Most Spectacular Image you have ever Filmed...

[Alex]

For me, probably a sunrise many many years ago. The morning sky was a tapestry of multicolored hues and streaks.

I was doing time-lapse via a single frame remote switch. I would count to myself in 3-4 second intervals and click another frame of film.

I was using Kodachrome 40. I ended up giving the shot to a student film project. They put a voice-over over the sequence and they used it at the start of their movie.

It was a movie about balloons that kill people at a party. "Attack of the Killer Balloons".

[BolexPlusx]

Spectacular? Maybe not so much but....

About two years ago I was doing a film about nature in winter time when I was in a local preserve where the deer are particularly tame. I saw one about 30 feet away turn and start to walk towards me. I zoomed out fully wide and slowly moved the camera up in front of my face, she came to within about five feet and then I started to film. As a result I got a beautiful closeup of the deer walking up and looking right into the lens. (Actually, she wanted me to feed her...)

Big deal? Well it really is because all of the talent and all of the equipment and all of the budget in the world could not have made this happen. The deer and I were both there, and I had a camera ready to film, and it will never happen again.

I liked this film (Winter in Plus-X) so much that I decided to do a companion piece of Autumn in K-40. Last Friday I took the same camera, put it in the same daypack, hiked the same five miles and didn't even see a deer this time.

(Although I did get a shot of a duck being swept over a little waterfall, NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS FILM)

You just can't script nature.

[cameraguy]

I was testing a Bolex DS8 with Fomapan 100. We stopped to get some coffee and doughnuts at Dunkin. Shortly after we parked a bunch of Seagulls gathered as if they knew food was in the car (this was the dead of winter). My friend didn't like one of the doughnuts he got and he wanted to throw it out the window. I said wait. I got the camera wound and proceeded to film the feeding frenzy as the Gulls ripped it apart.

Came out great. The fast shutter speed of the Bolex H8 captured the action with detail. Kind of like a National Geographic special on birds with high cholesterol

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 03, 2002 12:07 PM: Message edited by: cameraguy ]</font>

[Greg Crawford]

Maybe not spectacular..but one shot I don't thing I'll ever get to re-shoot. In 1997 we were making a ultra low budget feature in Northern California shooting inside the tunnels at the Shasta Dam. Even setting off a little flash powder devices as an fx shot.

Post 911, I'm sure I would not get clearance to pull off a shoot like this one.

Back in the 1980's while taking a fashion still photography class, the instructor set up a shoot of a model in full camo with an AK-47, on a Sunday afternoon in the banking section of Los Angeles. Fortunately for the model, he had the sense to put down the weapon and move very slowly. I could not believe that the instructor did not inform the police first.

In 1990 I shot my first Super 8 short , about a mad bomber in downtown LA. My actor, an LA Headshot photographer was running around the warehouse district in downtown Los Angeles with imitation (playdo) C-4 strapped to his chest with wires!!

( NSA, I hope you have enjoyed this read and that I have not wasted much of your time. Keep up the good work....coffee brakes over! )