Arrowtown Archives - Page 5 of 11 - Stuck in Customs
8
Jun 2018 : Friday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, New Zealand, Queenstown, Sony A7R 3

Walking to my Studio

Quadcopter Panorama

On my way to the fjords last year, I stopped to make a 360 video about creating a panorama out of quadcopter photos. In this video, I talk a bit about how I hope to achieve that!

Note this video is a bit bouncy. I’m happy to say now I have some new firmware that does much better stabilization!

Daily Photo – Walking to my Studio

How lucky am I to get to walk to work every day from home? I don’t take any of these niceties for granted, I promise. And there’s Blueberry, our awesome dog, standing on the little stone steps, hoping I will throw her a tennis ball. I swear, these Labradoodles are a bit OCD with the fetching situation. It’s literally all she does other than cuddling and eating.

Anyway, the path doesn’t always look like this… this is a bit of an autumn view when the trees are changing color.

Walking to my Studio

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2018-04-30 11:06:13
  • CameraILCE-7RM3
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/800
  • Aperture4
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length24.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
7
Jun 2018 : Thursday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, New Zealand, Photo Software, Photography Tips, Queenstown, Sony A7R 3

Filming at The Hills

The New Tutorial for Beginning Photography!

This has been a huge hit. I don’t know why I didn’t make it five years ago! Go grab it now in the store or get it included for free if you are a passport member!

Daily Photo – Filming at The Hills

I took this photo while we were getting a few pickup shots at The Hills country club with Bel. I typically do a little bit where I talk right to the camera, and since I stumble around a bit, we need to make some edits so the final video is smoother. So, after I finish my bit to the camera, Bel runs around me while I stumble around and take photos. While we were working on the video tutorial above, Bel was getting some B-roll while I took this photo. So, it might seem in the b-roll that I am pretending to get photos, but this is one of the photos I was actually getting!

Filming at The Hills

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2018-05-03 16:36:17
  • CameraILCE-7RM3
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/100
  • Aperture7.1
  • ISO250
  • Focal Length24.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias+2

Comments
6
Jun 2018 : Wednesday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, DJI Phantom, New Zealand, Quadcopters

The Trees in Arrowtown

Spotify Playlists

I have a lot of different Spotify Playlists, but the one I work on the most is probably the “Feelin’ Groovesalad” playlist. Of course, the name itself is completely nonsensical, but that’s why it’s so awesome.

Daily Photo – The Trees in Arrowtown

Every year here there is an Autumn Festival in Arrowtown, New Zealand. They have all sorts of dinners, parades, activities, and more. People love it. It happens right at the peak of this storied hill behind the town changing colors. When I took this, I had an idea, although I did not execute on it. This was taken with a quadcopter with the camera angled down to be parallel with the angle of the hillside. My idea was to get much closer and to make a giant panorama out of hundreds of photos. It’s a big project, but a fun one I may work on next year.

The Trees in Arrowtown

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2018-05-01 13:43:25
  • CameraFC6310
  • Camera MakeDJI
  • Exposure Time1/2000
  • Aperture9
  • ISO6400
  • Focal Length8.8 mm
  • FlashNo flash function
  • Exposure ProgramProgram AE
  • Exposure Bias+0.344

Comments
26
May 2018 : Saturday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, New Zealand, Sony A7R 3

More Autumn Photos

All about Project Fi

Here’s a video I made that shows you how I use Google’s mobile phone service. It’s called Project Fi. It’s fantastic because it works in every country around the world and I never have to change sim cards. There are a lot of other great features too that I show off in the video.

Daily Photo – More Autumn Photos

You’ll have to excuse the deluge of Autumn photos here on the blog over the next week or so. I went on a bit of a mission to chase the colors, but I had a great time in the quest. I came out with a few photos that are pretty satisfying. This one is over in Arrowtown by the river there. It’s a great place just to stroll around and look at the colors even if you are not taking photos.

More Autumn Photos

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2018-05-01 13:21:42
  • CameraILCE-7RM3
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/320
  • Aperture4.5
  • ISO250
  • Focal Length28.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias+2

Comments
6
Feb 2018 : Tuesday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, Hasselblad X1D, New Zealand

The Hills Near Arrowtown

Hasselblad X1D Review

I recently added some more photos to the Hasselblad X1D Review here on the site so, go have a look! However, if you are following the blog lately, then you may know I’m switching mostly over to the Sony A7R Mark 3!

Aurora HDR 2018 Free Update

As is often the case, the photo below was processed with Aurora HDR and it has just been updated for both Mac and Windows. If you already have Aurora you can automatically update from inside the app. If you don’t, grab it (including a free trial option) in the store! It’s now in its 11th iteration and the team at Skylum is making steady updates.

For those who have Aurora, here’s what’s new…

WINDOWS USERS

  • Improved Sliders: You can now directly enter values into a slider with the keyboard.
  • Improved presets: Applying multiple presets now handled correctly.
  • Cropping improvements: The cropped state of an image is now correctly captured in the native Aurora HDR file.

MAC USERS

  • Batch process faster: We’ve fine-tuned our bracket-detecting algorithm to speed up batch processing.
  • Align brackets better: We’ve updated our alignment algorithm to improve hand-held HDR photography.
  • Adobe plug-in improvements: The plugins for Adobe products have been performance tuned.
  • Improved cross-platform files: We’ve fixed issue with cropped photos created on Windows.
  • Improved user experience: We’ve refined the software to make it easier to use based on user feedback and testing.

Daily Photo – The Hills Near Arrowtown

This was one of my first stops when I got my Hasselblad X1D. Up at The Hills country club, there are some very beautiful rolling hills in almost every direction. Since I’m a landscape photographer, it’s a simple turkey-shoot! You can just kind of look in any direction and get a good shooting situation. That makes testing the camera a bit easier. I found myself going right into Manual mode because of the Live EVF. I still had to use the camera for about a month before I was totally comfortable with it, however.

The Hills Near Arrowtown

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2017-03-21 05:11:34
  • CameraX1D-50c
  • Camera MakeHasselblad
  • Exposure Time1/125
  • Aperture16
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length30.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
9
Jan 2018 : Tuesday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, Passport, Queenstown, Sony A7R 2

A Balloon in the Morning Fog

DJI Mavic

I’m slowly working on the Mavic review now that I have one in hand. I paid full price for this thing, and I am very excited! Getting new toys is always fun. I plan on doing a few side-by-side flights of the Mavic and the Phantom and comparing the video and photos between the two.

A message from Denver

Thank you Passport Members! Here’s a quick video to show behind-the-scenes of the charity you’re helping to fund!

Exclusive content for Passport members

Unlock Now

Daily Photo – A Balloon in the Morning Fog

If I was more of a morning person, I’d definitely head over here to Lake Hayes for a morning walk much more. Maybe when I get older, I’ll be more of a morning person. Or maybe I should just to bed earlier and stop watching Netflix till midnight! I can only blame myself.

A Balloon in the Morning Fog

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2016-10-21 01:58:33
  • CameraILCE-7RM2
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/500
  • Aperture4.5
  • ISO400
  • Focal Length39.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
10
Nov 2017 : Friday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, New Zealand, Sony A7R 2

Waking up Early

Where should we go next?

Africa, Thailand, somewhere in Europe? We usually do one workshop in New Zealand and another at an international destination. We’re trying to decide now! 🙂

Daily Photo – Waking up Early

Here’s a photo from Lake Hayes where we took our NZ photo adventure workshop one morning. It’s kind of a tough workshop, since we make everyone wake up around 6 AM and then go take photos! But the one person to miss this morning was Curits, and he was bummed out! All the more reason to make sure you join the morning outings on our photo workshops.

Waking up Early

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2016-10-21 01:56:05
  • CameraILCE-7RM2
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/30
  • Aperture6.3
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length134.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
14
Oct 2017 : Saturday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, Hasselblad X1D, New Zealand, Queenstown

The Backyard View

Hasselblad X1D Review

If you haven’t seen my Hasselblad X1D Review, please pop on over! I’ve added some new photos recently that you may enjoy.

Daily Photo – The Backyard View

Whenever I get a new camera, I head out into the backyard to take some test photos. This is one of the first photos I took when I got the new Hasselblad X1D. It arrived at the house, and I didn’t even receive the delivery until the sunset. I was so excited and I threw a memory card in there to run out and take this photo.

The Backyard View

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2017-03-30 19:51:47
  • CameraX1D
  • Camera MakeHasselblad
  • Exposure Time0.5
  • Aperture8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length30.0 mm
  • Flash
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
24
Sep 2017 : Sunday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, DJI Phantom, New Zealand, Quadcopters, Queenstown

Serene Lake Hayes

360 Drone Shots?

I’ve seen some really cool 360 drone shots. I would love to play there a bit more. I think today’s photo would have been totally radical in 360! 🙂

Daily Photo – Serene Lake Hayes

I was doing a run around this lake (it’s about 8 km and a little bit hilly as you can see there on the right), and I noticed how still everything was. It’s not always like this… so halfway through the run, I decided to call my assistant Tane and have him bring out my quadcopter and meet me at the terminus. We quickly launched the quad and got some shots like this. I believe this is a panorama made up of four different photos.

Serene Lake Hayes

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2017-06-27 04:05:00
  • CameraFC6310
  • Camera MakeDJI
  • Exposure Time1/400
  • Aperture5.6
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length8.8 mm
  • FlashNo flash function
  • Exposure ProgramProgram AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments
7
Sep 2017 : Thursday
filed under  Arrowtown, Camera Gear, Hasselblad X1D, New Zealand

Derek Sivers in a Field of Fake Horses

More on Derek Sivers

You might enjoy his podcast he did with Tim Ferris. I found it fun, funny, and interesting~

Daily Photo – Derek Sivers in a Field of Fake Horses

This is kind of a strange photo haha. Derek said he had this dream about laying in tall grasses, and that was sort of his dream about moving to New Zealand. He ended up in Wellington, but wanted to lay down here to see if it was like his dreams! I was out testing the new Hasselblad at the time, so I had fun taking photos of him rolling around in the grass.

Derek Sivers in a Field of Fake Horses

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2017-03-21 04:48:47
  • CameraX1D-50c
  • Camera MakeHasselblad
  • Exposure Time1/2000
  • Aperture3.5
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length30.0 mm
  • FlashNo Flash
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments