Ice Fishing for Walleye/Pickerel and Pike at Lac des Mille Lacs with my Nikon D5600

With this pandemic pressing down I relished the thought of a weekend in the woods far away from the press coverage. Limited to no mobile access, sun and fresh air I took it all in and got a short reprieve from this new world we now live in. We caught some walleye/pickerel, some pike and maybe a slight sun burn out on the ice covered Lac Des Mille Lacs. Eager to try and shoot something strictly using my DSLR, ND filter and a VR lens, I came up with this. Most of my footage from past vlogs was shot with a gopro. It's easy and super useful, but to get control over the Depth Of Field and make it that much more cinematic, DSLR is the way to do it. If you can afford a nice mirrorless I'm sure that's even better. I don't know because I haven't the opportunity nor the budget for a mirrorless ! :)

Music for the Soul

There's nothing like getting together with some great friends and liked mind individuals to collaborate on a music project.  My good friend is in visiting and requested to take park in a music project of mine.  Once a week another friend and I rehearse and often try and record a video from the session. 

We broke some bread, drank some wine and spent the evening going over the arrangement then finally hit record.  Enjoy!

My Hike to the Silver Islet Sea Lion in the Spring 2020

I've had the "Sea Lion in Winter" on my shot list for a while.  Having a free afternoon I took the opportunity to drive out to the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and go for a short hike to one of the region's famous natural landmarks.

Music:
Inkling - SlenderBeats
III - Foster the People
All Will Be Okay - Tourist Bureau

Nikon Snap Bridge for 'Extreme Selfies'

My Nikon D5600 has snapbridge which is blue tooth and wifi connetivty to my phone for downloading images and controlling the camera remotley.  Pretty cool.  Here's some initial tests I did with it.  The sun was setting and my windows face west - so I was able to get some really nice golden hour glow to blow out the background.

How to get buttery smooth slow motion B roll

I've been working on my little film projects and I think I've finally nailed down the right settings to get some nice silky smooth slow motion b-roll!.   Here's the secret sauce - although I'm sure it's not that much of a secret.  I'm just glad to share my findings:

1. shoot your footage in 60fps
2. import into your editor but make sure the timeline is set to 24fps
3. trim your clips
4. select them and change the video speed by using the value 40%

That's it - 40% seems to be that nice sweet spot to slow down the footage as much as possible before it starts 'jittering' which I believe is the editor adding frames.

Bonus Tip for the cinematic black bars:

In Davinci simply head up to 'timeline' and near the bottom is output blanking - choose 2.39.  There's other options too if you want 4:3 etc. 

Here's a little montage of myself and some fellow photographer friends stomping around in the snow trying to get some nice images near the lakeshore.

Cotton Candy Clouds

I just can't get over the skies tonight. Had to share this asap. I was driving home from work and around town this evening and had to capture the magic in the skies. I was very taken by the colour at the marina.

I'll keep trying to express what photography does for me.  One day I might actually nail it.  This moment - it lasted maybe 5 minutes.  From the time I drove from my daughter's dance studio to the bridge and got out of my car, I had about 5 minutes to get these 2 images.  The railway was my primary focus. I wanted a different perspective on the city's skyline, hoping it was an angle that hasn't been done yet.  When the sun started dipping below the buildings I looked over my shoulder to see the wondrous pinks and soft blues over the Sleeping Giant.  I walked to the other side of the bridge, checked my shutter/iso/fstop to make sure they were good, took a breath to take it in then snapped the image.  The second image of the Giant was truly effortless.   I stood there a moment longer to take in the serenity and snapped a mental image as well.  The mental image is key as when I returned home later that evening to process the images, I give myself creative license to adjust and manipulate the image to how I best remembered the moment and how it made me feel.

Current River Damn! FOMO caused me to rise from my winter slumber and get out with my camera

FOMO - the Fear of Missing Out.  That's what I was feeling first thing in the morning.  Knowing a possible sunrise was in the forecast I laid in be for a torturous 10 mins before throwing the covers off and getting my ass out the door.  I knew I'd regret it if I slept in.  FOMO can be a good motivator. 

Photo presentation music by Mirasol (my good friend Davey Lahteenmaa)