5 Stock Footage Clips Spill the Beans

 A few days ago, I posted a question on our Facebook and Twitter pages asking people to complete this phrase:

Post by Beachfront B-Roll: Free HD Stock Footage.

Only one person at the time of this posting had replied and he said "Coffee Beans".  In all honesty, I've had that one on my "to-do" list for quite some time and this was the kick in the butt I needed to get up and just do it.  I shot it a couple of times trying different pour speeds and thought I'd include the variety for you.  My personal favorite is the one that is left justified.  For those of you who read these posts often, you'll know I am a big fan of including negative space.

PS - For those of you interested, the beans are being poured into a giant wooden bowl which helped keep the action in one place.  It was shot with my trusty F&V R-300 ring light as the primary/only source and I used my Sigma 24mm Macro lens at a f1.3 (thanks to my Metabones Speedbooster lens adapter) to get the very shallow depth of field.

PPS - Also, for those coffee aficionados, the beans I used was an organic, fair trade, Honduran coffee from Trader Joe's.   Please don't judge me on that one way or another..   :)



 You can preview and download the clips by clicking "read more" below.  Happy Downloading!

As always, please e-mail, like us or share this on facebook, tweet, google plus, pinterest or do whatever you can to spread the word about this site. Thanks!

These videos were shot using the Sony NEX-FS700 and a Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG Lens

1 Stock Footage Clip is Limited

This is a shot that I've been wanting to get for a while.  I love traffic time lapse shots.  I find them very useful when trying to tell a story.  They can be used to shot the passage of time or a change in location beautifully.  I also like how this shot has something stationary and prominent in the foreground, yet being a radar, still shows a lot of motion.

You can preview and download the clips by clicking "read more" below.  Happy Downloading!

As always, please e-mail, like us or share this on facebook, tweet, google plus, pinterest or do whatever you can to spread the word about this site. Thanks!

This video was shot using a Sony NEX-FS700

1 Stock Footage Clip is Uplifting

Something I've enjoyed doing with the FS700 is capturing clouds by shooting at 1-2 fps using the camera's adjustable frame rate feature.  Doing something like that in the DSLR is tricky because it takes some time to write the information onto the card from the buffer and usually you can't get a reliably smooth time lapse.  The video is also compiled in-camera, meaning instant playback.  With my T2i, I need to load it into the computer, compile it, and render it in order to see what I got. Obviously the benefit to DSLR time lapses is the ability to record higher than HD in the RAW format.

I was able to catch this great cloud swell the other day and wanted to share it with you.  Those of you who have been following the blog might know that I am a big fan of negative space in my shots (even though I try to properly frame everything to keep it as "stock" as possible).  I was hoping to have the formation hold at the bottom third of the screen, but the billow that happens is pretty cool too.  I've been told that you can't have too many cloud clips, so i hope you don't mind one more!


You can preview and download the clip by clicking "read more" below.  Happy Downloading!

As always, please e-mail, like us or share this on facebook, tweet, google plus, pinterest or do whatever you can to spread the word about this site. Thanks!

This video was shot using a Sony NEX-FS700

1 Stock Footage Clip is Hoppy

Being a beer lover, it was inevitable that I would release at least one shot of the delicious brew.  It also gave me good practice at "product shots" (an area I've been interested in moving in to for a while).  I've also been wanting to expand my stock footage categories to include food and drink, so I need enough clips warrant it's own section.

If I learned anything from this shoot, it would be that cloth gloves are a MUST when working with both HD and glass items.  I could not get this pint glass clean enough!  This released footage is the best shot I got, and this is after processing the clip, as individual image files, through a batch action script created in Photoshop to utilize it's "content-aware fill' feature on EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF DUST.  The result isn't half bad.  The pour could have been better, and from what I hear, the trick is to slightly "de-carbonate" the drink with a tiny bit of sugar before filling the glass, to reduce the amount of head the pour produces.  Leave a comment below if you've had better luck using a different method.

I used my trusty F&V R-300 LED Ring Light again to light this clip.  It was pretty handy.  I put the light, face-up on the counter and placed the pint glass in the open center. I was pleased with the amount of light it produced without flicker, considering a frame rate of 240 fps and a shutter speed of 1/500.

(PS. For those Beer Enthusiasts out there who MUST know, this is a Shoals Pale Ale from Smuttynose Brewing Company; My absolute favorite is the Old Brown Dog, but I was afraid of the darker color my first time out)


You can preview and download the clip by clicking "read more" below.  Happy Downloading!

As always, please e-mail, like us or share this on facebook, tweet, google plus, pinterest or do whatever you can to spread the word about this site. Thanks!

This video was shot using a Sony NEX-FS700

1 Stock Footage Clip is Seeing Stars

Usually twice a year, the family and I travel about 90 miles outside of the city to a very small town in a valley to visit my wife's grandmother.  It is a wonderful place free of things like cell signals, which force you to be more "connected" to the people and things around you.  I've brought my camera down ever since I have started this blog in order to get star time lapses (something I cannot do in the light polluted city limits).  Since we don't go that often, rarely do i have a clear sky to capture (this was the only other one I've been able to get).  This past weekend gave me the perfect opportunity though and I was excited to employ the A/C adapter for my camera that tested so well during the "rotting banana" time lapse.  I also came this time with a much more scientific/mathematical approach to shooting vs. my previous star time lapse.

Most notably, I was able to put into practice something called the "500 rule" which is a calculation that you can perform to figure out how long you can keep your shutter open before you start to capture "star trails" instead of stars.  The formula goes as follows: 500/ (lens focal length) = max. shutter duration in seconds.  I was using my Sigma 24mm f/1.8 lens on my Canon T2i.  The Rebel line of Canon cameras has a 1.6x crop factor that needed to be included as well.  So my calculation was a followed: 500/(24 times 1.6) = 13.  So I had the max time my shutter could be open (13 seconds), I ended up dialing it back 1 second for safety.  Since I was focusing to "infinity" the depth of field did not matter on the camera, so I was able to keep it wide open at f/1.8.  These two known values allowed me to then dial in my ISO to something that would allow me a good exposure.  I settled on 800.  So for those of you interested, this sequence was shot RAW at f/1.8, ISO 800 and a shutter speed of 12 seconds.  I set the intervalometer in my Magic Lantern hacked firmware to 16 seconds, allowing my camera 4 extra seconds to write the RAW file out of the buffer to the 32GB card.  1,464 images later (or 6.5 hours) and what you see below is what I can offer you.

I plan on going back to the RAW files and trying my hand at creating a star trail time lapse by gradually stacking the images.  This is obviously something that will take a while, so I wanted to initially post this video for people who might be able to find a good use for it.  The lights on the trees are actually from trains that pass through town.  I was amazed that the images picked the light from them up.


You can preview and download the clips by clicking "read more" below.  Happy Downloading!

As always, please e-mail, like us or share this on facebook, tweet, google plus, pinterest or do whatever you can to spread the word about this site. Thanks!

This video was shot using a Canon EOS Rebel T2i and a Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG Lens