The First Vlog
So today I have uploaded my first ever Vlog to YouTube.
Filmed on Saturday 24th March and edited solidly since, it was very tricky indeed. It was the first time that I had filmed and edited a 4K video and boy (or girl or person) did my computer suffer. As did my brain.
I was meant to be performing a gig in Aylesbury but the venue had double booked again so I couldn't do it, and as Steve was meant to be doing the sound, we both lost out on the gig and the money, and being self employed that means, it sucked!
As we were both at a loose end we decided that we would go out and do some filming for our respective channels, but I did most of the filming so I hope I took enough footage for Steve to use in his Vlog!
We extended the invitation to two of our friends and fellow photographers, Will and Phil - no I didn't make that up - unfortunately they were both unavailable.
We decided early on during the day that we would like to attempt captures using Rear Curtain Sync.
I did a little research and some pre-filming practice during the day but the results were not fantastic, then again I was only using the native flash and not an external one so the results wouldn't have been that great anyway. I cut myself a little slack for that.
Steve came to pick me up and we sat in the car for a good 30 minutes or so whilst we planned what we would do and tried to make the decision about where we would film it all. We made our decision - we would head down to the Aston Clinton bypass on the A41 and do it there.
We arrived and began setting up. One thing that we have always found is that whenever we are filming out in the open there will always be a curious member of the public asking us what we are doing. As if they were performing us a service. Low and behold, this member did not let us down, as he hung out of his window like a long tongued dog to shout,
"What ya doooiiinnn'" in his most eloquent "Chav". I merely turned and waved as his chariot (taxi) disappeared into the distance. Last time that happened was during our light trails shoot, it was the same kind of thing but that time we were called perverts?!
Why is there never an articulated lorry coming the other way when you need one?
Anyway back to the setting up. Steve set his camera atop his tripod, and proceeded to check his memory card. In a moment eerily reminiscent of James Tipping's scene in my short film "A Christmas Deadline", Steve's face dropped as he said,
"Ah wait, no memory card!"
I thought he was joking. However he was being truthful, but he quickly realised that he had indeed packed his memory card wallet into his camera bag, before he'd left the house, which is kind of ironic when you think about it, as he had no memory of doing so! He'd also forgotten to pack the audio gear which meant that he had to rely on mobile phone sound, something that he hates. Just ask Will! To be fair he has just turned forty so maybe it's just an age thing..........
After a little faffing around, we settled in position and fired off a few test shots, and the results were not too bad. We then proceeded to set up the external flashes only to find that the Canon 70D (which we both shoot with) does not allow Rear Curtain Sync with external flashes! This was all confirmed by a quick Google and YouTube search.
I should mention that Steve is very skilled in that he is like a sponge when it comes to gaining knowledge. Like Johnny 5 in Short Circuit or John Travolta in Phenomenon, he's one of those people who can retain information very quickly. The only drawback to this super power that he poses is that he tends to verbalise it to you just as quickly too, and sometimes without warning! However in this case, just like in most cases, it paid off as he was very quickly able to surmise that we could use the on board camera flash and use the external flash as a slave and get the shot that we wanted.
I don't think the situation is completely ideal as logic would -if I had any -determine that there would have had to been a delay, albeit very very slight, but a delay nonetheless. Either way though, it didn't really matter as we got some fantastic images. It's just a shame that I was in one of them!
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