Tag Archives: editing

The Best Camera…

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… might really be the one you have with you.

I have been doing photography, mostly as a “serious amateur,” since my college days. I took a photography class in college, where I learned to develop film, make contact strips, and print negatives into 8 x 10 enlargements. For a while, I had a darkroom in my home. I went from SLRs to DSLRs, with a string of point-and-shoot digital cameras in between. I embraced digital photography — not for what I could do with Photoshop, but for the instant gratification it provided.

But let’s face it: DSLRs with their interchangeable lenses are big and bulky. As the cameras in my iPhones got better and better, I found myself reaching for my Nikon less and less. Yes, I still dragged it around with me when I traveled south for the winter in my camper and it’s even with me on my boat. But I’m just not happy with the pictures it produces.

No, it’s not a top-of-the line full-sensor Nikon. And it’s not anywhere near new at this point. But yes, I do have the quality glass (not plastic) lenses, some of which were quite costly to obtain. And it seems to me that if you have quality equipment, it shouldn’t matter how old it is. It should continue to take good pictures.

But lately, every time I’ve reached for the Nikon and twisted on its 85-300mm lens to shoot photos of mostly birds in the near distance, the images have come out like crap. Yet nearly every photo I take with my iPhone 13 Pro — yes, a 2 1/2 year old phone! — looks pretty amazing.

Hell, even my drone takes better photos.

I started to think that it might be the age of the camera. But I wasn’t the least bit interested in spending thousands of dollars on a newer Nikon DSLR or “mirrorless” — which seems to be the big trend — camera.

I thought that if I got a newer point-and-shoot, it might be better. So earlier this month I invested in a Canon Powershot SX740HS. It wasn’t cheap — it cost more than $500. For a point-and-shoot. (I could trade in my current iPhone and get a brand new one with its latest generation camera for about the same amount of money.)

I got the camera while I was at a state park in North Carolina and went on a hike. I took photos of moss on trees and flowers and birds off in the distance. It had a 40x optical zoom lens! Just what I needed to shoot images of the osprey nesting on channel markers along the ICW.

But every photo looked like crap. It wouldn’t focus right. The exposures were bad. There was no clarity in the details. Images were washed out.

I took photos of a handful of subjects with both the new camera and my iPhone to compare them side by side. Guess which one took better photos?

iPhone Photo Powershot Photo
Side by side photos of the same subject only minutes apart. The iPhone photo is on the left.

Example 2Example 2
I took the camera to the beach. Which photo do you think my iPhone took? Well, which one looks better?

I was upset and kind of angry. Why was my phone taking better photos than a camera?

I put the question to my friends on Mastodon. A few of them pointed out that Apple iPhones do a lot of image processing inside the phone. After all, the phone is a computer, isn’t it? It automatically does HDR and makes all kinds of adjustments.

I could do that too, someone pointed out. Just bring the photo into Lightroom or Photoshop.

But I don’t want to do that. I just want to capture what I’m seeing so I can remember it later or share it with others. I’m not a “serious” photographer anymore. I’m a point-and-shoot photographer. I can handle the composition; I know how to find good light. I just want the camera to record what I see. I don’t want to spend hours processing photographs. It would take all the fun and spontaneity out of it for me. It would leave me wondering, when I was done, exactly what I’d originally seen.

I returned the camera.

I’ll get the Nikon serviced and checked over for problems. They’ll clean it and return it to me. I’ll try again. But I know I won’t be happy. I know that in the future I’ll continue to use the best camera I have — the one that’s always with me and can send the pictures I take to anyone in the world, instantly.

Reality TV: British Baking vs. Blown Glass

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I compare two contest style reality TV shows.

I don’t watch regular TV. I don’t have cable or satellite, although both are available where I live. Instead, I have a smart TV and subscribe to a handful of services: Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney Plus. (I also watch YouTube on my TV but I haven’t yet sprung for a subscription to get rid of the increasingly annoying ads. I don’t think YouTube should cost more than Netflix.) Because I absolutely abhor commercial breaks while watching TV, I pretty much ignore the extra channels my TV offers for “free.” (My time is worth more than what I’d spend watching those commercials.) I don’t channel surf; once I start a show, I’ll either watch it all the way through or turn off the TV and do something else.

What I watch is pretty much limited to what I find on the services I get. (This means that if you try to start a conversation with me about the latest hit on CBS, you will not succeed.) When I feel like watching TV and I don’t have something specific in mind, I’ll browse to find something new. I’m big on binge watching when I want entertainment, so that occasionally has me trying new multi-episode series to see what resonates with me enough to watch.

I should mention here that, as a rule, I don’t watch reality TV. My personal reality is entertaining enough for me — I don’t need to watch some onscreen reality, manipulated by directors and creative editing to add drama. I’ve never seen Survivor or The Great Race or The Bachelor. I don’t even know the names of other shows that countless Americans waste their time watching — probably because they have time to waste. I prefer spending my free time enhancing my own reality.

Great British Baking Show Promo
The promo photo on Netflix for the Great British Baking Show.

That said, I rather enjoy The Great British Baking Show, which I believe — and you can correct me if I’m wrong — falls into the reality TV genre. It’s kind of fun and very heartwarming (at times) to see the contestants help each other out. There’s very little (if any) friction between the folks vying for the prize of top chef. I watch people struggle (or not) to bake amazing things. They succeed (or fail miserably). The hosts provide just the right amount of comedy while the judges keep things grounded. Along the way, I learn a bit about baking techniques and how people’s backgrounds influence the kinds of foods they make. There’s no fake drama — at least none that I can see. I think that’s what explains why it’s such a hit with many of my friends, although we don’t usually gab about it the way other folks seem to gab about The Bachelor. (For Pete’s sake, even one of the late night TV guys — one of the Jimmys — includes a recap of each Bachelor episode in his monologue. Who cares?)

Blown Away Promo Photo
The promo shot for Blown Away on Netflix.

Recently, while looking for something new to watch, Netflix suggested Blown Away, a contest-style reality TV show featuring glass blowers. This seemed like a good fit for me. I love the look of blown glass and sort of expected the show to enlighten me about glass art techniques, much the way British Baking gives me insight into making custard or layering cakes. I figured I’d give season 1 a try and tuned in for a few episodes.

I was disappointed. Although the show offered many clips of what the glass artists were doing, there was very little in the way of educating viewers about it.

Well, that’s not exactly fair. I remember seeing some onscreen captioning that did explain certain terms and techniques briefly, but all of those seemed to disappear by the middle of the first season’s run of episodes. Other than that, the only time artists or judges explained what was going on was to enhance the drama. “That’s a very risky procedure so-and-so is attempting.” Or “If I don’t do this just right, the whole piece can shatter.” In most cases, these insights were actually the foreshadowing of breaking glass or ruined pieces.

I know that the place must have been full of cameras because of the amount of footage they edited in that set up rivalries between contestants. One contestant leaves the annealer door open too long; cut to another one yelling, “close the door!” Another contestant is yelling at her assistants; cut to the other contestants complaining about the yelling. And don’t even get me started on the way they edited in facial expressions from competitors that were obviously not responses to things that were said in the edited video. In the final episodes, half the scenes consist of one contestant comparing his/her work to the others and saying how much better (or worse) it was or declaring that he/she should win (or should get eliminated).

Four episodes from the end, I already knew who the final face-off would be between: a particularly outspoken and prima donna-ish woman who claimed to be making art that always seemed to be gender related and a no-nonsense man who definitely had superior skills but a similarly unattractive attitude. The editors had been developing the rivalry between them for nearly the entire run of episodes; how could they possibly eliminate either one? I got the feeling the outcome was established long before the show was edited and the scenes they included were edited in to support that outcome. The trouble for me was that I didn’t like either of those last two contestants. And when it came down to the final winner, I preferred the other one to win. (I actually wanted the guy eliminated just before the final round to win; he had the skill and the humility to take his art to the next level with the prize.)

When the series was over — I watched the 10 half-hour episodes over three nights — I was left feeling disappointed. I’d learned next to nothing and felt manipulated. I’d grown to hate the host of the show and the person who won. I felt too much pity for the contestants I thought should have stayed in the running but had obviously been eliminated because they were too much like British Baking contestants and not enough like other reality show contestants who would do anything to win.

I had just started watching the first episode of season 2 — perhaps thinking it would get better? — when I realized that this was probably like most reality competition shows. Fake. Contrived drama. Judging designed to maintain the rivalry between competitors. Little, if anything, to be learned. Why would I waste my time with more of this?

I turned it off.

I spent some time thinking about how this show stacked up against a reality competition that I actually liked: The Great British Baking Show. I wanted to understand why I liked one show and disliked the other. This blog post is the result of those thoughts.

What do you think? Have you seen either show? Can you recommend something you think I might like?

Your Aircraft Engine Talks to You. Listen to it!

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I realize I have a bad video clip by the sound of my helicopter’s engine.

An interesting thing happened to me Saturday as I was editing the video for my most recent YouTube upload, Part 5 of my all-too-long, bad weather flight to McMinnville this past May.

First, you need to understand what goes into editing these videos. The short version is this: I take clips from multiple cameras and place them in the editing timeline (see below). I then move one or more of the clips to sync them up. For example, if the front-facing camera shows my left hand in the air, fingers spread wide, the back-facing camera should show exactly the same thing. This way, when I move or speak, the two views show the same motions and my lip movements correspond to my speech.

The front-facing video, which is the preferred view for my cockpit POV videos, also has the voice track, synchronized by the camera (of course) and sourced from a special cable connection to the helicopter’s intercom system. Simply said, whatever I hear in my headsets is sent through that cable to the camera, whether it’s me speaking into my mic or someone on the radio talking. The rear-facing video picks up ambient sound inside the helicopter, which is mostly the sound of the engine and rotor system.

So if I sync these two camera feeds properly, the helicopter sound should correspond with the phase of flight. This latest video shows this quite well near the beginning; as you see me bend forward to start the helicopter, you hear the sound of the helicopter’s engine starting.

Timeline View
This is what my Part 5 video looks like in Davinci Resolve, the editing software I use. The top two tracks are for my logo watermark and some of the callouts that appear. The next track is for the rear-facing PIP video clips with a few more of those callouts. (Honestly, the callouts should probably all be on the same track, but I’m sloppy.) The next track is for the front-facing camera. Below that are the two audio tracks: intercom audio (my voice, radio calls, etc.) and the sound of the helicopter, dialed down by 10 decibels.

In cruise flight, the helicopter sound is a pretty consistent drone. So consistent, in fact, that I have learned that I can patch in that sound from an unrelated flight if, for some reason, the actual sound from a flight is not available. The only time it makes a different sound is if I’m maneuvering: slowing down, making a turn, coming in for landing, etc.

With me so far?

I’ve grown to realize that although I can do a picture-in-picture (PIP) video that shows the view out the cockpit bubble with a smaller view with me in a corner, no one really needs to see me for a whole flight. I like to show me when I’m talking before or after a flight or if I’m “lecturing” about something and my face gets expressive. So once the two video feeds are synced, I’ll usually cut the back-facing video (but not audio) to give viewers a better look out the window.

Now because my videos are so long, they normally have multiple video files from each camera. That’s easy enough to deal with: when one clip ends, I just insert the next one, being sure to butt it up against the previous one. I do this for both views, even if I don’t plan on showing the back-facing view. After all, I still need the corresponding helicopter engine audio, don’t I? I just separate the video from the audio on that back-facing video and put the video portion on a hidden track so it doesn’t appear. Later, when I know I don’t need that portion of video track, I just delete it from the timeline.

And that’s when something weird happened yesterday. I was constructing the edited video, watching and listening to it as I worked. It was near the end and I was getting close to my destination, but I was still at full cruise speed. Yet the engine sounded wrong. It sounded as if I’d reduced power.

What the hell? I asked myself. What’s going on with the engine? Why didn’t I notice that when I was flying?

And then I looked at the corresponding back-facing video. I saw that it was no longer aligned with the front facing video, despite me adding each clip properly to the end of the clip before it. Although I was in normal cruise flight in the front-facing camera, I was coming in for landing on the back-facing video. Turns out that the back-facing camera had shut off recording along the way and then turned itself back on. (If you’ve watched enough of my videos, you know I have a finicky camera.) As a result, I had a gap in the recording.

Of course, this required me to jump through a few hoops to “fix” the problem. I basically reused some cruise flight audio to fill the audio gap, then synched up the two views for landing so the engine sound would match the phase of flight. (It’s workable, but not perfect.) If you watch the video to the very end, you’ll see that I also brought the PIP image back in and got the synching just right. You probably wouldn’t even notice the problem if I didn’t just tell you about it.

But my point is this: when you fly the same aircraft so much, you become in tune with its sounds. I immediately noticed the problem when I watched the video and couldn’t understand, at first, why I hadn’t noticed the engine sound difference in flight. The reason, of course, is that it didn’t happen then, when I was in cruise flight. It happened later when it should have. There was nothing to notice in flight.

If you’re a pilot and you’ve been flying long enough in the same aircraft to to know it well, you should notice changes in the engine sound for different phases in flight. The engine is talking to you. It should be reacting to what you tell it to do. In a way, you’re communicating with each other.

But when your engine starts leading the conversation, you’d better be listening to it.