Videography

If you're into apparitions or anything spooky, this interview with former commercial photographer, Claudia Kunin, will captivate you. Without giving away much, check out the interview. Her work is extremely unique in what she does and where she's come from. She says she loves ghosts because she's been fascinated since she was a little girl. Combining that love with 3-D ends up taking it to the next level. She even goes over how she does it. More details in the full post.

The Sony NEX FS700 is probably one of the most anticipated video camera releases of the year, and with a price point of $8,000 it's not very hard to see why. Legendary Cinematographer, Philip Bloom, recently got his hands on a pre-production version of the Sony NEX FS700 for review.

Tom Lowe's Timescapes documentary has been in the works now for over two years, and it is finally complete! Timescapes is the first movie to be sold to the public in full 4K resolution. Shot on the Red Epic and with Canon Lenses, Tom's outdoor documentary features some of the most amazing scenes I've ever seen from Yosemite, the Joshua Tree, and other parts of Western America. Tom has a great write up about the movie on Timescapes.org and you can buy the movie here. This was one of the first posts on Fstoppers and we are excited to see the final production; congrats Tom!

In case you missed "Hugo", the Oscar winning film from last year, the last cut of the movie is about 2 minutes long, and is seemingly a single steadicam shot. In this behind the scenes video, we see the point of view from a small wide angle camera mounted on top of the steadicam itself, and you can see how something like this is pulled off. You can even hear Larry McConkey take a sigh of relief when he finishes the move. Hit the jump for the scene from the movie.

Skater Kilian Martin sets new standards in the world of skateboarding. Mb! joined forces with Killian and filmmaker Brett Novak to create his newest video "Kilian Martin: Altered Route". Aside from the fact that Killian does things with a skateboard that I have never seen anyone else do ... ever, Brett captures each trick and angle perfectly. I especially love the way Brett juxtaposed the nostalgic clips from the water park back in it's heyday to it's current ghost-townly state. Enjoy!

If you don't know anything about John Baldessari, here's a quick and highly entertaining way to get up to speed on this living American legend. The great voice of Tom Waits narrates this five-minute documentary about Baldessari and his work. Considered by many to be the godfather of conceptual art, his work goes far beyond photography. He began as a painter, and eventually got into mixed media. His canvasses often feature both text

Gregory Villien is a true renaissance man when it comes to media. I was not only blown away with his compilation of slow motion sports clips, but after visiting his website, it's clear he's a man of many talents. He's got a collection of his own photography, music, designs, and other projects. This guy dabbles in it all.

Steven Randolph and videographer Steven Perilloux give celebrity chasing paparazzi a taste of their own medicine in this short video Vice segment, "Pap Smear". I dare you to watch this video and not make some kind of comment. I'm curious to see if any of our readers will come to the defense of paparazzi. Is there a right way to do this kind of work? Let's hear your thoughts.
Vice: "Paparazzi make a living by chasing down celebrities and shoving cameras in their faces and up their skirts. We decided to hunt a few down and give them a taste of their own disgusting medicine."

Have you ever recorded a video with a cheap mic or maybe just with bad settings and got a hiss or faint high end distortion? What about a low pitched hum like the sound of an A/C unit or heavy traffic outside the window. Well have no fear, in this video the guys at VideoMaker show you some handy tips for correcting hisses and hums using high and low pass filters, notch filters and automated tasks. Enjoy!

On Sunday, San Francisco celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge with one massive fireworks display. For all of us who weren't able to attend, no worries; the guys over at The Seventh Movement captured the entire event with several Canon 5Ds (MKII and IIIs) and a Red Scarlet (at 48 fps). The editing job on this is amazing and all the shots were planned out really well...the twilight harbor shot is worth a watch alone!

Wow, I just ran across this short on Vimeo and was so impressed with the concept and execution of James W Griffiths' "Splitscreen: A Love Story". James shot the entire video on a Nokia N8 cell phone as the short was created for the Nokia Shorts Competition in 2011. "Splitscreen" won first place in the competition and was nominated for a vimeo award. The video quality isn't great, but they did a great job in putting it all together. Very cool stuff. Enjoy!

Within the Mission District in San Francisco lies an amazing tintype photography studio called Photobooth. The best part is that you can just walk in and get a tintype portrait for yourself. Co-founder, Michael Shindler, not only talks about how it all got started but gives us a look into the process from start to finish. Check it out the next time you're in San Francisco!

How do you figure that? 33MP at 120fps. That's right -- 33 megapixels! Data transfer rate is 51.2Gbps! This is the camera that NHK built to supposedly replace HDTV "one day?" While we won't see this replace HDTV for years and years, it's an impressive feat, but one that might also fill a hard drive or ten a little too quickly.

For his music video for the song Rivers and Homes, J.Viewz shot a 'normal' music video, had 2000 of its frames printed out, and re-shot and -animated together shots of several hundred fans holding those stills for the final piece -- and the fans can tag themselves, too. While time-consuming, this is an elegantly simple idea with a great end result...
Via Doobybrain.com

"I've shared a rope with 19 people who have died." The haunting voiceover in Tyler Stableford's latest short film "Shattered" really drives the drama, while introspective conjecture and nail-biting visuals keep you on the edge of your seat. Tyler also has released a 3-part behind the scenes video series on the making of this film, which used the Canon 1DX. See the full post for all 3 videos.

Ryan Mcmanus from Brothers Films and Stefan Weiss from Weisscam teamed up for an ingenious and complex shoot showing off the new BMW S1000 RR. What impressed me about this shoot was not only the incorporation of 1000 fps with a three dimensional element, but also the creativity in setting up the rig to film. I cant imagine the amount of work that had to go into post production for something like this. This is a great example of thorough planning and great execution.

What have you done to get the shot today? Parked your car, walked into a studio? Plunked down a tripod on a sandy, tropical beach? Fiddled with some macro rails? South African aviation photographer Justin de Reuck unstrapped a good deal of his harness, slid open the canopy, and took photos at what I'm guessing is 100 knots, mere feet from the ground. I'm not sure how that plane actually took off with Justin's balls of steel on board, because man, they must be huge.

'From Love to Bingo in 873 images' is a short video and commercial which moves at 15 images a second. The video shows an entire lifetime depicted through stock images. Copywriter Sophie Schoenburg and art director Marcus Kotlhar spent 6 months making it happen and the end result is quite touching. I can only imagine how arduous going through all those images must have been!

I've been a full time wedding photographer for the last 7 years. I've been in some stressful situations but at this point I'm prepared for almost any situation. Simeon Quarrie, a photographer/videographer promises many of his clients a finished wedding video during the reception the very same day. These same day edits leave no room for error and you can feel the stress yourself just from watching this video.

If you surf the web as much as me you've probably seen either the still image or the commercial for Canada's Paralympics. I waited to do a post on this because I was hoping a behind the scenes video would come out and lucky of us, one did. Check out the BTSV here and then view the full post to see the finished video and still image.

While some apps might say that they can record slow motion, chances are they are using software to blend frames together and interpolated pixels are created to simulate slow motion. This technique often appears stuttery and quite as smooth as a real high-speed frame rate. A new iPhone app called SloPro claims to actually record 60 frames per second on the iPhone 4. The results looks solid, but check it out for yourself. The app is free but will cost you $2 to ditch the watermark.

Team Nine brings the greens, greys and sometimes blues of Iceland to you in the beautifully composed Shutter Ísland. Filmed with a Canon 7D, using a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens, the film short shows both the capabilities of DSLR HD video and the team’s eye for composition — proving one lens is all you need. For a photo-based tour, consider viewing Iwan Bigler’s Flickr set of photo stills here. I am already looking forward to their next trip. Great job Team Nine!

You might remember Coco Rocha from her past ELLE controversy that we recently posted. She's definitely one of the industry's top models. This time, we take a look at the making of a cover for Target Style. How many shots does it take to get 'the' cover shot when you have a supermodel as your subject? Take a look and find out.

You may remember a while ago when we posted a candlelight video test by Joe Marine over at NoFilmSchool.com. After seeing feedback from the video, Joe sent me a new one (thanks!). The beginning is almost the same, but adjusted since Nikon and Canon handle ISO differently. But later on in the video, Joe got some interesting results when adding noise reduction and color correcting...

Ken Burns is somewhat of a a legend when it comes to stories and film making. His documentaries cover some fantastic issues within the U.S. and have a fine tension throughout the film which keeps his audience captivated. In this short interview by Redglass Pictures, Ken shares what he feels the key elements of a captivating story are. How do you think his idea of that "extra element" applies to what you shoot or edit?

The guys over at DigitalRev wanted to test how durable the Canon 7D is, so they put it through some extreme tests to see if the shutter would still work and record images to the CF card. Ice, fire, airsoft guns, flights of stairs, and more. Check out the video to see if the 7D holds up to the beating. You definitely do not want to try this at home! Leave a comment and let me know the worst thing you've done to your DSLR.

Matt Kleiner is currently directing RUSTY'S new signature film due out early next year. This short film is made up of just some of the "leftover" clips that the team filmed over a 4 day period while the light and surf was perfect. Man, I wish my leftover clips were this rad! Matt calls this surf short "LIGHT // The Natural Agent That Stimulates Sight". Enjoy!

In this behind the scenes video shot by Cinepro Studios, we see Michael Sasser working with a High School student to shoot her senior portraits. With only a bounce card held by an assistant, he is able to capture some stunning images, and the video does a very nice job balancing shots of the location and setup, with the stills that were taken during the session to give the audience a better idea of what the photographer was working with.

You often hear film makers say, "Your video is only as good as your audio". Obviously video production goes a long way too but poor audio can completely ruin an otherwise great video. Until recently, DSLR cameras have been anything but great at recording audio. The on board microphones are noisy and prone to record camera noise. Plugging an external microphone into the line-in has also left a lot to be desired. So how should someone

Filmmaker Philip Bloom has gotten his hands on Nikon's and Canon's newest full-frame digital SLRs. Luckily for us, we get an extensive side-to-side comparison in this rather thorough shoot-out. Bloom uses the almost 30 minutes to go through resolution, aliasing, low-light, and feature comaprisons. Let us know what you think in the comments section!

Joerg Niggli created this timelapse video of Venice, which shows a day in this gorgeous Italian city, from sunrise to sunset. If you haven't yet traveled to Venice, this video is a cheaper alternative for you, so thank Joerg for saving you some cash! He used a Canon G10 to shoot the timelapses, and for editing he used After Effects and Final Cut Pro X. Enjoy!

18 year old Florence Colgate from Britain won the 'Britain's Most Naturally Beautiful Face' contest. Apparently, it was based on the science of symmetry, width and length of her face, and perfect facial features. Some have even regarded her as the having the World's most perfect face. With beauty being so subjective, do you believe there is a science behind it? What do you define as perfect?

If you are like me, you feel pretty confident editing images in Photoshop, Aperture, or Lightroom. If you have ever tried to do similar edits for your video in Premiere or Final Cut, you know how frustrating it can be. It seems like these video programs don't have all of the necessary tools and they don't seem to work as well as photo editing software. If you don't mind a couple extra steps, you can easily edit your videos just like a still photograph in the program of your choice.

As anyone who has tried to shoot video with a DSLR knows, creating a smooth, professional follow-focus motion can be a bit of a nightmare unless you're willing to shell out for high-end equipment, and then deal with lugging it all around. How about a $45 solution that gets amazing results and works on any DSLR lens?