March 2013
Our "How To" has tips on tilt-shift effects, time-lapse photography, scouting locations, interview tricks, build-it-yourself computers and more. Find Buyer's Guides on video capture cards and gear bags and cases, Plus reviews from Adobe, DPA, Merlin and Sony.
Features Stories
Video Graphics Cards
You may have the latest eight-core-or-more computer sitting on your desk, with massive amounts of RAM and the fastest solid-state drives available, but if your graphics card isn’t up to snuff, your gaming or editing endeavors will eventually hit a snag and leave you hanging. Graphics cards used to be little more than devices for putting text and images on a screen where you could see them, and were given little consideration. Given their importance in today’s computing, however, they are definitely worth a closer look.
Not Sure What You're Paying for With Memory Cards? We Have the Answers
Tripods, lights and stabilizing rigs are great but without the correct blank media, the camera doesn’t roll. What’s more – many of the formats have different speed rates and some have different form factors. To help you choose the proper card for your camera we will take a look at some of the common blank media cards, their uses and some tips to help you choose.
Time-Lapse Photography
Have you ever seen a day’s worth of freeway traffic race by in the blink of an eye, or a rose burst into full bloom in less than a minute? With time-lapse photography, you can compress an entire day into a short video clip.
The Build it Yourself Edit Bay
RAM, CPU, PCI-E, Gigabit vs. Gigabyte. Eesh! Any of these terms sound confusing and intimidating? You’re not alone. But don’t worry, you don’t need to be an electronic engineer to build your own PC. You only need to know about a few key components, and what to look for.
Reviews
Adobe Premiere Elements 11 and Photoshop Elements 11 Video and Photo Editing Software
Adobe Premiere Elements 11 and Photoshop Elements 11 are a powerful pair of programs designed to get the serious enthusiast up and editing fast, and at this price, are definitely worth serious consideration.
DPA Microphones 4017B Shotgun Microphone Review
Priced for the professional, with performance to match, the DPA 4017B shotgun mic is a quality piece of hardware, well worth considering for your next run-n-gun assignment.
DPA Microphones EMK4071 Microphone Kit Review
The EMK4071 ENG/EFP microphone kit exudes its manufacturer’s characteristic quality. DPA has put together a complete kit, including a lavalier microphone and necessary accessories that are perfect for electronic news gathering and electronic field production applications.
Steadicam Merlin 2 Handheld Stabilizer Review
A very effective, high-quality stabilizer for camcorders between eight-ounces and five-pounds.
JVC Adixxion GC-XA1 POV Camcorder Review
The JVC GC-XA1 is a durable sports camera that can get right in the action and survive to shoot another day.
Columns
Prepping a Background
You have your fancy on-camera expert, your fancy DSLR that does 60 frames per second at a million megapixels, and some very fancy lighting equipment in the form of those awesome LED panels, but all anybody can think of when they look at your video is why are all those dirty dishes on the table behind that guy? Is anyone going to finish that sandwich? It's going to get ants.
Interview Tips: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
“I keep six honest serving-men, They taught me all I knew; Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.” - Rudyard Kipling.
Video is Everywhere!
We might think that most citizens of Earth could see too much video. Let’s start with YouTube. The popular video sharing and social site reports more than 800 million unique visitors every month. That’s more than four billion hours viewed monthly! An incredible 72 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute. Every minute!
Creating the Tilt-Shift Look in Post
Visual aesthetics ride the roller coaster journey of trends. Currently the process of making video look like miniature toys is a popular look, and why not? Called tilt-shift photography, this stylized look takes real world footage and turns it into a visual toy box. Expansive landscapes and steel behemoths are rendered to tabletop playthings; a world in the palm of your hand. Video builds on this photographic illusion, changing real-time motion into a false staccato of stop motion animation. The popularity of the tilt-shift look is in part due to the accessibility of 35mm lenses, the ability of DSLR cameras to shoot video and the software capabilities of editors to simulate the look in post-production. This article is about the latter: how to create the tilt-shift look in post. It’s a process that can be done in most editing software and visual effects packages. With a little bit of effort, the virtual effect can be hard to discern from the practical tilt-shift image.
Maintaining a YouTube Following
Once upon a time, in a small city in Canada there was a young boy who could really sing. In another place in time, he would have gone through years of struggling and frustration to be discovered. This young boy posted videos on YouTube and was discovered by a talent agent. His name is Justin Bieber.
There have been hundreds of YouTube sensations from singing stars to political pundits to Chinese language teachers who have not only generated millions of followers, but some have also produced significant salaries.
