In the last year, the idea of photographers producing video has exploded and photographers are now gearing up to take advantage of this interest. As advertisers and magazines turn to video on the web, cable and mobile devices to get out their message, there are more opportunities than ever for you to do video in tandem with your photography to capture new clients and sell video services to existing clients.

Producing video creates a fundamental change in your workflow, so you need new tools and techniques to take the step from photography to video. You need to learn what the new technologies mean to you from a photographer’s point of view. This is why Lee White has created two events to help guide you into video. The first is a two–hour evening event that will go over the steps you as a photographer need to know to create video productions. The second is a one-day workshop that will go in-depth about each step so you can start producing your own video.

The Thursday evening will include:

Companies showing the latest in video equipment and software for video suitable for photographers getting into video.

A raffle for a copy of Apple’s Final Cut Studio editing software

FREE SOFTWARE: SmartSound will give each attendee a free copy of their Sonicfire Pro 5 software along with free royalty-free music.

A presentation that covers:

- The photographer’s unique position for this new market

- The creative planning stage and new concepts photographers need to think about

- Pre-production considerations when planning a video shoot

- Understanding lighting, filming and sound techniques for video

- Post-production in the photographer’s studio

The Saturday workshop will include:

- How photographers can apply their present skills to video

- The importance of workflow including recording formats

- Estimating and planning combined photography and video productions

- Tools and techniques of video production

- Camera, lighting and grip equipment demonstrations

- Editing demonstrations

For more information on the workshop visit: Video Workshop

LEE WHITE is presently instructing two college classes on HD video production for photographers at Santa Monica College. One is an intensive six-week class for professionals and the other is a sixteen-week class for photography students at the college. Lee has been a professional advertising photographer for more than thirty years. While still a student at Art Center, College of Design, he shot images for movie posters for Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount. Shortly after starting his professional career, he became involved with photomatics for companies such as Mattel plus shooting on set and so began his career-long adventure with narrative imaging. Over a decade ago, Lee started shooting digital video for clients and has experienced video production on all levels from feature films to simple web content.

Los Angeles events:

Thursday, January 14 evening presentation

6pm-9pm

5th and Sunset Studios

12322 Exposition Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 900064

Saturday, January 16 workshop

10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Helms Daylight Studio

3221 Hutchin Ave #E,

Los Angeles, CA 90034

For more information on the workshop visit: Video Workshop

Denver events:

Thursday, January 28 evening presentation

6 pm – 9 pm

Saturday, January 30 workshop

10 am – 5 pm

Sponsored by:

If you want to shoot video, now there are a number of choices beyond the old tungsten lights.  One type that is finding favor with cinematographers is the new LED light.  As a light source, they are powerful (for their size), small, sturdy, draw little power and a are daylight-balanced source that run very cool.  As of now, to light large areas you still might need a number of 1 x1 panels that can cost quite a bit but that will surely change in the near future.  For now you can start by trying one of the smaller battery powered on camera LED lights like the Litepanels Mirco or MicroPro.   Powerful enough to light small scenes or use as a fill in some cases, it can be dimmed with little color change.  I have found them useful off camera for interviews or as a kicker and on camera for an eye-light and run and gun situations.  I wish I had had some when filming in the catacombs of Paris a few years ago.  The quarters were cramped with no place for stands and these LED lights could have been hand held right where I needed them. Image by © Lee White

Litepanels Micro LED

Zeiss continues to grow their line of Canon mount manual focus lenses that are especially suited for the DSLRs with video capabilities.  The latest is the ZEISS Distagon T* 2/28 ZE which is a moderate wide-angle lens designed for full-frame (D)SLR cameras, delivering a 74-degree field of view. Like the other Zeiss ZE lenses, it incorporates a CPU and data contacts for communication with the camera body and long focus pull.  This lens is meant to be used on the Canon cameras such as the 5d Mark II and the new 7d.  As I have mentioned before, Zeiss already has a line of Nikon lenses for video capable DSLRs.

Zeiss Distagon F2 28mm lens for Canon

Since many of my projects include video as well as stills, a DSLR with good video capabilities was something I am very interested in. Yes, I shot with the Canon 5d MarkII and found it somewhat lacking in a few critical areas. Mainly it was restricted to the one HD format of 1080p (progressive) at a true 30FPS, which is a non-standard frame rate for anything. Plus the sound is not only automatic gain controlled but also recorded in 44,100 kHz, which is CD quality instead of 48,000 kHz, which is digital video quality.

The canon 7d has taken care of the format issues by giving us five HD formats – Full HD in1080p at 23.976, 1080p at 25 and 1080p at 29.97, HD in 720p at 59.94 and 50, all of which are standards for NTSC and PAL, see one of the images below. The audio is still automatic gain control but has been bumped up to a DV standard of 48,000 kHz in linear PCM. At this point, I should probably bring up the chip size which is the smaller 22.3 x 14.9 AFS-C which some might think is not the direction to be going in but I find it a positive move. This is near the same size as 35mm movie film and so the look is very similar. One of the problems I found shooting with the Mark II was the depth of field at times was so shallow that even trained actors would shift slightly and end up out of focus on close-ups. Remember the auto focus is virtually non-existent shooting video with these cameras; you need to manually pull focus if you are tracking focus.

The controls on the camera body have changed as well. The on and off switch has moved to just below the mode dial and there is just a lock switch where the on, off and lock used to be. I guess this prevents one from turning the camera off when trying to unlock the settings. There is now a dedicated liveview shooting button that also turns on and off the video recording. The print button has the added feature of being a one touch Raw-Jpeg button. Another completely new button is the Quick Menu button that gives you quick menu in the LCD to change shooting functions.

Canon 7d back showing video formats

Enough tech stuff; what about shooting with the 7d and the images? I was looking forward to trying one of the new Zeiss prime lenses out with the first outing with the 7d but no joy there. I ended up using my trusted Canon EF 24-105 mm f/4 lens but remember the smaller sensor creates a 1.6 magnification. A side note: you can do a decent job of zooming and short follow focus with this lens if you give yourself a bit room to start as the lens seems to jerk a little at the beginning. I wanted to test the contrast range with the 7d considering the 5d has been noted for crushing the blacks so I picked a friend’s gloss black and chrome classic Harley-Davidson (see the video test below) for a dramatic subject. The 7d does show a real time histogram with livepicture in the still mode, but there is no realtime histogram in the video mode. After shooting a bit of footage, I took a look at its histogram and there still appears to be some crushing of the blacks although the highlights seem to have very full gradations and there is good rendition through to the lower values. This is a very unsophiscated real world test but I’m not sure how valuable shooting color charts are either.

Classic Harley_Davidson on Canon 7d

The weekend brought almost 30MPH winds to the California coast preventing my doing the girl at the beach test I did with the 5d. However, it did bring some angry seas with interesting waves, so I tried the different formats to get an idea of the motion representations. I also braved the wind out on the break water to get some clips of the seagulls floating on the winds to get another motion test of the three NTSC HD formats (see sample clips below of coastline, wave and seagulls.)

The clips were converted for the web and so don’t fully represent the original footage which would be impossible to stream. Videos by www.leewhitephoto.com

New Canon 7d camera used by Los Angeles photographer Lee White to shoot video along California coast.

1080p @ 30FPS

1080p @ 24 FPS

720p @ 60FPS

1080p @ 30 FPS

1080p @ 30 FPS

1080p @ 24 FPS

720p @ 60 FPS

For video, the long hoped for 24FPS (23.976) is here along with 25FPS and 30FPS (29.97) in 1080p with 720p being restricted to 50 or 60FPS.   The smaller chip means a depth of field much like that of the 35mm motion picture cameras as they both have about the same size image area.  The Canon 7D has an interesting choice of 60FPS for the 720p which helps with fast action, crisper freeze frames and smoother slow motion.  It will be interesting to follow the testing of this camera to see how it might best fit into a photographer’s workflow.  Canon reportly plans on shipping late September.  For more details on this camera visit Canon’s website.

I have taken my skills in lighting, composition and mise-en-scene and applied them to the continuous narrative that is video. I first sought out video editors to learn what was needed to join clips together to tell a flowing story. If you know where you want to end up, it is much easier to get there. As I learned editing, it allowed me to understand what needs to be shot and how it needs to edit together. From there it has been practice, shooting for clients and watching the trends in films, commercials and on the web. It has come to a point where I teach a college course for professional photographers who want to learn video.

I’m using a Canon 5d Mark II on a rig by Redrock Mirco. Photo by the well known retoucher Dennis Dunbar.

Lee White using Canon 5d in video mode with Redrock Micro gear.

Dom DeLuise last photography session with Los Angeles professional photographer Lee White

I was doing advertising photographs for his house ware – cookware line.  Many of the shots involved food as props and you guessed it, Dom being the connoisseur that he was insisted on bringing the props.  He showed up at my Los Angeles studio with a limo full of fine cheeses, marvelous smoked meats and fish, luscious fruits and vegetables.  The shoot was incredibly fun.  There was Dom in each shot surrounded by one of the things he loved, great food, happy as could be.  As we finished each shot, Dom always the gracious host, even in my studio, would make everyone sit down and eat all the food from that shot.  It was like being in an Old Italian movie where the cast and crew would shoot then take a meal break together then back to shooting.  All the while, Dom would be telling stories of working with Hollywood’s elite.  I think I had at least a ten-course meal that day and loved every minute of it.

I will never forget that last enchanting day I spent with this kind and loving man, a very funny man and a man who lived life to the fullest.  I will always appreciate the gentleness he showed my daughter and niece when they stopped by and he insisted on have them take a picture with him and his beloved bird.

Los Angeles photographer dramatic night portraiture with Canon 5D

I had some very productive chats with the following representatives and want to thank them for all their information. In chronological order Peter of Lectronics, Fred at Audio Technica, Red of Photoflex, Joey of Mathhews Studio Equipment, Greg at JVC, Douglas at Shure, Ulrich Goetze of California Sunbounce, Mike of Marshall Electronics, Bernie of Panasonic, and Jennifer of dedoweightfilm.de.

California photographers are lucky to have so many resources locally. I have been shooting video for over seven years and there is more demand for it than ever.

Los Angeles photographer Lee White shoots healthy lifestyle - Yoga

Photography hints: use cool pastel colors to make your subject’s skin tones standout. Cool colors also help present a calm quiet atmosphere.

ESL teacher Kari Tudman presenting at CATESOL conference

Los Angeles advertising photographer Lee White presenting at CATESOL conference.

Photography hints: With over fifteen years of experience in photography education, I find I have benefited as much as I have contributed to any class. Take the opportunity to share your knowledge and give to your community.

Classic Ryan PT22

Until then for you photo enthusiasts, I used a Canon 5d, along with a chimera soft box and Canon 580 EX strobes, with rechargeable batteries to stay green, connected by pocket wizards, again rechargeable. The sun was in and out all afternoon so this combination allowed me to move quickly and light the face beautifully just as the sun came out of the clouds. Location photography is an art in itself, so remember it is about the craft not the equipment.