Category: Video Tools

Orange Safety Cone

Orange Safety Cone

October 17, 2011

Orange safety cones, you can’t miss them. There’s a reason—because they scream out to anyone driving, walking, or riding a bike that there is something up ahead to watch out for and not run into. I don’t go out for a public shoot without an orange safety cone in the car, just in case. (See [...]

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Archery Quiver Microphone Holster

Archery Quiver Microphone Holster

October 17, 2011

Previously, I wrote about an archery quiver as a tool to tote around a small tripod. That quiver was cloth, but some quivers have a hard shell and, like the quiver here, hang holster-style from a belt. A hard-shell quiver makes an excellent and accessible case for a shotgun microphone. (See Figure 7.22.) The convergence [...]

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Light Bulb Base Adapters

Light Bulb Base Adapters

October 17, 2011

There is a dizzying array of lighting solutions available for photographers and videog-raphers. Some of these lighting tools overlap, although you’ll often see different lights, and light modifiers, if you search the photo and video catalogs. With the convergent media that dual-use cameras provide for still and video, photographers can really benefit from keeping several [...]

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Vinyl Gutter

Vinyl Gutter

October 17, 2011

The kind of tracking shots I’ve referred to are really fake tracking shots, because without a track, it’s not literally a tracking shot for video. If you want to move along with your subject, or move toward or away from your subject, with a more controlled motion than you can get with the mover’s dolly [...]

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Mover’s Dolly

Mover’s Dolly

October 17, 2011

If holding the camera on a boom via straps on your waist doesn’t steady the camera enough for you, or you have trouble walking with the camera this way, you may want to attach a tripod to a dolly for a moving video shot. A mover’s dolly is ready-made with four wheels on ball-bearing pivots [...]

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Large Hook-and-Loop Straps

Large Hook-and-Loop Straps

October 17, 2011

We can’t all afford a professional device to steady video where the videographer is moving. There is some terrific equipment out there for just that use, but it goes beyond the bounds of irreverent tools. But there are ways to make your tracking shots—that is, video where you move along with, or toward, your subject—at [...]

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Light Bulb Changer

Light Bulb Changer

October 17, 2011

My neighbors keep coming over to borrow my light bulb changer. I keep the large one on a painter’s extension pole. Sometimes I use it to change burned-out floodlights that are installed high up on the eaves of my house. But sometimes I use it to hold a camera high up to get a bird’s-eye [...]

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Hay Fork Handle

Hay Fork Handle

October 17, 2011

Technically, this tool is a manure, hay, and bedding fork replacement handle, and I’ll call it a fork handle for short. You can find one at a big box hardware store, and at a local hardware or farm tool store depending where you live. The fork handle is designed as a replacement for the broken [...]

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