High School Seniors + Sports


An Adventure Sports Photographer Lays Out His Essential Gear [RF Video of the Week]

November 14, 2014

By Laura Brauer

It’s no secret that the South Africans love their sports (in fact, we delved into the ins and outs of the sports photography scene there in the July 2013 issue of Rangefinder), and Cape Town-based adventure sports photographer/videographer Craig Kolesky is just one of the creatives who’s getting in on the action; as someone with a prolific portfolio of motocross, surfing, kiteboarding, mountain climbing, skateboarding — you name it — it’s safe to say that he knows what he’s doing, and what to tote along with him.

Kolesky, with the assistance of his videographer friend Troy Davies, made an action-packed sports video for Red Bull (one of his clients) starring a dirt biker, motocross champion and a professional skater with the Nikon D810, a DSLR released this year that records in Full HD up to 1080/60p and is able to capture some impressive detail.

Behind the scenes, Kolesky delves into his whole gear bag for this project. Just as far as lenses go, he used a Nikkor 24-70mm for interview shots, a 105mm macro for the super close detail shots, a 14-24mm for the wide tracking shots, a 70-200mm (which Kolesky dubs his “go-to” lens), a 50mm f/1.4 for portraits and a 16mm fisheye lens for the aerial drone shots. See what else he relied on, plus how all of the equipment performed in the behind-the-scenes video below.

Check out more Videos of the Week, and email Libby Peterson with submissions.

Related Links:

VICE Documentary Crew Reveals Go-To Gear

Wedding Photographer Susan Stripling Unpacks Her Gear Bag Essentials

Behind-the-Scenes Tips on Shooting Cinematically with Ease