You know, I always thought that Chatroulette was a place you went to speak to random strangers in foreign lands and sometimes see the unwanted privates of strangers in distant lands.
It's hard to keep up with Casey Neistat's daily vlogs, but today's stands out in particular for its special ingenuity and because it's Halloween. Thanks to a little creativity with an electric skateboard, some red cloth, and an Aladdin costume, New York City has Neistat and his buddy, Jesse Wellens, to thank for a truly epic Aladdin and Magic Carpet sighting.
South Africa native Matthew Rycroft creatively combined creepy music, a creepy-looking dude, and some dark, chiaroscuro lighting techniques to create a video that brilliantly mocks the cliché Instagram accounts with which we're all too familiar.
Stanislas Giroux gets it. All of his videos have a common thread of featuring fantastic soundtracks. This video, "Curves of Iran," celebrates modern Iran's rich visual textures and — you guessed it — curves.
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.
On Thursday, Visual Supply Company (makers of the immensely popular editing app, VSCO) announced the release of DSCO, their new app for creating short, GIF-like clips. I downloaded the app and spent some time with it today.
GoPro announced last month that it is working on bringing a drone to market in early 2016, and the go-to action-cam company just released the first video taken from their drone. Thankfully, the footage looks incredibly stable — so stable that some shots look incredibly similar to something that would come from a track-mounted or cable-mounted rig on the ground.
Storehouse angered a number of power users in its big shakeup with the release of Storehouse 2.0 which ditched a number of features for a streamlined, more privatized system that made it harder to use the platform as a photographer’s social media marketing dream.
To be clear, STARVIS is a new sensor whose technology is mostly meant for applications in scientific, industrial, and security spaces. And Sony won't give out any "normal" number with respect to ISO yet, either.
It didn't take long for artists to realize they could literally paint with light once photography came around... but light painting was certainly popularized by Picasso.
I have mad respect for Swedish independent film outfit Crazy Pictures for their big-budget cinematography skills that are being utilized on a moderately small budget with rigs and labor that are within reach of almost any videographer.
We’ve long passed the beginning of the end and are now certainly in middle-of-the-end territory with respect to the freedom to fly drones. The latest high-profile drone incident further ensures that drone piloting will remain a privilege and not a right, though rightly so, as some people apparently can’t exercise enough common sense to stay away from populated areas (i.e.
We've all heard the numerous stories of GoPros seemingly lost forever, only to resurface ages later, somehow still intact and functional. This one put quite a smile on my face (and a bit of a lump in my throat).
Resource Magazine has a big issue out this quarter: Bill Nye is telling the world why photography will save it. Want to know the answer? You're going to have to grab this fall's issue of Resource. But a behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot for this feature's spread shows just how much compositing there is in modern-day photography.
When people think of visiting the Everglades, wading around neck deep, alligator infested waters isn't exactly what most folks have in mind. For Florida-born photographer Mac Stone, this is what he calls his office. Stone has been steadily developing his work in conservation, particularly of wetlands.
Dixie Dixon has been a good friend of Fstoppers over the years, and she even came down to the Bahamas with us for the first Fstoppers Workshop. Lee and I have been preaching since the start of FS that photographers need to film behind the scenes videos their own photoshoots.
This week, Instagram released a new app called Boomerang in efforts to grow its need for world domination in the mobile market. This time, they took aim at popular GIF-like apps such as Phhhoto and Apple's New Live Photos.
With over 40 years of portrait work under his belt, American Photographer Will Shively has become one of the most successful commercial fashion shooters in Columbus.
There are a lot of videos online, I mean a lot. The two words I hear out of clients that always make me cringe are "viral video." I want you to take a couple of seconds and expunge those words from your vocabulary... great!
Have you ever wondered how baby photographers (no, not babies that are photographers) pose newborns? Have you wondered how they got those little writhing, crying, flailing bundles of joy to stay the heck still for at least 1/200th of a second? Well, the crew over at Redhead Photography seems to have found the right combination.
The ME20F-SH is Canon's latest, crazy-high ISO camera, able to record clean video at over ISO 4 million (not a typo). Early footage was lackluster in content, and early media stated the natural security-field uses for such a camera.
I'm not even sure they existed five months ago but since then the prolific crew over at RocketJump Film School have pumped out some really great educational (and often funny) content, quickly becoming one of my personal favorite crews out there.
YouTuber Michael Delaney found a pit full of rattlesnakes and, despite anyone's best suggestions, didn't turn back. Instead, armed with a GoPro on the end of a stick, Delaney recorded the scene, most of during which the only audible audio was the collective rattling of the bunch.
Thank god for the interwebs right? Not just because it brings us badgers and cat videos but because sometimes it allows us to be places we couldn't other wise go.
Cinema5D founder Sebastian Wöber's latest three-part tutorial on drone shooting starts off with quite the introduction in Part I. Wöber could honestly be saying anything to accompany his to-die-for footage, but what makes it so fantastic is how great the information in this video is.
A few weeks ago, I shared the second episode of the video series "Off the Beaten Track," where photographer Chris Schmid visited the land of the Maasai people, photographing their culture and the wild animals of the National Reserve in Kenya. Chris recently released the third episode where he explores a much cooler climate.
Story & Hart's Academy of Storytellers just put out this wickedly informative video that not only highlights five great drone shot techniques but also breaks down their uses and how to actually achieve them.
Many people that want to get into filmmaking believe you need to attend film school to have a successful career. Many also believe that by purchasing a Red Epic Camera you will instantly become a filmmaker. Neither are true. After watching Casey Neistat's Guide to Filmmaking video, you learn that gear doesn't matter.
In a great example of practical visual effects, DIY Filmmaker Joey Shanks created a short video that at first glance appears to be some sort of cosmic time-lapse, but in reality is nothing but a clever, small-scale setup using household products that naturally react and create motions and colors in unique ways.
They say that the ability to still be surprised is the key to happiness. It's growing knowledge of the world around us that informs our expectations of behaviors of all kinds of entities that in turn ruins the surprise in our lives. It's the reason that we're not interested in our boring childhood toys.
Over the summer, photographer Mike Olbinski spent an astounding 48 days on the road chasing storms during the monsoon season in his home state of Arizona. His epic new video, “Monsoon II,” is a captivating collection of the best of the best time-lapse footage he captured during his extended time on the road witnessing these giant storm systems.
Nine-time Emmy award-winning TV producer and writer John Marshall found himself on Maine's Frye Island with too much time, talent and imagination. The result photo series, which he calls Sunset Selfies, is creative, whimsical and inspiring.
Canadian Designer, Photographer, and Cinematographer Tom Kucy doesn't sleep.
Kai and friends at DigitalRev TV have got their hands on the very new and very exceptional Milvus lenses from Zeiss. Their test includes the 21mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.4, and 85mm f/1.4 models that make up the core of this new lens system.
Lately it seems that DJI has been releasing innovative video tools every single month. Known primarily for their ultra popular Phantom and Inspire 1 drone systems, DJI just announced today that they are releasing their own handheld 4K camera and gimbal called the Osmo.
“Star Wars” fans around the world are patiently awaiting the arrival of “Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens” on December 18. That being said, the hype train has been running full steam ahead since the initial trailer for “The Force Awakens” was released almost 10 months ago.
Freelance videomaker and visual artist Julianna Thomas did something unique recently: she shot an entire series of black and white subjects, but in color. As a response to one of her greatest pet peeves, Thomas created "Black & White In Color" as a "personal response to treating black and white as an editing afterthought."
In this video we see Antwerp, Belgium-based commercial photographer Andy Van den Eynde tackling color correction on location. Andy starts by dropping his base temperature down to a cool 2800K and then recreates the warm glowing effect of torch light using gels from his Rosco Color Correction Filter Kit.
This is one of the best lighting tutorials I've ever seen, being both educational and entertaining. The German-based production company, Dugly Habits, has created this lighting tutorial for the Dedolight International Competition 2015.
I'm definitely NOT a studio photographer, but I respect and understand why for a urban running photoshoot like this one, it can make things a whole hell of a lot easier by doing it in the studio. Steve Brown shares some insight into his process in this behind the scenes video.
No doubt you are familiar with some of Lewis Wickes Hine's work. He is the guys who took the iconic photographs of the workers who constructed the Empire State Building in New York City. But what you may not know is that he first shot for the National Child Labor Committee, documenting the child workforce of America during the industrial revolution.
It can be daunting to try to think of a completely new, never-been-done-before concept for a shoot. But sometimes, the answer is surprisingly simple. In an age in which everyone is touting shooting on the latest equipment with 4K video, while begging for ever-greater bit rates, Japanese designer Dan Tomimatsu took pause to give us something refreshingly simple and beautiful.
Ryan and Josh Connolly of Film Riot always brings us the coolest do-it-yourself filmmaking and special effects tutorials. In this "rewind" episode (read: old) they show us how to create the killer effect of throwing someone clear across the room.
Demi Lovato is finally at a place in her life where she is comfortable with the skin she is in, and Vanity Fair photographer Patrick Ecclesine was there to capture this very personal and very public experience.
She explains:
While the original source couldn't be independently confirmed, the studio behind the recently released movie, "Everest," apparently sent BBC a clip of the still unreleased film without audio effects.
There are times when taking in something beautiful is good for the soul, such watching kittens attack shoelaces, bacon sizzle on a camping stove, "The Empire Strikes Back," or this ridiculous hyperlapse of Paris.
What do iconic movies like Dr. Stranglove, Alien, Psycho and Star Wars all have in common? They all knew how to create that, "Oh f**k" moment. You know the one I'm talking about. Every thing is fine. All good here. Wait a minute. What's that? BAM!
We here at Fstoppers can forgive our beloved Trevor Dayley for jumping ship and joined the crew over at SLRLounge as long as he keeps turning us on to useful tools and tips like the Adobe Color CC app. This thing is so cool and it's free. Adobe never seems to stop enriching it's eco systems with improved connectivity and functionality.
With a concept of traveling back through your childhood and experiencing that care-free, fantasy world of "pure imagination," Permagrin Films has put together an incredible time-lapse music video. In the article below, there's a full behind-the-scenes video and the producers of the film answer a few of my questions in a brief interview.
Oftentimes, while tending to mundane household or business-related tasks, I glance out the window and say to myself, "It is way too beautiful a day out today for you to not go out and photograph something!" It's a wonderful sentiment that many shooters have, I'm certain.