MC Perspective: An aircraft carrier can do this?!

MC3 Alex Delgado just got out to the fleet and he's already making waves.  This guy's got some talent.  Check out this time lapse he just shot while aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.  It was even picked up by CNN!

Watch the video below and read on for more details about the shoot.

You can watch the video on the ship's Facebook page here.

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I AM YOUR EYES:  Where is this?

DELGADO:  This was shot in Portsmouth, Va when Ike broke suction from the pier at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and went out to the Atlantic. It was first time the ship went underway since 2013, so it was an important event to try and capture, so I went as high as I could to get a good vantage point. That ended up being the O-10 level.

"I should have brought more snacks and 

some extra memory cards."

I AM YOUR EYES:  What was it like?

DELGADO:  It was long!  I had to run down to our shop to procure some extra memory and food. The photos took up a little over 100GB at the end of the day! I had to batch edit all of the photos and save them to a new location. That process took about 10 hours.  Then I put it all into after effects, which automatically puts the sequence of photos in the framerate I needed. The rendering and exporting took about another 5 hours to complete.

All in all, it was great experience to be up there as the ship went underway for the first time in a long time.  Definitely want to thank D'Andre Roden, an MC on the Vinson, for giving me the inspiration. He did a sweet timelapse on the Vinson a while back and got my gears turning.

"The process was long, but extremely rewarding."

I AM YOUR EYES:  What kind of equipment did you use?

DELGADO:  Everything was shot on the Nikon D810 with a 14-24mm F/2.8 lens.  I also used an intervalometer that took 7,000 photos over the span of 6 hours. You can get a pretty good one at B and H for about $50.

I AM YOUR EYES:  Tell us about your camera settings.

DELGADO:  The challenge was trying to decide what interval to use between each shot. I started with 3 seconds, then decided 2 seconds would be better. To be honest, I came to that decision on a hunch.

As for the camera mode, I used aperture priority to help during the transition from dusk to daylight at the beginning of the video. That mode automatically meters for the light in the frame so you don't end up getting over exposed images.

The downside is that it causes flicker in the overall timelapse. Which means the camera shoots different exposed photos throughout your timelapse. To fix it, you need to use a deflicker software, which I didn't have on the ship!

As for the speed of the video, the frame rate is 60 frames/second, which worked well for the time limit.

Thank you for taking the time to share that with us Delgado!  We'll look forward to what you produce next.

It's not all romance

Okay I realize this isn't the sexiest post but it's a reality of life in the Navy. We're having a field day (massive cleaning) of defense media activity and MC3 Haake and I are charged with clearing out the refrigerator. Let's just say we are not popular today.

Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device

MC Perspective: I am a sling shot

MC2 Bent had been on Fort Bragg for three days, doing interviews, when this shot was taken.

DoD News was just down in North Carolina for a big deal Secretary of Defense visit.  It's one of those live shoots that I really don't like.  I become a robot, standing behind that massive camera, taking orders from the director in the satellite truck.

It's the dues I pay to go on the cool feature shoots.

While I was there, I watched one of our senior news anchors in action.  MC2 Lori Bent was out there killing it as usual.

I watched in horror and appreciation as she went from 

on-camera talent to camera operator, in 60 seconds.

STAGE ONE:  Talk to the audience about cool military hardware on display for the SECDEF.
STAGE TWO: Sprint to Camera Three and film the SECDEF as he arrives to the hangar bay.

I'm getting stressed out just reporting this.

Here's what she had to say about the experience.

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MC2 LORI BENT: Being a Mass Communication Specialist means being able to sling shot between different responsibilities.  We perform so many different functions that we have to be proficient in a little bit of everything.

I went from being an on-ground reporter, gathering information through interviews, to an on-air talent for a live show and then one of the camera operators for that live show.

A brief practice beforehand.  That's all you get MC2!

When I had to run over and get on that camera I was thinking 'OK now I have to switch roles.  It's something that I've never done and now I'm doing it.'

"You just have to stay calm and breathe. 
Breathing is important."

At the end of the day it was very successful.  The reviews we got were very positive.

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I AM YOUR EYES: Thank you for being such a badass, MC2!  (Even though you make me feel like a slacker.)

Hanging with SECDEF Ash Carter.  jk I was in line with two hundred people.

In case any of you were worried, my day was super easy.  I stood behind Camera One, zoomed in and out on SECDEF a bit, then shook his hand afterwards!

Did you know this was in Key West?

A safety boat takes the students to the dropoff point for a navigation dive.

Wow I missed posting in June and ALMOST missed July!  In my defense, I've been posting straight to Facebook and I'm also studying for the E-6 exam.  O.M.G. there's so much to study.  Almost all of my free time is spent making flash cards for the Sept. 3 exam.  Yep, studying since the beginning of June.

I spent a week in June doing a story on an Army special forces dive school in Key West.  It's located on Naval Air Station Trumbo Point. I had no idea the Army had anything like that.

They don't have a website but you can check out more about them here. The video I produced hasn't released yet but I'll post it here when it does.

Our team was myself as video, MC3 Tim Haake as photo and Amaani Lyle as writer.

MC3 Tim Haake is ready for the arrival.

We spent a week following the students around.  They were mid level officers and enlisted personnel.  Seasoned operators getting their asses kicked in the water.

This was a pinpoint navigation exercise.  The students are dropped off further out in the water and must swim along the bottom, navigating to a target on the beach.

These two guys didn't know they hit the bulls eye until they surfaced.

 

Look real hard and you can see Green Berets kayaking.  They weren't relieving stress.  It was part of the training.  Yes, there are special forces kayaks.

 

Amaani Lyle interviews an instructor.  I told him we were like media special forces.

You know those cool shots where the SEALs come up out of the water in unison?  That's what these guys are training to do right now.  There's quite a bit of logistics that happens under the water before they come up.  It's all about shifting from travel mode to fight mode.

No I'm not pointing at my tattoo.  I'm signaling to Haake to take my photo.

This what two hours in the pool gets you.  It's also what I'll look like naturally in a few years.