New episode added to the Insolitas!

If you’ve subscribed to our video series, Lighting For Real Estate Phtography, and/or followed this blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of those lightweight little video tripods to support my flashes.  You’ll also know that I’ve modded my tripods to accept a shoot through umbrella.  I posted a quick photo tutorial of this a couple years ago but thought it was time to create a video tutorial (I’m all about the video these days, in case you couldn’t tell).

To watch the 5 1/2 minute tutorial subscribe or login at http://www.lightingforrealestatephotography.com and head over to the Insolita section.  It’s the video at the very bottom of the page.  Enjoy!

Staying organized on a video shoot

It’s a snowy day in Seattle so I’m taking the afternoon as an Office Day!

I had a few questions about how I stay organized when shooting video in response to yesterday’s Behind the Scenes video so I made a quick video for you to describe my system.  This will probably only be interesting to videographers (and aspiring videographers) so apologies to the rest of you.  Go ahead and just skip this video.

Shooting video of oneself is not easy so please forgive the soft focus.  Also I forgot to mention one big point: a HUGE advantage of blocking out your scenes is that it allows you to shoot in whatever order you want.  Sometimes it’s not convenient or even possible to shoot scenes in order.  If you start with a tight script (or outline) and number your scenes it allows you the freedom to shoot in any order that’s convenient.

Okay, I think that’s it.  Hope this is helpful and please hit me up in the comments if you have questions.  Or have your own method that you’d like to share.  Or just want to say hi!

Click image to view video

1/18/12 UPDATE – Yes, I already have an update to this.   I was just watching a video preview of the LR4 beta and I really like the features they’re offering.  I really doubt that I’d do any actual editing on video clips BUT the preview function looks awesome.  That’s the one feature that Bridge can’t really provide for video (double clicking opens in QT, not in Bridge).  And before you tell me that you actually can preview in Bridge, I know that, but it’s stuttery and unwatchable (maybe I have a slow graphics card?).   Has anyone tested the video features in LR4 yet?  I’m going to download it later today and test it out.

Composition for Interiors

On a recent trip to the Bay Area I worked with photographer extraordinare, Scott Hargis, to create a video tutorial on the subject of Composition for Interiors.  Scott has extensive knowledge on the subject (as evidenced in his body of work) and it was fun working through different ideas for the video with him.

It was a full day of shooting and two full days of editing but, I have to say, it was a really fun project to work on.  I can’t wait for our next one!

Tuesday Tutorial: The Clone Stamp

I sort of sound like an idiot but here you go…

Click on image to view video

The Chase Jarvis DIY camera dolly

We’ve been quite busy over here at TulipChain Photography HQ.  The past two weekends have been spent working on the construction of Chase Jarvis’ DIY Camera Dolly. After multiple trips to various hardware stores, much sawing, even more drilling, and a couple “oh screw it!”s we’re finally done!  Check it out!

It’s 2011 – time to update your IPTC

There’s a good reminder over in the flickr PFRE group to update your IPTC info. If you’re not sure how to do it here are some easy, step-by-step instructions for Bridge and Lightroom:

Gear: Lightstands

The discontinued Slik SDV-20

If you’re shooting interiors with speedlites I probably don’t need to tell you how awesome the Slik SDV-20s (pictured left) are.  If you’re not familiar with this tripod (used as a lightstand) or why it’s perfect for shooting interiors read this.  There’s a small problem with the SDV-20, though – they’re no longer in production.  If you can luck yourself into a used one on eBay or Craigslist it’s totally worth it.  Since I’m neither patient nor tenacious enough to try and track down a used SDV-20 I did some research and found a really good alternative.

Downloading iPhone photos to your computer (for Mac)

I recently upgraded to the iPhone 4 and, if you’ll allow me to be frank: the iPhone 4 rocks my world.

But this isn’t a post about how awesome(!) my iPhone is.  It’s a post about downloading photos from my iPhone.

I use my iPhone camera a lot and have built up quite the Camera Roll.  Now that I have video on my iPhone I’m noticing that storage is becoming an issue – I have my entire iTunes library on the phone so there’s not a lot of room for other files.  I decided that the best way to handle this was to periodically dump all photos and videos onto my computer, freeing up some space for new photos/videos on the phone. 

I have my own system of handling files on my computer which has nothing to do with iPhoto so getting all these photos off my phone quickly, without having to tediously email each file to myself and then tediously delete each image/video, was problematic.  Both Lightroom and Bridge recognize my iPhone as a drive and will download the photos wherever I specify but neither program was able to delete the images from the iPhone.

A quick google search found the, non-intuitive answer!  Image Capture!  Using Image Capture, an application on every Mac that I had no idea even existed, you can download and delete, en masse.  Image Capture rocks!

Tuesday Tutorial: Photoshop Actions

Here’s a quick tutorial on creating actions in Photoshop.  It’s been awhile since I’ve had to put a coherent thought together for a recording so forgive the “ums” and the poor grammar, please!

I also forgot to mention something important!  When creating actions you can have as many steps as you want – actions can be totally complex!  But!!  It’s going to do the same exact thing with the same exact settings each time you run it.  So if you have several things you want to create actions for it’s better to create several small actions than to create one big action.

Okay, on with the show…

Click image to play video

Shooting with flash

It’s been a slow process but over the past year I’ve been slowly incorporating artificial light (flash) into my images. I started with one light, off camera and bounced straight up into the ceiling or into the wall behind me. When I became comfortable with this I added a second, and then a third light.

Several weeks ago I spent some time shooting with Scott and let him mentor me through some flash only shoots. Sorting through my images, at the end of the day, made me laugh so I thought I’d share my pain experience with you.