Lens curator S05E09
The ninth edition of Lens Curator’s fifth season brings you 5 new excerpts from the world of photography and videography. This month we take a look at manual focus, image stabilization, cuts as vfx, portrait retouching and ‘three color rule’
Nail your focus when shooting video
Modern-day mirrorless cameras are close to perfecting the continuous autofocus feature, making day to day shooting for videographers MUCH easier. But still, the autofocus is not 100% accurate (even though it’s getting there), and truth be told not everyone has the budget to acquire new Sony or Canon flagships. So most of us have to fiddle around with the manual focus. Luckily most modern cameras come with a variety of manual focus assistance features (focus peaking being one) which paired with a bit of practice, can make you pretty proficient. Check out this video from Saurav Sinha and find out how to get better manual focus.
Move over IBIS, gyro is taking over!
Image stabilization. The unicorn of modern shooters. If it’s not smooth, don’t even bother putting that shot in your cut. Gimbals (and ninja walk) are already becoming a standard for video shooters and IBIS (Internal Body Image Stabilization) a wet dream. Digital internal stabilization is just not looking natural yet and most of the footage shot on those cameras has a jello effect. But Sony (who else?) is yet again at the forefront of the invention with their Catalyst Browse software which seems to do the impossible. Check out the video from Brandon Li and see for yourself. Smooth gimbal-free footage is apparently just around the corner.
When editing cut becomes a visual effect
Modern cinema relies heavily on CGI to perform visual effects. And for the most part, it does the trick. But just a couple of decades ago, we didn’t have powerful computers and software to execute those things for us. DOPs and editors had to rely on visual trickery and their own resourcefulness to accomplish those effects. For instance, using cuts. Especially movies that rely on long takes (imitating a ‘one-take’ movie) like ‘Birdman’ and ‘1917’, use hidden cuts to assemble the story. Ponysmasher has more info in this great video.
Get rid of that dreadful double chin
When photographing portraits, a double chin is one of the most requested things to retouch from your clients. Luckily, it’s not so hard to execute, like you’ll see in this video from Piximperfect.
Steer your viewers with the Two Color Rule
Filmmaker Sareesh Sudhakaran from Wolfcrow explains the use of heavy two-tone color grading in film
A Boletus aficionado who loves to get lost in the woods. He's still holding dearly to his OG Canon 5DmII while claiming that the play button is the apex call-to-action button on the web.
