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If you watched the City of Lakes trailer, you probably missed the extensive use of slider and dolly shots. They add so much subtle visual interest while increasing perspective, presence and focus! Here is a do-it-yourself from Friedhelm Fischer to build a camslider for about $100. The full post can be found at Friedhelm Fischer's blog.

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• 1 IGUS DryLin® W rail - WS-16-60 1000mm / 39.37 inch - Price: approx. 85 $ - Order now click here
• 1 M5 bold with a shim and a 8mm / 0.31 inch nut - Price: approx. 1-2 $ - DIY market next to you

• 1 MANFROTTO 701HDV PRO FLUID VIDEO MINI HEAD - Price: approx.125 $ - buy best click here
• 1 MANFROTTO 501HDV HEAD - Price: approx. 185 $ - buy best click here
• 1 MANFROTTO 055XPROB Pro Tripod Legs - Price: approx. 180 $ - buy best click here

Neil Smith, at hdiRAWworks, arranged for Philip Bloom to conduct a Canon HD-DSLR masterclass yesterday here in LA. This was the first time I've ever attended such a thing, and I rather enjoyed it and learned a lot too. The little tidbits you pick up are also interesting: like why the Canon 5Dmkii will only shoot video for 12 minutes. I always thought it was just a storage capacity issue. No. (We live in such a weird world.)

Philip showed several of his shorts, which, of course, are amazing. I've embedded a few of them here at tt.us from time to time. While they look great on the computer screen, they were stunning on the big screen with the HD projector.

He spoke of many things related to his craft, but I suppose I learned the most from his talk about setup, actually using the DSLR for video. I've never bothered with custom camera settings before but have already imported the superflat settings he recommended and am eager to try the workflow: shooting with the increased dynamic range, though visually initially less "interesting," and then grading the footage in post. It makes sense as I do the equivalent process with still photography all the time. We just can't get raw data out of the 5D. Philip says: "Yet..." (See Luka Crnkovic-Dodig's post: How to increase the Canon 7D/5D dynamic range, which includes this link to the superflat settings file, among others.)

In my own casual exploration through this space, I've ended up with a lot of the same software and equipment, and now have a better understanding of implementation and process for video and timelapse using my 5Dmkii. It's now time to play, play, play!  I'm also eager to explore timelapse.

Aside from being brilliant at what he does, Philip is very personable and has a great sense of humor. He also comes across as completely genuine and open about what he recommends and why. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of his masterclasses, jump at it! I'm glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone.

Related articles:



• Canon Rebel T2i DSLR: 18MP and Legit 1080p Video for $899 [Digital Cameras] (gizmodo.com)
• Canon EOS 7D digital SLR (go.theregister.com)
• Canon's EOS 1D Mark V DSLR defying death, launching tomorrow? (engadget.com)
• The First Clips Shot on the Canon T2i Look As Good as the 7D [Photography] (gizmodo.com)
• Gorgeous (timtyson.us)

How many times have I cursed the Caps Lock key. I've wished I could pluck if from my keyboard more than once.

Well... turns out, you can with a simple keyboard preference change!

Go to System Preferences and select Keyboard. In this window, click on Modifier Keys...

Now click next to "Caps Lock" and select "No Action". Easy!

I follow @PhilipBloom on Twitter. He does such amazing work. He has been in Dubai for the past several days shooting this video, Sky. This short timelapse beautifully captures the radiance of the city. And the music, Xibalba by Clint Mansell, is perfect for it.

I appreciate Philip's willingness to share how he does this with HD-DSLRs. It's so helpful to those of us who love to dabble. You can read about the process at his blog, here.

Be sure to watch this in full screen mode. It's beautiful.

He also has a uStream account and broadcast live from his iPhone today. I haven't tried that yet, but it's on my list!

Image via CrunchBase

Here's a great shortcut for downloading YouTube videos when using the Safari browser.

1. Go to the YouTube page with the video on it.  
2. [Command] + [Option] + [A] to bring up the Activity window in Safari.  
3. Under the Address Column find the YouTube page.  
4. Under that column, look for the largest file size, which will be the video file itself.  
5. Double click it to download it.  Done.

I love stumbling upon a cool technology trick.

Working out compression settings for video distribution is part art, part science, and a whole lot of witchcraft. Compression is just often difficult and can be very frustrating.

Well, tonight I learned that if you take a movie file that has already been compressed (select one, of course, that looks really good because it was well compressed) and drop it into the "Custom" folder under the "Settings" tab in Compressor 3.5 (part of Final Cut Pro Studio), Compressor will think about that file for a second (depending on the speed of your machine) and then create a custom preset of the compression settings used to create that finished project! And the description tag becomes the name of the movie project you dropped into Compressor.

Sweet!

Compressor reads the metadata from the file and figures out how the file was compressed and then returns those settings as a preset you can use for your own project compression. Now, even with good compression settings, if you have poor quality source video, you will get poor results. But the problem is often the opposite way around: you have a great project and can't get the compression output to serve a good finished product.

And here's another little tidbit: if you take a Compressor Droplet (a little preset "stand alone application"), right click on it, select "show package contents," open the "Settings" folder and drop the .setting file onto the "Custom" folder under the "Settings" tab in Compressor 3.5, Compressor will again create a custom preset of the compression settings used in the droplet.

Why would you ever want to do the later? You can't get to the setting details of a droplet any other way. So if you want to tweak them but don't have the original settings saved as a preset in Compressor, this lets you get to those settings as well as save the settings as a preset in Compressor if you choose. It's just one of those things you will never need until you do--and then you will be pulling your hair out trying to figure out how to do this. :o)

Thanks to Brian Gary and the helpful folks at rippletraining, just a few miles from my home, for these two helpful tips.

I use John Einselen's MediaboxAdvanced, from iaian7, on my site for the media shadowboxes. I love it!

I've had two issues that needed attention. This is a "note to self" on how I fixed them in case I do site upgrades that might break the fixes, and I can't quickly find the resources to these solutions.

Problem 1: Volume Inadequate on NonverBlaster Player (Solution Works)

I was having the same problem today and I tried making some changes in mediaboxAdv-1.1.7.js and it worked for me. I hope this works for you as well.

In the JS file, you can find the settings for NonverBlaster as below (seach for "FLV, MP4")

------------------------------
// FLV, MP4
                        } else if (URL.match(/\.flv|\.mp4/i) || mediaType == 'video') {
                                mediaType = 'obj';
                                mediaWidth = mediaWidth || options.defaultWidth;
                                mediaHeight = mediaHeight || options.defaultHeight;
                                if (options.useNB) {
                                preload = new Swiff(''+options.NBpath+'?mediaURL='+URL
+'&allowSmoothing=true&autoPlay='+options.autoplay
+'&buffer=6&showTimecode='+options.showTimecode+'&loop='+options.NBloop
+'&controlColor='+options.controlColor
+'&controlBackColor='+options.controlBackColor
+'&scaleIfFullScreen=true&showScalingButton=true&crop=false', {
                                        id: 'MediaboxSWF',     ...
------------------------------

You can set the default volume by adding [&defaultVolume=100] right
after [crop=false].
like this.

------------------------------
...   &showScalingButton=true&crop=false&defaultVolume=100', {
                                        id: 'MediaboxSWF',   ...
------------------------------

[Source: NonverBlaster default volume too low - mediaboxAdvanced | Google Groups.]

What doesn't solve the problem: uncommenting the global media options volume parameter in line 93 or adding a defaultVolume parameter to the NonverBlaster section of code at line 110.

Problem 2: MP4s and FLVs Not Playing

From your server, open up the mediaboxAdvanced javascript file in a text or code editor, and update the options to reflect your desired settings. Make sure you update the file path to the JW media player with the correct path to your server."

[Source: iaian7 » code » webcode » mediaboxadvanced.]

What he inadvertently left out: also be certain to update the file path to the NonverBlaster.swf file too!

This tutorial needs a slightly faster pace, but Helen does a great job answering some questions I've grappled with in frustration concerning changing the crop orientation while using a fixed aspect ratio in Lightroom. I could never figure it out. It's so easy when you know the magic trick!

Each of these keyboard shortcuts works with the [Command] + [Shift] keys:

• K - Network
• C - Computer
  
• A - Applications
• H - Home
  
• D - Desktop
• O - Documents folder
• U - Utilities

And, for the record, I knew Desktop, Applications, and Utilities but have always wanted one for Documents! Having one for the computer hard drive is also nice!

Photo credit: alcomm @ Flickr

Some nifty Photoshop CS4 little known tools!

Other programs in the series can be found at AdobeTV