Howdy Gang,
For those of me who have known me for a while, you might remember that Video/Film was my first college degree choice. I didn’t end up there, but I did study a couple of things along the way. I have been pretty much exclusive to stills for the last few years with a couple of dalliances into video with some flip cams, but nothing like the Canon 1D Mark IV. Holy Cow. I want to thank Rick Kent at endurophoto.com for letting me borrow some sweet gear.
Yesterday, I wanted to test out the capabilities of the Canon 1D IV and the Canon 300mm f2.8 telephoto lens. Wow. Blown away. On the still side, I shot at iso 6400 handheld with a 1.4 extender indoors at 1/125 and got this.

I know, not the most exciting picture, but the image quality is still crisp albeit grainy at 420mm and f4.
What I really wanted to use this setup for is the video capabilities. I headed to a local field to get some Texas Bluebonnets in the afternoon sunlight. Put together a quick edit in Premiere, upload to vimeo and done. I didn’t put any music to this, because I didn’t feel like searching for rights-free music, this being just a technical demo.
April Bluebonnets in Pflugerville from Josh Baker on Vimeo.
I will be doing more of this type of video soon, some going for clients and some going to istockvideo. Learning the ropes again of video compression and codecs and frame rates. It’s enough to make me feel like a rookie again.
Enjoy the pretty flowers
JB

Josh loves a good adventure and some of his favorite wedding and engagement shoots have involved “getting crazy” or going somewhere special to the couple.
Josh is a Texas native and long time Pflugerville resident. He started his photography business in 2009 and has never looked back. His photo business even allowed him to be daddy-day-care before his two sons reached school age. Over the years his business has expanded to include just about every type of photography including automotive, editorial portraits, corporate events, sports and food. Through it all, he has continued to love wedding photography for genuine moment, the fast pace and the diversity of subjects it offers. Josh is a co-founder of North Austin Pfoutographic Society and a resident instructor at Precision Camera & Video in Austin, Tx.