As you may have noticed, I am now looking for sponsors. While one spot is expected to be filled very soon, the other is up for grab! If you know a manufacturer or software developer who could be interested, please point them here.
Thanks to this change in philosophy, very soon you should see pop-ups and blinking images all over the place and I will be rich! Ehh.. not! I am very ethical person and every ads you see here will be non intrusive and have my seal of approval. I pride myself on providing quality content to trusting users and I hope to keep the same standards going forward.
So what does it mean for you then? Basically, it means more content! I am already pushing all the money generated by the blog (thanks to people buying stuff via our Amazon links) back at it and these news incomes streams will be put to good use. Trust me, I have great plans ahead!
Tired of reading 7D
We have not decided yet how we will manage content that is relevant to both 5D and 7D owners. So, until we figure it out, we will keep posting most of the content here.
The site not totally finished yet but we wanted to release it right now since there is new 7D content popping over the net every day. So if you are interested in Canon 7D news, visit the site now!
Hi guys,
it seems like everything I touch these days is bound to brake. First my 50mm1.4 broke, then I had the flipping shutter issue with my 5D MrkII and a few minutes ago the site was down because of a technical problem on the server. Lets just say that I should not be in the mood to start new and risky stuff. Yet, I am!
I took some time to do clean up on the site today and realized that I never finished the review of the Zacuto Tactical Shooter. Expect a post by the end of the week! I also fixed a few design issues so everything should look good and clean now.
The release of the 7D had me thinking about the future of canon5dtips and how restrictive such a name can be. Most of the information in the blog can be used by 7D owners. Yet, 5D owners might not be interested to know about 7D news and technicalities. That is why I decided to create another blog, a carbon copy of this one, dedicated to the 7D. Guess the name?
It is still under construction for a few more days so don’t get too excited (yet).
By the way, I am still looking for contributors to 5D and 7D tips. So, if you are a content creator, photographers or expert in a specific field related to cinephotography, contact me and lets talk. There might be money and fame for you!
I am also looking for a machinist or someone with access to a CNC table for a new product I am working on. This product is not a viewfinder or follow focus. I am talking about original product here! Only contact me about this if you have the requirements since I wont disclose anything (other than saying it will be a must have) until it is ready for production.
Finally, I would like to thank every visitor who click the small social sharing/bookmarking buttons at the end of each post. Clicking these links really help the site to reach a broader audience and I sincerely appreciate that you spend a minute doing so! Thanks.
My university background is in business. I have a Bachelor and Master degree in these fields. I know all about the importance of networking, how to present a product, etc… Yet, up until recently, I never had a business card to promote my photography business.
I had my reasons: no defined photographic style, no time (ya right!), procrastination, did not feel like I needed them, etc. At the bottom of my heart, I knew I needed to have them but I always undervalued these pieces of paper as ‘old school’ means to link with clients. Also, I never wanted to restrain my photography to a specific field, so what should I put on the card? These questions had been lucking in my head for a while when I finally decided to act and order a set of business card from MOO.com.
The concept is interesting: 50 cards, all with the same content on one side and up to 50 different pictures on the other. This way, I could have a few cards for weddings, few more for travel, portraits, life events, etc…
This way, I could always give to the prospective client a card that fits his needs. Or, even better, have him pick the card he prefers among the stack. People usually don’t trash stuff they like, so this is a great way to make sure the client is going to keep the card!
These cards can also serve as portable/disposable portfolio! While my iPhone was already good at it, I think these cards are a good complement.
So, after reviewing my picks in Aperture, I came out with 26 different pictures to illustrate various aspect of my portfolio. This is what came out of it:
The back of the card is as simple as it can be: my portrait and my email address. It was useless to write ‘photographer’, clients already know that and I wanted to keep the design clean. The lack of any specialty keyword means I can use the card in more circumstances.
The ordering process on the Moo website is as simple as it can be. Just make sure you have already cropped your picture in the aspect ratio corresponding to the desired card size.
Note: these cards are much more expensive than the ‘normal’ ones. In fact, for the price of these 50 cards I could have bought a box of 1000 boring cards. Yet, I think it is a much better investment because it increase my brand value and set me apart from the others. Also, I am sure these wont end up in the trash.
Looking back at it now, the only thing I would have done differently would have been to pick a more ‘personalized’ font for my email address and maybe put a small logo or branding item on the card. Well, I only have 50 of these so I can always add the improvements for the next batch!
If you are interested, you can click the link below to order a set. I think you will be pleased by the result.
MOO Business Cards, MiniCards, Postcards. Create unique cards using your own photos or designs to help your business stand out!
Edit: use the code 7SCS4A with the link above to get free shipping!
To save you some time, I compiled a list of all the Vimeo groups related to the 5D Mark II that I could find.
As much as I like Vimeo, I wish it was impossible to post videos to more than one group. I understand the reasons why it would not be practical but at the same time, it is a bit annoying to subscribe to 10 groups and see the same newest video each time I log in… And trying to follow comments from one group to the next is no fun either. I am not here to rant about Vimeo so lets look at this list.
I just listed groups with significant user base and recent updates.
If you know any groups or channels that you be added to this list, please leave a comment.
Some people have been asking me about my Rapid Fire Zacuto rig review. I have not had the time to shoot enough with yet (only shot a total of 10 minutes) to make my mind about it. The only thing I can say so far is that it is not as stable as the heavier rigs (like the gunstocks) but at the same time it is so portable that I dont see any reasons why not to carry it around with me everywhere I go now! More on this soon.
If you want to add some music to your clip, go take a look at ccMixter. All songs/remix are available under the creative common attribution-noncommercial license which means they are free if:
- you are not making a commercial use of the song
- you identify the source.
Before using these sound clips, read the license and make sure you are making the right choice for your project.
Ed McNichol made a very nice tutorial on how to setup Compressor to convert your ProRes file so they could be uploaded to Vimeo in the “best” possible format. The process is very straight forward and should produce good result for 99% of the situations.
Exporting, which used to be one of my biggest frustration when working with video (iMovie, I am looking at you!) is now a thing of the past. Thanks Ed!
If you havent seen it yet, go take a look at www.dslrflix.com. It is a blog/content site dedicated to cinephotography (I think they made up that word). Contrary to the Canon5DMrkII Vimeo group which is spammed by people showing their “test” footage, DSLRFlix only display high quality content. So no bandwidth is wasted!
Spread the news around so more people visit the site and contribute.
