Cambridge Buskers & Street Performers Festival 2013 - Official Highlights Video

Above is my latest film production, a highlight video for the recent Cambridge Buskers & Street Performers festival, which showcased a variety of solo musicians, bands and street performers over 3 days at the end of June 2013.

Cyclists v Motorists Documentary Film

A documentary film that I produced which covers the subject of motorists and cyclists in my home town of Cambridge. To view the full film watch the embedded YouTube video above.

Time Lapse Photography by Bradley Stearn

The above playlist contains photography time lapse videos photographed by myself. I will be shooting time lapses regulary throughout summer. Subscribe to my channel on YouTube to be kept up to date with what I am shooting. At the end of summer I will be making a montage containing all of the best time lapses that I shot. So far I have shot starscape and cloud time lapse.

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How to photograph stars for time lapse

Now I am no expert at photographing the stars, but I have learned a lot from the small amount of experience that I have had. In this post I am going to give a step by step guide on how to achieve the best results when photographing stars, along with tips and tricks I have learnt, and also with some tips on the post production side of star trail photography.

Equipment needed for star photography is very basic, you will need a DSLR, a wide lens (I use an EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5), a sturdy tripod to ensure the camera doesn't move during the long exposure shots or during the time lapse shoot and an intervalometer which is a device which automatically takes a picture for you at set intervals of time. I use the Magic Lantern firmware hack on my Canon DSLR, this makes it to I can have a built in intervalometer which saves carrying extra equipment. I highly recomend taking warm clothes, you will not regret taking gloves and a beanie hat, as it will get cold standing outside at night doing nothing.

These are the settings that I used for the star trail examples below, these settings don't need to be copied exactly to get good results. Firstly make sure you are using a long shutter speed, I recommend between 25 to 30 seconds long, doing this allows for plenty of light to hit your DSLRs sensor which helps bring out the stars in the sky. You also need to make sure you are shooting with an aperture which is at least f/3.5 or lower. ISO depends on how much brightness you need, but I usually use ISO 1600 on my Canon T3i because anything higher is quite noisy.

I won't go into too much detail about the post production side of star time lapse photography, but I do have recommendations on software to use if you are a Windows user. I usually batch edit and process time lapse photos using Digital Photo Professional, which is the free editing software that comes with all Canon DSLRs. I will then use Sony Vegas to edit the photos into a video file that can be uploaded to YouTube. I also have a free application called 'Startrails' which places every photo from a star time lapse into one image to show the 'trail' of the stars over time. You can download the 'Startrails' application by clicking this link which will take you to the official website.


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How to Lens Whack using a DSLR

How to Lens Whack / Free Lens using a DSLR camera 

Lens whacking is the filmmaking method of fully disconnecting your lens from your camera body, and moving it side to side, and backwards and forward from the camera sensor to achieve lens flares and artistic focus. This is because instead of light just entering the camera sensor from through the lens, light is also coming in from behind the lens where you have disconnected it from the body.

If you are lens whacking you are going to want to make sure that the lens you have chosen to use is 50mm focal length or less, any more and your image will be shaky as you will be holding the lens freely in your hand.

The best way to hold your camera and lens whilst doing this trick is to have your camera body in the palm of your left hand, with the bottom of your lens being supported by your fingers. With your right hand you want to hold your thumb over the record button as you normally would, and your fingers covering the gab behind the lens. By doing this you can adjust how much light you are letting into the lens, reducing or increasing the amount of lens flare within the shot.

For the camera settings, you need to make sure your shutter speed is double your frame rate, this is normal to any kind of shooting. Make sure your focus is set to infinity as you will not be needing to adjust focus whilst whacking with the lens.

Below is a lens whacking test that I made to show the effect that you can achieve. You can see the purple lens flares which I made by allowing light to enter from behind the lens, also it turns my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens into a macro lens. The further you pull the lens away from the camera body, the closer you can focus to the subject, this is how I shot this macro video of the beer bottle.



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DSLR Time Lapse Light Streak Cars Magic Lantern

Photography by Bradley Stearn

A time lapse I have been wanting to make for years now, I have just been procrastinating about it. I finally persuaded my friend to drive me to make this last night, and I am very happy with the result. I have always liked the light streaks that you get from long exposures and car lights at night.

I shot this time lapse with the Canon 600D / T3i DSLR, with the EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 kit zoom lens. I used the Magic Lantern V2.3 intervalometre to make the time lapse, I shot at 5 second exposure at 7 second intervals.ISO 100, f/5.6, 18mm focal length.

Equipment used in this video -
Canon 600D / T3i DSLR w/ EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5 - 5.6 kit zoom lens
Manfrotto 700 RC2
Magic Lantern V2.3
Integral Ultima pro 32gb
Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0

Time Lapse is something I really enjoy, I am shooting another time lapse during this week, so expect to see that on my YouTube and blog by next Monday.

The Varsity 'Get Down, Get Loud!' E.P Release

Unsigned band from Cambridgeshire, 'The Varsity' are releasing their début E.P, 'Get Down, Get Loud!' on the 2nd of February 2012. The E.P consists mainly of feel good music for anyone to enjoy listening to.

A track off the E.P was released early the other day, due to it being a very special track to the band members and close fans, 'Jake's Song' is dedicated to a close friend who passed away last summer in a freak accident whilst on holiday. 

You can listen to the full playlist on YouTube below -

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