Camera Check – Chris Chitaroni
Posted by Prashant - 31/12/08 at 07:12:40 am
For being such a relatively small city, the Ottawa scene has it’s fair share of filmers and photographers. One person who seems to always be traveling with the most gear is Chris Chitaroni. I found this online feature, and had the desire to do the same here,with local camera geeks. Chris recently got an HD video camera, shoots photos with a DSLR, and for the last year has been working on an 8mm video project, so I knew he would have a diverse and interesting set up. Just like always, Chris was quick to respond and eager to share some info on what he’s been using. Click the link below to see what he has to say, and to check out more photos of his gear.
I’ve been carrying a camera around on my bike pretty much as long as I’ve been riding BMX. My dad gave me a little mini-dv camcorder the third summer I was riding and I toted that thing everywhere I went. The result of that labour was the time tested masterpiece “The Mirror”. It wasn’t too bad carrying that camera around though because it was pretty small and fit easily in the bottom of the backpack I usually carried around full of tools anyways. Today I find myself in a pretty different situation. If I’m planning to shoot a session I typically bring along 3 cameras, all with their respective lenses and accessories. My SLR (a Canon 40D), my camcorder (Sony FX1), and my 8mm movie camera (Chinon 506 SM XL). Carrying that much gear can be a pain in the ass if you don’t have it packed right. This past year I had the opportunity to travel quite a bit, and as you can imagine I spent most of that time with these cameras on my back.
Bag and monkey.
To carry these reality pistols I’ve had a couple of different bags. I used to have two small Canon SLR bags to hold the SLR in one and the video camera in the other, and then I opted for a Lowepro SLR backpack which had great little compartments for lenses and a space for the camera body to sit as well, and a convenient pouch above which was great for holding a medium sized camcorder. This allowed for much greater mobility and a much easier access to the cameras as I didn’t have to dig through two different bags (which were usually in a backpack of their own) to get stuff out. Once I upgraded to the high definition camera which is twice the size of most other camcorders I had to buy a new bag though, and I went for the Ogio Ty Video bag which I got at Joe Mamma’s and it is by far the greatest bag I’ve ever owned. I wore it all through my trip to England, whether I was biking, or touring. Although the weight of it did get annoying, it was not nearly as bad as it would have been if I were toting around all that gear in a smaller bag. In fact the front pockets of the backpack even have enough room to store knee pads, an extra pair of pants and a shirt so it really is the ultimate road trip bag. The only snag I ran in to was when I boarded the plane to London it was too large to fit in the compartment because I had packed it so full of clothes. At it’s regular size (when not bulging) it fits perfectly into an overhead compartment though.
Of course the bag I use is probably not the bag you need, but there is a huge selection of camera backpacks out there ranging from small Hello Kitty ones to hold your bar camera all the way to massive backpacks which hold all the production gear you can imagine. Take a look at a camera shop, it makes traveling with cameras infinitely more comfortable.
Equipment – click to see it full size
1. XLR cable for connecting the shotgun microphone to the Sony FX1.
2. Mini tripod and peanut-flash unit. This is a photoreceptor which triggers a flash when other flashes go off, allows for multiple flash photos.
3. Canon Flash and and old Vivitar flash for my SLR
4. Beachtek Quiet Connection box, this allows me to use XLR microphones on my camcorder, it plugs into a standard microphone jack.
5. Sony FX1 1080i high definition camcorder. This is one of the first prosumer high def cameras, its a couple years old but my first attempt at high definition. So far I’m impressed with the footage for sure.
6. Shotgun Microphone. I really only carry this when doing actual movies, not so much for BMX stuff.
7. Canon 75-300mm lens.
8. Canon fixed 50mm lens.
9. Canon 15mm fisheye lens.
10. Chinon 8mm movie camera.
11. Century Fisheye for the Sony FX1.
12. Raynox 0.3 Fisheye for the Chinon 8mm camera.
13. Spool of 8mm film (this is developped, when its being shot it comes in a cartridge).
14. Cheap chineese 0.7 wide angle lens I bought for the FX1 for like 75$ on eBay, its sort of a piece of shit and has a huge vignette with barely any additional widening of the angle but its alright for some stuff I guess. stupid chineese garbage.
*Not pictured is my Canon 40D camera… I of course was using it to take the photos
Words by Chris Chitaroni
3 Comments »
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interesting idea Prashant. I am really liking the updates, good job.
Comment by Rich Red — December 31, 2008 #
that guys videos are all fucking filler. he should sell all that gear and buy a clue.
Comment by Footjamsonsundays — January 2, 2009 #
[...] the last camera check with Chris Chitaroni, I thought it would be interesting to get some insight on a very different set [...]
Pingback by Capital BMX » Bro-Cam Check - Brandon Lalonde — January 19, 2009 #