Polar Bear Popsicle
This is a quick and painless video of Alaska, a polar bear at Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, taken with my newly-issued Sony DCR-SR300 camcorder, for a hot weather clip. The cameras will stay in our hand until another upgrade. This camera has those "jaggies," which is interlaced video. With the Macintosh, MPEGStreamclip wipes the jaggies out and makes it more manageable. I like to keep the camera set on manual mode with the light settings, and you can see that I haven't quite gotten the hang of it; some of the scenes are properly exposed while others are dark. It was my first workout with the camera.
I'm going to turn on the zebra bars (if it has that). "Zebra bars" are white and black diagonal stripes that show where the highlights are blown out in the shot. With the Panasonic HVX200, I can quickly gauge the proper exposure, but with any new gear, there's a period of time when the user has to learn the camera's method of recording, in order to get the proper exposure. Some might wonder why I don't use the auto setting; that's because I like having control over the exposure.
With bright subjects, the camera can open and close its aperture, causing the video to alternate between light and dark. I want the camera to remain constant. It's a decent camera in shady conditions, but in bright sunlight, it seems as though the Sony over-exposes. I like knocking the exposure down, just enough so that the footage looks pleasing and vibrant. While the SR300 has settings to adjust for color and saturation, I'd rather keep those normal.
As for the production, the video's need to be converted by MPEGStreamclip added some time. But from the conversion of all the files, to editing and packaging, it took about an hour.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2007
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
HVX200 Video! Plus, There's Always Something I Forget...
Stage fright.
You may get over it, but you never forget it.
I just finished with the guest speakers at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and I still get nervous when all eyes stare back at me! Terry Dalton, who has hosted the annual event in which professionals - mainly from different news-gathering entities - visit his class to share information about their field of work.
I had told Terry back in the summer that I had a surprising presentation and couldn't wait for November, yet I actually had nothing in hand to show. Usually, the talk would revisit the year's work. Last year, I shared my images from Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami. This year, I felt my work was seriously lacking, since I've been swamped with learning the HVX200.
Being stoked about the shift towards multimedia journalism, called "the voice in the story," I gathered some finished work from some of the staff. Algerina's sound slides of the Basilica, Monica's work on Factor VII, David Hobby's images of a tree in the fall, and Chiaki's piece about the Pleasant family's double-whammy cancer fight were some pieces short and good enough to send a message. I saved Barb's project on Recher Rock for last, just to let the class watch a little about indie bands.
The message was the same that I learned months ago: don't just be a photographer. Or a camera operator. Or a reporter, or audio technician, gathering for radio. Do all of those things, and learn through practice. Being sure to make eye contact, I didn't let the students know that I'm actually introverted. Well, I did hint at that, when sharing the fact that I feel more comfortable behind the camera, silently documenting others.
Maryland Terrapins' DJ Strawberry hustles and dives after ball!!
Ending the chat with some HVX footage of a basketball and a cool clip I shot at a Maryland Terrapins game (which is WAY down-rezzed by the YouTube folks, but I hope you still can enjoy it), a couple of those listening seemed a bit in disbelief that people are actually doing well by creating multimedia projects and blogging online. One, who stayed after class, picked my brain about the concept.
Everyone in her class has taken photos. With the cameras of today, anyone can take a pretty darn good image, if they work on it. Regarding the hybrid cameras, just a couple of clicks on the dial, and your still digital can instantly begin capturing sound and video. So, if you have any kind of light budget (or know someone who wants to loan you the gear) you can put a hybrid camera in your hot mitts and start teaching yourself about how to document the world around you.
The important thing I failed to share was that a web visitors can be limitless. Instead of showing your product to your friends, you now have an audience that's worldwide (depending on internet access and whether any particular country will allow your work to be accessed). Newspapers have always trained their sights on local coverage. But the web allows for worldwide viewing of whatever might be published. So if a newspaper's subscription total was 250,000, locally, it would be seen by an estimated 500,000 people.
On the web, there are billions of people online, and the viewers are growing in numbers, so there will always be an audience, until or unless the web decides to stop or change. No one can even fathom that happening, so the only one stopping you, is you. The web has opened the whole world to those who can access it. And it lets you and I be our own journalists, columnists, publicists, critics, managing editors and publishers. That's why big media has stumbled. People now have the ability to cover each other. Instead of waiting for the local news at 6pm, or the next day's paper,you and I can simply post it online ourselves. CNN and Fox have been getting their news clips and information from daily blogs and YouTube posts. The infamous video of "Kramer" Richards losing control? It was captured by an audience member's cell phone.
Find your niche and work on it. Whether it's a sport (or love of one), a hobby, a particular rant you care to vent, or the latest bad driver that carelessly drove past you, remember the most important thing: many people are just like you, and feel the same way. And they're currently Googling phrases that you could have already been writing about.
Conor gazes into the night, his eyes trying to spot Santa and Mrs. Claus.
As for this blog entry, much of it was written in the parking lot of a Cactus Willie's during some down time between jobs. The rest was finished here, at a Panera Bread in north Baltimore, after I transmitted pictures of 4-year-old Conor, searching the skies for Santa at a tree lighting ceremony. So, keep your laptop with you, at all times; at some moment, you may suddenly get the urge to fire up your PowerBook and pound your keyboard during a brainstorm.
Don't give up on your passion if no one flocks to your site at first. If you want that, you have to expose your site and make it searchable and easily-accessed. That's one reason why I've switched from MySpace, since they require membership, just to view a person's page.
You may get over it, but you never forget it.
I just finished with the guest speakers at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and I still get nervous when all eyes stare back at me! Terry Dalton, who has hosted the annual event in which professionals - mainly from different news-gathering entities - visit his class to share information about their field of work.
I had told Terry back in the summer that I had a surprising presentation and couldn't wait for November, yet I actually had nothing in hand to show. Usually, the talk would revisit the year's work. Last year, I shared my images from Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami. This year, I felt my work was seriously lacking, since I've been swamped with learning the HVX200.
Being stoked about the shift towards multimedia journalism, called "the voice in the story," I gathered some finished work from some of the staff. Algerina's sound slides of the Basilica, Monica's work on Factor VII, David Hobby's images of a tree in the fall, and Chiaki's piece about the Pleasant family's double-whammy cancer fight were some pieces short and good enough to send a message. I saved Barb's project on Recher Rock for last, just to let the class watch a little about indie bands.
The message was the same that I learned months ago: don't just be a photographer. Or a camera operator. Or a reporter, or audio technician, gathering for radio. Do all of those things, and learn through practice. Being sure to make eye contact, I didn't let the students know that I'm actually introverted. Well, I did hint at that, when sharing the fact that I feel more comfortable behind the camera, silently documenting others.
Maryland Terrapins' DJ Strawberry hustles and dives after ball!!
Ending the chat with some HVX footage of a basketball and a cool clip I shot at a Maryland Terrapins game (which is WAY down-rezzed by the YouTube folks, but I hope you still can enjoy it), a couple of those listening seemed a bit in disbelief that people are actually doing well by creating multimedia projects and blogging online. One, who stayed after class, picked my brain about the concept.
Everyone in her class has taken photos. With the cameras of today, anyone can take a pretty darn good image, if they work on it. Regarding the hybrid cameras, just a couple of clicks on the dial, and your still digital can instantly begin capturing sound and video. So, if you have any kind of light budget (or know someone who wants to loan you the gear) you can put a hybrid camera in your hot mitts and start teaching yourself about how to document the world around you.
The important thing I failed to share was that a web visitors can be limitless. Instead of showing your product to your friends, you now have an audience that's worldwide (depending on internet access and whether any particular country will allow your work to be accessed). Newspapers have always trained their sights on local coverage. But the web allows for worldwide viewing of whatever might be published. So if a newspaper's subscription total was 250,000, locally, it would be seen by an estimated 500,000 people.
On the web, there are billions of people online, and the viewers are growing in numbers, so there will always be an audience, until or unless the web decides to stop or change. No one can even fathom that happening, so the only one stopping you, is you. The web has opened the whole world to those who can access it. And it lets you and I be our own journalists, columnists, publicists, critics, managing editors and publishers. That's why big media has stumbled. People now have the ability to cover each other. Instead of waiting for the local news at 6pm, or the next day's paper,you and I can simply post it online ourselves. CNN and Fox have been getting their news clips and information from daily blogs and YouTube posts. The infamous video of "Kramer" Richards losing control? It was captured by an audience member's cell phone.
Find your niche and work on it. Whether it's a sport (or love of one), a hobby, a particular rant you care to vent, or the latest bad driver that carelessly drove past you, remember the most important thing: many people are just like you, and feel the same way. And they're currently Googling phrases that you could have already been writing about.
Conor gazes into the night, his eyes trying to spot Santa and Mrs. Claus.
As for this blog entry, much of it was written in the parking lot of a Cactus Willie's during some down time between jobs. The rest was finished here, at a Panera Bread in north Baltimore, after I transmitted pictures of 4-year-old Conor, searching the skies for Santa at a tree lighting ceremony. So, keep your laptop with you, at all times; at some moment, you may suddenly get the urge to fire up your PowerBook and pound your keyboard during a brainstorm.
Don't give up on your passion if no one flocks to your site at first. If you want that, you have to expose your site and make it searchable and easily-accessed. That's one reason why I've switched from MySpace, since they require membership, just to view a person's page.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Early Rise=No Photos; Lumix FZ30 Shoot: Murder Suspects
I plan on posting the media clips from today's assignment; the clips right now are stuck in another location, so I'm attempting a direct link, which is a popup script. We'll see if the links to the clips (below) work, meanwhile. If they do, just follow them from here.
Police release details of arrest
Kyneita talks about what happened
My first day (I had hoped) of starting at 7AM in order to begin shooting some footage for the paper's website! The task: Meet with Paul, who works for the state, who cruises through the DC metro area (Maryland side), helping starnded motorists and accident scenes. It was a reshoot of an assignment that had to be postponed from the original shoot intended for last Friday. Calling him on my cell as asked, the call went directly to his voice mail.
Red flag number one.
Perhaps he's in the middle of helping with an emergency scene, I thought. Oh well. I left a message as I started driving south on I-95 to meet him just inside the Capital Beltway at 8am. Traffic crawled by the MD-216 exit near Laurel, but I was happy enough, gloating about the latest win for the home team in NFL football, being doubly happy that the team near Washington had lost again (sorry, 'Skins fans). Reaching the destination with a few minutes to spare, Paul's orange roadside assistance van was nowhere to be found among the parked cars and vans at the Park & Ride. A call to his cell went directly to his voicemail again. Leaving a message, I waited, finally feeling a little impatient after 30 minutes had elapsed with no return call. Since the shoot was for a daily story, I waited some more, firing up my PowerBook to copy some images from a recent shoot onto the desktop.
Finally, I'd had enough. At 9am, I called the picture desk and Jeff said to pull the plug. On the way back to Baltimore, I made a detour to Clarksville to grab a quick photo of a high school athlete of the week, then rolled straight to city police headquarters for some kind of presser. The time wound up being pretty tight as I parked the buggy on the sidewalk across from HQ behind some TV trucks. It was Lumix Day, I figured. Any press conference would be ideal to try shooting some video for the web. Since the accessories - especially the 100GB recording drive -- hadn't come in, I figured I'd use just the FZ30 to capture stills and video during the announcement.
Baltimore Police announce the arrests of 2 children,
charged as adults in the stabbing death of Nicole
"Nikki" Edmonds, 17.
Five minutes after arrival and the press conference began. The police made an announcement that two suspects - both children - were being detained, charged as adults for the murder of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who had gotten stabbed to death after getting off at a light rail stop with her brother. The two were returning from Anne Arundel County, where they worked until midnight, and I understand that officials have accused at least 4 people of taking part in an ambush in order to take a cell phone. The FZ30 silently captured footage as they gave their accounts of how the boy and girl were found and arrested, and I switched over to the still mode to shoot some frames for print publication after feeling that enough footage had been recorded.
By 11:30am, a CD of the raw clips were taken to Steve, who started editing for a web post. Meanwhile Gus, who had been working on the story took me along as we tried to find the families of the ones accused of the crime. Striking out at our first location, we tried another 2 homes north of downtown. The door opened and then shut for several minutes as we waited outside as those within the home made up their minds. Eventually, we were allowed to come in.
The glum faces told the story as loved ones struggled to cope with the fresh news that someone they knew and loved had been named a murderer by the police. The family opened up slowly as we started to learn more as Kyneita began sharing more about her sister, 16-year-old Lataye.
The toughest part a journalist has is having to document the survivors dealing with the loss of an untimely death. But that's one of the aspects of being a journalist. And Kyneita refused to have her picture taken when I first asked.
Letting the interview continue, I listened to every word, because the job remains to exhaust every possibility to complete the story. Eventually, I asked again, expecting "no" for an answer. And that's when I had to tell her about what we had to go with if "no" was her final answer.
The only thing that anyone would know about her little sister is that Lataye was charged as an adult. The only thing people would see are images of a police mug shot. The only thing that people would hear would be what the police accused her of. Gus pulled out a photocopy of her mugshot, which was a hard dose of reality for them, as each family member wept when they saw an image of someone that they all loved, reduced to the label of an accused murderer.
Kyneita, 19, weighed her options and finally agreed to be photographed.
Kyneita, 19, pauses while talking about her younger
sister, Lataye, 16 following Lataye's arrest, charged
in connection with Nikki's murder.
Responsible journalism means trying to understand the whole story, and not just what any one party says. It was only a day since the boy and girl were charged, but some, like Lataye's family, wanted to let people know that it's not her nature to do the crime that she's been accused of. A big piece of the puzzle is missing, they said, saying that the adults said to have been part of the crime may very well be that big missing piece.
Taking her to a window near the kitchen, the FZ30 silently captured photos as Kyneita pondered about her little sister. Finally as we ended the interview outside, Kyneita shared some of her own thoughts in digital footage that she wanted to say to those who can't grasp why anyone had to be murdered at all.
Returning to the office, I burned another CD with the new footage to add to the short package and I edited the photos of Kyneita and the copies of her sister, who had posed while 12 years old, in images frozen in time as she had pictures taken of her in her cheerleading outfit, proud and outwardly happy and at peace for that moment in her life.
Lataye cheerleading at 12 years old.
As I was about to leave the office for the day, Chuck finally told me what had happened with Paul, the roadside assistance guy that never returned my calls. "It turns out that he was on vacation," Chuck said.
Police release details of arrest
Kyneita talks about what happened
My first day (I had hoped) of starting at 7AM in order to begin shooting some footage for the paper's website! The task: Meet with Paul, who works for the state, who cruises through the DC metro area (Maryland side), helping starnded motorists and accident scenes. It was a reshoot of an assignment that had to be postponed from the original shoot intended for last Friday. Calling him on my cell as asked, the call went directly to his voice mail.
Red flag number one.
Perhaps he's in the middle of helping with an emergency scene, I thought. Oh well. I left a message as I started driving south on I-95 to meet him just inside the Capital Beltway at 8am. Traffic crawled by the MD-216 exit near Laurel, but I was happy enough, gloating about the latest win for the home team in NFL football, being doubly happy that the team near Washington had lost again (sorry, 'Skins fans). Reaching the destination with a few minutes to spare, Paul's orange roadside assistance van was nowhere to be found among the parked cars and vans at the Park & Ride. A call to his cell went directly to his voicemail again. Leaving a message, I waited, finally feeling a little impatient after 30 minutes had elapsed with no return call. Since the shoot was for a daily story, I waited some more, firing up my PowerBook to copy some images from a recent shoot onto the desktop.
Finally, I'd had enough. At 9am, I called the picture desk and Jeff said to pull the plug. On the way back to Baltimore, I made a detour to Clarksville to grab a quick photo of a high school athlete of the week, then rolled straight to city police headquarters for some kind of presser. The time wound up being pretty tight as I parked the buggy on the sidewalk across from HQ behind some TV trucks. It was Lumix Day, I figured. Any press conference would be ideal to try shooting some video for the web. Since the accessories - especially the 100GB recording drive -- hadn't come in, I figured I'd use just the FZ30 to capture stills and video during the announcement.
Baltimore Police announce the arrests of 2 children,
charged as adults in the stabbing death of Nicole
"Nikki" Edmonds, 17.
Five minutes after arrival and the press conference began. The police made an announcement that two suspects - both children - were being detained, charged as adults for the murder of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who had gotten stabbed to death after getting off at a light rail stop with her brother. The two were returning from Anne Arundel County, where they worked until midnight, and I understand that officials have accused at least 4 people of taking part in an ambush in order to take a cell phone. The FZ30 silently captured footage as they gave their accounts of how the boy and girl were found and arrested, and I switched over to the still mode to shoot some frames for print publication after feeling that enough footage had been recorded.
By 11:30am, a CD of the raw clips were taken to Steve, who started editing for a web post. Meanwhile Gus, who had been working on the story took me along as we tried to find the families of the ones accused of the crime. Striking out at our first location, we tried another 2 homes north of downtown. The door opened and then shut for several minutes as we waited outside as those within the home made up their minds. Eventually, we were allowed to come in.
The glum faces told the story as loved ones struggled to cope with the fresh news that someone they knew and loved had been named a murderer by the police. The family opened up slowly as we started to learn more as Kyneita began sharing more about her sister, 16-year-old Lataye.
The toughest part a journalist has is having to document the survivors dealing with the loss of an untimely death. But that's one of the aspects of being a journalist. And Kyneita refused to have her picture taken when I first asked.
Letting the interview continue, I listened to every word, because the job remains to exhaust every possibility to complete the story. Eventually, I asked again, expecting "no" for an answer. And that's when I had to tell her about what we had to go with if "no" was her final answer.
The only thing that anyone would know about her little sister is that Lataye was charged as an adult. The only thing people would see are images of a police mug shot. The only thing that people would hear would be what the police accused her of. Gus pulled out a photocopy of her mugshot, which was a hard dose of reality for them, as each family member wept when they saw an image of someone that they all loved, reduced to the label of an accused murderer.
Kyneita, 19, weighed her options and finally agreed to be photographed.
Kyneita, 19, pauses while talking about her younger
sister, Lataye, 16 following Lataye's arrest, charged
in connection with Nikki's murder.
Responsible journalism means trying to understand the whole story, and not just what any one party says. It was only a day since the boy and girl were charged, but some, like Lataye's family, wanted to let people know that it's not her nature to do the crime that she's been accused of. A big piece of the puzzle is missing, they said, saying that the adults said to have been part of the crime may very well be that big missing piece.
Taking her to a window near the kitchen, the FZ30 silently captured photos as Kyneita pondered about her little sister. Finally as we ended the interview outside, Kyneita shared some of her own thoughts in digital footage that she wanted to say to those who can't grasp why anyone had to be murdered at all.
Returning to the office, I burned another CD with the new footage to add to the short package and I edited the photos of Kyneita and the copies of her sister, who had posed while 12 years old, in images frozen in time as she had pictures taken of her in her cheerleading outfit, proud and outwardly happy and at peace for that moment in her life.
Lataye cheerleading at 12 years old.
As I was about to leave the office for the day, Chuck finally told me what had happened with Paul, the roadside assistance guy that never returned my calls. "It turns out that he was on vacation," Chuck said.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Links Embedded in My Blogs; Adding Flickr & YouTube Files!
Perhaps my own computer is having problems, and that seems to be the case. I'm not sure whether the audio from the railroad clip that I uploaded actually plays. I've decided to start a YouTube page, so as I work up some clips, I'll share it with you. Right now, only the video from the railroad is posted. It's shot with that little Panasonic DMC-FZ30, a do-all camera that I will write my own review on.
I've added links to much of what I've posted over the past several months. And I'll try sharing some information about the gear I use as well.
I've added links to much of what I've posted over the past several months. And I'll try sharing some information about the gear I use as well.
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