Guilin City of Water

My first stop as a location photographer in China is Guilin.  As a location photographer, how could I miss a chance to make images of one of the most beautiful places in the world.  The famed city of Karsh hills has the Li river snaking its way between the green velvet foliage covering the peaks you see in most movies of China.  Being the rainy season, there has been a steady rain creating a sea of umbrellas on the sidewalks.  Bright colors and the constant movement remind me of beach balls being tosed about.

 All this rain brings up a few tips for fellow travelers.  Take the new shirts and pants from makers like Patagonia, A16 and REI.  They wisk the mositure away from your skin and dry quickly from your body heat. When you do get back to your hotel, throw them in the bath. Then towel dry before hanging for use the next day.  Of course, take at least two of everything.

China the Revisit Totally Different

As a location photographer in 2001 I visted China, I finally I got a chance to return only to find many changes.  The people are still friendly but the pace at least in the cities has sped up.  Instead of bikes filling the streets, it is motorbikes filling the streets and sidewalks.  In China the electric bikes are cheap and you do not need a license.  Motorcycles that use gas and cars do require a driver’s licnese.  You can imagine the amazing traffic this creates.  Everyone just goes - pedestrians, bikes (yes, there still are a few), electric bikes, motorcycle, cars, bus and trucks weave about in a dance of bear misses with car horns setting the beat.

Beachtek New Adapter Help Get Better Audio

In my last entry, I mentioned that the Canon 7D has joined the ranks of DSLR that have manual control of audio.  Great news but it does not relieve the need to connect professional audio gear via the professional XLR connector.  While a simple mini to XLR connector will work it does not handle the issue of the poor preamps in DSLRs.

Beachtek has a wide variety of audio adapters for DSLRs depending on yours needs including their new DXA-SLR Pro.  Beachtek also has a large amount of information on how best to use your Beachtek adapter at http://www.beachtek.com/support/.  They also have a very informative video on getting the best out of your adapter on their home page.

Beachtek-DXA-SLR PRO

Here is a sample of the valuable information they have on thier skulpport pages:

“Hiss is a common problem with most of today’s DSLR cameras. The front ends tend to be noisy which can lead to excessive hiss if the levels are not set right. The simple fact is that the higher the gain of the camera preamps, the higher the hiss. The solution obviously is to reduce the noisy gain in the camera and replace it with the very clean gain of our DXA-SLR or DXA-SLR PRO adapters. When no amplification is required as when using wireless mics, our low cost passive DXA-5Da can be used.

When using the DXA-SLR, adjust the level controls on the adapter so that the indicator LED’s flash green. This tells you when you are in the proper recording level window to get the best signal to noise ratio and least amount of hiss. On the DXA-SLR PRO, you can use the built-in VU meters as a guide and set the levels so that the audio is peaking at no more than -12 dB. Use the AGC Disable feature on the adapter to reduce the noise created by the AGC in the camera.

If your camera allows you to disable the AGC from the camera menu, you can use manual mode to get even better audio. On the Canon 5D MK II or MK III set the camera gain to 25% of maximum. On Nikon cameras set it to LEVEL 1 on the older models, or 7 on the newer D4 and D800. In this case, you do not need to use the AGC Disable feature on the adapter – keep the switch to the left so that it is not activated.

It is critical that the levels be set right so that you are not starving the camera for audio as that will increase the internal camera gain which is something you want to avoid. Once the levels are set correctly, you should be able to capture clean, crisp audio.”