Behind the camera photos

I tend to post a lot of behind the camera shots, work in progres screenshots and similar stuff on my Fabebook page (www.facebook.com/hdrshooter). So if you would like also to see more from behind the camera, feel free to become a fan :)

The Forth Rail bridge

Once I seen that this bridge is close to Edinburg, I had to visit it. If you look through my photos, you will notice a lot of them include bridges. They really are my favorite photo subject. And this is one very beautiful bridge.

I spend few hours by the bridge, just taking photos, and waiting until they turn on the lights, so I could get some nice blue hour shots. Unluckily for me, they turned them on around a hour later than they should. I presume it was because of the time change (switching to daylight savings time), which happened the day before. But still I got some nice shots :)

This is a manual blend from 5 photos, taken by the Forth bridges near Edinburgh

You can find more information about Radian at the Kickastarter page or on the Alpine labs page. Radian can be bought directly from the Alpine labs page from here.

Radian by Alpine Labs – Review

Recently I received my Radian time-lapse panning device form Alpine Labs. This was my first Kickstarter backing, but despite few months delays, it arrived. I’m actually very glad I switched to Radian from the Astro (a similar device, also on Kickstarter) as that haven’t reached even production yet. After unpacking, I was very surprised how small and light the Radian is. You would think that it will not be able to move your camera at all. But it does.

Here is what everything was in my package. I went for the Vertical Radian package, as I also wanted the L-bracket for shooting vertical sequences.

I was a little dissapointed, that I could not make a bulb ramping sequence with just the cables in the box. I had to order another cable that was needed. I probably have missed this in the description before. But as it is a very cheap cable, it’s not such a problem.

Also what I noticed right away, is that there is nothing between the Radian and your camera. If you ever looked at any quick release clamp which attaches to your camera, you would notice a small rubber or different area in the middle, so you don’t damage your camera. And here, as the Radian is plastic, it’s now very easy to scratch the top of it when you attach the camera. On my, the first scratches appeared almost immediately.

So I took the Radian to the city to take some photo sequences, I got this:

As you can see, the Radian works exactly as suggested. You get a very nice panning motion and also vertical movement works as it should. I tried it with a Canon 5D mark II and a Canon 16-35mm F2.8 lens and had no problems with the camera weight.

One thing I didn’t liked is, that the Radian is not stable when it’s off. I mean, that when you put your camera on the Radian and touch it, it wobbles. It makes setting up the camera a little cumbersome. You will also notice this very easily when you try to move your setup to a different location. I really suggest removing the camera from top of the Radian, as the movement will probably destroy the internal gears very quickly.

Other than that the hardware looks nicely made, with no visible defects or problems. The on/off switch could be a little bigger, but that’s my personal preference.

On the software side, I tried it both on an iOS and Android device. Both work fine if you don’t forget to set your device to maximum volume (Radian communicates via sound). All of the time I was able to upload the program on my first or second try. The software is easy to use, but few buttons could be bigger. Even on my HTC Sensation, which is not a small phone, I had sometime problems with hitting exactly what I wanted.

It’s very nice that the app tries to show you the progress of the Radian. It’s only an estimate, as it is not connected and it’s usually few seconds off from what the Radian does. In my experience this worked nicely until I switched to a different app on my phone. After that the app reset to the default settings and it forgot about the time-lapse I was shooting.

Pros:

– light device, which can move a lot heavier equipment
– horizontal and vertical movement
– long battery life and can use external battery power
– easy to setup with the companion app
– cheap compared to similar devices

Cons:

– easy to scratch
– not stable when turned off
– the app could be better in few cases

Conclusion

Overall until now I’m very pleased with the device. Despite the few small bugs, it does exactly what it should.

Radian

One of the areas of photography that I’m very interested in is also time-lapse video. And when I seen the Radian from Alpine Labs on Kickstarter, I knew I had to get it. And today is the day that the package arrived. After months of waiting, I will be now experimenting with creating my own time-lapse video. So if you see one in the future, don’t be surprised :)

The London Eye

Of course while in London I had to stop by the London Eye for few shots. I heard a lot of times, that police stops photographers who use tripods in this area, as that is supposedly not allowed. But in the three days I was in London, I passed by the eye often (my hotel was very close) and never even seen a policeman in that area. So maybe I just had luck :)

This photo is a manual blend from 5 shots.

I wanted to take a photo like this for a longer time, but haven’t been to a place that would be fitting. But the canals in Birmingham had a lot of places with bridges crossing the canal, so it was great for it. I actually wanted to take the shot by a second bridge (close to Hyatt hotel) but due to the walkway being very narrow and constant foot traffic in the area, I just could not setup my tripod there. But the next day and a little further away I succeed :)

This is a manual blend from 5 shots, taken by the canals in Birmingham, UK

I would probably have to de-saturate this photo a little to get the exact matrix movie look, but I think it’s close enough :)

This is a manual blend from 5 shots, taken in the center of London.