Digital vs. Analog Stuff

Digital vs. Analog Stuff

Before we had DVD, or CD for that matter, most of us only knew the Analog world. When I think of Analog, I am reminded of the real world around us. There is no pure black or white, no exact absolutes. Video was the same way in the analog world. Let me start with some over simplication ok? In fact, in most of my articles here, I'm going to do my best to keep things simple. There is no shortage of extremely technical information on the internet already, so if you want more information, after you read this, feel free to Google any of my terms here, ok?

Ok, lets start by taking a step back. Think of a dial, like the speedometer in your car. Say it goes from 0 to 100 miles per hour, for example. If you look at it very careful while you're driving (which I don't recommend!) you will notice it move around a little, it might be somewhere between 54 and 55 mph, lets say. In fact, if you were to hold a magifiying glass over the needle, you could maybe even decide it was between 54 1/2 and 54 3/4. Then if you looked even closer, you could get more percise even. Now, follow with me a little bit, because this will be the base for the rest of the descussion, ok?

Lets say you look at it, and decide to just call it 54 1/2 mph. But someone else looks at it and says its more like 54 3/4. A third person might look really close and call it 54 5/8. Who cares, right?

Now lets look at the same thing on a Digital speedometer. Glowing green segments clearly show 54 mph. Anyone who looks can see that. Genius, right? But is it actually correct? Or is it rounding the number to the nearest whole number? Hmmm...

This is the good thing about something Digital, not just video, but music, or data, or anything else we care to count. 54 is always 54. There's no "static" or snow or bouncing needles, its just 54. If I make a digital copy of 54, then you copy 54, and on down the line for 1000 people, the end answer should still be 54. Compare this to the old school game, where you whisper a secret to someone next to you, then the next person passes it on, and by the end of the line, its not even close to what you said!

If I have a digital video clip, and I post it on the internet, and you copy it, you could repost it, and it would be exactly identical. That is why the Recording Industry is so worried about people who post videos or songs online. The copy is so perfect, there is no practical reason to buy the song, when the copy is just as good.

So, with that covered, here's a little brain teaser for you... Digital isn't exactly Better than Analog. But Digital is easier to make copies of an have the same quality from start to finish. If you start analog, and then make copies of the copies, you quickly go through "generation loss" and the finished product is not as good as the original.

Digital Compression
I'm sure you know about MP3 audio, at least you've heard of it, right? Apple's iPod brought MP3 into the main stream, but the MP3 audios have been around for a few years before then.

Let's start with a quick over view again, and then we'll have something useful to build on. The specific numbers aren't really important, but it gives you some theory. Lets start with a normal Music CD. Normally a CD can hold 80 minutes of audio (a 700 MB CD... the original 650 MB CD could hold 74 minutes, but we're trying to keep it simple right?)

Ok, lets say we buy a CD and want to listen to it on our iPod or other portable player. Until recently, the iPods and other players didn't have enough storage space to hold a whole CD, so we needed to find a different way. Enter the world of Compression.

In video, movies and animations, there is a phrase called Frames per Second. Normally video is 30 Frames per Second (fps). Movies are shot at 24 fps. Some animations are drawn at 12 fps. What does this mean, and what does it have to do with my MP3 audio? Wow, we're sure jumping around here! Hang on, we'll get there, I promise! There is a phrase "persistance of vision", maybe you've heard of it? It is loosely related to the phrase "the hand is quicker than the eye". If you were to look at a strip of movie film, you'd see the pictures, or frames. If you looked closely, you could see that some things moved from one frame to the next. But when we watch the movie, its just fast enough, and smooth enough, that we ignore the "jumps" between one frame and the next, and we see a smooth motion.

Ok, that's great, but we are talking about audio... I think :) Let me see if I can show you how a lossy compression scheme can work to save space in an audio file, and still make it sound pretty good. Imagine a series of values, from 1 to 10... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... 10. Now if we were in analog, there would be an infinite number of fractional values between 1 and 2, right? Because we're in digital we could say that anything beyond .001 would be ignored. So we could have 1.001, 1.002, 1.003. or 1000 segments between 1 and 2. Now lets say we didn't need it to be that perfect, we're just going to listen to this song for entertainment while we're jogging, we're not trying to fool someone into believing we're actually at the symphony, ok? Well in that case, maybe we could cut down to 10 segments between 1 and 2... like 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc... Wow, we've gone from 1000 down to 10. Because we don't need that percision, we've saved a lot of work and storage space. You could do the same thing in your check register, too! Say you know you'll never have more than $9,999.99 dollars in your account, you could narrow that last column, or write a little bit bigger. By slightly reducing your precision, you've saved some space. That's kind of how compression works. Or one way it works.

There's other ways as well. I alluded to the frames per second of video earlier. In Audio, or any other data for that matter, you can choose to sample at different intervals. I'm not going to go into quantum physics here ok? But it does make sense, if you measure something less often, you would need less room to write it down, right? CD audio is sampled at 44,100 times per second. If you drop that to 22,000 times a second, it still sounds pretty good, some people can tell there is a reduction in quality, but its not to bad. 11,000 times a second is a bit worse again. But 44 to 22 saves you half the space.

A few things to keep in mind there, once you eliminate the precision, you can't get it back. So from our 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 example, even if you add the zero back on, you only get 1.10, 1.20, 1.30, and there are no steps between. That's why a camera that can record directly to DVD can't make a movie as nice as a camera that shoots to a lower compressed format, even if everything else is equal.

If you really want to get into some details, places like Wikipedia.org are good places to start. Heres a link to their page about MP3, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

Theres so much more, but this will give you some things to think about! Or not, right?

This article ©2000 - 2008 BlueStar Productions

Reprinting on your blog or website allowed as long as this entire resource box is included.
Article by Carlin Comm
Photography and Video for YOUR Life!
http://www.Seattle-HotShotz.com
carlin@seattle-hotshotz.com

Follow Me on Twitter!
@carlincomm

How to plan a Wedding Day time line

... Or how to make it to the church on time!

The running joke is a wedding always starts on time, what ever time the bride gets there! We call that "wedding time". To me, as a photographer, its always fun to see how people deal with getting ready for a wedding. You start out early, you have the best intentions, you are probably even a very organized punctual person. So what happens?

It seems that all the forces of nature are against you! Maybe its part of the test... if you can actually make it through a wedding, then the universe decides that you are qualified to be married.

Anyway...

Starting with some broad observations, then we can get down to specific details as we go.

Everything takes longer than you can ever imagine.

I'm a video person, and a photographer. Sometimes both even. But when I shoot video of the bride and her ladies getting ready, I have physical documented proof of how long it really takes. A tape is an hour long. I've seen many times when they say something like, "Ok, we're ready, lets load up into the cars", so I swap a tape, so I'll be ready to catch them getting into the cars. An hour goes by, and I swap the tape in the camera again, because we have 55 minutes of trying to get everyone out the door, with all their make up bags packed. Its quite a sight to see!

Another point is "mob mentality". usually this is a bad thing. Think riots, as the population goes up, the IQ goes down. Weddings aren't quite that bad, exactly! But what seems to happen is everyone is trying to help. You know how long it takes you to get ready on a normal day. Most people get ready by them selves, in their own bathroom, with a minimum of outside interference.

Now picture how long it takes you and a group of your friends to do something together, like order dinner when you go out for a girls night. Simple, right? Except everyone is talking, at the same time, and then you have to weigh the options, and then if someone else wants what you have, you negotiate, etc.

And then take that group mentality up 20 notches, with the emotions of a wedding. Sure, your friends are having fun, but to you, this is IT. This is the big event, what you've been thinking of since you were like 4 years old. So you want it to be just right, perfect.

Well, there you are, doing your hair and make up. What you can probably do on your own in 30 minutes ( yeah right! ) now takes 2 hours because everyone is "helping"!

Plus, besides you getting ready, and your brides maids getting ready, and then the flower girls, and your mother, and some aunts who "just want to stop by to see how its going"... Plus all that, you're also on the cell phone, making sure the church is getting decorated, the flowers are getting delivered, the cake lady isn't lost, the DJ isn't double booked, some darn photographer keeps taking "Just one more picture" (and they always want to show you the picture, because its just so pretty!), plus... OMG! Enough already!

Best advice? Practice! Do a real run through. If you're going to get ready in a hotel room somewhere, at least try getting ready in someone else's house. Make a list of all the things you forget. See how long it will take when you're pulling things out of a bag, instead of your normally organized bathroom. Talk to 20 people while you're getting ready. Stop and redo your make up because you started crying for no reason. You could have someone pepper spray you, but that might be a bit extreme...

Actually drive from one place to another, like from your home to the church, at the time of day and on the same day of week as your wedding, maybe 2 weeks before your wedding. How is the traffic? Where will you park? Any new construction signs? Do you know a back way to go, just in case?

No joke, I went to shoot video of a wedding once, in Leavenworth, WA, and had to park 2 miles from the wedding chapel, because there was a Parade that day. 2 cameras, 2 tripods, lots of batteries, tapes, microphones, back up sound recorder... none of which was in a handy back pack yet, because usually I can park right off the side of the chapel. oops! Yes, it was a nice warm day for a walk, too! About 90 if I remember right. That's why I get paid the big bucks, right? :)

So, give your self an extra hour. Then another extra hour! Its ok if you're a bit early, its nice to sit down, relax, and gather what wits you have left just before walking down the aisle!

Theres so much more, but this will give you some things to think about! I plan to write more articles as I have time, so check back often. Remember to smile for your photos!


This article ©2000 - 2008 BlueStar Productions

Reprinting on your blog or website allowed as long as this entire resource box is included.
Article by Carlin Comm
Photography and Video for YOUR Life!
http://www.Seattle-HotShotz.com
carlin@seattle-hotshotz.com

Follow Me on Twitter!
@carlincomm

25 Page Custom Ghostwritten Ebook….For FREE??

Ok, go here first:
http:/tinamcallister.com/25-page-custom-ghostwritten-ebookfor-free/

Ok, if you're reading this post, you should probably know that I'm already going to win this contest, but still, thanks for reading :)

No, seriously!

Tina Mcallister is holding a contest. I met her recently on Twitter, you can follow her here:
TWITTER: @TinaMc
http://twitter.com/TinaMc

Tina is a Ghost writer. While she may at times write about haunted houses, that's not really what Ghost Writers do. From what I have learned, a Ghost Writer is someone who "helps" someone else write their book or article. Say you're a very busy successful person who would like to write a book. Great, right? Oh, wow, you can't really just walk away from your business for the next 3 months while you write your book. Plus, you're probably not very good at writing, are you? :) Well, say hello to Tina, your awesome new Ghost Writer! She will write your book for you, and it will be as if you wrote it yourself, in your "voice". How cool is that?

Ok, that's about all I know about this, go talk to Tina. But don't take up too much of her time, she's going to be writing my new book pretty soon, ok? Really!

Go ahead and ask me about my book sometime.

Later!

Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/carlincomm
@carlincomm

The LOST Art of Editing

I wrote this as a comment to my good friend Christine Taylor, @mousewords http://twitter.com/mousewords . She's an amazing writer, and has been kind enough to bring us along for the ride. Go follow her on Twitter, ok?

Anyway, it won't make sense out of context, so go read her post first, by clicking the title above.

You'll see my same comment on that page, so I guess it doesn't even matter if you come back.. unless she deleted it :)
---
Hey Chris

Welcome to my world :)
Every time I come back from a shoot, and see my raw footage, or raw photos, its that same range of emotions, its exciting, because you know its going to be awesome when its done, but its nerve racking, because you hate to cut something up, that's... alive. Sure, sometimes you see something that just has to be cut. Then it becomes a slasher movie, so many cuts, its hard to recognize what it was before. Slowly, you lay the knife down, wipe off your hands, pull back, look around, and then move things around. The real magic, like your video clip (very cool!) is when something new comes out, that didn't exist before. It comes alive, its... magic.

Hmmm that was kind of graphic. Sorry, feel free to delete it :) I think I'll go back to some more editing now :)

Then again, I kind of liked it... think I'll go post this on my blog :)

@carlincomm
http://twitter.com/carlincomm

Whitney Hahn - Fashion Model Shoot

How to make good money being a Wedding Photographer / Videograper

Ok, I'm not going to give you all my secrets here today, but I plan to do just that in the weeks and months ahead. Why would I do that, and create more competition for myself? Hmmm, Why Indeed!

In fact, at this moment I don't really have time to do this subject justice, but I thought if I at least got the ball rolling, I'll make plans to come back later and fill in more useful details.

For now, let me start at the begining...

I used to work as a computer tech, at a computer store. A lady I worked with had a daughter getting married, and she wanted me to do the video for her. I had an early model miniDV camera, but hadn't done much with it yet. This was back in 1999 I guess, the dark ages so to speak. At that time, doing video editing on computers was happening, but not as easy as it is today. I had about enough hard drive space on my computer to do maybe 30 minutes of video at a time. In fact, I didn't even have a FireWire card yet, I was still doing analog capture...

To be honest, I really didn't want to do her wedding video. I didn't want to screw it up I guess. After finally saying that I'd do it for free, if no one else would, just for practice, I had the gig. So then I started doing research. I got signed up on some video email lists to learn as much as I could. I did web searches for anything I should know. I started to realize I would need to buy a few more things.

Now keep in mind, even though I had a decent job at the time, I wasn't exactly rolling in the money. So it wasn't like I could just go out and buy a bunch of stuff. But by the time of the wedding, I had picked up a decent shotgun microphone for the MiniDV camera, I had a MiniDisc recorder walkman and a lapel mic for the groom, and I even had a back up Hi8 Handycam.

I think it was probably at least 3 or 4 months after the wedding by the time I got the video edited. None of the things I tried would work. I was on Windows PCs, which had some very good programs, but they were all pretty expensive. None of the cheap programs that I could get my hands on would work. My computers were just not fast enough. I had 2 or 3 pieces of hardware that I thought would work that I later found out were not really good enough. It was a rough start!

However, I did learn something. Some times the client, in this case the mother of the bride, could care less about absolute perfection. This is a good point, actually. I went into this planning on creating an absolute perfect wedding video, but I really didn't have the gear, the skills, or the experience to pull it off. Actually in the end, I did get it together. My basic video was good, it just took a lot of work to edit it together.

So, lets talk about you now. Maybe you've done one or two weddings. Or you're thinking about it, maybe your friends are asking you if you can do their wedding. What should you do? What gear should you have, what software, ... so many questions!

Start off with the basics. You really should try to have 2 video cameras, at least for the wedding ceremony. Make one a basic simple camera, it can be fairly cheap. That is your "Safety" camera. You could put it in the Balcony, or even at the front of the church, facing down the aisle toward the people. Anywhere that you'll get a good shot for at least most of the service. This is a good reason that I like to attend the rehearsal, it gives me a chance to watch where people are supposed to stand. They don't always hit their marks!

Ok, you have your safety camera rolling, now you can actually operate the main camera. Where you stand really depends on the situation at the church or where the wedding is at. I often stand at the back of the church, next to the center aisle, then I can do the long zoom shot and get the close up shot of the bride and groom, or I can pull wide and get the whole wedding party, etc. The back isn't as good of a place to be for the Processional, but if you're careful you can at least get some faces as people walk in. You're in a great place for the Recessional, as they're all coming right at you then!

To be fair, I always wish I had about 7 cameras for a ceremony, but that would probably take a few hours to set up! So you do what you can, with what you have.That is really my point for today, before you get all crazy and go buying wireless microphones and HD video cameras and Lights and 20 hours worth of batteries, go shoot a couple of weddings with what you have. Maybe even shoot them for free, just for the experience. Of the first 5 weddings that I shot, 4 were for free. I sent the couples a single copy of the finished project, and if they wanted more I sold it to them for something like $10 each. 2 of the 4 bought more copies, so I almost broke even on them. But I also had 5 weddings experience going into my second season!

And here's another good thing to understand. Its a really good idea to just tell someone that you're just starting out. Sure, you may not get that job, but trust me, you don't want THAT job anyway! It took me a couple years to figure out that some jobs just weren't worth what I was charging then.

Ok, this is a good place to stop for now. I'll plan on coming back and writing more later. If you are actually getting started, feel free to drop me a line. My contact info is on the right side toward the top of the page there.

Good luck, and have fun! Weddings are a blast!
Carlin

Wow, where did the last few months go?

Ok, sorry about that... Honest!
I have been meaning to update the blog here for a while now... So here goes!

That seems to be my theme lately, this is becoming the year that I finally get things rolling. There are whole lists of things that have bugged me, some of them for years. I've already taken care of some of them in the last couple of weeks.

Maybe you can relate? I've always suffered from "Home Run" mentality. I hate to do something half way. So in my mind, if I can't afford to do it right, or if I don't think I can spare the time to finish it correctly, I just won't start. In reality, "Base Hit" thinking would serve me better. For example, today I decided I should at least sit down and Blog something... Maybe I'll only write a few lines of rambling musings, but its a start. Tomorrow or when ever, I'll be thinking about it and something interesting might come out of it!

Since this blog is about my Photo and Video business, let me mention that briefly :)

I used to live in a medium small town called Wenatchee. That is in just about the exact center of Washington State. Go ahead and open your Google Maps page, right? Anyway, the first 5 or 6 or what ever years I was doing Wedding Video and Photo jobs, I lived in Wenatchee. Every year I drove over to Seattle 3 or 4 times for weddings, which is about 3 hours one way. In the other direction is Spokane, also about 3 hours away. In the whole time, I never did one wedding in Spokane. Now that I have moved to Seattle, I got to go to Spokane for a wedding. And of course in the process I met a lot of great people, made contacts, and will probably end up doing a few jobs a year in Spokane. I'm not complaining, but it sure would have been easier to go to Spokane when I still lived in Wenatchee!

Since the begining I have said I'd do jobs State Wide, and I have hit some pretty far out places. So its just my luck now that I've moved toward one side of the state, instead of the middle, that I'll start getting jobs from that side too.

But that's all good, right?

I also came up with a better definition of my perfect client. The first few years I pretty much wanted anyone to book me, just starting off is like that.Then I started to learn that I liked some jobs more than others. In the last year I started to listen more closely to my clients when we'd talk on the phone, or through email, to see what they were like, how they thought about things.

Then at this last job, in Spokane, the photographer said something that I'd never really put into words before. Basically, we started talking about rates and so on, and I said I had more fun doing wedding video in the $800 to $1000 range. Even though I have enough experience and good enough equipment to probably do well in the $2000 to $3000 range, I think that people who can afford that kind of pricing have different sense of humor or something.

Or said another way, I like to have fun when I'm at a wedding. I've always associated more with "blue collar" workers, for lack of a better word. I don't really spend a lot of time talking to people in suits, in fact I often will shoot a wedding in nice jeans and a nice shirt. I know photographers who will put on a suit for a wedding, and I actually bought a tux one year to wear for weddings. I just wasn't comfortable wearing it. I looked great, though!

Anyway, over the next month or so I'm probably going to go back and rewrite some of the copy on my website, at www.Seattle-HotShotz.com and see if I can work more of my own flavor into it. I often tell the Bride, or the Bride's mother, that what we do is a lot of a personality based business. If my sense of humor doesn't mesh well with yours, we are in for a long day. I've known some technically awesome photographers and videographers who just didn't get along well with people. People would hire them because they loved their samples, which is why you hire a photographer, sure. But its hard to smile at someone who isn't funny, ya know?

Ok, enough of that for now.
Drop me a line if you read this, I'd love to hear from people. I sometimes spend way too much time in my office during the week! There is a link somewhere on the right side of this page to send me emails!
Carlin

Maroxie Fashions - Hand Knitted Scarves

My Wife Julie, and her friends at work, are knitting scarves as their holiday project. Check it out! The scarves are awesome, nice and soft and fuzzy. Prices are very reasonable.

Rather than me trying to go into any kind of details here, just go check out her webpage, ok?

http://julie.comm.googlepages.com/

Thanks!
Carlin