By Jack Reznicki

Mid-number software upgrades rarely impress me. When Adobe’s Creative Suite had an inter-number upgrade, from 5.0 to 5.5, I was expecting just the usual bug fixes and minor adjustments. But buried in After Effects is a real “WOW!!” feature I would expect in a whole-point release. This new feature should really amaze and wow video shooters and the vast army of still shooters venturing into the video realm. The name for this feature, Warp Stabilization sounds like a feature you’d hear in an old Star Trek episode. “Captain, the Wrap Stabilization has seized up! She can't hold on much longer!”

Warp Stabilization is just Adobe’s name for a feature that takes shaky video footage and, well, stabilizes it to look like you used a Steadicam or shot the scene with your camera mounted on a dolly. It really doesn’t sound like much until you see it in action. Then your jaw drops. To me this feature alone is worth the total price of After Effects. The first video here is the raw footage, and the video embedded below it is the stabilized version.

What really blows my mind is not just what it does, which is amazing and magical, but the fact that it’s so automatic and simple. It’s drag and drop. There have been ways to stabilize shaky sequences before, but you had to know what you were doing, you had to find a fixed point, play with the parameters, input numbers. It took a lot of time, skill and praying. With CS 5.5, you drag and drop Warp Stabilization adjustment into the video sequence and After Effects does it all in a shockingly easy and fast way. No entering numbers, moving sliders, or looking up complex steps in the manual. It analyzes the footage on its own, and then processes the clip in the computer’s background, so you can continue working on something else, like more photo editing, web surfing, or solitaire. No waiting for spinning beach balls or slow status bars.

While it’s at it, fixing your shaky take behind the curtain, it also fixes another inherent problem prevalent with DSLR footage—the cursed rolling shutter artifacts. 

By J.R. Hughto

Five years ago, RED announced—with what was to become their signature bravado—that they were going to release a cinema camera that would revolutionize the industry. RED made 4K (4,096x2,304-pixel format) and RAW buzzwords overnight, and they promised that their system had the independent filmmaker in mind at a $17K price point. When the dust settled, it took over a year for RED to release what actually turned out to be a revolutionary camera, the RED One, though the actual cost to get a camera ready to shoot had ballooned to nearly $50K. That $17K price point, huge by amateur standards but a bargain in the film industry where cameras cost as much as Ferraris, must have remained in company founder Jim Jannard's mind, because on Thursday night RED finally released a camera that not only made good on their technological promises but on the dollar amount. RED's new Scarlet-X, the company’s less expensive companion to their higher-end EPIC, can indeed be set up ready to shoot for right around that $17K figure, depending on how many batteries or SSDs (RED’s recording medium) you wish to purchase.

(See how RED Epic is used in a wedding video trailer from Tonaci Visuals.)

RED’s announcement of the Scarlet-X came only hours after Canon had announced their own brand new cinema camera, the EOS C300, priced very similarly to the Scarlet-X at $20K retail with a rumored $16K street price. Based on the success Canon has enjoyed with their video-shooting DSLRs, and in the wake of the announcement of the March release of their flagship EOS-1D X, the C300 is a purpose-built video camera that bears the EOS label and marks the company’s first official foray into a market segment traditionally dominated by Panasonic and Sony.

Canon wasn't satisfied with simply announcing the C300, however. They went on to explain that the C300 was the first in a new Cinema EOS brand that would not only produce video-only cameras like the C300, but also include future DSLR releases designated with the new C that represents the line. Whether this means the well-equipped 1D X or the long-awaited 5D Mark III will be the first of the breed remains to be seen. Regardless, Canon seems to be finally taking the video side of their large-sensor cameras seriously by developing well-considered and designed responses to a rapidly changing camera industry and a more technically demanding user base.

When stacking the principle competition in the price bracket against each other, what advantages do each offer? All three prominent rivals—the previously released Sony PMW-F3, the Canon EOS C300, and the RED Scarlet-X—have Super 35mm sized sensors (roughly the same size of Canon’s APS-C format in use by cameras like the 7D). The Scarlet-X seems to have stolen Canon’s thunder in large part due to their 4K RAW recording, a feature that no other camera can boast in the price class. RED CEO Jim Jannard went so far as to boast that “1080 as a concept is discontinued”; RED’s always had the best hyperbole. Jannard described the camera as a 5K stills shooter as well as a 4K cinema camera, and when configured as such it is highly reminiscent of the Pentax 67ii, that old beast of a medium-format shooter that so many 35mm shooters preferred due to its SLR styling. By emphasizing the Scarlet-X’s still photography capabilities, he both distinguishes it further from the C300 and the Sony F3, and also places it in competition with still-image-priority cameras like the EOS-1D series. In fact, the RED has been used for magazine cover shoots for Vogue, Esquire and Vanity Fair due to its capability of pulling a single, RAW frame at 4K.

By Jeff Kent

Vanessa Joy and Rob Adams are a husband-wife, photographer-videographer team that has been pioneering a progressive, and profitable, approach to the fusion of still photography and video. Joy handles the photography while Adams provides videography and video production services. Their partnership has earned them The Knot’s “Best of Weddings” 2010 award, WeddingWire’s 2010 Bride's Choice Award, numerous publications in magazines, and an eager clientele clamoring for their next big thing in fusion.

Joy and Adams, who are partners but run separate businesses, began offering fusion wedding coverage in 2009 and have spent the last two years perfecting their style, their workflow and their presentation. They stress that fusion is not wedding documentary video; it’s meant to augment the still imagery, not replace a videographer. As such, they caution against making guarantees about what moments will be captured on video. “Fusion is a subjective concept just meant to enhance the photography,” says Joy. “If a client wants a full wedding video, that is a different thing entirely.”

Of course, the ultimate point of fusion is to boost your bottom line. What’s the point of learning all of this if you’re not going to make money? Most fusion products revolve around a multimedia slideshow that incorporates still images, video clips and music. You can burn the slideshow to a disc or flash drive and then sell it to clients as an add-on or part of a package. Several album makers are now producing fusion albums that incorporate space for a digital display, such as an iPod, iPad or even an LCD screen sewn right into the fabric of the book cover.

Joy and Adams also sell digital fusion albums that can be viewed on computers or pad devices, or set up on a video screen and played on a loop. The layout is similar to a magazine-style album, except there is a mix of still images and video clips. The viewer turns the page, virtually speaking, and sees different images and different clips on each page.

For a fusion slideshow, which Adams creates with Animoto, the charge is $600. A fusion album runs upwards of $1,000. Joy and Adams offer these products not only for weddings but for portrait shoots, trash-the-dress sessions and other events.

Take a look at these examples of their Wedding Fusion Album, and an Engagement Session Fusion Slideshow.

Building trust and forming connections with Web-based videos

When Jasmine Star opened her Irvine, Calif., wedding photography business, one priority was to create an introductory video for her website. The impetus grew from her experience as a bride-to-be a few years earlier. Searching for a photographer, she saw such a video on the website of David Jay of Santa Barbara, and found it both engaging and disarming. Star knew video would play a pivotal role in her Web marketing.

“When you enter a website, there’s usually a transactional feeling,” says Star. “But video gives a perspective on the personality of the photographer.”

The video is working. About half of Star’s clients book her purely on what they see on her website. “One bride said my videos were a decision maker she didn’t want a stranger photographing her wedding, but a friend. I talk about becoming friends with my brides in my video, and that convinced her.”  

By Ron Dawson

If you decide to take up the craft of DSLR filmmaking, one of the things you will quickly realize is that shooting video is very different from shooting photos. One of the key differences is that unless you are extremely experienced, hand-held video shot with a DSLR will look terrible. It’ll be too shaky, resulting in significantly lower production quality than stabilized footage. The other thing you’ll notice is that trying to focus with an LCD screen is extremely difficult, especially at the wider apertures where depth of field is very shallow. These cameras were just not ergonomically designed to shoot video. As usual, Mother Necessity has led the way to a whole sub-industry dedicated to providing gear that helps the DSLR filmmaker shoot proper video.

Zacuto, based in Chicago, Ill., is one of the leaders in that industry. Created by veteran Emmy-award-winning film and video producers Steve Weiss and Jens Bogehegn, one of the reasons their gear has become so well known is because they bring more than 50 combined years of industry experience. I had the opportunity to try out three of their most popular DSLR accessories: the Z-Finder Pro, the Target Shooter, and the Striker.

The Z-Finder Pro: The Z-Finder Pro is perhaps Zacuto’s number-one DSLR accessory. It is an optical viewfinder that connects to the back of the DSLR, magnifiying the LCD live view image. If you’re using manual focus, this allows you to dial-in focus and keep it there as you shoot. It also blocks out glare from additional light sources like the sun. It also serves as an additional point of contact to get steadier shots. The more points of contact you can have, the more stability you have. When you hold a DSLR up to and against your eye with the Z-Finder Pro, you now have three POCs: two hands and your face. 

When the Z-Finder first came out, you had to physically glue it to the back of your DSLR. It could be detached, but it was an awkward setup. Now they’ve designed it with a mounting frame and base plate that screws into to your tripod mount socket. You can adjust the Z-Finder to the left or right depending on the camera, and you can even add plastic extenders to push the Z-Finder farther out from the back of the camera, allowing you to adjust the focus on the Z-Finder itself to match your eyesight.

I found it very easy to use and extremely effective at monitoring focus. Of all the optical viewfinders on the market, it is the one chosen by high-profile DSLR filmmakers such as Vincent Laforet and Philip Bloom. If you’re doing a lot of moving around, it will be a key accessory in your tool kit.