Let’s say you just got a new toy – a DSLR body! You are so excited. You wanted this camera to take good portraits of your family. How should you best put that new 50mm portrait lens to work? Well, that is always a tradeoff between sharpness, shutter speed, and bokeh. Let’s look at photos using a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D lens.

The aperture of 1.8 is fantastic at achieving that creamy blurred background that you used to have to mimic in Photoshop when you used your point and shoot camera. That poor little thing had a maximum aperture around 5! With an aperture of 1.8, you are letting in loads of light and can use a much faster shutter speed to achieve the exposure you want. The faster shutter speed means fewer blurred photos (no camera shake).

In low light situations, this can be crucial. A smaller aperture (bigger number) will let in even less light. You need to keep the shutter open longer to get enough light. If the available light is quite low, this can mean the difference between a handheld shot that is in focus, one that requires a tripod, or looks blurry.

The photo above was taken at f/1.8 with a shutter speed of 1/2000 seconds. Looks good. The blurred background encourages your eye to focus on the beautiful bloom. I always thought you had to shoot literally wide open in order to achieve that creamy background. Today, I proved myself wrong.

f/2.0 1/1600 sec.

Here is the same photo taken with the same overall amount of light. This time the aperture was closed down one stop and the shutter speed was decreased one stop. Still nice bokeh. Let’s see if there’s any difference by closing the aperture one more stop and decreasing the shutter speed an additional stop.

f/2.2 1/1250 sec.

Overall the shot looks pretty similar. Still nice bokeh. What’s your point??? Well, let’s look at closeups of those beautiful flowers.

f/1.8 closeup

Hmm, where did the detail go in the center of the flower? Let’s look at that with an aperture of 2.0

f/2.0 closeup

Wow, the detail looks a lot sharper in this one. Let’s try 2.2.

f/2.2 closeup

Now that’s pretty sharp. Not too much difference between 2.0 and 2.2. At that point it comes down to personal preference. But there was a noticeable jump in sharpness between 1.8 and 2.0.

What does this all mean to you? Although your lens may give you the ability to have a super wide open aperture, it doesn’t mean you’ll get a sharp photo at that setting. In fact, your depth of field may wind up being soooo shallow that you don’t get all your important parts in focus.

Take another look at the top photo. The entire length of the petals is not in focus. Were you really looking for a portrait in which your baby’s nose was in focus but not his ears? You may want that look. It’s quite popular to take a portrait in which only the eyelashes are in super-sharp focus. But, as an amateur, if you don’t want to spend a ton of time in Photoshop sharpening all the eyeballs in your portraits, close down your aperture a bit. You’ll still get the bokeh and a pretty quick shutter speed, and you’ll get a nice sharp photo as well.

Ever take a photo of something very bright and very dark and kick yourself when you see that the final image is lacking some detail? That’s called a high contrast scene. Today’s gorgeous little model has some adorable white barrettes paired with big brown eyes.

Although your eye can see most of the detail in a high contrast scene, cameras don’t have the same dynamic range. Film cameras had a bit more than digital cameras. DSLR’s have more dynamic range than point and shoots. So, when taking a photo in a high contrast scene, you need to make some exposure decisions. Some of these can be corrected in Photoshop, some cannot.

As you can see in the photo above, we can see all the detail in both her barrettes and eyes, but the photo looks a bit dull. Here’s what the levels diagram looks like to start:

As you can see, it’s a bit unbalanced. Let’s drag that white slider over to where the histogram just begins to rise. That will brighten things up a bit. Here’s our new histogram:

And here’s our new version of the photo:

While it certainly is brighter, we lost the detail in the barrettes. Here’s another example with an even bigger smile:

Notice that in this exposure, the detail in the barrette is already missing. And yet, the photo still looks a bit dull. Doing another levels adjustment we wind up with:

Again, it’s a subtle difference, but the colors are all a touch brighter. With barrettes and eyeballs, the decision of how to expose isn’t that critical. Always go for the eyes. Here’s where it gets harder: if she’s sitting next to someone of a much lighter skin tone.

That’s when some knowledge of the tradeoffs is necessary. If you’re using an automatic setting on your point and shoot, you want to aim your camera at something in between your most important dark object and your most important light object. Then, you will lock in the exposure and recompose your scene. Depending on your camera, this can usually be done by partially holding down the shutter button.

You can usually recapture some of the detail in the underexposed (or darkened portion of a picture) when you correct it in Photoshop. You cannot recapture detail in the overexposed (or blindingly bright portion of a picture). You can read more on that in my post on biggest mistakes you can’t fix in Photoshop. So, a good rule of thumb is to aim your camera at something closer to your most important light subject (but still in between the lightest and darkest subjects).

You bought a new video camera to use for the summer. Here are some common errors to avoid when using your new toy.

- Leave the lens cap on while recording

We have a few video clips with audio saying, “what the heck is wrong with this camera? I can’t see a thing.” This isn’t such a problem with cameras like the Flip and Zi8. But for those of you with good old-fashioned lens caps, watch out for this one.

- Put the camcorder down thinking it’s shut off

We’ve all been guilty of this one. If you’re lucky, you realize it a minute later, but you might not realize it until you watch the movie clip. The worst part is if there are scenes you actually want to see at the beginning and end of the clip. The analog to this one is turning off the camera when you think you’re turning it on. Either way, you have too much bad footage or missed a key scene completely.

- Zoom in / out too fast

This one is just plain nauseating. If you have a Flip you don’t have to worry about it (no zoom). Slow and steady is the way to go.

- Move the camera from subject to subject too quickly (makes for nice motion blur!)

Have you ever noticed how they do this on TV? They generally keep both subjects on the screen, but selectively focus from one to the other. This isn’t really possible with a consumer camcorder, so your best bet, short of cutting a multi-camera scene, is to keep both subjects on the screen, slowly move from person to person, or pause the camera while you move.

- Pan the scene in super slow mode

It’s the opposite of the one above. In trying to capture that entire family reunion shot of 87 family members, you spend 17 minutes panning from person to person. BORING. That’s when photos do a much better job.

- Constantly talk while recording so you can’t hear any of your subjects

Watch out for this mistake while at your kids’ events. Yelling at the referee into the microphone tends to drown out the cheers of the crowd.

- Never let anyone else use the camcorder so you are never in any scenes

Ever look at your scenes from the past year and realize that the camera man is missing? Don’t be a camera hog. Share your techno-toy so that you can appear in your movies.

- Take video of absolutely everything

This isn’t a bad idea if you have tons of time to edit your movies and have tons of hard drive space. But, if you want to easily watch your movies, it’s hard to sift through hours of boring footage.

These mistakes can easily be corrected when you edit your video scenes. But, if you don’t edit your video, these mistakes can make your movie scenes almost unwatchable. Fortunately there are companies like Storymix Media that can do a great job of taking bad video footage and creating enjoyable movies of your memories.

But remember, there is only so much powerful equipment, sophisticated software, and creative editors can do. Taking just a little bit of time to think about what you are trying to capture – people, landscapes, events, etc. – will go a long ways towards getting better footage.

We were recently contacted to simply transfer 79 films to DVD. The client was celebrating her father’s 80th birthday, and what better way than to watch their old movies on DVD? Here are a few tips to navigate the transfer process to get you the best possible memento.

The problem with direct transfer

Seventy nine film reels is a lot of footage. It wound up being approximately 13 hours. That’s a lot to digest. If you hand someone a stack of 10 DVDs and say, “Here it is. Your life in movies. Have fun watching,” what are the odds they will watch the whole thing? What are the odds you’ll have any interest in watching it? It doesn’t tell a story.

Most direct transfer services will simply put the movies on a DVD. If the reels were not labelled, they will not label the files on the disc. They may or may not include music. If the music is legally licensed it may or may not sound like elevator music. If it’s from someone’s personal CD collection, it is not legal to share on the web or in venues like catering halls.

Many direct transfer services will not color correct the film. As you can see in the image above, the film had yellowed due to poor storage. Here’s what we were able to do with the film reel footage by adding a simple color correction. It’s subtle but makes a big difference in the final movie.

The other major difference with getting something put directly on a DVD is that you cannot then easily edit the footage down to a manageable length. You can purchase programs which will allow you to rip the film files off of the DVD and edit them, but it will not be of the original quality, and it’s not simple to do. Think about it this way, each hour of footage is approximately 13GB of data when captured in standard definition. If your transfer services squashes 2 hours onto one DVD, then they compressed 26GB of data down to 4GB. It’s not going to be all that great when you try to edit it.

The solution

The best bet is to transfer your film to a hard drive, in addition to ordering DVDs. This way you can edit it down to an entertaining length, something like 30 minutes, or even a series of 30 minute movies presented on one DVD.

Here’s an example of what you can do with your footage, given the opportunity. For our Detroit readers, make sure you watch to the end of this 35 second clip to see a favorite vacation destination from years gone by.

In this case, our client ordered a hard drive as well as her DVDs. She happened to be a whiz at iMovie so she completed an edited movie with the footage in time for her Dad’s birthday. She also provided us with very well labelled reels. We were able to group them on the DVDs by subject matter so that the discs themselves told a story. Each DVD menu showed clips from the movies on that disc. For instance, one disc contained only Christmas footage from throughout the years. Another contained only Yellowstone vacations.

If you do get your videos or film reels transferred directly to a DVD, try to have them labelled very clearly. Specify the order in which you’d like them on the DVD. Try to have them grouped and labelled on DVDs by subject. This will make them much more interesting to watch. Enjoy your memories!

I know, I’m usually all about fixing things in Photoshop. But there are some things you just can’t fix – bad focus and overexposure. So let’s learn how to have fun with those bad photos anyway.

Bad focus

Poor focus can be caused by actual bad focus or camera shake. You can wind up with bad focus because you focused on a moving target, or used auto focus but didn’t lock the focus on your subject first. You can wind up with camera shake if you are using too slow a shutter speed. Or, as I found out recently, you have an old point and shoot with a real sticky shutter button.

In the photo above, we see a fantastic expression on our clown’s face. The photo seems to be pretty well exposed, and yet… it’s out of focus. Let’s see a close-up of his face.

What a waste of a great shot. Oh well, it’ll look good in wallet size prints.

Let’s see if the sharpen tool or filter can do anything for us.

Not too bad. I tried the sharpen filter a few times but didn’t like the results. This time I tried the smart sharpen filter. I set amount to 445% and the radius to 3.6 pixels. Any larger radius and a halo appeared around the nose. here’s a close-up:

It’s still not good. Photoshop can’t really fix bad focus, but perhaps I can print out a 4×6 instead of a wallet without wanting to throw it away. This would also work in a slideshow for the web if there is no zooming into the photo.

Overexposure

Overexposure can be caused by a couple of things. You were playing around with the manual settings and forgot that you changed locations (or took the lens cap off). Or, you had it on a programmed mode, aimed the camera at something dark and let the camera set the exposure based on that. Or, it could be that you have a scene with a large dynamic range (the contrast between the darkest and lightest elements of the composition). You exposed for something in the middle and hoped for the best.

Either way, you now have a photo with detail that is lost due to overexposure (see above). The blurred background appears to be correctly exposed, but our subject is bathed in too much light.

So, let’s bring it into Photoshop and try to fix it. Here’s what happened when I tried a simple levels adjustment.

No good. Still no detail in his face.

Let’s try adjusting the exposure. I’ll just darken it a bit. After all, that’s what I messed up on in the first place.

My, my. That photo is still looking like it’s heading for the trash bin. Time to play.

Just like last week’s post on shooting portraits into the sun, this one is a bit artsy and not to everyone’s taste, but it suits me just fine. I got rid of most of the contrast and added a levels adjustment. It brings out his ginormous dark eyelashes and cute nose.

Basic Photography Skills Do Matter

This is when you realize that it’s important to have a grasp on the basics of photography. Know how to hold your camera so that it doesn’t shake. If you are on auto mode and your subject is not centered, aim the camera at them to set the exposure and focus. Most cameras will allow you to hold down the shutter button halfway and recompose the shot, while retaining the proper focus and exposure.

Although you can’t fix all your photography mistakes in Photoshop you can still have fun playing with the photos. Instead of deleting them all, see what happens when crop, add filters, brighten. Have fun with your photos.

Shoot into the sun? Won’t I go blind? Why would I ever shoot into the sun? Well, for starters, your subject won’t squint and yell at you. Secondly, you can get an amazing artsy print out of the deal.

Last week I was playing around on the Photojojo forums and saw an interesting thread called “shoot into the light”. They were looking for people to post photos featuring the sun, sun flare, bokeh galore. What can I say? It inspired me.

Now, keep in mind, when shooting into the sun, you are not trying to get the most accurate detail in your subject – you are going for art. These are the type of photos you can print, frame, and hang on your wall, not because they are the most realistic, but because the overall shot is pleasing to the eye.

In the photo at the top I was playing with ISO 100 (bright sun), f/1.8, shutter speed of 1/3200 sec (which stopped the flower from moving with the breeze). Somehow I was focused on nothing in particular. Honestly, the photo was somewhat of a happy accident.

For those who enjoy realistic photos, it would be considered a failure. Personally, sometimes I like photos that look like artwork. So, for me it’s a winner.

For my next photo, I somehow convinced my gorgeous model to stand still for a second while the sun was descending behind her.

With an aperture of f/3.2 I was able to blur the background. The shutter speed of 1/200 second kept her from blurring too much. Most importantly, though, was the use of flash. It enabled me to both capture the halo of sunlight and get some detail in her face. Without the flash, the photo probably would have been a perfect silhouette. The background would have been exposed correctly, while she would have been shrouded in darkness.

While these type of photos are not to everyone’s taste, they do make for a nice decoration on the wall. Have fun shooting into the light. Play around with the flash and shutter speed (or scene modes on your point and shoot) while you do it. Try taking lots of versions of the same shot to see which is most pleasing to your eye. Who knows, you may wind up with a happy accident gracing the walls of your living room.

Today we are joined by the talented expert on DSLR storytelling, Ronald E. Hole, all the way from Norway. He is going to walk us through the basics of how to light your subject when filming an interview. Let’s say you want to video a family history, beginning with your mother-in-law.

Photography and video – the bottom line is light. Technical, anyway. Where it comes from, or how strong or weak it is.

Do not push that buy-button on the internet and order your fullfledged light-kit. I hope I have some tips that makes lighting your shots easy and nice. And free.

I use natural light as often as I can in my professional job. Below is an example, where half of the interviews are done with outdoor light falling in a window. Can you guess which? Answer is at the end of the article.

Before I start, I have one wish. When you are going to talk to or interview a friend or family-member for recording on video, put the camera as close as you can beside yourself. So we see the subjects face, but they’re looking a bit to the left or right, where you are sitting. Why? This is very logical. When you have a discussion with a friend, they never look away from you. Hopefully they see into your eyes, and listen or say something. Same with video. You trust and believe people whom you can see the face of, when they are telling something.

Okay, on to the fun stuff.

Direct and indirect lights
In my example, I use indirect light. Its the big spotlight outdoors, which makes a lot of light. Often called the sun. I do not put my subjects in direct sunlight, that will make them squint. And the sun casts sharp shadows, which may hide the eyes and make shadows pop out.

If the sun isn’t shining straight through the window (or even better, it is a cloudy day. Nice, big sunfilter), I put my subjects in front of the window. I then get (as you can see) a nice, soft light on them, and the background will be darker. That will make your mother-in-law come out of the picture.

Note:
Try to swing your subject around, as my top-right picture. I turned him away from the outdoor windowlight. Then you will get a “shadow-grade” on the right side of the face, and not a so flat light. We are all made in 3D, in the real world.

Hard and direct sunlight
Okay, the sunlight coming through the window, no clouds, and the light is really sharp. Check the surroundings in the room. Is the light hitting a white wall? Put the subject in front of the wall, and use the light reflecting from this.

Or even more fun, put the subject with the back to the direct sunlight, and use 4 (or 6) letter-sized white papers taped together, put it in front of the subject, and use the reflected light to get a nice soft light on them. And you will probably get a nice halo for your mother-in-law. But please be careful with strong sun-light.

Just experiment where to put the home-made reflector. As mentioned before, I like to have a face with a nice, soft shadow.

Note:
If you use the automatic settings on the camera, it probably will compensate and make your subject dark, sitting in front of a window. Improvise, and move your camera around til you are satisfied.
And please be nice with your mother-in-law, its hot in the sunlight.

No sun. And its dark. Like evening.
Now you don´t have any natural light to play with. Then you have to try to do with what you have in the household. If you have an lamp you can move around, put it a bit to the right or left of your subject. If your lamp has an lampshade, it hopefully makes the light softer.

Important rule: The subjects face should look towards the light source.

Lamps in the ceiling give nasty shadows, try to avoid using them.

The illustration below (Ill.2) gives you an idea where to put the lamp to get fewest shadows and maybe get some illumination in the eyes.

Here in this picture (ill.3), I only used an ordinary house lamp. The lamp is hanging from the ceiling, but to the right of the subject. The light goes through the lampshade, and that softens it a bit on his face. But it reflected down on a white table, which gives me a nice, soft light on this guy.

Summary
- Eye contact with the subject
- Use outdoor light, put your subjects against a windows
- Do not put them in direct sunlight. Squinting and ugly shadows. And hot.
- Build your own reflector with white paper, 4-6 letter sized tape together
-Avoid lamps in the ceiling
-Lampshades soften the light a bit
-Experiment, experiment, experiment. Have fun.

Did you guess correctly?

About Ronald
This kid has been in the television and film production for 20 years. He’s probably done anything you can do here, from making coffee and running errands to editing documentaries. But he loves taking pictures, meeting new people, and learning new stories. And sharing those. Some of his love for storytelling with moving images you can find at www.storytell.in, where he tries to share the tricks of the trade from directors, photographers, producers and the like from the web with you. If you have any questions or would like to contact Ronald, you can do so at ronald@storytell.in

Today we are featuring the photography techniques of San Diego newborn photographers Carrie Sandoval and Brittany Woodall of the Baby as Art Studio. They specialize in maternity, newborn, and baby photography and offer several recommendations as to when to schedule a photography session for your newborn. Additionally, they offer a unique way for amateur photographers to take their newborn photography skills to the next level.

Carrie recommends scheduling your newborn photography session (or taking your own photos) before the baby is 2 weeks of age… preferably around 1 week old. At one week of age, baby’s tummy is satisfied because Mommy’s milk is usually in by this time, but baby is still young enough to curl up tightly and sleep through our posing. Additionally, newborn acne and cholic may flare up at 1 1/2 to 2 weeks of age. After 2 weeks, baby usually becomes more aware and prefers to be swaddled and undisturbed while sleeping.

Carrie says, “I normally start my sessions around 11am. Babies tend to be more content in the morning hours. Sessions usually last 3-4 hours allowing plenty of time for feeding and soothing.

Today we are joined by newborn photographer Nancy Alcott. Nancy’s studio in San Francisco specializes in newborn and child photography. Today she helps us address some common issues to posing twins: when to take the photos, how to position them, and how to light them. Read on as Nancy gives us a crash course in newborn portraiture.

1.    Start them early. To get those adorable shots of your little ones wrapped up together, start early. Really early.  Brand new babies are accustomed to being knotted up together from their months in the womb, and the very best poses are often when they’re curled up. If this is what you’re hoping to capture, you’ll have a better success rate if they’ve not grown accustomed to a good, long stretch. Best to capture them within the first week to 10 days of life.Capturing this pose proved a little more difficult because they were actually much older than a recommended age for posing, as they were 7 weeks old. Because of this it was quite difficult to get them posed next to one another asleep, so we had to shoot them awake.  This is very typical of the advanced age, which is why it’s so crucial to start early.

2.    Catch them sleeping. Newborns are best captured while they’re in a deep sleep. Fill your little one’s bellies beforehand and turn the heat up a few notches to ensure a deeper slumber. If you can ensure your newborns are completely zonked with a full belly, you’ll be able to manipulate their little arms and legs without fear of accidentally stirring them from their sleep.

3.    Kill the flash. Use natural light instead. Place your babies as close to a large natural light source as possible. Use a large window or sliding glass door which provides ample, indirect light to blanket your baby in the perfect, brilliant light.

4.    BYOB (Bring your own blankey). Try posing your baby on blankets with interesting or chunky textures that have luxe-type fabrics and weaves. This will add depth and dimension to your photo and frame your baby in a tranquil setting.  If you want to shoot against a black backdrop, use black fleece, which absorbs the light, leaving just your sleeping baby as the focus. Be sure to avoid reflective fabrics.

5. Have patience. Once your twins are in a deep sleep, handle them gently and pose them slowly. Allow them to fall back into a deep sleep if they stir during the posing process.

6. Birthday suits are best. There’s nothing more beautiful and natural than a newborn baby’s skin, so in between those shots in fun hats or cocoons you bought on etsy.com, try to capture the angelic simplicity of your twins’ skin against skin.

7. Pump it up. If you’re a breast feeding mom, it’s helpful to have pumped milk in bottles available tat your fingertips to provide your babies if they begin to stir awake. This top off can extend your photo shoot considerably and save you the trouble of having to start the posing process all over again.

Nancy closes her remarks with the best quote, “I really have the greatest job ever.” If you’d like to contact Nancy Alcott directly, you can reach her by email at alcottphotography@gmail.com or phone at 415.385.6459.

Best of luck with your own newborn photography. Remember the basic tips of simple lighting and photograph the first week with a full tummy while sleeping and you should be all set.

Have camcorder. To the soccer game I go. I shoot some HD movies on the camcorder and look around… I’m the only one doing this. I go to the baseball game. Same thing. Where are all the parents shooting video? Has everyone given up?

I’ve been asking around, and it seems that more and more people I know have given up on shooting video. It’s not because their kids stopped acting cute at age 2. It’s because it’s gotten more and more complicated to do anything with that video.

Last week, I spent some time fellow parent and video enthusiast, Dan Krueger, shooting the breeze about the good, bad and ugly of home movies in HD. He provided me with this awesome sample shot on his HD camcorder.

The Good

HD video is really easy to bring into the computer for editing. It may take awhile to capture it to the computer, but it’s simply a matter of moving files around.

Back when the video was in standard definition, you had some issues. Let’s say you shot your two week European vacation on miniDV tape. You got home and are all excited to show off some scenes from the trip. No time to edit a whole movie. Let’s just hook up the camcorder to the TV and watch some video.

So, you rewound the tape back to the beginning of the vacation footage. Sure, there were lots of scenes where you filmed the sidewalk. That’s ok. After awhile the sidewalk footage got boring, so you shut off the camcorder.

Did you remember to fast forward the tape to the end of the vacation footage? Most people forget this crucial step. Then, the next time they go out, they tape right over their vacation!

HD video looks great when you hook it up with an HDMI cable to the HDTV. How’s that for a lot of acronyms? And this time you’re not in any danger of writing over the files, they are all unique files.

Then there was the whole camera issue. If your camera died, you didn’t really have a way to play back the footage at all. Think about all those people with Digital8 footage. Hope you held on to your camera. There’s a booming ebay market for used Digital8 camcorders because those cameras are no longer manufactured and people have no way of playing back their tapes.

With your HD video footage already in digital format, it “should” be pretty straightforward to transcode it in the future to whatever is the latest and greatest.

The Bad

Your camera saves each movie clip as a discrete file. So, every time you turn on and off the camera you get a uniquely numbered file. Hmmm, one little league game equals 30 anonymously numbered files. Great.

With SD footage, your tape was your backup and your filing system. You labeled the tape, stuck it in a safe, and you were all set. Sure it deteriorated, but it was a physical thing that you always had. With video footage on your hard drive, you have to keep copies on multiple hard drives, and find some way of organizing those numbered files.

And how do you watch it in HD? You can’t just keep connecting your camera to your TV every time. Especially if you have a hard drive camera. You need to download the footage eventually so that you have room for more.

I found this great tutorial on how to use your XBox to stream home movies from a PC. On a Mac, I still love my AppleTV for watching home movies in HD. Both XBox and AppleTV work for PCs and Macs.

Streaming is much preferable to putting HD footage on a DVD. It looks way better than standard def footage on a DVD, but doesn’t look nearly as crisp as steaming. Much of this depends on your software. Using pro software, I can get HD footage to look awesome on a DVD. Consumer software doesn’t have as many options, however. And good luck if you’d like to burn Blu-Ray. It’s possible, but not simple by any means.

The other bad, which is completely subjective, is the actual look of HD footage. I like a little depth of field. I like my subject to be in focus and other parts of the scene to be slightly blurry. Check out Dan’s awesome softball photo. You can tell the cutie in the center is the subject. If that whole scene was in focus, you wouldn’t know where to look.With consumer HD camcorder footage, you can’t set the depth of field, so the entire scene would be super crisp. It’s a little hard on the eyes. Standard def video kept everything in focus as well, but because the whole scene was less crisp, it wasn’t as noticeable.

The Ugly

So, you invested in an HD camcorder or you use the HD video function on your point and shoot camera. What does your new workflow involve? RAM, lots and lots of RAM.

If you want to cut out those sidewalk scenes on your Mac, you will the spinning beach ball of death (or SBBOD, as many people un-affectionately call it), while your computer thinks about playing back your HD footage. If you have a MacPro, you’re probably fine. One year old base MacBook, might not be too happy.

On a PC? Dan, tells me you get a spinning circle when your RAM falls short (Mr. Gates just couldn’t resist stealing that one as well).

Dan shoots on a Canon Vixia HG21. With a 120GB hard drive, it can hold about 11 hours of HD footage. That’s a lot of vacations, ball games, birthday parties, etc.

Well, he spent hours and hours editing that 3 minute piece on his HP Pavilion desktop with 4GB RAM and upgraded video card. He did a fantastic job and I’m sure his kids will appreciate it in the years to come. But that’s a lot of time editing on the computer, and many people just aren’t willing to do it.

The Upshot?

After a while you get sick of your computer screaming as you try to edit your home movie. You begin to weigh your options. Does the extra clarity of HD really seem all that worth it? Well, a lot of people have decided no – it’s just not worth it to them. Their unedited movies are boring. They don’t feel like investing in a new computer every year. The SD footage involved tapes, which they don’t feel like playing with. And thus, many people seem to have simply given up.

What workflows seem to work in your life? Have you sent your video footage to a company to be transformed into a treasured keepsake? Are you the soccer Dad with camcorder? Does your family ever get to view the movies? Or will your kids be like me in a few years? All grown up with no home movies from their youth.