Sunday, April 18, 2010

It has begun!

Carl Zeiss Cine Lenses Target HDSLR Filmmakers This June

Carl Zeiss Cine Lenses Target HDSLR  Filmmakers This JuneLater this June, well-known lens manufacturer Carl Zeiss will begin offering a line of Compact Prime CP.2 lenses with the discerning HDSLR filmmaker in mind.

The new is no surprise, really, given the versatility and functionality that HDSLR rigs have shown over the past year in the film making space. As you may recall, the season finale of House was shot entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II. That's one example of mainstream acceptance, and there are many more.

Anyway, the Compact Prime CP.2 lenses are rumored to be compatible with Nikon F, Arri PL, and Canon EF mounts. There's also a lightweight Zoom LWZ.2 lens that will presumably offer similar mount compatibility:

Carl Zeiss Cine Lenses Target HDSLR  Filmmakers This JunePricing, unfortunately, will probably arrive a bit closer to the rumored June release date. [DPReview via Engadget]


Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Product Shots

This blog seems to have died down a little, but no worries, I'm here to bring some life!
So a prospective client called our office today asking how much we would charge to do some product shots for her cafe. Pictures of just a few random items; coffee bags, coffee mugs, poetry book, old bearded man, typical things you find in a cafe. Anyways, my boss turns to me and says, you can do product photography right? And I assertively reply, "OF COURSE I CAN, I WENT TO FULL SAIL", (minus the Full Sail part). Then I start to think, I don't know how to do real product shots, I better figure this out! So long story longer, I did some quick research, and found a picture of a sweet little contraption that is basically the poor mans product shot set-up.
Here is a picture of my set up.















If you already have lights and a camera, then the set-up should only cost like $2, for reals. Its a box, with holes cut in it, white t-shirt stretched over the holes, and then some poster board laid down on the inside, and BOOM, super diffused lighting set-up. Here are some shots I took as soon as I finished making it (which took a while cuz i'm retarded with craft type things).

In these pictures I'm using two standard work lights that you can buy from home depot, and one little 800W photography light that my boss owns. I was gonna use a 500W photo light instead of the work lights, but I broke the bulb.


































Things I learned from this fun project:
- Always urinate before you begin the build. Having to pee right when you get into it is a major flow killer (pun intended!)
- The box is designed so that you can light from above also, it would have been nice to have a boom stand of some sort to see what kind of results I could have gotten with overhead light.
-Have extra posterboard around. As you can see in some of the pics, it gets scuffed very easily/quickly.
-Make two light boxes. One for short long objects, and another for skinny tall objects (Or use a refrigerator box and make HUGE super duper light box)
-Don't break light bulbs, I was bummed that I couldn't throw more light at the box, especially on the fill side.
-When you do your first test shots, shoot something that isn't BLACK, i should of shot something with bright colors just to see how it would look.

So what do you guys think?

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Adobe Photoshop CS5



Holy shit! look at this magic. this utterly blows my mind. I'm so excited to buy this soon

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Very cool short

Just wanted to share this short I found on Vimeo the other day. Its very well shot, and I love the concept.

APRICOT - Short Film by Ben Briand (sponsored by his incredible actors and crew) from Moonwalk Films on Vimeo.

Thursday, March 11, 2010


So I wanted to share this with you guys. An amazing opportunity has been placed in my lap. A longtime friend of my family works for Red Bull and is the project manager for a video blog competition for the Flugtag event this summer. Over the span of two months they are going to travel to 5 different cities and film content for the "show". She has asked me to be the camera/editor. Crazy! I'm quite nervous abut it and unsure whether I'm skilled enough to pull it off. Any words of encouragement would be appreciated. Also any tips would bee cool. Please don't hate me if I start calling you guys constantly about how to do this and that.We all know I'm not the best editor among us. But anyway...I miss all of you and hope everything is going well. No scratch that I hope everything is going freaking awesome!!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Status Update

I feel like it's getting harder to keep tabs on everyone, so I thought at this 6 month post-full sail part of our lives everyone should update on what they are doing with life.

I had a phone interview with the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday afternoon. It went very well, and they will be letting me know about the position by next week. The guy sounded like it was pretty much a done deal. He told me to start pricing apartments in Cincy.

What are you doing with your lives?