Videography

Whether your business is in photography, videography, or the evolving field virtual reality (VR), your job is to create a visual experience for your clients. As VR grows in popularity and in quality, its potential to create more immersive experiences in relation to more traditional media types increases immensely. The effect that systems like Oculus Rift can have ultimately depend, however, on how realistic one can make not only the imagery, but also the user feedback. Castrol EDGE's custom VR solution pushes the limit between what you can expect from a VR setup as it pits two race car drivers on different real-world tracks against each other in the same virtual world.

I recently had the pleasure of picking up one of the first final production models of the Inspire Pro and X5 Micro 4/3 Camera, and immediately took it to one of the most beautiful photography destinations in the world to test it out: Meteora Greece. I spent the better part of a week there getting the hang of flying and capturing both photos and videos and I was able to come away with some stunning results. This review is meant to showcase what I was able to capture and give you an idea about the capability of the new X5 Camera and the key differences between the Inspire and...

This is the fifth film created as part of the "More Than Just Parks" project by Will and Jim Pattiz, who we've featured before on past films. This new short takes place all the way out east, in Acadia National Park during the fall, where the changing colors of leaves dot the landscape alongside cliffs, hills, and bodies of water.

Some days, the world doesn't seem like it's spinning in the right direction. When people in free nations are clashing over equality, civil rights, and access to equal standing under the law, things can seem confusing. At times like these, journalists are crucial in keeping a light shining upon the powers that be and the movements in the streets.

Leave it to a German drone company to create the world's first light painting by drone with a fully programmed flight path, all to create one fantastic holiday time-lapse of Santa Claus delivering presents. Perhaps the most unique part of the project isn't the world-first of programming a drone to complete a multi-colored light painting, but is instead the reimagining of Santa Claus' method of delivery, as something more similar to that of your neighborhood newspaper boy with perfect accuracy.

As a part of the promotion for Photo London 2016, the exhibition team has put together a video with five fine art photographers who are interviewed about their love of photography. This short shows off some of their captivating work and really brings to light how many unique reasons there are to love the craft of taking photos.

Many photography and film students fail to dream big enough during their undergraduate studies. The work they produce seems more like an exercise than a passionate project for their own portfolios. For German film students Daniel Titz & Dorian Lebherz this was definitely not the case. In what might be the most moving commercial of 2015, Daniel and Dorian crafted a touching mock ad for Johnnie Walker that shows just how effective you can make your personal projects if you take them seriously.

Last year we teamed up with Elia Locardi to film 2 separate tutorials on Landscape and Cityscape photography. We flew around the world twice with Elia, filming for 3 months in 7 different countries. We wrapped up the first season (episodes 1-8) a few months back and today we begin season 2 (episodes 9-18)

Cooperative of Photography has brought us this slick little video that gives us a taste of the evolution of camera technology from the past 200 years condensed down into a sub-two minute demonstration. Austrian photographer Leo Rosas executes this project with a single model and 11 portraits, each representing a significant milestone in the development of photographic capture tools starting with the pinhole camera obscura, all the way to the modern cell phone.

MacPhun released Aurora HDR just a few weeks ago and touts it as the most advanced high dynamic range (HDR) software in the world. Certainly, veteran users of Photoshop and Lightroom might be skeptical. But if your sole purpose is to create HDR photos on the Mac, Aurora HDR might be the best option out there, seeing as it was created with the close consultation of HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff. In this video, Ratcliff dives deep in a first-hand look into how to get the most from Aurora HDR.

If you consider yourself an artist, with the sole intent of getting hired to create beautiful imagery and hope that people are going to come knocking at your door to buy your images, congrats! You’ve failed as a photographer in 2015.

RED's been busy again, this time bringing its most loved sensor to its most affordable DRAGON configuration yet. Utilizing a portion of that 6K sensor, the SCARLET-W shoots 5K at 60fps, 4K at 150fps, and 2K at 300fps with REDCODE RAW and will shoot RAW plus scaled 2K ProRes HQ at 60fps. Additionally, it comes with the built-in wireless, 3D LUTs, and same system compatibility of the rest of the DSMC² lineup.

Photography can easily be mistaken as a pastime or a profession where the greatest success is reserved for those with the eagle eyes, near super-human visual acuity, and a painfully sensitive awareness of the gradients of color around them. But the Seeing With Photography Collective flies in the face of such notions, and it’s a beautiful thing. A recently released documentary video shows the group collaborating and sharing their unique portraits, and it’s a must see.

"Behind every cute girl on Instagram is a guy like me, and a brick wall." The latest video from the folks behind The Mystery Hour gives us a glimpse into the lives of the men who take the photos of the ladies of Instagram.

Since it was announced a few months ago, the budget-friendly (relatively speaking here) RED Raven has been on the radar for many indie filmmakers and production crews, for good reason. Boasting a dynamic range of 16.5 stops and a max resolution of 4.5K, for a body-only cost of $5950, it's easy to see why. The film here was shot exclusively with the Raven camera.

French Filmmaker Maxime Baudin recently made this delightful short film in Paris that depicts a flirtatious couple. Baudin utilized stop-motion to make the film and describes it like this: "In a splendid and romantic Paris, while everything is going too fast, a young man rides a ‘bicycle.’ But his simple ride is going to take on a whole new dimension."

As announced at Adobe MAX 2015, Adobe released new updates to its professional Creative Cloud suite of applications. Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Audition CC, Dreamweaver CC, Photoshop CC, Fuse CC (Preview), Adobe Stock, and more have been updated. You can download the new versions from the Adobe Creative Cloud app.

The Syrp Genie caught everyone's attention with its contemporary design and advanced automation features that made it a time-lapse photographer's best tool in the field. Today, photographer Mark Gee shares tips on how to set up and use the Genie while offering a few great suggestions that apply to all methods of landscape photography, from what apps he uses on his phone to help him plan every shot to how to edit for final output. Need to shoot a time-lapse soon? Whether you're experienced or just starting, there's undoubtedly something in here for you.

No stranger to unique and challenging photography pursuits, Ben VonWong's latest adventure sent him across the Western United States in search of summer thunderstorms, with an entourage of assistants, filmmakers, and models helping along the way. VonWong shared this behind-the-scenes video, but also some insightful information as to the conversation he hopes to start– one about the seriousness of climate change.

It can be a real creative challenge to try and concept, as well as execute, something that has never been done before, especially in photography. Adventure photographer Craig Kolesky accepted that challenge and ended up in the desert of Namibia, with two unlikely athletes for such a location. I asked Craig a few questions about this project that he shot for Red Bull Photography.

If you have ever shot time-lapse, you know the struggles of dealing with hundreds, if not thousands of large files. While Lightroom and other post production programs can definitely make editing your time-lapse easier, LRTimelapse is a program that can further ease the editing process and improve your workflow. LRTimelapse allows keyframing and grading of time-lapse sequences in an all RAW file-based workflow, as well as creating day to night time-lapse transitions easily and helping to get rid of annoying flicker effects in your sequence, all in the comfort of Lightroom.

Gnarly Bay, who I wrote about a few months back, have just released their latest film, “SPACE.” It's a film that explorers the idea of space, but not in the conventional sense. I spoke with Dan over at Gnarly Bay who talked about the inspiration for “SPACE” and how it took almost six years to complete this video, using footage that was shot back in 2009 when he first traveled with a DSLR through New Zealand with his then girlfriend, now wife.

I remember reading an article here on Fstoppers three year ago about a couple using a GoPro in a bouquet to film their wedding. That might have been a trend back then in 2012, but now in 2015 forget about the bouquet. This couple may just have started a new thing! They hired their dog to film their wedding.

So I get this message from Chelsey, "Kenn I know how much you love these guys!" with a link to a trailer for a new series, to premiere exclusively on Hulu. And as usual, Chelsey wasn't wrong. I do love these guys. Who other than the fantastically spirited and dedicated crew of RocketJump would attempt to make (and chronicle the creation of!) eight of the best shorts on the Internet. You'll be able to watch a new short every Wednesday, starting December 2.

The much sought-after and elusive Vimeo Staff Pick is a badge of honor and a surefire sign you are about to get a lot more views. There is no specific type of video that is chosen by Vimeo as a Staff Pick and trying to become one can seem overwhelming and almost impossible. There is no secret sauce to guarantee you will be featured as arguably one of the best videos on Vimeo, but there are a few areas to focus on to ensure you have the best chance.

Matt Allard from Newsshooter.com has been hopping around Inter BEE 2015, an NAB-like exhibition that takes place in Japan, reporting on new video gear from established, as well as developing companies. In this particular video, he gets to try out a different type of lens adapter– one that is built specifically to let light leak in from the sides and flare the image as it's recorded in-camera.

Musicbed has just released their latest “artist spotlight” in-house production which focuses on world-renowned pianist Chad Lawson. This short six-minute video isn’t a tutorial, it doesn’t feature a videographer or photographer, and it isn’t about the filmmaker behind the camera. What this video does have, and why I’m sharing it, is excellent storytelling and beautifully crafted scenes pieced together in postproduction to create an emotional, touching film. The inspiration given in this video is beyond teaching one how to film with a camera, rather it inspires how to tell a personal story and gives example to creating an emotional tone in moviemaking.

If you spent even a moderate amount of time on Facebook back in late September, you likely saw a viral video and photo about a wedding photographer who captured a genuinely heartwarming moment in which a bride's biological father stopped the wedding procession to grab the step-father from his seat so they could both walk her down the aisle. While millions of collective "awws" were emitted then, fast forward six weeks and now the situation has resulted in lawsuits and death threats involving the photographer.

Peter Jackson's first steps into Middle-earth with “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” was incredible as it followed Frodo and his good friend Samwise Gamgee as they fight their way to Mordor in one of the greatest trilogies of the early 2000s. You can guess that my excitement level was high when they finally announced “The Hobbit” would come to the big screen in its own series, though as many could have guessed it was a terrible venture that overwhelmed its director at the high cost of making a mediocre follow-up to its previously successful trilogy.