Click here for a nice explanation of what they are and how to use them. You need Power point or similar. Alternatively, you can download a zipped pdf file of the presentation here.

He also had some custom made handle bar system, that does not need any rods - thus shedding off a pound or two, and saving further space (sorry, no link).

The whole set fits into one smart looking bag (the Think Tank Airport Acceleration, about 200$) that can be taken onboard a plane.

The whole interview can be found on the excellent Reel Show.

As usual in my improve series, I’m not going to talk about the content, but the technical side.

The goods

They used a tripod, they used proper white balance.

Nice to have some opening graphics, it gives the whole piece more weight. Though for my feeling, the title should have the same graphic feel and sound as the opening graphic.

Camera

There is way too much headspace. Tilt down a bit. Or even better: use 16:9 widescreen format, which works much better for 2 persons.

Change perspective. Flat on is usually boring. In an interview situation, I would move the camera so we see more of the interviewee’s face, while getting the interviewer more in profile.

Get closer. When you see that a person is talking for a longer time, zoom in. Preferably, have one camera locked on a two shot, and then have a second operated camera, that zooms in — and follows — the interviewee. Thus you can cut between those two, hiding those ugly zooms. If need be, then close-ups of the interviewer can be shot right after the interview.

Watch your background. White background is about the worst for a camera, it draws attention. Jeremy’s head gets almost lost in the background.

Sound

This is the weirdest miking I have seen in a while One huge attention-drawing microphone on the interviewer, and one tiny lavaliere mike on Matt, where no effort was made to hide the cable.

Interviewer and interviewee really should have the same type of microphone, otherwise it just looks ridiculous. Preferably a lavaliere — this would also help the informal atmosphere. And a lavaliere that is hidden under the sweater. If you don’t have time for that, put the wire behind the back of the interviewee.

If you have to use two totally different mikes, do us the favor and use 10 seconds to even those microphone levels in-camera. As it is now, Jeremy is way louder than Matt. If anything, the interviewee should be loudest.

Flash files (from good to awesomely mindblowing)

Flash Den is a relatively new site, offering mainly Flash files. They have all from small pre-loaders to full webpages. And most of them of an exceptional quality.

In addition they also have royalty free music loops, some video files and graphics on offer. Plus a few fonts. But their main business is Flash.

Stock Photos (affordable)

iStockPhotos offers royalty free photographs for all kinds of usages. You can chose the size of the picture you buy, and a photo can cost just above $1. They have gained both size and quality, but unfortunately have increased the prices, while lowering the pay-out for the original photographers.

Still, you can easily browse for hours in their exhaustive library, searching for subjects, themes, emotions, colors, even whitespaces. Additionally, iStockPhoto also offers graphics, good vectors, cheap videos and lower quality flash files. One nice feature is that you can save interesting photos in your own lightboxes, leaving them for purchase at a later point. Or you can share your lightbox with a client.

If you have some good photos rotating away on your harddisk, you can start selling those pictures at iStockPhoto. Hey, you even can get some of my photos there.

Ajaxising (without knowing Ajax)

For the portfolio section of our new webpage I used a donation-ware component by Kevin Miller, called LightWindow. Besides adding that Ajax feel to your website (opening links without having to re-load), it also enables you to play back pretty much any media format around. Lots of options.

And if you use it, send some PayPal love to Kevin, so that he can get his well deserved Power Book Pro.

Shopping Cart (open source)

If you need a cart system for your website and you want to avoid having to pay hundreds of dollars in royalty payments (and probably some monthly fees), Zen Cart is definitely worth a look. Though it has a somewhat messy admin interface, it leaves you space for many tweakings. There are numerous extensions available, such as plug-ins, language packs, buttons and a couple of free templates.

See it live on our company’s brand new (and Norwegian language) shopping site.

Content management (minus the pain)

Now 1 1/2 years old, this blog has always run on WordPress. Though I’ve had some Windows like experiences, by and large I am impressed by this powerfool — and free — tool. So impressed, that I have used it as the CMS for our new webpage.

With the new version of WordPress, I can even be lax with using links. A page that is really located at, say, www.abitofmagic.no/english/services/eng-crew can also be reached by www.abitofmagic.no/eng. The magic happens without me having to do anything.

Of the many good plug-ins around, the one I want to mention today is WordPress automated plug-in, which takes the pain out of upgrading your blog. Which is especially nice when the frequency of those updates increases, and exponentially higher when you have more than one copy of WP running. I’ve used it on most of the 5+ WordPress sites that I maintain, without a single glitch.

Graphic Freebies (quality, not quantity)

One of my favourite blogs on graphic design, BitBox, regularly offers high quality freebies, be it web 2.0 buttons, high res photoshop brushes or vector graphics.

Photoblogging (free)

Pixelpost is to photos what wordpress is to writing. One great software to easily, yet beautifully, churn your digital photos into an on-going on-line publication. Lots of followers, translating to many exciting add-ons. Recently they also took the important step of easing the process of upgrading to new versions.

For fun, I am occasionally posting pictures on my pblog over at visualnary.com

1. 100x digital zoom — digital zoom enlarges your digital image, resulting in lower quality.
2. Software included — chose the software that suits you, not some feature-limited, outdated software that comes bundled with your camera.
3. Filming at 0 lux — no camera can film without light. The result is a grainy, colorless, low quality picture.
4. Electronic stabilizer — while promising sturdy pictures without a tripod, this really degrades your picture quality. Optical stabilization is what you want. Or – for best quality – a tripod.
5. Digital effects — this is really something you want to do in editing, not in-camera. Keep your options open!

I’ve always liked Nikon, but since both cameras that were stolen from me were Nikons, I start to believe that they might have some sort of karma.

But seriously speaking, I took the chance - since both body and lenses are now gone - of looking into a different system. And here the Canon EOS 400D comes out as a very promising candidate. The natural competitor would be the Nikon D40. Here the Canon has a couple of advantages, namely

1. Higher pixel count
2. Self cleaning sensor
3. Wider choice of lenses (as the D40 requires lenses with built-in motor)
4. And, as it turns out, Canon offers some cash-back on selected equipment

There are some other manufacturers out there, but there I am a bit preoccupied - though with little if any hard facts to back it up.

• Fuji: I had some very bad experience with their customer “service”. Therefore I have never touched a Fuji camera since - and for our video camera Fujinon was never an option.
• Minolta: I simply have to experience with them, and haven’t seen many professional photographers with them
• Sony: I prefer a company specialized in photography
• Sigma: I know I am wrong here, but I prefer a name that I can solidly connect to a long history of camera making

One other thought has crept into my mind, I have to confess. Canon makes some fine small-sized camcorders. These take Canon photo lenses.

Being German, Canon offering cash-back of course appeals to me. Thus I entered the numbers into Excel, and found out, that the possible savings are from moderate to quite substatial. For your convenience, here comes the bottom line (Update: One should not make Excel sheets at 1:30 in the morning. After some sleep I realized a mistake in the formula to calculate the percentage. They are fixed now…) with relative savings.

Camera Bodies

EOS 5D       -7%
EOS 30D      -11%
EOS 400D    -14%

Fixed lenses

EF 24mm f/1.4L USM    -13%
EF 35mm f/1.4L USM    -13%
EF 50mm f/1.4 USM    -6%
EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Makro USM    -6%
EF 100mm f/2.8 Makro USM    -6%
EF 135mm f/2.0L USM    -5%
EF 180 mm f/3.5L Makro USM    -5%
EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM    -7%
EF 300mm f/4L IS USM    -10%

Zoom lenses

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM    -13%
EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM    -6%
EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM    -30%
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM    -6%
EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM    -5%
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM    -6%
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM    -12%
EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM    -11%
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM    -10%
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM    -6%

Conclusion

A 400D with a EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM gives you a good starting package. The lens has a relatively high minimum f-stop, but the integrated optical stabilizer gives you effectively 2-3 extra stops. Unless you are into action photography, this is a good package to start with. Throw in a cheap 50mm F1.8 and you even have some light-critical situations covered. You can also buy a Canon flash light, the 430EX, and save 6% on that one.

Offer good throughout June - at least here in Europe. The percentages are calculated based on Norwegian street prices, and stipulate that you can claim the VAT back. Your mileage may vary.

I’ll kick off with Commoncraft’s excellent explanation for us non-nerds about what RSS is, and how it works. (Via Doug and Dawud.) I’ve been seeing RSS buttons everywhere, and have been told many times as to how cool and great they are, but before I had never understood the concept, nor its benefits for me. Now, I am enlightened. So, content-wise a fantastic video. Lets make it even better.

3 free improvements

Technically, I would suggest 3 simple improvements.

1. Do a white-balance on the camera before rolling the tape. The background is slightly orangish. Simply clear the frame (just plain background) and perform the camera’s white-balance. (On many cameras, the white setting is put to Auto. Don’t. Use. It. Speaking of Auto functions - it seems that the exposure is also on auto. Again: Don’t.)
   If you have already shot with the wrong white-balance, you can always fix it with most editing programmes. And while you’re at it, you can always tweak the contrast ratio for extra credit.
2. Get the microphone closer to the speaker. On a zero-budget, just do a separate take, and speak directly into the camera mike. Mix it together afterwards. That way you get rid of the “talking from the next room” feel.
3. Mark off the visible area with a pen. Since the camera is locked off, you can make some marks just outside the visible area. That way you always know what your audience is seeing.

— and 2 low budget ones

1. Buy a simple clip-on microphone. This attaches to your shirt, keeps the mike close to the voice, while keeping your hands free to shuffle the pages. For a bit more cash, you can buy a wireless version, thus freeing you from any cable-worries.
2. Get 2 lamps (like the 250/500W types found in a hardware store), coming from either side of the table and bounce them off some Styrofoam. That way you get a soft light, even exposure, and not too hard shadows.

That’s all for today. Comments are welcome.

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