Neewer Light

Lights! Camera! I can't see! Video requires light. Yet, I have been hesitant to pick a lighting set because I didn't like the amount of energy that they consumed and I wanted portability.  Plus the heat, I  always worry that someone's going to get hurt from the heat. I've tried to make my own out of a hacked strip light. It is nice, but still not as portable as I'd like.  I rewired  it to use a standard plug. That means that if I'm not near an outlet I have to plug a converter into my power brick. It is somewhat flexible, and I can use whatever bulb that fills my needs. The problem is that the cost to perfect it meant that a whole kit would not be very cost effective. I looked at a cowboy kit, it does serve a purpose of a portable kit. I just wanted something a little more portable that would work on the camera.  I'm so impossible to please. The on camera lights can be so spotty. Then I discovered the Neewer 126 LED kit. Yes it is cheap, but I just want to test that light style and the positives were plenty. I knew before purchase that the light had 3 filters and multiple power options. When I got it I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did it accept an old Sony battery that I had laying around, but also a Hitachi battery that is similar to the Sony. This meant that I have re-purposed several old batteries that were just laying around going to waste. And because of the age of the batteries, if all else fails I can use my good old AA rechargeable. The light itself is only a tad spotty, which is fine for the type of light. In addition to the shoe mount it has a threaded base for tripods or even a light stand. The LED adds a nice white frosting on the subject, but can be filtered for a different hue to match or contrast ambient lighting. I have used it for a few events already and have not managed to break it, so I think it has enough promise to buy a few more to make an ultra portable kit that will (when I buy it) compliment the Cowboy kit.

Tilt Shift

I like to tinker, if you couldn’t tell.  So when I saw the intro to Sherlock I wanted to replicate it.  You can either buy a very expensive lens with fancy knobs or you can replicate it in After Effects.  I am not so apt at After Effects that I want to make masks and blur areas that I select.  If poorly executed it looks kind of stupid.  From the samples that I found that were flawed I can see two major things that will help make it believable.  The first is the angle; you cannot be on level with the subject and expect it to look right.  The second is the lens; you want your lens to be fairly wide.  With these considerations I figured I could not get it right and kind of set the idea aside.  Then I discovered that my Nikon d5100 has a miniaturize feature.  I tested it from a campus parking garage and have linked the video below.  I was pretty pleased with the result of the camera doing the blurring for me.

High Street Miniature test from Nicolette Swift on Vimeo.

Smallest Cameras and Ultra Portable Power

After my Sphere camera quit – yes, it was only briefly resurrected – I needed something with portable battery power or multiple cameras.  I was looking for a solution that would give me up to 5 hours of camera power so that I could do my walking videos in one day.  First goal was to get another camera like my original Muvi knock off.  I decided not to make the upgrade to HD at this time because almost all of the small “spy” type cameras that handle HD seem to have a fisheye lens.  While I liked that about the Sphere, it had removable lenses.  I can’t have a wide angle when I’m trying to cut out cars and people that I encounter during my city walks.  So I’ve committed to another Muvi knock off.  Amazon had it cataloged as the exact model that I already had.  That was wrong.  This has buttons, not switches.  It is plastic, not metal and it seems to have a higher resolution.  The image appears to match fairly well so I’m least concerned about the resolution. The battery power for my first camera seems to last anywhere from 45-60 minutes.  Another camera with the same duration is not going to get me my 4-5 hours.  While my Brick o’ Power would work, I need this to be light something I can carry for the whole walk.  I decided on an AA battery cylinder that has a USB out.  The name brand seemed like the way to go and I was super excited to try it, but then I found a kit on Amazon; a portable HD camera by HDE with a cheap battery cylinder. I was game for testing both. I can carry several batteries and the spare camera in my pocket. My test was on Dayton.  The battery power worked great if only the new camera wasn’t so easy to bump on.  I only captured one hour of footage before I ran into problems and in an attempt to salvage my project I even tried the HD camera.  The problem with the HD camera is that it does not have a clip to fasten it to my armband.  This meant that I was carrying it in my palm and couldn’t attach it to my leg or my forearm.  I plan to build a bag for it that will thread through my armband.  That footage is even a bust because it was impossible to tell if it was recording.  You have to hold down the record button and make the light flash and that is the only way that you know that it is recording.  I ended up going to a coffee shop to charge my cameras, but Dayton was basically a bust. The second test was in Allentown.  I made sure that all cameras were charged and powered off.  I even double checked the new camera to make sure it didn’t get bumped.  Everything was a success both cameras lasted long enough and the battery did its job charging the camera I used first.  I was able to shoot the whole town in one day.  I was also able to recreate this same result in Youngstown, despite being caught in the rain.  I think I have my solution for making these pieces happen as quickly as possible.

Social Networking Running a Little Leaner…

  In this world of excess even I joined in on the excess.   Can I join EVERY social network?  I tried, for one purpose in 2007, to review their ability to handle online video.  The one that worked the best was Divx, hands down, but they cut hosting pretty early on.  My second choice was Myspace.  Ah, Myspace, I despise you, I make art film and you caught my 10 second fair use of The Cure.  I think at this point I’m forever banned from uploading video.  The worst, in 2007, was Youtube – their limit on length was short and the quality paled in comparison to even Yahoo.  I even had a Friendster for 10 minutes; until I discovered that I couldn’t upload video.  All this info was supposed to, or maybe it did, go into a massive school project, but it was way out of date before I even started.  Somewhere, in the back of my brain, lurks the true winner – with dust and cobwebs encasing it.  When I am 80 I will randomly start shouting, Blip, Yahoo, Bebo, damn you Myspace.  For now I am staring at a gaggle of unused social networking sites, cringing at the memory of the creeps on Badoo, and trying to decide what I still have – what I deleted and what is left to delete.  Even more importantly, why do I not have a Flixster account?  And Twitter, oh, twitter I’m too wordy for you.  My tweets end up reading like “(grunt) watch now oonga booga me from past”.  Yet Facebook and Twitter are everywhere.  For now, I am watching a proliferating number of my friends leave Facebook.  I hate it.  I don’t even post video there.  I mean that really is the only reason to social network – to post MY video everywhere.  And, getting back to Twitter, it won’t let me do that.

Before I start this mass delete let me review what is gone:  Broadcaster, Bahu, Imeem, Motionbox, Vox, Livevideo, Orkut, Vod:Pod, Jumpcut, Capazoo, Sharkle – does anyone else feel like I’m speaking gibberish?  As for what I still have; who uses Bebo, Xanga, Fotki anymore?  Hi5, do I have a Hi5?  Oh my, this is going to be messy.  To make what I have meaningful before I delete, I am planning one last upload.  If it still works I may keep it.  So I begin with a 5 minute, 200 mb, mp4.  The only test is on the site’s codec – it is an intensely motion heavy piece that makes codecs cry.  Our failures: Xanga failed to even upload a millisecond.  Fotki was promising “now upload your video”… if you pay…  Sorry I’d pay for Vimeo first.  Vod:Pod, now Lockerz, wants to be Pinterest but with some confusing monitary aspect and you still can’t upload video.  Bebo, I have to embed from Youtube.  Flickr has a 90 second limit.  Blip has become a webisode submission platform (save for future reference).  Gather has 100 mb limit.  IMVU… what was I thinking?  Phanfare now costs.

Our successes and I use this term lightly:  Photobucket, ok so your codec destroyed the quality and now my video looks like a cartoon.  Taltopia, yeah it worked it looks ok, but who uses this?  Myspace, it let me upload hmm.  Facebook, yeah it passes too.

Next time I will look at the ones that passed a little closer.  In the meantime I will be deleting the rest.

Accounting Software for a Small Business

As a small business you need to be able to have receipts readily available. Even if you have an accountant you need to be able to print a receipt. I had been using Quickbooks for all my needs, it calculates everything and is pretty standard. I was happy with it, but I like durability, I am a very small business and need my money to go to gear, not accounting. So when I upgraded one last computer to Windows 7 and lost my ability to install my Quickbooks I was pretty displeased. It has been a weird year without accounting software and I finally resurrected an old XP machine just so I could do my taxes. I guess I have one major problem with rebuying $200+ in software every time I decide to upgrade my OS. You see it is so simple, math does not change, the way I keep books does not change. I get it Intuit, I really do. You need to keep the money coming in so you build in planned obsolescence. But that doesn’t keep me as your customer. I’m not going to update accounting software every year or every two years, or even every three years. Now if it were more like my tax software I would really feel the need. But honestly, Intuit, we’re all poor right now, even the rich people are not as rich as they would like to be. So I looked for an alternative; a free alternative. GnuCash, everyone was raving about GnuCash. I found paying out the bills to be very clunky and forget linking them in a way that makes sense. I did like the ability to include tax in my total so that the software calculated for me and my end number was nice and even. That did not make me happy enough though. There are several blogs on the subject of free alternatives to Quickbooks. I tried a few and skipped others. I really shy away from keeping my financial data on my phone or the cloud; I don’t think I need to explain why. I tried a few that I deleted right away and fail to recall their names or why I disliked them so much. I was about to settle for something like Quicken or paying for Quickbooks; I also don’t like that there is not a demo – I like to try stuff and if I can’t break it in before I buy it then I am reluctant to take a risk even with a satisfaction guarantee. I found Manager. I can list the things that I don’t like about it, but it works. I enter amounts and mark them paid. I can make quotes as invoices and then delete them if they fall through. Sorry, no estimates or quotes at this time. It will calculate your tax on your total. I have it loaded on a network drive and can access the same file from any computer that has the software. So what are the downfalls? Well the lack of quotes. It will not calculate your items; example: I have 5 DVDs at $2 each and I have to input the $10. I don’t see using a calculator or my math skills as a big deal. It calculates each line as well as tax and that is what matters. I can add my logo and make it look custom. The only thing about invoicing that completely irks me is when there's taxable items. At the top it says “Tax Invoice”. Well it is not a “tax” invoice and I wish I could change that. Right now I just print to PDF and redact the word tax. Someday I will try to hack the code and change that one word, but for now I am happy that I have invoicing software. I even took 5 hours to transfer all of my invoices to Manager so that I had everything in one place. Yeah Quickbooks, I am over you.

VJ Software Exploration

We have been on a quest for VJ software and were not having much luck. Our first two attempts have left us with software that was really meant for supplying DJs with some video features.  Virtual DJ only lets you have two streams that you can use unless you use their multi effect.  That will allow you to toggle between many source videos, but will not allow you to apply any other effects or to transition.  Our second test was with Club DJ Pro.  Again only two sources, but this had a set of effect videos that you can also toggle between.  Both of these two are audio heavy and did not allow for much free form VJ capabilities.  I think the problem is really in our keywords in Google.  The search was for “video dj software” but what we really want is VJ software.  That led us to Resolume Avenue, which has 4 different tracks that can be loaded with your own videos.  Each track has 3 color effects settings that can be toggled between.  Some preset motion graphics are supplied and there is also room to enter your own video.  Hot keys can be set for quick mixing.  This is a very robust software and will take more than an initial glance to learn the extent of its assets.  At this time I believe we have found something that maybe suitable for our tinkering in the realm of VJing and we will definitely put Avenue through its paces.