The mountains of NSW can be a harsh and unforgiving place to be. Armed only with five cameras, a chocolate bar and a comfortable mountain apartment, Steve Turner     explores the dangerous world of the alpine film maker.

Lost

It took just a moment to realise I was lost in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape of snow and mountains. It was just that moment when I stopped to capture another landscape when I noticed I was alone. My skiing partners had headed off along another run and I had been cruelly abandoned to my fate. It was eerily quiet apart from the hum of the nearby chairlift. I was in seriously mild amounts of trouble.

Going equipped

The trouble with going away is deciding just how many cameras you can take? The snow presents a range of serious issues. What colour jacket to wear? Red or white wine? It's difficult but the camera choice is the least of your worries. What I needed was something small and robust. I had a helmet but only because I knew some of the mountain would be done upside down.

In the end I chose five cameras - one of which will probably not count and was a surprise success.

First in the backpack was my trusty Canon HV30. It's a brilliant HDV tape camera that packs professional features into a domestic size unit. It also takes respectable happy snaps. Next in was the brand new Canon Legria S10 - the newest Flash camera that kicks out a respectable 24mbps in AVCHD. Its party piece is its still capability. A whopping 8megs and there's more. It can do that at the same time as shoot the video! Cool. It also shoots video at well greater than HD standard.

For size I took my Canon HV10 (We're noticing the brand theme now. -Ed). It's thin and easy to gaffer tape to anything. Just don't tell Canon we did that. For stills my excellent EOS400D with the 18-270 loooong lens attached.

Finally - just for a change in marketing - my new LG Renoir mobile camera. It's got a phone in it but that's irrelevant. The Legria shoots brilliant 8meg stills buuuut, so does the mobile. Neither can compete with the EOS DSLR of course but what counts at altitude isn't size.

Setting out

Day one saw the expedition make the perilous drive along the silky smooth road to Perisher.

I got Richard to shoot a couple of "road" shots. Nothing more than a view out the front window as we headed down the road. I like to get short travelling shots to illustrate coming and going. That always includes very brief shots at airports and on planes.

Loaded to the gills with recording gear we took the snow tube up the mountain to the baby slopes for a trial ski. Here is where the first camera fell over very quickly. The Legria revealed its fatal flaw within moments. It's the absence of a viewfinder. Other than that it's a great camera but back in the bag it went. Clearly Canon's engineers need to go skiing - and there are great slopes in Japan. Mind you so do all the other manufacturers who've decided the viewfinder can go. In bright sunlight and the brilliant white of the snow I had no idea what I was actually getting. In bright light you really need to bury your eye in a viewfinder. The glare is just too harsh.

So out came the trusty HV30 and its excellent viewfinder thingy. Now I could see. Originally I had in mind a decent test of the Legria and the HV30 was there as a backup. Good thing I took it.

Climate change...

It gets a tad cold up there at altitude. Funny that, being snowy and everything. I've shot in all conditions over the years (and there's been a few of them!). The only trouble I've ever had is condensation in warm, moist climates. Extreme cold and heat have never troubled the variety of cameras I've carried. So for this slightly extreme exercise I brought no protection other than sunscreen.

The bigger and more likely risk is falling down, either on the snow or getting from the bar to our apartment. And fall I dutifully did. Sven, my Norwegian brother in law, has a great saying. It's the "garage sale" because everything's got to go. An explosion of skis, stocks and body, hitting the ground with a vengeance. Still I came home with nothing more than a bent thumbnail and tattered ego (but at least that's expected). The cameras were protected by the padding of my ski jacket's pocket. So far then there's no extra bits needed.

Take camera three

The HV10 is a good candidate for extreme sport and that's the market it was aimed at. But there's a catch - isn't there always. It's a good HDV tape camera that knocks out great images. There are two flaws though. One is that the lens isn't wide enough. That's probably a physical thing determined by the shape of the camera that doesn't allow enough distance between the lens and the CCDs. So for outdoors it really needs a wide angle screwed on the front. That would then negate the size advantage. Second flaw is the battery. It sits nice and snug on the side and complements the design of the unit but it doesn't last long enough. Unlike most other cameras it doesn't allow for a larger battery to be fitted.

Despite that we strapped the camera to Sven's leg and then his helmet as he did two runs from the top of Thredbo (2 kilometres straight down!). The four of us had come down in a leisurely 45mins but Sven rocketed down in under 10. The resulting pics are novel when sped up 300%.

Still life

Everywhere you look in the mountains there's a landscape waiting to be captured. From our balcony there was a panorama of the snowy/mountainy kind. This is where my camera (with the built-in phone) came in handy. The Renoir has a great panorama facility. After you take the first image it creates a see through portion of the frame that allows you to line up the next easily. Take three snaps and it creates the finished panorama. Like the Legria though it has an Achilles heel. In the bright sun on the bright white slope you can barely see what you're shooting. The new generation mobile camera has the brilliant advantage of slipping into your pocket and it even has manual controls in the menus. It will be a very long time before the DSLR is threatened but at last I can put aside my inbuilt photo snobbery and just grab some nice happy snaps that print up very well.

This time the EOS didn't get a lot of use, but that had more to do with my lack of skiing ability.

It was the crashing thing that was a worry. Sven cheerfully zoomed the slopes with his DSLR slung casually round his neck but It'll be a while before I get to that point!

For mountains you want wide. Very wide. There can never be too much wide when there is so much to shoot. But then you also need long. At Thredbo there was some seriously manic jumping going on. Fabulous acrobatics that required a long lens and fast speeds. This is the world where DSLRs are on their own. Cameras like the HV30 can do the still stuff but it just takes too long to make manual changes. Good for the casual stuff but the serious end needs a serious camera.

The purists will argue that you need prime lenses (fixed focal length) too but lugging the kit around the slopes is going to be very hard work and the risk of damage too high.

Hot Shots

In the bright light of a sunny day dropping the exposure just a touch is a very useful tool. The sky darkens to a lovely deep blue while the snow is a nice and crisp white. Once I had my ski legs back in action I started to mess around with skiing and shooting at the same time. On a smooth fast run it's neat to hold the camera very low down and race across the snow. One long shot ended with me arriving where Sven and Richard were standing. Perfect but then I slid gently backwards out of control because my hands were in use holding the camera and I couldn't get the brakes on fast enough.

The ever confident Sven cruised the slopes getting cool shots of the rest of the group. Mostly that wasn't difficult as we hurtled down the slope at very nearly walking pace. What he did do well was not move the camera. He's learnt to simply hold it steady (as steady as you can under the circumstances!) and let the action happen inside the frame. He skis around people as if he's the camera. Sounds daft but it works. Too many people wave their cameras frantically around and attempt to do too much. When I ask other people to shoot stuff for me (so we can show I was actually there too) my warning is simple - "don't pan and don't zoom or it'll be on the cutting room floor" Most home movie makers are really crap at both. Ideally you rarely need to anyway.

At times both Sven and I were using video cameras and shot the same things from different angles. These will cut together nicely and add variety to the home movie I will one day get around to putting together. I'm a bit slow at the home stuff. I still haven't edited our backpacking tour from 1991.

The wish list

So what should I have taken? This was never a filming trip so I had only the home movie maker in mind while playing with the gear. The tripod was only ever used to get a group photo. If you were serious you could easily take a light weight tripod in a backpack.

What was used was the little Gorilla Pod. It's the mini-tripod with the flexible legs that can wrap around anything. It can also sit on rocks and be levelled for group pics. There's another trick you can use too. Stuff a sock full of rice and tape the end shut. Really good for sitting a camera on rocks and getting a nice steady image.

I would have liked a nice graduated ND filter to darken the blue sky but keep the bright white snow. But mounting the matte box even on the HV30 would have made the size a bugger to cart around. I had a wide angle lens to screw on the front but again found the extra weight irritating.

And next...

Next year we're planning a multi-camera shoot with all four of us blazing away all over the slopes. Should make for an interesting mix of pictures. What is brilliant is the amazing quality of the new generation HD cameras. The landscapes and colour pics look fantastic on the LCD screen. All I need to do is learn to stay upright for a bit longer...
ends

By Steve Turner

I started in TV as a videotape operator for Channel Nine in 1980 and went to News editing in 1984, becoming Senior News editor for Nine Adelaide.

In 1988 moved to production editing (doing everything from sport to station promotions and programs) and then in 1989 moved to London to work for Sky News UK. This was just starting up and I helped set up the news editing operation.

The highlight of this year was covering the fall of the Berlin wall (where I location produced and edited continuously for five straight days and nights - grabbing sleep here and there). The best bit was interviewing people crossing the wall for the first time in years.

I returned to Adelaide in 1990 and freelance vision switched and also did graphics for news and production. Left again in 1991 to backpack the planet for 12 months with my partner Rochelle.

Back in 1992 and returned to production editing and graphic design for Channel Nine. I worked on all the Adelaide Formula One races (1985-1995) bar 2 (while away) doing foreign broadcast editing - packages for overseas networks in their languages.

Began Directing news in 1997 and started my own production business doing weddings and corporate work. This was followed quickly by producing science films for Flinders University and the setting up of our web business selling science related videos, CDroms, and now DVDs.

Started writing for Australian Video Camera in 2003 then Auscam when it started. Produced and shot news features for the Ten network and worked freelance on the Athen's Olympics in 2004 for Seven.

Left Channel Nine to join Channel Seven in 2005. Involved in the setup and operation of Seven's new news operation and regularly direct the six o'clock news. Directed and produced Seven's Anzac day telecasts for 2005/6 and independently produced the 13 part series "Fishing and Boating" for Channel Seven.

Produced and shot a documentary on drug abuse with an Indigenous Elders group as well as a two part docco with the RAAF. Current project include a docco on Alzheimers and another on the lives of siblings of disabled people.

I have three gorgeous small children and am a part time stay at home Dad...

...It's a busy life!!