This video has been hitting the blogs recently, but I didn't really watch it until it wound up in our inbox a half a dozen times. I guess I should say that this is probably the absolute textbook way to clean a lens but does anyone actually own all these rocket blowers, cleaning brushes, and cleaning supplies?
Yuri Arcurs is probably the most successful stock photographer on the planet. The last time we featured him on Fstoppers he was explaining a lot of his lighting setups for great stock images as well as how to get great reactions out of your models so the images sell.
When the iPad was announced I laughed. I thought "this is just an over-sized iPhone that can't even make calls." I then figured out how to tether my DSLR to it and now I bring it on every shoot. Don't get me wrong, it does have some annoying quirks but when it does something well... it does it very well.
This is by no means the most thrilling video but it is really interesting. I've always wondered what was officially the "first" digital camera, and I guess I now know. Steven Sasson claims that he invented digital photography when he created this strange looking camera. The camera could shoot stills and record up to 30 of them on a digital tape.
We have posted about Twixtor before but today I was sent 2 great examples of it being put to use. Instead of simply slowing frames down, Twixtor actually can create as many frames as you like for super smooth ultra slo mo. Obviously nothing beats actually shooting at 1000fps but this program is quite good in most cases. We used it on every frame for the intro of The Wakeboard Studio Shoot.
Everyone likes a good time lapse right? Well Philip Bloom just created one but it has a unique twist. Bloom's video was created with 3 cameras shooting simultaneously outside of his hotel window. He shot with a 5DMII, T2i, and T3i all shooting towards different areas of the landscape at different focal lengths.
We've featured Patryk Kizny a few times here on Fstoppers and his content is always mind blowing. Recently he decided to test a new portable and modular slide rail for the DitoGear PortaSlider. This time lapse video uses 14 one-meter long track units connected to make one single long track. Everything was shot on a few Canon DSLR Cameras and mainly wide angle Samyang 14mm and 8mm lenses.
I created the iPhone Fashion Shoot to attempt to prove this point. 50% of the people who saw it "got" it and the other 50% claimed that it only looked good because I used $10,000 worth of light. Well I've always said "light is light" and all those expensive light modifiers do is make the light source bigger or smaller. Don't believe me?
I've seen a lot of videos that attempt to explain why you would use a beauty dish over a softbox but I've always had a hard time understanding the subtleties. Jay P Morgan created a video that not only explains everything in great detail, but he also shows 3 lighting examples with each type of dish configuration.
Chris Marquardt has developed a really mind blowing new camera called The Invisible Camera. Using ground breaking technology developed by the Max-Planck Institute in Germany, Chris has designed a camera that can properly expose an image even when the film is exposed to ambient light.
Now we don't usually post product review videos on Fstoppers, especially for gear that we don't currently use, but in this case I have to make an exception. Although I may never get my hands on a Red camera, I can dream can't I? Honestly this video isn't even really a review but by the end you will know that this camera is "pretty coo'". But hey, it still got me all excited.
A few weeks ago Lee and I went out to Las Vegas to club it up check out WPPI which is the largest wedding convention in the US. While out there we were able to meet quite a few of our readers, check out the new gear at the Photoflex booth, and play with a lot of new photo related toys.
Harry How is a sports photographer without any prior photography training. With hard work, determination, and a pressing urge to create images that hold up against his peers' photographs, Harry now has a career shooting for Getty Images.
Fstoppers was created in part to help show the faces of the photographers behind the lens and also to give insight on how they approach their photography. But have you ever wondered who the people are behind some of tools and software we use day in an day out?
Thank goodness for the GoPro HD or else this viral video wouldn't exist. If you are ever near a cliff, make sure yours is recording too.
Celebrity photographer Brian Smith has a great video online that describes his workflow when shooting burlesque dancers in Las Vegas. The video is an advertisement piece for X-Rite Color Checker calibration tool but Brian gives some really good advice on how he took his career from working at a newspaper to now shooting celebrity portraits.
Every now and then someone comes out with a product that really makes me say, "why didn't I think of that?" If you've ever been on the set of a serious movie production, you know that the camera operator or steadicam operator hardly ever focuses the lens himself.
Last year Zacuto started a great series called The Great Camera Shootout where they compared film cameras with digital cameras and DSLRs. We featured the first two episodes but somehow overlooked the final show in the series. Some of these tests seem a bit excessive to me but it's good to know that there is a discussion going on with the top professionals in the field.
We've featured Tom Guilmette several times on our website and each time he never ceases to amazing me. Today Tom released a fun video that he shot on the Phantom Flex while he was staying in Las Vegas. We've all seen super slow motion videos before but what really grabbed my attention was Tom's editing skills and his brilliant use of audio to help bring this video to life.
About 95% of the time I can guess the quality of a photographer by the design of their website before the first image even loads. If you want people to take your work seriously a Flickr page isn't going to cut it. You may think that you can't afford a professional website; think again.
One of my favorite things about Charleston, SC is being close to the ocean. I love being in and around the water, and although I'm not very good at it, I do enjoy wakeboarding. Charleston has become a pretty big hub for sports like kiteboarding and wakeboarding over the last few years, and this city is not short on talented athletes.
If you are not already subscribed to Freddie Wong's YouTube channel, you should go there right now and watch one of Youtube's most popular animators. Well this week he has created a really simple video called The Freeze Shootout and has provided a quick behind the scenes video on how he did it.
I thought I knew everything about shutters, sync speeds, and flash duration until I saw this video by Paul Duncan. I smugly started playing this recommended video and I got schooled. Now I am up to speed and you will be too.
A few months ago, Patryk Kizny with Dito Gear shared a really amazing video called The Chapel with Fstoppers. I was absolutely blown away by the footage but I knew our readers would want to know exactly how he created it. So I was able to persuade Patryk to create a second video that outlined exactly what he did to create the original HDR timelapse images featured in The Chapel.
If you haven't checked out Mark Wallace's Adorama TV channel over at youtube you really should. He does a great job creating informative and useful videos on all sorts of digital photography and videography topics.
Profoto has really done everyone a great service in having photographer Matthew Jordan Smith explain some of his personal favorite images in his portfolio. In this particular image, Matthew decided to photograph NBA superstar Ray Allen in his own backyard while jumping on a trampoline.
One of the first early adapters of DSLR video for professional use was Shane Hurlbut of Terminator Salvation, The Guardian, The Last 3 Minutes fame. A few days ago he released a really well shot commercial for the US Marines and decided to make a short contest out of it. The video has over 27 frames shot on various Canon 5D, 7D, and 1D cameras as they do every cinema-graphic move possible.
My brain couldn't comprehend how this was possible I so I told myself it was some how computer generated to keep my head from exploding. I then saw the end of the video, and I still don't quite believe it. All you need is a Segway, a Steadicam system, and an Olympic sprinter to pull focus.
Here is the full song:
Photographer and videographer Patryk Kizny from Poland has been making a lot of noise around the web with his HDR TimeLapse slider videos. I've had a chance to talk to Patryk about his setup and the electronic slider he is using made by DitoGear is quite impressive.
We have all seen some cool RC chopper videos with dangling DSLRs but AerialPan just took things up a notch. These guys strapped the new Panasonic AF100 to their heli and shot slomo in 1080p. I've always found that these small machines have a hard time keeping the camera steady enough for smooth shots but this looks pretty perfect to me.
Love it or find it overly offensive, rapper M.I.A.'s music video Born Free created a big stir on the internet last year when it was released. I personally thought it was a pretty good video considering what most artists release these days. Regardless of your view of the video, the cinematography is really awesome.
Fstoppers reader Tyler Kaufman sent me this interesting video that shows a little glimpse of what it is like to shoot NBA basketball. Professional photographer Layne Murdoch has been shooting sports for over 30 years and has created some really spectacular images as the New Orlean's Hornets main photographer.
Usually our videos are directed towards advanced amateurs and professionals but if you are new to DSLR video, these videos will help out. Philip Bloom teamed up with Vimeo.com to create 8 great tutorials.
Intro To DSLR
Setting Up Your DSLR For Video
DSLR Lenses
Shooting Video With Your DSLR
DSLR Video Accessories
I know many of our readers do not like being told how to shoot their images and many more even hate watching promotional videos for companies trying to sell them on a new way adjust their workflow.
Patrick and I have been in contact with LPA Design (the company that makes Pocket Wizards) for a few months now and we were excited to hear that they would be sending us a few beta units of the unreleased Nikon FlexTT5, MiniTT1, and AC3 units. Our website is not about reviewing gear but we did want to push these units.
Now I am not going to jump to any conclusions. Maybe these guys and gals had a VERY similar idea, and not one of them had seen the iPhone Fashion Shoot (which has been seen by about a million photographers so far). And even though this video is filmed in the exact same way and has all of the exact same information, MAYBE it is just a coincidence.
We usually try to keep the good camera deals that we find only on Twitter, but I think everyone deserves to hear about this one.
Amazon is currently giving $100-$400 off when you buy any Nikon SLR and a lens. You can see all of these deals here. This is a pretty good deal in itself, especially if you were about to buy the new D7000 anyway but it gets better.
Photography is all about lighting and it's important to learn what flattering light is. Once you do, you will find that the color temperature of that light makes a huge difference in the over all mood of that image. I can't tell you how many potentially great images that I see that were taken outside on a sunny day and the auto white balance makes everything blue, wrecking the image.
When Canon first started producing lenses they used the FD mount. In 1987 they switched to the current EF lens mount. This change made the FD lenses plummet in price but not in value. Check out Caleb Pike from DSLRVideoShooter.com shooting incredible video with his 5DM2 and 7D with these $20 Lenses. How do you do it?
While many Canon and Nikon users are bickering about whether DSLR cameras should even have HD video capabilities, the company RED is completely changing the game between both photography and motion video. If you have even been slightly interested in video then you have probably heard about their famous RED One camera (District 9, The Social Network) that shot in 4k resolution.
What if you could shoot 1080p video for just $300 with a camera that was waterproof, basically indestructible, and so small and light it could be mounted anywhere? What if that camera could also shoot 60fps for amazing slow motion? This camera is the GoPro HD and we own 2 of them. Watch this video and then check out the previous post.
Camera and Video equipment can be expensive! Whether you are just getting into digital media or are a seasoned professional, we are all looking for bargains and ways to justify dropping even more coin on photography gear. Everyday our email is full of readers asking about what gear we use/recommend and if there are any deals out there to be had.
Our cameras sync at a maximum of 200-250th of a second but in this video Chris OConnell strobes at 1/500th of a second with his Broncolors. How does he do it? Well the new Pocket Wizard TT1 and TT5s are the secret. Instead of trying to explain it all here, watch the second video with more details.
Want more info about high speed sync? Check this video out.
As a photographer getting into DSLR video, I love it when a reader of ours emails us with a question we can answer or better yet a question we have not thought of before. Well FS reader Christian emailed us about how we sync our DSLR audio with audio we may have recorded in a separate unit (zoom, iphone, computer, etc).
Most people know Vincent Laforet as the guy that got his hands on the 5DM2 before it was released to shoot that amazing promo video. Well he is a full time photographer but in the video below he got to be the DP for a Famous Footwear commercial. The final product is stunning.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Famous Footwear "Neighborhood" from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.
Have you ever wanted to shoot aerial photos or video but thought that the cost would be too high? Well Tom Guilmette just did something that Patrick and I were considering doing in one of our upcoming Fstoppers originals. I'm glad he did it first though because now I realize our plan wouldn't work. For some reason I thought a single helium balloon would be enough to lift a GoPro...
Over the holiday we received a few emails about a video we shot where we used a ringflash as the key light (SB-800 Flash Mod). Obviously you can't shoot video with the ringflash look unless you have an expensive flash with a modeling light. But what if you want to shoot stills and get that hard yet even lighting that is common in macro and fashion photographs?
I was just informed that there is a behind the scenes video on how the Doritos 360 Degree video was created. If you found that last post as interesting as I did, you will appreciate watching how they filmed it. What's going to be tough about shooting 360 video is that everything has to be done in one take.
It's pretty hard for someone to come into the film and video industry and make a huge splash but that's exactly what the Dutch company Yellowbird has done. They are using a camera very similar to what Google uses on its Streetview cars to produce not only 360 degree photographs but for the first time 360 degree interactive video!
Yes, this is an ad for Cinevate's Pegasus Carbon but this is worth watching. If you are into video, this ad gives some fantastic information about getting moving shots. The Pegasus isn't cheap at $900 but it is one of the best sliders money can buy for a DSLR.
Cinevate's Pegasus Carbon, DSLR Camera Slider from Cinevate on Vimeo.