Braedin Toth lives a life of adventure. The Canadian spends a significant number of days every year trekking into remote locations to experience, photograph and film natural spaces. When the Sony RX0 came out — a camera that seems almost custom-made for an adventurer like Toth — he saw an opportunity.
“Basically we were taking a bunch of friends with us on this trip to Banff,” Toth explains. “It was right after the fall colors wrapped up and as the first snow was beginning to fall. The plan was to go around visiting a bunch of cool places in little camper vans that really gave a nostalgic feel to the trip. I thought the RX0 would be perfect to take along and put them through all of the elements, including freezing-cold temperatures. We thought it was going to be around 0-degrees there, but it dropped quickly to minus 25 for the majority of the trip!”
Toth made use of the small form factor to create unique footage. Toth says, “We had six RX0 cameras and in addition to the lifestyle and adventure aspect, we wanted to use the slow-motion feature to make everything really experiential. We used the cameras to capture a bunch of different angles from each place. We'd set them up both inside and outside of the van. When we were canoeing, we put them in the water and when we were making coffee, we put them inside the cup as we filled it with boiling water. It was pretty fun!”
Because Toth and the other image makers on the trip were all Sony shooters, they were familiar with the way the RX0 works since the camera’s controls and menus have a lot in common with other Sony cameras. “We had a bunch of mounts hooked up all around, and then we just clicked ‘record.’ We synced the cameras with an app on my smartphone. We just hung out for a bit and did what we did. And when we were done, I just clicked ‘stop’ on the phone. It was super simple! You get a variety of angles without putting too much hassle into syncing it all in post later. You just drag them all onto the timeline and then make your cuts.”
A lot of things came together for Toth with this project and the RX0 proved to be the ideal camera for his adventure. “The ability to put it anywhere, through any kind of environment, was great. We didn’t really know what we were getting into until we got there. The weather changed hour-by-hour. At one point we had a storm and the camera was outside of the van. Within 20 minutes that camera was freezing cold with frost on it. My hands were cold just touching it! We then dropped it into boiling water and it was like nothing happened to it. I didn’t know how it would handle that and it worked great!
Braedin Toth is a member of the Alpha Imaging Collective. Follow him on Instagram @braedin.
