Wedding Wednesday

This photo was taken in June of 2010 in Liberty State Park. Sarah and John chose an amazing backdrop for their wedding photos and this photo really pops. I love how the black of John's tux and the white of Sarah's dress stand out against the city skyline. The rose adds a stunning burst of color to the photo, allowing for even more separation from the background.

STATS
ISO: 100
Lens Used: EF 28-135mm
Focal Length: 135mm
f/Stop: 5.625

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Posted in: little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,wedding photos,wedding video,wedding wednesday

Wedding Wednesday

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. I took this photo at my cousin's wedding in September of 2010 and it's been one of my favorite photos I've taken at a wedding since I started in 2004.

The look on dad's face is a mixture of pure joy, pride, and love. This photo should be used in dictionaries next to the phrase "Daddy's Little Girl".

STATS
ISO: 1600
Lens Used: EF 28-135mm
Focal Length: 127mm
f/Stop: 5

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Posted in: little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,wedding photos,wedding video,wedding wednesday

Wedding Wednesday

This is one of my favorite cake photos. I love how the light in the background draws your eye to the funny cake topper. The cake at this October 2010 wedding was simply beautiful. The blue flowers added (real) accented the white roses (fake) made from icing and the layering was quite impressive.

STATS
ISO: 1600
Lens Used: EF 28-135mm
Focal Length: 38mm
f/Stop: 4

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Posted in: little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,videography,wedding photos,wedding video,wedding wednesday

Tech Tuesdays: Memory Card Class

The price tags on many memory cards have recently begun to drop. These days, a 4GB SD Card can be picked up in your local drug store for a fraction of the cost for the same card sold only a couple of years ago.

With inexpensive memory cards flooding the market, photo buffs may inadvertently overlook one of the most important traits in a memory card; it's class.

Most memory cards that can be picked up in your local Staples, CVS, or Best Buy are Class 4 or Class 6 memory cards. These cards are perfect for your standard point and shoot cameras like the Canon Powershot or a Kodak Easy Share camera.

What if you're using your Canon Rebel T2i to shoot video? If you use a Class 4 or a Class 6 memory card, you're going to get some funky video if you attempt to pan, zoom, tilt, or are not one of the 0.01% of the population whose hands never shake when holding a video camera.

In the following clip taken on my honeymoon in St. Lucia, notice what happens when the camera is moved quickly (Roughly 20 seconds in). The camera being used is a Canon Rebel T2i with a Class 4 SanDisk 16 GB SD Card. If you watch the video all the way through, my wife decides to enhance the video with a little bit of post marital excitement induced dancing.



If you rewind at the point where the camera shifts, check out the top right hand portion of the video, in the blue sky area. Notice the artifacts that appear (wavy lines). The slow memory card is attempting to catch up with all the information the camera is trying to send it. A slower write speed doesn't allow for the information to be properly processed, therefor the artifacts begin to appear in times of "high information overload".

To combat this problem, use a Class 10 memory card. With write speeds up to 30 MB per second, a 16 GB Class 10 SDHC Memory Card made by SanDisk will cost you roughly $100 while the 32 GB version with the same speed will cost you closer to $200 per card.

Check out this footage that was shot with a Panasonic HMC150 Camera, using a 32 GB Class 10 SDHC Memory Card. Notice that despite all the zooming, moving, panning, and general hand held insanity, the video looks crisp, clean, and artifact free.

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Posted in: canon rebel,canon rebel t2i,little guy productions,memory card class,memory cards,sd memory cards,sdhc memory card,tech tuesdays

Wedding Wednesday

This week's Wedding Wednesday Photo was taken in April of 2010 at Michelle and James' Wedding. The first installment in our new feature took home the Gold in the 2010 Little Guy Productions Photo Contest, receiving 44% of the 1220 votes cast.

I love this photo because it captures the pure joy that everyone hopes to experience on their wedding day.

STATS
ISO: 100
Lens Used: EF 28-135mm
Focal Length: 28mm
f/Stop: 4.375

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Posted in: little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,wedding video,Wedding Wednesday

Tech Tuesdays: Canon Rebel Update

Canon announced an update to its pro-sumer Rebel Cameras the Rebel T3 and Rebel T3i. Here are the specs:

Canon Rebel T3
Megapixels: 12.2
Sensor: CMOS
Image Processor: DIGIC 4
Video Option: HD - 30p/25p fps
ISO Range: 100-6400
Viewing Screen: 2.7" LCD

Canon Rebel T3i
Megapixels: 18
Sensor: CMOS
Image Processor: DIGIC 4
Video Option: HD - 30p/24p/25p, HD 60p/50p fps, SD 30p/25p
ISO Range: 100-6400 - expandable to 12,8000 in low light situations.
Viewing Screen: 3" LCD (swivel based)

Both cameras have a 9 point auto focus system and take SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory. Remember, if you're using these cameras to shoot HD video, be sure to plunk down the couple of extra bucks to get a higher class memory card (preferably a Class 10).

Both cameras will work with Canon lenses that preceded this model, and most kits come with the stock 18-55 stock lens.

The T3i has a new feature called "Scene Intelligent Auto mode" and a "Picture Style Auto mode" that incorporates a new EOS Scene Detection System.

The T3i costs $799 (body only) and $899 (Kit) if you order through B&H Photo Video while the T3 kit costs you $599.

Both cameras are expected to arrive at B&H in March.

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Posted in: little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,tech tuesdays

The Piano Man

After I finished filming this video, I had to tell the bride it was by far, one of the coolest things I've ever filmed at a wedding.

At Lauren and Dennis' wedding last October, the bride and groom chose Billy Joel's "Piano Man" as their last song of the night.

Check it out!

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Posted in: billy joel,lauren and dennis,little guy productions,piano man,rockland county wedding videographer,wedding video

Lauren and James Wedding Highlights

Alright! Finally caught up on all the 2010 videos!

Let me offer a bit of advice to budding videographers and photographers; never book three weddings the same month that you're planning on getting married yourself!

This highlight video chronicles Lauren and James' big day, from October 2010. Song chosen was "Marry Me" by Train.

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Posted in: lauren and james,little guy productions,rockland county wedding videographer,wedding highlights,wedding video

George and Joanne's Wedding

I'm finally starting to pull my act together and get all the old highlight videos onto my new Little Guy Productions Youtube account. Last night, I found one of my favorites; George and Joanne's Wedding.

George is the famous owner of the Bombsquad, a notorious team that plays in the Rockland County Softball League. He's also the owner of Hudson Valley Sign Studio and does unbelievable design work.

Joanne, his wonderful wife is a die-hard Jets fan and the proud mother of Saddie, one of the cutest dog's you'll ever meet. They also own a cat, but we don't like to talk about that too much.

So, without further delay, here's their highlight video to the tune of Pearl Jam's latest hit, Just Breathe.

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Posted in: little guy productions,videography,wedding highlights,wedding video

The Value of Backing Up

A couple of years ago, while Little Guy Productions was located at it's Limaland Branch, the upstairs washing machine went haywire and caused a flood in the basement.

The same basement where all of our Hard Drives, camera equipment, computers, and Bobble Head Dolls were located.

Thankfully, the water stopped inches short of my old Macintosh G5 computer and all the fun little surge protectors that were lined up next to it.

Unfortunately, some of my mom's photos and reels of film were damaged in the flood, which sadly brings my "backup" mantra into the forefront of many conversations I have with my tech pals.

Today's technology is great; most cameras allow us to see photos seconds after they're taken and memory cards allow us to store over 1,500 images on a single disk. Photo albums seem to have become a thing of the past, replaced by the new tradition of passing cameras around the table to spark a "remember when" moment.

In short, those photos need to be backed up. They can't stay on that card forever.

Now you need to think about how to store them:

External Hard Drives
My favorite brand is LaCie. I've used countless other drives in the past (Mercury Drives, G-Drives, Nextor) but have and will continue to purchase LaCie. We've got a couple of options - LaCie Rugged drives are great for those on a budget, while their mega counterparts (Big Disk, Big Disk Extreme) offer you big bang for a hefty price tag. I've had the best success rate with LaCie, only having one Hard Drive crap out on me (it was a Rugged).

Outside Company
I also back up important files and some photos to an off site server, using Apple's Mobile Me program. For $100 a year, I can store 20 GB worth of information on their servers. It's not a ton of space, but it's almost fail proof. Another great company that offers consumer solutions to data backup is Carbonite. Carbonite has a flat yearly fee ($54.95) that covers unlimited data storage. If you have oodles of stuff to backup, that's not a bad deal at all.

Disks
You can always archive your stuff to CDs or DVDs, but they have a limited shelf life. If you're okay with re-burning all your Data every five years, this is probably the cheapest solution. Be mindful that cheapest, in this case, also means cheapest quality. CDs and DVDs do not take scratching, fingerprints, small breezes very well. If the CD/DVD is damaged so goes your information.

Be wary of companies that sell Gold Archiving Disks. They'll tell you that the CD/DVD is safe for archival purposes for 300 years. Here's my beef with that line of logic from a shifty salesman:

300 years?

DVD technology has only been around for 10-15 years, tops. The way technology evolves, I can't imagine they'll last as long as their predecessors (Beta, VHS). That would mean, even if by the remote chance that they do last 300 years, you're going to need to "WILL" your future families a computer that can handle reading them. Good luck with that.

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Posted in: apple,backup,carbonite,lacie,little guy productions,photo backup,video backup

Lauren and Dennis' Wedding Highlight Video

Lauren and Dennis' wedding seems to have the most press on our website. We first wrote about them shortly after their wedding and again last month when highlighting the R&R Acoustic Duo folks who played at their ceremony and cocktail hour.

While the two can't seem to agree on which football team to root for (Cowboys or Giants), they both showed that they could agree on the fact that "love is all you need".

By the way, we're going to have to agree with the bride. GO COWBOYS!

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Posted in: lauren and dennis,little guy productions,videography,wedding highlights,wedding video

Sarah and John's Wedding

I've been a little tardy with updating everyone on the 2010 Weddings we've filmed, so here's one of my favorite highlight videos that I've ever edited together.

Sarah suggested using the song "Breathe Me" by the female vocalist Sia.

Part of the reason I love this video so much is the fact that Kristen and I were on the same page with the video and stills. While at Liberty Park, Kristen manned the DVX as I took the T2i and somehow, we both managed to capture identical video and stills.

The video strayed a little bit from my usual editing style; mixed in a lot of black and white, color transitions, and opacity fades.

Take a peak:

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Posted in: little guy productions,sarah and john,wedding highlights,wedding video

The Places We've Been

Got to cross off another item on the bucket list: meet a living legend!

I just got back from sunny Orlando where I was photographing a meeting a greet between the March of Dimes National Ambassador Family and golf legend, Arnold Palmer.

Arnold Palmer served as the March of Dimes Honorary National Chairman for twenty years and was a huge supporter of the National Ambassador program. This year's Ambassador family, the Flemings and their daughter Lauren, got to chat with Mr. Palmer and tell him about Lauren's early birth and lengthy stay in the NICU.

Arnold Palmer, Lauren Fleming, her father Denzel
and the March of Dimes team.

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Posted in: bay hills golf club,canon 5d,little guy productions

And the Winner Is

Congratulations to Michelle and James, winners of the 2010 Little Guy Productions' Photo of the Year Contest!

The happily married duo finished with an astonishing 44% of the vote (543 total votes) thanks to a late surge of voting on New Years Eve.

The couple will receive a Canvas Print of their photo in the New Year, thanks to the wonderful work done by Husdon Valley Signs.

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Posted in: little guy productions,little guy productions photo contest