If there is one thing we learned this weekend concerning Jennifer Lawrence and others, it’s that even the most seemingly safe photos are not safe at all. We happen to be amongst two eras. One where cameras are more frequent than ever, and one where privacy is disappearing rapidly. Here are some tips to keep those two things separate.
We have been sold on the biggest myth of all time; In order to succeed at anything and have a lustrous career you must spend 4 years in an overinflated educational institution and spend a small fortune, which doesn’t include costly textbooks, supplies and living expenses. All in exchange for a fancy sheet of paper we call a degree… a piece of paper that gives us instant credit and a golden ticket to the gravy train. Right?
When it comes to diffusion panels, several companies have prefab "blades" intended for holding diffusion materials that fit nicely into grip heads and knuckles, but at nearly $100 a pop, buying several of them may not fit into everyone's budget. Earlier this week, fellow Fstopper Clay Cook put together an awesome post about building your own V-Flats. His post got me thinking about some of my own DIY projects.
I’ve always been enthralled with first person movie scenes, games and music videos. Clocking countless hours with Duke Nukem 3D in my parent’s basement on an old Packard Bell PC planted a seed that forever changed me. To this day I think The Prodigy's breakbeat electronic hit “Smack My Bitch Up” is one of the greatest first person videos of all time.
Paul Buff’s Vagabond Mini is a great portable power source for flashes. I use these little gizmos all the time, and in many different situations. They charge quickly, and they allow for a fast recycle flash time. Here is a $3 improvement on the Vagabond Mini that has made a big difference for me.
Photographer Markus Berger from The Cooperative of Photography put together a quick two and a half minute video demonstrating some really cool photography tips using everyday household objects. From a simple beer coozy to a flaming aerosol can, Markus points out some creative ways to step up your photography game.
I’m always one to preach the importance of prevention and preparation before walking into a photo shoot, but there are some things you just can’t prepare for. The more you shoot the more you come to find that gear will tend to fall apart after a excessive number of uses... and abuses.
We all have a half-dozen or so USB thumb drives laying around. You know, the ones you bought to replace the ones you thought you lost, but then found a week later? Maybe they were free at a trade show? I had my fair share and decided to do something about it: I created my new favorite and totally portable live-work "SSD." Considering I just needed one, $16 accessory, it all seemed pretty reasonable to me.
The music business is a brutal, cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world and I lived it for nearly 10 years. Since the age of 16, I struggled as a touring musician, surviving off nothing but cold Spaghettios and sleeping in a decade-old 8-passenger van. I was fortunate enough to explore the nation and see things that most will never see, but by the time I left the business I was completely burnt out.
According to his bio, Jesse Chen is a software engineer at Facebook and recent graduate of UC Berkeley. Jesse has a personal blog which we recently stumbled across that includes a blog post from 2012 that detailed how to go about stealing copyrighted images and removing watermarks.
It all started with a conversation between filmmaker Justin Gustavision and I this past Friday. Justin works for Nadus Films who just released a brilliant award-winning documentary “BBoy For Life” which shows how break dancing has provided teenagers a way out of Guatemalan gang life. The film has been picked up by Starz and Discovery Channel, yet their social media presence could be considered dry, when it should be arousing a well-deserved tornado of hype.
Photographer Sam Hurd is sharing yet another one of his artistic photography techniques with his followers. He mastered The Brenizer Method, he basically had all of Amazon on backorder for Prisming, he ripped the lens mount right off his 50mm for Freelensing, and then he did some convex Lens Chimping. This time around, Sam attached an old anamorphic movie lens to his 85mm in order to shoot a very cinematic wide field of view. Take a look at how it works!
After yesterday's post, Lars Steenhoff sent us an updated, side-by-side comparison of video bitrates on the Nikon D800 at 3200 ISO with NikonHacker's new firmware. Steenhoff comments that the 64Mbps file has more noise as a result of less compression, but cleans up easily in a final file output that is cleaner with just a little noise reduction. For those interested, he has also made the original 64Mbps and 24Mpbs files downloadable on Dropbox, too.
To date, Nikon users haven't enjoyed the benefits of Magic Lantern hacks appreciated by many Canon shooters. However, this is slowly changing as NikonHacker has added firmware hacks for a variety of Nikon DSLRs. Using recent NikonHacker updates, Lars Steenhoff has shared his own 54Mbps sample, albeit without comparisons for the moment. NikonHacker user, LPowell, however, has shared a series bitrate comparison videos with the Nikon D800.
First reported at The Phoblographer, Canon Rumors published an article about possible hardware based hacks being just on the horizon for Canon shooters. CR received an email that stated that an unnamed company is gearing up to produce a hacked motherboard for the Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Modification of cameras is nothing new to many Canon users, some of whom opt to install a modified firmware (like Magic Lantern as perviously covered here).
