On Friday I went to Noordhoek to photograph a braai (BBQ) story with Arina from Landbouweekblad for the next Boerekos issue. Being Cape Town winter, we have been having some stormy weather and Friday was no exception. I departed in the rain, arrived in the rain and returned in the rain. Fortunately, the braai area where we were to shoot was under roof and protected us from the rain, but there was no shelter from the icy wind that blew all day long.
So how were we going to accomplish what we set out to do? I had a bag of tricks up my sleeve, that was given to me to test for Sunshine Company. The first, was the FLM tripod and ball head. It was light, flexible and has friction control in the ball head, allowing one to do small adjustments. An easy to use locking system for the legs made leg adjustments effortless compared to previous systems.
The best trick of all was the CamRanger wireless camera remote control. The software was installed the night before and a few tests were done. CamRanger allows one to shoot from camera to laptop, tethered via a built in wifi. Yes there is a cable, a small one connecting the device to the camera, and so the camera and CamRanger sat in the wind and smoke from the fire while the laptop sat inside the house near the fireplace. It took about 10 seconds for the images to come up on the screen, but that was because I had one more trick. Using a setting within the CamRanger software, I was able to make a “hot folder” within a session I created using Capture One Pro shooting directly into the Captures folder. CamRanger ran the camera, Capture One did the editing it is renowned for.
Whether it was fish, chicken, beef, pork or lamb, all in all, the great styling and preparation from Arina, the braaing done by Chris Burgess, editor-in-chief of Landbouweekblad, and Lucille the assistant editor helping everywhere, the day was a great success.
NEVILLE LOCKHART 