Videography

Highly anticipated for years, Adobe have finally released their team collaboration system for Premiere Pro. Until now, only large enterprises would be able to do this. However, is it powerful enough? 

The recent remake of Mad Max: Fury Road has to be one of my favorite examples of both CGI and practical effects in modern day movie making working perfectly together. The way they created this world for which these characters live astounds me every time I see the film and truly set itself apart from other movies.

The more accessible, powerful, and lightweight drones become, the more we are going to see crafty individuals multipurpose them for their own whims. We've seen drones used to cut down trees, deliver products, and now here we have one pulling a surfer along a coast. 

High-end beauty photography requires images to be as close to perfection as humanly possible both in camera and in retouching. There's often a myth circulated that beauty editorials are so heavily Photoshopped that they are in essence all Photoshop. This is simply not the case. 

While most of the photography and videography world has been pining over the 5D Mark IV, Canon has released a second camera that promises a whole lot more. The C700 is the successor to the wonderful C500. It boasts some seriously impressive specs. But is it too late? 

In case you haven’t seen this video pop up yet in your social media feeds, check out Comedian Buddy Bolton sneaking up on unsuspecting pedestrians who have stopped to take a selfie. Instead of photobombing though, he had a different plan: cutting their selfie stick in half with gardening shears. 

After watching this video, I realized this concept applies to so many different things and so many different types of people in life. 

Now admittedly, this particular device probably won't see much use in a commercial sense due to a few limiting factors. However, that being said, for those in need of fast moving aerial footage in the 1080p range, this may be worth checking out.

A photograph that does not tell a story, is a lifeless picture – it’s a failure to capture the viewer and therefore, his heart. One single photograph can inspire a person if a photographer knows how to tell a good story.

Just three days ago, the new Canon 5D Mark IV dropped, and while it's a great stills camera, all of the talk has been about what it can and can't do in the video department. This video takes a much closer look at many of those features in the Mark IV, going through menu functions and showing examples.

It's about time for a new approach. There are a few online stores and stock libraries where you can get templates, videos, and music that help you save time when creating professional videos. Some of them can get really tricky when dealing with prices and licensing.   

Today DJI is adding an upgrade to their Osmo handheld gimbal with the new Osmo Plus. The Osmo+ features a 3.5x optical zoom camera with an extra 2x digital lossless zoom (while shooting 1080p), which gives it a 22-77mm focal length. Now available for $649 on the DJI website, the Osmo+ is an $80 increase of price over the regular Osmo handheld gimbal. 

Those of you who work with video will have heard the name Edelkrone passed around in regards to video and photography equipment, particularly in the compact market that's small in size, easily transportable, and reliable.

It’s the moments between our accomplishments that define us. Particularly in an age of social media, with its carefully curated posts, profiles, and portfolios, it can be hard to appreciate the part of your persona that nobody was ever meant to see. That is until you realize that little bit of you just might be the most real.

For me, food photography has to be one of the most complex and technical types of photography in the industry. The ability to bring life and attraction to something you need to convince other to eat is pretty impressive. Steve Giralt has done the impossible by creating one of the most outstanding examples of a deconstructed burger I have ever seen.  

In this video from Aputure, Director of Photography Julia Swain is invited to share her techniques for lighting a dinner table scene, which are common to film productions, but also have applications in the corporate and documentary video world.

Science meets art once again. Abe Davis, a computer science PhD student at MIT, recently published a research about interaction with the objects in videos, by measuring and mapping the vibrations of their movements. His project, which he developed with Justin Chen and Fredo Durand, and patented by MIT, aims to be used both in engineering and videography. 

Photographers Kristina Sherk and Chris Crumley have been a dynamic pair for years with their underwater photography.  Crumley's shots of Sherk's mermaid modeling have gone viral around the world. However, Sherk decided to take on a new endeavor and create her own underwater art.  

Streets blocked, a Bomb and Arson squad called in – all that jazz because a photographer left a suspicious hard black box on the steps of the City Hall in Kansas City, Missouri.

Never underestimate the smartphone as a tool for video. That’s the lesson we learn from “Flying Into Dusk,” an impressive aerial short film completely shot using the iPhone 6s. With the use of a stabilizer and the Filmic Pro app, filmmakers Toby Harriman and Jaron Schneider have created a 4K high-quality video that rivals those filmed with far more expensive gear. 

Suicide Squad opened in theaters this month and pulled in a staggering $133 million while managing to barely break a 25% critical score on the much-lauded review site Rotten Tomatoes. What this seems to mean is that when it comes to the comic-book-born heroes and villains of our youth, we'll show up in droves even if we've been warned.  

Lofoten, Norway has been getting a lot of attention in the last few years, and rightfully so. Known for its incredible mountains, open waters, and unspoiled lands, it has quickly become a favorite for photographers looking to capture dramatic landscape images.

It’s videos like this that inspire me to fly more and capture the beauty in this world. I myself haven’t done much traveling, but there are a lot of awesome places out there to see. Karim Iliya captured a lot of amazing content out in Pachamama and put together this video in a very fun and entertaining way. 

Something Thomas Heaton does a lot of us taking incredible and breathtaking landscape photos. Something he doesn't do a lot is show the full creation of a photo from conceptualization to presentation, including post processing.

Drive Like Maria just released a music video for their song "Deep Blue." What makes this unique is that every frame has been rendered with the "Dreams" effect using the Prisma App. This app uses AI to create effects that make your images look like paintings of famous artists.

Photographer Greg Florent has made images that capture Budapest in a new light. The images are made by taking them at the transition of daylight into sunset and then nighttime until the lights come on and the city's evening starts.

The filmmakers of “The Muir Project,” known for their first documentary, “Mile… Mile and a Half,” have just released their latest film, “Noatak: Return to the Arctic.” I interviewed Director Ric Serena who told me about the production challenges his team faced when working on a remote river deep in Alaska and why they chose to go with the Canon 1DC as their camera of choice. 

The Nikon Coolpix P900 has one monster zoom lens. With a 24-2000mm 35mm equivalence, this hybrid point-and-shoot camera really opens up the possibilities of what we are capable of capturing. In a new video from Sci-Tech Universe, we are able to see just how astonishing the results can be when they record video of the moon at full zoom. 

Last week, the team over at RocketJump Film School released this awesome video about sound production in film. Sound production is probably the most overlooked aspect of filmmaking, mainly because you don't notice great sound design; it seamlessly helps you submit to the willing suspension of disbelief.

Video Producer Chase Kubasiak shares how to achieve exciting and impactful video through the use of slow motion scenes. In this humorous B&H tutorial, Kubasiak highlights three key variables to consider when setting up your slow motion shots.  

As photographers we often get our visual references from film, and our ideas can originate from a single scene in a movie that blew you away. It's the combination of sounds, the anticipation and fear, and all the emotions that the director gets to capture and convey for the viewer to experience.

This Cinemagraph time-lapse was made using only 12 JPEG images. The software allows photographers to create motion within a static photograph. You need to upload each image to the website, and then you design the movement within each image.

I’m a huge fan of gimbal stabilizers, and absolutely love how easy it is to get dreamy, floating footage with these relatively inexpensive accessories. A lot of attention has been on products like the MoVi and Ronin, but other manufacturers have stepped up their game and are making products that are just as competitive in terms of features and price.

Macro photography make the unseen visible. It gives our eyes that extra zoom to get in close and see the detail we usually just take for granted. From the eyes of a fly to the droplet on a leaf, you most likely have seen some great macro photography. These macro lenses are generally of superb glass which gives sharp images that contain a lot of detail.

LUTs are one of the essential tools in the video world. What in the world is a LUT anyway? If you're just getting started with video post-production, these two videos will give you a good kick in the right direction. 

What makes a photograph or movie memorable? With cinema as widespread as it is, a film needs to stand out in a big way, not only to succeed at the box office, but to be remembered in any capacity. As for photographs, it's the same challenge.

As you probably know, much of the epic imagery in "Game of Thrones" is computer-generated. It's a monumental task, and this video from Rising Sun Pictures, the visual effects company responsible for that amazing imagery, really puts into perspective the amount of work and imagination required to pull off such a feat. 

Beyond any doubt, the effects and compositing techniques used in the first three films of Star Wars trilogy were the game changer in VFX world. Although there has been a rapid improvement in the VFX technology for the last 40 years, we can say that Star Wars was one of the pioneers. So, how was that possible to achieve realistic results in a movie produced in 1980?

In this video from Ryan Connolly over at Film Riot, he takes viewers quickly through an action sequence he has edited, and shows a few simple ways that he was able to increase the perceived speed and create a more realistic edit. Even if you're not editing fight scenes, there are a few tricks in here that are absolutely applicable to other genres. 

NASA's aptly named EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) camera sits about one million miles from our planet, where it uses an array of sensors to monitor and provide observations of cloud heights, aerosols, vegetation growth, and the state of ozone in the atmosphere. It also provides some pretty neat images of Earth, which NASA has assembled into a year-long time-lapse. 

Beauty and fashion retouching has been controversial for so long that some of the argument's ground has been conceded. For example, skin retouching is rarely debated anymore and it's merely a "given" that someone in an advert or magazine will have had their skin corrected.

Los Angeles is a sprawling and forever-evolving metropolis that has tried on many faces over the years. That's never more apparent than in this short film, which pairs modern footage of the city with archival clips and syncs them, showing off just how much LA has grown and changed. 

One of the places where photography has grown tremendously is in the manufacturing and industrial industry. People need to show how things are made, and they need to do it without actually being there.

Sometimes being a "creative" really sucks. But it's also the best thing to be in the entire world. But did I mention it can suck? Well if you feel like you're in a rut, then watch this preview, and prepare to be inspired. Today, Musicbed released their feature-length documentary, "Make," which explores why creatives continue, well, creating. 

I know that I’m preaching to the choir when I say that personal projects, free from the constraints of commercial clients dictating production details, are an important outlet for creativity and staying sharp on your skills. Photographer Ray Demski just dropped his latest passion project, "Fireball," combining parkour, football (soccer), and beatboxing. 

Foster Visuals, known for the nationally-awarded "Legacy Project," recently teamed up with DJI to tell the story of Heraldo Riel, a gaucho in Patagonia, Chile. Like his father before him, Riel became a Gaucho at the age of nine. To be a Gaucho means to be kind and caring for all living things.

There are some things you just never leave home without. If you're a filmmaker, these are those things. 

Documentary videos have always been there to grab my attention. These short, yet powerful videos can really pull you in, making you want to know more about what you're watching. I have made a few videos like this myself but none that I have really liked until now.

"The idea for 'RAGE' was to show a build-up from a busy city that is packed with people into an outburst of anger, frustration, and violence, depicting a society that is spiraling out of control." Such is Tim Sessler's commentary on the current issues of gun control, race, and violence, a striking achievement with a unique filming style. 

The single most inspirational video I have found to date is this short film describing what landscape photography is all about. Since I've seen this, my local beach has more photographic potential than ever before and I've been out five times already. You've been warned.