Click here to view the embedded video.

You don’t need a huge Davinci system or Autodesk Lustre to get professional color correction… you just really need skills… and this plugin.  It is super easy to use and has a TON of features.  You can use multiple masks on layers for say, retouching two different actors skin tones in a single pass;  there is a powerful new keyer included, 8 HSL Channels for pristine accuracy, a “Pop” Slider for visual pop of your image, highlight recovery, quick new Auto-White balance for those times you screwed up when you were shooting, and of course GPU and CPU Acceleration, which is crucial for when you have some huge color correction jobs.

There are a ton more features but I don’t wanna list all of them, you just need to check it out yourself.  If you already have Colorista, you can upgrade for just $99, but if you need to buy it now, it’s only $299 which isn’t bad at all for a plugin you are most likely going to use on every single production you create.

Go check it out at Red Giant Software right now, and let me know what you think after you try it out… just leave a comment on this post!

Nino also has some really intersting approaches to backing up footage, using cheap hard drives and eSATA “toasters” as I like to call them, to plug and play your footage like a giant flash drive.    Make sure you jump over to his post  and leave him a comment on what you use for storage and what your workflow looks like with your HDSLR footage.

So like I said, this app is amazing, and probably one of my favorite camera apps out there for processing pictures.  Developed by Stu Maschwitz and the Red Giant Software Team, this is the first app from the Magic Bullet line of products to come out for the iPhone.

When you first jump into the app you will notice just two buttons, Photo Library, and Camera.  You can choose existing photos or take some right with your camera.  I have this on my iPhone 3G and it works beautifully.  Just snap a photo and it comes up with 4 options with 4 different looks.  Response time is really nice, and if you just hit refresh it generates 4 more looks for you to pick from.  Just tap the picture to view it full screen, and if you like it, hit the heart button to save it and generate more looks.

These are just random pictures I took the other day, and it really just adds a lot of life to your pictures.  And even if you want to bring existing pictures into the app you can.  It really is an awesome little app.  And its only $1.99 in the App Store!  They also have a Facebook Fan Page so you can submit pictures, as well as a Flickr Photo Pool Page, and Aharon Rabinowitz put together a sweet getting started with Plastic Bullet video below!  So go nuts… let me know what you think!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video above for the Sony NEX-5 does look amazing, and it might really make you want to buy this camera.  Save yourself the money and save up for a Canon T2i.  I mean, yeah, it has interchangeable lenses… it has that amazing depth of field… and if you aren’t a filmmaker, this might be for you.  But if you are looking to seriously get into shooting really good footage and having lots of control over the images you shoot, you might want to wait a little bit.

Here is the article over on EOSHD.com for you to peruse and make your own judgements on:

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This is the most obvious bit that you need to have.  But getting it for the right price is a bit of a challenge.  I would NOT buy this off of Ebay, because after shipping and stuff, you will be at the same amount I paid.  I paid $800 for my body, with $5 for shipping.  I live in Washington state, where there is sales tax, like a lot of the USA… but there is a loophole.  Oregon state doesn’t have sales tax, so whenever I want to buy a expensive piece of equipment, I head down there, or just call some local camera stores.  Personally, I called The Shutterbug in Downtown Portland (ask for Justin or Mason… they are AWESOME), and they searched their warehouses for me and found THE LAST T2i BODY available, and held it for a week for me.  They were able to save me a trip down to Portland (about 4.5 hours) and shipped it to me, getting there about 4 days later.

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I also ordered a fixed width lens, the Canon EF-S 50mm f/1.8 II for about $120.00, which also shipped with my body from The Shutterbug.   I figured I wanted to have a cheap, fast lens that I could shoot interview and set up on a rig really easily.  Then I know I was going to need a zoom lens for obvious reasons, but since I was (and still am) a noob at the HDSLR world, I didn’t want to spend too much money.  I was able to find a Canon EF-S 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM Zoom Lens on craigslist that was used around 3 times because the girl had some better lenses already, and it was a gift.  SCORE.  That only cost me another $100… no tax, saving about $100.

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Thankfully, the T2i shoots to SD Cards, and not Compact Flash, which makes the price for media much cheaper.  There is a lot of confusion about what Speed Class Rating you need for these, but the ones I have are Class 6, and work just fine.  It reads and writes really quickly, plays back super clear, no lag or anything.  I was able to get two of the Sandisk 8GB EXTREME SDHC SD Card Class 6 for $55 for both off of Craigslist, brand new never opened, in box, bypassing shipping and tax from Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter.  The Class 6 ones have a 20 MB/s 133x read/write speed, which works great with my camera.

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Now I thought that I was going to have to splurge on a few extra batteries at $62 a piece, but about a day before I saw Nino Leitner post about the knockoff batteries that JUST got released found here for only $44.00, when I actually got mine for $38 with no tax applied… pretty sweet.  They work just as good as the stock battery… and they actually last really long.  I have the auto shutoff on my camera set to two minutes to conserve battery power though…

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A sweet looking piece of equipment I knew would be a necessity that I found on Digital Photo Experience was the Zoom H4N or similar piece of equipment.  You see, these HDSLR’s have internal microphones, but they also have automatic gain control, which you can’t turn off.  This poses problems if you are recording interviews or other things in loud areas where the camera will try to compensate for the background noise if your subject pauses, or there is a lapse in audio of the thing you WANT to record.  I knew this would be an issue, so I found another place in Portland called Super Digital that carries these (no sales tax again!), and they shipped it out to me next day.  They only cost $300 and come with a 1GB SD card to record to.  You might want to get a nicer windsock if you are going to use the attached mics a lot, or you can just plug your existing mics into the XLR, 1/4, or 1/8 jacks provided.  Also, it looks pretty kick ass.

Of course there are a few more necessities I have yet to acquire, such as a tall, steel tripod with a good fluid head, a macro lens, a Zacuto Z-finder or similar products, and some other things, but that can wait.  I have my essentials and that is good enough for me.  I will probably post some test videos here in the coming weeks, as I have time to shoot them, and probably some stuff from NAB… and vendors… if you are reading this… I would love to showcase some accessories on my video blog that will be starting up soon!  I would have done this write up as a blog, but I couldn’t show you the camera, now could I?

So leave me a comment with the other pieces of gear you guys have, recommendations, and test videos for us all to check out, and let me know what you are doing with your T2i’s!  I look forward to the feedback!

EDIT: so… @MattWBP commented on that I didn’t mention anything about the case I was using.  It’s actually a aluminum/plastic case I got off of one of those deal-a-day sites.  It was only $10 or so, and has cuttable foam inside.  It actually works pretty good, fits all my gear inside, and keep everything from getting knocked around.  I see them online every once in a while for cheap, or I think Frys.com has something similar or any real camera store.

You can find my Optical Flares Review HERE

You can find the Giveaway HERE

So it looks like the guys over at CreatingFilm.com have just jumped into the light. Their new product, Audio Elite, is one of the more affordable collections I have seen in a while. It is a stock music collection with surprisingly very useful songs and all for like, $99.00!  The categories cover any genre, and you get a download link right after purchase.  Thing is, on stock sites songs themselves can cost up to thirty bucks PER SONG, so grabbing a collection with 200 songs for this price is a killer deal.  I was quite surprised by the diversity too… The themes are all very unique, and work well with any kind of project you have in mind.  Best of all, its 50% off for VisualFXtuts.com users, so in all actuality, it’s really only $50!  Enter this promo code at checkout: “VISUALFXTUTS”

You can check out the promo for the product below, via their Youtube, or you can check out the website for the official details and where to buy it. This really is a killer deal, and if you have been searching for a nice affordable library of stock songs for movies, promos or whatever, it’s definitely worth picking up!

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://visualfxtuts.com/reviews/featured-post-audio-elite-review/feed/ 4 http://visualfxtuts.com/reviews/featured-bluefx-net-templates-and-tutorials/ http://visualfxtuts.com/reviews/featured-bluefx-net-templates-and-tutorials/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:25:54 +0000 Topher http://visualfxtuts.com/?p=1084 In this article I will be reviewing 2 after effects templates made by Gyorfi Szilard from Bluefx.net.

The first one is called RedStar. PREVIEW BELOW

Click here to view the embedded video.

And the second one is a free after effects template called SpinBox.  PREVIEW BELOW

Click here to view the embedded video.

These templates are great for creating animated intros or custom show openers, all of the hard work has been done so you don`t need to keyframe anything, just change the text and drop in your images or videos.  When you buy a template you don`t just get the project files and a readme text, you will also receive a video tutorial  with voice that demonstrates how to customize each template.

No matter if you are a newbie in After Effects or an advanced user who is under time pressure by a client, you will be able to profit from these projects. They work in CS3 and CS4.  One of my favorite templates is: RedStar.  This template would be great for a holiday or Christmas intro pieces, and plus… the music track is included.  The project uses Trapcode Particular and Starglow , but you don’t need the plugin to use the template because all the Trapcode layers are prerendered to a Quicktime videos. The original layers are also present in case you do have the plugins.

If you are an advanced user there is no limit to what you can do with this project, as an example Gyorfi used his own template to create this intro for a client:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The template is made in full HD 1920×1080 but you will find downscaled compositions for HDV (1280×720) NTSC and PAL resolution.

Now lets see the free one: SpinBox…  This could work well for an energetic video intro… or something like that.  Although this is a free template, a video tutorial is also included, check out the tutorial HERE.  The purpose of this template is to give you an inside look on how these templates work, so you can play around with the project, hack it to peaces and find out how some of the effects are made. So guys, have fun with this project.  This template uses Trapcode Starglow on the text and on the edges of the box so you do need the plugin to properly use this project.  The video resolution is 1280×720, the music track is not included.

Bluefx created other tutorials that show a couple of cool tricks on how to use After Effects Templates in general so make sure you check those out as well.  And make sure to bookmark Gyorfi’s site, as he always has new tutorials and new templates coming out.

Aged Film

So, onto the review portion of the deal. I am going to start off with the newest of the two plugins that got released last week, Aged Film. This is an awesome looking, easy to use plugin, that you can literally apply, and know exactly how to work it, without a learning curve at all. All of the parameters are pretty straightforward, and there actually isn’t too many of them, not that it needs more than it has, but it doesn’t overwhelm you like some plugins have the tendency to do. You basically have your opacity for the effect, seeding options for more or less aged-ness, control over the color of the effect, Dust Control and Vertical Line Scratch control, which inserts more or less of the specks and lines you see in old film, and finally Frame Jitter, which randomly offsets the video like it is playing slightly off the film reel. There are other minor little features to turn on and off and tweak, but those are the basics for the effect.

My thoughts? Completely cool, and complete in what you would expect from a plugin called Aged Film. Although, I wouldn’t use this a whole hell of a lot, but for the price of only $29.00 it could probably save you a few hours of work, especially if you are putting together old war sequences for a short film, or faking a grandpa playing some old movies… or maybe you are working at a news station and they like “Blast From the Past” segments for those slow news days… (I find myself wishing I had this about a year ago from now for that exact reason), now that could be VERY useful! Bottom line, for the effect it is supposed to be simulating, it is a killer deal and a huge time saver. Although you might not use it too often, you never know when you might be called upon to make some vintage graphics, and when that time comes, if you got this in your toolbox, it’s just going to make your job that much easier.

CameraMapper

Now onto CameraMapper… now this is a plugin a lot of us have been waiting for. I mean there are workarounds littered across the net on how to achieve this effect without a third party plugin, but that’s no fun, now is it? Now, this plugin was designed for you to make subtle camera moves, such as pans, tilts, dolly ins and outs… that kind of thing. The way it works is to project your footage onto solids in your scene that you position and rotate in 3d space to act as the planes that you are going to move past, toward, or away from, thus creating the illusion of individual 3d elements in a scene made up of one piece of 2d imagery. This isn’t made to do drastic camera moves, although if you plan out your shots correctly, then you can get some pretty amazing results. Although now that I understand exactly how to use the plugin, it was kind of confusing at first, but with some experimental procedures, and watching Mark Christiansen’s tutorial over at Digieffects (he’s one of the co-developers of the plugin by the way), he laid it out there on how to position your solids and set up your camera movements, and what to avoid so you don’t “break the image.”

Overall I am highly impressed with both products and I highly encourage you all to at least check out the trial versions for both products (you can find them on the product pages), just to get an idea of what they are both about. You might not need them right at this moment, but they could down the line, prove to be indispensable tools for certain projects. They are definitely worth an hour of fiddling around in After Effects to see if you like them or not.

Now for the giveaway portion of the deal. Digieffects have generously given us two bundles of CameraMapper and Aged Film to give away to two of our lucky and loyal readers. This is almost $110 worth of plugins, and there are just a few things that you have to do:

• Follow @VisualFXtuts & @Digieffects on Twitter (recommended because we are AWESOME, but not mandatory)
• Leave a comment below with your Twitter username
• Let us know what you could see yourself using these plugins for

That’s it! Seriously, its that easy. We will announce the winners on Friday, and for a chance to double your entry hit up VideoHive’s Blog, Inside The Hive for the same contest and another chance to get your name in the hat!

Check out my VLOG review of the training package below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So now for the deals.  from today to October 1st you can get Trapcode 3S Training for half off!  Yes, Michele Yamazaki is putting the word out on Twitter, but I got the deets without the tweets right here for you.  Just follow THIS LINK to hit up the product page at ToolFarm.  Click the product, add it to your cart, and it will be discounted immediately.  Remember this only lasts until October 1st at 11:59pm so get it while the price is hot!

Here is the trailer for the Trapcode 3S Training Package:

Find more videos like this on MyToolfarm