Savanna from Rick Brown on Vimeo.

We are entering a brave new world (?), where most publishing is moving to electronic distribution methods. For example, my most recent publishing venture is the e-book you see in the left side bar. With this push to electronic publishing, many are taking advantage of the increased capabilities by making the published material a multimedia experience instead of just text and still photographs. This means it is now a smart idea to capture video along with your still photographs.

Admittedly, I occasionally forget much of this myself and get wrapped up so much in my still photographs so much that I forget to capture as much video as I should. Recently, there have been several things happen that have reminded me. The fun things are the release of two videos by acquaintances of mine; Warbird Epic by Jason Fortenbacher and Chasing the Light by Florian and Salomon Schulz. These are two fantastic inspiring videos that really got me to thinking “I need to shoot some more video.” The other items that have reminded me of this are business issues that are kind of boring for discussion here.

Personally, I use an XF300 for most of my video work. DSLRs these days can capture great HD video, but, they are harder to work with due to focusing and exposure aids that are made for still photography rather than video work. However, they are not prohibitively difficult to work with and when I want to shoot selective focus footage or not carry as much gear I will use my 5dII.

The above video is a shortened version of my biggest video project I’ve done to date.

I hope the three videos showcased here inspire you to try your hand at video.