In the first part of this series, I covered some places that you could learn some of the fundamentals that you’ll need to shoot video. Now, we’re on to the equipment. The assumption I’m using is that you have a camera body that shoots video and a lens – that’s it. Now, what do you REALLY have to have to improve that basic platform, and what is the BASIC equipment you need to buy. Not the fanciest, most expensive equipment, but what do you REALLY need? The next thing I’m going to consider is – what can you buy that will have a dual purpose – another words, can you use it for stills AND video?
First, everyone ALWAYS starts with a tripod. Let’s face it, you can spend every bit of money you have on one and not get anything else. One clear thing you don’t want to do, is buy a $79 one at Best Buy. It will not cut it for stills OR video. There seems to be two main differences between a stills and video tripod. First, is the weight. If you look on B&H and just search for tripods, you can spend the better part of a day reading about all of them. I was lucky…I had invested in a nice Manfrotto tripod with a ball head many years ago. One of the great things about investing in a GOOD tripod and head up front is that you’ll really never have to replace it. However, in my case, I was very fortunate because that ball head could be replaced with a fluid head for shooting video. [click to continue…]
Yup - that's me, helping to plant grapes at Arrington Vineyards in Nashville.
Last Christmas, I wrote a piece about some of the gear I wanted or thought I needed for Christmas when it came to shooting video with an HD DSLR camera. I had the folks at Zacuto tell me that they STILL get referral traffic from this post, so I thought I’d update it for you last minute Christmas shoppers and at the same time, tell you how well I did on each item during the last year. Of course, I’m in the middle of writing my series of posts on how I’m FINALLY making my first video, so you’ll get more detail about some of these items in those posts. So, here’s the (updated) 2010 list:
The Gear
OK, so I wasn’t able to find ONE place that told me just what I’d have to have in order to shoot video with these new DSLR’s. How about just a simple list, with the gear, where to get it and the price! How about some kind of order to what you should get first (my opinion, so you MAY not agree) and what about software? What the heck do you need? I figured this would be a good thing to do in case anyone (or my wife) was looking to buy something for me for Christmas. Well, here’s my list: [click to continue…]
LensFlare 35 is a photography podcast brought to you by By Dave Warner. This week we’re going to talk to filmmaker Daryn DeLuco.
By an unbelievable chance encounter, we ran into each other in the little town of Dolgeville, just about six miles from where I typically record this podcast. There was a group just sitting around talking at this local bed and breakfast called Stoney Creek Inn and Sweets – the key thing being their sweets – great all natural pastries! I ended up injecting myself into the conversation they were having, found out Daryn was a DOP with a 5D Mark II and well, there we were the next day, recording this podcast face-to-face and filming it at the same time!
In this episode, Daryn talks about how he got into filmmaking, his connection to my neck of the woods, how the HD DSLR has affected his ability to make films, how they have affected the industry as a whole, the best path a stills photographer could take to begin using this capability and much more. We pulled a sample of Daryn’s work that he directed from YouTube, which you can play below.
To listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a pop up window, download it OR subscribe to it via iTunes. You can download a List of Questions (PDF format) that I ask in the interview.
One of the things you have to consider when attempting to create your first HD DSLR video is knowledge. What do you need to know and where can I find that knowledge? Well, to summarize why I’m even asking, let me give you the premise for this series.
It’s been more than two years now since the release of the Canon 5D Mark II and Vincent Laforet’s film Reverie, which really blew everyone’s doors off. For some, the camera was the greatest thing to hit their lives and they ran with it. This series is for the rest of us who bought these cameras and did little if anything with their film-making capabilities.
I know that I had all these grand ideas about what I would shoot when I just figured out how to use it. The more people I interviewed about it for the LensFlare 35 podcasts, the more daunting it became for me personally. I quickly found out that all the settings I had used to capture those first video segments were ‘wrong’. Then, I started hearing about all this extra gear I needed just to shoot video, THEN it was the fact that I needed assistants, had to change out the type of lighting I owned, had to ‘think’ like a film-maker and storyboard everything out first; I needed a more powerful computer AND expensive software to edit it and…did I mention audio? How important it is to have the correct gear, how to record it, how to sync, it, and on and on. [click to continue…]
It’s been more than two years now since the release of the Canon 5D Mark II and Vincent Laforet’s film Reverie, which really blew everyone’s doors off. Can you believe it’s been that long already? For some, the camera was the greatest thing to hit their lives and they ran with it. To say that [...]
Vision In Motion is an introduction to digital video for stills photographers. Written by Trevor Meier, both a professional stills photographer and film-maker, this eBook discusses the core issues of motion storytelling. No doubt about it, video is an entirely different medium than stills photography. It’s a different language spoken with different technology and created [...]
First, everyone ALWAYS starts with a tripod. Let’s face it, you can spend every bit of money you have on one and not get anything else. One clear thing you don’t want to do, is buy a $79 one at Best Buy. It will not cut it for stills OR video. There seems to be two main differences between a stills and video tripod. First, is the weight. If you look on B&H and just search for tripods, you can spend the better part of a day reading about all of them. I was lucky…I had invested in a nice Manfrotto tripod with a ball head many years ago. One of the great things about investing in a GOOD tripod and head up front is that you’ll really never have to replace it. However, in my case, I was very fortunate because that ball head could be replaced with a fluid head for shooting video. [click to continue…]
To listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a pop up window, download it OR 
