Improving video sound quality for less than $5

    As you recall from an earlier post, I discovered that using my digital voice recorder improved the audio quality of my videos.

    But I knew I could do a bit better. Having my subject hold a voice recorder was not exactly the most professional approach, and it did have some problems with wind, as I learned early one morning in a cherry orchard.

    I started looking at lavaliere microphones, but a lot of them were quite expensive, starting at $20.

    Then, I found this lavaliere on eBay for $3.99. I decided to take the gamble, and it paid off. The microphone comes with a foam wind cover, a 6-foot cable and is stereo. I combined it with my Sony digital voice recorder, and I found the sound quality is incredible.

    Here's a sound test video I made to show my co-workers how well this mic works. It goes from the shots with the mic to straight out of the camera and back to the mic.

    Plus, another benefit I noticed is that it makes me seem more professional when I mic someone, rather than either asking them to hold a recorder or getting in their face with an cellphone.

Knoptop and my wife's crafting save my monopod

    Thanks to a tip from Knoptop, and my wife's interest in craft projects, I didn't have to get a new monopod.

    On a trip to Seattle last year, the top came off the quick-release plate of my monopod. I have yet to figure out how it happened, but the top padding was gone from the plate, the tripod screw was falling out and the camera wasn't sitting as secure as before.

    I jerry-rigged it using tape, but it wasn't a perfect situation. At that point, I thought I had two options: Try to find a new quick-release plate (next to impossible) or buy a new monopod.

    But while watching Knoptop's video on his PVC shoulder rig I found a solution. He recommended using craft foam to better seat the camera in the mount.

    I asked my wife if she had any foam in her craft materials, and she did. So, with a pair of scissors, an Xacto knife and a hot-glue gun, I was able to make a new pad that has worked just as well as the original.

    And if there's another mishap, the repair will be quick and cost a fraction of a new monopod.

Doing long exposures without a tripod or neutral-density filters

    In the last entry, I told you how to make a variable neutral-density filter so you can get long-exposure photos even in broad daylight.

    Now, I'll show you how to do it without using a filter, or even a tripod for that matter. I found this tip on Digital Photography School, and I found it works beautifully for the most part.

    I'll give you the tl;dr version of the article: Take multiple pictures of a scene, load them into Photoshop as layers, convert them into a smart object and then set your stack mode to "mean", which will cause the moving elements to blur, giving you the long-exposure effect you're looking for.

    Here's an example I did. If you're a fan of "Twin Peaks," you'll recognize Snoqualmie Falls.

I shot this with a shutter speed of 1/6 of a second, and while it blurs the water somewhat, it wasn't what I was hoping for. So, I took about 11 more pictures, with the same setting and then merged them.

This is the finished result.

    As you can see the water has a much smoother effect that would normally be the result of a much longer exposure than I could have got under the existing conditions. It is more of what I was looking for.

    So now you have another tool you can use when you want to get a long-exposure effect.

Make your own variable neutral-density filter

    We've all seen the long-exposure shots of waterfalls where the water's silky smooth, or the clouds just streak across the sky.

    The technique can also help eliminate crowds from pictures, especially if they move fast enough.

    The problem is, if you try to do them in daylight, you can't stop down far enough to get the really smooth effect. Even if you set your ISO as low as the camera permits and use the smallest aperture, you might be able to get a second, at most.

    One way to reduce the amount of light coming in is to use a variable neutral-density filter, which allows you to dial in the amount of light-blocking you need to lengthen out the exposure.

    But if you can't find one, or afford one, there are a couple alternatives. This time we'll talk about using a pair of polarizing filters to do the job.

    As you know, a polarizer works by blocking light coming from particular angles. Normally, photographers use the filters to darken the sky, increase contrast or eliminate reflections.

    But if you put two of them together, you wind up blocking most of the light coming into the camera. Try looking through a polarizing filter while wearing polarized sunglasses, and you'll see the effect.

    To do this with a camera, you need two polarizing filters screwed together and then placed in front of the lens. By turning one of them, you can darken the image to the point where you can get a long exposure.

    Here's a photo taken without the filter in place. It's about 1/25 of a second.

 

    You can see the water in the pond doesn't look smooth, and the water cascading down the rocks has some detail in it.

    Here's the same shot at 81 seconds.

    Now, we have the smooth water and the streams almost look like a mist. The only drawback to this method is the blue cast from the filters. But I was able to fix that by increasing the color temperature.

    You'll need to lock the focus in before you darken the filters, and it may take some guestimating on the exact exposure, but the effect works.

    Next time, I'll show you a way to do it without a filter, even in broad daylight.

How to have sound in your video that doesn't suck

    When I was mostly an ink-stained wretch, I asked my TV colleagues why they had to mic up the people they were interviewing rather than rely on the microphone on the camera.

    "Because that sounds terrible," they would explain.

    Doing just home videos at the time, I didn't think it was much of a big deal.

    But later, when I started doing more multimedia journalism, I realized they were right. Shooting with an iPhone or a bridge camera in courtrooms or outdoor locations produced sound that was downright awful.

    I tried attaching a mic to the Lightning port on the iPhone, but there was some interference, and the sound quality did not improve drastically. I tried boosting the volume in post, but that did not help; in some cases it made things worse.

    The bridge camera, like many prosumer DSLRs, does not have a mic jack, so attaching a microphone to that was out of the question.

    Then, after doing some reading in online video tutorials, I decided to do what other shooters, even Hollywood productions do: record the sound separately and merge it in post.

    Editing software, such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, can automatically sync a recorded soundtrack with the camera audio, especially if there is a reference sound, such as a clap or saying the word "Go."

    (Those clapper boards you always see in movies to signal the start of a shoot? That's used to create an audible and visual sync point for the audio editors.)

    To record the audio for my video, I used a voice recorder. Testing it in my living room, the results were remarkable. The camera audio picked up a lot of ambient room noise, while the voice recorder was a cleaner sound.

    But, little did I know, the trial by fire was going to be the next day. There was a fire at the local homeless shelter's recycling center. I did a quick raw video with the iPhone to get something up on the web, and then started shooting B-roll with the bridge camera.

    Finally, I interviewed the fire department spokesman, under probably the worst possible audio conditions. We were outdoors, three fire engines idling in the background and a 10-mph wind blowing across the scene.

    Here's the straight-out-of-camera video.

    Awful, isn't it? There was no way I would be able to use that for the website.

    If you notice, he's holding the voice recorder, and here's what it sounded like when, back at the office, I used the recorder's sound instead.

    Much better, don't you think?

    I could probably improve it further by using a lavaliere mic, but this technique can also help improve your home videos as well.

    You can see the full video here.

Looking for a cheap way to geotag your photos?

    If you use sites such as Flickr or Google Photos, you know about geotagging.

    It offers you and your audience a chance to see where the photo was taken. This is helpful if you want to go back to that location, or a way to remember a particular trip.

    If you take pictures with your smartphone, the GPS data is already embedded in your metadata. If it's not, you can adjust the settings to allow this.

    But most DSLR users don't have this option. We have to either enter it manually using Lightroom's or Flickr's drag-and-drop editing to place the photos on the map. This can be tedious if you have hundreds of photos from a vacation or a shoot. And if you forget where you were exactly when you took the photo, you could be off in your placement.

    There are easier ways to do this. You could buy a dedicated GPS logger that keeps track of your location, and the log file can be compared to the time stamps on each photo to insert the geographical data.
 

    The main problem with this approach is the price. A dedicated GPS logger starts around $100 on the low end.

    Another option is to use a phone app, which is usually free and utilizes the GPS receiver already incorporated in your smartphone.

    There are two drawbacks with this route, though.

    First, the GPS logging can increase the load on your phone battery, especially if you're using it for other things, such as making phone calls.

    Second, some people don't have, don't want or can't afford a smartphone.

    Well, there is a solution. Get a used smartphone without a phone plan, and use that as your GPS logger.

    What many people do not realize is that even if you do not have a plan for your cell phone, some of its functions, such as the GPS system, still work. This is because cell phones are required, by law, to be able to call 911 regardless of whether they have a plan.

    (I spent an evening at a 911 dispatch center, and actually saw a couple calls come in from "disconnected" cell phones. The number that comes up on the caller ID looks a bit funky, but the caller's position comes right up on the map display at the dispatch console.)

    You can find used smartphones online, at thrift stores or in other places. In my case, when I was laid off, my former employer allowed me to keep my company-issued Blackberry Bold, which had reached the point where Blackberry was no longer issuing updates for its operating system.

    The phone plan eventually lapsed, but I found it did a great job as a GPS logger. Even without phone service, it is possible to download software onto the phone through wifi. For the Blackberry, I use GPSLogger II from Emacberry, which I have found is reasonably accurate.

    Since I'm not using the Blackberry for phone calls, the battery can keep the GPS logger running longer. I was able to get about six hours off it while at a state fair, allowing me to track my travels throughout the day.

    Getting the file off the phone's easy. You can either hook up the phone to the computer with a USB cable or take the micro SD card out and use a reader.

 

    From there, you can use either Lightroom or some of the other programs available to attach the GPS data to the photos. Then, when you upload them on services such as Flickr or Panaromio, they will automatically display where they were taken. Or you can convert it to a KML file and let others see  the photos in Google Earth.