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Three Grip tricks you wish you’d known before

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Grip is a completely undermined part of what we do as photographers and videographers. My cinema peers know what I’m talking about when I say that grips are absolute geniuses in their craft. I have seen people do amazing things with seemingly nothing, and after years of working next to some pretty professional people, I’ve accumulated a lot of appreciation for the work they do and the solutions they provide.

Manfrotto has an excellent line of grip accessories, everything from magic arms, to nano clamps, pumps, and a bunch more stuff! The problem is that it’s hard to recognize that a piece of equipment labeled as one thing, can actually be used for another. In the video, I discuss three nitty-gritty tactics I use outside of the comfort zone of a product description. And that’s really what I advocate when I try to get people excited about grip. You don’t necessarily have to be solving a problem, you can just be enhancing your workflow or creating options!

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Baby plate bounce card gear hack

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Foamcore are an incredible asset for work inside and outside the studio, but there is always the question of mounting them. One way is using a reflector arm and another is holding them with pony clamps, there is even a DIY holding solution.

Photographer Tony Roslund shares another low-budget option which I really like: Using a baby plate and some gaff tape.

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Use GoPro parts to build the perfect monitor DSLR mount

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Getting a monitor on a DSLR* can be tricky. Base plates, cages, and magic arms all come to mind. If you want something a little more compact, cold-shoe ball mount is the go-to option.

Caleb Pike has a sweet little solution that uses GoPro parts that make a mount that only tilts and does not rotate or pivot. This makes it extra easy to tilt the screen with one hand and not worry about it rotating around. It stays perfectly aligned.

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StandDaddy offers a sturdier alternative to sand bags

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If you are a long time reader of the blog, you know that we love sand bags. I mean, what can ruin a shoot better than a piece of gear flying into the talents eye, right? Especially if they are talking about sand bags….

I thought that there was little to innovate in that area, but we saw the water weight bagel thingy last year, and now comes StandDaddy.

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No tripod? No problem – A lazy approach to overhead photography

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Living on the 9th floor in my apartment, anything that gets left in the car, stays in the car. Even if I later “suddenly” remember that I need it while I am at home. Having the enormous responsibility of my project 365, this is usually bad news for me. I knew that I was going to take a picture of one of my guitars because I had planned to. The only problem is, I wanted a table top. And for that… you need a tripod. I’m sure you know where I am going with this. Yes, the tripod is in the car, and its pouring outside, its cold, and anyway I’m flustered because I decided to postpone the picture till 2:00 am. I’m just not going down to get my tripod!

So it was time to work around it, because honestly, I couldn’t think of anything else to take a picture of…

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Spoil your camera: pimped wooden grip for Fuji

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Nothing says “I love my camera” more than a handmade wooden grip, and this grip by Stefano Borghi  says it perfectly. Stefano build this wooden grip to replace his Fuji Xpro-1 plastic grip. Of course, similar procedure can be implemented to create a wooden grip for the newer Xpro 2 as well, and probably the Xpro3 when it comes. (we are not starting a rumor now!).

It is kinda straight forward, so I am just gonna lay out the photos to show you how it’s done step by step.

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How to build a DIY Teleprompter

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Anyone who remembers my early videos knows that my command of the english language is far from perfect extremely creative. It was after several long days with many takes that I decided to test using a teleprompter. My first test was just placing an iPad with a teleprompter app and giving it a shot. We went down from million takes to three after 15 minutes of fiddling.

There was one caveat though, it was looking weird as my eyes were not looking at the camera anymore. This is when I decided to build a teleprompter. (In whole honesty, after living with my wooden, handcrafted prompter for several months, I did go for a more streamlined option. But for testing sake, several months of usage and about $15 I was quite happy.

If you think that you can benefit from a magical device that whispers your next line when you are doing video, hit the jump button for instructions.

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3 Critical Tips For Setting C-Stands Up

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C-stands are undoubtedly one of the most important tools for a setting up (big) lights and other heavy equipment. But while using a C-stand may seem trivial, if not done in the right way it’s just begging for a broken rib/light/head or possibly all three.

The combination of “heavy” with “high” does require some know-how to avoid an accident. And the team at RocketJump Film School share the three critical tips to avoid a stand falling on your head.

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5 Clever Microphone Mounts For Shooting Video

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Well, there are the trivial ways for mounting a microphone when shooting with DSLR (or with any camera actually), some sometimes, the traditional ways are just not compact enough, or versatile enough or quick enough. And this is where this quick video from DSLR Video Shooter comes handy.

Add to this Rode VideoMic Pro or VideoMic GO and you can create some interesting setups that can really up your audio game. At the end this is about how far away you (or your talent) are away from the mic, this video has five quick (and mostly cheap) ways to mount your microphone for either field or studio usage.

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