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How to set up your lights and balance colour tones to get that orange and teal look in-camera

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The blue and orange look (also often referred to as “Orange and Teal”) has been popular in cinema for a long time, but massively so in the last few years as easy video editing and colour grading features have come into easy reach of anybody with a camera. With free editing software like DaVinci Resolve out there, it’s easy for anybody to do in post now. Shift the shadows one way, the highlights another and you’re good right?

Well, sort of, but not really. If you want to do it well, you also need to light your scene for it. In this video, cinematographers Valentina Vee and Alissa Rooney walk us through the lighting setup to shoot these colours together. They walk us through a full lighting breakdown, explaining how to balance the colour tones together to make them feel seamless throughout.

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Feiyutech launches two new gimbals – the Feiyu Scorp and the modular Feiyu Scorp Pro

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Feiyutech has announced two new motorised 3-axis gimbals. These are the Scorp and the Scorp Pro. Unlike many other gimbals, though, the “Pro” model isn’t just the regular gimbal with a bunch of extras added. In this case, it’s actually a completely different gimbal. Like the regular Scorp, but modular, adding a lot of versatility and shooting options over the basic model Scorp.

The Scorp is a motorised 3-axis gimbal with a design that reminds me of the Zhiyun Weebill 2 if the handle were permanently attached – but without the cool flippy out LCD. The Scorp Pro, on the other hand, appears to be like a scaled-down version of the Crane 3S, with removable handles for both the base and rear underslung mode.

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Thieves target Atlanta film industry businesses stealing over $3,000,000 in gear

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It seems that Atlanta is the big movie business target for thieves at the moment, with a number of companies banding together to try to combat the problem. Surveillance cameras of a recent breaking at video production services and gear rental company, PC&E in Atlanta where thieves managed to get in, steal over $100,000 worth of equipment and get back out again in less than 10 minutes, with one camera alone reported to be worth around $90,000.

According to a report from CBS46 in Atlanta, the thieves broke in through a window and “just started grabbing stuff” as can be seen on the CCTV recording. There are said to have been over 30 break-ins since the summer, resulting in losses of more than $3,000,000 in gear value alone – not to mention the cost of repairs to facilities, lost business due to not having the gear to rent, etc.

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Canon is adding vehicle-tracking AF to the EOS R5 and R6 but it comes with a catch

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One of the great new features of the Canon EOS R3 (and the Nikon Z9, while we’re talking about it) was the addition of vehicle tracking. Designed primarily for sports shooters covering motor racing, it allows the camera to lock onto vehicles as they hurl themselves around the track at ungodly speeds. Well, that feature is coming to the Canon EOS R5 and EOS R6 on December 2nd via a firmware update.

It has a small problem, though. According to Canon, “general passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and motorcycles may not be detected”. There’s no indication as to why, but it seems that non-racing vehicles “may not” be detected. This is perhaps going to be a little tricky for motorcycles, given that street bikes and racing bikes are pretty much identical to each other, especially in Superbike racing where production bikes are used.

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Canon patents zoom lenses that get shorter as they get longer

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Well, this is a bit counterintuitive. Spotted by asobinet, Canon has patented a mechanism for a zoom lens mechanism that actually gets shorter as you increase the focal length. Yes, that’s right, the exact opposite to how zoom lenses normally work.

The patent was published on November 18th to provide zoom lenses with large apertures and small size with high optical performance. A number of lens examples are included in the patent, including a couple with ranges of approximately 28-70mm and 28-60mm with f/2.8 and f/4 maximum apertures respectively.

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If you’re using an old perpetual license version of Lightroom 5, back up your installation file

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A recent post on Reddit has highlighted a potential issue for users of Adobe’s perpetual license version of Lightroom 5. Basically, if you bought the digital-only version and don’t have a physical CD from which to install (or you do but you’re using a computer that no longer possesses an optical drive), you may not be able to easily download the installation files again if you ever need to reinstall it on your computer.

Previously, you could download older versions of the software for which you had a valid license and the Reddit user pdaphone says that when they logged in, they could see their serial number, but was unable to download the software through the Adobe interface. Fortunately, it seems like there is a solution. At least for now.

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Fujifilm’s new Instax Mini Evo Hybrid instant camera comes with 10 lens and 10 film effects

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Fujifilm has announced its new hybrid camera, the Instax Mini Evo. It combines the “I WANT IT NOW!” factor of instant prints with some of the perks that digital imaging technology has to offer. Images captured by the camera are stored digitally, allowing you to more easily pick and choose which images you want to print – rather than just pressing a button, having it print and hoping it doesn’t suck. It also means you can make multiple prints of images you particularly like!

It’s essentially the successor to the Fuji Instax Mini LiPlay and still uses the standard Instax Mini Instant Film for roughly credit-card-sized photos. The new Instax Mini Evo, though, includes 10 lens effects and 10 film effects for a total of 100 different combinations to add a unique look to your images before you print them. There’s also a “selfie mirror” on the front for… well, when you want shoot selfies.

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This 3D printed adapter for microscope objectives produces amazing macro shots for less than $25

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Macro is one of those subjects that kind of has two extremes. Either you can go way over the top expensive, with decent macro lenses starting at quite a few hundred dollars or you can go super cheap, utilising tools such as extension tubes with your “normal” lenses. But there is a third alternative, a mix of inexpensive and DIY. And this project from Nick Sherlock takes that DIY route to a low budget extreme with some pretty amazing results.

He designed an adapter for Sony E and Canon EF mount cameras that can be easily 3D printed and allows him to connect an inexpensive $23 4x microscope objective and essentially use it as a macro photography setup. And while it’s no Laowa probe lens, the objective being so small also means you can poke it through things to get much closer to your subject without too much interference.

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Capture One demands complete physical access to your computer(s) in its license agreement

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Contracts are a funny thing. The wording they use, the things they have to say in order to allow them to do the things they do, can seem quite overbearing – particularly when it comes to things like Digital Rights Management, otherwise known as DRM. Put simply, DRM is the part of the software that checks to make sure you’re running a legitimate copy of the software with a valid license key. It’s something that Adobe does each month when it checks that you’re still running a valid Creative Cloud subscription.

Capture One, though, seems to demand complete and absolute access to not only your computer through its software checks but “on-site investigations” with physical access to any computers that they suspect are running Capture One. And it’s all in the name of copyright. It sounds a bit (a lot) big brother, but is it something you should really worry about? Well, to quote the great Jar Jar Binks, “Not really, no”.

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How to easily edit your videos to a musical beat with just a few clicks in Adobe Premiere Pro

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Whether you’re editing a narrative story, a vlog or an actual music video, editing videos to the beat is a common technique to make the video feel cohesive to the viewer. Fast editing to the beat of tense music can cause excitement and anticipation while switching slowly to softer music can create a more peaceful and tranquil setting. The traditional way to edit music to the beat in Premiere Pro is to simply drag in your clips and adjust their length manually to match the music, but this can take forever.

In this video, Kelsey the Premiere Gal shows us a couple of handy addons for Adobe Premiere Pro to make the task go quickly and easily. Both essentially work in the same way, by analysing your music and adding markers along the timeline which Premiere Pro then uses to automatically insert and align all your clips in one fell swoop, but there are some subtle differences between the two.

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