blog.photing.com » mk3

death of a camera

markus — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:32:40 +0000

one would think that machines like a canon 1D mark3 should resist a little rain – and well – mine actually did resist a lot more yet, but obviously one can have bad luck either. after a rainy (but not heavily pouring rain) soccer-game in april it seems i didn’t let it dry long enough, and probably should have taken it out of it’s bag (it’s usually lying in there upside down with a long lens attached) instead of just opening it.
however, when i turned it on the next time it seems there was some condensed water left at a *very* bad spot, namely the connection between the mainboard and the bayonet – and well, this killed it :(

luckily insurance covered it, so i’m now sitting at the sidelines with my mk2N and waiting for the mk4 .. 8)

some views from the inside:

red bull road rage

markus — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:51:23 +0000

early september i’ve been down in switzerland, near bern, covering the first european “red bull road rage” – an on-road downhill-race.

what began with a beautiful morning in the swiss mountains more and more developed to what was predicted: heavy rainfalls starting right after noon. so besides the problems to cover such event alone (long distances, no way to move on the (only) road while the race is on), it was a real challenge to keep my stuff dry and functional.. of course the remotes soon gave up due to the humidity – so i mainly had to rely on the cam in my hand.
to move, i had an mtb with me, rolling down was the easy part, but getting up that (really steep) road with the heavy weight on the back took a lot of time.. for one major move i was lucky to (literally) get hold of one of the motorbikes securing the track – which wasn’t that easy either though.. holding that guy’s arm with my left (weak) hand, my bike straight with the other, still the heavy backpack on my back, and that all while going steep up with 40km/h or more.. not so funny. and did i mention the heavy rain? not that the water would stay on the ground if one rolls upwards with broad mtb-tires.. :(

see me in action @1:27 8)

4X pichla 08

markus — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:00:31 +0000

back in mid august i’ve been down at the far south-east end of ~~nowhere~~ austria, to cover a small but legendary 4X-race for the organizer and a bikeboard report.

as legendary as the race, is the fact that it always rains at this event, heavily – as in floodlike. so it was predicted for this year either, but against all forecasts, after 5 minutes of dripping around noon the day turned to the complete opposite.. still we got our dose of mud after dark, when the after-race party with the fabulous binder-krieglstein on stage took place.

nightlights

markus — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:39:41 +0000

having had it planned for a while now, i finally made it out to shoot a little at night again.. put my shortest lenses on the two big canon-bodies, so i could play with one while the other was exposing – mostly bound to 30″ as i still don’t have any timer, nor a lockable cable-release with me :(

as most often i again used the lights of vienna, but also played a little with a flash and a flashlight.. all just gone through bibble for whitebalancing and minor tweaks..

the italian job

markus — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:11:33 +0000

.. more or less business as usual, just with some ‘minor’ differences.. a mtb-marathon with rather little (just close to 300) participants, 500kms to reach it, and best of all – getting to know about it just some hours before having to depart..

so i went to sauris/ita alone, arriving there at 2 in the morning, getting up at 6 again, without knowing the track at all, trying to get a plan, looking for useable spots, and being readily set up there after the start at 9 .. luckily the weather was quite the opposite of what was to expect in advance.

it all went surprisingly smooth&easy, i quickly found what i was looking for on the track, set up my remotes and was ready to go well before the race started. all remotes worked flawlessly, and timing was perfect, so for less than 300 participants i produced more than 3000 photos, a mean of 10 photos per rider.. fortune favours fools :) ..

back home, 500kms straight, and done.

kraftwerktrophy 08

markus — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:35:07 +0000

the sequel of a legend.. after skipping one year due to organizational troubles a legendary 24h-roadbike-race, the “kraftwerktrophy” was reborn, relocated away from the name-giving powerplant of theiss to donnerskirchen.. a small, still great race, with an even greater spirit, let’s hope there’ll be some more participants the next time..

as always with 24h-races, i did a lot of testing which mostly takes more time – one doesn’t have at “normal” races – but also results in a lot similar photos, so not too much variation in there.. been there from before dusk till after dawn, where the earlier was nice, but the latter quite boring and colorless..