Jackpot! Recording Studios

On Monday I did a photo shoot at Jackpot! Recording Studios with my fellow friend E Einowski of Wikirecording.org

Jackpot! Recording Studio, owned by Larry Crane, has hosted sessions for artists such as The Go-Betweens, Elliot Smith, Quasi, Stephen Malkmus, Sleater-Kinney, The Decemberists, and The Shins over its ten-year history (info provided by Wikirecording.org). So it’s quite a big player in the Portland and national recording scene. 

My friend E runs a wiki site on recording. One of the features of the site is studio directories. Jackpot! Studios will hopefully be the first of many studios we shoot. The shoot consisted of us shooting pretty much their entire inventory of mics, guitars, pre-amps, and various other equipment.

For the shoot I rented a Canon 14mm f/2.8 L Lens and borrowed a 5D from my photography friend TJ Cameron. It was great shooting with a full frame camera body. My camera, the 30D, has a 1.6x cropped sensor.  That means that any lens I use, the focal length will be multiplied by 1.6. If I have a 35mm lens that would translate to 56mm lens on my camera. This can be great if you’re shooting sports or wildlife because a 70-200mm lens now becomes 320mm at the long end. At the other end though if you’re shooting with a wide angel lens it can be a pain. The 14mm becomes 22mm. A diagram below (from TheDigitalPicture.com) shows the difference between full frame camera and cropped sensors.

Side note: TheDigitalPicture.com is an awesome website if you’re just getting your feet wet with canon SLRs and have no idea what lens or camera body is right for you. There’s a ton of lenses out there and from my experience workers at retail stores don’t provide the best info about each lens. Where as this website goes into great detail about each lens and has recommend lenses for different types of shooting from weddings, portraits, sports, wildlife, etc.

Another great website is dpreview.com. They don’t have reviews on lenses but they have great reviews on camera bodies (even compact cameras). If you are looking to purchase any type of camera this is the website you need to . . . no have to go to before you decide on a specific camera. I can guarantee you that i if you do you’re research on that site you will end up with a camera that you are very happy with.

But enough plugs here’s a few photos from the shoot:

(where the magic happens)

(my setup: two Alien Bees AB800s, with octo-soft-box on the left and white umbrella on the right, with a white backdrop)

We had a little fun with the 14mm 2.8 lens after we finished shooting all the equipment

(And that’s a wrap! At 12:30am; From left to right: Kendra (Jackpot! Manager), Isaac (me photographer), E (founder of Wikirecording.org))

 

 

 

Back to video production

Over the last couple months I’ve kind of strayed away from video production and have been concentrating my time on photography. Two Mondays ago I got back into doing video production work helping my friend Brad, who was my 2nd AC on the short film “Berlin”. out on a shoot. We shot at a Spa down near the Willamette river. Rebecca of Bystander Productions directed it. The final video will be used on Navigate Portland. If all goes well we’ll be doing more business videos for Navigate Portland in the future. I believe I am also going to be 2nd ACing for Brad in an upcoming music video so look out for that.

(Rebecca: Director and owner of Bystander Productions)

(Brad: DP)

(owner of spa)

 

shot with:

Canon 30D, 50mm 1.2 L, and 85mm 1.2 L

Headshots, family shoot, and event shooting

Two Sundays ago I did head shots for a friend of mine, Anthony. We shot in the industrial area of SE portland by the river. The weather that weekend felt like it was summer. We shot around mid day which was a little tricking with lighting because it was rather harsh so for the most part we stuck to shooting in the shade. I had rented the Canon 50mm f/1.2 L lens for the weekend. It’s a pretty awesome lens. The first shot is with with my 85mm f/1.2 L and the others are with the 50mm. I think I’m going to be purchasing the 50mm in the next couple weeks.

After shooting with Anthony I met with the Aimee Gonzales and her family up at forest park, specifically at Lower Macleay Park, for some family portraits. This was really my first time shooting family portraits (I shot my own families back in December but that was more just pushing a button and running to get into the photo). We hiked about a half mile in to this old abandoned “house” occasionally stopping along the way for some photos.

After finishing the family portraits I headed over to Clyde Common where my friend Charlie hired me to shoot their Absinth dinner event. The 50 1.2 performed rather well in an event setting and I found I used it much more than my 24-70mm 2.8 L.

(For larger panoramic photo click here)

(Charlie: Bar Manager; Tim: bar back and ran event; Nate: Owner of Clyde Common and cook for the event)

Three shoots in one day makes for a very long but fun and exciting day .

In other news, I just sold my Panasonic DVX100a and some other various video equipment so I can now get some new canon lenses . The question is which ones to get. Right now I think I’m definitely getting the 35mm 1.4 L but then I’m not sure for the other one if I should get the 24mm 1.4 L or the 50mm 1.2 L. Decisions..decisions…decisions. I also thought about getting the 5D but they’re rumored to be releasing the MKII version of it pretty soon so I’d rather wait on that.

ghost towns and abandoned houses

Yesterday I did a shoot with Jillian. We headed out on HW 30 about an hour out to find the ghost town of Mayger. The internet told me the town had a C classification which means there’s a bunch of abandoned buildings and the only person still around is a care taker. When we got there all we found left of the ghost town was the old fishing dock. Apparently the internet lies.  After being somewhat discouraged we headed back to Portland in search of something else to shoot. We settled on going out to Hillsboro and seeing what we could find out there.

I’d have to say we found some pretty cool locations out there. We ended up at a abandoned rundown house out in Forest Grove that we found by way of one of Jillian’s friends. The house looked like it was on verge of collapsing with parts of the second story already collapsing on the first. Overall, I think I took some of the best shots so far in my portfolio. Jillian was a great model to work with, very professional and good kept me good company for a days worth of shooting and driving.

I rented the 35mm F/1.4 L lens from Pro Photo for the shoot and definitely fell in love with that lens. That will be the next lens I purchase.

Here’s just a taste from the shoot:

(the house)

And here’s a shot of us after our wrap (I got a little dirty on the shoot)