Brendon O'Hagan

Philip Bloom and the C300 …

brendon — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:07:05 +0000

I have spent the last few days on a couple of courses with Phil Bloom , great courses learnt a lot , Very Approachable guy and i would go another one of his session at a drop of the hat the first one was with Rode and A to Z all day on Sunday.

The second was a afternoon with Canon and the c300 , I got to have a play with the c300 a few weeks back , would have been good to have this course before I had it as I picked up a couple of things that would have been usefull.

here is the Clip that Myself and Lance Wordsworth Shot

Click the link if it does not come up

http://vimeo.com/37844750

Click here to view the embedded video.

a big boat that floats ……. goes fast, and is three times bigger than my house…..

brendon — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 06:59:16 +0000

On Monday one of the projects that I have worked on for the last 2 and a half years hit the water .Loretta Anne was launched on Monday .

so for the last few years the lads at Alloy Yachts in Henderson turned a bunch of flat slaps of alloy to a stunning work of art that just floats away .

It’s the second Yacht that I have worked with so far at Alloys , with this one I had a time-lapse camera set up for two years and shot monthly updates for the owners rep , and Inside is as stunning as the outside , it will be around Auckland for a a few months

and a good example that you can pretty much do anything in a country of Four Million .

5 d mark 3 to play with

brendon — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:56:46 +0000

was at Canon HQ this morning and had a play with the new canon 5d mark 3. which was annouced on friday . I have always liked the 5d I have three of the first 5 d which are still working on jobs today as time-lapse camera on projects and have taken thousands of frames without a problem and a I have a 5 d mark2 which is one of the main work horses and after playing with the camera today I think I will ask the Finance mister (my wife ) about getting a 5 d mark three . while I didn’t get to shoot any pictures with the camera to see image quality , right off you can tell the focus is a lot crisper than the old one menus are pretty much the same and lining them up side by side 5d2 and 5d3 they are pretty much the same body size with the 5d mark 3 a little bit more chunky . there are a few new buttons in different place with a one off switch like the 7d , the six frames a second is also more than enough for me , will be great to see a working copy ( this ones a pre production )

I’m thinking the waiting list is gonna be big though…………

5d mark3 at canon hq

sheep planes and a c300

brendon — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:44:59 +0000

new toys , have been playing around with the new canon c300 video camera .Mieke van der Walle from Canon Professional services was very kind to get me a demo camera of the c300 for a few days to have a little bit of a play with , Now I dont profess to be a Peter Jackson or a Vincent Laforet ( i don’t have there budgets !!) , I have been a photographer for just under twenty years and have starting shooting video to meet our clients needs , I am a still photographer through and through, but have enjoyed working with the moving images as well , we have a canon xf300 (the c300 little brother) and i like that , its easy to use has compact flash cards , and is alot like a digital SLR menu style that I like , But because I am a stills photographer we brought along Lance Wordsworth , Lance is our go to “camera guy” and he is very very good shooter and one of the best people I have worked along side of , we ( www.thevc.co.nz ) have used lance on alot of our bigger jobs , and we did not have to twist his arm to much to fly down to christchurch with us to test it out ! and it was a bit hard to price it off him as well

so I’m sure there will be lots of reviews out there on all the techie stuff , which will explain thing much better than I ever could , so this blog is about what its like to use as a photographer .

well first of all it takes all of the canon lens, we tested it out on every thing from a 8- 15 fish eyes to a 500mm lens and the quality is to die for ! plain and simple. its like looking at a still image … but it moves …. (and thats why i leave the techie stuff to other people )

so me and lance hopped on a plane and flew to christchurch we we had a little job on which would work out nicely , we have a fair bit of gear………… ( no we had way to much gear ) as I also had along a 1dmark4 , 7d, and a 5 d mark 2 plus every thing from 8mm to 500mm and every thing in between , the Air new Zealand people where also kind on the excess luggage ……

for a still photographer its set out nicely , has a iso rating function ( most video’s cams don’t have that ) uses compact flash cards and is kinda like a medium format camera to hold , its really nicely set out and within 10 min I was pretty comfy about using it , Although saying that I do use a XF300 alot and its very much the same layout , But Lance who it was the first time using it picked it up pretty quick and was away ( But he is good!!)

My bevy of ef lens work really well but after a while we did notice that we started to favor the fixed prime lens and used them a lot more , 24 1.4 mm, 50 1.2 mm ,100mm 2.8 macro , 300 2.8 and the 500mm f4 , we tried alot the zooms but really like the look from the fixed primes .

so its a pretty small form factor which is really nice and appeals to me because it used all the lens that I already own

its not perfect it has a few things that I would like , Higher frame rate , smoother aperture dial and one frame a sec time-lapse , but kinda nit picking there as the quality of the picture really kinda over rules that , although for the amount the camera cost it would be great to have a higher frame rate .

it all manual so its not for a the inexperanced , but most pros I know stills and video ops use manual

but saying that it will be on my shopping list along with every thing else that manages to keep my back accounts low ………

so will will be posting some video’s up soon, we had the camera for three days and managed to shoot 250 gb of footage in that time so it will take we a while to work through that

Audio2visual in the city have a demo one would be well worth checking it out

will post more later

busy busy busy

brendon — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:24:05 +0000

Has been a pretty busy start to the year , I have been busy traveling around New Zealand shooting for Blue Seventy wetsuits , for on that later . but has also been a busy with our video site www.thevc.co.nz with a new Show reel gone up

check it out here

Click here to view the embedded video.

having to play with other peoples toys and cos fringing santa didn’t bring me one …..

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:27:36 +0000

got to have a hands on play with the canon c300 new video camera at canon head office the other day , when it first came out it didn’t really set my world on fire and was not something i was not going to plan to pop it in the budget …….. but now that I have had a play ,connected every thing sound wise .. and seen the results …I’m a convert ..

it was truly awesome , and whats better for me is we have a canon xf 300 at the moment and it was just the same the buttons and the same and the layout is the same and there nothing really bad to say about that , but the best thing is the picture it turns out is nothing short of stunning stunning . its a bit more of a hybrid between a digital slr and a video camera i.e. the c300 has a iso switch it takes all my canon digital slr lens etc I can see this being the video camera for me down the track , its not really a run and gun sort of a machine so I don’t think I would get rid of the xf300 but they would work in together very well .

now of to the bank bank manager / wife to ask if i can get one …………..

three years has come and gone and its another election

brendon — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:28:54 +0000

it has been the New Zealand elections ¬†a busy old time and now my 6th election I have covered , they are always hard work… always ends ¬†in a mass media scrum with way to many tv camera’s all going for a shot that is pretty crappy .. I has covering for Bloomberg news

a few pics below

Rugby world cup 2011 here….. then gone….

brendon — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:42:15 +0000

The rugby World cup seemed to pass me buy in a flash . Having spent the last 10 years covering ¬†the Allblacks ¬†from the side of the field , this rugby world cup Cup I did not even get to shoot a full game .

I was assigned to cover the events around the rugby world cup for ATEED or (Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development Ltd)

It was a pretty big undertaking ¬†with up to 5 shooters working at one time , covering from ¬†fan zones to agri days , to the Fan trails .really enjoyable ¬†and the funny thing is I didn’t miss running up and down on the side line one bit….. must be getting old …..

and special thanks to a bunch of guys and girls that shoot , edited and produced as well on this project

Micheal Bradley,Lance Wordsworth, Gareth Cooke,Kenny Rodger ,Sally O’Hagan,Blair Monk, Tony Monk, Carl Budden

Click here to view the embedded video.

New Toys from canon

brendon — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 09:28:06 +0000

Went to the Canon 1d x launch the other day , was a great event and a even better camera , it will be the first Camera in the 1 d series I would have brought and actually ¬†tired first !!

looks nice

The art of a group Picture…..yell a lot

brendon — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:38:01 +0000

the art of a group picture

Has been a very very busy couple of months hence the lack of blog posts.

its been a month of group shots , sometimes the word “group shot ” can send fear into a photographer !

this month I have had a years worth in just a month .

I guess the biggest thing with a group shot is planning and after that its more planning and then more planning after that .

here a sample of group shots ¬†first one is of a bunch of Rugby world cup technical advisors was rather a big one but everything was pre-panned and off it went quickly

second one was a shot of a bunch of chefs , I had no idea how many people would be in the shot as it was after breakfast and after a rather a big night the night before as they were all cooking for a charity night ¬†, I tend to find that you need to take control and yell a bit but it works and gets the job done ( a deep voice helps as well)

third is Prime Minister, Presidents and leaders of nations , bit harder this one … cant yell at them!!!! ¬†, Luckily this one comes with a few Government advisors so they are able to help get people sitting in the right place and order , in all ¬†days ¬†to plan and 45 seconds ¬†to shoot