I was called recently by professional photographer Mike Harrington runs a specialty packshot company called “The Packshot People“. As well as specialising in product photography Mike also shoots a lot of images for the stock image giant Getty Images. With the London olympics big in the news this year Mike was in the process of putting together a series of stills based on sporting activities that feature in the games. One of the images mike had in mind was of a cyclist on a rolling road with a London cityscape in the background.

Mike shot the cyclist in his studio and grabbed the skyline in London but he needed to create the rolling road part of the image and ideally wanted vehicle light streaks in the shot. At this point many people may have turned to photoshop but Mike’s one of those guys that’s not happy settling for second best when you can capture a real image.

When Mike asked if I had a device that would allow a camera to be tracked whilst keeping it stable I knew straight away that he was talking about a problem that we had already solved as filmmakers, he needed the Glidetrack Hybrid HD.

Mike borrowed my Glidetrack HD Hybrid and mounted his Hassleblad medium format camera to it. He then found a suitable spot beside the road and did a long exposure whilst sliding the camera along the track. The results were perfect providing a perfectly smooth blur of the road with the passing cars creating spectacular light streaks.

Here’s the composited image containing all three parts.

So many DSLR users have purchased Glidetracks and other sliders to enhance the video aspects of their shooting but I wonder how many have thought about switching those cameras into stills mode and getting creative with long exposure stills too.

If you want to find out more about the Glidetrack Hybrid that Mike used then see my Glidetrack Hybrid review.

For more information about all of the Glidetrack models visit www.glidetrack.com

I’ve just posted a review of the Pearstone Dual Battery charger. As well as being fast and very useful this little device also has a few additional tricks up it’s sleeves including the ability to also charge a USB device and being able to display battery performance data without being powered.

Click here to read the review

On a cold day earlier in December I Joined Philip Bloom, Suresh Kara, Joel Conder and Sarah Estela for Philips Christmas mini shootout .  The main aim of the shootout was to compare a bunch of large sensor cameras under typical shooting conditions.

We did a range of tests including resolution, skew, skin tones, and low light / high ISO. I was particularly interested to see how the Canon EOS-C300 held up against the other cameras on test as I’m considering purchasing one when they are released. To find out more about the C300 check out my C300 review.

We tested the following cameras and picture profiles…

Sony NEX5N- Flat PP by Abel Cine
Canon EOS C300 – C-LOG (Not Cinema mode for the res tests)
Panasonic GH2 - Driftwood Hack nostalgia and dialed down
Canon 5D mk2 – Marvels Advance
Canon 7D - Marvels Advance
Sony FS100 - G-LOG A
Sony PMW-F3 AB-RANGE
Sony PMW-F3 – S-Log
Nikon D7000 – Flat

As Philip says in the video the tests were not overly scientific, we tried where possible to maintain conditions and settings but obviously working outside on a winters day we had to deal with changeable light and a few frozen fingers. Regardless of the weather conditions though the resolution test results were very interesting and still showed each cameras strengths and weaknesses.

After braving the cold for the resolution and skew tests we then headed back for a full english breakfast and series of low light and skin tone tests so lookout for those very shortly which I’ll add to this page once Philip finishes editing them. It was great fun doing the shootout and lovely spending time with Philip, Suresh, Joel and Sarah so many thanks to those guys for making it a great day.