How to wrap a blog
As Sarah learned last week, blogs can make great birthday presents — especially when dozens of sweet friends pitch in to make it a blog party.
There’s just one problem with blogs. They’re famously difficult to wrap. Read more
Posts from the ‘tools & tips’ Category
Oct 20
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Sep 15
Taking a photo to the next dimension with Vanishing Point
Photos are great, but they’re also flat. Two dimensional. And sometimes 2 “Ds” just aren’t enough. That’s when you need 3D. Today I stumbled on a powerful Photoshop tool that can transform photos into 3 dimensional spaces inside After Effects. It’s called “Vanishing Point.”
Basically, you use Vanishing Point to set the edges of the visual elements inside your photos. Then, let Photoshop auto-magically export the photo in a format AE can open as a 3D object. Then, set up your AE cameras to move through the 3D environment to your heart’s content.
I slapped together a quick test using a photo I had on hand of the Ft. Worth Stockyards. In the clip below, I first show you the photo, then the 3D version. Even my novice effort landed some promising results. Since photography is my first love, you can bet I’ll be working this tool into future video projects!
Vanishing Point will work best on images with flat planes — like buildings, landscapes, and roadways.
Rather than me try to confuse you with a walk through, here’s a very good tutorial from Video Copilot to get you started. Vanishing Point is a simple way to make 2D…disappear.
Review: Brushes for iPhone
Brushes is an art creation app that lets you craft multi-layered paintings or drawings on your iphone. Everything from quick diagrams to print-ready art — and even a blog illustration — is possible on the Brushes canvas. Read more
t3i digital zoom test
(mobile readers, click here to view on vimeo)
When Canon’s t3i hit the market, we were interested in the new digital zoom feature offered on the entry-level DSLR.
Any good photographer knows that the usefulness of digital zoom for stills is limited…but what about video?
Since even full HD images are roughly 2 megapixels (or about 6mp on a non-3CCD sensor), there’s been buzz about using the new digital zoom for video to extend the t3i’s optical reach.
We use a quick and dirty test to see if this theory is fact…or a digital dream.
Thanks, @seancom for the testing idea…
Five Words for America
The Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness.
Honor, cow protein, and old wooden ships. If you have to ask, then you don’t understand why The Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness is triangular embodiment of greatness itself. Now you can be the triangular embodiment of greatness yourself.
When you first saw the Greatness on an episode of this season’s NBC comedy Parks and Recreation you knew you had to have Ron Swanson’s wisdom for yourself. How else will you know not to eat fish? Or the only two events where crying is acceptable? Or the true purpose of capitalism?
The pinnacle of greatness is only two steps away:
- Visit the NBC website to view each of the building blocks on the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness.
- Print a massive, poster-sized Pyramid to scupt your flabby will into a muscular mass of can-do-because-I-already-did spirit! Click to download the hi-res pdf.
Shooter’s Notebook: Time Lapse 2
A mashup of three short time lapse attempts
taken within the span of a few hours.
Plus a little original music.
After learning some lessons from my first time lapse attempt, I took to the field again with my 5D Mk II, tripod, and intervalometer. You can watch the results above, or click here to view in HD on vimeo.
Over all, this was a much better result.
In my first try, I experienced camera shake and image flicker problems. My hunch was that these were caused by my mid-shooting adjustments to the camera’s exposure settings. As the sky darkened, I didn’t want to miss the beautiful colors, so I tried to push the exposure.
On this second attempted, I was resolved to jam my hands in my pockets and resist the urge to fiddle with the controls. My self control was rewarded by a steady shot with much less flicker. In the video, you’ll notice that the first and third time lapse shots are smooth and nearly flicker free. As a test of my theory, I made some mid-shot corrections in the second capture, and the flicker and shake returns.
Lesson learned: Keep your hands off the camera, dummy! It’s much more difficult to set a single exposure that will capture both the fully lit early sky and the final fade of sunset color…but that’s what you’ve got to do. Set the camera on manual, over-expose a bit for full sun, then let it roll. The uncertainty of what you’ll get in the final minutes of light adds to the excitement, don’t you think?
The other adjustment I wanted to make after my first try was to run each of my captured frames through Lightroom to pre-process before editing. Lightroom gives much finer control that FCP or even AE, so you can really play with the color and feel of the shots. I applied this technique to the first time lapse sequence in the video above, and was able to pull some more color out of the sky and boost the cloud contrast.
Time lapse photography is quickly becoming an addiction… Can’t wait to see what’s next….
