Videography

Utah's photographer of the year, Marvell Smith did a presentation in front of the Utah County SMUG group about posing and gave some great golden nuggets that all of us can apply to our own work. The video quality is not the best but the information is extremely useful and worth checking out. Smith, of Vellvet Images, has a way of working with couples that create pictures that tell stories.

One of the greatest challenges when creating art is being able to create something visually stunning while maintaining the integrity to your message. Often, one must suffer for the other to thrive, and blending them both can be a challenge within itself. Jony Karlsson was able to merge those two perfectly, with his beautiful and heartfelt short film entitled Balance of Life. 

Everyone remembers the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover. It brought a lot of discussion for the wrong reasons. If you don't, you should refresh your memory here. This time around, the 2013 cover also features Kate Upton. Although it is much better, it seems that some people are still unhappy with it because she's the cover model again.

DC Shoes collaborated with FMXer Robbie Maddison to create this beautiful short of Maddison at an aircraft graveyard which has been converted into a playground for the moderately insane. The film is chock-full of amazing cinematography, created with a number of big-budget cameras, and the color grading is just sublime.

Over the last 100 years, National Geographic has brought us some of the most iconic and incredible images of wildlife spanning across the globe. Though on rare occasion, we're able to actually see the work that goes into capturing these images. Some of these amazing photos take days, or even weeks to capture.

Chris Odom is a Florida-based commercial photographer and videographer specializing in the marine industry. He has long been an adopter of new technology and began integrating videography into his portfolio long before the DSLR became a tool for motion.   Recently, he has been flying a custom-built RC quadcopter for aerial work.

Nikon Pro Photographer Craig Kolesky went to Capetown and packed in his bag not only the Nikon D4, but their Coolpix P7700. His subject for the shoot was Redbull Athlete Sifiso Nhlapo, a BMX racer from the South African Olympic team. In this video, you can see Craig working in various environments, from dirty racing tracks to a small studio setting with ring lights. 

Calvin Frederick is an experimental animator who put some fantastic thought and creative talent into this trippy work  called "Bermuda." By using an LED panel, a motion control rig, and a bunch of mirrors, Calvin managed to create this piece without any visual effects or compositing in post. Before you click play, brace yourself for the twilight zone.

I really like the team at PLEARN because they consistently come up with great photo shoot concepts, but they don't just leave it at that. They also show you have to make those images yourself in a casual yet informative manner.

In a fun and unique approach that combines many different facets of art and multimedia, production group CanCanClub out of Buenos Aires worked with Antonio Balseiro from Gazz and 1st Ave Machine, Art Director Hernán Aragunde, and the crew from Nintendo to create a 30-second commercial for "Paper Mario Sticker Star." In this first of two behind the scenes videos, you catch a peek at the live act

Marc Donahue from Permagrin Films has been busy since his production of Dream Music, which got over 2 million views on YouTube. Most recently, Marc has been experimenting with GoPro camera arrays for a unique effect, most similar to bullet-time like in the Matrix. Click on to see the final video and read an interview with the man behind the lens. 

If you've been wanting to get an aerial perspective but dont have a clue how to fly an octocopter, check out the new LA100 by Lehmann Aviation. They've designed a drone that flies itself while an attached GoPro records the flight. After take off, the drone follows a preset flight pattern for five minutes and gives an excellent view of the surrounding area.

Now here's something I've never seen before. Photographer Mark Gee shot this footage of the moon rising in real time at Mt Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand.

So this is pretty cool! MeCam is a tiny helicopter that follows you around capturing video of you "all day", or as long as the battery lasts I suppose. This new technology, which is still being refined by the creators Always Innovating, boasts that MeCam will be able to instantly upload the video to your social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more!

About a year ago I posted a short and sweet little film about the phenomenon known as a murmuration, which is when an enormous flock of starlings gather together in one location and create a breathtaking visual feast.

Sue Bryce, Australian Portrait Photographer of the Year, teamed up with the extremely talented Hailey Bartholomew to tell the powerful story of one girl's love story and her battle with breast cancer. It's a very moving story and definitely worth watching. I love seeing the way creatives are using their talents to bless the lives of others and share stories that the world needs to hear about.

As creatives, sometimes we struggle to find that spark that ignites the fire of our motivation. Whether it's a feeling we've hit a plateau in our skills and abilities, or maybe when personal matters overwhelm us and life just gets to be too much and we lose focus of our goals... Every once in a while I find that a piece of art can be the primer for that fuel to focus my mind and energy.

Welcome to the future. The video posted is a look into the ARGUS-IS, a spy camera used in UAV's capable of capturing movement in an area of 15 miles. The information this camera is capable of seeing is both fascinating and scary. On one hand, its a modern marvel, capable of capturing the movement of an entire small city.

I have been following Taylor Morris' story since the beginning. We share a mutual close friend, and because of that I was quickly exposed to the story of a Navy EOD tech who lost all of his limbs in Afghanistan.

Stewart Edgington seems like a pretty rad guy if you ask me. He and his friends created what is bound to be a viral winter video. The concept: super slow motion video of his friends sledding, tubing, couching, and saran wrapping down a snowy slope.

In this fun behind the scenes video, we get to see San Diego-based production company SaintWest staging video shots for the "Find Your Moment" campaign with Torrey Pines golf course. Get an inside look on how the crew captures the golf experience in a cinematic way, but also improvises to make a simulated golf hole for a unique POV shot.

If you're trying to grow your business and connect with clients on a personal level, then learning how to promote yourself with video showreels is a great step in that direction (Lee is clearly ahead of most of us on this one - check out R.L. Morris Weddings to see what I mean).

PHLEARN has just released part two of their interview with Erik Almas – which continues to be one of my favorite interviews with a photographer recently. It’s refreshing to see an interview that not just explains the technical aspect of shooting and storytelling, but the reasoning behind them. Erik is a great example of technique and creative vision working together.

A few months ago, I hit up my buddy Paul Miller, who is a movie director out of Southern California. Regular readers of my personal blog site may recognize Paul from my previous Mad Max Interceptor shoot.

There is no denying that super slow motion looks awesome. I would love to get my hands on a Phantom Flex for a day or two and just shoot video of what would normally seem like the most mundane things, just to watch them slowed down to a speed where the eye can discern all the little details and nuances of what is happening.

A few weeks ago Eric Pare released the 24x360 project which included 24 cameras taking a long exposure picture of a single subject. It's difficult to explain but once you see it you will understand. Eric was kind enough to write up an article just for us on how these incredible video clips were made. 

Sherpas Cinema, who have been featured before on Fstoppers, produced a ski film called All.I.Can, and in that film was a segment directed by JP Auclair that shows a skier doing runs through a town in British Columbia. They threw it online and after getting millions of views, decided to post the making of video, which is posted here.

Poland's video superminds, White Kanga, have come up with a way to project video onto a 3D object that can move and is capable of viewer interaction. Im not going to try explaining this and act like I know a dang thing about it, but this is VERY cool technology and will definitely change the game for lots of display, gaming and maybe even cinematic applications.

Photoshop, it's either a scary program or a fun one, depending on how much you understand it. There are times where it just becomes a nightmare. Specifically, extracting a model with flyaways from a backdrop. There are indeed many methods to do so. Here's one more that really gives us a good solution.  

I have always been fascinated by space travel. Back in college a friend showed me a documentary that proposed that the moon landing is a hoax. The arguments were based on photography, videography, and lighting tricks and I remember thinking "wow could this really have been staged?" Mr.

Von Wong, who you should all know by now -- if not from us, then from the million and one places he scurries around the world and online -- was given a challenge by a friend, Sebastien Roignant: "To shoot and edit an insane image involving two orcs, a witch king, warrior, villager and a cinema theatre...all in 4 hours without having any information ahead of time." Von Wong is also up for a [Fra

Timelapses aren't just for moving clouds and the northern lights (but they sure are pretty) but in fact their use for studying earth sciences is becoming a key part in learning more about our landscape and using the images to educate and inform the masses.

Although there are thousands Guinness Wold Records and some are broken every day, it's still inspiring to see large numbers of people come together with a common goal. Recently, both GoPro and Devin Graham filmed different world records.

When I bought my first DSLR 4 years ago, I offered a very enthusiastic "SAYONARA!" to the film era. This wasn't because I'm not grateful for the journey that photography has endured to end up where it is, but because my ADHD spark plug of a mind needed a process that was faster and more efficient than it's film and darkroom roots.

You've probably seen plenty of Heisler's work without knowing it, and it can be said that he is one of the contemporary greats when it comes to portraiture. His work has graced the cover and insides of many of today's largest publications, and he's responsible for creating countless iconic photos of celebrities.

Back in September I spent a few days in New River Gorge, West Virginia, rock climbing with a group of friends. For this trip I developed a plan to put together a short documentary that would involve shooting an interview in the climbing area and doing a multicamera shoot of a climber. Watch the final video, and then read on for a breakdown of how it was all done. 

If you own a DSLR camera, the odds are that you've tried to create an HDR image using one of the many available HDR software programs available on the market, and you might have even created what people call 'disastrous' results. But fret not, because SLR Lounge recently released the end-all, be-all HDR tutorial to conquer all other HDR tutorials.

As I am writing this I am trying to fall asleep. I am supposed to be up in 4 hours to head off on a little snowboard adventure with some friends. Instead of sleeping though I am sitting around watching snowboard videos, smart move right? Anyway a buddy told me to check out this movie called The Art Of Flight on Netflix, and I can tell you this much, it doesn't disappoint.

Earlier this week Mass. Attorney General, Martha Coakley, filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against a Millbury, Massachusetts videography studio for allegedly scamming several newlyweds out nearly $75,000 worth of wedding videography services and precious memories.

Nikon, who is responsible for making the film, Broken Night, to promote the Nikon D800, has now finally made it available online. The film shows off some of the low-light and shallow depth of field capabilities of the D800's full frame sensor. You can see the 10-minute short and behind-the-scenes clips online at BrokenNightMovie.com.  

Via NikonRumors.com

Kickstarter product "Lil-Mule" is small, motor-powered camera platform that has been developed to capture timelapse or real-time video for lengths much longer than most rail or slider based systems can provide. It's aim was also to give the user a simpler feature set, doing away with the complicated math and setup that other systems offer.

Samsung announced their new NX300 and 2D/3D lens last week in anticipation of CES 2013, so we had them take us through a quick rundown of the new NX300 mirrorless camera as well as their new 2D/3D lens, a first of it's kind.  

This has got to be one of the most beautifully filmed behind the scenes videos I have ever seen. Sigma recently released this tour of their factory, set to an incredible ambient soundtrack by Voytak and cut with scenes of the Japanese countryside.

Have you ever wanted to film yourself while doing a photoshoot for some behind the scenes action, but not one of your videographer buddies wanted to get away from whatever indie marathon was running that weekend and help you film it?

I love it when teams can keep churning out interesting tutorials or behind the scenes videos regularly and still keep the quality high, and one team that continues to do just that is PHLEARN. We've featured them a few times in the past, and today they released this new video on shooting beauty, but with sparklers.  

Adventurer Dean Potter is the subject of a Nat Geo project called "The Man Who Can Fly". For part of this project, filmmaker Bryan Smith with shooter Michael Schaefer worked on this stunning clip of Dean doing a highline walk in Yosemite with the moon filling the sky. Read on to find out how he got such an amazing perspective. 

Since the increased availability of small, high quality video cameras, we've seen some truly amazing footage. But this video from Scott Ziegler gives us a first hand look at what firefighters deal with on a call! It's pretty intense! The music on the video might be NSFW in places so you might want to turn your sound down.

Well, the teaser ad from Canon France that we showed you last week was confirmed today. The PowerShot N is the compact camera that Canon is pushing of their four released cameras today. Here is a promo video they put on Youtube.  Is anyone excited about this, and if so, why?

You can pre-order the cubist camera now for $300.

Last time I was writing about polar bears, some poor photographers at a public zoo had dropped some Canon gear into a tank. Word must have gotten around that lenses and camera bodies are a tasty treat, as this video shows wildlife shooter Gordon Buchanan from the BBC getting tossed about inside of his plexiglass enclosure by a large female polar bear! 

For the past few years DigitalRev has done the "Cheap Camera Challenge" with a professional photographer and a crappy little toy camera. This year's challenge consisted of Strobist's David Hobby, a 2MP Buzz Lightyear toy camera and 3 of the best named speedlights of all time, the Family Jewels FUQ 690.