Tuesday 26 February 2008

Snapshots from OutDoor Retailer - Crumpler Shop in Shop POP Booth







Our best booth ever?
A tall order, given the unparalleled trade show track record established by Crumpler since 2003's Chalk Board Jungle. And yet that was the general feeling on the floor amidst both staff and visitors!

Monday 25 February 2008

Timelapse Movie of the Crumpler Shop in Shop Stand at PMA 2008



A Nikon D2x has a built in intervalometer, so why not make a movie of stand traffic at on of our busier trade shows? Because if I didn't I wouldn't be making full use of the awesome equipment at hand! Plus, there may be some madcap data miner out there who can provide fresh insights into the mystery of the booth...

I began the sequence around 8am topped out at around 2pm, after 600 or so hi-res jpg's had captured in 1 minute or 30 sec intervals (I forget :-P). In either case neither battery or card was at fault, definitely operator error, as spares were in abundance! In fact I had set the maximum number of shots to 600 or so and forgot to reset this on re-card and re-power - there you go, know thy menu!

The D2X, Hoodman 4GB RAW card and 10.5mm fisheye lens were set atop one of our castular towers attached via Joby GorillaPod SLR, a Manfrotto QR plate betwixt. I retained the initial files in the animation so you can see me framing it up, before getting to work on the 'floor'.

I crunched the files using DXO V.5 which allows for diverse corrections and resizings within a batch and (after a coupla hours) then imported the 640 x 480pixels files into Windows Movie Maker (I'm on PC - go figure:-) after putting the default frame rate at the very lowest setting. I also batched the files at 1080 HDTV kinda size which might look interesting on DVD, maybe a job for Final Cut?

At any rate I was somewhat buoyed by the results, it looks passable on YouTube, the equipment also really delivered for hi-res, and the software was easily mastered, with a little n00bing around. So much so, I have a couple more on the way, both booth setups!
And, most importantly, I had long been looking for a bullet-proof excuse to acquire a second body (generally it's really only possible to use one at a time anyway :-) and as such I'm looking forward to a time when I can enjoy shooting, whilst , aaah, being shot (by myself)...

Sunday 17 February 2008

Crumpler F-f-f artography Bags on F-f-faceBook!

Trawling through Flickr.com group discussions about photographers, camera gear and especially Crumpler photo bags, I came across this gem about how much Canon gear can be stuffed into a 7 Million Dollar Home. Scrolling up I came across what looked like a visual shopping list for the seriously Gear Acquisition Syndrome afflicted.
Now, of course it's a vain and teleological exercise to list one's life achievements in life solely in material terms - the boastful hoard of gear listed in your profile, pity about those mediocre pics one might be churning out incessantly :-) - but we all do it, don't we, or at least, I do. GUILTY!!!
Anyhow, you'd have to be fairly weirder to cut and paste photos of said equipment or ahhh... provide links, right?
Well those crafty Canadians, pioneers of social networking, have provided a funner, betterer way, and have even provided, for all of us cargo cultists, a wish list and all through the panopticon of F-f-faceBook!

So, so what then, then? Some bright spark has added Canadian Crumpler bags to the mix is what!
YOU BEAUTY!

There's already a ton of esoterica listed like the Manfrotto 303SPH, so dear to mine heart, but having been there and done that, it's early days yet - for instance I had to substitute more modern lenses for some of my ancient primes e.g. 35mm f/2 for 35mm f/1.4N, 50mm f/1.4 for my 55mm f/1.2, 400mm AFS for my AFI and indeed the Crumpler range is also somewhat incomplete :-)
I don't doubt there isn't some crazed individual out there "fixing" things this minute!



Camera Bag Shootout! via DPS


Spotted on Digital Photography School an awesome test/review from Matthew Botos.
Buying online, he went for two Crumplers (The 7 Million Dollar Home and the SoupanSalad and Bucket Insert combo) a MountainSmith (our friendly neighbors at PMA Las Vegas 2008) and a Naneau. Take a peek to see his commentary and conclusion!


Thursday 14 February 2008

Crumpler Shop in Shop POP Stand


Crumpler SiSS PMA LV 08, originally uploaded by Big BAD Benny.

Here come some pics of the stand!
I used the Nikon D2x, 14mm f2.8, Manfrotto 303SPH + 190 and Kaidan Quicktilt Leveler and processed with Photomatix HDR, CS2 and Realvis Stitcher Express 2.5.

Wednesday 13 February 2008

PictoBrowser: Another cool slideshow toolio!!!




I was checking out Zacislost, awesome adventures in aesthetics, take a peek!
Which led me to Highsnobiety which led to their column Village Slum - (kinda like Barbequed Iguana but even betterer!) and then to Village Slum dot com itself! And therin I found PictoBrowser! Am I so behind thee or what!

Sunday 3 February 2008

Crumpler at PMA on DPReview!


One of the big benefits of the recent sale of DPReview is evidenced by the fact that they can now afford a dedicated team to search out tradeshow minutae, as opposed to just covering the very big fish in what is a very big pond, the PMA show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thus we were honoured by a visit from the DPReview team, and floored when they posted to the hallowed website, live from our booth!