Between Weeks: Traffic, Public Transit, and Osprey Atmos AG 65 Pack

We’re still in Downtown Los Angeles filming.  

Our lunch Thursday was at 5:30pm exactly so I decided to take my camera around and explore some evening traffic.

It’s popular to make jokes about having a 9 to 5 when you work in the film industry. It does seem nice to have a set time everyday that I can expect to get off.  Tonight we expect to get off at midnight.

But when I see traffic like this, I know there is no possible way I could deal with it 5 days a week twice a day for an entire career.

Sitting in a car waiting, just so I can get home and do it again.  

Every car I look at, it is always one person.  No one seems to carpool.  

On Sunday I found myself in Pasadena so I decided to take the new 501 Metro line over to Burbank.  This is the first Los Angeles bus I have to been on and it was a great experience.  

At the max there were 2 other passengers.  It was quick, it was cheap, and it only cost $1.75.  Public transit is a steal in Los Angeles, I guess because no one uses it.  

While riding on the bus I was reminded about how nice it is to have someone drive you around.  Even if it’s a public bus.  To not worry about all the hectic drivers and the ever worsening parking around Los Angeles.   It’s a nice breath of fresh air.  

I have been using my new/ used Osprey Atmos AG 65L backpack recently.   I picked it up at a REI garage sale for a great price.  It came with a torn drawstring but it is all covered under warranty by the manufacture.  

The great part about this pack is the AG. It stands for Anti Gravity.  When you put this pack on the pack grips you, it’s a feeling I haven’t felt before with a backpack.  It feels like a koala bear is hoping you around the hips!

It’s a great pack.  I have yet to use it on an actual trail but I will be sure to write about it when I do!

I will be working again next week on a TV show so there will not be a video.  I am still working on my video about how I got into the film industry.  It’s a hard one for me to make because it is a story that spans 3 years that I am trying to fit into a 3-4 minute video.  

It will be a good one!

/spencer

2015 Nissan NV200 | 10,000 Miles

Sometime next week I will hit 10,000 miles on my Nissan NV200.  It’s hard believe that I have owned this van for 9 months.  

As a car that is rather new to the US, I feel it is a hidden gem.  It has problems none the less but it’s been great for my requirements.  

For those of you who don’t know, I bought this NV200 to convert it to my living space.  I wanted a solution that was cheap, safe, and that was reliable in the future.  I am constantly working and it was very hard to justify my West Hollywood rent, especially when I was never home.  I try and work on movies as much as possible.  When I am not working on movies I work on my own content and I spend time traveling.  As much as I hate to admit it, a van was the perfect compromise.

It would allow me to travel in my off times and it would help me save money.  As a guy in my early 20’s it’s very hard to justify spending a $1,000 a month on rent when I am never there.

When I was looking for an urban cargo van I took about a month to research them and visit dealers.  This was the first car I was planning to buy new.  Mainly due to the problem that the Nissan NV200 was so new that there no used ones on craigslist.  

The two models I compared were the Ford Transit Connect and the Nissan NV200.  I honestly wanted the Ford Transit Connect because I felt the recent redesign made the car much more attractive, especially over the Nissan.

2015 Ford Transit

2015 Nissan NV200

But I quickly realized that the Nissan has a much better economic design and has much more space compared to the Ford.

So I bought the NV200.  I paid $20,000 out the door, taxes, fees, and etc.  I got the S model with rear windows and cruise control upgrade.  

Since then I have taken the van all over California and up to Portland.  It’s been my home since I bought it and it’s been an incredible one at that.  It feels so great to own my living and to not have to share it with a roommate.  There are many compromises when living in a car but for me, they outweigh the comprising of living in a rented apartment with a roommate .  

As far as a review on the van, I am not a car guy.  I believe cars are made to get from point A to point B.  Don’t get me wrong I hope to one day own a Porsche Classic, but until then cars are meant to get you from point A to point B.  

One of the biggest selling points of the NV200 was the CVT and the gas mileage.  For those who are not familiar, a CVT is a Continuous Variable Transmission.  It’s a transmission that doesn’t have gears but instead used belts to maximize fuel economy.  With my solar panel mounted, my fridge, my bed, and all my belongings I still get about 26 MPG (city and highway).  It’s incredible that this white box is able to get such great fuel economy.  

The Nissan NV200 holds 122.7 ft³ of cargo.  The Ford Transit Connect in comparison has 105.9 ft³.  That extra 16 ft³ makes a significant difference when it comes to a living space.  Combine that with the added benefits of the backwards mounted passenger seat and the table I build with my friend Ziggy off the passenger rear door and it ends up being a relatively big space in comparison to the what the eye sees when walking by.

With 10,000 miles I have had zero problems.  I have changed the oil and rotated the tires myself.  Currently I am running full synthetic oil and a mobil one filter.  With my 10,000 mile oil change I am taking a sample and sending it in to get tested.  I personally feel that changing oil every 5,000 miles is excessive but there is no way of knowing without testing it. I will report back when the results have come back from the lab.  

The biggest problem I have found so far is that the plastic in the interior of the NV200 is some of the cheapest plastic I have ever experienced in a car.  My Honda Civic was 11 years old when I sold it and it and the plastic inside looked better than my van does after only 10 months.  I would have thought because it was a cargo van that the plastic would have been more industrial, but my assumption was wrong.  The slightest touch and a mark seems to appear.  

The tires are the next problem with the van.  Most people are quick to notice that the van has relatively small wheels for it’s size.  I know I did.  Upon researching online I found that the tires are only rated at 15,000 miles.  Let me repeat that: a commercial vehicle has stock tires rated at 15,000 miles.  Not only that but the only tires that fit the NV200 and meet the weight requirements are exclusively sold by Nissan and cost upwards of $350- $400 a piece.  Luckily for me I do not come close to the weight rating of these tires so I will be changing after I hit 15,000 miles.

For a reference I found some that Costco carries that are 92% the weight rating, cost about $100 apiece, and have a 40,000 mile warranty.

Nissan, is a 15,000 mile tire for $400 really the best you can do?

Looking back, I made the right purchase. The look of the NV200 has definitely grown on me and I love the optical illusion that never suggestions that a 6’3” guy could be living in it.  It has played to my advantage many times.

After 8 months of living and sleeping around Los Angeles, I have never been hassled by residents or cops, and that was the goal.  Yes I would love to own a Sprinter 4x4 but I would never be able to live the quiet low key life that the NV200 enables me to live.  

If you are able to get past the cheap plastic interior and the cheaply made tires you will see that the NV200 is a great van.  It’s competitor, the Ford Transit, starts at more than $2,000 MSRP above the Nissan and comes with a warranty that doesn’t come close to the 5 year / 100,000 warranty that Nissan offers.  

Toyota HiAce

Nissan NV350

As much as I love this car I cannot ignore the fact that both Nissan and Toyota have an incredible lineup of urban commercial vehicles overseas that would fit my conversion dreams perfectly.  

Let’s hope by the time they bring the others over, I still have a desire to live in a van.  

In Defense of a Light Meter

Everything below was shot on a Sony A7rii with a Loxia 35mm F2 lens.  Unless otherwise noted, all photos have only been adjusted for lens corrections.  

I purchased a light meter, a Sekonic L-758Cine to be specific.

I've had it for about a month but I hadn't gotten the chance to use it due to work.  Thursday I headed to downtown to get some footage for my marriage video and I took the meter with me.

ISO 800 | F 2.8 | 1/50 second

Left: general enviornment

Right: hot spot in deep frame

The reason I bought the meter is because I shoot mainly video.  On my A7rii I shoot primarily in a log setting called SLog, which helps when grading the video in post.  SLog is very unsharp, unsaturated, and low contrast.  Thus it is hard to tell exposure.  There have been a couple critical shots that I have missed due to SLog exposure and I wanted to make sure that won't happen again.  So I bought a meter so I could learn exactly how SLog is working.

SLog2

SLog2 graded in DaVinci Resolve

In working on movies, I am surprised how often light meters are used these days.  Generally most DPs I work for use them to set the initial T stop before any monitors get up.  But I have noticed a trend, the DPs who shot the most beautiful work are the ones who go by their meter, not the monitor.  

ISO 800 | F 3.2 | 1/50 second

General Environment

When shooting in the dark subway I immediately noticed that I like to underexpose by about a stop or so.

ISO 800 | F 2.5 | 1/50 second

For example with this picture of this Lexus, based on my tastes I think it looks best at F 2.5. 

But the meter said...

F 1.4 split.

But a F 1.4 split, as you can see below,  looks much too overexposed. 

ISO 1000 | F 2.0 | 1/50 second

With photography, everything is all personal preference.  I generally prefer underexposing when it is dark out.  

ISO 100 | F 6.3 | 1/50 second

When it is daytime I have learned that I like overexposing by a 1/3 to a 1/2 a stop.  In the picture above I went 3/4 to a full stop over (which was probably a little too much).  

In the daylight I enjoy it when my highlights roll off, as you can see in the bridge in the upper left. Overexposing also helps to lower contrast, which is a look I often go for.  

Carry around this light meter that is about the size of my actually camera has once again reinforced the idea of slowing down when shooting.  Using a light meter is less about nailing the perfect exposure and more about realizing what I am doing.  Because these days you pretty much just have to get within two stops over or under and you can fix it in post.  The perfect exposure is unnecessary in photography thank to 16 bit uncompressed RAW photos.

Unfortunately that is not the case for video.  This light meter has earned a place in my pelican and I will be using it from here on out to explore SLog.

All photos below have been processed 

For more of my photography visit my flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/madebyspencer

Week 15: I Don't Believe In Marriage

I realized while doing research and interviews for this week's video that I know very little about love and marriage.  Talking to my friends who had been together 10+ years made me completely change what I wanted to say.  This is not me attempting to tell the world that I don’t believe in their marriage.  This is me attempting to figure out why I don’t believe in marriage.  You see, chances are when I look at this video in 5, 10, 15 years my view on marriage will have drastically changed.  That is why I made this video.  To document the views and beliefs of 22 year old me.  

A preservation of the past to enable a better future