Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

Canon 7d vs Barbie Video Girl

Thanks to my friend Liz Grady for brining this to my attention. Maybe the video girl can get us all through until the 1ds MK IV shows up...

-Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

7D in Argentina

Ok this is one of the more unique dslr filmmaking techniques I have seen. Most of the commercial we were doing was shot on the Red One. But as anyone who has ever seen one knows they are monsters. So the director and dp attached a Canon 7D to this dancer's helmet (that is the camera wrapped in bubble wrap) to get a wild pov. When the commercial airs I'll post a version of it here. 

-Stephen Alvarez

 

Outside Washington

 On the train headed into DC earlier this year. A frame from my visual diary.

-Stephen Alvarez

Zoom h4n recorder field update -Sound Machines continued-

Zoom H4n Update

Back in September I compared the Sony PCM D50 and the Zoom H4n field recorders (here). At the time I’d had the Zoom about a week, was impressed with the features and audio quality but couldn’t speak to its reliability in the field.

Well after a hard trip to Uganda/Sudan I have to say its performance in the field is stellar. I’m listening to the audio now. The quality is very good and most importantly the recorder survived the abuse. 

The recorder is just the right size. It fits in the outside pocket of a Domke F2 bag. It is always handy.

Poverty, a poem by Fred Taban

Poverty, a poem by Fred Taban, recorded last week in South Sudan. 

Fred is a theology professor at the Episcopal Church Sudan Seminary in Kajo Keji County, Sudan. He has been a refugee for most of his life. When Fred speaks of poverty he know the subject well. I will share more of his extraordinary story here next month.

-Stephen Alvarez

which camera to buy? Canon 5D Mark II vs Canon 7D

5d MK II vs 7D

I got an email from Chile last week asking which camera to buy the Canon 5D Mark II ($2739) or 7D (in stock here) ($1700) . The truth is that I really cannot say. They are different cameras and do different things.  It really depends on what you need.  I have just gotten back to Kampala from shooting in South Sudan with both cameras sided by side so here is a BREIF out line of the differences. But first let me say that they both preformed flawlessly in the the hot, dusty conditions along the border.

Canon 7D as a VIDEO Camera first impression

By Stephen Alvarez

pimp my ride, my 7D set up for video

Unlike Ira, I bought the the Canon EOS 7D to use primarily as a video camera. Why you ask? You CAN buy a pretty good dedicated video camera for the same price. Well for 1700 bucks I get a video camera that accepts the excellent canon lenses that I already own and unlike the EOS 5D Mark II it supports multiple frame rates. Also after using it for a day or two the camera is more than good enough to serve as a backup to my 5D MK II's on a still shoot and the really fast still frame rate opens up some possibilities that I hadn't thought of (see that video at the bottom of the next page).

Canon 7D at ISO 3200, and DPP processing vs Adobe Lightroom

By National Geographic Photographer IRA BLOCK

UPDATE READ VIDEO FIRST IMPRESSION HERE

I was starting to worry about the horrible orange color in the 7D raw files, when I remembered reading that the new adobe raw and lightroom raw would be able to open and process the 7D files, but not support them. What this means is that adobe hasn't really evaluated the raw files and assigned a real color value to the rendered files you see in their programs. 

a Dan Chung film of China's 60th Anniversary parade shot with the Canon 7D and 5D MK II

 Dan Chung's awesome coverage of China's 60th anniversary parade. The original is on the Gaurdian site (here) but looks better on Vimeo (here). Dslr shooter has post about Dan's techniques (here).

-Stephen Alvarez

Canon 7D first look by Ira Block

Review by National Geographic Photographer

IRA BLOCK

UPDATE READ 7D at high iso HERE and video first impression HERE

As a photo journalist, my cameras of choice have been the Canon 5DMark II, and the 50 D when I needed high frames per second.. When I learned that Canon was debuting its 7D though, I decided it was time to move up.

A decent check from stock sales this month enabled me to make my move today. Good by 50 D: Hello 7D.

Canon promised better focusing, high frame rate and a superior auto focusing system on its 7D and so far it seems to have delivered.