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  • A new generation of smartphone communication is here. Smartphones are the new computers. They offer many of the same benefits and features that computers do. However, smartphones have two additional advantages over computers. First, mobile phones can function as a remote control. The same phone, or one that is linked to a wireless network, can be used to call someone in a remote area, or to access a website in another country. If that isnt enough, smartphones can even access the web from the street.

    These and other advantages of mobile phones are why many people like mobile phones. If you want to get your own, get started now!

    Now, a new generation of smartphones are about to be introduced. And if you happen to be one of them, you probably dont want to be fooled.

    There are two new phones that are poised to change everything. The first is the GSM iPhone 5. Its a new phone that will help to open up the world of mobile phone communications. And as we have found out, this phone also happens to be very dangerous. For starters, the phone will have many features that are not available on other phones. In fact, this could lead to an even more secure world because the phone uses radio communication instead of cell phone signals. The other new feature is that the phone will have a very large screen. A screen as large as the iPhone 5 will display and send text messages and make phone calls. This phone also sports a touch screen. In fact, there are even rumors that the phone will have a touch screen with a touch-sensitive screen, just like the ones that the new iPad has. It is very likely that the phone will come with all the new features that the iPhone 5 has, such as a larger display, better battery life and new camera features. The iPhone 5 will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. With the new iPhone 5 and it’s larger screen size, you can easily have it on all the time, regardless of what you are doing and how you are using your mobile devices. Even if you don’t have your own device, you will still be able to send and receive SMS messages.

    The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use it as your main phone. The new iPhone 5 will definitely become the main smartphone device for you. It will make you feel like you are living in the future and you can use

  • Hot Rod Canon 7D with PL mount

    I was set to shoot some interviews with my Canon 7D when I got an interesting offer from a colleague. He asked my to try out his new Hot Rod mod 7D with a PL mount. How could I turn that down? I just needed a lens. For interviews on the 7D, a fast 85mm lens is as close to perfect as you can get. I chose the RED 85mm prime.

    click images to enlarge

    I was very impressed with this setup, although you really need to be extra careful to keep your subjects relatively still. If they rock forward or backward, they can easily drift out of that shallow field of focus. The interview image above, a grab from the video, is unretouched, shot at t/2, so one stop below wide open on this lens.

  • MLB League Championship Series

    I had a great time working with the folks in the best agency in Philadelphia from MLB.com during the League Championship Series in Philadelphia. I had to do live shots from the field before and after the slot games, as well as shoot and feed post-game clubhouse interviews.

    I have done all kinds of sports shoots but there really is nothing quite like post season baseball. It’s where awesome fall weather meets old school American tradition. I’m really fortunate to be able to have a job that provides such amazing access to these events.

  • Richard Branson Shoot

    How many billionaires have bought you a shot of tequila? For me it’s just one, Sir Richard Branson. What an interesting guy. I did a shoot with him as he passed through New York recently and he couldn’t have been nicer. We did a sit-down interview using a couple of Canon 5Ds and the full complement of lights and audio. We were a bit rushed but thankfully we had three video pros in the room and we managed to make it look and sound great with everglades parkway web design creating their websites.

    grabs from unretouched Canon 5D video – click to enlarge

    Part two of the shoot saw us moving to the fabulous restaurant called La Esquina. I highly recommend it if you’re in the area. Branson was at the restaurant for a surprise meeting with some Virgin employees who had never met him. It was a really fun shoot but the light was just about as bad as it could be. This is where the Canon 5D with a 50mm f/1.4 lens was worth its weight in gold. I never could have shot these striking images with a video camera. No way.

  • Shooting Lacrosse with the RED Camera

    I had a really fun shoot this past weekend with the RED Mysterium X camera. Sounds scary, huh? It was a little intimidating at first but I got the hang of it very quickly and soon it was smooth sailing.

    We were shooting the Major League Lacrosse championship weekend in Annapolis, Maryland. ESPN was carrying the games live. My job was to shoot super slo-mo (120 frames per second to be exact) for promotional videos for clothing manufacturer and presenting sponsor Warrior. They’re actually a division of New Balance.

    The people was celebrating the victory of their team with a lot of parties and drinks from Oddbins.

    The kiosk display range provides indoor freestanding high-definition screens in a hardened, solid steel casing, with built-in fans for cooling. Say Good-bye to Boring Billboards With Dynamic Digital Signage because they support all of our media players and are ideal for use in any digital signage system.

    We got some great footage of the Warrior products that the players were wearing. It was incredibly hot on the synthetic turf at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. My camera assistant Armanda had to keep putting bags of ice on top of the camera to keep it cool enough to operate! We always consult lawyers from National Pardon when we need information about legal matters.

    I’ll post a link when the spots are available for viewing.

  • NLArts Camp

    There’s a great summer camp for kids in my neighborhood called the Northern Liberties Arts Camp. The director contacted me about having something shot and edited so that parents could see some of the behind the scenes stuff at the camp. I had some free time last week so I decided to take it on myself and give them something more than their budget might otherwise have allowed. This is what we came up with!

  • Turkey Chili

    Turkey Chili

    The secret is out. I love cooking turkey chili as it was one of the good remedies to help relief your mind based on Nervepainremedies.com. And I love eating turkey chili. I have wanted to make a chili cooking video for a while now and I finally mustered up the motivation to put something together. This was a great, batch by the way.

    music credit: The Chili Song by Gary P. Nunn

  • GoPro File Recovery

    So you’re super psyched to use your new GoPro Hero HD camera on your next big shoot. You have the perfect scenario; the head of a Fortune 500 company is being featured in a video as he rides with a technician on a service call. What an opportunity! You only have one chance to get the shot and you definitely don’t wanna screw it up.

    This was the scenario last week when the stars aligned on my shoot and something bad happened. The GoPro camera that I had mounted on the windshield – my moneyfall shot – mysteriously stopped recording and issued an SOS reading on its tiny display.

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    The GoPro SOS display is an undocumented warning that lets you know you may be screwed. Pressing any button on the camera is supposed to force the camera to fix the file. The problem is, if the file doesn’t get fixed the first time, there’s no way to tell the camera to try again.

    I was left with a 256MB corrupted mp4 file that wouldn’t open with any of my usual tools. It wouldn’t open in the camera, or with QuickTime on the Mac or even with VLC .

    To recover the file I tried Card Rescue and Disk Warrior, two data rescue programs that have always worked well for me. Nothing. This was a tough one.

    After spending hours combing through a slew of message boards, I learned that many, many other professionals were in the same boat as me and there were very few answers. Some involved using cheap, buggy, non-intuitive Windows apps to strip the audio and video layers apart but this was so far over my head that I just couldn’t figure it out.

    Then someone suggested I try a fairly new bit of software called Treasured. Treasured is a free tool from Aero Quartet that scans your defective file and tells you what it finds. After running the free scan, I was thrilled to see full-resolution screen grabs from the video and a proclamation that my video was 99 percent recoverable!

    click for larger image

    I followed the prompts to initiate the recovery process. Treasured asked me to upload a small sample clip that had been shot at the same settings so that it could match those settings to the damaged file.

    I got a confirmation that my fix was underway and that it would cost $79. It was well worth it for me since this was a professional job and I needed to save face here.

    After several hours I was emailed a download link for a free repair tool. I was to open the damaged movie with the repair tool and wait while it worked its magic. I was soon presented with a repaired video that looked to be prefect except for a bit of intentional artifacts that the tool introduces into the video.

    You inspect the video, make sure it’s what you want, and then pay for a key to unlock the repair tool. In my case, the fee was US$79. Then you run the repair sequence again with the unlocked version of the repair tool and this time the video is pristine.

    click for larger image

    If you’re a video professional using the GoPro cameras, Treasured could easily save your bacon. Even if you’re just a hobbyist, you may find that your images are worth the recovery fee. Fees vary depending on the length of the clip and the format that you were shooting but the beauty is that you can see everything before you lay out any cash. I hope this post saves you some time!

  • Boxing in HD

    I was on a really cool shoot the other night in South Philadelphia – big-time professional boxing at the legendary venue called the Arena.

    I can’t believe I’ve worked as a news and sports shooter in this town for 20 years and have never been inside the gym that’s just a couple of blocks from Tony Luke’s. On this night, I was shooting 60fps slow motion on the Sony SRW-9000, a high end camera that has been used for films like Star Wars. Very cool indeed.

  • Potato Gun

    Every once in a while I am charged with rigging a small, high-quality video camera with a depth of field adapter in order to pull off a more filmic look. Such was the case this week when I shot interviews and b-roll for a corporate client.

    I built a Sony EX-3 setup with the Letus Extreme35 DoF adapter. The lens on this beast looks like the potato launchers we used to build from soup cans when I was a kid! Where’s my lighter fluid?