I started training for the Madison Marathon 2012 so I'm more of a run-tographer lately documenting my training. I began the year entering a 90 day weight loss competition at my gym and won! I lost almost 10% of my body weight and am now addicted to working out. So then I considered entering races. My first race was the Crazylegs 8k. Probably the most famous in Madison as it is on its 30th year. Starts at the Capitol, cuts through Greek row and the UW-Madison campus and ends on the 50 yard line of Camp Randall "Home of the Badgers" with a big bash.
I got a GoPro 960 POV cam as it has a near fisheye (170 degrees) and waterproof housing to cover sports/action. Yes, it works as the first thing I did was throw it into the pool at my gym :) The thing is tiny and has all sorts of attachments for whatever it is you wanna capture. You can pretty much attach it anywhere since it's small and light. I can't do that with my K-7 dslr so I'll prolly use this little pup for BTS videos of photoshoots as well. From searches I have found that people get two and edit the "in front" and "behind" footage which is really cool for surfing or skiing. It also has a 5 MP camera with no manual setting adjustments, truly point and shoot. Drawbacks: most of the attachments aren't cheap so I have been working on my own DIY versions (tripod attachment seen here) yes, it doesn't come with a way to attach it to a tripod lol. It does not have an LCD so you are shooting blind and never sure what you are getting. N0t so much of a problem with the fisheye though. I tried this with other camcorders and had problems with focal length even at its widest. My first run test just had footage of the ground :( Another reason why I went with the GoPro. The fisheye captures almost everything :) The higher up model has a LCD screen you can purchase, getting the point yet? But this also equals great battery life, my rough est. 2 hours + and the biggest bummer, no flash. It's pretty good in low light as you would expect a fisheye to be. The settings are little awkward think of your digital watch. Press mode button and cycle through all of the settings.
Without the housing it's kinda useless. It's just a metal box so you'll have to rig something if you wanna do live feed or anything. I use a clamp with a bolt that I made and use that to attach to a ballhead or whatever. It does have interval shooting which is nice.
So the challenge is how to stabilize this thing to get less of that Blair Witch/Cloverfield look. Well, even more challenging how to stabilize and not make it any more awkward to run with lol. Still working on it but I started with strapping it to my chest. I originally thought to attach to my waist as it's probably the part of my body the moves the least but that didn't work for me. It came with a head band kinda contraption but I don't want to look like a coal miner when running. I get enough laughs as it is. Anyways, here is a short
timelapsy video I made. Most of the actual run portion is at 32X since you don't want to see me run the 8k at just over an hour.
May 21, 2011 was the day the world was going to end for some but for Justin and Jennifer it was a just the beginning. It was a real treat to go back to Monroe where I had worked for the paper when I first moved to Wisconsin over a decade ago. And it was also very interesting to go back with a digital camera to shoot at Turner Hall where I had shot my first magazine cover in the days of film. Since my Blog is mostly about lighting modifications and/or technical aspects of shooting I'll highlight, pun intended :P, some of the lighting I used especially backlighting. I knew the venue would be dark and wanted to add some life to it so I set up two extra lights, along with my main camera flash, as seen in the pic below. The goal was multi-purpose to use as fill, separation or rim lighting depending on my shooting perspective. Plus look at that huge black space behind them.
