I’d like to plan a vague storyboard ahead of time. A list of types of things that I (a) believe will be in the travelled area and (b) would be interesting subjects on film. Perhaps a narrative can be developed that takes place in both the origin and destination. With enough thought and preparation one could make a short film that appears to have a relatively high budget with travel to exotic places.

    If anyone has any questions or insight about traveling with diy video gear, or using a DOF adapter with an hf100, shoot me an email. I’d love to give or receive advice. I’m in the midst of choosing a location for my next trip.

    Posted in dof adapter, travel and tagged on Feb 24, 2009 at 11:04 pm #

  • The Trans-Siberian as a means to a means to an eventual end

    0

    I really enjoy commuting. Both in the general sense (change) and the common usage (regular travel between home and an institution). Commuting to work, via bus, bike or legs, imposes a bout of inward reflection that would otherwise be absent from my life.

    When I sit on a bus for half an hour I think about what I’m going to do that day, how my week has been, why my shoes are slightly soggy even though it’s been three days since it’s rained, etc.

    Commuting is a lot like church. People put up with it because they believe it’s taking them some place important all the while quietly acknowledging it’s a waste of time on its own.

    I find commuting great, though. Just like church it sits you down and forces you to do nothing for an hour. The mind wanders and is free to explore, separated from the bombardment that sits on the other side of the lcd screen. Wikipedia, while fabulous, does not let your mind wander. Its clusterfuck of user-generated linkage dams free association. Hyperlinks divert streams of consciousness, leading the mind down courses others have chosen.

    Commuting provides a nice pause in the day. For me, it’s a pool amongst rapid waters.

    So. What’s a whole lot longer than your morning commute? The Trans-Siberian railway. Three weeks ago Travis and I rode the seven-day route from Moscow to Beijing, via mongolia (it became the trans-mongolian railway at ulan ude). For 80 consecutive hours we were on a train, only to leave for five to ten minutes every three to four hours. It was the dead of winter so stepping off the train was like walking into a pain of glass. The temperature on board was a toasty 27 degrees centigrade. The temperature outside was between zero and -20.

    I brought my video camera with me and I have around five hours of footage (I’m a very selective shooter) that I’m slowly editing down to twenty minutes. I’ll eventually upload it to vimeo when I’m pleased with it. I’ll never be pleased with it, though, so I’ll upload random chunks to vimeo when I get fed up with nitpicking.

    The trip as a whole was a lot of fun. We spent a few days in dublin and munich before reaching moscow and we met some great people along the way. The bulk of the train ride was spent with a handful of swedish kids in the carriage next to ours. We ate lots and lots of instant noodles and mashed potatoes and panicked on day three when we ran out of food and money. Fortunately, somewhere around omsk, we happened upon an atm at a train station.

    The most fascinating aspect of the journey is the total loss of time. With nothing to do all day you end up napping a lot. This irregular sleep schedule combined with passing through time zone after time zone completely obliterates your internal clock. After the battery in travis’ iphone died we no longer had a clock so days would go by where we literally had no idea what time it was or where we were. We knew we were moving east and that was about it.

    For those of you considering riding the trans-siberian in winter: I highly recommend it. It’s much less crowded than in summer and siberia is known for its winters. Not its summers. There’s something magical about crisp siberian air.

    Would I do it again? Maybe some day. I’m done traveling for a while. I have a lot of projects I want to make some progress on at home. Like editing that video footage. Final Cut: here I come.

    Posted in travel and tagged , on Feb 2, 2009 at 3:12 am #