barnezy.com » Canon 7D

My First Lacrosse Game

The Grand Architect of this Website — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:42:19 +0000

This week has been a busy week with finals at Cleveland Chiropractic College. I was fortunately able to take an hour break to go shoot my first lacrosse game. I’m friends with a family in Overland Park that eats and breathe’s lacrosse so I thought I’d offer to take some photos of their team. It truly is a family affair with two daughters playing, a father coaching, and a mother doing everything else! I had never shot a lacrosse game so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured out pretty quick that the field is much larger than a football field and the officials do not like photos behind the net (for obvious reasons). I shot the game with my Canon 7D and 200mm f2.0 with a Canon 1.4x teleconverter attached. The images were still very sharp at a 2.8, and tack sharp at an f4. At f4 I was able to get 1/1000th of a second shots with 400 ISO settings on an overcast evening. Overall it was a good learning experience and a blast to watch. These girls can flat out play! I wish I could shoot another game, but their season ends soon and I have to get back to Oklahoma this weekend for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. I have been fortunate enough to get a press pass for this event so there should be some pretty nice photos coming Sunday evening or Monday. I’m also shooting a couple’s engagement photos on friday morning so I’ll post those as well. I’m going under the knife on Tuesday for jaw surgery so I’ll do my best to have these posted before then. Good luck as you finish your finals and look forward to seeing everyone again after the break. -Barnezy-

Canon EF 200mm F/2.0 L IS USM Telephoto Lens

The Grand Architect of this Website — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:05:45 +0000

I recently sold my Canon EF 200mm f/1.8 USM telephoto lens on ebay. You can read about it in an earlier blog. What I had planned on doing was maybe to pick this lens up this summer when Canon runs their rebate programs. However, I was shocked to see they had already began a rebate program this past week. They even had double rebates on this lens when you bought a new Canon 5D Mark II. Since I already own this camera and don’t know anyone who needs to buy one, I simply opted for the $500 single rebate. I’m also a big fan of Bing Cashback and have used it for a year or two for online purchases. With Bing Cashback I was able to save an additional 7% on this lens. Both of these incentives add up to a $825 savings on this unbelievable lens! This lens is known as the replacement for the legendary Canon 200mm f1.8 which I recently sold. Those were pretty big shoes to fill but this lens does a marvelous job doing just that. The big selling point of this lens is the 4 stops of image stabilization which makes this lens capable of shooting handheld photos at 1/5th of a second. The IS also makes this lens perfect for DSLR video, which I’m really starting to get into. The aperture is 1/3 stop slower than the 200mm 1.8, but with the high ISO abilities of today’s digital SLR’s this isn’t really a big deal. Another area where the 200mm f/2.0 excels is in it’s unbelievable sharpness. The 200 1.8 was renowned for being one of the sharpest lenses Canon has ever made. I’m going to step out on a limb and say not only is this lens sharper, I believe it’s the sharpest lens canon has ever made! The color and contrast that come from this lens are simply incredible! I had an opportunity to try it out last night at a lacrosse practice of some friends of mine. The lighting on the practice field was not very bright and the color balance from the light changed every 10 yards on the field. My Auto White Balance got dizzy from having to change every shot. I finally settled on a fluorescent color balance that gave decent results but had to patch up every image in Aperture 3. These are a decent example of what this lens is capable at fast speeds and in dark places. It’s the absolute g0-to lens for indoor or night sports! I’m going to visit Louisville in the next few days and will hopefully get some nicer photos to post. But for now, these will have to do! I hope everyone is enjoying your spring break if you are lucky enough to have one! -Chris-

Jennifer Dry / Tyler Allen Wedding Compilation

The Grand Architect of this Website — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:06:01 +0000

Photo by Stancy Higley Photography

So I shot my first wedding video assignment with a 3 camera setup this past month. I use a Sony HVR-Z5U for my primary camera. As a photographer I own a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 7D. Both of these cameras can film in 1080P HD video. However, as of now, the 5D can only film at 30 frames per second, whereas the 7D films at 24 frames per second. 24 frames per second is the standard that nearly every movie is filmed at and therefore creates more of a desirable look. I shot the video with these 3 cameras and then had to convert the footage from the 5D to match the 7D. It’s an incredibly lengthy process taking roughly an hour for each 15 seconds of video. The beauty and advantage of using a Digital SLR to capture video is that you can achieve the same cinematic look that $50,000 cameras can achieve. This is possible primarily because I’m using the same lenses I shoot photos with. In other words, the video looks like the photos. You can create incredibly shallow depth of fields that cause the subject to jump right out of the scene. 99% of these shots were shot handheld and the rest were on a monopod. I’ve ordered a shoulder rig to smooth out the hand-held shots as they’re not where they need to be right now as far as smoothness goes. I’ve compiled a 9 minute video with clips throughout the wedding day to try and tell a story of how the day unfolded. With the new video rig and some experience, I hope to one day shoot incredible wedding videos that people can cherish forever…. well at least for a their time here on earth I hope you enjoy! -Barnezy-

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)