On Saturday Journal reporter Alexanda Zabjek and I went up to Fox Creek, Alberta to talk to community members about a recent rash of break-ins and home invasions. They have had at least 35 in less than two weeks which is crazy for a small town of 2,500. Read the story.
Kim Priest is the secretary of the Citizens on Patrol community group in Fox Creek, Alta. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Crystal Roe’s house was broken into last Friday night in Fox Creek, Alta. She is seen through the screen window that criminals bent to invade her home and steal her wallet while she was sleeping. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Crystal Roe poses for a photo with her son Koby, 7, and daughter Tielle, 10. Roe’s house was broken into last Friday night in Fox Creek, Alta. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
A walking path in Fox Creek, Alta. on August 29, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 28, 2009 in lighting, photos
Darcy Carter is one of the organizers for the 5th Annual Peter Schiemann Memorial Slo Pitch tournament which is running this weekend. For the first time, oraganizers will have a full 16 teams, including two RCMP teams, playing. Over the last five years the tournament has raised about $20,000 which was donated to local charities, the biggest recipient being the local DARE program. Carter poses for a photo at Meridian Sports Park, north of Stony Plain, Alta on August 28, 2009. (Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal).
In both these photos I should have moved the umbrella down so that it would fill in his face rather than being blocked by his hat.
I had a little help today. Daniel is a student and is helping out our web team this month. Today he came with me for a shoot so that he could get out of the office so I put him to work! I wanted to see how well the new Pocketwizard Flex5’s work with a Canon 580EX flash to overpower the sun when shot through an umbrella….. I shot these two photos at 1/4000sec, f1.4, ISO50. The bare bulb flash to the left certainly overpowered the sun well but I don’t think I got enough fill from the umbrella. Both flashes were at full power. In both pictures the umbrella was as close as I could get it without it being in the photo.
I’m going to try and build a rig similar to the Lastolite TriFlash and see what three flashes can do to overpower the sun in bright sunlight.
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 28, 2009 in Uncategorized
Bike enthusiasts ride in the “Critical Mass” down the 109 St. High Level Bridge in Edmonton on August 28, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 22, 2009 in lighting, photos
The Glenrose Gators paddle their hearts out during the 13th annual Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival in Edmonton on August 22, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Lacrosse is a GREAT sport to shoot and probably the WORST sport to shoot because it is always sooooooo soooooo dark. It is always played in a hockey arena, which is dark enough to start, then they remove the ice which means there is no light being reflected up from the ground… you always have to shoot at the highest ISO possible and you still get a blurry 1/200sec if you’re lucky….. enter Speedlights!
I setup two 550EX’s with CP-E3 battery packs and pocket wizards. I put light green gels over the flashes to balance the blue flash light with the green fluorescent ambient light. I only lit half the arena since I only had two lights with me. I set one up at the blue line, zoomed to 50mm and pointed about 20 ft in front of the net. The other one was zoomed to 35mm and placed in line with the net, pointed about 10 ft in front of the net. They were both set to 1/2 power on manual mode.
I used the Journal’s old Canon 200mm f1.8 lens which comes in damn handy for sports like this. I shot everything at f2.0 which gave me a full stop advantage over my other f2.8 lenses. This allowed me to keep my ISO at 800 and made for some beautifully clean and sharp Lacrosse images.
The only thing I love as much as the quality of strobed images is the fact that it makes you slow down. When you are shooting at 1/2 power you can’t just burst-mode everthing at 8fps. You could maybe take one picture every second but even then you risk pissing off players with the constant flashing.
Strobes make you slow down and anticipate the action. Rather than busting off 1000 frames and feverishly hunting for a sharp image, I may only shoot 150 frames in an entire game and the majority of them are sharp and clean.
Calgary Mountaineers goalie Jake Dietrich blocks a shot with Clarington Green Gaels Chad Tutton in front during the gold medal final game for the Junior ‘B’ Lacrosse National Championship in Beaumont, Alta. on August 22, 2009. Calgary won 8-4. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Calgary Mountaineers Mike Tyrell attempts a shot on Clarington Green Gaels goalie Zack Higgins during the gold medal final game for the Junior ‘B’ Lacrosse National Championship in Beaumont, Alta. on August 22, 2009. Calgary won 8-4. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Clarington Green Gaels Shayne Jackson, who had been voted MVP for the entire championship is dejected as the Calgary Mountaineers celebrate winning the gold medal final game for the Junior ‘B’ Lacrosse National Championship in Beaumont, Alta. on August 22, 2009. Calgary won 8-4. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
A woman rides her scooter down Groat Road near the University with a dog in her backpack in Edmonton on August 21, 2009. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 20, 2009 in photos, wedding
I’m really bad at back-updating…. meaning that I will post an update in the past. I’ve added two wedding posts on June 6 and July 18. You can also find more pictures from these weddings in the Portfolio section. Enjoy!
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 18, 2009 in photos, video
Don and Debbie Gulayec stand in front of the burnt remains of their hog farm near Derwent, Alta., 200 kms east of Edmonton on August 18, 2009. They awoke around midnight on Tuesday morning to the fire after a concerned neighbour called them. All of their barns and 900 sows were lost in the fire. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
Posted by ryanjackson on Aug 12, 2009 in photos, video
Edmonton Eskimo defenseman Kitwana Jones, right, and Journal Crime Reporter Ben Gelinas sit and play the brand new Madden 10 for XBOX 360 in Gelinas’ living room in Edmonton on August 12, 2009. Kitwana is a fan of video games and says many players enjoy video games in the locker room to wind down. Photo by Ryan Jackson / Edmonton Journal
This assignment was fun. Our very talented crime reporter Ben Gelinas also runs the video game blog Button Mash for the Journal. For his review of Madden NFL 10 for XBOX 360 he asked Edmonton Eskimo Kitwana Jones to play it with him and he accepted. It made for an interesting review and a fun video.
To shoot this I placed a Canon HV20 beside the TV pointed at Ben and Kitwana. I had my Canon XH-A1 off to the side to get details and wide shots. The room was dark so I had a 300w tungsten hot light going into a shoot through umbrella to the side.
My third “camera” was my laptop. I split the video coming from the XBOX 360 to the TV and to an AV->DV converter box which basically takes composite video and audio in and then gives you a DV video stream through a firewire cable. I had Final Cut Pro set to capture the stream and then synced all three cameras up together in FCP after.
In total there was two hours of game play which resulted in six hours of footage (three cameras times two hours). The XBOX 360 signal was standard def so it was recorded in 720×480 DV video. My HV20 and XHA1 were 1080i HDV. Final Cut Pro is great at mixing DV and HDV footage so that wasn’t a problem and the SD video up-sized to HD looked pretty good in the end.
I would have liked to have captured the XBOX 360 video in HD but that would involve buying a component video splitter and a component video capture device which are super pricey. Most cards are over $1000 but Hauppauge has a new box that can convert HD component to H.264 video. Pretty cool, but then you would have to convert the H.264 video to HDV to mix in with the video cameras and that would be a lot more work = just capture in SD and no one will really care….
