Author: jonpais

Lunar New Year Vietnam 2014

Phuong, a 21 year-old accounting major studying in Saigon, invited me to spend the Tet holiday in her hometown in Dak Lak province. Located in the Central Highlands, the region is noted for its coffee plantations and a sizable population of ethnic minorities. To get there, you have to catch a bus at Mien Dong... Continue Reading →

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First Look: Lumix GM1

I flew to Hong Kong the other week expressly to pick up the Panasonic GM1, the world's tiniest video worthy interchangeable lens camera. I should mention that I bought the camera at Wing Shing Photo in Mongkok, a well-stocked store with a friendly and knowledgeable staff, which also happens to have some of the best... Continue Reading →

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Sunday Afternoon in the Park

There are always loads of photographers in and around the park, especially on weekends: wedding photographers, amateurs, fashion photographers and television crews. Last weekend, I had the good luck to run into Thanh, a cameraman with VTV, a Vietnamese broadcasting network. I arrived at the park at around three in the afternoon, where they'd been... Continue Reading →

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Julie’s Going Away Party and KL

Last weekend we had a little get together for one of my colleagues, who got a job offer to teach in Thailand. The following day, I flew to Kuala Lumpur to pick up the Panasonic Lumix GH3, which will probably be my replacement camera for the Panasonic TM900 I've been using for the past year... Continue Reading →

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The Bridge

Every weekend, I go with a friend to a place he calls simply "the bridge", an area surrounded by tin-roofed shacks and located next to the Saigon river. A family runs a coffee shop under the bridge and locals go fishing in the river. http://youtu.be/oGdOvtH2fzo Free background music from JewelBeat.com

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Vung Tau, Crane Test

I went to Vung Tau over the three-day weekend and had a chance to try out my new cine hand jib, an adjustable hand crane from the folks at Cinecity. It'll take a lot of practice to steady the gizmo, but I'll be able to get some shots I wouldn't have been able to do... Continue Reading →

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30/4 Park Revisited

I recently added a new tool to my arsenal - a handheld stabilizer that goes simply by the name of Hand Held. I have no idea where it's manufactured. The Freefly MōVI it is not, but then again, it doesn't carry a $15,000 price tag either. It's elegantly crafted from brushed aluminum (no plastic!), with leather for... Continue Reading →

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30/4 Park

What an ordeal it was trying to upload this video to YouTube! First of all, Apple's QuickTime only allows videos of up to 15 minutes to be uploaded to YouTube, and the clip is almost 24 minutes long. Then, when I tried using YouTube's own uploader instead, I had to verify my account, but when... Continue Reading →

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Test: RØDE Stereo VideoMic Pro

Most experienced filmmakers will tell you that sound is 50 percent of filmmaking. If the sound is poor, the wisdom goes, your video isn't going to be watched. I don't know whether this is borne out in actuality however, because to the best of my knowledge, most videos posted to YouTube by non-professionals are shot... Continue Reading →

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Happy New Year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get... Continue Reading →

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More x264 Comparisons

Here are some screen grabs of clips exported to QuickTime with the x264 Encoder, with and without 2.2 gamma added, then uploaded to YouTube. They were first converted to QuickTime files using ClipWrap, then transcoded to Apple Intermediate Codec before importing to iMovie.

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