Who needs a clunky camera these days when you've got a 12 megapixel camera in your pocket. Shot using a Nokia N8, the guys over at Aardman (producers of Wallace & Gromit) broke the world record when they produced this short animation. The final video is only 1 minute and 31 seconds but it took them 5 days on the beach to shoot all the images.
We don't usually put a lot of deals on the front of Fstoppers (we save those for our twitter account) but this one is simply too good to pass up. Right now BHvideo has the Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera on sale for $1999 which is pretty close to the price of some of Canon's cropped sensor cameras.
There are a ton of car photographers out there but very few of them are this good. Lee Howell just sent me his newest portfolio shoot that involved shooting a new Audi R8 GT in a soon to be opened tunnel. Lee got his hands on one of the craziest car rigs I have ever seen and walks us through the basics of his production. With a little bit of post work, the images become world class shots.
We've featured a lot of timelapse videos here on Fstoppers. And while they are really cool, very few videos have been made on how you can actually make one yourself. The guys over at Dynamic Perception, makers of the Stage Zero Dolly and MX2 Dolly Engine, have created a pretty thorough explanation of how to program dolly movements with long DSLR exposures.
Most of the readers here at Fstoppers are photographers but we also have a lot of videographers as well. Most of us photographers are completely out of the loop when it comes to the tools videographers use day in and day out, and some of them are pretty cool. Mitch Gross demonstrates some of the features found in the new ARRI L7 LED Fresnel Lights and they look pretty awesome.
Just a few weeks ago Canon announced the new C300 video camera to join the professional video world. Many people were confused because the specs didn't seem that much better than the 5DM2 but the price was way higher ($20k). In the video below Jonathan Yi does a great job of showing many of the benefits of the C300.
I'll always remember a friend of mine saying that he loved the Canon 5D Mark II for film making because it was expendable and cheap compared to "real" video cameras (he crashed a lot of them). For most of us, having any piece of gear break is heartbreaking especially when it comes from our own stupidity lack of foresight.
The final day to submit your behind the scenes video for our contest is December 31st. With 30 days left, the videos are starting to pour in and they are getting better and better. I've never had any interested in infrared photography until I saw Mark Fore's contest entry. In the video below Mark shows us how he converted his digital rebel into an infrared camera for $6.
One of the biggest announcements I was really excited about this year was the release of Nikon's Flagship SB910 Speedlight. Many people were speculating that the revamped portable strobe would be smaller like the classic SB800, finally offer wireless syncing via radio, incorporate a small constant LED light for video, or add another half stop or two of power.
Everyone has been waiting for the new Nikon D3s and D700 replacement cameras for what seems like forever. Nikon Rumors recently opened a whole can of worms as they released photos that the rumor blog owner stats as being 99% legit. However new speculations have come out from another reliable source over at DigitalRev.
Some of my favorite behind the scenes videos we've featured on Fstoppers are of Matthew Jordan Smith. He speaks well and always articulates his lighting and setups in a way that both amateurs and pros can understand.
Now despite the way this apparatus looks, it's actually something that has been discussed by major photo industry companies. Event photographers continually struggle with needing to have their lighting equipment in just the right spot while simultaneously needing to be somewhere else to get the shot. Even if they do get everything in place, seconds later they will need to somewhere else.
This video has been sent to us so many times over the last 24 hours that I thought we should share it. It was filmed at After Dark Education based in Tucson, AZ and is a pretty funny look at how some videographers and photographers view each other on a wedding day.
10 years ago shooting on a 4x5 camera was pretty common among professional photographers. Today, many young photographers not only haven't seen a 4x5 camera but they have probably have never even heard of one. In this video Simon Roberts takes us through the steps of using the camera, editing the images, and the printing the final file.
We are heading into the holiday season which usually means manufacturers and retailers are looking to hook up buyers with some pretty sweet deals. Right now through BHvideo.com you can get some great discounts on Sandisk high speed flash memory cards which are great as newer cameras offer more megapixels and greater video capability.
I'm not sure I believe that 3D is the way of the future but the current technology behind it does fascinate me. Check out the video below in which Peter Jackson takes us behind the scenes of his much anticipated film The Hobbit. In this video Peter and his team explain how they use 2 Red Epics to produce the most realistic type of 3D footage available today.
Out of the blue Canon just jumped into the movie business. Hours ago Canon just announced the new C300 video camera and minutes ago Vincent Laforet released "Movius" his newest short, shot on this unreleased camera. Patrick and I have been trying to get in contact with Vincent over the last few weeks (for a reason you will soon know) and I now understand why he was so "busy".
Well this is quite a surprise. Canon has just announced the new C300 video camera. This camera will shoot in 4K (still unsure of frame rates) and will use NEW "Top-End EF" Zoom Lenses made by Canon. $20,000 which should compete nicely with the Red Scarlet and it plans to actually be available in January.
So I am going through some of the slow-mo HD camera options that are on the market right now for an adventure I will be taking soon, and I stumbled upon the new GoPro HD Hero2. On their site they have one of the illest trailers I have ever seen for a camera, and I had to watch it several times.
A few months back we posted about the cheapest crane on the market and it was a huge hit with our readers. If you happen to have a little extra money (about $300) you may want to invest in the newest and smallest crane on the market. Check out the video review below. If this looks like something you can't live without, head over to eBay to buy one of these new jibs.
When someone turns us onto a product or service we really enjoy we like to spread the word. Our friends over at Novum Studios just recently launched the new site design for BorrowLenses.com and it looks great.
This striking image (pun intended) was shot by Blair Bunting for a Deadliest Catch ad for Discovery Channel. Curious to know how he did it? Well, luckily for us, his assistant Paul Morton filmed the whole thing, and Mike Maez was kind enough to edit it down into a digestible and inspiring video.
In May 2012, Marvel will release the comic superhero movie The Avengers. Some apple fans are suggesting that footage actually in the movie was shot on an Apple Iphone. The Avengers cinematographer Seamus McGarvey was quoted saying,
Lee's wedding video A Moving Moment created a lot of discussion about how to get high production shots with minimal gear. The truth of the matter is Lee handheld 90% of the footage and used our favorite slider, The Atlas 10 Slider, for the remaining 10% of the shots.
Well the rumors were right. Canon just announced the 1DX, a rapid fireing sports shooter to compete with Nikon's D3s. Check below to read the full press release and read about all the new features that Nikon will trump with the D800 in a few weeks. I'm kidding, I'm just a jealous Nikon shooter.
Awhile back we shared a few videos of photographers intentionally throwing their cameras in the air. Well now the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera actually makes that feat much easier. The new camera allows photographers to create 360 degree images with 36 individual cameras arranged in a buckeyball shape (any organic chemists out there?).
I just wanted to give our readers a little heads and let you know that both Nikon and Canon plan to announce new cameras this month. Canon is rumored to announce a 1D series camera (their pro sports camera) on Tuesday October 18th. The camera will have around 16mp and will shoot around 12fps.
Using drone octocopters to take breathtaking aerial footage is nothing new. But what would the results look like if you could combine a stabilized drone with ultra high def 5K footage from the Red Epic? That's exactly what OMstudios did with their self proclaimed "OM-copter".
A new photoshop algorithm featured at the Adobe Max 2011 is almost too good to believe. Somehow engineers have figured out a way to take extremely blurry images (by photographers' standards at least) and render them sharp and usable with the click of a few buttons.
Well the title pretty much says it all and you only have 3 day left to enter! Fstoppers is excited to announce a new twitter contest where you can win one of the brand new Apple Macbook Air 11.6" Notebooks. All you have to do to enter the contest is follow Fstoppers and BHPhotoVideo on Twitter, and tweet the following message:
Everyone was a little let down when Apple announced an iPhone "4S" rather than a brand new "5". Aside from being a little faster, the iPhone 4S also has a big jump in the camera/video department. This new camera is 8mp and shoots at 1080p with built in vibration reduction. Check out the video below to see what this little cellphone is really capable of.
Don't you hate it when your camera can't stand up to the weight of your pet elephant stepping on it? Ya me too, that's why I only buy Phase One (I mean I will after I win the lottery). Although this stupid test is fairly impressive, I would much rather see a drop test, as that will be the real issue for photographers and the durability of their gear.
Ryan Enn Hughes just submited his entry for our BTSV contest and it is quite impressive. Ryan teamed up with The Big Freeze and set up 48 D700 cameras in a circle and then fired them all at once as dancers did their thing.
Last year I released a video explaining how to wirelessly tether your camera to an iPad by jailbreaking the iPad. Since then Eye-Fi has released a firmware update that makes wireless tethering possible without the need for jailbreaking.
In Jay P. Morgan's newest video he shows us how he uses a crane to bump up production value by using a crane. Now I know you might be thinking there's no way you can afford a crane but you would be wrong. Last month we posted this video review of a $125 crane that anyone can afford. I purchased one and I am really excited to try it out in the near future.
Now this video may be over many of your heads (it is definitely over mine) because most of us are still photographers who may only dabble in video but this is still worth posting. In the video below Video Copilot shows us how they filmed a car chase scene in the studio with a green screen.
Have you ever wondered how DSLR cameras match up when compared to film and high end HD video cameras? Last year, Zacuto brought together some of the biggest names in the movie industry to see how well the first round of video capable DSLRs compared to the industry’s standard film and HD video cameras in The Great Camera Shoot Out of 2010.
A few months back I posted another video by "Betty Wants In" that involved skydiving in ultra slow motion. The video was created with the GoPro video camera and software called Twixtor that can create frames for a very realistic slowmotion look. This time they have created a very different video using the same technique. Enjoy this amazing look at the sport from the safety of your office.
A few months ago I purchased a Nikon D7000 and MB-D11 battery grip from Amazon.com. The order was fulfilled by ANATOLIAN BOOKSTORE, INC and two days ago I figured out that this grip is actually a fake. Check out the full post to see high res images from every angle of this grip.
I just stumbled upon another interesting video filmed with the GoPro HD video camera. It's not really an informative video but hopefully it will give you guys some inspiration. You can easily film things with these ultra small/light cameras that simply were not possible a few years ago. What could you film in a different way?
We've all seen huge gigapixel images and their boring sidebars that allow us to navigate through them. But what if you could scroll through a photograph Minority Report style? The good people over at the University of Lincoln in the UK have put together an exhibit that combines huge gigapixel images with gestures based on the Xbox Kinect gaming console.
When it comes to giving great tutorials on DSLR video, the guys at Stillmotion are full of helpful tips and tricks. This latest video discusses some of the advantages you have in setting your camera's white balance and color profiles.
A green screen, also known as a chromakey, can make life really easy if you are doing a lot of video work and want a simple solution for dropping in different backgrounds. David Dugdale created a great tutorial for green screen which shows how to effectively light a chromakey background and key it out in Premiere.
If you have seen Peter Lik's work in person then you understand that it's impossible to put into words the look and quality of his prints. Peter's photography (and his post production) is fantastic, but what really makes his work stand out is his printing and presentation. If his images were printed on standard photo paper at a standard size, his work would not have the same "wow" factor.
I've been saving my money for months so that I can make the switch over to Profoto and take advantage of their new D1 Air Monolights. Not only are these things small and light but they are also completely wireless! You can now control your studio lights (on/off, flash power, modeling light) all from the Profoto Air Remote. You want to know what the best part is?
TheUnderwaterRealm.com is a blog that is following the production of an independent film that will take place completely underwater. Each week the guys and gals are releasing a BTSV which shows exactly what they have been working on. If you are interested in movie production, I highly suggest checking out their website.
If you've been shooting stills or video for any length of time, chances are you've often thought about making a product that could make your life a bit easier. Cinetics designer Justin Jensen's own idea was to make a simple dolly system for DSLR cameras that was also portable. He designed and launched his CineSkates on Kickstarter and the response has been huge.
As you may have heard, Sony just announced their new 24mp Alpha 77 DSLR and it is really pushing the limits of technology. I've been a Nikon shooter my whole life and I don't plan to switch any time soon but I still enjoy seeing all of the brands compete.
Tom Guilmette is now a pretty regular name on Fstoppers because his BTSVs in the field of video are some of the best we have seen. In the video below Tom travels out west with Eric Kessler to film BTS footage of some of the top timelapse shooters of our time.