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Syrp Lab

What is ISO, Dual ISO, ISO invariance and where does all the noise come from?

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ISO used to be fairly simple. In the film days, it was called ASA and was a measure of the sensitivity of that film to light. As we transitioned to digital and the years progressed, things have gotten a little more complex. In this video, the Syrp Lab team looks at ISO in the modern day. They take a look at features like Dual native ISO as well as discuss the issues around digital noise.

The video focuses on how ISO relates to video, as many modern ISO features are specifically designed for getting the best possible quality in your footage. But much of the information is still valid for photographers shooting still images, whether they be jpg or raw.

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Photo vs cine lenses – Which is really more cinematic?

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As cameras have become more video-capable over the last decade and a bit, cine lenses have become more of a thing. Once confined to Hollywood film sets, they’re not readily available for anybody with the cash to spare. While some are uniquely cine lenses, others are photography lenses in new housings. But does the cine housing and feature set really make a difference?

In this video, Syrp Lab takes a look at photo vs cine lenses to see if the latter really is more “cinematic”. There are certainly plenty of advantages and disadvantages to both types of lenses, depending on your needs and how you prefer to shoot, but

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AI audio processing vs mixing it yourself – which is better for your videos?

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There’s been a lot spoken about AI when it comes to photographs and video. Deepfakes are rife, and the situation isn’t looking great. There’s also images being generated based off the work of people who didn’t provide permission for their work to be referenced. But what about audio? What if you’re using AI to tweak something you’ve already created? What if it’s simply modifying or enhancing what you’ve already done?

Both Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve have added a number of AI-powered tools for enhancing audio in your video edits. But are they any good? Do they really compare to mixing it yourself? Is it better than doing it the old fashioned way? Should you even bother learning to mix? The team at Syrp Lab attempts to answer these questions and more in their new video, with a guest appearance by professional audio engineer Alex Knickerbocker.

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Green screen doesn’t suck, you just suck at green screen – Here’s why and how to fix it

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Shooting on a green screen has become far more common these days. Green screens are cheap and readily available. Most video editing software, not to mention live streaming software like OBS and hardware like the Yolobox Products, have native support for it built-in. But it’s still something that many people struggle with when it comes to video editing with bad keys, dodgy artifacts and other issues.

A lot of people blame the software tools for a bad key, but is it down to operator error? Well, yeah, it probably is. There are many factors in shooting good green screen footage, and in this video, the team at Syrp Lab go through the process and explain exactly what could be causing your green screen issues and how to resolve them.

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These guys tested every video stabilizer so you don’t have to (but you probably still should)

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If you shoot video, you know that you’re going to need some kind of stabilisation at some point in the process. Whether it’s a tripod, gimbal, a whole giant rig or simply relying on the camera or lenses built-in stabilisation, there are so many different ways out there. We can even stabilise in post, thanks to things like Adobe’s Warp Stabiliser and DaVinci Resolve’s gyro-stabilisation for Pocket cameras, or Sony’s similar tech.

Picking which one to choose for a given situation can be challenging, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience using all of the different methods out there. So, the team from Syrp Lab decided to give them all a try to see which worked best in which situations, from gimbals and IBIS to software stabilisation like that found in GoPros as well as the aforementioned Warp Stabiliser.

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Here’s how to build a complete portable podcasting setup into a single case for easy travel

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Now that the world has spent the last couple of years stocking up on microphones, lights, new cameras and a mountain of other bits to be able to stream from home or just make our Zoom calls look and sound a bit better than our co-workers, what do we do with it now that the world has (mostly) opened back up and we’re able to start travelling again? Well, we take it with us, of course!

In this video, the team at Syrp Lab build an entire podcasting studio in a single box that lets you record or broadcast from pretty much anywhere. Based on (in?) the Manfrotto ProLight Reloader Tough-55 roller case, it’s rugged enough to deal with the usual rough handling of travel and it also fits within carry-on restrictions (although do double-check before you book) when you need to fly!

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This deep dive looks into LOG vs RAW footage and how they differ for colour grading

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These days, whenever a new camera is released – particularly one geared towards video – I see two questions that come up repeatedly for days. “Does it have a LOG profile?” and “Can it shoot raw?”. They’re valid questions, but there are some pretty big differences between the two. In this video, the team at Syrp Lab take a deep dive into both to show how they differ and the potential problems you can run into.

In short, log footage tries to emulate the range of brightness that our eye is capable of seeing, but once you start to great it, it can fall apart pretty easily. Raw footage, on the other hand, contains much more data with a greater bit depth – and bit depth is explained in the video – offering a lot of latitude in post to adjust clips to match each other and give an overall artistic great. But it comes at a cost of space and computing power.

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How to build your own DIY acoustic panels to treat your room for recording audio

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If you’ve ever tried shooting a video indoors where good sound is important, you’ve no doubt come across the issue of reverb. It’s the echo that you typically hear in a recording in an untreated room with a microphone placed too far from your subject. It’s an issue that most indoor spaces face, but it’s one that can be overcome with a little work.

The team at Syrp Lab recently rebuilt their gear room for filming in and they’ve faced this challenge. So, in this video, they build their own DIY acoustic panels to help treat the space and deal with some of the echo picked up by their cameras and microphones.

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Building the ultimate gear room for photographers and filmmakers

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Camera gear, whether it’s for photography or filmmaking can be quite the pain to store, especially if it’s your career and you’re constantly adding new gear to your kit. And I’m not talking about buying more gear for the sake of buying more gear, I mean you actually need all this stuff to offer more services and a better quality of service to your clients. It’s just the nature of the beast when you work in a creative industry that requires a camera.

The folks at Syrp Lab faced this issue, with gear strewn around all over the place (a common problem for many of us) and the boss instructed his team to tidy up the gear room and make it more efficient. While this setup might be a little overkill for some of us, it offers some great tips and advice on how we might be able to better store some of our own kit.

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Syrp to be rebranded “Syrp Lab” with products folded into the Manfrotto Move ecosystem

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New Zealand based camera slider and timelapse gear company, Syrp has announced that it’s rebranding itself to Syrp Lab and that its products will be also rebranded and brought into the fold of the new Manfrotto Move ecosystem. This isn’t the first name that’s been rebranded under the Manfrotto banner recently with “Lastolite by Manfrotto”, and simply “Lastolite” before that, also bring brought under the Manfrotto name.

According to the announcement, Syrp Lab is essentially going to be come an R&D facility working on “the next generation of tools for creators” covering a range of brands across the Vitec Imaging Solutions collective. They’re also turning to education, teaching users of Vitec products how to use them and create the best content they can.

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