I wanted to help out my friend Carlen Jewelle with her makeup blog so we shot a red lipstick video tutorial on our infinite white setup in the studio. We wanted to keep it casual and have some fun with the clip. Carlen did her thing and it gave us an opportunity to experiment with [...]

OTech reader, Matthew Benjamin, recently sent me a link to an infinite white backdrop video he made using a tutorial I posted a few months back. Matt did a fantastic job in achieving an very even, consistent white- bravo! I love seeing the work that others share, thanks again, Matt. HERE you can find my [...]

I clean the sensor with some very cheap and easy to buy products. There is no need to spend lots of money on a set especially for that. You will need a couple of cotton buds, scotch tape, a rocket blower and scissors. You can get these things for about 5€ in my case, but [...]

When iPhone app filters and Picnik’s “creative” adjustments have lost their luster and you want to experiment with more than digitally altering your shots, bokeh is a tried and true way to have a little fun with light manipulation. Bokeh is the out of focus blur that DSLR shooters can’t get enough of. Controlling the [...]

I’m not nuts about food. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good meal (prefer good coffee) but some of my friends go bananas over their meals. Instagraming it, spamming Facebook and Twitter with their 2 o’clock burrito. All I can think is, “That photo looks terrible!” So, to those of you who are truly [...]

OTech reader, Nate, recently asked me if I had instructions on how to adjust the Konova Slider’s bearings. “Oliva, Do you have instructions for the Konova slider that you could post or email to me? I got my from Craigslist, and the sale didn’t include the instructions. I know how to operate it, but I [...]

I’ve been dying to explore the Geotagging features on the Sony HX9V that we have at the studio. I personally have never utilized Geotagging or the GPS features on any of the cameras I’ve shot with. It dawned on me that prior to going on vacation or visiting new places, I always search the web [...]

Audio from the built in microphones on DSLR cameras, are not the ideal way to finish your project. Capturing quality audio when shooting with a DSLR will greatly improve the production value of your content. Between price, quality, and performance, Rode Microphones has quickly become an industry standard among DSLR video shooters. We demonstrate how [...]

In our latest how to, we show you one of the ways that we capture audio and sync it up in post for an OliviaTech video. We’re using a Rode Videomic Pro and a Zoom H4N. Final Cut Pro is our editing program. One of the things we focus on is making sure the recorder [...]

In this quick and simple tutorial we show you how to create a properly lit all black background. In our infinite white video, we demonstrated how to create an all white backdrop. In this latest installment of our tutorial vids we’re using 4 fairly inexpensive CFL (compact fluorescent) lights. Each CFL Light has 5 bulbs [...]

Trust me, I know that photography and video are expensive hobbies. And if it’s your profession, I seriously hope you have a corporate budget! Most of us want our own toys and adding up all those lenses, lights, cameras, sliders and mics make my eyes cross. If you’re looking for specific items to DIY or [...]

Long Shot This is the establishing shot, usually shot with a wide angle lens. The camera is placed away to capture the area of view and the shot is normally a locked shot. The camera doesn’t pan or move. Medium Shot Shot with a lens with very little distortion. You would shoot as the eye [...]

Lowe’s: Closet door track – $11.99 Wood beam – $2.49 Hardware store (McIvor’s): Screw: $0.82 Amazon: Fluid head – $40 Tweet This Post

Using my Pixel timer remote I took some footage of clouds moving. I was having some real trouble with uploading and the quality of my footage in my first time lapse blog. I crashed my friend’s iMovie when I tried to convert 472 JPG files to MOV files then play them, haha! Total fail and [...]