Light stands

 More Christmas presents to play with so I can move the lights around with ease and point them in any direction.

atli EON Time Lapse Camera

 Trying out a new camera the atli EON Time Lapse camera. First test film seemed ok. Seems to have a good battery life and stitched the photos together automatically to make a film.

More Colour Cards

 Because we use more than one camera, colour grading is really important, as different cameras get differing amount of light from the subject and the only effective way of colour grading it to get all the images the same before you start. And the Model is the best person.

How to make it look real?

 I suppose the best way to make something look real is to really do it. That doesn't stop the planning and the organisation and getting the best angle to see clearly what you are doing.

Lighting Challenge

 The Lighting was certainly a bit of a challenge with this Christmas Cake. All White and silver foil but trying to show some detail. We went for some quite dramatic high contrast lighting to get some shadows.

Depth of Field

 Depth of field is a wonderful tool to try and highlight something as well as using for artistic reasons. Making educational videos sometimes we want to high light something and putting the foreground in focus can focus the user on something we are talking about.

Epson Photo Scanner

 Time to scan in all those photos from years ago. Getting the Christmas stuff down from the loft was also an excuse to bring down boxes of photos to digitise. The @EpsonUK FF-680W photo scanner is great for this, so fast.

New Shock Mount

 New Behringer shock mount arrived. Taken a month or so to come but it holds the microphone nicely and replaces a cheap and rather broken version. Now sitting on the Elgato low rise arm.

Big or little set up

 Its a choice when we make a video. Do we set up a whole studio with lights and mics and multiple cameras, or do we just get out the DJI Osmo and make a natural light video. Both seem to work.

Using a Handgrip

 Using a handgrip with a DSLR for video work is much lighter and easier than a bulky rig.

Tripods

Tripods seem to come in 2 shapes and sizes, either to big and heavy to move, or so light and flimsy that they don't hold anything steady. Trying to find something in between seems difficult unlike this @manfrotto_uk

Coloured Lights

 Sometimes coloured lights have there uses, either for dramatic effect or sometimes to make something show up differently so we can see it in a "new light".

panel light or a spotlight

 What's best the panel light or a spotlight onto a diffuser. I find the light quality is very similar, but the panel lights take up a lot less space and are cheaper can have their shape changed, but possibly less versatile than a spot light.

DJI Osmo

 Sometimes the DJI Osmo is just the right sort of camera to get in and do the shot.

Lenses and distortion

 

There seems to often be just two ways of choosing a lens - this is the only one I have  - I choose the focal length depending upon how wide an angle I want - But better is to choose on what distortion is acceptable. The wider the  lens - usually the smaller the number the worse the distortion gets up to a point then after that as the image get more magnified the image again starts to get more distorted. It depends on what you want and what you are willing to accept. for the image you are creating. Sometimes it is this distortion that you want.

Is there a need to prepare for live streaming again

 Will we be returning to live streaming lessons again after the Christmas break? I suppose we must prepare for it. Still having to do some for Covid infected students.

Ball Diffuser

 Using a @SWIT_America S-2610 Flexible LED Panel with a Ball diffuser over the top of us gives an excellent diffuse light.

hair rim spot light

 Set up a good hair rim spot light today Nobody has noticed the extra hook on the wall - yet and its not everyone who has a lighting rail fixed to their kitchen/dining room ceiling.

Taking the shot

Using a @Benro_UK tripod to get in to the correct position to get that shot. Its very versatile and enables us to get shots that would be difficult with other tripods.

Colour chart

 

We don't seem to be able to go very far creating videos, with multiple cameras without using this for colour grading. It is the only effective way of matching the colours produced by the different cameras. We are using often the same cameras but they have different angles and therefore pick up different lighting effects. In Post Production matching the colour gives a much better look to the video.

Headphones

For teaching, its great to wear a pair of headphones so that I can hear the students, but for other video, podcasts and livestreams it is necessary. It does help me monitor the broadcast and since I don't have a studio team to do it it is sometime necessary.

Rode Podcaster

 The Rode Podcaster has rapidly become our main sound recording system. With really good quality amps the sound is good and the sound is half of the video.

Elgato wave mic arm lp.

 Trying out the @elgato wave mic arm lp. We recently bought the wave mic arm and like how the parts are interchangeable. It will prove useful for many of the camera shots being out of the way.

Snow

A good morning to get out and taken a few pictures as a sprinkle of snow on the cars and roofs make the place look a little prettier. Whenever a little snow falls and it is only a little sprinkling today, it is nice to get out with the camera, especially if the sky clears and there is a great blue sky to go with it.

Copying the files

 Probably the most important job after doing filming. Copying the data to the server and backing it up and then checking it.

Charging Batteries

 It seems that all I do these days is charge batteries - cheaper than buying and on a good day charging is from the solar panels.

Video Editing

 A busy day editing files made over the last few days. Many are for @ArticulateXyz with their new app which launches in a few days.

New NAS

 Using Black Friday to buy a Synology NAS and a few 12Tb Disks to build a new NAs just for all the videos we are making. The amount of storage seems to go up and up. At least this one will hold 15 drives.

Voice Overs

For better voice overs we chose the Roland Rubix 22. I suppose cost had a lot to do with it but it also has midi on it and i need to do some more of this in the future

 

Using a sz-isoball for voice overs

 Using a sz-isoball to get good acoustic isolation when doing some voice overs. A simple acoustic ball with pop filter that fits over the microphone, and improves the sound by 100%

Halo Infinite tutorial with father.

 My son takes me though the Halo Infinite tutorial on YouTube. No one believes that I have been playing at this level for 20 years. https://youtu.be/5VmnmjHiBzk

Making a gaming video

I never knew making a gaming video could be so dangerous. I tried Call of Duty and Halo infinite My son put me in charge whilst he did the filming - the guys were shooting at me.

Extracting Sound using an HDMI Splitter

 Setting up an XBox S for game capturing. In the end we needed a HDMI splitter for the audio. Far more effective than taking a feed from the handset. Using a @rodemics Podcaster and a Blackmagic ATEM Mini ISO.

Testing the new Halo Game out New Video

With the new Halo Game in Beta, My Son and I are working on a new series of videos on this for his YouTube video channel. Halo has been out for 20 years and I have played this with my sons for the past 20 years and it is still one of our favourite games. I must be the only person who has played this game so much and not improved. I was made to go through the new training missions to see if I could improve. You will have to watch the channel to find out if I did improve.

 

Slider

 I haven't used the slider in ages. I got this out  to do some videoing of my son using the XBox for one of his videos. The Konova Slider allows me to pan the slider automatically but centre on the subject, very useful.

Using Xsplit

 Using @Xsplit broadcaster to do some lesson streaming. Works very well with the blackmagic studio cameras and the @wacom 22 inch tablet for drawing on.

New Headphones for Podcasting

We thought that we would splash out on a couple of new pairs of headphones for the Podcasts. The real reason was that one of the sets of headphones was too short, so from now on it will be easier to do the Podcasts and the game streaming. These are a set of Audio-Technica M30X. I couldn't hear any real difference between these and a pair much more expensive, so two matching pairs for the price of one.

XBox Streaming

 All change a different shape to the studio. Recording from the XBox. We were looking at the new tutorial on the Beta version of Halo just out. I have played Halo for the past 20 years and don't seem to have improved much. So we had a look at the new tutorial to see if we could get me going better. Needless to say that failed. We discovered that some of the equipment set up was not as good as it could be - splitting the sound from the Xbox didn't work as well as we wanted so we will need to split the HDMI signal.

Video Conferencing - Use a few lights to help

Just because you are streaming, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't use good lighting. When I talk to many people, the images are unclear, because they don't use enough light. Place a light in front of you to illuminate your face. It doesn't have to be a big light, just ones in the light place. You can place your screens into a window so you can look out when you are not working, and the natural sunlight can then shine on your face to illuminate it. You don't necessarily have to face into the window but you can be at upto 90 degrees to the window to get more light on your face.

What happens when it is dark, then we have to use artificial light and that means putting a light in front of you. something can be like this - low powered led that is moveable. This also can act as a desk lamp.

You can also use a small light behind you either well above or below the eyeline to give you a bit of back lighting to make you pop out of the photo better.

Setting up an Avatar

Setting up Unity with a test Avatar and using an XBox one Kinex camera to work out positions.