2 Free Stock Footage Clips are Narcissus-tic

Spring is finally here and with it come the beautiful blooming flowers.  I have a wealth of these daffodils (narcissus) in my backyard and have always wanted to try capturing this bulb blooming through a time lapse.  I initially set up my camera outside at a group of daffodils that looked ready to open.  The intervalometer on my T2i took pictures every 25 seconds for 6 hours without the petals opening at all.  With no more sunlight, I packed up and waited until the next day.  I did take the image files and compile a short preview and what I saw was the flowers moving around so much due to outside wind that I knew I wasn't going to get a descent looking image if they were to bloom, so the next morning I took out a pot and some potting soil and moved one of bulbs inside.  I set up a makeshift studio on my tool bench with a white foam core background.  I set the camera to take a picture every 25 seconds again and left it to work.  Coming back I had noticed that the stem had slowly moved the flower closer to my light source and slightly out of frame.  The flower did not open yet, so I braced the stem just out of frame with a thick copper wire and then set the intervalometer to take a picture once every minute (hey, if it is going to take a while, might as well take a while).  A let the camera go for a day and a half and came back to a full SD card and a fully bloomed flower.  I had my fingers crossed when previewing the images and luckily it bloomed before I ran out of space. YAY!

Since the original RAW image is quite large, I was able to create two video files for you.  The close up is an real size 1:1 crop of the larger image and the wide is a scaled (resized) image to fit into the HD frame.  What is nice is these files should be timed in sync so when you lay them together on a timeline you could seamlessly cut between the two.

So not bad for my first experience with capturing growing plants.  I'll eventually like to get some grass and vegetables, but as for now, this is pretty nice.  Hope they help and hope you can use them!

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

1 Completely Free Stock Footage Clip Is All Flash and No Bang

Included among my party popper purchase was also some sparklers.  I wanted to sparks and clip to be sort of an obscure background with the embers being somewhat out of focus with some beautiful bokeh.  I passed a couple in front of the camera and thought that they worked out pretty well.  Hopefully the clip will be useful to illustrate a celebration or festival, or to be used as an overlay or special effect.

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 Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens

1 Completely Free Stock Footage Clip Is Never the Same

This is probably the last remnant of the Northern Hemisphere's winter snowfall season.  This was taken very late at night, late March.  I was getting the house set up for my newly 5 year old's birthday party the next morning when I looked outside to see HUGE snowflakes falling from the sky.  An inch or so already on the ground, I thought it would be another good test for my 180mm macro lens.  Since it was so late and I knew I was going macro, I used my trusty R-300 ring light as a source.  It worked out well, since the very white snow is a natural bounce.  I panned an area of our backyard picnic table searching for a good flake since it was the same height as where the camera was on the tripod, so I could get pretty close.  The ring light hit this one icy flake in particular and the peaking on my camera (which is used to help focus) went crazy.  What a perfect snowflake!  I tried a couple of different speeds, but went with the normal real time in the end.  The depth of field is so razor thin, you really can't see how hard it is snowing, and the slow motion produced almost a still image.  At it's current speed, you can also see how fast the flakes were falling due to their enormous size and of course weight.  As with the computer screen in my last post, a lot of close up snowflake shots are now done digitally, so I though a real life one would be a good option for those of you in need of something like this.  Hope you can use it!


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 and the Sigma 180mm F2.8 EX APO DG HSM OS Macro with a Metabones EF to NEX Speedboster Adapter

1 Free Stock Footage Clip Is Following Protocol

Here is one of your more "typical" stock footage shots.  A lot of them are created digitally in a program like after effects, which is nice because you are able to produce a smooth clean look.  This shot is completely practical, taken from a real LCD monitor, and I learned quite a bit from shooting it.  Using my 180mm macro lens, I was able to get quite close to the screen (as you can obviously see).  What you see here is the red, blue, and green subpixels that make up each pixel in this LCD screen.  The subpixels are able to be addressed separately and help with things like font smoothing when viewed with the human eye.  I found this fascinating, because originally I thought it was an lens byproduct from poor focus called "Chromatic Aberration".  Seeing the red, green, blue pattern though, 2 things are clear.  This IS a pretty cool example of subpixeling, and this lens kicks some butt!

I've given a few address options in the clip.  You'll get the typical "http://www.", the "https://www", the "ftp://" and the "www.".    It wasn't until uploading the file that I realized I should have also included "192.169.1." into this group as well.  Sorry for that.


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 and the Sigma 180mm F2.8 EX APO DG HSM OS Macro with a Metabones EF to NEX Speedboster Adapter

1 Free Stock Footage Clip Is Ready to Pop

What you see here is a collection of 6 party poppers in super slow motion.  Right off the bat, I'll admit that this clip as not exactly as exciting and dynamic as I hoped it "COULD" be.  It is the extent of what I think I have legally do personally with "explosives" in the great state of New York.  While I am somewhat kidding, there really wasn't much more I could have added that would have been possible while doing something in a small studio setup in my home.  As this site and my capabilities grow, I hope to offer more than just a few novelty favors.

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 Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens