Videography

Firefly is a super slick skater video shot with a JamCopter, a remote controlled helicopter rigged with a camera, that follows a skater and his LED lit board around a city.

The birds eye perspective and high camera angle shots create some really nice movements and give scale to the skaters journey. The project was created by samadhiproduction.cz and utilizes the use of remote controlled helicopters from jamcopters.cz.

Very cool, very slick, very simple.

Tim Kemple has "always been an adventurer, an explorer, a climber", but how did he make the transition into being a photographer? A new web mini-series from F-Stop Gear is setting out to tell the story of outdoor and adventure photographers. In this premier episode, Tim Kemple shares his background while running around the mountains in France, and he explains what it takes to capture images in those environments.

Devin Graham creates Youtube videos for a living. Not just any Youtube videos, but breathtaking videos that not only leave you in awe-inspiring wonder, but are obviously made with tediously hard work, amazing creativity and most importantly... passion. Devin takes you behind the scenes in this motivating video about exactly what he does for a living.  

We covered a story last year in which Andy Baio was sued for his use of a Miles Davis photograph as a reference for pixel art for a tribute album he created. Now, he's spoken about copyright issues and what constitutes "fair use." There are many opinions on this, but it's a great video if you're curious about the issue -- which you should be if you're any kind of artist or image-maker.

Just the other day a buddy introduced me to hypersync via this video from PocketWizard featuring Chris Garrison. Hypersync is technology in PocketWizard FlexTT5's and MiniTT1's which enables you to sync your camera with big studio strobes at speeds up to 1/8000 with certain setups. PocketWizard has more information on hypersync over at their site. This video is pretty long (over an hour) but Chris walks you through several of his setups as well as talks about how he got his career to where it is now.

I'm a strobist by heart. When I first got into photography, I didn't even begin shooting portrait work until after I had gotten at least a flash. That purchase, quickly turned into studio strobe after studio strobe until I found that I was completely controlling all light sources during my shoots. So who better to review SLRLounge's latest DVD, 'Natural Light Couples Photography Workshop', right?

Well-known wet plate artist Ian Ruhter has just released the fourth installment in his 'Silver and Light' series, which chronicles his trip to Seattle to meet with Chase Jarvis, his journey to becoming an artist, Chase Jarvis' very frank thoughts on what being an artist

A good photographer or videographer depends on good lighting to create a shot. Lighting creates the mood of any scene and sets the stage for the story you're trying to tell. In an unusual but entrancing method, Nacho Guzman creates a dramatic scene and shows how quickly light can change the mood and expression on a woman's face. Although the woman in the video only moves her face subtly over time, the rotating light around her causes striking mood shifts in the image.

Phase One asked me to go on a speaking tour through China (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing) to share about my photo career, creative inspiration, and being a Phase One shooter myself, to demo their innovative new IQ2 digital medium format camera back system.  After flying in to Hong Kong from Washington DC just hours before, I had the great honor and pleasure to be a part of Digital Rev's Cheap Camera Challenge. A broken Holga + jet lag + beer + a goof like myself = What could go wrong?

Denver photographer Michael Sasser got some attention when this behind the scenes video showed how a simple setup could produce some great portraits. He dropped a new video, so I reconnected with him to see what he has been working on. Turns out he has a new slow-motion video camera, and is now offering video production to clients. This video will give you a taste of one of his shoots, and in the interview Michael shares some insight on his methods, gear, and experiences.

The 'Slow Mo Guys' are no strangers to Fstoppers. Anyone that uses a Phantom at extremely high FPS and breaks stuff or blows stuff up in HD has a pretty good shot of me posting their videos. I love being able to see things happen in such a different way than what we are used to, and this video is no exception. Low production value, messy backdrop, terrible lighting ... still awesome! Enjoy!

I know you all have seen tons of life style photographers, all the happy, smiley shots of girls wearing weird, fashionable clothing. However, I think each photographer who shoots these is able to tell a different story with them. Joseph Tyler is one of these photographer who is able to tell a different story then the others. These shots are not all happy, smiley, and fun looking. They are more on the serious side of things which is a nice little change from the ordinary life style shots.

Licensing music for a video or multimedia project can often make or break a final edit. With tight deadlines and the multitasking so common to being a professional photographer, you need to use your time effectively. Enter the Music Bed app, an iOS mobile resource providing access to Music Bed’s library of available music for your next project.

The Walking Dead is among the hottest shows on television today. The amount of work that goes into the visual production to make this show so spectacular and real often goes unnoticed by its fan base. The latest reel from production company Stargate Studios shows us the amount of work they had to put into the latest season of AMC’s hot television series.

Slowly but safely, photographer Rob Woodcox guides a young girl through a dangling maze of razor-sharp glass. His idea: use the concept of shattered mirror fragments to represent this girl's story of struggling to cope with being an abandoned child. In this dual BTS video and interview post, find out how Rob made the image seen here, but read on for the full story behind the project.

If you are a regular reader of Fstoppers, than by now you should be familiar with Elena Jasic and her amazing photography and retouching skills. Elena just posted her tutorial on how to color tone your photos the way she does it. Mind you, there is no one way to do anything in photoshop, but Elena is a master at her craft and offers some very valuable insight for anyone interested in color toning their photos.

Camera stabilization is always a tricky game, with no easy solution. Cheap stabilizers are often difficult to balance, and expensive ones are often bulky, and make mobilization a problem. Introducing MōVI by Freefly, a stabilization system that is expected to change the DSLR movie scene forever, and its already got award winning videographer Vincent Laforet’s stamp of approval.

Bugs, rain, rough terrain and carrying gear– forget about all of that. Shift your focus and get creative all of a sudden. Think: how can you approach taking an image that you'll have just one chance to get, but also capture it in a unique way? One take is all Tim Kemple had, and using a Phase One camera, he scored this shot of kayaker Tyler Bradt going over a waterfall in the jungles of Mexico.

Have you ever been on a shoot in which you used two cameras or had an assistant shooting with you, imported the files into Lightroom and then realized they were not time synced properly? If so, this quick 5-minute video is for you. Lightroom makes it incredibly easy to time sync your files so they all line up perfectly in chronological order by capture time. I'll show you how it's done in the video and read on below for some additional quick tips.

An interesting system is in development via Kickstarter for video professionals to get excited about. The LineCam can most easily be compared to a zipline style "track" that can either be operated through gravity (with the Glide) or via remote control (with the Flow). The devices themselves appear to be very well designed and prototypes have already been used in the field by the GoPro Media Team, who had this to say:

Award-winning action sports production company and lifestyle brand Teton Gravity Research (TGR) has become the first to acquire the new Gyro-Stabilized Systems (GSS) C520 system, the most advanced five-axis gyro-stabilized camera platform in the world. Mounted on the underside of a helicopter, the 4K bird's-eye-view footage is remarkably stable.

Los Angeles based filmmaker, John Irwin, customized a DSLR intervalometer and hacked his Canon's firmware to allow him the advantage of shooting long exposures in video mode during the day. The device uses a remote trigger to allow a controlled burst of exposure that is carefully calibrated beforehand depending on the available light. The key to his method was his ability to ramp the camera's shutter to blazing fast speeds (upwards of 1/93000) each time the remote trigger is clicked.

From sultry ballads to uplifting melodies, Michael Bublé can definitely bust out a few tunes. In his most recent music video 'It's a Beautiful Day', famed music  video director, Marc Klasfeld, talks about the long steadicam shots used in the longer sequences of the video. The video was shot using an ARRI Alexa. I always find it interesting to see how they go about filming music videos especially those with larger production values.

Commercial photographer Alex Koloskov takes us through his setup for this relatively simple (although it uses five lights) product shot. While not an incredibly in depth video, there are definitely some often overlooked things it shows that should be committed to memory. The first is that in several cases a basin of dry ice in water can make a much more versatile fog than your standard Halloween store fog machine.

Samuel Orr is a film maker from Bloomington, IN. He created this beautiful 4 minute long timelapse of NYC titled 'A New York Day' from over 100,000 photos and from dozens of locations. This video is just a fraction of a much longer timelapse film, which he hopes will be around 25 minutes once it is finished.

Most people think lifestyle photography is over rated. Just pictures of people hanging out having a good time and thats about it. Technically, yes that is it. However, it's more than just that. It's not that easy to just have the shots look like people hanging out. They have to work well with each other, you have to be able to tell a story with the images, show emotions, ect. Basil Vargas is one of the many Life-style photographers I really enjoy looking at.

If you've seen any movies in the theater recently you've probably seen a preview for the movie Oblivion. A major part of the movie takes place on a science fiction "sky tower" above the clouds. Instead of using green screen the director had a 360 degree set built that allowed the team to project real skyscape video around the glass building. The results not only look incredible but they also gave the actors a more realistic set to work on.

I know many of you out there think that a massive team and a giant budget is necessary to produce a quality video but most of the time that simply is not the case. I was just sent a link to a quick video about filming with an incredibly small film crew and these guys give 3 fantastic tips for the average person trying to get into video production.

As a type of person that loves to figure out everything I can about gadgets and software, I am always surprised by how often I meet up with photographers that really only use the powerful programs on their computers for the most basic functions. Typically we get comfortable with a few features and never really explore what else can be done. Maybe we run out of time, maybe we just have no interest. Either way, I hope to share some short, quick, easy to follow along videos over the next few weeks sharing some of my favorite tips and tricks in Lightroom.

Back in October, the local headquarters of a global company that specializes in industrial automation hardware and software solutions contacted me. Over the next several months, I put together a production plan for this company and we agreed on what they wanted for a final product. This video is a behind the scenes look at our primary shoot day. Click on to read about how I used different tools to create an engaging video for my client.

We have featured Elena Jasic on Fstoppers a few times now. Most recently we featured a tutorial from her on how to utilize frequency separation. Elena's newest tutorial is on dodging and burning, and how she goes about doing it in her work flow. Dodging and burning can add dimension to your photos and take them to the next level.

While many aspiring photographers work for a long time to reach their goals, it's often the journey to get there that is the most interesting story of all. This short video from Vertical Online reveals a thoughtful and inspirational tale of one landscape photographer's experiences from going broke to making amazing images.

Ever wonder how Red Bull or any other company films their skate videos? How they get those awesome flying shots, rolling shots, and what goes into every aspect of the films? In this video, Red Bull takes you behind the scenes in their new skate video. To say the least, it's pretty amazing.

I never thought a hiking film could be exciting until I saw some of last year's clips from The Muir Project. Well they are at it again, and this time they are working in collaboration with Project Yosemite to bring us another film from one of America's most epic places, Yosemite National Park. The film, called "Yosemite HD II" is as you might have guessed, sequel to "Yosemite HD", which was a beautiful time lapse put together by Project Yosemite last year.

Jurassic Park is my favorite movie of all time. The story line itself is captivating but the incredible special effects are what really set this film apart. The movie was released 20 years ago in 1993 and the CGI and robotic dinosaurs still look more realistic than the majority of special effects in movies today.  Stan Winston has just released 3, never before seen videos of the creation of the robotic dinosaurs from the original Jurassic Park.

In this behind the scenes video we follow the team over at Corridor Digital as they create a stunning and moving fanfilm after the video game mod of DayZ. Corridor Digital is made up of two friends, Sam Gorski and Niko Pueringer . Apparently, Sam and Niko are huge fans of the zombie video game mod and wanted to tip their hats to the creators of the game. In the behind the scenes video they talk about filming on location and the VFX process. Below is another video by Sam and Niko explaining their workflow while filming and editing.

Last month I posted a little write up and interview with Brooks Reynolds about his latest project, a short film called Footsteps. The short film has been officially released to the internet and is free for anyone to watch. Check out this amazing short, the cinematography and lighting are amazing! Also make sure to watch it full screen with some good speakers or headphones for the best experience!

Yes, there is. It's not a typo in the headline, it's a legitimate ability of the Nikon V1 camera. A forum user on EOSHD sent in a message with some very serious claims, and posted a video to back it up. After some testing, the video has been made public and how this was achieved has been shared. Check out the video to see just how good this footage is, and click on to learn how it was captured.

A Polish man proposed to his girlfriend by creating a fake horror movie trailer. Not just fake, but actually pretty good. The video was made by combining snippets of scenes from "The Grey," "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Essential Killing" and dramatic music to give that finish touch. His unsuspecting girlfriend went to the movie theatre with 2 of her friends, not knowing that night will change her life. Seeing her face when she realizes what's going on is priceless.

Americans love football. For around four and a half months every fall fans by the thousands flood parking lots on Sundays to eat, drink, and celebrate their team. This is the world of NFL Tailgating. Last season, brothers John and Mike Trupiano traveled over 25,000 miles in an RV with a film crew to see how the NFL tailgates. The Trupianos attended a regular season game at all 32 of the NFL’s franchises. Last September, I met John and Mike when they were at a Carolina Panthers game in Charlotte. Now that they have completed this tailgating journey, I caught up with the brothers to find out more about their 32-game trip.

As photographers, we usually focus on matching photography parameters with other photography parameters: matching ISO to F-stop, matching exposure to ISO and so on. But have you ever tried matching a photography parameter with sound parameters? By matching the frame-rate (fps) on the camera to the Hz units coming out of the speaker you can create magic in video, without any editing. Create something your naked eye will never see.

Fstoppers recently brought you an exclusive interview with photographer Joey L. In the process, we took a peak into some of his latest projects and revisited some of his previous work. He recently also photographed the national campaign for National Geographic's film, Killing Lincoln. He teamed up with Variable to execute the campaign.

Last week we posted about the new Autodesk's and filmmaker, Jeremy Hunt's, new short film, 'Fix It In Post' demonstarting Autodesk's Smoke for the Mac. In this behind the scenes video Jeremy explains on how he came about joining Autodesk and creating the short film and how much he enjoys the new editing software.

This isn't the first time Air New Zealand has made waves across the internet. While their previous safety video featured hobbits, elves, and wizards in a Lord of the Rings inspired piece, this new video features wilderness survival talent Bear Grylls. In this behind the scenes video, you can get a closer look at the conditions and locations the crew had to work around, while having a fun time even while trying to keep warm on the mountaintop. Check the BTS, then click on for the final video!

Preston Kanak has been featured here before for his wonderful tutorials on time-lapse cinematography. Now, he's back with an all-new 3 minute short  called, ' A Moment of Silence. Shot with the Kessler CineDrive, Preston explains in this very comprehensive behind the scenes video how the CineDrive functions and gives some amazing tips on how to push your cinematography to new heights. You can view the 3 minute short in the full post below. Enjoy!

Recently, a Rugby league has been toying with the idea of attaching HD cameras, much like a GoPro in size, to the heads of referees to live stream during sporting events. By doing this, it allows the viewers to get a point of view feed right in the heart of all the action. With advancing video technology, will this become the sport standard in the next few years?

Today Facebook held a press conference at their Menlo Park headquarters to announce changes to the News Feed. While in the past Facebook has taken heat each time a change has been made, I have a feeling users are really going to love what's in store. These changes are especially pleasing to creatives as Facebook is now embracing videos and photos bringing vibrant new visuals and giving them a predominant space on the news feed. Read on to learn more about these great changes and view an additional helpful video.

Canon has given us a look at their recent prototype that makes progress on low light performance. To say it's sensitive in low light is an understatement. Take a look at the couple of sample images they've released along with their sample video, showing how great it captures the night sky. It's quite remarkable to say the least. 

We've seen this great post about pulling stills from video before. It really opens up the discussion about what technology can do for us. Will video really replace photography? The reality is it probably won't. There are quite a few pros and cons that go along with it. The Slanted Lens goes in depth with this behind the scenes video with a Canon EOS-1DC. 

Independent Filmmaker Tom Durham recently sat down with the folks over at Red Giant and gave some very great advice on filming your very own independent movie. Tom has spent the last several years creating his newest independent movie, 95ers: Echoes and has endured both the highs and lows of independent filmmaking. Why not learn from his mistakes and successes? His biggest piece of advice when making your own independent movie... 'Whatever you do, don't go into debt!'