The ladder of doom!
Friday, 15 April 2011
Monday, 28 June 2010
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Scarborough Life Videos
Here are a number of short videos I've put together about events that I've attended in Scarborough.
So far there's the boxing day fishermen vs firemen football match, the Leeds Arms men-only pork pie making contest, the new year's day dip and a celebration of the opening of the new balcony at the Rowing Club.
So far there's the boxing day fishermen vs firemen football match, the Leeds Arms men-only pork pie making contest, the new year's day dip and a celebration of the opening of the new balcony at the Rowing Club.
Hotel reviews
I have decided to do short video reviews of the hotels I stay at when I'm away on business (it's a hobby). Here are the ones I've done so far:
Quick Tut: Bike Dolly
Here's a quick vid I did showing you how to use a bike as a dolly (a filmmaking term for a camera mount on wheels used to get smooth motion:
Bike Dolly from Steve Green on Vimeo.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Step away from the Camera!
Do you want to know what really annoys me? Programmes on television where they make it look as if the camera is being operated by an amateur. You know the sort of thing: unsteady pans, poor framing, sudden zooms in the middle of a shot.
The thing is, no-one else on the production is made to be so slack. The lighting is perfect, the sound is pristine, the make-up is great. If a director made me work like that I'd be ashamed.
I'm with Mike Figgis on this one: if you can't think of a good reason to move the camera, put it on a tripod. (From Digital Film-making)
The thing is, no-one else on the production is made to be so slack. The lighting is perfect, the sound is pristine, the make-up is great. If a director made me work like that I'd be ashamed.
I'm with Mike Figgis on this one: if you can't think of a good reason to move the camera, put it on a tripod. (From Digital Film-making)
Ipad world
So, how does the iPad measure up to my vision of the ideal device?
It would be about the size of a current netbook, with a 9 or 10” screen [Yes]. It doesn't need to be especially thin – most current netbooks are fine[It's very thin]. It would not have a keyboard although you would be able to attach one[check]. The casing would be robust and scratch-proof – rubber, or leather, perhaps?[No, no, no!] The screen would have a cover like the sony reader[No]. It would have a fold-away stand so that it could be operated flat or tilted up like a screen and the stand would have non-slip feet so that it wouldn't slide around on slippery surfaces[No]. The stand would also allow it to be used in portrait or landscape mode.[No]
What would it be like to use?
Firstly it would take a maximum of 2 seconds to be ready to use when I turned it on (or opened the flap or whatever)[Dunno]. This is really important – I seem to wait spend half my life waiting for machines to boot up or come out of hibernation or whatever. It would also always, always always respond immediately to my input. This does not mean that everything happens instantaneously, it just means that it would tell me immediately and accurately when an operation was going to take some time and the multi-tasking would work properly so that it would always respond to my input. Neither windows nor Linux does this at the moment. It would have a multi-touch screen [Check] and would automatically flip between landscape and portrait modes a la iPhone[Check]. It would be always connected via the most appropriate method without me having to tell it what that was – that is, it would have mobile 3G, wifi, network connection blah, blah and would automatically choose the best and cheapest one available (a bit like RDS radios do) [Well, it's got them all - just have to wait and see whether it's Smart enough to figure out which one to use].
It would have a camera that would normally be housed in the casing but that could be teased out on a bendy bit of cable so you could point it in the right direction.[No camera!]
It would be location-aware (i.e. gps)[Check]
I make that 6-4 to the iPad - not a bad hit rate. The reviews have been a bit grudging so far but they were for the iPhone too(What no 3g? Only 2Mpixel camera?). What Tech journalists don't seem to get is that it's not about the specs, it's about the way that Appler puts them together. If they've got it right then people will beat a path to their door (including me).
It would be about the size of a current netbook, with a 9 or 10” screen [Yes]. It doesn't need to be especially thin – most current netbooks are fine[It's very thin]. It would not have a keyboard although you would be able to attach one[check]. The casing would be robust and scratch-proof – rubber, or leather, perhaps?[No, no, no!] The screen would have a cover like the sony reader[No]. It would have a fold-away stand so that it could be operated flat or tilted up like a screen and the stand would have non-slip feet so that it wouldn't slide around on slippery surfaces[No]. The stand would also allow it to be used in portrait or landscape mode.[No]
What would it be like to use?
Firstly it would take a maximum of 2 seconds to be ready to use when I turned it on (or opened the flap or whatever)[Dunno]. This is really important – I seem to wait spend half my life waiting for machines to boot up or come out of hibernation or whatever. It would also always, always always respond immediately to my input. This does not mean that everything happens instantaneously, it just means that it would tell me immediately and accurately when an operation was going to take some time and the multi-tasking would work properly so that it would always respond to my input. Neither windows nor Linux does this at the moment. It would have a multi-touch screen [Check] and would automatically flip between landscape and portrait modes a la iPhone[Check]. It would be always connected via the most appropriate method without me having to tell it what that was – that is, it would have mobile 3G, wifi, network connection blah, blah and would automatically choose the best and cheapest one available (a bit like RDS radios do) [Well, it's got them all - just have to wait and see whether it's Smart enough to figure out which one to use].
It would have a camera that would normally be housed in the casing but that could be teased out on a bendy bit of cable so you could point it in the right direction.[No camera!]
It would be location-aware (i.e. gps)[Check]
I make that 6-4 to the iPad - not a bad hit rate. The reviews have been a bit grudging so far but they were for the iPhone too(What no 3g? Only 2Mpixel camera?). What Tech journalists don't seem to get is that it's not about the specs, it's about the way that Appler puts them together. If they've got it right then people will beat a path to their door (including me).
Thursday, 22 October 2009
My Ideal computing device:
What would it look like?
It would be about the size of a current netbook, with a 9 or 10” screen. It doesn't need to be especially thin – most current netbooks are fine. It would not have a keyboard although you would be able to attach one. The casing would be robust and scratch-proof – rubber, or leather, perhaps? The screen would have a cover like the sony reader. It would have a fold-away stand so that it could be operated flat or tilted up like a screen and the stand would have non-slip feet so that it wouldn't slide around on slippery surfaces. The stand would also allow it to be used in portrait or landscape mode.
What would it be like to use?
Firstly it would take a maximum of 2 seconds to be ready to use when I turned it on (or opened the flap or whatever). This is really important – I seem to wait spend half my life waiting for machines to boot up or come out of hibernation or whatever. It would also always, always always respond immediately to my input. This does not mean that everything happens instantaneously, it just means that it would tell me immediately and accurately when an operation was going to take some time and the multi-tasking would work properly so that it would always respond to my input. Neither windows nor Linux does this at the moment. It would have a multi-touch screen and would automatically flip between landscape and portrait modes a la iPhone. It would be always connected via the most appropriate method without me having to tell it what that was – that is, it would have mobile 3G, wifi, network connection blah, blah and would automatically choose the best and cheapest one available (a bit like RDS radios do).
It would have a camera that would normally be housed in the casing but that could be teased out on a bendy bit of cable so you could point it in the right direction.
It would be location-aware (i.e. gps)
What would I do with it?
Listen to music/audio
Watch HD video
Do internet stuff with it
Use it as a satnav
Make phone/video calls with it (and I don't want to care whether it uses skype/other ip phone technology or mobile phone, I want it to figure that out for me)
Read stuff
Make notes (written or recorded, with speech/handwriting recognition and indexing)
And I want an application which will allow me to bookmark, scribble notes on, tag and search for any resource, whether its a document, a webpage, video or sound file.
Now owning a device like that might just change my life...
It would be about the size of a current netbook, with a 9 or 10” screen. It doesn't need to be especially thin – most current netbooks are fine. It would not have a keyboard although you would be able to attach one. The casing would be robust and scratch-proof – rubber, or leather, perhaps? The screen would have a cover like the sony reader. It would have a fold-away stand so that it could be operated flat or tilted up like a screen and the stand would have non-slip feet so that it wouldn't slide around on slippery surfaces. The stand would also allow it to be used in portrait or landscape mode.
What would it be like to use?
Firstly it would take a maximum of 2 seconds to be ready to use when I turned it on (or opened the flap or whatever). This is really important – I seem to wait spend half my life waiting for machines to boot up or come out of hibernation or whatever. It would also always, always always respond immediately to my input. This does not mean that everything happens instantaneously, it just means that it would tell me immediately and accurately when an operation was going to take some time and the multi-tasking would work properly so that it would always respond to my input. Neither windows nor Linux does this at the moment. It would have a multi-touch screen and would automatically flip between landscape and portrait modes a la iPhone. It would be always connected via the most appropriate method without me having to tell it what that was – that is, it would have mobile 3G, wifi, network connection blah, blah and would automatically choose the best and cheapest one available (a bit like RDS radios do).
It would have a camera that would normally be housed in the casing but that could be teased out on a bendy bit of cable so you could point it in the right direction.
It would be location-aware (i.e. gps)
What would I do with it?
Listen to music/audio
Watch HD video
Do internet stuff with it
Use it as a satnav
Make phone/video calls with it (and I don't want to care whether it uses skype/other ip phone technology or mobile phone, I want it to figure that out for me)
Read stuff
Make notes (written or recorded, with speech/handwriting recognition and indexing)
And I want an application which will allow me to bookmark, scribble notes on, tag and search for any resource, whether its a document, a webpage, video or sound file.
Now owning a device like that might just change my life...
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Sunday's bay race
On Sunday I was on Steve and Steve's Hunter Formula One, Sparkle for the Scarborough Yacht Club's Bay race. The conditions were pretty much ideal for racing with a F3-4 SW wind (the flags were flying more than 50% of the time and there were a few white caps in the bay) and little or no swell. The course was Southerly start, with a long downwind leg from the green boy in the south bay out to the Scalby outflow boy at the north end of the north bay. We went with the No1 genoa and no reef in the main. I was on the main.
On the downwind leg we opted not to raise the spinnaker but goose-winged most of the leg. This turned out to be a good decision as a lot of the other boats were having trouble maintaining control and I think were overpowered. We certainly didn't lose much ground over the opposition.
On the upwind leg we were definitely over-powered. There were a couple of occasions where we were on our beam ends with no power at all in the main - the Gennie was knocking us over. I think we should have gone with a No.2 and a small spinnaker (I don't know whether we have one). Upwind we may have even benefitted from taking in a reef on the main.
Note for next time: try pulling the outhaul right out for the upwind leg
On the downwind leg we opted not to raise the spinnaker but goose-winged most of the leg. This turned out to be a good decision as a lot of the other boats were having trouble maintaining control and I think were overpowered. We certainly didn't lose much ground over the opposition.
On the upwind leg we were definitely over-powered. There were a couple of occasions where we were on our beam ends with no power at all in the main - the Gennie was knocking us over. I think we should have gone with a No.2 and a small spinnaker (I don't know whether we have one). Upwind we may have even benefitted from taking in a reef on the main.
Note for next time: try pulling the outhaul right out for the upwind leg
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Whitby Regatta 2009
Here's a video I did of whitby Rowing Regatta:
I took nowhere near enough cut-away footage so I ended up having to do dissolves between a lot of the takes. It was really difficult to get the right balance between the interests of the participants, who want to see the race develop and other people who want a bit more going on. I'm hoping to add some background music to the video, hence the claps at the start for a sync point.
Whitby Regatta 2009 from Steve Green on Vimeo.
I took nowhere near enough cut-away footage so I ended up having to do dissolves between a lot of the takes. It was really difficult to get the right balance between the interests of the participants, who want to see the race develop and other people who want a bit more going on. I'm hoping to add some background music to the video, hence the claps at the start for a sync point.
Charlie playing in the sea
Here's my first video: it's our dog Charlie playing in the sea.
I shot this in low quality (3MB/s) cos I did it before I got my new graphics card and the motherboard graphics couldn't cope with the highest quality session.
You can hear the wind noise - a decent mic is on my Christmas list! You can also see the auto-aperture pumping at one point. Otherwise not bad
I shot this in low quality (3MB/s) cos I did it before I got my new graphics card and the motherboard graphics couldn't cope with the highest quality session.
You can hear the wind noise - a decent mic is on my Christmas list! You can also see the auto-aperture pumping at one point. Otherwise not bad
My Equipment
I have a Canon Legria FS200 camcorder. I looked into getting an HD camcorder but figured out that if I started working with HD I would need to buy a new PC (or at least upgrade the motherboard), adding about £500 to the price of the project. I bought the Canon mainly because it was one of the cheapest I could find that has a reasonable amount of manual control and, most importantly, an external mic input. In the end this turned out to be a wise decision as you get a lot of wind noise off the internal mic on anything but a still day.
The reviews I have read criticize the low light performance which I suppose is fair enough although I don't really have anything to compare it with. I wish you could select non-interlace as I am extclusively working on a pc so it looks rubbish until you have converted the files to something else.
The colour rendition is fabulous. I thought it was a bit brown at first but then when I went back and looked at the scenes I had shot I realized that the colour rendition is in fact incredibly accurate.
I've got an old pc (1.6GHz AMD processor). I downloaded the Sony Vegas editing software as a trial as it was the only one that didn't need a 3GHz processor and a dedicated hard disk. Vegas is fabulous! It is so fast and immediate. Don't believe the people that say it's hard to use. They are just used to using Adobe Premiere. If you don't have any preconceived ideas about how to do something then Vegas is very easy to use and the "Show me how" mode is brilliant.
I bought a new graphics card, an nVidia GeForce. Because my pc is so old I basically had a choice of one. I was a bit disappointed until I downloaded an nVidia driver that optimizes MPEG replay. Everything plays really smoothly now.
The reviews I have read criticize the low light performance which I suppose is fair enough although I don't really have anything to compare it with. I wish you could select non-interlace as I am extclusively working on a pc so it looks rubbish until you have converted the files to something else.
The colour rendition is fabulous. I thought it was a bit brown at first but then when I went back and looked at the scenes I had shot I realized that the colour rendition is in fact incredibly accurate.
I've got an old pc (1.6GHz AMD processor). I downloaded the Sony Vegas editing software as a trial as it was the only one that didn't need a 3GHz processor and a dedicated hard disk. Vegas is fabulous! It is so fast and immediate. Don't believe the people that say it's hard to use. They are just used to using Adobe Premiere. If you don't have any preconceived ideas about how to do something then Vegas is very easy to use and the "Show me how" mode is brilliant.
I bought a new graphics card, an nVidia GeForce. Because my pc is so old I basically had a choice of one. I was a bit disappointed until I downloaded an nVidia driver that optimizes MPEG replay. Everything plays really smoothly now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)