5D not loving life:(

Sad day. So in the middle of a recent photoshoot, my Canon 5D went black...literately. I was looking through the viewfinder and all i saw was black. I checked the lens, seemed fine, but when I took the lens off, I found that the internal mirror came off! WTF! Luckily i had my old camera as a backup body and I was able to finish the shoot, but that was horrifying to see. Well it turns out this is a common situation for Canon 5Ds. I guess the adhesive that holds the mirror onto the camera is weak and deteriorates over time. Canon said they will fix this problem at no cost, so my camera is going into the shop tomorrow. I hope all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Thanks Alex for the link. Please post if this has happened to you too and how Canon handled it. Here's the official statement from Canon:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=PgComSmModDisplayAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=11933&keycode=2112&id=55659

MotoGP Weekend

Last weekend was pretty awesome! My girlfriend and I went to MotoGP at Laguna Seca. This was another first for me when it comes to photography and boy did I learn a lot. Okay, so I have to admit...I cheated...the photo above was photoshopped to give it the motion blur. This is actually easy to do. Just duplicate your layer and choose filter -> Blur -> Motion blur. Blur it and then add a mask to the bike and rider to make them sharp again.

Why did I use this technique? Well I couldn't get any of my pans to come out clear. These motorcycles move fast...I mean super fast and trying to pan with slow shutter speeds takes some real skill. Unfortunately none of my pans came out well so I dropped that idea and just shot at fast shutter speeds (1/1000+) to ensure that the pics were tack sharp. Here are a few more that I liked:
After the race I wasn't too stoked on my photos especially when I saw pics from the pros...Wow, they have some nice stuff! One pro in particular that made some sweet photos during that weekend was Drew Phillips. I actually wrote him an email for advice and he recommended that the next time I go out to shot to bring a 70-200mm and/or 400mm lens and shot at 1/125-1/160th for pans. I just had my walk around 28-135mm lens, so that may have been my downfall. I also could have used a pass to get closer to the action. Does anyone know a newspaper that can get me access. Any help is welcome! And thanks again Drew for all your help.