John Hess of Filmmaker IQ consistently puts out informative, high quality videos on all things film. In his latest video, he goes into great detail explaining the fundamentals of a widely used in-camera effect called "forced perspective". Fair warning, there is a good deal of math involved but the process and results are fascinating.
Every landscape photographer needs a good wide-angle lens. Popular YouTuber Thomas Heaton discusses his new Canon 16-35 f/4 lens and offers some tips on the best way to use an ultra-wide-angle lens.
Time-lapses have become exceedingly popular over the last several years and it's easy to become numb to them after a while. It takes an extraordinarily good time-lapse to capture a viewer's attention and stand out. Martin Heck of Timestorm Films has done just that with his 8K time-lapse film of the Dolomites mountain range in Northern Italy.
Autumn is upon us and the great migration is in full swing with hordes of photographers descending upon small towns all across the northeastern United States to capture the changing colors of the leaves. Leaf peeping (and photographing) is hard work. It requires patience, solitude, and the ability to put up with the constant aroma of pumpkin spice latte in the air. For those of you heading out to photograph fall colors this year, here a few tips that I hope will help you get the most out of your experience.
BBC America just released a jaw-dropping five-minute preview for their upcoming series, "Planet Earth: Blue Planet II." The footage is gorgeous, David Attenborough is narrating, and Radiohead and Hans Zimmer provide a sonic feast. Sit back and enjoy.
This one is for all you drone enthusiasts out there: you only have six days left to make that epic, viral video of the Statue of Liberty. New drone restrictions for the Statue of Liberty and other U.S. national landmarks go into effect October 5.
The official White House Instagram account put out a short video recently of President Trump announcing the push on his new tax reform plan. The video production team seemed to make some unusual choices in the filming and cutting of the video. YouTuber Josh Enobakhare for Olufemii Tutorials analyzes those decisions and whether they helped or hindered the President's message.
In his latest photography tutorial, noted French photographer and prolific video tutorial maker Serge Ramelli discusses his top five Lightroom tips.
Zach Lipson, a 32 year old photographer from Chicago, has brought together an exciting group of Instagram photographers to raise money for Hurricane Harvey relief in Houston. With 100% of proceeds going towards J.J. Watt's Houston Flood Relief Fund, Prints for Houston is worth checking out to see some fantastic photos and contribute to a worthwhile cause at the same time.
In a story that could only happen in our current media saturated, social media crazed, 24/7 news atmosphere, a Brazilian man fooled established media outlets worldwide as well as 120,000 plus Instagram followers into thinking he was a United Nations war photographer for the past three years. After being exposed, he is supposedly "in Australia...spend(ing) a year in a van," and his identity still unknown.
The "Orange and Teal" look is immensely popular for videos of all shapes and sizes, from YouTube travel videos to Hollywood blockbusters. It not only adds depth and color contrast to a shot but also gives footage a pleasing, warm golden hour look and feel. In this video, PremiereGal demonstrates how you can easily add this color grade to your video in Adobe Premiere Pro without plugins or look up tables (LUTs).
Just like everyone else, my social media feed was flooded with solar eclipse images yesterday. While there were a number of truly amazing shots and at least one potentially politically controversial one, my hands-down favorite was the remarkable photograph of a silhouetted climber at the moment of totality, captured by professional Outdoor and Commercial Photographer Andrew Studer. I spoke with Studer and Ted Hesser, an adventure photographer who envisioned and planned the shot, to better understand how they pulled it off.
In his latest photography tutorial, noted French photographer (and prolific video tutorial maker) Serge Ramelli demonstrates how to quickly and effectively replace a sky in Photoshop.
Smartphone video is seemingly getting better by the minute. While they may still have a little way to go to match a $50,000 RED Weapon (though it's closer than you think), smartphones can be utilized to create videos of astonishing quality given the obvious limitations (small sensor, fixed focal length lens, noise issues created by limited ISO capability). In his latest video, popular YouTube photography personality Kai Wong discusses various tips to get the most out of your smartphone videography.
Luminosity masks are a fantastic way to make precise selections based on luminance values (hence the name). As with all things Photoshop, there are multiple ways to achieve the same result. I find using channel selections to be the easiest way to manually create my masks. I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir, but for those yet to join in on the singing, I hope you find this information useful as you continue to build your editing tool set.
Lightroom is widely used for cataloging and editing photos. But did you know that you can use it to quickly and easily edit video as well? Colin Smith of PhotoshopCafe offers five quick tips on color grading and editing videos in Lightroom.
Over the last several weeks, my social media feeds have been flooded with a torrent of lavender images, each seemingly more beautiful than the last. Late June is generally the high season for the lavender bloom in the famous Provence region of southern France. It's a time of year when photographers, tourists, and bees come together in perfect harmony to dance among the purple fields from dawn to dusk. Photographer Jimmy McIntyre was part of the crowds last month and made an informative and entertaining video on his ten-day trip photographing the bloom.
If you're not familiar with Crash Course (and judging by the number of subscribers and viewers they have on YouTube, most of you are), it is an educational YouTube channel started by Hank and John Green. Mixing well thought-out topics and storylines with strong insights and entertainment, and combining it all into easily digestible episodes, the Green brothers have successfully presented and taught myriad subjects ranging from Biology to U.S. History and seemingly everything in between. Their latest venture is Crash Course Film.
Back in July of 2016 when my daughter was a mere glimmer in my eye, I read Alex Cooke’s excellent article on shooting drone portraits. I was immediately transfixed by this new (new to me, anyway) concept. Some 12 months after first stumbling upon Alex’s article, I have a seven-week-old at home, and my travel photography has come to a halt (at least for a while). But I can always drone the baby! Here are some tips for getting the most out of your newborn drone portrait session.
