Archive for March, 2013

Continuing dance project

March 25, 2013

well every once in a while, maybe i need to rethink my projects and life sooner, maybe change this thinking thing to daily,but  i get to add new skills in my life. photography seems to be down pretty good but  now playing with both still and motion stuff.  i’d like to be able to add slideshows link on here. moving to final cut pro x soon, i’ve the free 30 day download and it’s been pretty cool.

much different than the old days of sitting with stacks of tape cassettes in front of a linear sony editing machine. but both linear or digital editing eat up hours of one’s life. well what doesn’t burn brain cells? just sitting in mobile on the couch eats them up so might well put them to good use. try to create  something beautiful which is what i am doing with this video piece.

so here is the utube ‘mother earth’ opening  sequence here in case the embedded link below doesn’t work.

along with some of the still images here

Mother Earth

Mother Earth opening sequence

mother earth mother earth mother earth mother earth mother earth

it must be that kind of a day since i can’t upload these images on my web site and this upload is a bit weird but hey at least it worked better than Photoshelter today. UGH. maybe it’s time to find another web hosting site. so when i get back to nyc and my other computer i’ll try again. i am doing the best i can is all i can say,  who among us is perfect?

this must be right because i read it in a neswpaper

this must be right because i read it in a newspaper

this adam & eve mother earth is a work in progress and being developed as i write this, this is where we are at so far. looking out my window at grey skys  waiting for another snow storm. mel torme on the cd player……….ah to have a shovel in my hands instead of a camera, that’s what i live for. at least wordpress is here for me. thank you

so this is the news of the day today.

jene

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What to do if you drop your camera in the water besides cry: How to perform CPR on a drowned DSLR

March 21, 2013

How to perform CPR on a drowned DSLR

July 01, 2012

Peter Hill, Sydney Australia

Speaking from experience (several times), there’s a few things you can do to help save your treasured DSLR from an early death from drowning. I’m not guaranteeing resuscitation in all cases, because water in your camera’s body is a complete variable, I’m just passing on what I’ve learnt.

As with humans, time is of the essence when trying to save your drowned camera, especially if you are dealing with salt water. (In such an instance, corrosion starts almost immediately.) Primarily though, we are dealing with electronics so the aim of the game is to get the water out and dry your camera ASAP.

So, here’s some tips, in the order in which they should be done, if your DLSR gets seriously wet. Edit: I’ve changed the order of 1-3 to reflect comments from a techie who knows more about this than me.

1. Take the battery out AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Yes, it doesn’t take more than a nanosecond to turn the camera OFF (which is the least you should do), but even after doing so there are still volts inside going where ever the water goes. If the charge meets that moisture, your electronics will be fried. End of story.

2. Take the card out. Simple step, but in the panic immediately following the drowning it’s easily forgotten. I know I have.

3. Don’t stand there wiping the exterior of the camera body. You are wasting valuable time. You need to get to a heat source ASAP.

4. Did you drive to your shoot? Get to the car pronto. Now take the lens off and wipe as much water as you can from inside the camera with your lens cloth or an absorbent cloth if you have one, without damaging the mirror or sensor. Tissues are NOT recommended because they will separate and strands will be left inside the body. Even shaking the body while holding it downwards will help. Turn on your car’s engine, turn the car’s airconditioning on full-bore and HOT, and hold the body up to the vents. Keep it there as you drive home or to your hotel, or get your passenger to do it if you have one. (Drive safe but don’t dawdle.)

5. Think as you drive home. How much rice do you have? You’ll need a good 4kgs, so if necessary buy some on the way home, but don’t stop for a Big Mac or a pie. Get long grain, basmati, jasmine, whatever. Just get the damn rice, ok?

6. When you get home, grab a blow dryer and give the body’s interior a good going over. (The camera’s, not yours.) Full blast. Give it a good 15-30 minutes or at least until you can’t see any more water and your camera body is nice and warm.

7. Ideally, whilst you are doing the blow job, someone else is grabbing a pillow slip and putting all the rice in it. Now find an item of clothing. The thinner the fabric the better. The BEST item to grab is a thermal top or thermal pants or similar.

8. Insert the camera body into a sleeve (or pant). This is to prevent rice grains from getting inside the body. Don’t “wrap” the item of clothing around the body because you want as little as possible coming between the moisture-sucking rice and the body. Now immerse the body in the rice. If the body is in a sleeve, you can leave the rest of the item of clothing hanging out, just make sure the body is immersed in rice.

9. Put the bag on a table next to a fan. This will help keep moisture from hanging around.

10. Leave the body in the bag of rice for as long as possible. Note that I haven’t said you can turn the camera on. That is the hardest bit – resisting the temptation. Give it a week. Seriously.

11. When you finally can’t wait any more and turn the camera back on, do not leave it on. Turn it back off and put it back in the bag of rice even if the camera seems to be working. CPR by rice takes time.

As I said, no guarantees any of the above will save your drowned buddy, but hopefully you can give it at least your best chance to survive. Bear in mind that repairing a drowned DSLR, if possible, can end up costing nearly as much as getting a new one, if not more.

If anyone has other or better tips, please make them known! (Thanks to Biggzie for his technical input – see his comment below.)

For a full list of all my photography guides, tips, and tutorials, go here.

Cheers
Peter Hill

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Adam & Eve modern dancer performance & video

March 2, 2013

well sitting around watching other dancers and companies i’ve finally gotten off my ass and am trying to use all my training and put a dance together. of course using my friends whom i really enjoy being around, as the Beatle’s said ‘with a little help with my friends’ that’s the way to go.

using the money i spent at UCLA for screen writing courses and independent workshops Robert Mc Kee in Hollywood being one. if you’ve ever been in hollywood and connected to the movie industry this is the one to be at. one heck of a weekend.

what did i do with all this higher learning, wrote produced Karaoke videos in LA. i’d write the script take it to the company who would forward it back to japan wait for approval and budget, find someone to shoot it, pay for all props rentals do all the grunt work then sit in an off line video console and do a off line edit. sometimes banging my head on the table because some idiot camera person would have the seconds  i needed on tape, ugh. unless you’ve been there needing 5 or 10 seconds more, doesn’t sound like a long time but believe me sometimes it’s an eternity. what to do at 2 am with just a pile of tapes on the table?

enough with all this backstory so i opened my mouth with a dancer and now we are off on my Adam & Eve performance shoot. oh yes it’s just not a workshop performance but i want to do a video. how much this will all cost i’ve no idea but it should be fun or a nantucket sleighride .

but we’ve started so here we go. one of the hardest parts is finding the right people, i’ve got two of the three both of whom i’ve worked with.

Juan Michael Porter ll as Adam

Juan Michael Porter ll and Masha as Mother Earth

Masha

Masha

the third part is still open although i’ve talked with a dancer who declined. so the search is still on. posted on craigslist and model mayhem. still waiting.

but there’s a lot to do so we’ve [mary & i ] begun working on the costumes. i shot the first model fitting in my apt/studio just to begin a reference, maybe even start a kickstart opportunity. hey you never know.

Cast is simple: Mother Earth a Russian woman, Adam an African American male, Eve an Asian female. at least this is how i see it now political statement maybe but this earth is peopled by all kinds of colorful things and people. of course a wonderful dancer could change my mind.

Waiting isn’t one of my strong points but sometimes that’s all one can do. how to forge ahead well that what one has and see what develops. how to costume whom, Adam seems easy some sort of loin cloth so his personal parts don’t flop around, now Mother Earth how to portray her? i’ve an idea of making her part tree, part human, that we all come from the earth not just plopped on it.

so we began with this concept

_MG_5709now move the limb see how that works

_MG_5728

_MG_5779

_MG_5777

adding headband

adding headband

now the trick is assembling the costume because of the material, no one can accuse my ideas being simple ones. now move on to another important part the music which i’ve no clue. this weeks assignment.

BTW if an Eve is out there drop me a line.

more to come

Jene

30

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turn your iphone into an incident light meter, way cool

March 1, 2013

Turn Your iPhone into an Incident Light Meter with Luxi

\http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jamesflynn/luxi-incident-light-meter-adapter-for-iphone

We’ve seen some apps for iOS in the past that allow your phone to be used as a light meter, and even though some were very skeptical, there were some tests conducted by Ryan E. Walters showing they can work very well (especially considering their cost). What’s the catch though? Well, because of the design, you’re only ever getting a reflective reading, not an incident reading, which actually measures the light falling upon the object you’re shooting. Using the incident reading can usually be faster and give better and more consistent results, so that’s why a new Kickstarter project called Luxi is aiming to turn any iPhone into an incident light meter.

With digital cameras, light meters can be considered somewhat redundant because pretty much every camera gives information on the scene and has tools to help identify the correct exposure (not to mention you can see what you’re doing). Of course, light meters are still useful, and there are plenty of DPs that use them even on digital sets, but if you’re a little short on cash, they can be an expensive proposition. That’s where Luxi comes in, and I think it’s a fantastic idea to turn any iPhone into an incident meter. The other great thing is that the physical product is being designed App agnostic. Here is some more info on that:

Luxi works with any light meter app that can use the front-facing camera and can be calibrated with an offset. We have tested Luxi with many of the light meter apps available for the iPhone.

We’re excited to tell you that we have been working with the developer who created Pocket Light Meter to create a Luxi mode which is specifically designed to be used with Luxi. Stay tuned for updates on this. We may also work with additional app developers in the future to create more exciting ways to use Luxi.

I also think these kinds of light meters are great as backups if you are on a film set and there is no other way to properly judge exposure. I’ve been in situations where batteries have died and I had no other solution (since many light meters don’t take normal batteries), so leaving something like Luxi in your camera bag or in your car means you’ll always have a pretty cheap last resort backup just in case.

As of right now the project has already hit its goal — and actually surpassed it by a great margin with over a month still left — but you can get your hands on a Luxi for only $19 that will work with either the iPhone 5 or the iPhone 4/4S. They are not planning an Android device at this time simply because of the sheer number of Android phones out there that would all have to have their own specifically designed Luxi.

Head on over to the Kickstarter site to read more about it.

Link: Luxi Incident Light Meter adapter for iPhone — Kickstarter

thank you nofilmschool

jene

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