Wow! It’s been an absolutely crazy ride these last few months. We’ve been swamped like never before, but I want to get back into the habit of sharing some of the things I’ve learned in my work, here on this blog. We’ll start with something simple.
Gear does not make a good photograph or movie, but the right tool for the job makes it a heck of a lot easier. I started using Think Tank products 18 months ago and love the design, quality and workmanship of these bags. We photoraphers/cinematographers carry tons of stuff with us to a shoot and it all needs to live somewhere. Hint: If everything has it’s specific place, when you’re packing up to leave a shoot you’ll notice what’s missing, just by having an empty spot in your bag.
Now you know where you’re shooting from. You know how many shots your taken. You got the power and storage issues figured out. It’s time to pack. If you’re shooting a time-lapse sequence for fun, this will seem a little over the top just remember we’re talking about a commercial professional application. Redundancy is the name of the game, although I want to be able to walk into my time-lapse set up in one trip.
Everything I needed for this project fits on this one cart. I like this specific one, since it can double as a shooting table, once it’s unloaded. I’ll go through each bag in detail with everything that’s in it, but here is the overview: slung over the back of the cart (on my back when I go to location) isContinue reading »
I just finished shooting a four day time-lapse project at the Miami Boat Show for one of my new clients Meridian Yachts. Our goal was to show the 3 day set up process, which no one visiting the boat show gets to see. It’s fascinating to watch the Miami Beach Convention Center transform from an empty cavernous warehouse to the biggest boat show in the States. In my research I have found numerous video tutorials, examples, web posts, … on time-lapse projects; but I have not found one that speaks about the process of preparing to shoot one in detail. This blog post will talk about how I planned, produced and photographed a commercial time lapse and how I put it all together after all the pieces were been shot.
1. Plan it
Scouting the location
I’m gonna assume that you already have a project in mind. So the first thing I do is to scout the location that I will be shooting in. What is the subject that you’re going to be shooting? Where will it be? Are there vantage points that will become obstructed in the course of your Continue reading »
If you have not purchased your DSLR yet, this Emmy winning set of Webisodes is must watching. Zacuto, a film making accessories manufacturer, put together a test a few months back, in which they pit DSRL’s against 35mm motion picture film, which was screened in front of film industry professionals. The results may surprise you.
Webisode 1 tests the latitude of DSLR cameras and film, webisode 2 looks at ability to shoot in low light due to the increased sensitivity of DSLR’s and the final webisode 3 looks at the ability to have DSLR’s used with green screens and looks at resolution and color. You’ll need some time each episode is about half an hour long, but it’s worth every minute of it. It’s an objective test between DSLR’s and movie film cameras. In addition to this you get the feedback of industry professionals.
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
So now that you know which camera to buy (right), you gotta figure out how to move this – for us photographers, movement (and sound) are new challenges that we need to wrap our heads around, since my still photo does not move at all. I stumbled across Phil Holland video, in which he describes his DSLR rig. He does a nice job explaining why and how he uses the different components of this rig.
This is a great place to start learning about some of the things you’ll need want to have, when getting into video on your DSLR.
Can you hear me now?
Sound is the other dimension that I don’t think about. I was shooting for Mars a few weeks ago and the Creative Director that was on location with me stopped the shoot, when a plane went over head – something that did not even phase me – nor did it have to, since we were shooting stills. However in cinematography this becomes a major issue since at least half the content (speech and music are communicated non-visually). But the sound recording features on the DSLR’s are not really up to par with what you need to capture that ‘Hollywood sound’.
If you’d like to read a little more detailed review of external recorders that can be used with DSLR’s take a look at Jon Fairhurst’s series of video post on the Canon 5D tips blog. He reviews 4 different external recorders for your DSLR.
This post is a work in progress, I will continue to post articles, webisodes, blog posts, … that I find helpful in making decisions on what equipment to choose to create motion pictures.
That deal just got better, for one week Phase One is selling Capture One software for half price, so you can get Capture One for $64.50 – but only to June 18th. Continue reading »
Phase One just announced the acquisition of Expression Media.
Phase One is a company based in Sweden, that creates the worlds greatest high end digital backs and a phenomenal RAW image processing software. In my opinion it is the best digital processor available today. I have use their software for years now and am thrilled at the results.
Expression Media, formerly iView, is one of the best image cataloging systems available. It was bought up by Microsoft a few years ago, but has been sitting around their proverbial shelf – just try to find a page that let’s you download an update to Expressions Media – and you’ll know what I mean. Expression Media however keeps track of your digital collection (photos, videos, files, …) and knows where every file is – be it online = connected to your machine – or offline = detached from your computer. It manages all of your metadata, comments, rating, keywords, … all the things that Capture One did not do.
Find out how to get FREE Expression Media or Capture One software!
If you own either Capture One or Expression Media, Phase One has a special offer that gives you the other software package for free until the end of June. So if you own Capture One, you get Expression Media for free and vice versa.
How do you get the free software? Find out after the bump! Continue reading »
You know I love this app for my iPhone. It is actually the only app I have paid for – well I did buy the Chicago CTA app this summer to figure out the schedules for their public transportation – but that’s neither here nor there.
If you are a photographer that shoots tethered using Canon or Nikon, you know that you can control the camera from the computer – depending what software you shoot into. I use Phase One’s Continue reading »
