The setting was gorgeous – set amongst the vineyards around Hunter Valley.

Rather than the traditional pageboy and flowergirl, Alicia and Daniel decided to do something completely different. They invited 7 young children (my children Ashton & Savannah included) to take part in their ceremony where they would be escorted between the reception venue across the field in brightly coloured clothes for the girls and handsome little suits for the boys. They were all holding balloons (themed colours of course) and Alicia’s mum was group leader!

Just to complete the picture perfect wedding, Alicia chose to arrive in style in a horse drawn carriage along with her dad and maid of honor and sister, Lauren.

The weather was at it’s prime during the ceremony. Daniel was a big softie who shed a few tears when he saw his beautiful bride as she walked towards him.

Daniel didn’t have to be asked twice to kiss his gorgeous wife!

Once and for all as a family they stood to accept their marriage certificate. I was grinning from ear to ear to see them so happy and their little boy, Ambrose, was fascinated by just how pretty mummy looked!

One very proud grandfather.

The gardens around Wyndham Estate weren’t extravagant, but there were some beautiful wide spaces and lane ways that made for some perfect photographs.

You can never go wrong with gorgeous green vineyards as a back drop for beautiful photographs!

One of the highlights of Wyndham Estate for a wedding venue is the background of green sweeping plains and vineyards that ran alongside a river.

Wyndham Estate is made from sandstone which made for a great back drop.

My mum and my extremely cute nephew, Daniel & Alicia’s son, Ambrose.

Congratulations guys! It was such a beautiful wedding and I’m so happy that you have chosen each other. You make such a great couple and I’m proud to have Alicia as part of our family. Hope you enjoy the photographs!

Ainslie had three amazing setups for us, and it goes to show just how amazing your shoots can look when you add some color! From gorgeous multi-colored drapes that hung over the bed to the brilliantly colored cupcakes, the props really add to the vibrancy of the shoot. Even the container that they bathed their dog in was bright green which looked fantastic, even though it had a huge hole in it and ended up leaking water all over the floor!

On this shoot I was using my new pocket slider which was a lot quicker in setting up than my 3m long wally dolly. It meant I could set up very quickly and keep shooting – in shooting fusion anything you can do to save time helps! Other than that I had one small portable, battery driven LED light to punch a bit of light into the shadows, other than that it was lit with ambient light and shot at ISO 1250. Admittedly I would have preferred to use the light from the modelling light, however the one used for the bedroom shoot wasn’t working and shooting downstairs was tricky with the strong halogen lights.

Enjoy!

Jodies Family from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

Part of the workshop was a practical exercise where my children, Ashton & Savannah, played with a few props that we purchased while the group assisted with taking photographs and videos of the two of them. I think they were quite worried that they hadn’t captured any usable footage as trying to get used to following the short focus on the Canon 5D can be quite tricky! However there was plenty of usable footage. The next day we converted the footage and loaded it into Final Cut Pro for editing together into a 4 minute fusion edit where we covered the basics of video editing, audio manipulation, colour grading and outputting for use on the internet.

I couldn’t have done it without the help of Nicole from You And Me Photography, Carley from “Captured By Carley” and Jodie from Bounce Portraits, keep an eye on their pages as I’m sure they’re going to be offering fusion as well too!

So here it is, a Fusion video clip of my beautiful children, Ashton & Savannah.

Ashton & Savannah from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

Now you might be thinking that this isn’t new news at all – hear me out. Professional photographers have these cameras that take beautiful photographs that have a video function – and don’t know how to use it more than how to push record and stop when it’s finished. Fusion photography is the ability to do BOTH on the same shoot, take some photographs and then take video as well using your DSLR camera which is then edited into a 3-5 minute video. The client then walks away with not only some fantastic photographs, but a video that can be shared with friends and family over the internet and DVD in gorgeous quality. Within the video edit we include still images that are taken as well just as an added bonus!

I will be running a workshop on May the 16th, 17th and 18th in association with Ainslie, so contact her on wildspiritphotos@iprimus.com.au if you would like to know more.

In the meantime, enjoy our first “Fusion” edit featuring ‘Thais’, a French Au-Pair living in Australia.

Thais

Thais H264 1280×720 1618kbps from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

Gear

As mentioned this was shot using a Canon 7D at 25fps 1080p. I took three lenses with me, but I think I only used two – the Tokina 11-16mm and the Canon 40-80mm.

For the dolly shots I was using the Wally Dolly, an Australian made dolly kit. The kit is quite cumbersome and takes a bit of time to set up, but the results are worth it. If you have help to carry this piece of gear then it’s all good.

The two shots at the start were captured from my simple car mount system purchased from Rig Shots and slowed down using After Effects. I’m keen to purchase the tie-down kit now which will take out the small vibrations you see.

Post

In post production I used Magic Bullet Looks on many of the shots, but I didn’t use any of the presets that they provide you, rather I used a ‘curves’ filter to crush some of the blacks and give you that ‘dark forest’ look and punch the colors somewhat. In a few of the shots I also put a very slight diffusion and vignette. I used After Effects to do the slow motion using pixel motion frame blending. I also used After Effects to stabilize the last shot which was really hard to keep steady – panning whilst dollying isn’t easy! There was also a small fixup I did on the second shot where there was a sign in the shot (at the end of the road) which ruined the look of the serenity of the rainforest – a simple duplicate and mask fixed that pretty quickly.

Natural Arch from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

Initially I was going to go for a rig that cost around $1,000, but I ended up settling for the Wood’s Power Grip RSW30 6″ suction cap and fitting my Manfrotto 329 head to it with the view to upgrading it on a needs basis. Granted there is a small amount of vibration, but nothing that could be removed with image stabilization software such as After Effects, plus I don’t think a steadier rig would have made much of a difference as there was vibration that the whole car was noticing. Here’s a clip that I shot today showing the quality of the 7D mounted directly onto the 6″ suction cap with a 11-15mm lens.

Canon 7D using a car mount system from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

One upgrade that I will be making is the purchase of the gripper tie-down kit for two reasons.

1. It would take out much of the harmonic vibrations that are noticeable in the output and
2. It would add a level of safety where if the 6″ cup were to fail the other two would prevent the rig from coming off totally.

I wasn’t comfortable leaving the camera unsecured and so I was standing out the sunroof as my partner was driving to hold onto the camera! This is where the tie-down kit makes sense.

So yeah, quite happy with the result – and having only parted with about $140 including postage it hasn’t hurt my pocket!

Happy shooting!

Phil

I had received a 25p render of a 3D animation flythrough. It looked fantastic, but it was 25fps, so when the camera was doing rapid sideways movement there was the shuddering that made it look terrible. Using After Effects I was able to convert the 25p into 50p that was seamless, saving the client bucket loads on getting the animation re-rendered into 50p.

Traditionally slow-motion conversions were only achieved through taking one frame and taking the next frame, placing a transitional frame between the two that was a combination of both frames one and two – aka dissolving.

Frame 1	Transitional Frame	Frame 3

There are software packages now that do one step better than simply dissolving between frames. After Effects CS3 CREATES frames to go between image one and two where it looks as to where the motion is in frame 1, where it is in frame 2, then creates an in-between frame where the motion has been analyzed and the subject moved into the space between.

Frame 1	Transitional Frame	Frame 3

The result is a seamless transition between the frames and perfectly smooth motion. This feature can be used both for converting from 25Fps to 50Fps, or for taking a clip that has been shot at normal speed and slowing it down to a half or even a quarter of it’s normal speed.

If you don’t own After Effects CS3, I can convert up to a 30 second clip for you (giving you a 1 minute slow-motion clip) for $50 AUD which will save you the expense of parting with $1,500 for After Effects. Please contact me via email and I’ll let you know what to do from there.

Below I’ve included two video tutorials on how to do this using After Effects.

25P to 50P or 25i using After Effects from Philip Johns on Vimeo.

Frame blended slow motion conversions with After Effects from Philip Johns on Vimeo.