Preparing For Scotland
The more you’re prepared the better a project turns out.
Before starting any project its good to be prepared! It is especially the case when traveling abroad for a project. Resources and equipment that are usually readily available might become inaccessible. It is something that has become abundantly apparent while I have been planning for an upcoming project taking place at the beginning of May in Scotland.
What is the Project?
For this Scotland project, a group of UVU students has come together to plan and work in creating a documentary and an interactive ePub telling the story of Mary Queen of Scots. The students that are involved in this project come from all across the DGM department including Cinema, Audio, and Web Technologies.
The part of the project that I’m personally assisting in is taking images for the ePub and possibly the documentary. It includes 360° VR images and standard HDR imagery. The 360° VR images are for the ePub and the standard HDR images for both ePub and documentary. (If you would like to see one of the ways of how to create 360° VR images read, ‘Kristi’s Article’ )
Prep for the Trip
Anyone that has ever planned a trip knows that preparing for said trip can be the most time-consuming and exhausting part. Now just imagine the normal things you take on a trip and add all your camera/computer equipment and then try to fit all of that equipment into two carry-on bags. While at the same time keeping in mind that the duration of the trip is two weeks. Now you might ask, why don’t you just check-in your luggage? The answer is because luggage can be lost in transit, and when you’re in a time crunch, a delay is the last thing you want. While this might not be possible the purpose of prep time is to find out what is needed and what is not.
To help figure out what is required for the trip, it’s a good idea to make a list of your necessities and wants. Then from there metaphorically walk through a possible day at you location see what might happen along the trip to see if any problems will arise. When I personally did this exercise a few things came up to be potential issues. Some of those were knowing the location of the shot, knowing what lighting I’ll be working with, and rainy weather.
Location & Time
With most photo shoots, there is time to scout an area before it takes place. For this trip, it won’t be possible. So to counter the problem I’ve searched the web for maps for each of the castles and possible aerial images to help me prepare. From here the plan is to laminate each map for each location and mark the places where I believe are the best place to perform the shoot. Then take a quick picture of the map then wipe the map clean so when I am on location, I can mark on the map again where I did take the pictures in the end. While at this point I’m not sure if this data is needed there’s nothing wrong with having extra data, just in case.
Any good photographer knows that lighting can make or break a photo shoot. It’s always good to know when sunrises and sunsets are and plan accordingly, especially when taking 360° VR shoots. If the sun low in the sky the picture can become washed out making details within image hard to see.
Environment
There are many things the UK is widely known for, and one of those is its rainy weather; which is a problem cause rain cancels all VR shoots. There is at times a way around this by moving the camera under an overhang, but most prime locations become impossible. To make sure the trip is worth wild the plan is to take additional HDR images when the VR shots become impossible.
Equipment
After going through each problem, I’ve come up with a list of possible equipment I might need to bring for the project. This list consists of two different of cameras (Canon 5D Mark III and TNTech — Iris 360°), multiple lenses (fisheye and two types of zoom lenses), lens hood, tripod, camera ninja arm, lens cleaning kit, extra batteries, charger, extra SD cards, camera rain cover, laptop, portable hard drive, and camera bag.
Now that I have a list of possible needs for the trips it’s time to go through a testing scenario to see what equipment will be necessary and what equipment can be left behind.
Testing
To make the testing scenario as authentic as possible, I asked around locally to see if there was a location similar to a castle. Luckily one town away in Lindon, Utah is the Wadley Farm Castle. The plan before showing up for the shoot was to take images in two places, within and outside the castle. When I arrived, the outside was under renovations, so the shot changed to be just within the castle. To get the most out of this test, I decided to focus on the lighting within the castle. I picked the entrance of the castle and in the middle of the main room. In each location, I tested out the NCTech 360° camera and Canon camera.
After the shoot had been performed, a few variation were seen within the images. One of the differences is that I came to find out that the NCTech camera didn’t come with a RAW image format. Another is that it can take up to 3 minutes for the full shot to take place. Meaning that I’m going to have to hide from the camera for 3 minutes and hope that no one will walk into the shot during that time. This time delay will be a big issue because most shots will be performed during opening hours and the there is no guarantee that the location will be closed off temporally for the shoot.
While the quality of the images is similar from the Canon camera, I can change the image output to RAW making it possible for me to process the final images output how I want it. Few the extra benefits of working with the Canon camera is that it offers more versatilely in Shutter speed, ISO, able take down shots, and not having to run from the camera when taking shots.
After the test, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll be leaving the NCTech camera behind and take all the other equipment. Now the possibility of taking all carry on bags will a depend on how much personally luggage I’ll need/want to take with me. But since I’ve decided that to take the Canon camera more equipment will be required coming with me so checking in my personal items might be more feasible.
To see where to project goes from here go to Indiegogo for updates and if you like, donate towards the project. As poor students very penny counts! Also, my fellow readers feedback is alway appreciated.
