Slow Motion

There are few shoots where everyone involved gets to have a great time, but this is one of them. Sony Electronics teamed up with Tony Hawk and Aaron "Jaws" Homoki to conduct a photo shoot of skateboarding in zero gravity. I had to take a moment when I first read the video's description to quash my simmering jealousy at how unthinkably enjoyable some people's lives are. The official press release doesn't hold back on inciting jealousy of both the content of the shoot and the tools at hand (for both Sony shooters and camera nerds with less allegiance).

Snapping away at the bride and groom as they pose, walk, dance, or whatever, and the wedding photographer falls into... you can finish the sentence any way imaginable and then some. This latest example from Estes Park, Colorado saw photographer Nathan Welton fall through the ice at Bear Lake. A fresh layer of snow apparently hid the edge of the lake and Welton got, well, too close. Nevertheless, he's recounted his story several times and says he just kept shooting and got some interesting angles.

The rock band Garbage is out with the first single off their forthcoming album "Strange Little Birds," and while the track is undeniably awesome rock fare, the visual geek in me cannot get past this extremely cool camera effect that invokes "bullet time" from The Matrix. I have a hunch as to how it was done.

Best or worst idea ever? April Fools Joke? While this might be the perfect zombie slaying device ever created, a Finnish video production company decided to have some fun with their multi-rotor UAV and the results are awesome.

Time-lapse Photographer Rufus Blackwell put together an interesting video for DJI, featuring their Osmo stabilizer/camera system, but using it in a way that might not be the most obvious: for hyperlapses. Check out the video, then read on to see what improvements DJI has made in their latest firmware update to the Osmo.

A couple of a weeks ago I shared a video called "Centriphone," which left many people (myself included) wondering how exactly the creator, Nicolas Vuignier, was able to capture this incredible effect. Just today he has released a behind-the-scenes video explaining exactly how it was done, along with plans for how anyone can make their own with a 3D printer.

The term "centripetal" refers to a force that makes a body follow a curved path, and in this case, an iPhone 6 is that body. "Centriphone" is a play on that term, as an orbiting iPhone shoots super slow-motion footage of a skier at the center of its path, as they cut their way down the side of a snowy slope. This clearly takes selfies to the next level.

Since it was announced a few months ago, the budget-friendly (relatively speaking here) RED Raven has been on the radar for many indie filmmakers and production crews, for good reason. Boasting a dynamic range of 16.5 stops and a max resolution of 4.5K, for a body-only cost of $5950, it's easy to see why. The film here was shot exclusively with the Raven camera.

Keith Ellenbogen is an underwater photographer whose work centers on marine conservation, while Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist whose work revolves around fluid dynamics inside black holes. When they met at a party in 2013, they realized they could combine their talents to produce gorgeous video of some of nature's most interesting marine life.

Canadian Designer, Photographer, and Cinematographer Tom Kucy doesn't sleep. Less than two days after we reported on NASA's huge release of over 10,000 never-before-seen photos from the Apollo space missions, Kucy decided to work them into a project that involves taking these almost half-century old two-dimensional film images and converting them into moving, stereoscopic 3D photographs.

In case you missed it, ‘Rocket Wars’ is a five minute film that has changed the game. It's breaking new ground and heralds in a beautiful new era in filmmaking. 150,000+ views and a Vimeo ‘Staff Pick’ are pretty amazing, but what’s ground breaking isn’t that the film is just a beautiful cacophony of visual and aural eye and ear candy. What’s fascinating is the fertile new ground it thrusts us headlong in to, and how it engages us. How did the filmmakers pull this off – and importantly – what can we learn from them to apply to our own projects?

You may remember filmmaker Scott Winn from his awesome "Fruit Ninja in Real Life" video from a few years back, or from last year's undeniably catchy "Stormtrooper Twerk." Well he's back with something he captions "the worst family BBQ ever."

Building a business is a tedious thing as most of us know. Everyone uses a different approach and some of us fail and some of us succeed, it's the nature of the beast. In my free time I do some Olympic lifting and I found myself searching for new and better techniques online. What I ended up with is not only finding some great videos for my Olympic lifting, but also a different way of building a business.

What a great application for GoPro Hero Cameras. The kinds of up-close shots revealing the tight side-by-side athletes, crashes, and a few close calls, take the drama to a whole new level with this footage from the 2015 Tour de France bike racing event.

A few weeks back I spoke about one of the advantages of mobile videographer. One of the key features I highlighted was the ability to shoot in slo-motion in 720p on most mobile devices. Let's not forget other DSLR's and video cameras that are able to shoot slo-mo in even higher resolutions.

The biggest question now is how do you go about utilizing the footage you've shot for yourself or a client? There are a variety of techniques we as filmmakers and videographers can use. One of the being speed ramping, which is when you use varying frame rates in a video to bring...

What inspires you to pick up your camera? For Ivan Agerton, it’s people – and for all the talk about convergence between the worlds of stills and motion, Ivan is doing it. His ‘stills from motion’ portraits are both a visually gorgeous treat with their sublime use of slow motion, and thought provoking in the connection with the subject Ivan has captured. Not just creating eye candy, Agerton is a fascinating character and provides a great example of the life we can all construct for ourselves – if you decide to take the plunge and go for it.

South Carolina-based Taylor Engel's short, "The Pavement" — which got him into the top 10 for HBO's Project Greenlight — had me enthralled the moment it began. Through its rhythmic delivery, simple visual nature, and dark aesthetic, it pulls us through a sinister human story that gets at our primal nature. Its simplicity is partly attributed to the needs of the story, and partly to the time frame in which it was created. Engel and his team planned and finished the film in just one month, all while working around their day jobs.

Joey Shanks, better known by his YouTube handle Shanks FX, has released another YouTube video based around the idea that Hollywood effects can be achieved by anyone and with only household items. This time he attempts to recreate the legendary Aurora Borealis (or Northern Lights), one of the seven wonders of the world, with just some sheets of fabric and a handful of fans. Combining those few fans, fabric, and just a little bit of precise lighting with just a touch of videography editing magic, he suddenly has one of the world wonders in his garage. Check it out!

Even if you don't know his name, you probably have seen this guy's videos. Devin Graham (now more commonly known on YouTube as Devin Supertramp) has blown up on YouTube with viral video after viral video. He's became known for his parodies of video games such as "Assassin's Creed," "Far Cry 4," and "Halo 5" in his "Real Life" series but more recently he has created a new genre: videos of people having fun in the most unique ways.

YouTubers The Slow Mo Guys have produced some really fun and lovely footage over the past couple years. Whether they're filming paint on a speaker, a fire breather, or firing a pistol underwater at 27,000 FPS, these guys know how to create some beautiful and beautifully hilarious videos. This time they've shot ink being dropped in water at 1,000 FPS, in luscious 4K, and have ended up with some pretty amazing results.

By placing 80 people along an 80 meters stretch, French filmmaker Guillaume Panariello managed to capture a whole music video in just 5 seconds. Siska's “Unconditional Rebel” was shot on a 1000 frames per second Phantom Flex 4K from a car traveling at 50kmh (or 31 mph). All that action and it only took 4 takes to get it right. Be sure to check out the below video to see what this shoot looks like in real time.

Nikon takes us behind the scenes of their recent "I Am Different" documentary series with Clark Little, a professional shorebreak photographer. Clark gives a little insight on how he uses his Nikon gear in what could be arguably be the most challenging and dangerous environments. Outfitted with Aquatech housing, Clark uses his Nikon D4S for its lightning-fast focusing and high frame rate to capture that perfect moment each time a wave breaks.

Patrick and I have been in Iceland for 2 weeks with Elia Locardi filming our next tutorial on landscape/travel photography. We brought a truck-load of gear with us but our favorite piece has been our DJI phantom quadcopter. Here's a quick cut of our best drone footage in Iceland.

If you've been reading Fstoppers, then surely you have already seen your fair share of high-speed videos. With the iPhone 6 now shooting glorious 240fps HD footage, you will undoubtedly be seeing a whole lot more of it, too. High-speed photography isn't just for making explosions or slapping your friend in the face look awesome, it also has many scientific uses. One such development now underway is the ability to capture light in motion. Really.

Photographer Tyler Shields is known to be one of the craziest photographers in the world. Just few months ago we posted about how he fed a $100k purse to an alligator, all in the name of art. That seemed to be a bold move that can take years to recover from (financially). This week Tyler proved once again that money doesn't mean much to him and that he'll do anything for art, even if that means blowing up his own Rolls Royce Silver Shadow car he got just few months earlier. Check out the BTS video explaining the idea behind it, and of course the final slow-mo video.

Going back to that moment when Easter morning comes and my mother, the "Easter Bunny" at the time, had purchased two of every single X-Men character on the market for my older brother and I. Since then I have had an extreme passion for super heroes and all that comes with it, especially when in movies!

If you haven't been to Norway this video by Rustad Media will have you booking your plane tickets. This video is the work of a 5 month adventure, shot from a 15,000 km (almost 10,000 miles) long road trip. In addition to video, tens of thousands of images were taken along the way. This journey covered all of Norway’s 19 counties, from the far south to the Russian border in the Northeast.

Oregon based photographer and filmmaker Ben Canales decided to take his shiny new iPhone 6 Plus to the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains to create a short film to show off the power of the new pop tart sized phablet. The resulting footage is great, but is Ben in fear of losing some business to iPhone cinematographers?

Sony's answer to many filmmakers' dreams comes in the form of the refined, lightweight, portable, and ever-enabling PXW-FS7. The FS7 offers internal 4K recording at 60fps and 1080p at 180fps, with a single extension unit and external recorder required to shoot 4K RAW footage. In addition to an ergonomic smart grip with customizable controls and a built-in, four-position ND filter to allow you to shoot truly on-the-go, the FS7 also makes use dual slots for a new 128GB XQD G-series card that supports 440MB/s read and 350MB/s write speeds.

Whether it's photography or videography, we're always of the belief that we need that extra piece of gear to produce high quality and professional looking content. Be it a high-resolution camera to showcase detail, a rig for steady frames, or filters to deal with challenging light conditions, we're convinced that our vision can't be conveyed without a bag full of gear. While that may sometimes be true, this touching slow motion video shows just how much can be achieved with only a phone and a strong vision.