...training for next season!

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Those were three fantastic days in Haus Petergstamm in Obertauern. We were experimenting shooting Skiers while skiing. Equipped with a Steadicam, we went off the beaten track into the firn. After that we were filming skiers from a Skidoo. Unfortunately winter is now over, but we can´t wait until December to get our feet cold again. Even though the conditions were pretty bad - at the end of April the snow in Obertauern is pretty heavy and slow - we could take some promising shots. Two of which you can find in the video to the right. Thanks to Peter Aubrunner from Haus Petergstamm in Obertauern. As a small thank you for his extraordinary skiing skills, we made a short webvideo to promote the appartements.

...Like summer, sun and beach?

we are doing a beach model casting for children for a job on the Maldives - sorry, only Austrian entries!

...the season hasn´t really started yet...

...but we have. Other than mostof our wedding shootings, this one hasn´t been done on the day of the wedding. The weather forecast was pretty bad, so we decided together with bride and groom to shoot a day later where we expected some great sunshine.

Well, meteorologists aren´t always right, but this time they were. We had a great shooting in nice and warm sunshine, we woulnd´t have expected that in April.

So let´s hope all our shootings this year end up like this, sitting on the terrace of the vienna butterflyhouse, sipping champagne.

...we don´t have to tell you everything, do we?

Why has it been so quiet lately? Well, we´ve been travelling again. 3 weeks Maldives. Before that we had to work a lot to net get overwhelmed with work when we returned.

This time we won´t tell you exactly where we´ve been. After literally searching years for the perfect beach location, we finally found a beach that is close to our expectations. Now we´ll keep that insider tipp for some time - even though it will be hard.

But we can show you what it looks like. The image to the left shows an example, but there is more in our gallery.

As we´ve experienced quite often, we had to be patient to get the shots we had in mind. Even though it was the perfect season for visiting the Maldives and the sun was shining on 20 of the 21 days spent there, we still had only 3 days with good photo weather. Experience told us, that it´s not worth taking out the camera if these conditions aren´t met. You´d be disappointed looking at the final results. That´s why the quantity this time was pretty low, but not so the quality. We´ve shot some amazing images.

1.800€ vs 300€ "Compact" Flash

It was a long decision process whether we should buy one of those Quantum Qflash units or not. Why did we even think about it? Among other reasons, one was that we have never been satisfied with Canons TTL results (Through The Lens - the camera measures the flashlight hitting the subject and the flash stops emmitting light as soon as there is enough - theoretically because a lot of conditions have to be met). In our earlier times we shot with Minolta and the flash exposure was almost always spot on, even though the devices have a technological disadvantage of about 10-15 years. That also kept us from upgrading our Canon 550EX to the newer versions 580EX and 580EX II that provided similar TTL results in our experience. With manual flash settings we had quite OK results with both.

Well, now how does the Canon 550EX compete with the much more expensive Qflash?

We made our first impression at our dealer Slach, where we could try one of these units before we purchased it. Some shots (especially one against strong sunlight) conviced us and after we evaluated the shot in our office, we went out again with the money in our pockets and brought the baby to its new home.

In the first part of this hopefully continued test (as freelance photographers we have to deal with our time as you might imagine), we just compared the sheer power of these two units...

 

...we now also have a leader!

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After doing quite some videoproductions lately, and also currently working on two, it was about time to produce our very own leader for videoproductions.

Other than that there isn´t a lot of news - there´s simply too much work with these two videos. I can´t say I hope it´s going to change soon ;-).

Anyway - perhaps a little advice for wedding couples. The free weekends in summer are steadily decreasing, so if you´d like to have us shooting your wedding, you´d better hurry up.

...well, not actually vacation...

but rather a planned Skishooting. Unfortunately we didn´t have the best weather conditions except on the first two days.

Now it´s time to retouch the logos to get the images accepted at stockagencies. 38 visible logos on the image to the left, and it doesn´t even show skiboots or skis.

Back to the Computer - hmm, at least it´s warm here.

More Motion Graphics!

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We´d like to start the new year with a foretaste on what to expect from us this year.

Happy New Year!!!