manhattan nights
27/08/2010 12:50 Filed in: video
Night impressions of Manhattan, New York. A few timelapses and shots taken during a few nights of still photography in New York. The Manhattan skyline is enjoyed best from the New Jersey side over the Hudson. You just have to love New York. Shot with the Canon 1D mk IV and 5D mk II at ISO 2500-6400. Obviously there is some noise present at 6400, but nothing that can't be cleaned with the help of Neat Video Noise Reduction in Final Cut. With the latest generation of dslrs it is a joy shooting at night, stills or video. I shot stills with the 1D mk IV at ISO 12800 without hesitation, as long as the are well exposed. Some cleanup in post and you get printable images. The timelapses are shot at ISO 800 to catch decent shutter speeds (less than 10sec) once night has fallen in, so that I could have a picture taken every 10 seconds.
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the ring
22/08/2010 18:28 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso100 - f/2.8 1/2500 sec
- Michael Grobe
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso100 - f/2.8 1/2500 sec
- Michael Grobe
You can find some extraordinary folks on Venice and Santa Monica Beach. Especially this athlete on the rings shows some amazing exercises: George Berg.
coming home
16/08/2010 23:08 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso5000 - f/2.8 1/2 sec
- Michael Grobe
Sailors coming home late in the night, passing Venice Pier to find the moorings in the marinas at Marina Del Rey.
alles in obi
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso100 - f/16 1/100 sec - Michael Grobe
Recently joined the shooting of the 40th anniversary commercial for OBI as vfx supervisor on the set in Slovenia. Always love helicopter shoots. The image above shows the difficulties of shooting a helicopter properly. To get the desired motionblur on the rotor blades, a shutter speed of 1/100 sec was used, but that means tracking the helicopter with the camera to achieve sharpness of the hull. So the camera goes into AF servo mode for focus tracking and you shoot continous bursts of images to capture the peak moment. Aperture was set to f/16 to be able to shoot a bright target in full sunlight with that slow shutter speed, for a wider aperture a Neutral Density (ND) filter would be needed but wasn't handy at the moment.
Shooting the helicopter wasn't the main task obviously, the usual set photography on a commercial or movie set to collect data for the vfx post production is mostly of technical nature and not to achieve creative results. You bring home hundreds or sometimes even thousands of images for texturing, digital environments and mattepaintings together with HDR 360° panoramas for lighting the computer graphics.
The commercial can be found here.
the last salute
17/05/2010 14:28 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV - EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM - iso100
- f/8 1/1600 sec - Michael Grobe
Yesterday one of the greatest rock singers passed away, Ronnie James Dio. I just happened to catch this image the evening before. Even the sun throws the horns for a legend... the "Malocchio".
central park
16/05/2010 20:34 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso160 - f/2.8 1/320 sec
- Michael Grobe
In New York at the moment, enjoying fantastic warm spring weather in Manhattan. Shot the Sax player in Central Park over and through a bunch of benches. As always in NYC, there will be plenty of night time photography of beautiful Manhattan for me. Last time we shot a lot on top of skyscrapers for a movie production, this time I will stay more grounded. Photography from a tripod in the middle of Manhattan can bring you in quick contact with the police, but over in New Jersey you get the better shots of the skyline anyways...
miniature germany
18/04/2010 12:32 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - TS-E 24mm 1:3.5 L - iso100 - f/3.5 1/160 - Michael Grobe
The great weather got us flying again. This time I took the 24mm shift+tilt. Tilting gives this miniature feel due to the tilted plane of focus and using that from high above can result in an unusual look at the usual. We were flying despite the volcanic ashcloud from Iceland, wasn´t really a problem at 300-700m flying altitude, only the range of vision was somewhat reduced, whether that was the volcanic stuff or just usual haze, who knows...
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - TS-E 24mm 1:3.5 L - iso100 - f/3.5 1/500 - Michael Grobe
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - TS-E 24mm 1:3.5 L - iso50 - f/3.5 1/800 - Michael Grobe
maximilianeum
Canon EOS-7D - 420mm (EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM +1.4x) - iso1250 - 1/3200 sec - f/4
- Michael Grobe
Some more shooting with a borrowed EOS 7D. Still have to figure, whether I really like this camera and it's image quality (it definitely has more high iso noise than it´s bigger sisters), but it gives great additional reach due to it's APS-C sized sensor. The EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM +1.4x Extemder becomes a 672 mm full-frame-equivalent. So this shot was taken from several hundreds of meters away looking up through the trees near the "Isar" towards the flags on top of Munich's "Maximilianeum". Used a monopod to stabilze this 672 mm combo and the 1/3200 sec exposure assured a sharp photo.
connected
19/03/2010 17:48 Filed in: personal
I have connected both my websites, grobe-bilder.com and my portfolio grobifx.com. Now the one big site can be reached through either web address. That brings all information together in one place and emphasizes the connection between my photography and my profession in visual effects. And makes maintaining the sites also easier...
It also allows me to incorporate more business news in this blog.
last struggle of winter
19/03/2010 17:48 Filed in: photos
mulholland night
25/02/2010 10:21 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM - iso100 - f/2.8 - 1.6 sec
- Michael Grobe
Driving along Mulholland Drive at midnight. The million lights of L.A. shining through the bars of an electricity pylon. Btw... love David Lynch movies...
catch the wave
12/02/2010 11:22 Filed in: photos
last thought of winter
11/02/2010 08:09 Filed in: photos
the little sun
21/01/2010 19:14 Filed in: photos
winter night sun
17/01/2010 14:45 Filed in: photos
daisy and the snow
10/01/2010 18:22 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM - iso3200 - f/2.8 - 1/100 sec
- Michael Grobe
Daisy, Europe´s current low-pressure system brought lots of snow all over Germany and really cold temperatures. All that snow makes a lovely backdrop for some night shots. And at 1am, there aren´t too many guys plowing through the white scenery, it is quiet and one can enjoy the freshly fallen white stuff. If those cameras were just built with bigger buttons, so that you can easily operate with gloves on, it´s quite difficult to do that properly with modern DSLRs.
happy new year
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM - iso3200 - f/8 - 0.8 sec
- Michael Grobe
I wish everyone a happy new year!
These shots have been taken on Munich´s Olympiaberg, the highest point of the city with views all around. A couple of thousand people gather there each year to celebrate and make the little mountain disappear peacefully in fire and smoke.
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM
- iso1600 - f/2.8 -1/5 sec - Michael Grobe
famous details
30/12/2009 14:25 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM - iso400 - f/2,8 - 1/50 sec
Architectural details to be found on one of Munich´s most famous roofs. Frei Otto´s roof tensile structures.
A tele-lens can be a great tool for capturing details, despite it´s bulkiness the 300/2,8 becomes my favorite lens.
the roofs of munich
29/12/2009 14:53 Filed in: photos
island in the fog
28/12/2009 15:10 Filed in: photos
last sunset in berlin
24/12/2009 03:17 Filed in: photos
Canon EOS-5D Mark II - EF 70-200mm 1:2.8L IS USM - iso100
- f/2.8 1/400 sec - Michael Grobe
Enjoying the last sunset before Christmas reflected in the Nikolassee near Potsdam, Berlin.
