Videography

Everyone was a little let down when Apple announced an iPhone "4S" rather than a brand new "5". Aside from being a little faster, the iPhone 4S also has a big jump in the camera/video department. This new camera is 8mp and shoots at 1080p with built in vibration reduction. Check out the video below to see what this little cellphone is really capable of. Update: The video was pulled a few minutes after I posted it. To see the video you can head over to Apples site and scroll down to the video section: http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/

Videographer Jeff Newton is most well known for his work shooting war zones. When he wasn't being shot at Jeff decided to take up climbing as a hobby and through that heard of free climber Alex Honnold. After meeting Alex, Jeff was hired to film one of his giant free climbs. In the quick video below Jeff takes us through his setup for his segment for 60 Minutes in which he filmed Honnold climbing without any sort of safety gear on a massive rock face. The setup alone took 2 days and a huge crew of people to pull off.

Ryan Enn Hughes just submited his entry for our BTSV contest and it is quite impressive. Ryan teamed up with The Big Freeze and set up 48 D700 cameras in a circle and then fired them all at once as dancers did their thing. The photographs are pretty cool on their own but the real magic happened in post during the editing phase when Ryan teamed up with sound designers at Zelig Sound to create two incredible 30 seconds videos. Obviously this is an extremely high budget project but our contest will not be judge on that so don't be discouraged if you don't have 48 $3000 cameras to play with. As always, you can check out all of the submissions to our contest as they come in here on our forum.

In Jay P. Morgan's newest video he shows us how he uses a crane to bump up production value by using a crane. Now I know you might be thinking there's no way you can afford a crane but you would be wrong. Last month we posted this video review of a $125 crane that anyone can afford. I purchased one and I am really excited to try it out in the near future.

A couple months back Patrick and I flew up to Chicago to film a BTS of a Gatorade commercial featuring Chaz Ortiz. We have still not completed our BTSV but someone just sent me ANOTHER Gatorade commercial shot at the very same school featuring Chaz Ortiz that has a killer BTSV. The video below was shot in one single take and it will blow your mind. Our video should be released soon but it will be hard (impossible) to top this one. Check out the full post to see the BTS.

This video was featured on the Fstoppers Forum and it had me laughing from the beginning. Luckily there is also a behind the scenes video that explains how in the world they created all of this "HD Porn". I would have never thought in a million years you could mix Iron Maiden, the most ridiculous looking poodle, the largest bubble machine I've ever seen, and flashing neon lights to produce an entertaining commercial for Sony high definition products. Then again I'm not paid the big bucks to think this outside the box either. Enjoy the final commercial below and then head over to full post to see how everything was put together.

Now this video may be over many of your heads (it is definitely over mine) because most of us are still photographers who may only dabble in video but this is still worth posting. In the video below Video Copilot shows us how they filmed a car chase scene in the studio with a green screen. I've never shot anything on a green screen before but after seeing how easy this is, I may have to give it a try.

What could be more fun than drifting a MINI Coupé around Rio, Brasil during Carnival? Director Paulo Martins takes you behind the scenes in the latest MINI commercial from the Another Day, Another Adventure campaign. Instead of filming the commercial during the annual Carnival in February, Paulo recreated the festival months later so he could drive the car directly into the parade. I have to admit I was a bit nervous watching the stunt drivers weave in an out of the city but it does make me envy one of these small cars.. Click the full post to watch the final commercial and head over to the MINI Youtube Channel to watch other commercials in the series from Honk Kong and Iceland.

Have you ever wondered how DSLR cameras match up when compared to film and high end HD video cameras? Last year, Zacuto brought together some of the biggest names in the movie industry to see how well the first round of video capable DSLRs compared to the industry’s standard film and HD video cameras in The Great Camera Shoot Out of 2010. This year they have started another series which compares some of the top cameras including 35mm Kodak 5213/5219, Arri Alexa, Red One M-X, Phantom Flex, Sony F3, Panasonic AF100, Canon 1D Mark IV, and Nikon D7000 (where is the D3s?), and a bunch of other professional video cameras. The Great Camera Shootout is a must watch if you are a gearhead or simply enjoy seeing how well the current crop of DSLR cameras are at video. In this video they goal was to compare the overall noise sensitivity and perceived sharpness of different cameras. You might easily got lost in the technical talk used in these discussions (unless you really study this sort of thing) but nevertheless it's pretty interesting to watch as a photographer or film maker. You can also watch other Zucato Shootout Episodes Here.

A few months back I posted another video by "Betty Wants In" that involved skydiving in ultra slow motion. The video was created with the GoPro video camera and software called Twixtor that can create frames for a very realistic slowmotion look. This time they have created a very different video using the same technique. Enjoy this amazing look at the sport from the safety of your office.

Telstra, an Australian wireless carrier, recently produced an ad for the Motorola Zoom tablet. Instead of creating everything with computers in post, the team created most of the moving sets by hand. The question then becomes; was their effort worth it? Can consumers even tell that much of this is real or does the average person consider everything to be fake these days? Although this was an amazing accomplishment, I'm not sure it was worth the extra effort.

I just stumbled upon another interesting video filmed with the GoPro HD video camera. It's not really an informative video but hopefully it will give you guys some inspiration. You can easily film things with these ultra small/light cameras that simply were not possible a few years ago. What could you film in a different way? Update: Sorry about the title. I've not heard of "squash" before.

When it comes to giving great tutorials on DSLR video, the guys at Stillmotion are full of helpful tips and tricks. This latest video discusses some of the advantages you have in setting your camera's white balance and color profiles. Since DSLR cameras still do not allow you to record in a RAW format, you must make many decisions in camera much like you would if you were shooting jpeg (which is great for events like weddings). Lee and I are big fans of getting it right in camera which is crucial when filming video because a compressed video has so much less room for error than a large 12+ megapixel photograph. Seeing real time comparisons of how white balance, sharpness, contrast, and color shifts can change the look of your final video is really helpful and should become a part of your workflow everytime you start filming video. Hopefully many of you can use this info when filming your BTS contest videos. We've featured Stillmotion a lot here on Fstoppers so be sure to check out their older videos as well.

A green screen, also known as a chromakey, can make life really easy if you are doing a lot of video work and want a simple solution for dropping in different backgrounds. David Dugdale created a great tutorial for green screen which shows how to effectively light a chromakey background and key it out in Premiere. ReflecMedia has created a different solution for chromakeying with their Chroma Background Kit. It uses a green LED ringlight that illuminates their special background made up of glass beads. Even with the lovely Olivia Tech explaining how it works, I'm still a bit shocked that such a small ringlight can illuminate the background without affecting the subject. This system isn't cheap but I can see the advantage of not having to carry extra lights just to evenly light a huge background especially out on location.

Footage like this scares the bejesus out of me but also makes me wish I knew how to surf. Tahiti is home of Teahupoo, the world's most dangerous naturally occurring wave. If you've watched the documentary Riding Giants then you've seen how monsterous these waves can become. I'm not sure that Teahupoo is actually larger than Peahi or Mavericks but it must be called the most dangerous wave for a reason. This video was shot with the Phantom in all it's slo-mo glory. Click the full post to see more footage in real time as 32 of the world's top surfers try to wrangle the beast.

TheUnderwaterRealm.com is a blog that is following the production of an independent film that will take place completely underwater. Each week the guys and gals are releasing a BTSV which shows exactly what they have been working on. If you are interested in movie production, I highly suggest checking out their website. In the video below the team is forced to build an underwater Kino Flo lighting system. This video is 1 of 29 so there is a lot more quality content to be seen.

Hurricane Irene down here in Charleston, SC was pretty unmemorable. However, up in NYC it seems most everyone pretty much followed the precautions and got the $@*# out of dodge. So what did the city that never sleeps look like when hit overnight by a historic storm? Check out this interesting black and white video shot by some daring videographers as they visit the subways and streets. Also be sure to head over to the Buffalo Picture House for some other great films and documentaries. Let's hope they still have working gear after all that rain!

If you've been shooting stills or video for any length of time, chances are you've often thought about making a product that could make your life a bit easier. Cinetics designer Justin Jensen's own idea was to make a simple dolly system for DSLR cameras that was also portable. He designed and launched his CineSkates on Kickstarter and the response has been huge. So far Justin has raised more than 6x his initial goal of $20,000 so it looks like this production version will soon be in photographers' bags world wide. The system basically adds skateboard wheels to the versatile Joby Gorilla Pods and creates a system that gives your video footage high production movement. You can also the CineSkates for timelapse photography. Check out the video below to see exactly how the system works.

Tom Guilmette is now a pretty regular name on Fstoppers because his BTSVs in the field of video are some of the best we have seen. In the video below Tom travels out west with Eric Kessler to film BTS footage of some of the top timelapse shooters of our time. My personal favorite is Tom Lowe and we haven't heard much from him in the last year because he is still working on his timelapse feature film. Check out the video below to learn from the best.

If you are a fan of iphone photo apps, huge CGI production movies, and sexy girls fighting with mystical powers then you will probably love this behind the scenes video. The Demon Cam is an iphone app that allows you to turn your face into a demon zombie. In order to promote the release of the Demon Cam, the guys over at Video Copilot created an unbelievably complex promo video that showcases how the application works. The behind the scenes video has a lot of CGI and chromakey trickery but it also has a bunch of clever ideas any photographer could use in their own productions. After reading the reviews of this app and seeing the amount of work that went into the opening video, I'm kind of curious to see what a Patrick Hall demon would look like. Click the full post to see how everything came together in the final video and head over to the app store to pick up the $.99 iphone cam.

If you are planning a behind the scenes video for our 2011 photo contest, you probably also need to setup an interesting interview segment to explain the details of your photoshoot. Most photographers spend a lot of money on their flash equipment but often don't have much in the way of constant lights. The guys over at SLRlounge have come up with a great BTS video on how you can create an interesting interview set on a budget. In this video, Pye Jirsa used basic work lights mixed with natural ambient light. In our contest video we either shot completely natural light or mixed in some of these inexpensive LED lights to make it a little more interesting. Taking a little bit of time to make your interview footage look good always goes a long way and is often just as fun designing as the actual photoshoot itself.

It's really exciting that every new DSLR now takes amazing, cinema quality HD video. One of the main reason it looks so different from video cameras of the past is the super shallow depth of field that large sensor sizes produce. It looks really cool BUT you will have to learn to manually focus the camera just like they have to do with movie cameras. If you are looking for a great tutorial on the basics check out the BTSV by Still Motion below.

Stop motion videos are becoming increasingly more popular as digital cameras and software make them easier to create. Dave Wallace decided to make things quite a bit harder when he shot 2335 images, had them printed out, and then shot them a second time in picture frames on the wall. It took hours of work but the finished product is well worth the time. Check it out in the full post.

One of the unfortunate problems with running a website is you are inevitably going to send traffic to a misdirected URL or even worse a page that flat out doesn't exist. You are probably used to seeing pages that look something like this. Well the guys over at Nosh.me came up with a funny little way to track down their own 404 pages and fix the issue or flat out take them down. Check out the final video below and hit the full post to see some BTS on how the guys conceptualized the scenes. If you really enjoy this sort of thing then you will find some really helpful tips about color grading, after effects, and detailed production notes over at the 404 process page. Who knew it was so violent behind each of our websites?

Nosh: 404 from Firespotter Labs on Vimeo.

Being a child of 80s and having lived through all of the video game consoles, I really got a kick out of this evolution of games video. Figuring out a clever way to film a scene can be daunting at the least but building an entire video around a single frame can be even tougher. Joe Penna aka MysteryGuitarMan and his friends came together to produce a collaborative video showcasing different video games through the years. It's creativity like this that we are looking for in your own BTS videos. Click the full post to see the final video.

Have you ever wondered how DSLR cameras match up when compared to film and high end HD video cameras? Last year, Zacuto brought together some of the biggest names in the movie industry to see how well the first round of video capable DSLRs compared to the industry's standard film and HD video cameras in The Great Camera Shoot Out of 2010. This year they have started another series which compares some of the top cameras including 35mm Kodak 5213/5219, Arri Alexa, Red One M-X, Phantom Flex, Sony F3, Panasonic AF100, Canon 1D Mark IV, and Nikon D7000 (where is the D3s?), and a bunch of other professional video cameras. The Great Camera Shootout is a must watch if you are a gearhead or simply enjoy seeing how well the current crop of DSLR cameras are at video. It's pretty amazing to see the consumer Nikon D7000 holds its own against such a competitive group; I can only imagine what the next crop of Nikon cameras is going to do! Check out the trailer below and hit the full post for the first episode that outlines exactly what sort of tests Zacuto is going to run.

Working and operating a Steadicam is tough work. The most ridiculously awesome steadicam shot ever probably proved that without a shadow of a doubt, but we have even more proof! The following video follows steadicam superhero Niclas Närwall as he captures shot after shot on the set of Let's Dance. If you've ever been on a set with one of these guys you know how much stress goes into their whole bodies over the course of a full day (buying them beers afterwards is a given). At least Karsten Jacobsen had a Segway to help give his legs a break! Some of these shots are pretty remarkable and some might go a bit overboard with the floating camera effect. What do you guys think; what is your favorite shot?

There is no doubt that the RED's Epic video camera produces some of the most crisp and surreal footage you are likely to see at a reasonably "budget" price point. Up until now, the only lenses you could use with the Epic had to have the PL lens mount found on cine lenses. Recently, photographer turned videographer Vincent Laforet was able to demo the new Canon lens adapter which allows the RED cameras to use most of the EOS mountable lenses. In the video below, Vincent shows what the RED/Canon combo can do out in the field. One particularly interesting combo is the Canon 600mm f/4 L lens mounted with the 2x Canon Teleconverter. Some estimates give this combo a 35mm equivalent of 3400mm with the crop factor but I think it's actually a bit less than that (the RED should have around a 1.2x crop factor depending on the file output). Either way, the footage is pretty amazing and super exciting if you dream of using RED gear down the road with your existing Canon lenses. Any idea how he shot the video in low light? Looks like the lens would be at least at f8 which is almost unusable in anything but bright light.

One Degree from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Now I'm not exactly sure what the "largest stop motion animation" actually means but there is no doubt this video is pretty spectacular. You may remember Aardman Productions from our post on the world's smallest stop motion video which is equally as mind blowing. This time they decided to use the beach as their canvas and film the entire animation on a Nokia N8 cell phone.. It's pretty amazing to think how much work went into changing each frame on a set this large especially with tourists and tides. Check out the video below and then jump to the full post to watch how they created this clever cell phone commercial.

For most people, their first attraction to a camera probably occurred during a vacation or a traveling trip. If you've ever had to sit through someone else's photo album of a trip, you know how excruciating and boring it can become. Well Rick Mereki and his friends Tim and Andrew decided to make a fun video documentary that proved to be anything but boring and mundane. This one minute clip shows what a little creativity can do to make a trip spanning over 40 days, 11 countries, and 38,000 miles as exciting for us as it was for them. We've featured other creative vacation videos in the past, and our goal is always to keep you guys inspired to do something interesting during every opportunity. Let's just hope Mr. Lee Morris is taking this to heart while in Italy :)

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

This video has been making its rounds today through the blogosphere and for good reason. Photographer Josh Maready thought it might be interesting to view New York City from the eyes of his skateboard's back wheels by mounting a GoPro video camera dangerously close to the ground. The result is pretty interesting and extremely creative. However we cannot say no camera was harmed in the making of this video; Josh destroyed the first camera and practically vibrated the second one to death. Read more about Josh's simple video project over on his blog. It should be interesting to see what sort of GoPro projects we see in the near future as they make great tools for exciting behind the scenes contest entries!

The guys from StillMotion have been featured on Fstoppers a few times for their incredible wedding videography. What many people don't know is that most of the really complicated looking shots that they get were filmed with a Manfrotto 561 Monopod. Sometimes the most expensive option isn't always the best.

This video is totally relevant this week after Ken's post "If A Monkey Takes A Photo, Who Owns The Rights". It's really interested to see this Silverback play with this video camera from 2 angles. The most shocking part of the whole thing was that he actually throws it back after he's done!

Believe it or not, the video below was taken with a cell phone. Stu Kennedy from kakepipe.com created a really cool timplase video using his Samsung Galaxy S2 cellphone. After filming the video it was edited using Vegas 10 and the tilt shift look was added using After Effects. This video looks better than what a pretty expensive video camera could have shot 5 years ago... and it was shot on a cell phone people!

We have posted a lot of timelapse videos on Fstoppers but very few of them are very informative. In the video below Jay P Morgan takes us through the setup of a quick timelapse video. Jay does a great job of combining a timelapse created from stills and standard video shot at 24fps.