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Latest Posts

10 months ago

Tuscan town tries to copyright its landscapes

The township of San Quirico D'Orcia, in the heart of one of the most picturesque stretches of Tuscany, wants to copyright its views and landscapes. These are some of the most iconic views of this area (many of which appear in my book In Tuscany, with Frances Mayes). Although it sounds ridiculous, you have to have sympathy with the events that brought about this extraordinary move....the place was [...]

10 months ago

Fishing Mission

It's been quiet around here, largely because I've been running around on a couple of things, including taking (not teaching) a workshop in video making. Sometimes, real life gets in the damn way of blogging...like the old days, when we all had lives that didn't involve screens. I remember those days.... Anyway, I've been working hard to produce this mini documentary, about one of the villages in [...]

11 months ago

And The Winner Is....

I've been working with the footage from my grand experiment, pitting the Sony NEX VG 10, an APS-sized chip camcorder against HDSLRs, in this case, the Nikon D7000. And before I tell you what my take on the whole thing is, I'd like to preface it by saying: I really wanted to like the Sony----what the hell, it should have been the best of both worlds. A camcorder design with an APS sized [...]

1 year ago

D7000 Timelapse

Well, the video embedder here at Pixiq is working true to form (that is to say, it's not) so click here to see a cute little timelapse of a huge honking tidal change from my recent visit to Cornwall, in southwest England. Tech: Nikon D7000, Tokina 11-16mm, 1 frame every 30 seconds for about 8 hours, put together with Quicktime. More to come, now that I'm back from "vacation." (during which, [...]

1 year ago

Video Shootout Part Two

In the previous post, I started talking about the difference between shooting an HDSLR or an APS-sized chip camcorder for video. I use the APS-sized chip camcorder for a comparison, since these are the only fairly reasonably priced camcorders that can give you the same narrow depth of field that is all the rage. But alot of the pros and cons (save the DOF thing) can be said of any camcorder. [...]

1 year ago

Shootout---HDSLR versus APS-chip Camcorder

It's been an insane two months (and it's not over) but I thought I'd try to pull my head up from the computer (what country is this?) and check in. I've been covering two, back-to-back, 3 week-long charter jet tours for National Geographic Expeditions and TCS&Starquest Expeditions. Covering them entirely in video (fortunately, I don't have to edit all this stuff!) These tours move like [...]

1 year ago

Hands on Impressions of the Nikon D 5100

I had the distinct pleasure of being one of the photographers shooting for the Nikon D5100 brochure produced by Nikon, Japan. As such, I got to play extensively with prototype versions of this new camera. Note please that the headline said "impressions" pieces and not "review." Why? Because I'm not technically adept enough to do reviews....but I do get hired to make pictures now and then with new [...]

1 year ago

The Nikon Coolpix P 300

On this last trip, I had an opportunity to carry the new Nikon Coolpix P300 and put it through its paces. A truly pocketable, high quality compact camera has been a dream of mine for some time now, and while I'm not ready to say my dream has come true, it's gotten a lot closer. I'll post the specs at the end of this entry, but everyone wants to know how it stacks up against the closest competitor, [...]

1 year ago

Jiving in Java

These Javanese schoolgirls cornered me during our visit to the famous Buddhist temple, Borobodur, to practice their English. Check out how they just dissolve into laughter everytime I mention the two Indonesian words I know, nasi goreng, which is the name of their favorite fried rice dish. Apologies for the exposure, but I started shooting the video blindly from the chest when I thought [...]

1 year ago

Among the Huli Wigmen

It's been so crazy I've fallen behind on my posts from the Legendary Cultures trip for National Geographic Expeditions. We went from Mongolia to Lijiang China (I'll pick that up later) and then to the highlands of New Guinea, where this warrior posed for a tight portrait (D7000, 70-300mm VR) before a small "sing-sing", or gathering of warriors. Shooting 98% video on the gig, and learning [...]