Wednesday, May 20, 2015

1 Completely Free Stock Footage Clip Blows

I had much different expectations when I tried to capture this clip.  Working again with my macro lens and it's razor thin and shallow depth of field, it became very obvious that I would need an extremely controlled environment in order to capture what I originally wanted.  What is here, while not what I planned, is the organized chaos you find in a lot of projects that wish to depict kind of "dream-like" emotions.

Honestly, I can't take credit for this one.  None of the stuff here was intentional.  The shifting depth of field wasn't due to camera work, but from the movement of the dandelion while it was being blown and held.  The shot also looks handheld, but it is on a tripod.  I discounted it the minute it wrote to the the SD card and didn't even look at it for a while after, just moved on to the next idea.  When things slowed down and I had a chance to sit down, I was very pleased at what I found.  Everything is working against itself, and you know what, it works! Hope you can use it!

You are welcome to use it in your projects you are working on, or keep it in your clip library for future work.The only thing you cannot do is turn around and offer it AS stock footage. Have fun with it!

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


extreme close up of a dandelion and it's seeds, the background is heavily out of focus


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


Thursday, April 30, 2015

2 Free Stock Footage Clips Are Over the Hill

Ever since I first tried my macro lens, I knew I wanted to try getting a shot like this. I happened to notice a few ant colonies popping between up my backyard patio stones, saw the sun was hitting them perfectly, ran and got my camera and viola!

You can see the ants are busy carrying sand out of the hill, they must still be in the early building stages. The clips are from 2 separate hills. The lens crates a razor thin depth of field. From some of the shots I took, ants would turn sideways, and I couldn't get their entire body in focus. I am thankful for the FS700's "End Trigger" ability which allows me to capture the footage at 240p AFTER I've seen the action. I waited around for these buggers to hang out in the "sweet spot" for long enough that I felt like it could be a usable clip. If you look closely in the background of both clips, you can see that there is actually a lot of commotion, the focus drops off so quickly though that it is tough to focus on all of it.

I hope you enjoy these two clips. You are welcome to use them in your projects you are working on, or keep them in your clip library for future work.The only thing you cannot do is turn around and offer them AS stock footage. Have fun with 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!

These videos were 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



Tuesday, April 21, 2015

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


Sunday, April 5, 2015

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!


free stock footage of a sparkler on camera slightly out of focus in the background with some beautiful bokeh


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


Thursday, April 2, 2015

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


Friday, March 27, 2015

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!


A macro focused close up an lcd monitor with red, green and blue subpixels being displayed.  The screen displays the beginning of a web address in a computer browser.


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


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

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


Monday, March 16, 2015

1 Free Stock Footage Clip Is Being Fast Tracked

I've actually had this clip in my library for a descent amount of time and forgot about it.  Sorry!

I had the opportunity to go to New York City for a production I was helping shoot, and captured this in some off time.  Unique to this, and missing from a lot of my other clips, ambient audio IS included. There was nothing recognizable, so I felt comfortable leaving it in.  It also helps in adding a little atmosphere.  The video and audio is loop-able, so it would be useful as a background and might even be applicable as a plate shot for you VFX people.  Hope you find it helpful!!!!

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


An out of focus (blurry) image of a subway car speeding by.  Focus is due to motion blur.


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


Tuesday, March 10, 2015

2 Free Stock Footage Clips Are Key

Since I've lived in my current place, I've had this old piano in the basement.  It was left there when the old homeowners moved out.  While it is need of some crucial TLC, I don't have it in my heart to get rid of it.  I've cleaned it up quite a bit, and what you even see here was after a considerable about of dusting (The hammers were gray when I started!).  I took the opportunity, while I had it opened up, to catch a couple of clips to offer here.

What you see is my FS700 with my Sigma 180mm macro lens lit with my F&V R-300 Ring light.  I would have liked to have a few more light sources so I could have closed my iris a bit and opened up the field of view a little more and still capture it at 240 frames per second.

I am happy with what I could get, I am glad I did it, and I am glad I learned what I need to do better.  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!

These videos were 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