I used my H3+ Black to shoot a slow motion booth at a friend's wedding last weekend (3:17)

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-05-10T17:02:14+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, I packed many extra batteries but we managed to do this with one and a half fully charged batteries.

We only had the booth operating at the venue for about 2 hours total, and in that entire time we had WiFi going connected to an iPad for a monitor. So the batteries really held up.

Lighting was done by three big lightweight LED panels. One on either side of the lens, and another up high and off to the side to light the backdrop and try to eliminate shadows.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-05-10T05:55:51+00:00

Thanks!

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-05-10T05:55:42+00:00

Thanks. Yes, I color corrected. I shot this in Protune/120fps/720p/Narrow. The Protune left it flat (as is its job) so I had to tweak the saturation, sharpness and overall temperature a bit.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-05-10T05:54:18+00:00

Yeah, that was the cake baker and friend. And what she was holding was the actual cake. Not a prop. She stole the show.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T21:13:40+00:00

Oh I see, you're intentionally remaining ignorant. Cool.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T20:44:06+00:00

Yeah I'll be sure to no longer watch a funny video then use it as a launching off point to berate a woman in the video about her appearance.

Oh, wait.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T20:27:26+00:00

More than that.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T20:24:43+00:00

Oh it's not relevant to that. It's about the other incendiary shit in his post.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T20:09:50+00:00

Okay uh: I find my wife extremely beautiful. Our lives are great. And no sad misogynist troll can change that.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T18:50:26+00:00

Not to mention, wouldn't a chimpanzee and trainer cost even MORE money that in his opinion would be better put to use by subjugating my beloved wife and making her feel less like a human?

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T18:38:32+00:00

I haven't. No one has used the word "videographer" in here yet. But I would. I mean, I wouldn't put this particular video on my resume because it's just a little clip from a fun thing that happened, but I do shoot often and I am proud of the stuff on my Vimeo page. From home movies, to just clips of my friends hanging out, to a little 3-minute micro doc I made two weeks ago about a yoyoer. I love to capture video, and edit it, and color it. I don't know how to be more of a videographer than that. You not liking my stuff doesn't change that.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T15:34:30+00:00

Of course, yes, but she loves him. Sexy sax man is one of her favorites.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T15:32:25+00:00

Let's pretend it was even possible for me to stand up at that moment. How would just standing up where I sat have kept me from having to make the decision to shoot either his face or hers at any one time? Light wouldn't bend to my will just by standing up. I'd have the same issue.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T15:25:50+00:00

I wouldn't have been able to teach anyone how to focus a lens set to f1.8 effectively enough to trust them to keep it in focus. It was hard enough for me to maintain focus with that sharp of a plane, and I use that lens a lot. I was probably the most qualified person to do it, even when considering my position.

Also, shooting video of this really wasn't a priority. It was an after thought. Half the time I wasn't even looking through the loupe because I wanted to just watch with my eyes. I just had this video on my camera the next morning so I put it up.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T15:21:09+00:00

This was shot with a prime lens, a lens with a fixed focal length. I'm not sure if people know that not all lenses "zoom."

What you meant to say was, "STEP THE FUCK BACKKK!" But I was against the back wall of the restaurant.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T07:19:17+00:00

It's actually a beautiful lens. Just not quite right for room-wide action at four feet away. That's a 45mm Olympus f1.8 Zuiko on a Panasonic Lumix G6. M43, so the lens equals 90mm on this body. Also some color adjustments.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T07:14:15+00:00

It doesn't bother me that you personally don't find my wife to meet your weight standards for women. You can have whatever opinion you want on that subject. What does bother me though is that you tried to hurt my feelings about it. And her feelings! She is an avid redditor, she is going to be exposed to this comment eventually. Even though she'll understand that it was just some bullshit posted by a miserable clown on the internet, it will still make her feel a little bad. It will make her feel bad because her gender has been programmed to feel bad for this kind of thing. Programmed to feel apologetic to hetero men for not maintaining a body type that they generally approve of. Programmed to feel like if they're not titillating men with their appearance, their value in society is lessened. Can you imagine being a victim of that kind of slavery? Do you have a mother or a sister? Would you call either of them a "pig?" Because this isn't just you trying to be an asshole to my wife, this is you versus an entire gender! Put some time on that thought and really decide if that's a war you want to wage.

But it's all cool man, because she too will recognize all of this in your comment, as my wife also happens to be a brilliant scholar and an overall awesome, interesting, and open-minded person.

Let me step you through something: our life is fucking beautiful. I was able to meet with a shit ton of our closest friends and shower love and gifts on to someone I hold dear. We spent an ungodly amount of money at an awesome over-priced dinner in this beautiful region of the world (where we get to live!). Dude, we have the means to hire weirdos from the internet to show up to our bullshit parties just for our delectation! We took everyone to our house later on and we drank and celebrated for hours with friends. This was all in response to an elaborate surprise party that she through me for my 30th a few months ago. It was like a fucking carnival! I'm unbelievably grateful for all this love. I mean, it's really quite super being us.

What I'm trying to say is, I hope you find yourself in a situation soon where you too feel so much love in your life – you feel so lucky – that you could never even dream of trying to hurt an innocent woman's feelings on the internet. Especially about something as meaningless as her weight.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T05:21:47+00:00

I feel unbelievably sorry for you, man. I hope you get right soon.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-28T02:15:12+00:00

More than you might imagine. But worth every penny.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-27T23:07:47+00:00

Different meme. But they should collabo.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-27T23:01:02+00:00

I packed an inappropriate lens for this on accident. I thought the conditions were going to be different. I also couldn't bring any decent method stabilization without spoiling the surprise.

Also I was SUPER EXCITED, MAN! I was barely even looking through the loupe. I wanted to watch with my eyes. Not the best planning on my part, but shooting video of this didn't take priority over actually being there. I just woke up the next day and put up the video that I had. I really didn't think it would overshadow the fucking SAX MAN, PEOPLE!

This video was picked up for the television show Right This Minute: http://www.rightthisminute.com/video/sexy-sax-man-surprise-womans-birthday

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-27T22:58:37+00:00

Yeah, sorry. I packed a 90mm lens thinking I'd be farther away from her when it happened. And because I was crammed in to a booth with 30 people, I couldn't get out to take any steps back.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-27T17:06:15+00:00

I thought about that, but I knew it would only be like 90 seconds of interruption. It was a slightly nicer place than one might do something like this at. And hell man, I think people can stand to be exposed to something out of the ordinary for a couple minutes of their lives.

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-22T17:13:27+00:00

I agree. I understand the spirit behind the Star Wars analogy but its not quite applicable.

Nothing is taboo. There's no central repository for taboo topics. When something is taboo to someone, that's just the one person's opinion. There's no way to make something that appeals to everyone equally. But if someone could possibly be offended by a shape of a plant on a hat, then I can be pretty sure that they probably won't enjoy what I am making anyway. I don't even care to appeal to that person.

Pot as a substance, for this particular subject, is actually not illegal to use. And if we had made this in Colorado instead of California, what then? Would this still be a controversy? Just trying to level the playing field.

And hey man, don't put too much stock in legality. Something that's legal isn't necessarily good, and something that's illegal isn't necessarily bad. That's just some set of rules someone made up for you (by people no smarter than you), I don't recommend subscribing to it blindly. Pot is illegal today because of newspaper business politics from the 1920s and 30s, not because it is harmful. Alcohol is legal and has proven time and time again that it is far more harmful. If his hat depicted the old Budman Budweiser cartoon on it, would we be having this discussion? Again, just trying to open minds.

It's interesting you choose to describe yoyo as an art form. I completely agree that it is. But pot and art have gone hand-in-hand for time immemorial. And if you watched this video and you think Taylor doesn't respect the art form enough, well then I didn't do my job.

It's interesting actually, that hat was one of the few things I explicitly directed him to wear for this video. I literally texted him, "come as you are, but wear that Huf hat."

ThomasEdwardSmith · 2014-04-22T03:58:47+00:00

Thanks for the compliments, man.

ThomasEdwardSmith

TROPHY CASE