The first time I shot with the IQ250 was a wedding I'll never forget.
The possibilities are endless. Completely covered by flies.
Right now this helicopter can lift. My first day of shooting with the IQ250.
Full on rainstorm right now. The helicopter did not like this.
That's 6400 ISO and it's going to happen here today on the Phase One.
My first day shooting with the IQ250 was one of the craziest days I've ever had as a photographer.
On paper, the idea was pretty simple: Mount the camera to a helicopter and capture pictures
of mountain biking like people had never seen it before.
Even though we planned for days and days, things didn't work out as we expected.
I knew from the beginning that it wouldn't be easy but I'm always pushing myself
to capture images that are truly unique.
We planned everything great.
We had two of the world's best mountain bikers, Kyle Strait and Tyler "T-Mac" McCaul.
They showed up early and they were stoked to ride.
There's just something about shooting
professional athletes that's hard to describe but it really pushes me as a photographer.
We got off to a fast start and things were looking amazing.
I was just getting in the groove but then the worst happened.
I think my teeth are all good. You've got a little boody nose!
Thanks, I have to make sure my head is all good because I got some pretty good dejavu there.
Yeah, I'm fine, just bummed.
Tyler went down hard.
Everyone was really worried. Do we need to go to the hospital? Should we call an ambulance?
You just don't know. What T-Mac needed was just a few moments to get his wits about him,
and he was good to keep on riding.
At that point, it was about midday. We had gotten the camera all balanced
and ready to fly, but that's when the next challenge hit us.
On the very first pass the behind the scenes team clipped a branch and crashed the helicopter
right into a tree.
I'm an optimist but things were not looking good.
And to make matters worse, it started to rain... hard.
At that point I thought we were done for the day but I looked over
and Kyle and T-Mac were psyched.
We've come all this way, let's figure out a way to get this done.
We're in a full on rainstorm right now. The helicopter did not like the
wind, it did not like the rain, and we've moved on to plan B which is a ladder.
The sun is setting, the rain is pouring down, and we are throwing mud all over the place trying
to get this ladder dug into the hillside.
Then Kyle and T-Mac start throwing massive tail-whips off this jump,
and they are coming within inches of me.
It's getting dark so I have to turn up the ISO on my camera.
I'm looking down and I just can't believe how incredible these images are looking.
These weren't the images that I'd pictured in my head at the start of the day
but because of the rain and the weather, they are better.
And that was my crazy wet and wild first day with the IQ250.