How to Enter

To qualify for the Gorillapod Original giveaway, all you have to do is follow @jobyinc and @12x12yvr on Twitter and Tweet the message below or another message that contains the @jobyinc and @12x12yvr handles and mentions Gorillapod.

No photog should be without a Gorillapod. Follow @JobyInc + @12x12yvr & RT this for ur chance to win one! http://ow.ly/2xuj4

Not-so-Small Print: Tweeting the message above and entering the contest does not guarantee a prize. Winners will be selected during the 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon on September 12, 2010 by a random draw from the pool of tweets posted. You must have an active Twitter account to be eligible. Winners must be able to come to the event location (Blenz Coffee in Yaletown: 338 Helmcken St, Vancouver) on September 12, 2010 between 8am and 8pm to pick up the prize. Prizes not picked up on event day will go back in the pool for a secondary draw.

Morten was lucky enough to get his hands and cameras on every Gorillapod available last year during his 6 week roundtrip around the USA and tested them extensively. You can read his review of the full line over at Design is Philosophy. Below is an ammended version focussing on the Focus, Ballhead X and Original for your reading pleasure.

Gorillapod Focus + Ballhead X = All the support you’ll ever need (within reason)

While the Focus distracted security, the SLR-Zoom made its move...

At the top of the foodchain in the Gorillapod family you find the Gorillapod Focus, a massive steel contraption that looks more like something dropped from an alien spaceship than a camera support. In addition to being a sturdy addition to your camera kit, it offers some excellent entertainment, especially while passing through airport security. I had it stuffed in my backpack when I went to the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C. and they forced me to take it out of my bag and demonstrate it to the guard before he would let me in. Once he saw what my three-legged friend was all about his first question was: “Where can I get one?”

The Focus is a solid piece of engineering, significantly larger in every way than the other plastic-based pods, and also weighs more than the other pods because all the joints are metal. In return, you get support for cameras up to 5kg which means it can handle pro-level DSLRs with massive lenses and even standard video fluid head and a prosumer video camera without any problems. That, in turn means you can now hang your expensive photo or video gear from a fence, put it up on tree branches, strap it to your car, or hang it from lamp posts without worrying that it’ll fall down. Any photographer will tell you that is pretty damn awesome.

A new and very welcome addition to the Focus is the new Ballhead X – a monster version of the original ballhead that ships with the SLR-Zoom. The Ballhead X features separate tightening bolts for the X and Y axis providing complete control of both where the camera is pointing and how tilted it is. The base plate also complies with the Arca-Swiss system so if you have other Arca-Swiss clamps you won’t have to change the mount around. This new ballhead is a welcome addition to the Focus. I pilfered the ballhead off the SLR-Zoom and matched it with my Focus but I found it to be a bit wonky both because one knob controlled both the X and Y axis and also because it was clearly never meant to handle something as heavy as my camera. The Ballhead X on the other hand is rated for up to 5 kg just like the Focus so it looks like what I asked for in my original review was made to order.

Gorillapod Original: A Great Companion for Your Point-and-Shoot

The Gorillapod Original is tiny – about the length of my open hand – and extremely flexible so it’s easy for storage. This makes sense seeing as it’s designed to hold small point-and-shoot cameras. It has an articulating joint above the legs which enables you to tilt the camera  in relation to the base of the pod when you start mounting it in weird spots that are not level. The Gorillapod takes up to 325g which means it can handle most point-and-shoot cameras as long as they don’t have massive protruding lenses. Right now ours is holding a Nikon Coolpix P6000 without any problems and that’s a fairly large point-and-shoot so smaller cameras should be no problem at all.

Because it is so tiny and versitile I’d say it is probably the best companion to a point-and-shoot I can think of. With the Gorillapod in hand you can easily improve on the dreaded MySpace pose and also place or hang your camera in places you never could before, making for some great angles and shots.

Oh and I almost forgot, the Gorillapod Original comes in 7 colours (grey, yellow, red, green, blue, pink and orange) just for the hell of it. Mine is grey which I have to admit I’m perfectly fine with. We’ll tell you what colours we’ll be giving away once we get the pods in house.

Matthew Johnson & Julia Kuo, Blenz Yaletown

When we first set out to find our home base for the 12×12 last winter, we knew it had to be a central coffee shop that not only offered the refreshments necessary for a day-long event, but also had comfortable surroundings for our photographers to kick back and relax.

During one of the early committee meetings, we were down in Yaletown and decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood to see if there were any locations that would be up to the challenge of hosting our large group of artists. There were a couple that shook their heads at the prospect and we started to get a little worried when Blenz suddenly came into view. They had a spacious outdoor heated patio with lots of seating, and the interior was warm and cozy with wonderful ambiance. With fingers crossed, we approached and asked to speak to its manager who turned out to be Matthew Johnson, just about the nicest fella, as was Blenz President George Moen, who phoned Morten personally to offer his support. They not only welcomed us into their space, but did so without batting an eyelash and for that we are so very thankful.

And we couldn’t have picked a more ideal coffee chain. With a mutual love for the arts, they were the perfect venue to collaborate with. Not only did we hold our inaugural marathon at Blenz Yaletown but our winners were also featured in the franchise-wide Blenz Digital Media Network for all its customers to enjoy. As a tribute to their generosity and for welcoming us back this year, here’s a bit of coffee art by Master Barista and Trainer Julia Kuo with shots of pouring and stencil latte art.

Thanks to George, all of our marathoners will receive a gift certificate on the day of the event so they can all enjoy a cuppa joe on him. Julia, you’re going to be one busy barista on September 12th!

Don’t forget to view the gallery at the bottom of this post for some of Julia’s fun works of coffee art.

Gear: Canon EOS 5D Mark-II, KinoFlo Kamio ring light, EF 24-105 F/4L IS USM, Sennheiser 112/G2 wireless kit + Audio-Technica shotgun.

Some helpful tips from Julia if you’re making your own cup of latte art:

• It’s not necessary to press the espresso super tight, but you do need a certain amount of pressure to eliminate any voids in the coffee bed. Press too loosely and the water will go through the espresso cake really fast, leaving you with a very watery crema that lacks the rich caramel colour that is needed to reveal the latte art. On the other hand, pressing too tightly will impede the water from going through and you’ll end up with a bitter and burnt shot
• When preparing the milk, gently let the steam wand touch the surface of the milk (called “kissing the milk”) and turn on the pressure to blow air into the milk. By this time you should hear the familiar “hisssssssss.” Since these are lattes and not cappuccinos, don’t steam that much foam; 2-4 secs will do. Foam can only be created before 100°F. Higher than 100°F and you’d basically just be heating up milk
• After the foam is created, lower the steam wand further into milk and make the milk spin in a circle. This not only mixes the foam with the milk but also makes the bubbles smaller (called “micro-foam”)
• When pouring the latte, try to grab the jug tightly but loosen your wrist. Without rushing it, gently wiggle in the milk. Remember that by the time you reveal your foam on the espresso crema, your jug mouth should be really close to the surface of coffee

Surprised by last year’s vague and unusual 12×12 themes? Wondering how you can warm up in preparation for the September 12 event? Well wonder no more:

12×12 sponsor London Drugs and the Lung Association are currently running their 26th Annual “Fresh Air” Photo Contest. The concept is simple and one you can really cut your teeth on: Take a photo of the theme “Fresh Air” and you could win some snazzy camera gear.

From the site:

The contest challenges photographers from across Western Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) to send in their best fresh air photo to win fabulous prizes.

First, second and third prizes will be awarded. Entries will be judged on originality and overall photographic quality in conveying the theme “Fresh Air”, with one overall Grand Prize for the photo judged best overall.

So crack out your cameras and start shooting. The submission deadline is August 15, 2010. For full contest details visit www.londondrugs.com/freshair

The absolute basic requirement for pulling the 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon off was to get enough identical 12 exposure film in time. Easy, right? You’d think so wouldn’t you. But try going to a photo supply store and ask them for any volume larger and 5 and you’ll see it’s quite a challenge.

When we started sourcing the film for the event we quickly realized unless we wanted to hit up every single photo store in Vancouver we needed a supplier with direct connections. And since the only 12 exposure 400 ISO film available is Kodak UltraMax the natural solution was to go directly to Kodak. Unfortunately Kodak does not sell directly to customers so that was a bit of a dead end. I say “bit of” because although they wouldn’t sell the film to me they did direct me to a distributor that could.

The search continued.

After some back and forth we were excited to learn that the distributor had 140 rolls of the film in question, 40 in Vancouver, the rest in Calgary. And not only that: They were willing to sell it to us at cost (plus shipping). This was Friday December 4, 8 days before the event and we were guaranteed delivery of all the film “well before” the event itself. Problem solved, right?

Wrong…

The 40 rolls from Vancouver arrived as promised on Wednesday, but the 20 remaining rolls from Calgary never made an appearance. When we finally got a hold of the distributor on Friday it turned out that something had gone terribly wrong in the order processing and the order was never filed let alone shipped. In short our 20 rolls of film were still sitting on a shelf in Calgary.

This was Friday December 11 at 11am – a veritable disaster.

Knowing that stores rarely carry more than one or two rolls of the film we were facing the daunting task of driving around to between 10 and 15 locations to piece it all together. Calls were made: “They have two at Kerrisdale!” etc. The nightmare mounted. I was booked for an interview with On The Coast on CBC Radio One at 4:30pm. Angela was set to meet with London Drugs to pick up bags and lanyards at 5. The logistics just didn’t fit.

Or did they? London Drugs does have a huge photo lab presence after all. We rushed to the Granville and Georgia location (number 2 store) to see if they had any stock. They only had two rolls but one of their staffers, Leanne, was not willing to let us leave the store without  at least part of a solution. So she started calling every store in the whole GVRD getting the stock for each of the stores. “They have 8 in Surrey and another 8 in Langley”. That made 16. We could probably get the rest by randomly hitting up stores.

Two hours later Angela and I found ourselves in cars running in oposite directions: Angela on her way to Surrey for 8 rolls, me to the Kerrisdale store where Kimiko from the London Drugs promotions department had secured 10 more rolls. On our way to get the cars we had managed to dig up two more films so with these potential 18 we would be set. And we were. At 5 pm all 60 rolls were in hand.

What can I say … with friends like London Drugs nothing is impossible.

We extend a big thanks to Stephen Fung (follow him on Twitter @StephenFung) for his sponsorship and hope he has time to show off his photographic talents in our next photo marathon.