Ben Loveridge

2012 Asylum Seeker Resource Centre – Benefit Gig

admin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:20:29 +0000

The 9th annual Bella Union 2012 Benefit Concert was this year titled Somebody To Love: A Tribute to the songs of Queen and featured yet another all-star line-up including the talents of Tripod, Eddie Perfect, Scott Edgar, Andrew McLelland, Sophie Koh, Mike McLeish, Casey Bennetto, Kirsty Joosten and many more.

Moomba Fireworks

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:03:17 +0000

Moomba once again graced the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne providing the ideal opportunity to practise one’s fireworks snapshots. With the camera at ISO 125, F8.0 and set to ‘Bulb’ mode, the shutter was manually pressed and released to time with the fireworks. Most usable shots ended up being around 2 to 3 sec long. Spinning rides make for interesting blurry light shots too with around a 10 second exposure.

Lego revisited

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:17:26 +0000

After 25 years of sitting in a dusty suitcase, I recently unpacked my old Lego sets and started piecing them back together. Fortunately most of them had been boxed up with instructions so the majority of pieces were still there. From the two trays of assorted bricks that no longer had instructions or boxes, I was able to reconstruct from recognising key pieces and using plans from Worldbricks.com. Strange how little the pieces felt in my hands after so long but yet so familiar at the same time. I should have most of it back together in the next few weeks.

Southbank Sunset

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:46:35 +0000

Summer usually provides some good opportunities for capturing interesting sunsets. This one was was taken between two pillars helping to provide some extra framing around the flag

Meredith Music Festival 2011

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:26:06 +0000

This was my sixth year taking photos at the Meredith Music Festival and once again a multitude of eclectic acts graced the stage over the weekend. This is a shot of Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani taken on 9th December 2011. More official photos up at 2011.mmf.com.au and aunty meredith’s flickr page.

Southbank Storm

admin — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:33:59 +0000

Ah, the serenity

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:31:36 +0000

Lake Eildon, 29th October, 2011

Live Streaming the Festival of Ideas

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:47:28 +0000

Between June 13-18 2011, the University of Melbourne hosted the Biennial Festival of Ideas event which focused on the search for an Australian identity in thought, literature, history, art and architecture, politics, foreign policy and education.

Digital Media Solutions were engaged to record and stream live on the internet all 19 sessions from the Carrillo Gantner Theater in the Sidney Myer Asia Centre building. Here is a behind the scenes view of how it was captured and broadcast.

The live streaming sessions were conducted using Livestream.com and the Procaster software interface.

Over 650 viewers from 10 countries watched online over the course of the week with the top 5 being Australia, the United States, India, Canada and China. Download the livestream analytics pdf report here.

The multi-camera feed was switched live in 720p50 format and recorded to a KiPro hard disk recorder in ProRes format. The HDMI output of the recorder was fed into a Blackmagic Intensity Pro card in the back of a MacPro Quad-Core system. Each camera also recorded on tape or on board hard drive as a backup. On completion of each session, the switched session file on the hard drive was copied to a final cut pro edit suite upstairs where any vision edits were made along with the addition of title cards, lower thirds and end credits.

The completed session was then exported to multiple formats for distribution online and DVD.

Equipment used:

Quad core MacPro
Blackmagic Intensity Pro
x4 JVC HD video cameras
Datavision Vision Mixer
Ki-Pro HD recorder
16 channel Soundcraft audio mixer
8 Channel Sennheiser Wireless radio mic kit
Lots of cables

Software Used
Livestream.com subscription
Procaster software

Under the Milky Way

admin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:50:01 +0000

Shot on a chilly night in Daylesford, 21st August 2011. It’s not often that I’m surrounded by a clear, non light-polluted sky with both my camera and a tripod in hand but thankfully the stars aligned last night. I was surprised how well the milkyness comes out with a relatively short exposure but a high ISO and plenty of noise reduction certainly helps. Canon 7D, 16-35L @ 16mm, f2.8, 11sec, ISO 3200.

A foggy night in Melbourne

admin — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:58:11 +0000

Visibility was low, but clearly not low enough to cancel soccer training in Princes Park.