Quite Frankly Ep 48 audio in video and review of the Rode NT-USB

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When you start out with video the focus is often 100% on the video quality and of course that is understandable, but…. in fact the audio is maybe even more important and often forgotten when you start out.

 

In this video a comparison between the Rode NT-USB and the internal microphone of a MacBook Pro early 2015.
Especially when doing screen recordings often the internal microphone is used because it gives a pretty good sound recording (no denying that), however as you can see in this video it can be MUCH better, but also what happens when there is a lot of ambient noise?

 

Watch this episode of Quite Frankly and find out.

Results day 1 of the Ultimate weekend

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Today some of the results from day 1 of the recent Ultimate workshop weekend in our studio in Emmeloord.
This is one of the most intense workshops I teach ranging from A-Z on model photography, during 2 days (and an evening) the attendees and me run through many different setups, techniques and problems you can encounter during photoshoots, but most of all there is a lot of attention to the little things that can make a photoshoot so much more interesting.

 

Today the results from day 1 as promised:
Models : Nadine and Jonathan
Styling : Nadine
Assistants : Chaim, Christa, Angela

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Nadine May 22 2015 0001

Nadine en Jonathan May 22 2015 0167

Nadine en Jonathan May 22 2015 0156

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Nadine en Jonathan May 22 2015 0142

Jonathan May 22 2015 0298

Jonathan May 22 2015 0286

 

 

Successful portraits workshops

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One of the workshops I teach is called “Succesvolle portretten” or in English “Successful portraits”.
In this workshop I give (as the name suggests) a lot of attention to shooting a portrait.
For me a portrait is much more than “just a headshot” although there is a section on the headshot, which of course is a very vital and important part of most successful studios.

 

The main thing about this workshop is that we don’t work with professional models…. I use the attendees of the workshops as my models, and also let them shoot each other, because in my opinion it’s very important to experience what it is like to be in front of the camera before you can successfully stand behind it for a good portrait.

 

A good portrait for me shows the character of the person in front of the camera, with model/fashion/glamour etc. photography you can get away with letting your model “act” but with portraits I always want something more, a little bit of the soul of the person in front of your lens so to say, so making sure your subject is at ease before and during the shoot is important. To make sure that you get them at ease, it’s very helpful that you have been in that situation yourself.

 

After some more serious techniques and setups I always try to play around a bit with the group creating what I call “a semi avatar”.
In this part I try to get some more humor in the shots so to say. Today I’m gonna show some of these shots from the last workshop “Successful portraits” and remember these are not models just people that probably “hate” to be photographed 😀

Succesvolle portretten May 15 2015 0162

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Digital classroom first “test” broadcast

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We are working on something completely new.
On the 27th of May we will be doing a first “test” broadcast live from our studio in our “Digital classroom” series.

 

The idea behind the digital classroom is that a lot of people love our BTS and seminar videos but might not always be able to visit the workshops but do want some more information than we can give in the videos. That’s where the digital classroom comes in, this is a very interactive learning experience that you can actually steer with your questions and comments, see it as being part of the shoot and you can ask questions and have your input.

kleind digital

Is it a workshop?
NO, the workshops are of course way more interactive and will discuss other topics, which are not really suitable for an online broadcast because they need much more explanation and interaction with the group, however the digital classroom will be a perfect “in between” product, you can see the whole shoot we are doing (including retouching) plus you can interact with our team via social media.

 

How can you interact?
Very simple, we will be monitoring our twitter feed, just use the hashtag (#)DCroomFD and we will try to incorporate your questions into the photoshoot.

 

Technique
We will be using two different camera angles in our studio from 4K cameras to guarantee the best possible performance in low light and a few webcams will be used for overview shots, at the moment we will be broadcasting in 720P via a satellite internet connection because we are still waiting for a solid fiber connection in our area.

 

WOW is this free?
As you can imagine this is a very costly part of our services we offer you guys, but thanks to our partners we can offer the digital classroom totally free for you to enjoy. At the moment our partners are our friends at Rogue and BenQ.

 

Where do I register?
Registration is very simple, just surf to https://frankdoorhof.com/web/digital-classroom-live-may-27/ and click the join button when the broadcast starts, it’s as easy as that. Now as you can see we call this first one a TEST broadcast. We tested everything of course and everything seems to work, but this is the longest we will be online and we want to make sure everything is working 100% before we call it a real broadcast, but trust me… this will be a real broadcast of course (we just want a safety net if something goes wrong beyond our reach).

 

So join us for the first ever digital classroom broadcast and start learning with FrankDoorhof.com

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