I'm starting to realize how many of our readers enjoy the mix of sports cars, photography, and behind the scenes so this one is for you. I'm really not sure what is going on here but what happens at the very end is pretty remarkable! I wish the audio was a little cleaner but I'm sure if you are into drifting fast cars you probably can't hear anyways!
2010 is coming to a close and we are all starting to tally up our expenses for the year. It's always a shock to me how much I have spent on my photography business. Whether you are a pro or not, how much do you think you spend each year on photo or video equipment? This includes computers and software too as long as you have purchased them for image or video production.
Dave Black is a professional photographer who shoots some of the most stylized sports images I have ever seen. In this BTS video, Dave is pairing up 8 SB900 flashes with two Radio Popper PX triggers on two Lightware Foursquare brackets. Why does he use such a crazy setup when shooting motorcross? Often times with fast action sports you need to shoot with quick shutter speeds b
Dave Dugdale has been an Fstoppers reader for a while now but I had not come across his own useful site Learning DSLR Video until yesterday. He left a comment on one of our videos and I clicked on his site to check it out (yes we actually check out our reader's sites). When I saw one of his videos I immediately emailed him and asked if he would teach me how to colorkey footage in Premiere.
So many times we photographers think we need to use every single strobe light we own just because they are there in our bag. I've been a victim of it and I'm sure you have too. Instructional photographer Tony Corbell has an old video he made for the folks at Profoto which really showcases the variety of light you can get from just one single light source.
I wish I had more info on this but all I know is that a guy named "Ben" made this electric dolly. With an automated dolly, you can create moving time lapse footage. You can view more pictures of his creation here.
DIY Dolly from Ben on Vimeo.
Adam Boozer is an amazingly talented videographer right here in Charleston, SC. His company Jewell and Ginnie has been making a big splash with very cinematic video here in the low country and throughout the southeast. Last night Adam emailed us a BTS video he created on how he sets up his camera for these incredible aerial shots.
Jesse Rosten got his hands on $4500 worth of iPads and decided to do a photoshoot with them. You may be thinking that this is totally pointless and for stills I might have to agree that this is overkill but a single iPad could be used to add softlight to extremely low lit scenes; something a small strobe could never do.
Well not exactly but we can still get kinda close. The Phantom camera costs a staggering $118,000 for the body alone which puts it out of the average Joe's reach. The Canon T2i costs just $699 and it currently has a $400 rebate when you buy it with a Pro9000 printer (I love these "free printer" rebates they are doing). The T2i shoots 60fps but has great manual control.
For all you DIY hipster photographers out there who always wanted to shoot pictures with a Pumpkin...
How To Turn A Pumpkin Into A Camera from NPR on Vimeo.
We usually don't post good deals on the front page of FS but this is one of the best deals I have seen. Right now, if you buy a Nikon D7000 body (it literally just started shipping a couple days ago) and an Epson R1900 photo printer, you will get a $450 rebate, which is the full cost of the printer. Deals like this do pop up but never with a camera this new.
Like many of you, the most telephoto I typically shoot is 200mm. If you are David Bergman then you probably shoot at 600mm. But what if that still isn't enough? Well you need to buy the Canon 1200mm lens duh! And if this lens does not get you close enough to the action then you probably need to read the full post to view your last option.
Update: There is now a new way to tether your camera to the iPad that does not require jailbreaking the iPad. Check out the new video here.
Are you a photographer and an iPad owner? If so, you are really going to love this. Are you a photographer who swore you would never buy an iPad because it's just an over-sized iPod Touch? Well you are about to change your mind.
If you have ever been in front of the camera you know how difficult it can be to remember your thoughts and speak them as naturally as you do in normal conversation. But what you may not know is most news personalities you see on television are actually cheating! Check out this behind the scenes video on how newscasters use autocues to present the news both clearly and accurately.
Moving time lapse videos are becoming more and more popular these days. Check out the video below to see Patryk Kizny take the DriveCam Slider for a test.
Autumn. A short timelapse film from Patryk Kizny on Vimeo.
The newest promo video for the incredible GoPro HD camera has me wanting to get out of the house and do something exciting! We are big supports of what Gopro is doing and can't speak highly enough of these little cameras. If you enjoy adding a unique perspective to your own videos or want a small time lapse camera, you can't go wrong with these...well unless you destroy them :)
Warning: If you think using Photoshop is cheating then you should probably just ignore this post! I just saw the most amazing video demonstration of a new video editing software called MovieReshape. Basically it's like an automated Photoshop liquify tool for video.
Benjamin Von Wong is a part time photographer but his concepts and images are definitely top notch. He was smart enough to film a behind the scenes video for his photoshoot with designer Andy Nguyen and the results are very interesting. You can read more about the ins and outs of this shoot from the model's perspective here and some of the final photos on Von Wong's Flickr page.
StillMotion is back again and this time they are showing us different stabilization options. Personally I am a huge fan of the Steadicam Merlin but it's not cheap.
an intro to EOS stabilizers // canon cinema caravan from stillmotion on Vimeo.
Nobody ever said that California Sunbounce makes cheap gear, in fact, you may hear people complain that their products are over priced. I can say from experience though that their products are extremely well made and if you like having the best, their products may be for you. Check out their promo video below and click here to see their full product line up.
Nikon just announced a bunch of new gear and one of the new cameras is the new ">D7000. While I'm personally a little disappointed in it's lack of 720 60fps the camera does finally put 1080 video into a moderate Nikon body. All my wishful thinking aside, Chase Jarvis was approached by Nikon to shoot a short video showcasing the new video feature.
We have all heard about and seen footage from the Phantom camera. This thing can shoot amazing slomo at 1050fps at 1080p. I, however, have never actually seen the camera itself before. Tom takes us through a quick tutorial, because we will probably never get to touch one ourselves. Is anyone else shocked by the terrible navigation on this camera?
I was one of the few people on the planet that actually wasn't a huge fan of Avatar but I did love the special effects. James and his team had to create new technology to produce the most successful movie of all time. Check out his camera setup below.
Game Trailers - E3 2011 - Gadget Pr0n
Martin needed a light weight camera crane that could fit in a backpack, setup in under two minutes, and hold a DSLR. This sounds too good to be true right? Well it was, so I built one by hand.
Light Camera Crane - Build from Martin Roberts on Vimeo.
If you have not seen the Go Pro HD Hero camera before, let me introduce it to you. We have bought a few of these this summer for various projects and they are a lot of fun to play with and the footage is absolutely amazing. We will have some new Fstoppers videos coming out soon with Go Pro HD footage but in the meantime you must check out these videos.
Tom Guilmette has been creating a bunch of interesting videos recently, this being no exception. Check out his new toy below.
Kessler Shuttle Pod Dolly System Tutorial - Oracle Controller and ElektraDRIVE Motor from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.
One of our readers sent us this crazy video that must have been shot 40 years ago because I don't recognize any of this technology. Apparently it was really popular back in the day and I think I've even seen some kids carrying these as they left a local Urban Outfitters. If only they could make one of these that uses both Polaroid film and a memory card maybe I could experiment with one.
Cris Matthews just sent this video over to me. He did a few tests with the iPhone 4 and a ring light. He also used his iPad to review and edit the images. I have gota say, if I can easily and instantly view my shots on an iPad like they seem to be doing I will buy one tomorrow.
VideoJunkie.co.uk - iPhone Fashion Shoot from Cris Matthews on Vimeo.
A few days ago I posted a video this duo created to help all the haters understand that expensive gear does not equal quality pictures. Well Zach And Corinne are back at it again with their contest entry. I was hoping for something a bit more in depth from these guys but they packed some quality into 3 minutes.
BTS Photoshoot from Zach Andrews on Vimeo.
We have all seen great slomo videos on the internet but rarely do you get to see what it takes to film them. Check out Tom Guilmette's quick BTSV.
Fastec Imaging High Speed Camera - Testing 718 Frames Per Second at 720p from Tom Guilmette on Vimeo.
This is going to be a busy week for FS. The contest submissions are starting to pour in because the deadline is only 6 days away. We are going to try to bring you at least one professional BTSV and one contest submission every day.
Yes, this has been done before; but never this big. Amir took things up a few notches by shooting Paul Wall's new video "I Need Mo" featuring Travis Barker. I hope that Amir gives this another shot now that the iPhone 4 is out. The video quality is stunning on the new phone.
A few weeks ago I did a full fashion photo shoot with my iPhone 3gs. I posted a few of the images and asked people to critique them (never exposing that they were shot on my cell phone). I couldn't help but laugh when a few of our readers claimed that these were "the best images I had ever taken." Nobody ever claimed that they were too grainy, too soft, or lacked detail.
George Chatzakis is an advertising and fashion photographer based out of Greece. For the last Porcelana ad campaign, George used a bunch of small point and shoot cameras to get that "matrix" style effect where multiple camera angles are capturing in the exact same moment in time. It's a really cool, and expensive, trick you have probably seen on MTV or on the big screen.
Chase Jarvis has apparently figured out the secrets of creating a viral video. I think he released this video 3 days ago and it already has 50,000 views. I don't mean to keep posting CJ videos but they are all really good so here another. Check it out!
Okay I'm not an apple fanboy or anything (I'm the only photographer still using a PC) but this new iPhone 4 is pretty cool. I'm most excited that it can now take 720p 30 fps video which is perfect for shooting behind the scenes videos of your photoshoots. I got my iPhone 4 early and figured I would take it out on the water to do a little video comparison with the iPhone 3Gs.
The only thing this BTS video is missing is the actually images! But it is still really cool so I will give it a pass.
For the last 4 days I have been at Bonnaroo listening to music and living like a caveman. The biggest show of the event was Jay Z Saturday night and to get a decent view we camped out 4 hours before the show. The guy next to me happenend to be David Oppenheimer, a professional photographer, and we ended up chatting. He decided to camp out and shoot from the crowd with a monopod and a remote.
A reader emailed me this video a while back and I finally got around to watching it. If you enjoy watching how things are made you will really appreciate the amount of effort that goes into making pro level lenses. I have never thought of my lenses coming ultimately from a bunch of powder!
Ray Demski, Marcel Lämmerhirt, and Chris Stadler were all commissioned by Red Bull to shoot their cliff diving event in Hamburg. Shooting the event was no easy task but luckily for us Ray Demski was kind enough to share how they did it.
Dan Bartolucci and Gevorg Karensky over at Influxlab have put together a little montage video for everyone to see how they rigged the car camera up for the latest BMW M3 commercial. I'm sure many of you have wondered how they secured a camera when being so wreckless in a car; I guess now we all know.
Normally I would not be too interested in this sort of thing. Honestly I don't really get the hype with these shoulder mounts. However, this is so well made and the follow focus he added is genius. Check it out.
DIY DSLR Wooden Shoulder Rig from Jonathan Clifford Bergqvist on Vimeo.
So this is really cool. Ryan Hughes was in film; then he got into still photography; and now he is blurring the mediums together. Watch Ryan explain how he shot his latest short "RGB MOVE" and the final product below.
RGB MOVE Behind The Scenes Documentary from Ryan Enn Hughes on Vimeo.
RGB MOVE from Ryan Enn Hughes on Vimeo.
The guys over at Zacuto have released their second video of their series that compares film cameras to the current lineup of DSLR cameras. In this video you will see how different ISOs compare across the various cameras tested. It's pretty interesting and this is about as thorough of a test you would probably ever care to run.
Many of you have already seen this but if you haven't you should check it out. Zacuto (the company that makes add-ons for DSLR video) has put together the most extensive video quality test I have ever seen. You can check out this weeks video at http://www.zacuto.com/shootout . Below is just a trailer since the full video is not able to be embedded any longer
The Nikon D3s is Nikon's only DSLR capable of giving the user full manual control of video capture on the camera. This means you can control aperture, ISO sensitivity and shutter speed. In this post we'll explain how you can easily gain manual control of video on the Nikon D3s.
To read the full post about the multibridge software and how to get it working with CS4 go here
Adobe Premiere CS4 - The Basics; in a really creepy whisper voice
How to add effects to your video
Learn how to add text and titles
Learn how to add pictures to your video and make them move (Ken Burns Effect) by going to this link.
So yesterday we talked about setting your camera to shoot video. Today we get a little more complicated. Let's chat about audio. Tomorrow we will take it one step further and discuss the most dreaded part of video... editing! If you have a Canon camera that shoots video, view the full post to check out a video on audio made just for you.
I have been getting email after email from our readers saying that they are still photographers and even though their camera can shoot video they either don't think they can figure it out or they are not interested in learning.