Articles written by Lee Morris

Just stumbled upon another great video by OliviaTech which showcases a pretty high quality jib. That in itself isn't very exciting until you realize that this thing only costs $125! If you know anything about the cost of jibs, you know how good of a deal this is. Head over to eBay and buy one at this incredible price... mine is due to show up in a few days.

Just ran across this interesting video of Canon's "IS" in action on Vimeo. The video is cool but write up by Camera Technica is the best part. Head over to their website to learn how that lens of yours keeps your images sharp.

Have you ever wondered how to make your own breakaway glass? It's surprisingly simple and in the video below Jay P Morgan walks us through the process step by step. Jay is also currently giving away 2 bottles from Alfonso's to one of his Twitter followers so make sure you are in the running!

A few weeks ago we posted a video by SLR Lounge that we called "The New iPhone Fashion Shoot." In that video a reflector was used to light a model and the results were fantastic. In the video below Pye takes us through a few of the ways that you can use a reflector to get similar results.

I just ran across an incredible ad by Nike called "Nike Chosen." The concept was to grab the best surfers, snowboarders, skaters, motocross, and BMX riders and film them doing their thing at night. The BTS footage (that can be found in the full post) is not as informative as I would like but if you pay attention to the details, there is a lot to be learned. The lighting, especially for the surfing session, is really amazing and although you may not ever do a shoot of this size, the same techniques could be used for your still photography at night.

Have you ever seen a car ad in a magazine and wondered "how did they do that?" The car itself seems to be glowing and the location is always perfect. I've always known that tons of photoshop is involved by I didn't know if the car was actually shot in that location or if it was shot in the studio and dropped into the scene in post. In the case below, the car was shot on location and lit with a very simple rig (umbrella on a stick). The magic happens in Photoshop afterwards.

Terje Sørgjerd has created a few timelapse videos that we have featured on FS but this may be the best. Terje writes; "My favorite natural phenomenon is one I do not even know the name of, even after talking to meteorologists and astrophysicists I am none the wiser.What I am talking about I have decided to call The Arctic Light and it is a natural phenomenon occurring 2-4 weeks before you can see the Midnight Sun." "I had numerous setbacks including: airline lost my luggage, struggling to swim ashore after falling into the Arctic sea: twice, breaking lenses, filters, tripod, computer, losing the whole dolly rig and controller into the sea, and even falling off a rather tall rock and ending up in the hospital. As much as I wanted to give up, the best way out is always “through”. I am glad I stuck it through though because there were some amazing sunrises waiting."

Travis Tank needed to shoot a portrait of a bicyclist riding down the road. The average person would probably shoot this with natural light but Travis wanted to light his subject with a large, off camera light source. For this to happen Travis mounted Profoto lights to a vehicle. The video seems to have been shot on a cell phone but this video is still very informative.

Jay P Morgan is most known for his photography but he is also a director. In the video below Jay shows us the technical side of shooting a quick comedy short. Many of the same techniques for video also apply to stills. Check out the full post to see the finished video.