1. Standard Foam Hat (Love that it looks like a Bearskin, this is what comes with the H4n)

Me & Nicky have fallen in love with our new H4n Handy Recorder, not only is he rather useful at adding good quality audio to the Canon 5D, but he’s sooo cute with his little hats on! So funny in fact, that we’ve already decided to make a little story about him walking across New Zealand in the same vain as this wonderful little film about a Wall-E toy:

I’m half tempted to take all the hats with us for costume changes, but we should probably pick just one, but which?

2. Afro hair (I pulled this one off my old Sony mic)

3. Genetically modified monster! (This is the official optional wind breaker for this mic so might actually work best, but it’s a bit of a monster..)

Now all we need to do is hack into his LCD screen so we can display some facial expressions on there, anybody know how to do this without totally busting it..?

Well this is the big decision I’ve had to make recently and to be honest I’m still quite shocked & amazed the Canon EOS 5D Mark II above is where it all ended?! I’m an amateur film maker and very amateur photographer, what the hell am I doing with a huge DSLR? Some of you probably already know the reason, I didn’t at the time, but below is a summary of how I found out.

Where this all started was me wanting to take my hiking photography up a notch, basically buy a little compact that takes a better picture than my phone! Being a style slag I fell in love with the Leica X1. Easy decision I thought, big sensor, little body, doesn’t weigh much, looks a bit like a M9, i.e. drop dead gorgeous. Job done, I put my deposit down and pre-ordered it months ago.

Then while I was waiting for the Leica production line to get round to making my camera I came across something called a 35mm adapter. This is the review by Tom Guilmette that I first came across and does a good job of explaining what it is:

$400 and I can make my Sony HDR SR12 do stuff like that, I want one! Shallow depth of field is something I’ve always jealously admired in other peoples work, but up until recently I didn’t even know enough about it to know what you needed to achieve it.. Ok I had my mission, find the best 35mm adapter to take to New Zealand, this is going to be awesome! After much research I couldn’t really find anything that beat the JAG35 Pro on weight, price and size.

But..

I started to freak out that carrying 2 cameras (video & still), a fairy large adapter, plus another lens on the end, not to mention all the chargers, plugs and cables for them all was getting out of hand.. There’s got to be a better way eh?

Back on google I came across this film by Sebastian Lopez, shot on a Canon 7D:

Whoa, that blew my pants right off! Ok now I’m getting somewhere, this wasn’t what I was looking for, but I don’t care. In fact how can I use a camcorder anymore after seeing footage taken with this new breed on DSLR? Ah yes, probably got something to do with the price, size and the weight.. Ah what the hell!

Anyhow it’s getting late, to cut a long story short – I cancelled my X1 order, then chose the 5D over the 7D because of bigger sensor blahdy blah, general consensus by reviewers yadda yah and the third party Magic Lantern Firmware, that’s not yet available on the 7D (didn’t want to risk it not being available before NZ).

The lens

This decision pained me. There’s a lot of different opinions flying around and it’s hard to find consensus. Please don’t tell me I bought the wrong one, my brain hurts from thinking about it.. I only wanted to carry one lens so I thought I’d get a wide angle with a bit of zoom, I picked the Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM. All I can say is that it’s the best lens I’ve ever used (although that’s not saying much), and it definitely looks bigger in real life than on the internets! I love looking down that massive piece of glass at the front though, feels like I’m talking to Hal 9000 ;)

What’s next? Well I think I can live without the remote controlled D5 helicopter, but when I see stuff like this by Luke Humphrey, I start thinking maybe I need a Merlin Steadicam..

I’m really looking forward to using this camera (I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited), hopefully this blog will soon be full of all the beautiful images I’ve been able to capture with it :)

This was the first thing I knew I wanted to get for the New Zealand trip and the first thing I bought. I’ve happily and successfully used one of those 6 inch plastic ‘camera supports’ for many years. But to be honest the amount of times there isn’t a convenient rock to put it on, or the grass is too long (without ripping up half a meadow..) means that it rarely gets pulled out.

That’s a real shame, because when I get back home and edit the footage the tripod shots are always my favourite. Partly because they’re steady and maybe a bit more thought has gone into the composition, but mainly because when there’s only two people walking together it can get a bit samey looking at one person all the time. It’s a joint experience and it’s a good idea to get a few shots of you both together from time to time!

So I knew I wanted to get a ‘proper’ tripod, and I knew I wanted to get the lightest one I could find, so with a bit of googling I eventually ended up on the Gitzo website. Turns out the make a range of tripods called Mountaineer, like the sound of that :) They were the first ever carbon fibre tripods and they look like they were built by a F1 team mechanic. Lightest one they make is the Gitzo Mountaineer GT0531, £299 from Cliftom Cameras, weighs in at 0.72kg! it’s a bit short for a ‘proper’ tripod, but to be honest by the time there’s a head and camera on top, even a 6 foot chap like myself hardly has to bend down at all.

Tripod & Head, just over 1kg:

I have zero experience of tripods so don’t have anything to compare it too. But I did spend my formative years training as an industrial designer, so I can tell you this is bloody well made. I mean there’s hardly anything too it, but what there is oozes quality. Quarter twist a leg lock and and out it pops, quick flick of the wrist and then it’s locked hard, none of that straining to get a tight fit. It was a no-brainer decision for me to get this tripod and now that I’ve had it a couple of weeks I can safely say that I think I made the right decision.

For the head I was less convinced, I could of gone down several different routes, but in the end I was won over by the Gitzo brand, so just stuck with them. I was umm-ing and ahh-ing whether I should get a ball head or a fluid head (for filming). In the end I thought the un-even terrain I’d be setting up on would make the ball head more practical rather than fannying around with leg lengths. I decided on the Gitzo GH1780QR Centre Ball Head, £175 from Clifton Cameras. It’s pretty light – 300g, has spirit levels to help me get a straight shoot and a panoramic base which is smooth and light enough for me to use while filming.

With the head it’s about 2 foot (60cm) long collapsed, and I can almost rap my fingers around the diameter. By the way, that boot is a Zamberlan Ultra Lite GT, couldn’t recommend it enough, can’t quite understand why a tiny little shop in Camden is the only store in the whole of London that stocks them?!

I‘m lovin’ Think Geek’s April Fools today, but I tell you what, I would genuinely buy one of these if they were available, brilliant :)

Pixar animator and illustrator Sanjay Patel has been keeping himself busy in the evenings working on his illustrated books. My favourite is The Little Book of Hindu Deities, those little deities are too cute, £6 from Amazon.

Also Ramayana, Divine Loophole looks pretty impressive.

Via: Grain Edit.

A while back I was repeatedly sent this Beardcap link, I never blogged about it at the time as it was all over the internet already. But the Icelandic company responsible – Vík Prjónsdóttir continues to knock out fresh stuff, in particular I’m lovin’ their new blankets.

The layering of this Shield of Wings (pictured) and the anchored Sea Blanket is mighty nice. Although the one that I really want to get shipped over from Iceland is Hidden World (bottom pic), it’s well wizard :)

Via: Coolhunting.

It’s that time of year when designers across the globe check out what Nicholas Felton has been up too the previous year in his annual report. As always, meticulously recorded data and beautifully put together. Letterpressed print version available from his shop (only 2000 copies).

Stunning tattoo style from Amanda Wachob. Looks like nothing I’ve seen before, the colours, the brush strokes, doesn’t look like it could of been made with a needle?

Via: design work life.

This set of foodie felt patterns ($3.99), just caught my eye, I really want to make a string of felt sausages :) There’s a plethora of other cute felt patterns from julyhobby on her Etsy.

While looking up what the hell you call a string of sausages, I came across Sausages 4 All, awful name I know, but they have a dizzying array of sausages ready to be delivered to your door in the UK. Kangaroo sausage anyone?

Via: Jeanie & Jewell.

I got a sneak peak of Social Suicides Dictators of Fashion collection when I bought my yellow suit. First impressions, very nice :) Juicy pics on their site, although the online store doesn’t seem to have any stock yet.

I want to like the Churchill suit (top pic) but I’m drawn to the de Gaulle below, lovin’ the asymmetrical leather trim detail. Apparently mimicking a ’Sam Brown’, which is a leather belt that passes over the shoulder to suspend a holster, whatever looks great.

Just got a comment on an old post that I’d completely forgotten about. Felt like it needed a re-post, such a simple genius idea (not mine sadly), need to remember this before mid December next year..

Wow, I never knew I wanted an axe until now, amazing how much a couple of paint dips can increase my desire of a object. Not sure how much use they’d be in London, but if I was in the market for an axe, then a Best Made Axe it would be.

An axe is indispensable & sublime, the epitome of fortitude & strength, a perfect design object, a timeless instrument.

Via: seiz whaa?

These old clown bikes are too cute, half tempted to buy a couple for my niece & nephew, or maybe I need an impractically small and rusty old bike..? Probably not, but yours for $385 from Modern 50.

Via: Dinosaurs and Robots.

Finally I got my Typekit invite yesterday :) It’s ridiculous really when you think about how long the web has built on only a handfull of fonts.. well no longer!

All the major browsers are now starting to support this embeded font thing if you provide a URL in your CSS to the font file, great news. Problem is there’s not that many fonts that you can ‘legally’ use in this way. That’s where Typekit comes in, it’s essentially web only font licencing service, with some clever stuff behind the scenes that smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type.

You can sign up and use the free fonts (for free), or drop a bit of cash (up to $50 a year subscription) to get access to hundreds more.

“For designers and developers, this is a significant step forward. No longer will you need to trap your content in images or Flash just to express yourself visually. Pages will be more usable, accessible, and indexable.”

I’ve been having a little play around with it, and am currently using Buendia by César Puertas for the titles. I think it might be time for a full re-design soon though.

My new favourite iPhone/iPod game is Canabalt by Adam Atomic. Your little pixel dude is trying to escape what looks like some sort of alien invasion, and he’s running for his dear life. All you can do is choose when he should jump (by clicking), between rooftops, through windows into offices and across cranes etc.

Makes for a quick game, but super fast paced and addictive. My top score is 7927m, see if you can beat that! Also you play it online (free) here »