Guitar Monster

Here's an informal rock guitar clip I shot featuring Seth Dodd. This clip was shot at Lemongum (Recording) Studio using my Canon 7D. Light was from a single domestic 40 W lamp and a computer monitor, so hardly any (!) and there is plenty of colour noise as a result. Still, on this occasion the fruit salad adds to the grit and slots in pretty well anyway. The 7D was pushed to ISO 6400 at f1.8 and shutter at 1/50.

Seth - Guitar Monster from Simon Ladd on Vimeo.

Proaim Linear Camera Slider Review

Only $200 AUS to buy a 3 foot slider and have it sent to my door, via ebay. Too good to be true?

The price, service and packaging were excellent, but what about the product?

Sadly the Proaim 3' Linear Camera Slider performs like it costs. Despite the good packaging the product arrived bent. Bends can cause different amounts of force to be needed in moving your camera along the rails, as the 4 separate sliding interfaces hit small humps or slumps and grab, particularly if you are using a weightier lens. This can result in jerky motion. The lack of sturdy design means the slider is vulnerable to further bending.

Most annoying for me is the fit of the base plate to rails. The tolerances are big enough to allow a measure of rocking which can cause camera jolt, particularly when you have a heavy lens. If you tighten the 4 grub screws provided you can reduce rock, but then you are stuck with a stiff and non-slidey experience.

This piece of equipment may be fine for hobbyists but pros will get frustrated...(and they will spend more on an alternative product anyway!) Despite this I would not write off other products from Proaim, but will check the reviews first.

Happy Dogs

I started out wanting to do some colour isolation using Photoshop but then changed my mind to see if a similar result could be achieved in the basic Sony Vegas Platinum Pro software in rapid time. What you see here involves no layers, just one video track, with a some tweaking of colour and saturation. There are a few little breakouts for sharp eyed, but generally a good result for a proof of concept.

Happy Dogs on King William Rd from Simon Ladd on Vimeo.