Red Carpet Fun

Yesterday was not just anyday for Saint Louis. Our city was  lucky enough to be chosen out of 19 cities to be the host of “the Other Guys” movie premiere starring Will Farrel and Mark Wahlberg. The night was filled with lots of fun, fun thats usually reserved for Hollywood bigtimers. I have to say it was great that they came to Saint Louis but even better that Patrick and myself got to go and actually be on the red carpet and film them. Anyways words cant explain how cool it was so heres a short clip  we shot with more at a later time.

Will Ferrell Doing Harry Caray for Harrys daughter from Patrick Fisher on Vimeo.

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Sarah and Matthew Highlight

It’s been awhile since my last blog post, I hope this highlight video makes up for it. Sarah and Matthew agreed to let us shoot their wedding our way (BTW this is a Milestone Pro Films production, my recent partnership and upcoming cinematic style company). We couldn’t have asked for things to go any better than they did. Everything was perfect.
We shot the ceremony with 4 cameras: Canon 7D and 5D mark II were our primary cameras accompanied by our traditional video cameras the Sony Z7U and Panasonic AG-HMC40. Our lens bag included the following glass: Sigma 28-70mm f 2.8, Tamron 10-22mm f3.5-5.6, canon 70-200mm f4L, canon 50mm f1.8, and a Canon 24-105mm f4L.
I hope you all enjoy and feel free to share on FB:).
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Michael and Laura Same Day Edit

This Same Day Edit of Michael and Lauras wedding is the product of my new partnership with Jason Wathen. We have formed Milestone Pro Films together and are ready to take Wedding Videography to the next level. Aside from my baby sitter not showing up, once I got that little problem taken care of the day couldn’t have gone better.
If you like this, stay tuned, because May is a busy month for us. and we’ll have lots of videos popping up soon, including anoth SDE.

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Test post

This is just a test post to see if my blog is automatically posting to facebook.

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Brian and Joanna

It’s been awhile since my last post, but wedding season is finally here and in full swing. I kicked off this season with Brian and Joanna and couldn’t have asked for a better couple to start the year with. Here’s their highlight reel. I hope you all enjoy it.
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Anna and Manuel “A Gifted Wedding”

A couple weeks ago I worked with my partner Jason on a Same Day Edit. We’re quite happy with how it turned out.

Anna Jimenez of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri experienced the wedding of her dreams on January 9, 2010 and it was all no cost to her or her family.

Anna suffers from ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig ’s disease, and is now confined to a wheelchair. Less than three months ago she mentioned to a friend, Dawn Thornton, she regretted not having a beautiful, traditional wedding ceremony as she married her husband Manuel in a small courthouse wedding over 15 years ago. Anna is only 40 years old with 3 small children.

Dawn began contacting local businesses to assist her in making Anna’s dream come true and was amazed at the response!

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Jennifer and Jeff

This is gonna be a short entry since it’s x-mas eve. I just really wanted to get this posted before Christmas for Jennifer and Jeff. Their wedding was a Joy to shoot. Hope you all enjoy, and Merry Chritmas or Happy Holidays (Whichever you prefer)

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Ellen and Jay

I had the pleasure of shooting a wedding last week for Ellen and Jay. A fantastic couple whose wedding site I recommend everyone check out. These two really had a flawless wedding. I’m certain Stephanie Burke, Consultant Extraordinaire, had a little something to do with that. Ellen and Jay got one of the most beautiful fall days this year, and this fall that took a lot of good fortune.
Also, doing their part to make this such a lovely wedding were Lisa Hessel Photography, Boogie Chyld and Millenium Music. I’m looking forward to working with you all again in the near future.

Until next time, please enjoy this teaser video of their day.

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Opinion of Canon t1i 500d Kiss x3 for videography

I’ve had the T1i Rebel for a few weeks now and have formed a pretty solid opinion. I’ll start by saying that from a video standpoint the T1i does have serious limitations. Auofocus is pretty much useless for video. It’s not a continuous auto focus and would only be useful for a stationary subject. Another serious limitation is there’s not alot of controlability of settings. Shutter speed is set automatically (between 1/30-1/60). Exposure (f-stop and ISO) settings are also automatic, however, if you do a little internet research there are a couple cheats to get around this. Setting Exp lock in a darker area is one way. Setting F-stop in Manual Photo mode and twisting off lens just enough to disable electronic connections is another. There are no audio inputs, but, for what it’s worth, the onboard mic performs surprising well. All that being said, if you don’t mind pulling your own focus (good skill to have anyway) and are comfortable surrendering alot of manual control, You can get some incredible shots with this camera. The larger sensor, interchangable lenses, and film style performance of this DSLR can really pay off. Below is a sample with a very shallow DOF. I have a few other clips I’ll put online soon. Hope somebody finds this useful.

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Videography with the Canon EOS T1i HD Video Mode

I’ve recently had two additions to my family. First is the recent birth of my second child, a beautiful baby girl. Second, and I’m still waiting for the UPS stork, is my recent purchase of the Canon EOS T1i.

I decided to blog about my experience as a videographerr with the T1i because there seemed to be a lack of professional videographers reviewing this camera. I found plenty of still photographers willing to give there opinion as well as show off their shaky hand held footage. I appreciate all the input I can get, however, these reviews were probably as helpful as a review by me of a pro-DSLR.

I’ve been looking for a second HD camera for some time now and surprised even myself when I decided to buy the T1i to fill the need. There were several factors leading to this decision, but I must admit that price helped make it an easy decision. Considering the cheapest (errr least expensive) HD video camera I was even considering was the Panasonic AG-HMC70 (worth a look event videographers) at almost three times the price, I definately decided take a closer look at the T1i. The other non-financial reason for my decision was artistic freedom. The larger sensor, interchangeable lenses and relatively small size, closed the deal.

Since I don’t have the camera yet, this first entry will be a list of what I believe, according to my research, to be the pros and cons of the T1i as used for videography. Currently I use my Canon XH-A1 HDV camcorder as my primary camera. I love this camera for what I do, (wedding and event videography) it is a workhorse. However, I’m hoping the T1i will help me add a bit more style to my projects. The lens on my XH-A1 is fantastic, but when It’s focusing on a 1/3 inch ccd a shallow depth of field can be a bit tricky. I’m not the best at imperical to US conversions, but I believe the sensor in the T1i to be about 20mm give or take, and I figure that to be around twice the surface area as my XH-A1s sensor. I’m not really sure how Canon is getting such great color reproduction out of a single chip compared to the 3 chip (RGB) standards of video, but I’ve seen some footage, and the color reproduction appears fantastic. I also love the thought of being able to put on an actual wide or telephoto lens without having to use the “adapters” required with my XH-A1. Finally the small size of this camera can’t be beat when compared to my XH-A1 or any respectable 3ccd video camer for that matter. I love moving and flying shots. I’ll often use my monopod as a boom or click my camera onto my knock off glidecam. A smaller lighter camera sounds quite desireable.

Now, for what my research turned up to be the cons. The biggest and most reported con, being the lack of a mic/line input and only being equipped with a mono onboard mic. Oh well, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll always have two mics feeding into my XH-A1 not to mention my second videographer usually runs a channel or two of audio himself. I feel I’m pretty well covered in that department and if I need more audio recording options I could go to an off camera solution like a Zoom h2/h4. I don’t even know where I’d put a wireless receiver on an SLR body. I do understand though that this is a major missing component if Canon wants to market this camera to pro videographers. Now that I think about it, they probably don’t want to sell these cameras to videographers when their entry level video cameras start about 4 times the price. Things that make me go Hmmmm (whatever happened to Arsenio?).
An under reported con seems to be the lack of an articulating LCD. Videographers need this feature. I haven’t looked through an EVF since ’97. I’ll have to report more on this inconvenience after I get to shoot a bit. I don’t think they’ll be able to fix this problem with a firmware update, so, I’m guessing I’ll have to deal with it.

It’s my understanding that many of the manual controls may be switched to auto, in video mode. It seems like there are some tricks or workarounds out there (like locking Auto Exposure/Aperture in a darker area). Again, I’ll have to play with the camera a bit and report back in a later entry.

Finally, I’ve read in a few blogs that there’s a 4gb file limit. I’ve found no official info on this on the Canon site. The closest I found was a chart that said a 4GB SDHC card could hold approximately 18minute 720p video at 30 fps.

And that brings me to another serious limitation. 720p only at 30fps. 1080p possible at 20fps! YES, 20fps why even include 1080? A few bloggers seem to think this may be fixable with a firmware update but I don’t really see why they wouldn’t include it off the bat if 1080p 30fps is possible, the 5d II has it. Anyway, I can live with 720p, and since I sell few HD packages as of right now I hope it won’t be an issue for awhile. Not to mention, 720p is perfectly AWESOME quality and many networks broadcast in that format.

Heres a link to the most useful article I found about this subject.

I guess that wraps up my initial “Videography with the Canon EOS T1i” blog entry. I hope this and future entries will be useful to other curious videographers.

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