Videography

Several months ago,  Brazilian ad agency AlmapBBDO teamed up with Getty images to produce 'From Love to Bingo in 873 Images.' The ad showed off the extensive photographic library Getty has to offer with a creative story of boy meets girl. Recently, the same creative team came up with a similar concept to advertise Getty's video library.

A number of deadly tornadoes touched down around Union City, Oklahoma on Friday afternoon, killing at least 5 people. Storm chasers Brandon Sullivan and Brett Wright were hoping to get as close as possible to the tornadoes to shoot videos of it, but when they realized that the tornadoes are coming right at them, it was (almost) too late to run away. The mounted video cameras in the car caught this crazy video of their attempt to save their lives while the city collapses around them. INSANE.

Last week I was at Disney with my family and had my DSLR with me to get some good photos, but I hadn't planned on shooting video and there was no way I was going to haul a video rig with me around the park even if I had planned on it. When I shot video I made sure to lean on something stable and let stationary objects do some of the work for me without the shake of my hand affecting the shots.

Zeiss is preparing for the availability of their Touit line, lenses for E-mount and X-mount cameras. For those who love Zeiss glass and compact cameras like those from Fuji and Sony, getting these high quality lenses might be a must. For the rest of us, we can still appreciate the beauty of the precision that goes into producing lenses of this quality. Check out this video just published today on Zeiss' YouTube channel.

Print is not dead and celebrity portrait photographer Sam Jones has created offCamera magazine — part print magazine, website, web television series and podcast — to showcase and profile actors, musicians and artists working at the highest level of their professions. Jones, whose work frequently appears in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Men's Journal, intends for offCamera to be an artistic vehicle for further exploration of the casual chats that often occur on set during his editorial photo shoots.

The Canon 50D doesn’t get a lot of love much anymore. The system is 5 years old, and was among one of the last DSLRs to come out without video capabilities. When searching through the firmware, it was later found that video functions existed for the 50D, but were disabled by Canon. Upon opening these features, EOSHD forum member Julian has found a beauty hidden in this old beast.

This is one of the most interesting, and almost bizarre behind the scenes video I've seen. Musical artist Jack Conte came up with an idea for a video to go along with a music track he created called "Pedals", and through building his own spaceship set, using real working robots, and even getting Jeff Orlowski to shoot it, everything came together for an inventive final product.

Canon has recently come out with their short film, "Rhythm of Life' showcasing their new line of cine lenses. Shot with the Canon C500 director, Dean Hargrove and cinematographer, Steven Poster ASC, explain how the different cine lenses affect the footage and change the color and feel of your shots. The BTS video was shot with the Canon C300.

The hilariously creative people over at Grovo (gogorovo on YouTube) posted this video yesterday showing what life may look like in the future of GWC photography/videography if Google Glass ever becomes the next big innovation it claims to be. While it's obvious that this is just some tongue in cheek humor, I'd imagine that as with any popular product with a built-in camera someone will try to find their niche (ever see someone taking photos with an iPad?) and soon youtube will be flooded with videos of wedding photographers running around the ceremony staring at people.

Filmmaker J.J. Abrams; Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Super 8, Lost, Revolution, Fringe, the upcoming Star Wars movie (the man is everywhere these days,) gives us a peek into his process during a recent sit down interview with the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts.

Abrams discusses the transitions between television to the big screen, balancing hyper-reality with intimacy, why television leaves room for surprises, the best advice he's ever been given and what advice he would give to future filmmakers.

Whether I’m going out for a short hike, a weekend camping trip, shooting the zombie apocalypse, or assisting someone for their personal project, there are many times when I’ve needed to be light and fast in my video rig setup. Besides going with a single camera and lens, the accessories I choose enable me to be versatile and get better clips in the end. Here’s my top 8 list of items that keep me on the move while I’m shooting video.

Bulb ramping is a technique used by time lapse photographers to adjust the shutter speed throughout the time lapse to compensate for natural changes in exposure. If you're looking to shoot timelapses of sunrises, sunsets or any change from day to night, this technique is critical.  In his latest tutorial video, BC based photographer Joel Schat takes us through the steps needed in order to create a bulb ramping time lapse with ease.

Today, for the first time I watched this fantastic one-take music video for Brooklyn based band, Eytan and the Embassy. On the Vimeo page for 'Everything Changes' they tout the video as "18 Costume Changes -- 1 Music Video -- 0 Edits!" It has been online for 10 months, is a Vimeo Staff pick, but only has 20,000 views. Well I think it deserves more! Check out this video and click through for a BTS video as well. Enjoy!

So as a lot of you have probably seen, you can now record full 1080p 14Bit Raw video on the Canon 5D Mark II and Mark III. This is truely incredible. However, you can not just import the video and get to editing right away. To be able to use the RAW video, you have to convert the RAW files to DNG. Here is a quick workflow tutorial on how to do that. It's really not that hard to do, just a little time consuming.

Still hot with news on the Canon 5D Mark III being able to shoot continuous raw video footage with Magic Lantern, comparison videos are starting to hit the net. In this video, you'll see the Black Magic Cinema Camera footage alongside the hacked 5D, with ISO information to give you a better idea of the noise difference. Even with Vimeo's compression, you can see the difference for yourself.

Excuse me while I pick up the brain fragments scattered across my office. In the last few months, there have posts and chatter about raw video recording being enabled in Canon's popular DSLR through new developments in Magic Lantern's firmware. It appeared to be only useful in bursts of less than a second, but now news is coming out now that they have unlocked the ability to record, without issue, continuous raw video at 24fps.

Do you remember 14 years ago when the Matrix came out and blew some of our minds with filming techniques? One of the most ingenious scenes at the time was the wrap around bullet shot where the camera spun around the actors on a large dolly while they were suspended in mid air.

This is one of those projects that is almost beyond words. Astronaut Chris Hadfield shot this music video to express his feelings of leaving the International Space Station, and it's basically the coolest possible way to go out. If you haven't yet seen this (which you probably have but heck, it's so amazing I just had to share), quit reading and hit the play button. Your life needs this music video.

This new video from the Life In Focus series from F-Stop Gear tells the story of Brian Matiash, an urban and landscape photographer from Portland, Oregon. A departure from the usual mountain or expedition setting, it's cool to see a photographer who is working on the streets of a city and how he makes use of the rugged F-stop bags. Hear Brian discuss how he got into photography and what motivates him to shoot urban areas.

Ridley Scott is arguably one of the greatest movie directors of his time. Blade Runner, Legend, Alien, Black Hawk Down are just a sampling of his masterful works.

In the following sound clips, Ridley Scott shares his beginnings through art school, how directing television commercials for 15 years developed his lighting and editing skills and how making feature films for himself helped carry him to Hollywood.

The follow-up to 2009's re-imagined (alternate universe) Star Trek film is probably one of the biggest blockbuster sequels of the 2013 film year. Follow J. J. Abrams as he directs the crew of the USS Enterprise as they fight off a new threat, John Harrison played by Star Trek newcomer, Benedict Cumberbatch. From the looks of the two B-roll videos and behind the scenes footage Star Trek: Into Darkness looks like an instant hit. 

The photography for Apple's products have become an iconic style that virtually every other technology company has tried to emulate. In a recent interview with The Verge, Apple's product photographer Peter Belanger takes us through the steps to make such an simplistic photograph come to life, using some of the most complex lighting setups imaginable.

Baz Luhrmann the master of dazzling audiences with his self-coined style of filmmaking known as the 'Red Curtain' style is back. This week's new addition to his small filmography, 'The Great Gatsby' looks to fall under the same flourish and design as previous Luhrmann films, and certainly doesn't look disappointing. In this video Baz Luhrmann breaks down one of the scenes in the upcoming movie.

The hot topic of the week around here has been the new Creative Cloud model from Adobe. We recently posted this video discussion about what some of us thought of it along with this article on why it may not be a good idea. There were great points made on both ends. However, like all popular things, humor follows shortly on the Internet. 

Sometimes you want a portrait that just screams drama and emotion. Sometimes that emotion might be joy, other times you may want to portray a sort of dark, brooding atmosphere. In this tutorial by PHLEARN, Aaron Nace walks you through a method he chose to turn a daytime portrait into something much darker.

Adobe Creative Cloud, in lieu of Adobe Creative Suite 7, has some great new features but also some hotly contested issues including the loss of disc support and move to a monthly payment feature for all future software. Mike Kelley, Rebecca Britt and I (Jaron Schneider) discuss what this means for creatives and why it may not be the big deal some are trying to make it out to be.

Seven months ago I shared the trailer for a documentary about French Landscape Photographer Alexandre Deschaumes, as he creates stunning landscape images all over the world. His travels have taken him to Patagonia, Iceland, Austria, and more, while the time he spends in nature is the time where he seems to get the most creative. The hour long documentary is finally available (for a small fee.)

Canon fans were left wanting more after the announcement of the Canon Rebel T5i. Fans everywhere made comments on how it wasn't much of an upgrade from the t4i, and just a money grabbing attempt from Canon. Perhaps Canon has finally admitted that they're the same camera, as they're using old T4i ads, for the new T5i.

With the new Iron Man movie out this week it's only natural that companies would cash in on the film trilogy. Verizon Wireless have released a new commercial for their new internet service, FiOS Quantum. VFX house, The Embassy, who created the special effects also worked on the first Iron Man film.

Known for their industry leading camera sliders and portable jibs, Kessler continues to innovate by creating useful products for filmmakers. Their latest creation is called the Parallax, and in this video, Eric Kessler demonstrates how it works to create a motor-less, controlled panning action on your existing slider. This can make a move where during your camera's horizontal move, the head pans to stay with its subject.

NYC-based commercial photographer Kenneth Volpe sat down with the good folks over at Profoto to give some insight on the way he lights his images and a bit of his philosophy when it comes to his photography business, Transposure. With Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Engineering, Kenneth is a guy that definitely understands fine light and exhibits it in the way he makes his photos. Check out the full write up over at

This is the kind of story that just boggles my mind. IBM just released a Guinness World Record-setting movie called "A Boy and His Atom," made by moving atoms using an IBM-invented scanning tunneling microscope. It weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times. IBM researchers used the microscope to control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to “feel” atoms.

DSLR Video pioneer Vincent Laforet partnered with Canon to create a 4 part instructional video series where he shares many great tips for getting started with shooting timelapse sequences. He takes viewers with him on a shoot in Bryce Canyon and explains his setup, and also goes in to detail on: finding a subject matter, lens selection, how to calculate properly to get enough frames, using intervalometers, and so much more. This is loaded with tons of great tips, a must watch if you do any timelapse work.

Aaron Nace from PHLEARN wanted to make an image that was based on the idea of a future where the sun had become so bright that humans would be forced to see the world through technologically-advanced glasses. Watch how they went from concept drawing to finished photo in their most recent tutorial.

Here's an oldie but goodie about the secret of success in creative work. It was a talk given by Ira Glass which was then turned into an animation by David Shiyang Liu. It's less than 2-minutes long and has some fantastic advice for creatives. I have witnessed a lot of friends in the industry really struggling with their own work right now and so I thought sharing this would be relevant for all those in the same position. Read after the jump for the entire quote.

Nikon recently opened up Nikon Cinema, a website dedicated to HD SLR motion projects that have been created with Nikon hardware. The website currently hosts 3 short motion projects that have been shot with the Nikon D4, D800, D600 and various Nikkor glass.

The three films include Joyride by Sandro, Why by Corey Rich and Chasing The Light by Florian and Salomon Schulz

Al Jazeera English just premiered the first episode of their new show, "The New African Photography." Following a time of great turmoil for Africa, the show centers on the changing image of the continent as told through the eyes of photographers. The goal is to ultimately replace the images of famine and war that often come to mind and with images that redefine what Africa is becoming today.

As leaders in the video post-production plugin world, it's really cool to see Red Giant creating short films to promote its products, and they are always a blast to watch. You might recall "Plot Device" or "Form 17" as some of their previous work. This new short isn't directly related to BulletProof, their new plugin, but it's a very entertaining piece with an equally informative making of video as well.

As one of the writers here at Fstoppers I do quite a bit of scouring the internet trying to find the best 'behind the scenes' videos to share with our readers. Sadly much of what I see lacks content, rather it is most commonly just a music video of a photographer on a shoot. Fortunately, this video by Simeon Quarrie documenting his shoot in Italy is quite the opposite. Packed with great information and lots of tips this video is worth checking out. Read on to see a lighting diagram and some of the photos from the shoot.

Social media has progressed to a point where anyone can personalize their online experience. Through your own network of friends and filters, "Likes" and "Shares" now prioritize funny or relevant content for you and those you share commonalities with. Talenthouse now seeks to utilize that method of content sharing to popularize your artistic capability. The site is designed to set apart the best of the best in any category of art through popular vote.