Capturing a Total Solar Eclipse

I was fortunate enough to experience the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse from Carmel, Indiana. While I was able to view the eclipse through my eclipse glasses, I also brought various recording devices to capture my surroundings from multiple perspectives. This blog entry provides some information about my setup.

Location, Location, Location. The first consideration, aside from being in the path of totality, was to determine the exact location from where I’d view the eclipse. I decided that in addition to directly recording the sun itself, it would be interesting to record the office building where I work—right before, during, and right after totality. From the parking lot (pictured above), I was able to get a good angle of the building, free from obstruction, as well as an unobstructed view of the sun.

Timing. For most people, an approximate time for the start and end or totality would suffice. Most eclipse viewers simply need to arrive before totality and might snap a few photos and videos to commemorate the event. I was slightly more constrained because I needed to ensure that I had sufficient storage space on my memory cards as well as battery life to capture my intended footage. To determine the precise start and end of the partial and total eclipse, I used the US Navy Solar Eclipse Computer. I grabbed GPS coordinates from Google Maps and entered them into the Solar Eclipse Computer but had to truncate them after 4 decimal places. I made sure to arrive shortly after the beginning of the partial eclipse which would give me an hour to get situated, look around, and set up all my equipment to prepare for totality.

GoPro. One of my recording devices was my GoPro HERO7 Black which I simply affixed to a 3D printed mount and placed on the hood of my rental car since it was one of the only objects above ground level. The purpose of the GoPro was to record a video of the office building and produce a timelapse video immediately before, during, and immediately after the 3.5 minutes of totality. I wasn’t able to attach the mount to anything, and despite there being a slight breeze, I was fairly confident that it would not move around during recording. Given my familiarity with my GoPro’s battery life, I began recording about 10 minutes before the onset of totality, as I was confident that I’d have more than enough RAM and battery life to capture all of totality and several minutes afterward.

Drone. My 2nd recording device was a DJI Mavic Mini. Its purpose was also to obtain a timelapse of the building but from a higher perspective. Approximately 7 or 8 minutes before totality, I flew the drone to 18 meters (59 feet) altitude, according to the flight data, and started recording. I simply allowed the drone to hover for the entire duration. While the drone stayed put for the most part, the 10x timelapse shows what looks like noticeable movement of the drone in all 3 axes which gave the building a “rubbery” appearance. I don’t know how much of this movement was due to the wind. In any case, I was happy with my timing, as the battery lasted through totality and plenty of time thereafter.

Camcorder. My 3rd recording device was a Canon VIXIA HF M301 camcorder with 15x optical zoom capabilities. Along with my eclipse glasses came a camera filter which was probably intended to be used with mobile phones, but the diameter of the filter was sufficient to cover the entirety of the camcorder lens. I used 2 pieces of clear tape to attach the filter to the camcorder so that it fully covered lens. I mounted the camcorder to a portable tripod and placed the tripod on a folding chair, mainly for the purpose of elevating it off the pavement of the parking lot so it was easier for me to make adjustments. Given that I had zoomed all the way to 15x, I discovered that I was only able to capture the sun for a few minutes at a time before it moved off frame. Therefore, I had to keep repositioning the camcorder before, during, and after totality. This meant that I was unable to capture a continuous uninterrupted video of the eclipse. Maybe next time I’ll consider investing in a solar photography tracking mount, but I was mostly satisfied with the results that I got without one. I noticed that when the sun was closer to the edges of the frame, the camcorder had difficulty auto-focusing on the sun, but that was not surprising.

The one obvious missing recording device was my Canon R6 full frame mirrorless camera which I alluded to here. I expected to have my hands full with all the recording devices above, and the addition of my R6 camera and another tripod would have added significantly to my luggage. Therefore, I made the difficult but practical decision to leave it at home. Maybe I’ll bring my “big” camera to a future solar eclipse. Overall, I was happy with the amount of planning that I put into this momentous occasion, and I was blessed with fairly clear skies and good weather, all of which amounted to an unforgettable event. You can enjoy my eclipse video here and below:

GoPro Usability Issues

When I record videos with my GoPro HERO7 Black, I usually shoot at 2.7K resolution in a 16:9 aspect ratio and with “High Efficiency” format (more on this below). I like the 2.7K resolution because I usually make home movies in 1920x1080 resolution, and the extra pixels allow me to crop or rotate my original videos without having to upsample and lose video quality. Recently I was asked record videos of my daughter for her after-school drama class. Since their in-person performance was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, they asked parents to upload videos to a Dropbox account so they could stitch together a virtual performance. Fantastic idea!

I decided to shoot with my GoPro because we were asked to provide full-body footage for the dances, we don’t have wide-open spaces in our home, and the GoPro captures wide angles (albeit with some fisheye effect which I can live with). I decided to change the video compression setting from “High Efficiency” (i.e., H.265) to “Most Compatible” (i.e., H.264) format. I thought that the person doing the video editing would most likely be able to handle the H.265 format, but I erred on the side of caution and made the switch to H.264 anyway, recognizing that my files would take up significantly more space.

After more than an hour of shooting multiple takes each of several dances and songs, my daughter reached the limits of her patience, and we called it a day. After transferring the video files to my computer in preparation to upload to Dropbox, I previewed one of them and gasped in horror. The videos were all in 4:3 aspect ratio and 1920x1440 resolution. What the heck happened? I discovered that it had to do with a usability issue in the GoPro iOS app:

If you can see from the video, the mere act of changing the video compression setting ALSO automatically resets the aspect ratio to 4:3 and resets the resolution to 1440. I could understand if the app automatically changed a setting if the user chose an impossible permutation. For example, let’s say that I was recording 1080p at 240fps, and then I changed the resolution to 4K. Since the GoPro HERO7 Black can only record 4K at up to 60fps, I would expect it to drop the frame rate from 240 to 60 when switching the resolution from 1080p to 4K. However, when changing the video compression setting, it is totally unnecessary to alter the resolution or aspect ratio. Furthermore, if the developers had to compromise on app functionality, at least they could have warned me that they automatically changed my aspect ratio and resolution settings so I could change them back. Very few people would have thought to double-check those settings, especially since the aspect ratio and resolution settings are ABOVE the video compression setting. So if you’re reading this, hopefully this will save you some grief.

In an effort to further help out other GoPro users, I decided to submit feedback to GoPro via GoPro’s Contact Us page. After filling out their form and pressing the “Request a Call” button, I received an error message: “Invalid Captcha. Please retry.” However, I was unable to retry because as you can see from the following screenshot, a Captcha image was nowhere to be found:

Ugh, another usability issue! Strike two. Fortunately GoPro did not strike out, as I was able to click the “Start Chat” button instead, and a live chat agent was able to receive my suggestions and supposedly pass it along. I also learned that a more appropriate place to submit feedback was through the Feedback page. Hopefully GoPro will be able to address the settings issue in a future release, but in the meantime just remember that after changing the video compression setting, you may want to scroll up and re-enter your desired aspect ratio and resolution settings.

Panoramic Photos with GoPro

I enjoy shooting landscape photos, particularly in our U.S. national parks. Sometimes when trying to photograph a wide panoramic view, I simply can’t squeeze the entire landscape into a single photo. That’s when I use a technique where I take multiple side-by-side overlapping images and stitch them together using a software application. A useful tutorial is provided by Digital Photography School.

For most casual photographers, the built-in panoramic setting in mobile phones will suffice, but since I’m a photo geek, I prefer to shoot in RAW, apply color corrections to the individual photos, stitch, rotate, crop, and make other finishing touches. I know it requires a lot more steps, but I like the results and frankly am fascinated by the computations that are involved in the stitching process.

On a recent trip to Maui, I wanted to travel lightly and decided to leave my DSLR at home and shoot only with my iPhone and GoPro. Blasphemy, I know! While hiking in the Summit District of Haleakalā National Park, my iPhone battery died so I began shooting photos and videos with my GoPro HERO7 Black. As expected, I found myself in a scenario where I decided it would be best to take multiple images and later stitch them into a panorama.

Not having previously done this with a GoPro, and recognizing that GoPro cameras have super wide angles and significant barrel distortion, I made sure to overlap each individual photo even more than I usually do with my DSLR. The individual photos are here if you want to play with them:

      
      

Panoramic stitching applications use different methods to combine images, so it is not surprising that I got different results from three photo stitching applications. It is possible that their computational methods are detailed elsewhere, but my main focus is on the end result. Here is a summary of my findings.

Adobe Lightroom Classic CC 2017

Fail. The Panorama Merge feature in Adobe Lightroom was unable to stitch together the GoPro photos.

I got the same result with the other 2 projection options. Granted, this is an older version of Lightroom, and it is possible that the latest version would produce different results. In any case, when it successfully stitches photos, I prefer to use Lightroom for panoramas because it is the focal point of my RAW processing workflow.

PhotoStitcher 1.6

Fail. The application said that there were not enough key points.

I got the same results while trying multiple projection options. Once again, this is an older version, and I have not upgraded to version 2 because I frankly don’t use this application very much.

PTGui Pro 10.0

Winner! This is the application that I used to create the panoramic photo that is pictured at the top of this blog. Here is a screenshot of the unedited preview:

Obviously I haven’t been upgrading my software because version 11 is available at the time of this writing, and I assume that the current version would also successfully stitch the GoPro images.

Conclusion: From this comparison and also from prior experiences, I feel that PTGui is the most powerful stitching tool that I’ve tried. If your only available option is a wide angle lens, and if other applications are unable to create panoramas, try PTGui. However, the old adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” definitely applies here—try to shoot panoramas with a lens that has less barrel distortion to begin with. I hope you’ve found this to be helpful.

GoPro HERO7 Black Microphone Port

Earlier this year, I wrote about my new toy, a GoPro HERO7 Black. I've really enjoyed using its video capabilities. Normally I shoot in 2.7K at 60fps which gives me plenty of flexibility in making 1080p videos with cropping, image stabilization, or both.

Although I do have the case and various mounts, most commonly I shoot handheld videos without the casing. In doing so, I have discovered that sometimes I inadvertently cover up the microphone port with my fingers which muffles the sound. Given that the GoPro HERO7 Black is waterproof, I had always assumed incorrectly that the microphone was using the same port as the speakers on the bottom of the camera.

The owner's manual does not show the location of the microphone port, so I searched Google. All of the search results led me to external microphone products or general reviews of the camera. After doing some of my own testing, I discovered that there is a separate microphone port on the side of the camera—it's the tiny hole above the power button, as shown in the upper left portion of this image:

So for those of you who shoot handheld videos with the GoPro HERO7 Black and were wondering the same thing, I hope this helps you too.

Excuses Excuses

As described in my previous post, I recently bought a GoPro HERO7 Black. It records video at 4K (3840 x 2160). It's technically not my first device that is capable of capturing 4K video. My GoPro HERO3+ Black records video at 4K 15fps, but I found the 15fps frame rate to be unacceptable in most situations, so I mostly used 2.7K 30 fps and 1080p 60fps. However, my GoPro HERO7 Black records video at 4K 60fps (woo hoo) which means that I'll be recording a lot more 4K video.

Much to my dismay, Final Cut Pro X told me that my Late 2012 27-inch iMac (2.9 GHz Intel Core i5 processor) isn't quite powerful enough to edit 4K video (or larger). I proceeded to edit a 4K project anyway, and sure enough the skimming and previewing of 4K video is quite choppy and results in a significantly degraded editing experience. However, upon export, the 4K video plays smoothly in VLC Media Player, QuickTime Player, and of course YouTube.

The bottom line is that now I have an excuse to buy a new 27-inch Retina 5K iMac. 🤓

Be a HERO

Daddy bought a new toy—a GoPro HERO7 Black. Woo hoo! I upgraded from my HERO3+ Black to take advantage of the following features in the HERO7 Black: waterproof body, 4K60 video, HDR photo mode (and an enhanced HDR option which they call SuperPhoto), image stabilization (which they call HyperSmooth), a touch screen interface, and GPS tagging. There are other nifty features such as live streaming and voice control, but I don’t expect to use them much. However, while playing with the settings in the GoPro iOS app, I was pleasantly surprised to learn of 2 more features that were not well advertised on the GoPro website.

The first feature is RAW image file format. When browsing the touch screen interface, you’ll see a RAW option in the photo settings that you can toggle on or off. Note that this setting does not appear to be available in the GoPro iOS app. When toggling the RAW setting to on, the GoPro stores both a .JPG and .GPR file. The .JPG file allows you to view the photo in your camera, while the .GPR file can be processed like any other RAW image file in Photoshop or Lightroom. One of the things I like most about RAW image files is the ability to reduce noise from images taken in low light as well as the ability to adjust highlights and shadows (to a much greater degree than .JPG files). The .GPR files averaged 6-7 MB for 12 MP photos taken at 4000x3000 resolution. Interestingly, unlike the GoPro HERO3+, there is no option in the HERO7 to save photos in smaller resolutions (not that I’d use those options, which is probably why they no longer exist). See What is RAW Format? for more information. For a nice overview of photo features, see this article.

The second feature is H.265 video compression, also known as high-efficiency video coding or HEVC, which basically means that videos are compressed more efficiently than ever before. While this setting does not appear to be available in-camera, the GoPro iOS app lets you toggle between “Most Compatible” (H.264) and “High Efficiency” (H.265) options. With H.265 video compression, files are approximately half the size as compared with H.264 for the same recording quality. See HEVC Explained for more information.

So far I’ve just been experimenting with my new GoPro at home, but I’ve been impressed with all the new features that have been added in the last several models. I can’t wait to start shooting actual events with my new toy.

Capturing a Partial Solar Eclipse

The 2017 Eclipse Across America took place a couple days ago on August 21, 2017. The approximately 70-mile wide path of totality extended from coast to coast, starting in Oregon and finishing its trek across America in South Carolina. Although my home in Los Angeles was not in the path of totality, nor did I travel to the path of totality, I still planned to capture the event. Here are details of the partial eclipse from the vantage point of my home in Los Angeles:

The important information for me to know was that the maximum eclipse was calculated to occur at 17:20:51 UT (10:20:51 AM Pacific time) with 62.1% obscuration. For some reason, I was not very interested in getting solar shades to look directly at the sun. I guess I prefer to capture events so I can relive them later. So I did 3 things...

First, I recorded a timelapse series with my GoPro HERO3+ which, according to this article, was deemed safe to use in directly photographing the sun, without the need for special filters. My setup was simple and involved mounting the GoPro on a tripod using a standard GoPro mount with 1/4" thread converter.

I pointed it at the sun and took 1 photo every 10 seconds. With a fully charged battery, I started the timelapse at 9:14 AM Pacific and ended 778 frames later at 11:23 AM Pacific when my battery died. Fortunately I had enough battery power to capture the maximum partial eclipse. I edited the photos in Lightroom by cropping the original 4000x3000 pixel images to 1920x1080, straightening the crop angle, and applying some other minor adjustments such as tweaks to highlights, shadows, and curves. I composed the video in Final Cut Pro X in 1080p 60fps. Each image was set to display for 2 frames (i.e., 2 frames divided by 60 frames/second = 1/30 second), so my final speed was 300x. I was surprised that even during maximum eclipse with 62.1% obscuration, the sun appeared to be circular in shape (see video below). I was not expecting to see a clean crescent, but I thought at least the sun would not appear to be a nice round circle. I suspect that this was due to a combination of the overwhelming brightness of the sun combined with usage of a low-resolution wide-angle GoPro.

Second, I read about binocular projections and decided to try making one by myself. I secured my binoculars to a tripod using rubber bands and pointed it at the sun—of course, without looking through the binoculars. After all, everybody knows that you're not supposed to look directly at the sun, right? I covered one of the lenses to avoid generating a duplicate image. I then placed a paper notepad on the ground, cardboard side up, onto which I projected the (monocular) image. For me, the trick in getting a better visualization of the eclipse was to create enough shade around the lens, and I did so by simply tearing a hole in a piece of paper and threading the the binocular lenses through the hole. My makeshift binocular projection looked like this:

As you can see, you get a much larger projection than with a pinhole camera, and naturally I was inclined to take photos of the binocular projection.

Third, I played around with pinhole projections. Instead of creating a typical pinhole-on-a-cereal-box viewer, I decided to play around with various objects such as a colander and strainer. I found the colander to be too large and unwieldy for me to cover its edges with paper to visualize the crescent projections. The strainer worked better due to its size, but with its relatively large holes (which I did not measure but estimate to be 3-4mm in diameter), the projections were blurry. Next time I'll try to prepare in advance some objects that have smaller holes. Nevertheless, I had fun searching for "natural" pinhole projections such as crescent formations through tree leaves and the tiny holes in our living room blinds.

A video with footage of the timelapse, binocular projection, and pinhole projections is available here:

Now that I have a little bit of experience with capturing a solar eclipse, I should be ready for the next American total eclipse on April 8, 2024. Hopefully next time I'll have a chance to travel to the path of totality.

DIY Hyperlapse on a Mac

It seems like hyperlapse videos are all the rage nowadays. Microsoft is planning to release a Windows app based on this article in PetaPixel, and Instagram recently released a mobile app called Hyperlapse.  Basically a hyperlapse video is a time lapse video with stabilization that was designed specifically for point of view videos (e.g., from handheld or mounted video cameras), the resultant output providing the viewer with the feeling that of "flying" through the video, even if there was excessive camera shake in the original footage.  Despite Instagram's Hyperlapse app being available on iOS for free, I preferred to capture video footage with my GoPro Hero 3+ rather than my iPhone 5 so that I could take advantage of the GoPro's higher resolution (up to 4K), faster frame rate (60 fps at 1080p), mounting options, and other features.  So here's what I did during a recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park...

1. Mounted GoPro Hero 3+ to vehicle hood using a suction mount
2. Set video recording mode to 1080p at 60 fps, narrow view
3. Wirelessly started/stopped video recording using GoPro iOS app from inside my vehicle
4. Imported video to Final Cut Pro X (version 10.1.2) as a 1920 x 1080, 59.94p project
5. Applied stabilization to video
6. Under the Modify menu item, set Retime option to 4x
7. Made other minor edits (e.g., title, transitions, fade)
8. Exported as 1080p60 video

The stabilization in Final Cut Pro probably does not yield as good a result as genuine hyperlapse technology since Final Cut Pro was intended to reduce shake as opposed to hyperlapse technology which calculates an optimal glide path and can even fill in "missing" pixels if the algorithm is designed to do so. Nevertheless, I found the above process to be a reasonable substitute for a true hyperlapse application since I made every effort to minimize camera shake in the original footage.

For sharing purposes, I've scaled down the video to 720p30, and it is accessible here.  While you should be able to view the video in a browser, you'll probably get better video quality if you download the video and play with with your default video player (I recommend VLC).  So there you have it, my very own do-it-yourself hyperlapse video on a Mac.

My Digital Content Workflow

I am sometimes asked about my digital photography and videography workflow. Do I shoot in RAW? How do I backup my files? What apps do I use to process them? Which photo sharing sites do I use? How can I fit so many photos on my phone and still have room for apps and other stuff? I'm an amateur hobbyist, and while I'll describe what works for me, obviously your mileage may vary. I'd also welcome feedback and suggestions below, as I could be persuaded to change my workflow. First things first, here's my current hardware configuration:

• Canon EOS Rebel T4i DSLR with various EF and EF-S lenses
• Canon Vixia HFM301 camcorder
• GoPro Hero 3+
• Apple iPhone 5
• Apple iMac, 27-inch, Late 2012, 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM, 3 TB fusion drive
• Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 TB external hard drive
• Western Digital My Book Essential 3 TB external hard drive (x2)

OK, now onto my actual workflow...

(1) Shoot.  For any given event, I generally shoot and save photos and videos in the highest possible resolution. For photos, I set my DSLR to the maximum resolution and save files in both JPG and RAW format. I don't really care much about the quality of the JPG, it's the RAW files that are important to me, more on these 2 topics later.  For videos, I generally record at the highest resolution which for current entry-level camcorder technology is 1920x1080, but 2.7K and 4K are becoming more popular. I will take videos at 1920x1080 for most purposes, but if I anticipate needing to crop or perform heavy image stabilization in post-processing, I may shoot in 2.7K and 4K. In terms of frame rate, 30 fps is generally sufficient for most settings, but if possible then I may decide to shoot in 60 fps if there is fast-moving action and of course if that frame rate is available on the device at the resolution I'm shooting.

(2) Transfer. The first thing I do after shooting an event is to transfer content from my RAM cards and devices to my computer. If I've shot using multiple devices, I'll dump the contents into several folders on my iMac's internal hard drive, applying the following naming convention: yyyy-mm-dd event_description (source/format). I'll create a separate folder for each unique source/format, for example:

2014-04-01 Barack Obama's VIP Birthday Bash - White House (AVCHD)
2014-04-01 Barack Obama's VIP Birthday Bash - White House (CR2)
2014-04-01 Barack Obama's VIP Birthday Bash - White House (JPG)
2014-04-01 Barack Obama's VIP Birthday Bash - White House (GoPro)
2014-04-01 Barack Obama's VIP Birthday Bash - White House (iPhone)

The AVCHD format would contain videos from my Canon camcorder, where I'd transfer the entire AVCHD folder and its subfolders, all the way down to the .MTS files and their accompanying metadata files. The CR2 format is for Canon RAW files, and the JPG folder would be for in-camera JPG files. In this example, I might have taken some photos and videos with my GoPro Hero 3+, and maybe I took some photos with my iPhone using the panoramic setting. So you get the idea, all content is separated into different folders and named accordingly.

(3) Backup. Before I do anything else, I make backup copies like a madman. I immediately copy all of my exciting new content from my internal hard drive (let's call this HD1) onto my Seagate 1.5 TB external hard drive (HD2) for redundancy. This is an external hard drive that I have plugged into my iMac and leave on all the time, and the intent is to serve as a temporary backup to my internal hard drive. I also have 2 additional Western Digital external hard drives (HD3 and HD4) that I use exclusively to backup photo and video content, and the intent is to serve as a long-term backup. I do not always immediately backup my content from HD1 to HD3 and HD4 but rather perform this step every 1-2 months--this is mostly because I don't have enough USB slots on my iMac to have all these peripherals plugged in simultaneously and also because I don't find it necessary to keep HD3 and HD4 powered on all the time anyway. So to summarize, I will always have copies on at least HD1 and HD2 for short-term backups and eventually all of my content ends up on HD3 and HD4 for long-term backups. As time goes by, I may selectively delete content from HD1 and/or HD2 to free up space, provided that the content has already been backed up on HD3 and HD4. At any point in time, I will have a minimum of 2 copies of my content and possibly up to 4 copies for more recent content. Only after I have backed up my content, I will erase images off of their original storage media.

(4) Review. For photos, most of what I shoot is not worthwhile to post-process, so I review then quickly with a slideshow application. Currently I prefer Phoenix Slides because it is free and does what I need it to do in a quick and simple way: let me browse through each photo in full-screen mode and show me the filename. I review the in-camera JPG photos and write down the photos that I would like to either include in a home movie or share with others via email, social media, etc. For videos, I review using VLC which is also free and plays just about any video format. While reviewing, I write down the clips that I intend to process and/or share.

(5) Post-process. This step applies primarily to my photos. Assuming that I have content worthy of post-processing, I typically perform RAW conversions using Adobe Photoshop which brings up the Adobe Camera RAW dialog box. Typically I first apply lens profile corrections which I value most for correction of barrel distortion, especially at wider focal lengths. Then I often apply noise reduction, especially for photos shot in low light (high ISO) conditions. Depending on the lighting conditions, I often make adjustments to exposure, color temperature, highlights, shadows, and tone curves. I repeat this process for each photo. Some people ask me why I don't use RAW workflow apps like Apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom. In short, because I don't usually shoot studio photos with constant lighting conditions, I apply different settings to every RAW conversion and don't find Aperture or Lightroom to be that helpful. I also rarely if ever go back to old RAW libraries so don't need a place to store all prior settings. I a control-freakish way, I actually prefer managing my files in the Mac OS X Finder and backing them up manually as described in steps 2 and 3 above. Another factor is that I don't like being app-dependent for my photo workflow management. Case in point, Apple recently announced plans to retire Aperture and migrate to a new Photos app which is under development. As I understand it, Aperture users will eventually need to migrate their photo libraries if they move their workflows to a new app, but I'm immune to this because I manage my files manually. Obviously this makes sense for me as a hobbyist, but I can see why professional photographers would find a lot of value in Aperture, Lightroom, and other tools. Perhaps I'll write more about RAW conversions in a separate post someday.

(6) Make Movies. For "significant" events like my daughter's birthday parties, school performances, family vacations, and trips to theme parks, I make home movies which typically run anywhere from 30 seconds to more than 10 minutes in duration, depending on the amount of photo and video footage I have. I perform almost all of my video editing in Apple Final Cut Pro X at 1920x1080 (full HD) resolution and 30 fps. If I have 60 fps video footage, then I might step up my entire home video to 60 fps. I usually add a title, transitions, and a fade at the end. For photo slideshows, I try to add a soundtrack and actually find this to be the hardest part of making home movies. Perhaps I'll write more about my video editing process in a separate post someday. After my video is complete, I export the video in its original full HD resolution for viewing on large computer monitors, our 60" HDTV, and for archival purposes.

(7) Share. Depending on the intended use case, I may share my photos and videos through a variety of channels. Generally speaking, I share "high resolution" files when I think the recipients may want to print or archive the content, and I share "low resolution" files when I prefer recipients to only view the content. For "high resolution" sharing, if I have less than 20 MB of content to share with a limited number of recipients, I might simply email the contents. For larger sizes, I typically post photos to Picasa Web Albums and post videos to my Dropbox account for viewing and downloading. For "low resolution" sharing, I reduce photo dimensions to 1600 or 1200 pixels along the longest border, typically using Photoshop which can batch process photos. I shrink videos down to 1280x720 (technically still HD) or 960x540 (preserving the original 16:9 aspect ratio and thus avoiding letterboxing or pillarboxing) or smaller. For this video conversion process, I use Xilisoft Video Converter since it has some useful presets and is easy to use. From there, I might post to Facebook or sync with my mobile devices. Regarding mobile device synchronization, since I've bought into the Apple iOS ecosystem, I dump the low-resolution photos and videos into iPhoto and iTunes respectively so I can sync them with my iPhone and iPad. As compared with people who shoot and store photos and videos with their iPhones, I have only my "greatest hits" on my mobile devices, and rather than storing 8 MP images on my phone, I have much smaller images that take up a fraction of the space so am able to store much more content.

Well, there you have it. I know that the above workflow is far more complicated than the average user workflow (e.g., shoot, share, and maybe backup), but I tend to obsess about the quality of my content and am happy to pay the workflow premium to get that quality. While many folks live in a mostly mobile computing environment where screen sizes tend to be small even for tablets, I still value large displays like desktop monitors and HDTVs where I can show content in higher resolution to bring out details. After all, I have to live up to my Digital Daddy moniker! What do you think about my workflow? Please feel free to leave comments below.