Friday, June 6, 2014

1 Stock Footage Clip Walks into my Parlour

I've spend a couple of mornings these past few weeks in a small wooded/park area, with the few minutes I have in-between dropping my kids off at daycare and starting my full time job, challenging myself to some high-speed macro shooting with my FS700 and Sigma 24mm Macro lens.  My goal was to get clips of some male mosquitoes (since they are abundant here and they don't bite) flying around dreamily in slow motion. I usually walk away without any usable footage but a game plan for something new to try the next day.   The razor-thin depth of field when shooting macro made following around a very small bug, that flies VERY fast, quite a feat.  I took a break from chasing them around when I noticed this spider in a web lit very well by the rising sun.  Amazingly, in between hitting record and the camera actually beginning the record, one of the mosquitoes flew into the web!!!  It was an incredible thing to catch, considering I was already set up to shoot/expose at 240fps.  I was also channeling my inner J.J. Abrams with that lens flare popping into the shot.  Hope you can use it!!!

Fun side project: In your NLE, take the video clip and speed it up 10x to see the real speed in which this whole thing happened.


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


Free Royalty Free Footage of a mosquito caught in a spiderweb being eaten


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


Sunday, June 1, 2014

3 Stock Footage Clips Take a Leak

One of the more popular tools in an editor's toolkit nowadays is the "Light Leak".  The idea is to simulate the old style "imperfect" capture of footage on film when light would sneak in between the lens camera or through the film door (if it has been worn down).  It is now a popular effect and is used as a storytelling device/visual cue to simulate flashbacks, or even act as a transition.  Usually these files are imported into your NLE and put over another clip and blended using an "overlay" effect.  Previously, I released a clip that was kind of like a light leak, but thought I should have some practical ones for people to use as well.

I created these by leaving the lens off of my T2i and tested out different lighting setups hitting the bare sensor (risky I know!!!).

There are three different types below.  The "Hard Edge" clip helps simulate a shifted or poorly threaded film frame during playback.  The "Fast Motion" clip would be helpful as a accompaniment to a whip pan or really any other type of transition.  The "Soft Focus" clip is what you would typically consider your most common leak, gently filling parts of the frame with light.  Hopefully you will be able to find good uses or at least one of these.



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

Free Royalty Free Footage of a lightleak that could be used an an overlay effect
Free Royalty Free Footage of a fast moving lightleak effect that can be used as an overlay
Free Royalty Free Footage of a lightleak effect that is an out of focus bokeh for overlays


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These videos were shot using a Canon EOS Rebel T2i

Saturday, May 24, 2014

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:




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

Thursday, May 8, 2014

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


Sunday, April 27, 2014

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