KH Films

Recently I have been helping adventure & lifestyle photographer Tyler Stableford shoot a “mini-doc” project he is doing on disabled war veteran, Heath Calhoun.  Heath is a member of the Wounded WarriorsProject and competing in the 2010 Paralympic Games in Vancouver, BC.

Well known for his adventure and lifestyle photography as well as being a Canon Explorer of Light photographer, Tyler decided to embark on a personal documentary project allowing him to shoot motion with the same Canon DSLR’s he typically uses to shoot stills.  Because Tyler had little to no experience shooting motion he hired me to work alongside him for part of his “mini-doc” project and guide him as he explored working in this new medium.  Tyler chose Heath and his bid for the 2010 Paralympic Games because Heath’s story is a compelling one with him losing his legs in a grenade blast and despite never having skied before  Heath has become one of the best disabled skiers competing today.  The story will follow Heath through his training and racing regime as he prepares to compete in the 2010 Paralympics.

Because Tyler is always using the most recent Canon DSLR’s his equipment quiver consisted of several canon 5D Mark II and 1D Mark IV bodies and a plethora of lenses.  The majority of the shooting we did was with the 5D’s due to it having the full frame sensor however we also shot extensively with the 1DMKIV’s as well.  We were using Canon L Series lenses which were fantastic and my favorites being the 85mm t1.4 and the 17mm tilt shift lenses.

Because we were typically shooting on snow in very bright sunlight and Tyler wanted to shoot at with a shallow stop we had to stack several stops of ND in front of the lenses so as to shoot at 24P or 30P and nearly wide open with an ASA at 200.  Having shot a lot of skiing over the years, I was well prepared for the task at hand.  However, it was very challenging to follow the action while looking through either the on-camera LCD monitor or the external 7″ Marshall monitor in bright daylight.  Fortunately for us, we had several pieces of equipment on hand from the likes of Zacuto and Red Rock Micro all of which made shooting motion with the DSLR’s more user friendly because we were able to configure each camera to shoot in a more traditional cinema style set. up.