Quick Links

Buying Mics & Hacking Audio for Your DSLR Video Setup | chase jarvis
Should you buy a Rode Stereo Videomic or the Zoom H4n?
2. The Rode. I recently did a blog post about the Rode Mic a few months ago. You should read it, but to summarize; I love the thing for its straight forward simplicity. It allows me to just shoot and not worry about sound, but…
3. The Zoom. …When I DO need to worry about the sound (such as an interview or a scene in a narrative film) I bust out the Zoom H4n. It captures better files that the straight camera – remember it’s sole function is audio.

Get Lit: Using Sidelight for a Dramatic Effect | Chris Collins | Wide Open Camera
Getting lighting right can be difficult. It takes practice, and in my experience, the fewer lights the better (because every light you add, adds shadows!) Here's a guide for getting dramatic lighting:
I am a sucker for dramatic lighting. That’s why I was so excited when Jared Abrams decided that we should go with a moody look for the interviews in The Board of Education documentary. I decided to go with a fairly contrasty, side-lit look for the interviews which I have accomplished on the road with a few Ikan 312 LED lights. We were fortunate enough to get hooked up by Roman France with a studio in New York for this particular interview. Here are two fairly similar lighting setups.

White Balancing Your Camera (Part 1) | Richard Harrington | Triple Exposure
Auto White Balance can be wonderful; and it can be the devil:
By default, your camera is probably set to use an automatic white balance (sometimes called AWB). The way that auto works is that the camera will analyze the frame and create an automatic setting that attempts to neutralize any color shift. This setting works pretty well for indoor shooting where lighting is consistent.


Episode 39: Building a Flexible Top Handle Rig | DSLR Video Shooter
A flexible top handle rig built from a collection of different manufacturer's parts. It could cost you a bit of money to buy the parts though...



Ed Burns On Making an Indie with the 5D Mark II | Ron Dawson | Dare Dreamer
Tips from Ed Burns taken from a podcast "The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith"
  • Shot with all available light.
  • Shot with one 5D Mark II and an M audio recorder with lav mics instead of a boom.
  • Edited on Final Cut Pro.
  • 3 person crew.


eye3 The Affordable Radio Controlled Camera Helicopter | Cinescopophilia
A remote-control camera platform for $999? I got quite excited; until I realized it's a Kickstarter campaign:
$999 gets you a professional quality yet affordable radio controlled camera helicopter called the eye3. Almost anyone attempting to build a platform like the eye3 will be stunned by the complexity involved and the years of hands on experience needed to create a functional, safe device. The incredibly steep learning curve combined with the high cost of failure has kept this powerful tool out of the hands of thousands of creative people until now it seems.


Get Your Own Damn Movie Soundtrack! | Lloyd Kaufman | Mastering Film
Lloyd offers his typically unique perspective and experiences of music licensing:
And what about Nina Paley? She is a genius filmmaker who produced Sita Sings the Blues, the only animated movie entirely in Flash, as far as I know. She, too, has limited resources, so she decided to score her film with public domain music whose “sync” or publishing rights cost zilch. Unfortunately, Nina did not know that the “performance rights” of the folks performing the music were not public domain, and those singers, performers and musicians wanted to be paid. So far this has been a huge problem for Nina and has stood in the way of her making distribution deals.


Sony PMW-F3 & PMW-EX1R vs HDR-AX2000E | Владимир Кольцов | Vimeo
Umm...uhh...okay this is just weird. It might have been interesting if the PMW-F3 was used to shoot closeups like the PMW-EX1R and HDR-AX2000E, but since it's used only for a wide shot it's not very useful.

This video does raise an interesting issue though; if you are shooting with multiple - different - cameras, do you use the best camera for the wide shot or the close-ups?

If I have a couple of different cameras, I usually use the worst cameras for the shots that I'll be using the least (which usually means the wide shot, and any fixed closeups) and then I use the best camera to float around capturing different things.


Sony PMW-F3 & PMW-EX1R vs HDR-AX2000E from Владимир Кольцов on Vimeo.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sony GV-D200 review

Image
Sony GV-D200 I've been using a Sony GV-D200 deck to transfer old Video8 and Hi8 tapes. Some of these tapes are over twenty years old, and no longer having a Hi8 camcorder that worked I was concerned that if I didn't do something about transferring them to a more modern format soon, I might never be able to. While Sony no longer make camcorders that use these tapes - that I know of - Sony does still sell the GV-D200 deck (or Video Walkman, as it's sometimes labelled.) They also offer the GV-D800, which is almost identical but adds a small LCD screen for about $120 more. I didn't think I'd need a screen since I was using this to capture to the computer, but you will need an external monitor when you first set it up. Physically, the device is small. At 5 7/8" wide, 5 3/8" deep and 2" high, it's the smallest video deck I've encountered. I used to have a Video8 deck that I thought was small; and it was twice as deep and twice as high. The t...
Read more

Response: Which iPhone to Get?

Image
In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some...
Read more

Should you buy the Sony NEX-FS100 Kit Lens?

Image
The Sony NEX-FS100 is available in two configurations: B & H : NEX-FS100U Camcorder only $4,999 B & H : NEX-FS100U (with 18-200mm lens) $5,599 But what does that extra $600 get you? It get's you this: Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens for NEX Camera This lens is also available separately for $799.99, so at $200 off you'd think everyone would be jumping on it. But not so fast... In his article about switching from the Canon 5D Mark II to the Sony NEX-FS100 , Paul Antico  at Need Creative says of the kit lens: 7) Its 18-200 F3.6-6.3 kit lens absolutely sucks and should be avoided (thankfully, you can order it without one) [ 1 ] But is it that bad? At B & H 's site, 43 reviews give it an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. That's not a bad rating, though many of these people are using it for stills, and the most common complaint noted is how large and heavy it is. Of course this feeling of size would be exacerbated when you put it on a tiny camera ...
Read more