Chase Jarvis RAW: 12 Tasty Photo + Video Tips

95% of the gear I use to create high-end advertising images, videos, and commercials is the highest end stuff you can buy. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and production often comes together for much of the commercial work you see. This gear all serves its purpose, and there’s good reason for every single piece of it, but….

PROBLEM: I understand that, for a huge cross section of this community, this high end gear is completely outta reach. You probably don’t own a RED camera or a fleet of Nikon D3s’. You don’t have Fisher dollies and and a Digital Asset Manager to wrangle your data after every shot. So, for a long time, one request that’s regularly come up from this community is, that when I get the rare chance, to please feature some mid range or lower end gear, some more DIY solutions, and some ways to keep things on the cheaper side while still getting cool results.

SOLUTION: Not long ago, I shot the launch campaign for SanDisk’s new line of Extreme Pro cards, and SanDisk was kind enough to let me share the “making-of” that campaign, with tweets, Facebook posts and daily videos while I was creating the work. Was the first time anything like that had been done, and it was a blast. Well, we’re back at it and just wrapped another campaign for SanDisk (images will be sprinkled throughout summer and fall). No play by play this time, but there’s another interesting twist: It was part of my assignment to shoot images with a wide range of cameras and cards for them–from point and shoot cameras with standard cards, all the way to the top of the line Nikon gear with the Extreme Pro cards, and lots in between. Totally unique approach. SanDisk were again cool with me making a behind the scenes video, and this time they even provided me with a a clean slate and some vid budget to do what I wanted. So I figured, what a perfect time to deliver on a long standing wish to marry a wide range of gear with some inexpensive and effective DIY solutions to get some cool and unique photos and to manage data. That said, we baked that down into the above video, and I’m happy to present ChaseJarvis RAW: 12 Tasty Photo + Video Tips. If you’re a pro, this vid won’t make you salivate, but if you’re an aspiring shooter, you just might pick up a thing or two that could unlock your next great picture or video.

AND: I’d be remiss for not thanking SanDisk for again backing my desire to share the black box of photography with this community. Big ups to those guys. And I’d also be remiss if I didn’t let you know that they’ve got a contest going on right now, giving away several thousand bucks to inspire your best summer shots. Check it out.

Lots of behind-the-scenes photos, some snapshots, and…alert for gear freaks…and entire gear list after the jump

Here’s a shot of the talent on Mission Beach, San Diego. Sunset.

Yours truly setting up the remote Nikon D3s with PocketWizards using a magic arm.

Snapshot of Erik’s point and shoot attached to the skateboard. Good for shooting P.O.V. stills or HD video.

“Poor Man’s Dolly”. A Nikon D90 on a cotton hat, sitting on a skateboard makes for an impromptu dolly.

Sweet kickflip frontside varial heelflip from Chad.

Fitting Brandon with the Contour HD helmet camera.

A fancier “poor man’s dolly” built with PVC and skateboard wheels.

Grabbing a p/s snapshot of talent behind the scenes.

Yours truly with the no-look skate shot.

And here’s the gearlist extravaganza…ng>