Today’s Video by Joe Farace
Because of the Holiday, Film Friday is on a Monday this week.
In a previous Film Friday video I answered the question—Is the Hasselblad XPan a Medium Format Camera?—and then went on to offer a look at some Cheap Panoramic Cameras. Today’s video takes that one step beyond (a little vintage TV reference for you) and offers my typical not-so-serious look at some inexpensive as well some expensive panoramic cameras. It’s in color too!
A note about the video: I am often asked how I shoot these videos; here’s how I made this one:
I think it’s obvious that I’m not a video expert. Unlike the Cars & Coffee videos made with Cliff Lawson, with these Film Friday videos I am responsible for everything from hosting, setting-up, shooting and finally editing and posting on my YouTube channel. Up until now, the camera I’ve used for these videos was the Canon EOS M6 Mark II with EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM kit lens. While I like the idea of shooting with a camera that has an APS-C sized sensor, based on my most recent experiences with this camera this might be changing in the future. For the next video, I’m going to use a Panasonic Lumix G9 to, you know, see what happens.
Today’s footage was shot in the camera’s default video mode; I just push the red button and cross my fingers. The microphone is an inexpensive Deity V.Lav Lavalier Lapel Microphone ($39) that has a 15-foot long cord. Most of the lighting is provided by daylight from two large windows in the living room but for this and the previous video a NEO 2 LED Camera Light was added. And because of stray light from a large window in the front of the house I used a Westcott Scrim Jim as a gobo (“goes between optics”) to block that window light from producing flare on the camera lens. The footage is edited with a seven year-old copy of iMovie and then uploaded to YouTube.
Why was it shot in color: when some previous Film Friday videos were in black and white? I shot it in color because this video had my Christmas tree in the background so I thought color would be nice. The intro flashback was from my last video about Cheap Panoramic Cameras and was converted to monochrome using iMovie’s black and white filter. In my last video post, I said, “If this color video gets more likes, views and picks up a few new YouTube subscribers, I may shoot all future videos in color…” Well that happened and the channel is slowly growing with an emphasis on slow. But you have spoken; the videos will be in color for the foreseeable future.
What’s Next?: I am open to suggestions for the topic on my next video; the first of 2022, so maybe I need to do something special? Click CONTACT and tell me what you would like to see or if you have questions about film photography, maybe it can be a Q&A video, instead of a blog post.
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