Welcome to JAWS, Maui, home of some of the worlds largest waves ! I love it if you “like” it, please share me if you love me.
Redhead-LiL-Chewy for your Zoom H4n, H4, and H2 handheld recorder
12-18-09 Thank you all for the amazing emails with your Maui memories and kind comments !, that’s the stuff that warms my soul !
Aloha all, just wanted to post a little footage from Jaws today…These waves are insanely huge and I have so much respect for the surfers that have the guts to do this as well as the jet ski operators that are tremendously talented in their own right, many of them big wave riders as well..
Anyhow, I live a couple of miles from Jaws on W.Kuiaha in a little town called Haiku. At night I can hear these monsters breaking, they sound like thunder…
Tech : Canon 5D Mark II Canon 70-300 USM @ 300mm Zoom H4n & Redhead windscreen for faint ocean sounds Premiere CS4
hope you all enjoy this little teaser.. there’s more to come later, it’s still going off !, and tomorrow is supposed to be huge as well.. Going to try to get the morning light..
One of the Jaws pioneers is Laird Hamilton. His wife Gabrielle Reece had this to say on his blog today..
“12-7-09 Swell Update from Laird
Gabby: 12-7-09 3:50 Hawaii Time
I just spoke to Laird around 3pm Hawaii time (5pm PST) from Maui. He said they had a good morning and that his board and body were feeling good. They went out fairly early, and it had not gotten too crowded yet. The boys (Dave Kalama, Terry Chun, Derrick Doerner and others) came in for gas fuel and food fuel for lunch. By then a front had come in and “chop sueyed” the waves. Laird then proceeded to watch some of the action from the cliff side. He said a lot of skis went up on to the rocks along with some boards. He felt like there may have been several new comers who were having to work it all out.
I’m on Kauai and Kings reef began to break ever so slightly. The ocean floor by this reef is so deep that you don’t even see Kings unless it’s starting to be Hawaiian 25 ft (that’s double in the front).
The boys are going to sit tight on Maui and then make their plan for tomorrow. As most of you know the swell hits Kauai first, then Oahu (which is having a bit of rain and some major water surging), Maui and so on. Once they get a beat on the conditions (wind, swell) they will most likely decide to continue to stay on Maui and surf Peah’i (aka Jaws) tomorrow. If I hear anything of interest I will let you all know.”
Was actually out capturing photo elements for a 5DMKII still composite I’m putting together. The clouds were so hypnotic, I had to shoot some HD.
Cam : Canon 5DMKII Lens: Old Vivitar with nikon mount, 35-85mm (not sure if I really like this lens yet ), and a fixed 200mm Tessar I think. It’s an M42 mount.
Converted to ProRes 422 (Huge Files), but less lag. Edited in Final Cut Pro. CC done in Color, it was my second time using the program and I like it.
Cam : Canon 5D Mark II Audio : Zoom H4n Handy Recorder ( soooo handy ) Lenses used : Carl Zeiss “Jena” 35mm, Vivitar vario zoom 35-85mm, Olympus Zuiko 50mm all with EOS adapters from eBay.
All the sounds of nature were captured with the Zoom H4n and later synced in Premiere CS4. CC in Photoshop CS4.
Holy windblast Batman !!!…, this is the windiest day I’ve seen on Maui in a long time, and Zoom H2 did great. I’m very impressed with the audio quality in this tiny little pocket rocket.
My set ups are usually very simple and this test was the same. The Zoom H2 was mounted to the middle priced Joby gorrilla pod ( love this thing ) and the RedHead windscreen was near by to cut this devistating wind noise down to nearly nothing. Some wind noise did get through to the sensitive mics but I suspect you will never be using your Zoom H2 in these types of extreme conditions. And if you do, you should still be fine.
My Canon 5D Mark II was just situated on the small backpack I use to carry all this wonderfully powerful technology and that’s about it. Simple
Syncing the Zoom H2 to the Canon 5D Mark II is a breeze as well. The most important thing is to clearly slate each shot. An example for me. ” Zoom H2 and Canon Mark II with 50mm lens at Kuau bay, take 1 ” followed by a loud clap of the hands in front of the Zoom H2 and Canon Mark II that are recording.
My Zoom H2 and Canon 5D Mark II audio sync workflow:
1. Once you bring the two clips into your computer, take a min and name all your files. Eg : Video file name : KuauBay50mmT1 Audio file name : KuauBay50mmT1 and so on.. This is THE most important habit to create for yourself as once you have tons of clips in there it’s increasingly difficult to find what you are looking for. “Where the heck is the audio for this clip !!, I know I have it somewhere !” You don’t want to be this guy…
2. I use Premiere CS 4 but this will be the same in Final cut, Sony Vegas, etc.. Load your video clip into the viewer and scrub to the point that you clapped. Once you are near it, use your keyboard arrows to scrub forwards or backward frame by frame until you hear the very first instance of the clap sound. Toggle left to right to make sure you aren’t 2 frames in. On the first frame mark your ‘in’ point usually by just hitting “I” and quickly go to the end of the clip, or wherever you want to end and hit “O” to mark your out point. Now you can drag your clip into the timeline and it’s ready for audio. Do the same with your audio clip and drag it into the timeline. When you drag it near the start point of the video clip, it should “snap” into place, if not, put the playhead at the beginning of the video and it should snap to that !
Done. Now you can delete the audio that the camera captured and you are left with the beautiful audio of the Zoom H2.
I first purchased the Zoom H4n and didn’t think much of the H2 but now that I have one my mind is expanding, I may have to get another one and here’s why :
Say I’m shooting my indy film and I’m just doing some guerrilla shooting on the streets or whatever. I’d probably be using my Zoom H4n to capture the actors performance but why not add a few more mics to the “mix” it will save me from doing it later.
I’d just slate and mark all the mics on the first take and run them off into the scene before “action”. Maybe hide one 100ft away capturing distant traffic. Maybe hide one in a tree, capturing the rustling leaves or anything else that helps add audio depth and dimension to the scene. Sure I can “fix it later in post” or in this case add sounds. But for the price of two Zoom H2’s, why not just do it now ? I love it.
Details : Camera : Canon 5D Mark II Lens: 85mm Canon non “L” version Sound: Zoom H2 handheld recorder Windscreen: Redhead Windscreen “Gunmetal” color Legs : Joby gorilla pod Music: Buddah bar & The Cure
Edited and Color graded in Adobe Premiere CS4. I just play with the channel mixer to taste, add a little noise.
